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Warstones were always dark.

  She remembered the first time she had seen that family at her eldest sister’s lavish betrothal announcement. Séverine had never cared for spectacle, but she did like to observe and listen. And many a jest had been made that day that there were four Warstone brothers for four Marteldois sisters. When she’d first overheard it, Séverine had had to cover up her snort with a quick cough. Though her sisters were expected to make advantageous marriages, as any royal member would, Séverine had had no such desire for herself.

  Her father, ever indulgent, had agreed. After all, she was far younger than her sisters, and not the prettiest. She was also...different. Her penchant for snorting, scoffing and giving any sort of reaction at all was one of them.

  Further, she had eschewed any knowledge of household management and fripperies. Instead, she’d enjoyed hiding in private chambers with her needlepoint, or meandering in abbeys to steal glimpses at books. While her sisters had conducted their lessons as if they were insignificant social gatherings, Séverine had badgered her tutors until they had begged her to stop her questions.

  She was fortunate. Her family were great patrons of the arts and music, and her enthusiasm had been encouraged. No, a husband was not for her. The life in the abbey was the one she wanted.

  And one she was denied by her husband, Ian, who had originally been meant for her sister, Beatrice, but who had demanded her hand instead. A man who was not the one in front of her.

  She clutched the kindling in her arm. ‘Who...?’

  ‘Not Guy,’ he said with malicious amusement.

  No, not Guy. She heard he’d met a violent death a few years before by some men he had crossed. Such a demise had always been a plausible end to the second eldest Warstone brother.

  Not Ian, or Guy. He certainly wasn’t the father or Reynold, the third brother, who had always been singular. He was far too strategic a warrior to limit his sword range by entering a small woodshed. That left the youngest Warstone brother...

  ‘Balthus,’ she said.

  The man stepped forward, and shadows scattered.

  It was indeed the youngest Warstone, though he had greatly changed since she’d last properly seen him the day of the betrothal announcement. That one tentative moment when she had turned her head and caught him staring at her. That odd singular time when she had, because she’d been either perplexed or bemused...or perhaps embarrassed or equally arrested, returned his stare. That moment before an icy hand had manacled her wrist and wrenched her away from a life she’d thought she would be living to something else entirely.

  Balthus was truly here in front of her. Over the years she had imagined that moment that had stretched before them until something had warmed her chest, and she had felt herself leaning towards him. Until his mouth had curved at the corner, and her heart had hammered, waiting for his smile. Snatched away too soon, she’d waited forever.

  She’d thought she’d exaggerated that moment, but he was here, and she felt the hitch in her chest all over again.

  He was beautiful, like all the Warstone brothers were beautiful. Dark hair, grey eyes, chiselled cheekbones and a cut jawline, features softened by ridiculously long lashes and lips that were upturned just at the corners as if he was internally amused. He had the assurance of wealth, power and the intimate knowledge that with either precise kindness or cruel malice he could have anything he wanted.

  This boy turned man was indeed of that loathsome family, but there had always been something different about him, and she was again slammed with that realisation. She greatly resented it.

  * * *

  Almost six years since she’d disappeared from his brother’s life, many more years since she’d disappeared from his...if it was possible to say she had ever been part of his. Yet two memories of Séverine struck Balthus.

  Her smile was his earliest memory of her. All encompassing, lighting up the darkest spaces in a young man’s soul. He’d never seen a woman smile with joy like she did, and for an entire day at his brother’s betrothal celebration, while people had knowingly alluded that the youngest sister was for him, he couldn’t stop staring at her, and when she’d turned...when she’d looked back at him...he’d imagined his life illuminated by such bright happiness.

  Until his brother had strode across the great hall and announced it wasn’t Beatrice he desired, but the youngest sister, Séverine. So with swift change of mind, and change of fate, the young maid who’d carried joy had become his brother’s unintended wife.

  Many years had passed since then, but now he had two memories that would torture his dreams...when he dared have them. That smile, and his last memory of her, the way she, at this very moment, said his name.

  ‘Do you need help with the kindling?’ he asked, indicating with his chin.

  Jumping back from him, some of the sticks in her arms fell to the floor. A step or two more, and he bent to pick them up, but her quick step back warned him, and he straightened immediately.

  ‘Clever,’ he said, feeling familiar yet unwanted suspicion slither down his chest as he registered her attempt to trick him. ‘Let the man pick up the kindling while you take the other exit and escape.’

  ‘I wasn’t—’

  ‘I don’t remember you being a liar.’

  He didn’t care that she flinched at the word he’d used, and it didn’t matter if she lied or not. He certainly wasn’t here for any truth from her. He was here for a piece of parchment that she’d stolen from his brother. Given her history of running from his brother and taking Ian’s sons, him being lost in forfeited memories had no place here.

  ‘I don’t want to remember you at... What’s wrong with your arm?’ she said.

  ‘It is—’ He released his grip on his wrist and tucked both limbs under his cloak.

  She’d noticed, even in the dim light of the wood hut, which he’d thought would hide his disfigurement from her. This day was both fortuitous and not. One, he’d finally found her, but now she knew his weakness. He hated it that he’d almost told her the truth, that his arm was agonising...it was agony. The pain made everything he did clumsy and ineffectual. At times, like now, simply walking jarred his entire body and caused him to stumble. The pain was meaningless compared to the veritable truth that his left hand had been severed a few months earlier.

  Since then anything he did in any sense was ugly. He couldn’t tie the laces of his own boots. He didn’t have an impairment, he was impaired. And this woman, who had haunted the last remnants of his young adulthood, whom he compared to all other woman simply from the way she smiled, knew.

  If he could rage away that pain of shame, he would. All his achievements had been reduced to this woman, and how he’d glimpsed what happiness looked like. His brother, his impairment, ensured she could never be his.

  He didn’t want to be here. His hand...or lack thereof...ached. It always made him lose his bearings. It was the reason Henry, a servant, was on the other side of the door behind Séverine to guard it in case she escaped. There was no mistaking Henry for any mercenary or trained guard, but he was built like a boulder. If she ran, Henry would catch her.

  A pinched look marred her forehead as she eyed his movements. ‘Where are my children?’

  ‘Wherever you left them.’

  Eyes flashing to his, hands clenching the sticks, she demanded, ‘Tell me!’

  All too simple finding her, all too easy if he simply blurted the truth. He’d come to Séverine’s family’s estate expecting to find clues to her whereabouts, not the maiden herself. Did she think her disguise sufficient? Though she stank and did well to smear some sort of dirt through her red tresses, no matter what, nothing could hide the green of her eyes or the bump on the bridge of her nose.

  ‘Does your family know you are here? Are they poor of coin and need you to be a servant?’

  She clenched her lips. ‘You have no right to k
now my family.’

  ‘Given that you wed my brother, I’d say I was family,’ he said.

  ‘You’re not my family. I want nothing to do with any of you, and I made that clear by my leaving.’

  ‘Yes, but I’m here now, and—’

  ‘Tell me what you want and be done with whatever else you need.’

  ‘What are you expecting, Séverine? Of course we’d want to find you. You have the Warstone grandchildren, after all.’

  ‘Don’t pretend you care. As if your family has any concept of children, and what it means to be a parent. You and yours only want abominations without conscience. Killers without morals, controllers without care. Why are you here?’

  ‘I suppose the logical answer would be I’m here to capture you and the boys, and—’ Her stricken eyes! He couldn’t finish that sentence. ‘I should be hurt by such an expression. Currently, your boys are as safe as you have made them without the protection of my brother.’

  ‘Typical cryptic response. Can your family ever speak plainly?’ she scoffed. ‘I assume that you already have them secured and you’re baiting me. Stop your games, Warstone, and tell me what is expected. What is it you want?’

  That was a question he would answer only when he obtained the parchment she’d taken when she’d fled from her husband. As far as he could see, this hut contained nothing but piles of wood, spiders and debris. Dressed as she was, there was also the possibility she’d sold the decorated parchment for coin in the years since she’d fled.

  ‘I am not here in jest, but in earnest, and as to what I am doing here?’ he said. ‘That seems like an odd question, given the circumstances. It’s been terribly long since we’ve conversed as family, and I have yet to be introduced to your youngest.’

  ‘We’ve never sat down for conversation.’ Her eyes shifted. ‘You think I want you to speak to my boys when I have done everything I can to keep them away from you?’

  Oddly, he did want to meet them. She might have covered her own tresses to darken them, but the boys had unmistakable red shining through their Warstone black strands. It had been easy to spot them with two village men, out in the fields, as if they’d no royal blood in them at all. Here, Séverine was dressed in rough brown wool, and fetching kindling.

  He hadn’t expected to find her on her family’s estate. Not this close to Provence, and certainly not pretending she was a mere servant. It was believed she wasn’t in her own country, let alone France, since she’d evaded his brother’s efforts to find her all these years. Instead, she had been unexpectedly close. Clever Séverine. Which meant he had to be clever, as well.

  Telling her that her boys were unharmed, unaware of his presence, and out of his reach meant the likelihood of her using that door behind her.

  ‘I want to converse with you as well. So much has occurred since we last saw each other. Let’s call a truce, shall we?’ he said. ‘It’s cold here. Certainly, no matter your dress and obvious labour, your family isn’t letting their grandsons catch frostbite. I could use a warmed wine, couldn’t you?’

  Hurling two sticks at him, she shrieked, and ran out the other door.

  ‘Séverine!’ Balthus reeled in the agony she’d inflicted on his arm and staggered to a wall to brace himself against falling. She couldn’t get away, he had to chase after her, he had to—

  A cry, sharp and quick. Forcing his body to move, Balthus rushed outside. Henry lay crumpled on the ground, and Séverine and the boys in the field were gone.

  Copyright © 2021 by Nicole Locke

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  ISBN-13: 9781488071959

  Kidnapped by the Viking

  Copyright © 2021 by Caitlin Crews

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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