But nearly every day, the Viking took her somewhere for at least an hour or two to let her see how something was done or made. And soon the conversations they had on the trips to and from these dates started to spill over into the rest of her life. They’d mind-chat over breakfast about what each of them had planned for the day, then he’d come get her for their “date” after her lesson with Aunt Bera, then he’d go off and do something else on his never-ending list of kingly duties. And she soon began to miss him when he was away to the point where it felt like the midnight sun inside her chest when he came back through the door for dinner, during which they’d mind chat about both their days just like couples had apparently been doing throughout the centuries in both her and his times.
It kind of felt like Stockholm syndrome considering she had vowed to stay mad at him forever just four months ago. But who else did she have to talk to about the differences between her time and his? And the Viking seemed just as in interested in hearing about the engineering feats of her time as she was in learning about the DIY features of his.
“You’re a bit of a sci-fi nut, aren’t you?” she asked the day before the full moon as they walked along the river which ran east from the lake, through a valley bordered by mountains on each side. Their destination was unknown to her. She liked the surprise of finding out, and maybe he liked surprising her, because he never volunteered the information when he picked her up from her Old Norse lessons—which were going much better now she could take an extra five minutes to ask Fenris the Old Norse equivalent for all the missing words that came up in that day’s session with Aunt Bera.
“I once again do not comprehend your meaning,” he said now, but his voice held teasing, not censure, when he said it.
“In my time, there are all these stories set in the future. Like we have a bunch of, um... I guess you’d call them ‘tales’ set on these things called ‘space ships,’ which are basically boats that ride through the stars. And a lot of people just love them, love imagining what the future will be like.”
“But you do not?”
“I mean I’ll go to a summer movie, but I don’t read it or seek it out. I’m more of a historical fiction person myself, though it’s hard to find historical novels about black people that aren’t set in the time of slavery.”
They had already had a long conversation on the subject of slaves versus what Fenris called thralls. In both histories, this was fully a human practice, and to her surprise, in both histories this had been one of things that diversified the werewolf population. He’d explained to her all the wolves of Norway sported red hair like he, but when human Vikings started bringing back thralls from far-off lands, that had meant more accidental turnings. In the time before the Vikings took to boat to raid and trade, and before the Norse werewolves taught themselves to remain calm in wolf form in order to be able to do so themselves, the humans who lived in communities nearby knew not to go wandering about on the night of the full moon. But thralls, thinking their new masters superstitious, used this as their one opportunity to escape. Some of them made it out. But many more of them ended up werewolves. That is, if they survived the initial attack.
This was also how black wolves came to reside in the United States, she told him. Africa, or Blaland as he referred to it, didn’t have wolves, and many of the first black werewolves were runaway slaves attempting to gain their freedom in the north.
“Yes,” he said, answering her original question. “Mayhap I would have great fondness of this ‘sci-fi’ you do speak. All Viking stories are about the past and told over and over again. Your stories of new things are very welcome to me.”
Before she could question herself too closely about the warm feeling that rose up inside of her when he said this, he stopped.
“We have reached our destination.”
Laid out before them was a sparkling reservoir of clear water with steam rising up from it.
Chloe clapped her hands together. “I know what this is!” She winced then, realizing this meant their date was pretty much ruined, since she already knew how hot springs worked. “This is awesome, but we actually have hot springs where I’m from, too. There’s a resort you didn’t get to see right down the road that’s situated around a spring kind of like this. Except that one’s all sectioned off with rocks and people have to pay to use it. But that’s why our town is called Wolf Springs.”
To her surprise, he responded to her confession with a grin. “Good, then we will not have to bother this day with lengthy explanations.”
And with that he began stripping off his clothes.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“UM…” Chloe said, quickly averting her eyes when he pulled his blue tunic over his head, revealing the bare chest underneath it, one she hadn’t seen in quite a while. “Actually, as much as I would love to take a dip in your hot spring, I can’t. In my time it’s considered a really bad idea for pregnant women to get in hot springs.”
She brought her eyes back to him to see how he was taking the news that she also wasn’t going to strip down and jump in the hot spring. But he didn’t seem to be taking it at all. In fact, he was toeing off his leather shoes . . .
“So I see you’re planning on taking a dip by yourself then. That’s cool. You know, I can just see myself back to the village.”
“Nay, that is not my plan,” he said.
Before Chloe could figure out whether he meant he wasn’t going to swim by himself or he wasn’t going to let her walk back to the village alone, he was pulling down his pants, and out sprung his considerably large erection.
The follow-up questions trailed away and her throat went dry, right before the smell of her arousal hit the air.
He smiled. “I had begun to wonder if I might ever smell you in this manner again.”
“This doesn’t mean anything,” Chloe insisted, trying to wave away what was right under both of their noses. “I mean, this doesn’t change anything.”
“You have turned around your words,” he answered. “Your meaning should be it changes everything. Now we would both have need of each other.”
He took one step toward her, which caused Chloe to take several steps back, only to have her back slam up against a tree she could have sworn wasn’t there a minute ago.
The Viking was on her in a second, pressing his large body against hers, so she could feel how hard his cock was as it teased her opening through the skirt of her prairie dress. Before she knew it, his lips were on hers, coaxing her mouth open with his own, and drawing out the kiss with long insistent strokes of his tongue.