Page 42 of The Outlaw Viking

“Why is your tongue green?”

She stuck her tongue out farther, showing him the tiny circle still lying there. “I’m sucking on a Lifesaver.”

“Is it medicinal?”

“No,” she said with a laugh. “It’s candy. A sweet. Do you want one?”

He looked skeptical but took the yellow one she handed to him. His face lit up with pleasure when he began to chew it, crunching loudly.

“Don’t chew it. You just let it sit on your tongue,” she admonished. “You’re supposed to make it last.”

“I am very good at that,” he boasted, giving her a quick wink. “Making pleasures last, that is.”

With a snort of disgust at his inflated ego, she gave him another one, even though it was her favorite color, red. Selik learned quickly and let it rest on his tongue, savoring the sweet flavor. At one point, he stuck his tongue out very far, trying to see if it was red. Satisfied that it was, he insisted on having two more, an orange and a green. She refused to give up another red.

“How many of these lifecircles do you have?”

“Lifesavers,” she corrected with a smile, putting the half-empty roll away. “That is all,” she lied, crossing her fingers behind her back. Why should she share her Tropical Fruits with the brute? Maybe she would give one to Tykir, though.

“What’s that?” he asked, sinking down beside her on the fur.

“A Rubik’s Cube. Sort of a puzzle.”

He watched with interest as she worked the cube until she finally solved the puzzle. She didn’t bother to tell him she had a particular talent for the game and had once won a state competition in solving the puzzle.

“Let me try.”

She reset it and handed it to him, smiling inwardly with anticipation. He didn’t even comment an hour later when she crawled into the bed furs, fully clothed. She’d been prepared to argue with him about the Viking custom of sleeping naked, and the unfeeling brute hadn’t even noticed. Much later, after she’d been asleep for at least three hours, she opened her eyes to see him still sitting next to the sputtering candle, biting his bottom lip pensively, trying to solve the blasted puzzle.

Toward dawn, she felt him slip in behind her and move closer to her body’s warmth. He pulled her hair away from her neck and nuzzled the sensitive curve, then whispered, “Tomorrow you will teach me how to solve the puzzle.”

“Uh-huh,” she said sleepily.

“Mayhap I will teach you something in return.”

Her eyes shot open at that.

Chapter Seven

“Ubbi—doobie—doo. Da—da da—da da. Ubbi—doobie—doo. Da—da da—da da.”

“Ubbi, stop singing that tiresome drivel over and over and over, or I swear I will cut out your bloody tongue,” Tykir growled from atop his horse. “By the Faith! I am beginning to hear your lackwit name-song in my dreams now.”

“Now, Tykir, don’t unleash your bad moods on Ubbi,” Rain chastised teasingly as she drew her horse up alongside her brother.

After two days on horseback, Rain was actually starting to feel comfortable in the saddle of Godsend, the name she’d given to the destrier that saved her and Selik on the battlefield. When Rain had first announced her horse’s new name to Selik, he’d protested, “The name is as barmy as you are.” Ubbi, on the other hand, had beamed, declaring Godsend’s name “jist perfect.”

Rain looked over at the little man with concern as he rode another of the horses Selik and his men had brought back from the battlefield during the past week. She was glad Selik had insisted that Ubbi ride, instead of walking with the captives. His arthritis obviously gave him considerable pain.

In the bright moonlight, she could see Ubbi stealing surreptitious glances at her back, a habit the dear soul had developed whenever he thought she wasn’t looking.

“Ubbi, is something wrong with my back?”

He jerked to attention. “A thousan’ pardons, m’lady. I was jist admirin’ the trees yonder.”

Rain raised an eyebrow skeptically, knowing they were all damn sick of seeing nothing but trees, especially in the dark. Selik would only let them travel after dusk and before dawn to avoid any encounters with patrolling Saxons.

She rolled her shoulders and said with an exaggerated groan, “Ubbi, my shoulder blades are aching so! I feel like I have a thousand bees under the skin of my back just waiting to burst out.”