Come Back to Me

A rim of fire rises at the edge of the world, searing away gentle night, setting the sky aflame. The Dragon watches it come, welcomes it. He moves silently over the soft earth. A stag flees before him, crashing through the brush, ignored. The fierce Viking warrior Dragon Hakonson has not come to the forests of Essex to hunt today. Today, he seeks the quiet of the pines at the edge of the sea for a different purpose. On the verge of taking a step he can no longer avoid, he has sent his attendants on ahead and given himself this small chance for reflection. But his solitude is about to be interrupted. Golden eyes watch him from the protection of the trees. A slim, lithe body holds very still, hardly breathing. Slowly, oh, so slowly, the intruder tries to creep away. A twig snaps. His senses honed by a lifetime of struggle and danger, Dragon reacts at once. Swifter than the saying of it, he pounces, dragging the struggling, squawking creature out to study at his leisure. So quickly! The speed with which the stranger moved stunned Rycca. One moment she was kneeling in the cool moss where she had slept a few fitful hours, watching with wary care the man who had appeared without warning, and the next was only a blur. She was clasped so tightly she could scarcely breathe. Pain radiated up her arms and along her ribs. A little more pressure, only a little, and they would snap as readily as the treacherous twig. She had no idea who the man was, nor did she care. Nothing mattered save wresting free of him. Growing up a victim of her brothers' casual cruelties, she had honed her skills. She grabbed hold of the powerful arm within easiest reach and bit down hard. In her experience, the surprise of such a counterattack caused the miscreant to loosen his grip quickly. Yet now a different surprise awaited her, darkly circled with shock. The man did not so much as grunt. He merely tightened his hold on her enough to prevent her from breathing altogether. She held on as long as she could, until colored lights whirled before her eyes and unconsciousness was scant moments away. Only then, fearing what total incapacity would mean, did she let go. For an instant he did not, and she felt herself plummeting into nothingness. Absurdly, she clung to the same arm as though it might anchor her in the world. Even as her lungs screamed for air, it was granted. She inhaled long and deeply, gasping. "Fool," the man said. His voice was a deep rumble out of his chest, felt against her back, oddly pleasant for the circumstances. He shifted his hold to her shoulders and turned her to face him. "What were you thinking, boy? All I want is a look at you. A man likes to know who's lurking behind his back." Rycca stared up through the thick fringe of her lashes, up ... and up yet more. Her legs refused to stay straight, thus she was not at her full height, but all the same he was very tall. She had known that even as he crouched beside the river, yet the full realization of his size almost made her stop breathing again. His shoulders and chest were massive, shaped of solid mucle and bone clearly visible beneath the sleeveless leather tunic he wore. His face was square, blunt-featured, lit by eyes that looked like shards of half-buried gold. Dark brows arched above them, the same hue as the golden brown hair pulled back at his nape. His skin was burnished by the wind and sun. Gold of hair, eye, and skin, he was easily the most handsome man she had ever seen. Indeed, he might have been a pagan idol cast in the fiery furnace of a master smith but for the purely human touches that clung to him. He had gone long enough without shaving to have the beginnings of a beard. He smelled of woodsmoke, sea air, and pine, a not unpleasant combination. Human, all right, all too human, too real, and much too close. He thought her a boy, thank heaven. In her franLitton, Josie is the author of 'Come Back to Me' with ISBN 9780553581645 and ISBN 0553581643.