“I happened upon this camp and when I came closer to consider it, I saw the Saxons. I saw you.” He stopped for a moment seeming too angry to go on. Then he finally did. “I suspected they attacked the camp.” His gaze peered into her soul. “What happened? Fin?”
“I didn’t see Fin, but…Akkar. They killed Akkar.”
Wolf clenched his hands into fists. “Akkar is dead? But—he just joined us. He left his father…”
“I know. If it helps, he fought valiantly to protect me and Hild. He killed one of them before they killed him from behind.”
The hint of a smile hovered around his lips. “It helps more than you know. His father will want to know of his son’s courage. We will send him off according to his belief and tradition.”
“You aren’t going to fight?”
He looked over her head. “They do not need me. I must find my brother.”
“I won’t leave, Hild.”
“The men will bring her back.” He gazed at her and let his much-appreciated smile shine on her full force. “Being a mother has its rewards.”
“I’m not her mother.”
“You are stubborn.”
“I accept that,” she replied candidly. “But I’m not her mother.
Chapter Nine
Wolf wanted thisto be over. He’d fought more battles than he could count and would fight dozens more, but seeing Camelee being manhandled and forced to obey the Saxons, while little Hild lay as if dead in the grass was too much for him.
When he’d moved closer to Camelee and he saw her bruised and swelling jaw, it took every ounce of self-control he possessed not to go berserk. Aethelwold knew somehow that she was his—the child, too. That was why he took them. It was like pissing on him.
Well, now he had back what was his. Aethelwold was dead, and Wolf had looked him in the eyes when he killed the man. His men would take care of the rest of them.
Apart from everything else…Camelee had held on to him, relieved to see him. It was thrilling and refreshing, and bold. Whatever it meant, she was happy to be rescued. And he was happy to be the one who’d rescued her.
“Tell me what took place. Why did my men allow you and the child to be taken from me?”
She cast him a questioning look but said nothing about what she was thinking. Instead, she told him about the noises coming from outside the tent and everything after that. She didn’t know if Genevra was alive or if Fin was among the dead littering the camp.
By the time they reached the horses, the other men had almost caught up. It hadn’t taken them long to finish off the Saxons.
As ordered, his men had found Hild and the dark-haired boy who carried her and brought them back unharmed.
Camelee ran on ahead and tried to take the child, but Hild clung to the boy. When she finally did let Camelee take her, it was only to be carried to Wolf, in whose arms she practically leaped.
Wolf thought it might be hurting Camelee to be rejected, but neither of them said anything, and neither tried to force Hild to go to her.
Alric wasn’t pleased about being in the company of the Danes. He barely looked at Wolf and answered his questions with curt responses. Wolf might have to teach him respect, since he was an experienced warrior, desired in any army and many beds. And Alric was a fifteen-year-old cook who could wield a ladle like a master, but that was about all he could do.
“My father was a slave as was his father before him,” Alric told them on their way back to the camp. “I wanted to be more than that, so I became a cook.”
“You can understand that, can’t you, Wolf?” Camelee asked him from her horse.
“I can if you are a Dane,” he said with Hild clinging to him. “We do not enslave our own.”
“No matter what you are, no one wants to be a slave,” she argued.
“Of course not,” he agreed. “But if the Saxon army was stronger, I would be the servant. Is that not correct, Alric?”
“Aye, ’tis,” the young man confirmed.
