Enslaved by the Viking: A Medieval Short Story by Elle James Read Free Book Online Page A

first win her over or cull her from the herd.” Thorsten nodded toward the redhead. “Another suggestion would be to take her sister to wife to secure her fealty to you.”
    The raven-haired woman emerged from a home and cast a glance around the village as if to assess the damage. Throughout her visits, she avoided looking his direction. Alas, she wiped her hands on her apron and glanced his way, her chin tilted high, her gaze direct and defiant.
    Konrad’s groin tightened, his manhood rising to the woman’s challenge.
    Thorsten chuckled beside him. “I see you will have trouble with that one. Perhaps if you use her as an example and publicly whip her, she will fall in line.”
    “A whip would not cow the woman or bend her to my will. What she needs is a firm hand and a reason to accept me.”
    “Aye a proper beating is what she’ll get. She is strong and young enough she will make a fine slave once you break her will.”
    Konrad had no desire to break the woman. Like fine horseflesh, she should be gentled and led to believe she would be better off with him as her rider. He squared his shoulders much as he would walking into battle and marched toward his destiny.

Chapter 2
    B rigid O’Ceallachain expected the Norse brute to come to her eventually to bend her to his will, perhaps make her his slave. The previous Norse conqueror had done much the same, forcing her to his bedchamber with the intention of poking his man staff into her like the greedy, smelly old goat he was.
    She had managed to waylay his aggression with food and drink, charging his wine with a wicked herb that made him sleep like the dead. When he woke, he could not eat for days, with the worst belly complaint he’d ever imagined.
    Using her skills as a healer to her advantage, she promised to nurse him to health as long as he agreed not to harm her or her sister.
    So sick with the ague he could barely climb out of his bed, he agreed.
    Meanwhile, she had the ladies of the village spread rumors among the men, claiming the river water was poisonous to anyone who had not been raised on it, building a natural resistance to the toxins. They also said the land was cursed by the dead soldiers left unburied after drinking the river water.
    Soon the Norsemen succumbed to the same complaint as their leader, each sick and too weak to lift their swords. First one, followed by many, begged their leader to take them back to their homeland where they could die in peace. Still weak of his own complaint, their leader loaded his ships and sailed away, leaving the O’Ceallachain clan tucked in the rocky hills of County Kerry in peace.
    Brigid buried the cache of herbs she’d used to fight her battle beneath the fairy tree and went about the business of clan leader as usual.
    She ran her gaze over the Norse conqueror as he stood in the village with his second in command, their gazes taking in what Brigid and her people had built over time with the sweat off their brows.
    She had to admit he was comely with broad shoulders and thickly muscled thighs. He had no boils upon his face and his teeth weren’t rotting out of his head. Not that it mattered. Brigid O’Ceallachain would bow to no man. This was her land and her clan. She refused to concede without a fight.
    Unfortunately, without an army to back her, once again, she had to resort to other methods to vanquish her enemy. One option was to go to Seamus O’Leary, the lecherous brute and High King of County Kerry. He’d had his eye on Caitlinn since she was but a child in bright orange pigtails. Now that her sister was of an age to marry, Seamus wished to negotiate an alliance propagated on his marriage to the fair Caitlinn for the High King’s protection of the O’Ceallachain clan.
    Brigid told Seamus she would give him an answer by the next full moon. To be fair to Caitlinn, she’d presented the proposal. Her softhearted sister begged her to agree in order to save their home and people from the heathen Norse