Claimed by the Viking

Chapter 5 : Ins and Outs

Soon in the morning, Tharn and his men were exercising, preparing themselves for their next fight. For the first time since he was nothing but a young lad, he couldn't concentrate on opposing Regan, his right-hand man. He was distracted. When he had left his house, he had peeked an eye in his bedroom to see that Adelheid was still sleeping, rolled up in the furs on his bed.

She looked at peace with her relaxed face, her golden locks surrounding her head on the soft pillows. How much he wanted to stroke her hair and be able to lie down with her astonished him. Of course, if he had wanted to, he could have done so. After all, she had verbally agreed to become his concubine. But that would have been wrong. Oh, so wrong. He couldn't force her into submission. That's not how he wanted her. He couldn't impose himself on her anymore.

So, he had left the room silently and had gone to the training field, where he had started even earlier that usually, his men soon joining him.

Suddenly, he fell down on his back, his breath cut off of his lungs, his sword a few meters from him.

He had been disarmed. That too was new.

Regan was standing tall in front of him, looking half-proud of disarming his Jarl and half-surprised it had happened. 

"Well Tharn, aren't you quite distracted today?"

Regan was lightly laughing while he gave Tharn his hand to bring him back up on his feet. As the Jarl was picking his sword and about to go back to training, a shiny reflect attracted his eyes to the right.

It was Adelheid walking down the hill on a path leading to the nursing house, Hilda by her side. The golden-haired woman was wearing the same dress as the day before, but this time with some shawl around her shoulders, probably to hide her chest more since her dress had been partly ripped the day before. He winced as he remembered the horrified look on her face when this had happened. He would get her a new dress to wear soon enough. Overall, she was sporting a blank face, looking fairly less exhausted than she had had the previous evening, but he couldn't see her as well as he would have wanted to: she was too far from him. And it was not a great moment for him to try and get closer: she would not enjoy seeing him, he was sure of that.

He needed to keep his distances. But that didn't forbid him from admiring her from afar silently. The braids that had held part of her hair up the day before were undone and her long hair freely cascaded down her back and shoulders, looking like a gold cape from the distance. It must have been what caught his eye while fighting.

Fighting. After a long moment of absence, Tharn turned around and Regan was facing him arms crossed, leaning on a pillar with a smirk on his face.

"What?" Tharn grunted at him, annoyed by his knowing grin.

"Admiring the view, aren't we?" He answered.

Tharn didn't answer and told him to concentrate on training, receiving an amused look from him. Several hours later, as the midday meal was approaching, the men started to tire, but Tharn kept on fighting Regan, trying to make the green eyes of Adelheid leave his mind. He didn't know why, but a sudden image of her rosy lips getting apart to welcome his shaft suddenly came to him, making him drop all attention he had on fighting. Regan had not expected the sudden loss of attention from his friend and couldn't completely stop his axe as it hit him on the shoulder.

This time, none of them laughed it off as Tharn dropped to his knees with a grunt, let go of his sword, and instead hold his shoulder to stop the blood that was starting to goose out. It was not a dangerous wound, but it was deep enough to make him wince in pain.

"Skita!" He roared.

Regan bent over and checked the wound out.

"I believe you'll be able to go to the object of your thoughts sooner than planned Jarl." He told him, half worried about his wound, half amused by the joke he made.