Read Online The Enchantment by Betina Krahn - Free Book Online

along the curve of her ear. Then he poised with his nose almost touching the hair at her temple, breathing in deeply.
    He was sniffing her! Her nerves began to quiver with something close to outrage.
    â€œSmells like a woman,” he announced in a husky rumble that poured down the side of her neck like sun-warmed honey. While she grappled for mental footing, he dipped to one side and she felt his hand clamp over her buttock and squeeze.
    She gave his chest a furious punch—but at the very last moment he jerked away, so that her move met little resistance and jolted her more than him.
    â€œFeels like a woman, too.” He laughed at her anger. “She looks, smells, and feels like a woman.” He shrugged his massive shoulders. “Then she must
be
a woman. But if you still have doubts, Helga”—he waggled his brows at the leader of the women—“I would be pleased to take her to
my
furs to sleep.”
    The women’s tension dissolved in laughter, and even Miri and Marta were coaxed into a smile by the handsome giant’s bold and easy manner. But their mirth, for all its gentleness, struck Aaren like a broadside from a battle-ax. Her face caught fire as her pride weathered a fierce pounding.
    There was a glint in his eye as he turned away that made it seem he had claimed something from her, a small piece of her honor, a bit of her dignity. Suddenly she recognized him as an opponent . . . though an altogether different kind of adversary than Father Serrick had described. This enemy was subtle as a serpent; all knowing smiles and honey-sweet tones and easy, assuming manner. And the threat he posed was far more disturbing than the familiar danger of sinew and blade: He had declared her a woman . . .
not a warrior.
    â€œYou may sleep in the women’s house, Battle-maiden,” the woman called Helga said, breaking into Aaren’s glowering thoughts. “But you and your blade must sleep in the alcove at the side, where we store things. It is the best we can do.”
    Feeling the pull of her sisters’ anxiety, Aaren nodded agreement. The tension eased and the women began to whisper among themselves.
    â€œWe are short of hands and the work of harvest now weighs hard upon us. And most of the men are busy celebrating Borger’s great victory,” Helga declared with unmistakable resentment. “Do your sisters have hearth-skill that will earn them their keeping?”
    â€œMiri and Marta are skilled in women’s tasks,” Aaren said determinedly. “They are meant to use their skills in the jarl’s service . . . even as I use my blade.”
    â€œThis is Sith,” Helga said, gesturing to the coarse-faced woman who had spoken so boldly against Aaren earlier. “She is the head of the dairy. And these are Kara and Gudrun. They tend Borger’s hearth and o’ersee the cooking and serving in the hall,” she said, waving to two plump, sable-haired women who looked as though they’d sampled more than a bit of their own handiwork. “And that is Bedria, who brews the ale, keeps the bees; and Inga and Moria, who weave and spin.” There she stopped and clasped her hands before her as if containing the urge to say more.
    â€œWe spend daylight and squander breath,” she pronounced disapprovingly, then glanced at Aaren. “Moria will show you where to put your possessions.” She led all but a few of the women across the commons and past the long hall toward the fields beyond.
    Marta snatched up the bundle of clothes and wrapped her arms around it, and Aaren picked up her sword to carry it back into the women’s house. She paused by the door, glancing back over her shoulder toward the far edge of the clearing where the one they called Jorund had disappeared.
    â€œYou’re wrong, Spawn of a Frost Giant,” she muttered under her breath. “I am a
warrior.
And I shall prove it to you.”

    T HAT MORNING, M IRI and