To Tempt A Viking by Michelle Willingham

Elena would never belong to him.
    Eight years earlier
    ‘Ragnar,’ came the voice of Elena. She stepped inside the home he shared with his father and her face dimmed at the sight.
    ‘I’m here.’ He stood up from his place by the hearth and felt ashamed of how dirty the house had become. Ever since his mother had been killed by raiders, his father, Olaf, had been lost in grief. He left every morning at dawn and didn’t return until nightfall.
    ‘I brought you some food,’ she said, holding out a basket to him.
    He stared at her for a long time, not knowing what to say other than to utter words of thanks. She nodded and when she glanced around again, asked, ‘It’s very dark in here. Can I open the door wider?’
    He nodded and blinked when the sunlight illuminated the interior. Elena peered inside and offered him a tentative smile. ‘That’s a little better. At least now I can see you.’
    Her gaze was strained as she saw the condition of his home. Ragnar felt his cheeks warm, but he made no excuses. The last time he’d tried to put away a few things, his father had beaten him.
    ‘Never, ever touch her things!’ Olaf had roared. Then his anger had crumbled into grief and he’d wept. Since that day, Ragnar had done nothing at all, for fear of destroying his father’s carefully erected shrine to the memory of his wife. He was grateful that his older sisters were married, with their own households, so they did not have to see their father in this state.
    Elena opened up the basket and handed him some bread. ‘Your father is gone a lot, isn’t he?’
    Ragnar wasn’t aware that anyone had noticed, but nodded. ‘He is.’ When he took the bread, he resisted the urge to tear it apart and cram it in his mouth. Despite the fact that he went out fishing most days, it had been weeks since he’d had real food.
    Elena poured him a cup of ale and when he took it from her, his fingers brushed against hers. Though he was five and ten while she was two years younger, her face held the promise of beauty. Red-gold hair was braided into a single tail down her back and her sea-green eyes held him captive.
    A flush came over his cheeks and he looked away.
    ‘When will your father be back?’
    He shrugged. ‘Sunset, maybe. Sometimes he’s gone all night.’ When she looked appalled at that, he added, ‘But I’m not afraid to be alone.’
    He was used to it now. Sometimes he wondered if there would come a night when his father never returned. But he was old enough to care for himself. Olaf might have forgotten he had a son, but Ragnar wasn’t going to bother him. He wasn’t a child any more.
    Elena sent him a slight smile as if she were trying to reassure him. ‘If you want to join my family for our evening meal, my mother won’t mind.’
    Her father was high ranked within his tribe and Elena was his second-eldest daughter, out of ten children. Ragnar suspected that the man would hardly welcome someone like him at their table.
    ‘I should stay here,’ he answered.
    ‘They won’t notice either of us,’ Elena remarked with a wry smile. And perhaps it was true, but the idea of visiting her household without his father seemed wrong.
    He offered her a piece of the bread, but she refused it. Ragnar finished eating and in the meantime, Elena walked across the room and grasped a wooden bucket. Without asking, she began picking up the fallen bones and the remnants of the fish he’d burned the night before when he’d tried to cook it.
    ‘You shouldn’t,’ he started to protest.
    But as soon as he spoke the words, she answered, ‘Do you really like living in this way?’
    No, he didn’t. And though his father might beat him for it again, he supposed there was no sense in keeping the refuse.
    Yet he was embarrassed that she would begin working like this. Ragnar reached out to take the bucket from her. ‘You shouldn’t trouble yourself.’
    ‘I don’t mind.’ Elena let him take the bucket and reached for a broom.