Surrender to an Irish Warrior by Michelle Willingham Read Free Book Online

ground is a sin.’
    The chastising tone in the priest’s voice seemed to stoke Trahern’s anger. Morren took another step away while the two men confronted each other.
    Trahern’s height towered over the diminutive abbot. His grey eyes turned to granite. ‘I granted him mercy.’
    The two men locked gazes, with the abbot making the sign of the cross. It seemed less like a blessing and more like an absolution, Morren thought.
    â€˜There is still hatred in your heart.’
    â€˜And there it will remain, until every last one of them is dead.’ When Trahern turned back to her, she saw the pain cloaked behind his anger.
    It frightened her to see him so intent upon vengeance. She doubted if he cared anything at all for his soul.
    He’s as lost as I am.
    Â 
    Trahern hardly spoke to Morren the rest of the night. God above, he didn’t know what was happening to him. It was as if he’d stepped outside himself, becoming a man who cared about nothing. He’d almost murdered the Norseman, simply because of the man’s heritage.
    It didn’t seem to matter that Gunnar Dalrata hadn’t been there on the night of the attack. Everything about the man grated upon him, like sand in an open wound.
    Innocent women had suffered and died on the night of the attack, due to men like Gunnar. The blood lust had seized himwith the need to avenge, the need to kill. But Morren’s voice had broken through the madness, soothing the beast.
    He moved to sit at the low wooden table at the centre of the room. The interior of the guest house was not large, but there were six pallets set up within the space, three on either side with the table to separate them.
    The remains of their meal lay upon the table, and Trahern frowned at how little Morren had eaten. It was hardly enough to keep a child alive, much less a woman.
    He’d wanted to pursue the Lochlannach tonight, but there was no chance Morren could endure the journey. If he ventured further than five miles, no doubt she would collapse.
    She stepped quietly to a pallet on the far side, lying down with her back to him. Delicate and fragile, he didn’t miss the worry that burdened her. Despite her physical weakness, there was no doubt of her determination to reach her sister.
    Trahern poured water into a wooden bowl and splashed it on his face. Water trickled down his stubbled cheeks, and he felt the prickle of hair forming on his scalp and beard. Though most Irishmen prided themselves on their hair and beards, he wanted to strip it all away.
    He didn’t want warmth or comfort—only the cold reminder of what he’d lost.
    With his blade, he shaved off the hair, never minding the nicks upon his flesh. Without it, he appeared more fearsome. Different from the others, a man not to be trusted. If changing his physical appearance kept others away from him, so be it.
    When it was done, he set the knife back on the table, a flicker of light gleaming off the blade. There were traces of his blood upon it, but he didn’t care.
    He poured more water into the wooden bowl, using his palms to spill more of it over his head, the droplets washing away the blood. The remaining water in the bowl rippled, then fell still. In the reflection, he saw his angry features, themonster who lived for violence. A man who no longer cared if he lived or died.
    A man who looked like one of the Vikings.
    Trahern wanted to hurl the bowl across the room, because he wanted nothing to do with them. They were savage murderers, not men. He loathed the fact that their appearances were similar.
    It shouldn’t have surprised him, for his great-uncle Tharand had been a Lochlannach , as well as his mother’s father. Even so, he’d never truly compared himself to the foreigners. But when he’d battled against Gunnar, for the first time he’d not looked down upon his enemy. They were the same height, the same build. It bothered him more than he cared to