This is how I die.
The thought came with crystalline clarity even as the cold struck her like a fist.
Nae by Norse steel or royal decree, but drowned like a kitten in a sack. At least it’s bloody original.
The freezing water of the Inner Minch closed over her head like a grave.
It filled her nose, her mouth, her lungs as she gasped in shock. The cold was so intense it felt like burning, like every nerve in her body was being flayed. She couldn’t tell which way was up. Couldn’t see through the murky darkness. Couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t?—
The current grabbed her with invisible, inexorable hands and pulled her down into the black.
Logan… Da… I’m sorry. I’m so sorry?—
Something broke the surface above her.
Through the murk and her fading vision, she saw a shape diving toward her. Large. Fast. Cutting through the water like a blade through silk.
A Viking!
Terror flickered through her dying thoughts.
His hand closed around her wrist with crushing strength, fingers like iron bands, and even as the darkness swallowed her whole, even as consciousness fled, one last thought whispered through her mind:
He’s come tae kill me too…
Then nothing… nothing but black water and the cold, cold deep pressing down on her.
CHAPTER THREE
Isle of Skye, Castle Thorsen, Scotland
“She’s still nae breathin’, me jarl. Should I?—”
“Get back.” Erik Thorsen’s voice cut through the shouting above deck like a blade through silk. He hauled the woman onto his longship with one arm, water streaming from her body in rivulets, her lips already turning blue. “Secure the deck, Aksel. I want every lasthornungerwho attacked that ship alive fer interrogation. The ones still breathin’, anyway.”
“Aye, me jarl.” His captain’s boots thundered across the boards as he barked orders in Norse that sent their warriors surging back across both vessels in controlled chaos.
Erik barely registered it. His entire world had narrowed to the woman in his arms—the Highland bride he’d been sailing to meet, now looking more corpse than living thing. Her sodden dress clung to her petite frame, her chestnut hair plastered darkagainst skin gone the color of new snow. Her chest utterly, terrifyingly still.
If me bride dies before we’re even wed, I’m bringin’ the full wrath of the old gods tae whoever’s behind this!
He carried her below deck, taking the ladder one-handed with the ease of a man who’d spent half his life at sea. The space below was cramped—his private cabin barely large enough for the bed built into the wall, a chest, and some weapons hanging from iron hooks. He shouldered through the narrow doorway and laid her on the furs covering his bed.
Then he began stripping away her clothing with hands that had killed three men not ten minutes before.
The heavy wool traveling dress came off first, sodden and impossibly heavy. Then the layers beneath—underskirts, a chemise that clung to her skin, stockings that peeled away like a second skin. He tried not to look, tried to give her some dignity even in that, but his eyes betrayed him.
Gods above…
She was beautiful. Slender but strong, with curves that spoke of noble breeding and better health. Her pale skin was splattered with freckles and a small scar ran across her ribs that looked old. He forced his gaze away, reaching for the heavy fur blanket folded at the foot of his bed.
Work, ye fool… dinnae focus on… any of that.
He wrapped her in the fur, then grabbed a length of coarse cloth from his chest. His old mentor had taught him this—rub warmth back into cold flesh, force the blood to move, drag the body back from death’s door through sheer, stubborn will.
Erik worked her arms first, rubbing hard enough to leave her skin pink beneath his palms. Her shoulders. Her collarbone, careful to keep the fur covering her modesty even as his hands chafed life back into her. Down to her feet, her calves, anywhere the cloth could reach without crossing lines he refused to cross.
Nothing. No response. Her chest remained still as stone.
