“Chief!” Akkar said from outside the flap of the tent.
“Come,” Wolf called back to him.
Akkar pushed open the flap and entered. His sable eyes found her immediately. He opened his mouth to speak but Wolf held his finger to his lips to quiet him and looked at Hild sleeping.
Akkar swallowed his words and half-smiled, half-grimaced at her, then looked away.
“Sorry for the delay, Chief,” Akkar told him quietly. “Work in the kitchen was slow due to the absence of one of the women. Her master was the man Fin killed yesterday.”
“Wolf,” she said, rising from her blankets. It was cold out here without his fur. “Fin said that man was running toward me to hurt or kill me. Maybe I should talk to this woman and try to convince her that none of this is my fault.”
“And if you cannot?” he asked.
She stared at him and shrugged her shoulders. “What do you suggest? That she also be killed?”
“If she means you harm, yes.”
She didn’t know what to say to that. He seemed to—
“You belong to me, Camelee. Everyone I took with me belongs to me.”
Okay…so that’s what she was to him? Just one of his servants? His property? Okay. It was better to have this fact driven into her head. It would keep her emotions at bay.
“Gotcha.”
She turned and walked toward the flap.
“Camelee, what are doing? You cannot leave. You need to stay and take care of the girl.”
Who was, by now, awake and looking around.
He motioned to Akkar, and the young soldier stepped in front of the flap, blocking her path.
“What? So now I’m a prisoner?” She gaped at Akkar.
“You will do as I say. You are staying with Hild. You will care for her until I return.”
No. She would never get used to this. It was bad enough she had to take care of a child, a little orphan who needed a mother, but she wasn’t asked to do this. No, she was ordered to do it. Held prisoner and forced to—
He swept past her, grabbed his fur cloak from the floor, giving Hild a smile and a wink before he moved around Camelee.
“Guard her, and get her a cloak,” he ordered Akkar and left the tent.
“Ugh! He is an infuriating jerk! I wish I knew martial art so I could kick his—” Her gaze fell on Hild, and she stopped ranting when she saw the little girl watching. “Akkar, please send for Genevra. I need her help with Hild.”
He obliged by sticking his head out of the tent and calling for someone. He said something in Norse and then returned his attention to her.
“No matter what skills you possessed, you could not hurt him,” he let her know. “I saw him fight on the field. He killed with precision and brute force, taking on two and even three at a time. I have heard tales of him. He is said to be King Cnut’s favored warrior.”
How could all this be real? But it was. It was.
“I spoke in anger,” she confessed, then muttered under her breath, “but if I had a gun, he wouldn’t have a shot.”
The flap opened and Genevra stepped inside. Her eyes were swollen and red, the tip of her nose was red, too. Camelee felt a little kinship with her because the tip her nose always turned red when she cried.
“Genevra, were you crying?” Camelee went to her.
The woman nodded. “That man the commander killed. He was my master, the man who took care of me these last twenty-six years.”
