Dream of Me/Believe in Me

door and slammed it behind her. Cymbra stood frozen in place, her whole body trembling. Slowly, she sank down, her legs giving way beneath her, until she was sitting on the floor, her arms wrapped around herself and her face buried against her knees.

Chapter SIX

    W OLF SHUT THE DOOR FIRMLY BEHIND his noisy, boisterous escort. He shoved the iron bar in place across it lest the drunken revelers prove to have more enthusiasm than good sense. A few of the more persistent remained outside, calling encouragement and lewd suggestions, but he ignored them.
    He turned, his silvery eyes scanning the chamber. When he failed to see his bride, his first thought was that she had fled. Anger was already surging through him when a faint movement drew his eyes to the woman huddled in the shadows.
    “Odin's blood,” he muttered and started toward her. Cymbra looked up, the pale oval of her face framed in a torrent of silken hair, and pressed her lips tightly together. He needed no great sensitivity to know that she was fighting a desperate battle against raw fear.
    “Cymbra,” he murmured, worry overtaking the hard, thrumming lust he would not have thought anything could supplant. Lifting her carefully, offering a silentprayer of thanks when she did not resist, he carried her to the bed and sat down with her on his lap.
    For a time, he did nothing more, merely rocked her as gently as he would a child, had life offered him the opportunity to do such a thing. His big hands felt clumsy when he began to stroke her back but she relaxed a little under his touch, and that encouraged him.
    Finally, she looked up, met his eyes bravely, and said, “I'm an idiot.”
    Her statement so shocked him that he laughed, the sound itself a further shock. He was consumed with hunger for her, randier than he could remember being since boyhood. Such hot, driving need had nothing to do with laughter. Or did it? Thinking on it, perplexed, he squeezed her a little tighter. “No, you're not. It's natural to be nervous.”
    That had to be it. She was a virgin bride confronted by a husband she hardly knew and had every reason to think was an enemy. She was bound to be frightened. But then, damn it, why hadn't Marta and the others said something to reassure her? They were all married women, Marta herself the widow of the very warrior who had trained the young Wolf. He'd sent them with her precisely so they'd do whatever it was women did under such circumstances. Distantly, he thought of Marta pushing her daughter his way a time or two, but he had never given that the remotest consideration. Perhaps she had, though, in which case …
    “Did your mother ever speak to you of these things?” he asked gruffly.
    Against his shoulder, Cymbra shook her head. “She died when I was born.”
    “Your nurse?”
    “Miriam never married. She doesn't … think much of men.”
    She took a breath, steadying herself. “But you mustn'tthink me ignorant. I am a healer. The workings of the body are no mystery.”
    “Perhaps not.” He didn't believe that for a moment. Despite whatever occasional kindness she'd shown the sick, he would have bet coin enough to build a dragon ship that she didn't have the remotest idea of what really passed between a man and a woman. Still, this didn't seem like the best time to tell her that. Better she discover it in the doing.
    “That's good,” he crooned, stroking her hair, drawing her a little closer. She gave a small sigh and snuggled on his lap. He managed not to groan but it was a near thing.
    “So much has happened …” she said.
    Wolf lifted his eyes to the ceiling, fighting for control, praying for patience. Women seemed to need to talk under circumstances where any man would have the sense to keep his mouth shut, or find a better use for it.
    All the same, she was his wife. He had made promises to her before Ulfrich and the others. And she had made him laugh. That had to count for something, so unusual was it. He tilted her chin up, requiring her to look at him. “Don't tell me you feel confused and frightened just because your entire life has been turned upside down and you find yourself in a situation where you never imagined you could possibly be?”
    She blinked in surprise, which pleased him. He liked the idea of being as unexpected to her as she was to him. It righted the balance between them.
    “Well, yes,” Cymbra said softly, “as a matter of fact that's exactly how I feel.”
    “What an odd coincidence. So do