They began to laugh again. One of them released a woman and moved toward Camelee with naked male intent in his eyes. He said something in a language she didn’t understand. The other men laughed.
Her captor paused at her side and then approached them. He said something to the men and they bowed their heads.
“Are they going to violate those women?” she asked her rescuer.
He set his gaze on her and studied her thoughtfully for a moment. “Most likely.”
“You’re their leader. Tell them to let the women go. Please.”
He smiled and stared at her. When he realized she was serious, his smile faded. “Those women are the bounty of war. They—”
“They have nothing to do with your war,” she told him. “They simply don’t all have you to protect them.” It was a line fromStand by Her, a movie she’d starred in last winter.
He stared off in the direction the men had taken. She could almost see him trying to decide what to do. She realized that the more he did for her, the more obligated she would feel to him. But right now, the women here needed help.
“They are human beings, made in God’s image,” she told him. “They’re afraid, just as your sister, or mother, or wife, or someday your daughter, would be.”
His expression darkened. She’d hit a nerve. He pushed her aside to head off toward his men. She heard him shout something and then watched the women running back to a hut. She wanted to thank him but when he returned, walking briskly toward her, he passed her without a word and headed for the town hall.
This time, she followed him, though she didn’t want to be in a room with his men. She thought it best to stick close by him. She might be a pampered actress, but she was a tough New Yorker, too. But again, she wasn’t a fool to pick a fight with any of these men.
Most were big and blond or ginger. They wore furs and hungry smiles as the women served them. Her captor was dark-haired and a bit smaller, smaller than 6’3” that is, more athletic. He didn’t smile often.
He leaped onto a table and called for what she guessed was attention when they all turned to him. He spoke in his language, which Camelee suspected was Old Norse. She didn’t understand it. Many of them set their gazes on her as they let go of the women they were groping.
Her gaze softened on her captor. He went against what they wanted, to do what was right. He also caused her to have many enemies. But then she heard him say something that sounded like mother. They all looked remorseful, their gazes even warming on her.
But the gentleness didn’t last long. He pulled her forward by her shoulder, said something that included her name, and then pushed her behind him.
“You are serving,” he told her over her shoulder. “Go find out what is needed of you.”
“Serving? Oh, but I don’t serve.”
“Now you do,” he answered woodenly and turned to look forward once again.
“That’s it? You’re abandoning me?”
He smiled and she knew she had to put away her thoughts of how good-looking he was.
“I will be sitting just there, with those men. I would hardly call that abandoning you.”
“Fine,” she brooded. She didn’t want to serve. She was used to being served. “Do whatever you want.”
He did, disappearing to another table where a group of savage-looking men sat drinking in their animal skins. He didn’t spare her another look. She cursed him silently and went to seek out a woman who could help her.
Serving wasn’t horrible—no, who was she kidding? It was repulsive. Not only did she have to serve the men, she had to serve Fin. She kept her gaze locked on to her captor’s while she served.
His furtive gaze found her more than once, but no one else saw him looking. He neither smiled nor frowned when a few fights broke out, possibly about her. Maybe they were fighting over who would get her after their leader died. She didn’t understand what they were saying. She thought it was just as well. She didn’t want to know what they were talking about.
She hated it here. With them.
Her eyes settled on her captor. With him.
Chapter Three
Camelee washed thelast plate and fell into a chair in the candlelit kitchen of the town hall. The skin on her fingers was white and water-logged. She’d been at the dishes for the last hour.
He waited for her there in the kitchen, with his hand on the hilt of his sword and his diamond-hard gaze on her. He wasn’t altogether unpleasant to look at.
