Read Heart of a Viking for Free Online

in the dark shadows of them. Part of her wondered if she was not staring into polished metal and seeing everything she felt reflected back at her. The loss of his family must have eaten deep indeed.
    “Everyone needs hope, Thorarin.”
    His name rang about the wooden hut. She moved the bowl into both hands and clasped it in front of her, as though it might offer her protection from...She didn’t even know what, but something. Something thickened the air and made it hard to breathe. Something made it impossible to look away from him.
    Thorarin dropped his hand away from her amulet. “You had better take the flour to the longhouse now.”
    With that, he spun on his heel and left her staring at his back as he marched away from the hut and in the direction of the abandoned farmstead—the place that would be his home from now on, she assumed. She looked down at the bowl of flour and her chest expanded.
    Viking, Keita reminded herself. Aye, he was different but that didn’t mean he wasn’t one of them. He would not think twice about capturing Picts and having them work his land. Regardless of how interesting or different he seemed, she had to remember that his baser nature would be no different to that of any other Norsemen.

Chapter Five
    Thorarin lifted his head to eye the eaves of the roof. The farmstead had been left empty for years. When he had lived here, Magnus had run this farm. The land was decent and far enough away from the settlement that he could be sure to avoid all distractions while he worked to rebuild it. But it would take time and hard work. And while he wanted to see it rebuilt, his priority had to be Ragni.
    So he would have to maintain the image of working hard for the community while carefully seeing through his revenge. For when it was complete, he would seize Ragni’s power and take it for himself. There would be no time for farming or woodwork once his plans were at an end.
    He circled the damp confines of the empty house. It stretched a good length, with the bed chamber divided from the rest of the building. A loose stone circle revealed where the fire pit had once been but all furniture was long gone. He would need to at least create some pieces to make it liveable and ask Ragni for some thrall s for help. Perhaps he could use that slave that so disliked Keita. He could not deny he would take pleasure in putting her to work.
    For the past three days he’d watched that woman. She worked as little as she could, forcing Keita to take on many of her duties. It did not seem in the little Pict’s nature to lash out at the woman but he saw that small jaw thrust out every now and then and waited for the day she would rise up against her.
    Keita. By Odin’s blood, she was why he was grateful for the distance away from the settlement. When he ought to have been observing Ragni and his son, he found his gaze following her. His skin prickled when she was nearby and his heart tightened when he feared she might find herself in danger. As much as Ragni’s declaration that no man should touch her protected her, once his power had begun to erode, Keita would find her position eroded too.
    If anything happened to her, it would be his fault.
    Thorarin knelt and shifted the stone circle back into place. Later, he would take some slaves and an axe and find the wood he needed. He would leave Keita to her work and force himself to forget her. When his muscles were burning and sweat tinged his brow from working the wood, she would be far from his mind.
    Já , that thought appealed. Whenever he had been so eaten up by anger over Ragni’s lies, wood soothed him. When he was shaping and carving the wood, he was master. It had no choice but to obey him.
    And soon he would shape and carve this world into his own. Ragni would find out what it was like to lose everything with little idea it was he who had carved him this destiny. Not until the very end.
    He paused in the doorway and studied the darkening sky. Streaks of