Thank you all so much for your lovely reviews and alerts! You all never fail to shock me, and I'm so grateful! I hope you enjoy this one lol! I haven't written something like what is going to happen at the end of the chapter before, so I apologize if it's terrible!
Chapter Seven
There was an uproar of quiet amazement around the fire.
"She may be a princess, but she sure knows how to drink!"
"I have never seen a woman drink like that before, lads!"
"Why did she do that? Mead is strong! She's gone and drank herself to sleep! Her head will be pounding like a hammer against rock when she wakes!"
"Well, she didn't know that, did she?" Eric snapped at his men, effectively shutting them up. The girl had fallen straight into him, so he laid her down carefully in his lap; Her long hair strewn out around him. "Leave her alone. Besides, she's my woman- disrespect her and then you disrespect me in turn! Be more respectful."
"Oh, sorry, Eric," the men muttered ruefully. "I just don't understand how she's a Faerie?" One of the men waltzed on stupidly. "Where are her wings? I thought they were supposed to have wings?"
"You fool," Eric laughed quietly.
"What?" The man looked around at his friends for help. "I thought she was supposed to have wings and special powers?"
"She does have powers," Eric explained. "I saw them just minutes ago. It was very impressive." Telling her how impressed he was of her to her face, well... that was another issue altogether.
"While you were having her?" One of the men asked blankly.
"Let's all go to sleep and get some rest," Eric said. Their ridiculous chatter was grating on his nerves. "It's been a long day. I don't know about you all, but I'm tired."
Ending the foolish gossip around the fire, Eric gently took the girl by her thin shoulders, moved her off his lap, and laid down long ways beside her on the soft, leave-scattered dirt. Whether she realized she had done it or not, she rolled around to face him and snuggled into him, resting her chin near the crease in his neck. She drew her hands up protectively over her chest, knuckles held under her chin.
Eric could feel her warm breaths as they whispered against him at a constant, steady rhythm. Her breath smelled like sweet fruit, he thought. She was kind of heavy resting against him, but it wasn't uncomfortable. It was rather... comforting.
The air had grown colder as the night progressed, but with her flush up against him, it offered him some decent warmth. He felt the heat of her body through the thin material of his tunic. He had given her his furs, and although he felt goose-pimples infecting his skin, he couldn't regret his decision in offering her it for her own warmth and comfort instead of his own.
It seemed the decent thing of a man to do; Up there, in Valhalla or wherever his dead father was, Eric thought he would have been pleased by what his son had done for her.
He glanced down at her without her knowing, measuring the length of her lashes. So she was a pretty, sweet girl, he admitted to himself grudgingly. She wasn't half as bad as what he had expected, of a Princess. She was strong one minute, and soft again in the next. He had never met a young woman like her before: Her, who was brave, bold, and determined to show she was more than 'just a girl', with a fiery spirit. He brought his arm around her back, holding her close, while he sat a hand down on the side of her thigh, where it stayed and did not stray.
It was odd; She had made him feel protective of her, in a short amount of time. It was probably because he knew what his men were like. They were good, decent, trustworthy men, with brave hearts and were natural fighters, but... that didn't mean he trusted any single one of them to be alone with her. Well, with the exception of his good young friend Godric, maybe.
He continued glancing down at her face, while she slept, unknowing his eyes were on her. For some damn stupid reason, he felt tempted to kiss her. To feel her soft lips brush against his own again, like before when he had her against that tree. Flushing bright red at the sappy thought, he forced his eyes to close and leaned the rear of his head back against the earth.
He couldn't believe how stupid he had been, all along. He had gathered a group of men and set off to harm those responsible for setting wolves on his parents and annihilating them, and his men had only been too happy to oblige. But he had led them into wrong territory and started a fight with the wrong type of men. It hadn't been the Faeries- he understood that now by the unwavering truth in the girl's doe-like brown eyes and sincerity in her words. He had no idea where to start, as far as making amends to the girl's family and kinsmen.
A mere simple apology didn't seem great enough for all the careless blood he had spilled and the countless lives him and his men had taken of her kind.
Eric had always prided himself on being a smart-thinker, a man who did not act rashly before jumping into decisions, and yet, he had gone and done it, hadn't he?
He fought to be strong but when grief seized his heart painfully in its grasp and he turned his eyes towards the round of the moon instead of the Faery Princess Sookie that was lying on him and felt them burn and dampen with tears, he found it was a battle quickly lost. Tears coursed down his cheeks and stung at his skin. His body shook and convulsed as if he no longer had any control of it, and every breath he drew in came out sounding like a sob.
"A true man never cries," his father once told him, when he was a much younger lad, "A true man is strong enough to hide his emotions. He is never at the mercy of them."
What did that make him now? Less of a man?
But he had been an idiot. It was a decent enough reason to cry, in his eyes.
Out of nowhere, the girl made a soft mewing noise like a baby kitten into his neck, burying her face deeper into his skin and his wet eyes widened in alarm. If she found out he was crying, it would have been the death of him. Men weren't supposed to cry, especially not in front of women. So he wiped his eyes on the back of his hand quickly, set his jaw, and the tears ceased before she woke and caught him out in the act. He squeezed his eyes tightly closed and started drifting comfortably.
When Sookie woke, she was thrust back into consciousness brutally by a loud, harsh snore in her ear.
Her eyes flitted open, taking in the early morning rays, and she felt something heavy, warm, and hard against her. She lifted her eyes and discovered the Viking Eric was wrapped around her, their limbs tangled and their long hair spread and mixed together. His face was near hers, his cheek was resting against hers, and all she could feel was his stubble prickling her roughly. She looked at his face as it rested close to hers, his mouth slightly parted. He didn't look like that hard, defensive and easily insulted man he had been last night. He looked peaceful, benign, years younger than the age he probably truly was. It took her a moment to realize one of his large, calloused hands was settled on the top of her thigh, almost under the material of her gown intimately, and she startled.
Had he taken her last night without her knowledge?
She had to think really hard.
All she remembered was trying to appear brave in swallowing down greedily all the men's mead in that round, wooden cup. She didn't feel any different; All that was sore was her side from the ground, and the slow thumping sensation in her temples.
Slowly, she pushed away from him and sat up when she realized she was resting her body on his. It took her eyes a while to adjust to the sunlight and she peered around them, finding all his men fast asleep, snoring and grunting in their dreams. The fire they had up the night before had gone down, smoke billowing up to the sky.
She heard the faint snorting of horses and stood slowly. Her head swarmed, but after a moment of blinking heavily, her vision cleared and she set off to where the horses were. She found the group of them; white, brown, black, sitting on the earth. Eric's white horse, seemingly alerted to her presence by the sound of her sandals on the earth, got to its hooves, bowed its head, and pushed one hoof forward into the crumbling earth. She thought it was bowing at her courteously, and she smiled in amazement for the beautiful creäture.
"Yes, hello," she whispered to the white stallion softly. When she stood close enough, the horse pushed its long snout up against her shoulder, nuzzling her. "You're so beautiful, aren't you?" she laughed, staring into one of its large, beady black eyes, before turning away.
She inspected her surroundings, using her ears shrewdly. She could hear the soft rushing of a stream somewhere and, eager for water, she followed the sound, trekking through a thicket of bushes. The land opened up into a long stream and rocky terrain and Sookie found her mouth incredibly dry and parched; probably from all that revolting mead she had indulged in last night. She stepped closer to the stream and crouched, cupping her hands together in front of her. She slurped at the refreshingly cool water, then decided she wouldn't mind having a wash. All the men were fast asleep anyway, so the chances of them catching her out naked was unlikely.
She pulled off her sandals and stripped out of her gown, plunging ankle-first into the water. It was cold, a shiver ran through her spine, and she almost squealed in shock. But when she fell down to her knees and submerged her body completely into the water, the coldness no longer seemed to bother her.
Back where all the men were sleeping, Eric woke with a sudden snort.
He felt suddenly distressed, though he wasn't sure why. Until it occurred to him that the Faerie Princess was nowhere near. She wasn't sleeping with him on the ground; Her arms and legs were no longer wrapped around him. A panic he had never felt before rose inside of Eric as he looked around the burnt-out fire groggily, stretching his limbs, only the girl was nowhere in sight to be seen. His men were still fast asleep, and as far as he could tell, none of them had left the fire. It was just the girl who had disappeared, and unpleasant thoughts filled his mind of her being hurt. There were wild animals in these parts of the lands; Disgusting wolves and alligators. He hoped she hadn't come across any.
He got to his feet, rolling his stiff shoulders, while using his height to his advantage in scoping out the lands surrounding them. He caught no glimpse of her blinding-white gown through the trees, and he bit down on the tip of his tongue with his front teeth, feeling the panic surge even wilder. He tasted blood in his mouth, he was gnawing on his tongue that hard, but he didn't care. He just wanted to find the girl, make sure she wasn't lost and was safe.
He felt like a man who had lost something valuable to him- she was meant to be his, after all- and clenching his fists tightly at his sides, he went to search for her in an urgent stride. Far ahead of him, through a thick-set of trees, he heard water splashing from a nearby stream and someone making a delighted noise that sounded feminine. With a pounding heart, he shouldered through the bushes, stopping dead in his tracks by a trunk at the sight that folded out before him.
His heart dropped in his chest. His hands clenched at his sides began aching, for want of touching and caressing. His. All his.
The Princess Sookie was having a joyful time out in the stream nearby them, he discovered.
Her white gown and his furs he had let her borrow were an insignificant puddle of cloth near some rocks, while she was kneeling in the water, splashing around and beaming brilliantly. His breath hitched in his throat. Her back was to him, and he could see she wasn't wearing anything. Her skin was flawless, luminescent; Her long blonde hair trailing down her back and rippling in the breeze. Then she turned and so sure he was going to be caught, he stepped back, throwing half of his body behind the tree. The side of his jaw scraped against the rough bark painfully, but it was nothing. He had to look. He had to see. He couldn't seem to take his eyes off her, she was all that mattered, and oh, those small, beautiful round breasts...
Ah, so faerie girls did have all their vital womanly parts after all... Sex was not out of the question after all.
He wanted to rub his fingers around the peaks of her hardened nipples, taste her with his tongue, have her tongue curling in his mouth.
It was a funny thing; How seeing someone naked can change your perspective of them entirely. She was a radiating goddess, and he wanted to fall to his knees at her feet. His trousers felt too small, and the hot throbbing of his cock was almost unbearable.
But then, everything was almost instantly ruined, when her eyes suddenly fell on where he was hiding and his cheeks flushed in embarrassment. Somehow she had learned he was standing there, concealed by the tree, and she squealed and covered her hands over her breasts, sinking low into the water. Unable to find his voice, Eric stumbled back away from the tree, turned away from the horrified look on her face with difficulty, and ran back to his men like a deeply ashamed desperate man.
Was this terrible? Hope not!
Thank you all so, so much despite all the silliness! You're all so amazing and lovely! x