Bound by the Viking, Part 3: Consumed Read Online Free Page A

be.”
    There was laughter, and a sound like a hand clapping down hard on a shoulder, then the sound of groaning wood, as the door inched inward.
    “Prepare the bride.”
    Alrik’s command was heard, but not seen, and the door shut behind him. The serving woman scurried around the room, tucking dried flowers in her hair, straightening her tunic, and pinching her cheeks painfully, so they glowed pink and bright.
    At the last moment, she took out a key, and unlocked a small trunk in the corner. Aislin gasped, as the woman remove a blade—Alrik’s dirk, in its carved leather sheath. When the woman buckled it around her waist, she straightened up, her eyes staring into the distance, mind reeling at the touch of the steel hilt against her bare forearm.
    They gave me a blade…
    The door swung wide, and rough hands ushered her through the hall, blazing with firelight, the smell of meat cooking on the spits filling her nose, and out, through the doors into the chill air and bright sunlight, reflecting on the snow. Bark and branches were strewn on top of packed snow to make a semi-dry path, out to a field behind the long hall. There, a group was gathered in a semi-circle, facing a massive, bare tree, it’s branches stabbing the air.
    Beyond the clearing, the forest closed in, ringing the village, the darkness of the trees ominous, even at mid day.
    Alrik stood beneath the tree, his hair shining like spun gold, looking fierce and resplendent in wolf fur and fine leather, his tunic held with golden brooches, his sword on his hip. A man stood by him, some kind of holy man, and a few steps away, Denholm, smiling at her like a cat with a rat in its jaws.
    The dirk moved rhythmically at her side, tapping her with each step, as if it were speaking to her, whispering dark words that tasted like blood in her mind.
    She stepped forward, through the crowd, and walked to her master’s… her captor’s … side. He grinned, his eyes clear and cold.
    “We’ll begin with the ceremonial exchange of swords,” he said, leaning down close. “That is why you carry my dirk at your side, since we do not have your father’s.”
    Since you shattered my father’s, when he fought your men for his life, she thought. Since you burned my home, and plundered what we once held dear, slaying my kin and robbing my people.
    The dirk at her side leaned on her, embraced her. Dared her to touch it—caress it. Her hand trembled, and she flexed her fingers, hovering over the leather. She wondered if she could reach Alrik’s throat with the blade, before the swords his men held fell, tearing her life away.
    Is this my day to die? Am I ready to die, if I can, in one moment, avenge my father, my mother, my sister…?
    She could almost see Brenna’s face before her, her eyes wide and afraid, calling out to her, silently. Begging her to give the dirk a human sheath, to let it drink its fill of the chief’s lifeblood, to let it run over her own flesh , until it stained the snow the color of revenge.
    Brenna …
    Suddenly, her vision cleared, and she swallowed a gasp, her heart racing , as she stared into the shadows beyond the wedding tree. Eyes sparkled in a shaft of dappled sunlight, a dirty face peeking out of the underbrush, in the shadows of the forest. Lips moved soundlessly, white fingers reached out, then pulled back.
    Aislin , those lips mouthed. Aislin!
    Somehow, impossibly, her sister was in those woods, between those trees, hiding, but still risking her life to catch a glimpse of her—to let her know she was alive, at least for now. She was really there, finally, after so much searching--just out of reach, beyond the man who held her captive.
    Had she escaped from another village? Brenna’s dirty face and matted hair disappeared again, down into the darkness between the trunks, branches, and twisting brambles.
    Aislin took a shuddering breath, and forced her self to look away, to train her eyes away from the place where Brenna was, where she hid