“No!” she cried again when the man sliced the rope binding them together and yanked her to her feet.
The dull noise Torsten heard next told him that the foolish Norman had thrown the useless dagger to the ground. This was unhoped for, and just what he needed. As soon as his enemy’s back was turned, Torsten would slice the rope keeping his ankles bound together.
“I’ll likely get a beating from Geoffroi for getting between your thighs before Ranulf has had the chance to have you, but it will be worth it,” Vermin was saying. The satisfaction in his voice was nauseating. “Those titties have my mouth watering—I’ll be sure to fill my mouth with them first. Then it’ll be your turn to suck something of mine.”
Torsten wished he didn’t understand the man’s awful threats, or hear Aife’s struggle but he did, all too well. Despite his anguish, he didn’t dare open his eyes even a fraction for fear that seeing her in the brute’s arms would spur him to act too rashly. He could not afford to make the slightest mistake because there would only be one chance. Before he could do anything useful, he needed to free his feet. Which meant he had to reach the dagger Vermin had dropped. But he could not move while the bastard was still standing, and no doubt looking at him for signs of movement.
“Let us tie your friend’s hands back, in case he wakes up when things become interesting,” the Norman said, clearly convinced he had succeeded in rendering him senseless. “We wouldn’t want to be disturbed, do we? Then he can watch us and see how it’s done.”
As if she was going to let him take her without protest!
Aife thought quickly. The man could not restrain her and tie the rope around Torsten’s wrists at the same time and she would not wait patiently until he was done. When he released her to reach to the rope lying on the ground, she bent down to grab the heavy piece of rock at her feet. She didn’t dare hope she would actually manage to put the man out of action—he was massive, almost as big as a Norseman—but she would do her best. And maybe the noise of a fight would wake Torsten, and then he could finish freeing himself and come to her rescue.
Filled with hatred and determination, she swung her arm, but just as the rock was about to connect with the back of his head, the man turned around, as if alerted by a warrior’s instinct. Aife only managed a glancing blow to the temple, not enough to inconvenience him in any way.
“You bitch!” he snarled, imprisoning her wrist in a hold so tight it forced her to drop her makeshift weapon. Blood was trickling from his wound but he paid it no heed. “You’ll pay for that! Don’t think your pathetic attempt will stop me from having you. I was planning on being gentle, but now you’ll take it as roughly as I want and like it.”
Gentle. The man likely didn’t know the meaning of the word. He proved it by backhanding her and throwing her to the ground. Though she should panic about what was about to happen, Aife could only think of Torsten. Was he still alive? The blow he’d received to the head had been severe. For a dreadful moment she’d thought the man would use the blade to slicehis throat, not the hilt to stun him. That he had not had only marginally reassured her.
Unable to look at the man only to see triumph on his face, she closed her eyes and started to sob. “Please…”
“No need to beg,ma beauté. I’m ready for you.”
There was fumbling, grunting, squirming. All too soon a heavy body settled between her legs, the hem of her dress was lifted up to expose her thighs, her right breast was smothered by a scalding hand.No. A tear escaped Aife’s eyes. This was going to kill her.
“Torsten,” she said in a whisper.
Then, as if in answer to her plea, the weight crushing her was lifted, allowing her to breathe. When she opened her eyes, it was to see Torsten crouching on the floor next to the prone Norman, the blade of the dagger digging into the side of his throat just along his jaw bone. Too stunned to move, too relieved to protest, she let him decide whether to cut their enemy or not. He was alive, it was all that mattered to her.
“Aife! Are you all right?” he asked, glancing at her in a flash of amber. “Talk to me.”
“Y-yes, I’m all right.”
She was now. But she had been so afraid. For him. For herself.
Torsten bent down to bring his face an inch away from the man’s ear. There was an expression on his face Aife had never seen before, and when he spoke through gritted teeth, his voice was as cold as the icicles hanging from trees in winter. “Now listen, you vermin, I was never planning to be gentle with you,” he said, allowing his knife to slide down the man’s neck, leaving a crimson trail in his wake. “You’ll take your punishment exactly as I want to give it to you and like it.”
He was repeating the foul words the Norman had told her earlier. Something inside Aife melted. But when blood started topool under the man, she was shocked into action. Was Torsten really about to cut his throat open? She couldn’t let him do so.
“Torsten, stop!” she told him in Norse. “You can’t do this.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re not a killer. Please. Just, let’s use the ropes, tie him up. It will be enough. His friend Geoffroi will deal with him later, no doubt.” The man would understand what had happened and make his friend pay for disobeying his orders and allowing his prey to escape. That way her attacker would still be punished, mayhap killed, but she would never know about it, and more importantly, Torsten’s hands would be clean. “Please.”
For a long, tension-filled moment, Torsten seemed to hesitate. The dagger was still poised under the man’s jaw, and the muscles in his arm flexed. It was clear that the temptation to plunge it into the soft neck was gnawing at his gut. Finally, he let out a shaky breath, like a man drawn from an abyss where he’d almost fallen, and he relaxed the pressure of the blade.
“You’re right. Of course, you’re right. Get what we need to tie the bastard up.” He nodded at the ropes he’d discarded by the rocks. “Ginger will find him later and decide what is to be done to him.”
“Yes,” Aife agreed. That was a much better solution.
“As for you,” Torsten told the man, reverting back to English. “Should you and I ever cross paths again, Iwillslice your throat. But not before I’ve cut off your balls and stuffed them into your rotting mouth. You’ve been warned.”
With those words, he slammed the butt of his knife into the Norman’s temple.
While he was unconscious, they worked efficiently together, tying the man up much in the same way they had been bundled up earlier. Overhead, ominous clouds had gathered in the purple evening sky and the temperature had dropped rather dramatically.
“Come,” Torsten told her, taking her by the hand. “It’s time to go.”
