PROLOGUE
“I’m in love with Sven.”
As she made the very personal admission, Aife fell onto the bench next to Cwenthryth, who was feeding her newborn daughter, Sanna. Being married to Steinar, who was none other than Sven’s older brother, her friend was the perfect person to confide in.
“Are you really?” Cwenthryth sounded cautious.
“How can I not be? Have you seen him? Isn’t he the most appealing man?” Aife insisted when her friend remained silent. She didn’t look anywhere near as convinced—or excited at the prospect of becoming her sister-in-law—as she should be.
“He looks just like my husband, so, of course, I will tell you he’s an exceptionally handsome man. But I?—”
“But nothing.”
Having arrived in the village only a year ago, Cwenthryth could not know that Sven was not the first, or even the second or third man Aife had fallen for over the years. And this was really why she was the ideal person to discuss this with. She would not judge her or remind her that she had once claimed to be in love with Thorfinn—and Haakon.
Yes, the list was rather long… Unfortunately, over the last few years, Aife seemed to have developed a habit of being attracted to men who were already in love with someone else and only saw her as a friend. Sven was no different—for now. But that would soon change. She would woo him because unlike the others, he was not involved with anyone special. On the contrary, he seemed to go from conquest to conquest, which meant that she could easily be the next one. And once she was in his bed, she would make sure to stay there, and burrow her way to his heart. It seemed as good a plan as any.
“You do know that he doesn’t seem ready to, er, settle down, for want of a better word,” Cwenthryth carried on, placing a kiss on her daughter’s head. “You might find it hard to convince him.”
“I know that.”
But no one was ready to settle until they met the right person, were they? What mattered was that he, at least, didn’t have someone important in his life already, someone she could never compete with. Aife was tired of being alone, of being asked when she was going to find someone. At first it hadn’t bothered her, since the question rarely betrayed malicious intent, but she would soon enter her thirtieth year. All the friends she had grown up with—the female ones at least—had found someone who made them happy. Why not her as well?
Aife raised her chin.
“I’ll find a way to gain his interest, don’t you worry. You married Steinar when everyone was convinced he would never marry again. Mark my words, I, too, will end up married to one of Wolf’s sons.”
1
EAST ANGLIA, SUMMER 1071
Torsten stretched on the pallet, only half awake. Another dawn, followed by another morning, then another afternoon, each more tedious than the last. Days were following one another with frustrating predictability, blurring into a mass of discontent he was finding hard to extricate himself from. Why he’d been feeling so dejected of late, he wasn’t sure. Only…that was not quite the truth, was it?.
If he were completely honest, he had a fair idea why he felt so wretched.
His eldest brother, Steinar, had recently remarried. His new wife, a Saxon named Cwenthryth, was much more suited to his needs than his first wife had been, and had just given him the little girl he’d always dreamed of. His younger brother, Sven, was being as carefree as usual and bedding all the willing women he could find, of which there were many. His sister, Eyja, was happier than ever with her two girls and her husband Moon, who also happened to be his best friend. His parents’ love was growing stronger every day.
In other words, everyone in his family was content with their lives, right where they wanted to be.
Everyone except him.
He wanted more. Or…something,at least. But what that something might be, he wasn’t sure. That was one of the problems, he realized in a sudden burst of clarity. He’d lost his sense of purpose, along with the will to want anything. His situation was so dire that he had started to hope fate would do what he seemed incapable of doing, and place what he needed right in front of him.
Of course, he would still have to recognize it for what it was when the moment came.
As he was crossing his hands under his head, his gaze landed on the bulge tenting his blanket. He was hard. That wasn’t new either, and little cause for excitement. Any healthy man of thirty summers woke up hard in the morning. Closing his eyes again, Torsten started to stroke himself idly. Could he make the most of the opportunity? Yes. Why not? It was not as if he was in any hurry to get up, or had a woman who could see to his needs later. His mind was dissatisfied and he had no idea how to remedy it, but he could at least offer his body this small satisfaction.
The blanket was thrown to one side with decision.
His hand landed on his shaft, hard and ready for him. Sleeping naked had its advantages, it would seem; he was able to see to his needs in an instant.
It only took a few strokes for heat to start gathering in his loins. He was close, but he already knew this would be a hollow satisfaction, a releasing of tension, nothing more. As usual.
He increased the speed of his strokes, doing his best to conjure up lewd images able to spur him on. This was always the difficult part for him, because he didn’t have a wealth of experience to draw from, quite the opposite. Even worse, if he started to think too hard about the experience he did have, he might well never manage to bring this to its natural conclusion.
Just when he was starting to despair, he heard a laugh outside his window. It was such a rich, evocative, dirty laugh that his cock gave a twitch. It was the laugh of someone intent on seducing the man she was talking to, and even if it had not been directed at him, it did what his imagination had not been able to do. It sent his arousal spiking. The woman laughed again, and the throaty sound pierced his spine, pushing him over the edge.
Torsten sat up and groaned as pleasure shot out of him in thick, white spurts that coated his tightly corded stomach. The warmth of his seed scalded his skin, which had become excessively sensitive. He blinked, disconcerted by the strength of a release that had seemed to be wrenched from depths he didn’t even know he possessed.
