Joan Pickart - Royal Weddings

Well, okay. Maybe she would be ready to leave before Thursday. And maybe it would please him to know that. But pleasing the Viking in her bedroom was the last thing on her mind right then.

Stone-faced as usual, he lifted the suitcase off the bed and carried it over to set it against the wall. She smelled toothpaste as he went past. Sometime during her too-short, not-at-all-relaxing bath, he must have brushed his teeth.

What a truly odd image: the Viking in her guest bath, with a toothbrush in his mouth, scrubbing away. Somehow, when she thought of Vikings, she never imagined them brushing their teeth. Did he floss, as well? She supposed he must. Everything about him shouted physical fitness. He had to be proactive when it came to his health. Proper dental hygiene would be part of the package.

He marched by her again and returned to stand at attention near his pallet of blankets. “Do you wish to sleep now?”

As if. “In a minute. First, I need to lock up.”

Before she could turn for the door, he said, “I’ve already done that.”

“Surprise, surprise.” She went to the bed and slid under the covers. Doodles and Diablo, with that radar cats seem to have for the moment when their human has settled into a soft, inviting place, appeared in the doorway to the hall. “Well, come on,” she told them, and reached for the remote, which waited on her nightstand.

The cats settled in. She turned on the TV in the corner—okay, Feng Shui, it wasn’t. But Elli didn’t care. She loved to watch TV in bed with her cats cuddled close around her.

And a favorite program was in progress. Law and Order: Criminal Intent . Vincent D’Onofrio had the perp in the interrogation room and was psyching him out with skill and subtlety.

And the Viking was still standing there—awaiting orders, she supposed.

“Hauk. Go to bed.”

He nodded and dropped to his blankets. A minute later, he was stretched out beneath the top blanket, his boots and belt a foot or two away. She wondered briefly where he kept that black switchblade knife when he slept—but then she told herself that where Hauk FitzWyborn kept his knife was no concern of hers. She watched the rest of her program, and after that turned to an old movie on TCM.

At the foot of the bed, Hauk lay utterly still. She could swear he hadn’t moved since he crawled beneath the blanket over an hour ago.

When the movie ended, Elli switched off the television. The room seemed so very quiet. She could hear Doodles purring—and nothing else.

Could the Viking have died?

Hah. No such luck.

Had he fallen asleep? It certainly seemed that way.

What a thrilling development. Hauk. Dead to the world. Dreaming whatever a Viking warrior dreamed, and for once—since the moment she’d walked in her door that afternoon—not guarding her.

Why, she might do anything. She might get up and go in the kitchen all by herself. Might walk out on the balcony and look up at the stars. Might go down the steps and along the walk and get in her car and…go for a drive.

And not to run away, not to break her word. Oh, no. Simply because she could .

She’d return later, after he woke and found her gone. He would be frantic. Old stone face. Freaking out.

Ah, yes. How lovely…

Elli rearranged the cats a little, pushing them gently to the side so they wouldn’t be disturbed when she slid from the bed. Then she switched off the lamp and lay back to wait awhile. She could see the glowing numerals on her bedside digital alarm clock. She’d wait half an hour. And if she still heard nothing, she was out of here.

Okay, maybe it was pointless and a little bit childish. But this whole situation deeply offended her. To show that she could leave if she wanted to would be something of an object lesson—to Hauk, and by extension, to her father. And maybe, if she left and came back of her own accord, Hauk would realize it wasn’t necessary to take the orders of his king so literally. Maybe, by tomorrow night, she’d have her bedroom to herself.

The time passed slowly. She used it to consider her next move. Should she creep to the foot of the bed and have a look at him, see if he truly was in lullaby land?

Uh-uh. No point in tempting fate—not to mention squeaky bedsprings. Better just to ease out from under the covers and tiptoe to the door. If it turned out he’d been lying there for hours, stone still and awake, she’d find out soon enough.

The minutes crawled by. There was nothing but silence from the man at the foot of her bed.

At last, that endless half hour was behind her.

Slowly, so quietly , Elli eased back the covers. In one careful, unbroken move, she swung her feet out and over the edge of the bed. She slid her weight onto them without a single spring creaking. Doodles, sound asleep by then, didn’t even open an eye. Diablo lifted his sleek head, blinked at her, then laid his head down again.

Good. Perfect. Wonderful.

Elli turned and started for the door to the hall. She was utterly silent. She wasn’t even breathing . She made it into the open doorway.

“Where are you going?”

Elli gasped and whirled to face him. He was standing beside his blankets, watching her. She could have sworn he had never moved, never so much as stirred .

She gulped. “Uh, well…ice water! You know, I really want some ice water.”

The big golden head dipped once—in permission, in acknowledgment, in who the heck knew what? Elli yanked her shoulders back and headed for the kitchen. She heard nothing behind her. But she didn’t have to turn and look to know that he had followed.

Eventually, very late in the night, she finally dropped off to sleep. She woke after daylight to the sound of birds twittering in the forest: her alarm clock. Brit had given it to her a couple of Christmases ago. It made nature sounds instead of beeping or buzzing. Elli reached over and punched the off button. The cats were already off the bed and racing down the hall.

And the Viking…

All she could see from the head of the bed was the edge of his blankets. “Uh, Hauk?”

No answer.

He’d proven last night that he could hear her even if she didn’t make a sound. So he must be up, or he would have answered. She pushed back the covers and scrambled to the bottom of the bed, where she found his blankets neatly folded, his pillow on top of the stack.

Boots, belt and man were gone.

Could it be? Had he really left—due to second thoughts on her father’s part, maybe? Had Osrik beeped him late in the night, told Hauk to back off, that his daughter had given her word and the king had decided to trust her to find her way to Gullandria on her own?

The idea warmed her heart. Her father had faced a basic truth, apparently. He’d seen that in order to begin healing the awful breach in their family, he must trust , first and foremost, he must—

“You called for me?”

Hauk stood in the doorway to the hall, bare-chested, a half beard of shaving cream frothed over one sculpted cheek. She couldn’t help gaping at his shoulders and arms, so big and hard, the muscles bulging and taut, the skin so tan and perfect, except for the occasional white ridge of scar tissue.

And his chest…

It was covered with beautiful, savage tattoos.

A lightning bolt like the one in his right palm, only much bigger, zigzagged across his bulging pectorals. Dragons and vines twisted and twined around it—and around the sword and dagger tattooed above and below it. The tail of the largest dragon trailed down his solar plexus to his navel.

His belly took her breath away. She’d never seen one like it—at least not outside of ab-machine infomercials and superhero video games.