Viking King (The MacLomain Series: Viking Ancestors, Book 1) by Sky Purington

boy, swishing her tail. Grinning, Megan stood. It seemed a friendship had just been born.
    Still.
    This was her dog.
    As if Heidrek understood the gravity of her uncertainty he lowered his head. “I w-will take g-good care of it.”
    “Her,” Megan said gently. “She’s a girl.”
    Heidrek nodded over and over. “Y-yes. A g-girl.”
    “Not an it.”
    He shook his head. “N-not an it.”
    She trusted this boy. And so did Guardian it seemed.
    Megan put a comforting hand on his shoulder and met his eyes. “I’m going to trust you to take care of Guardian, Heidrek.” She smiled. “Take good care of her, all right?”
    Heidrek nodded so avidly his long bangs flopped in his eyes. “I w-will.”
    Turning her attention to Guardian, she said, “I won’t be gone long, wolfy girl. Keep an eye on our new friend, okay?”
    Guardian offered her a quick lick then bounded around Heidrek. Before she knew it, the two were chatting and walking in the opposite direction. Watching them, she shook her head.
    “‘Tis a good friendship forged already,” Valan murmured.
    Megan stood. “So it seems.”
    “Come then,” came a sharp feminine voice from behind. “Though my betrothed is not overly welcomed it seems you are.”
    Determined to keep a neutral face, she turned to Meyla.
    Though she suspected the girl wasn’t normally despondent, now she was.
    With a flick of her wrist and a come-hither motion, Meyla said, “Let’s go then. Time for me to dress you up so that my father can have his way with you.”

Chapter Five
     
    Naðr drank from his horn of ale and cheered another good raid.
    Though he kept a smile on his face and a woman on his lap, he still fumed over his daughter’s choice in men. There were plenty of strapping warriors here but instead she was determined to marry a traitor from the future. That he was Scottish didn’t bother him so much, that he was dishonorable did .
    He’d like to wring Adlin MacLomain’s neck for somehow enabling Meyla to meet Valan Hamilton to begin with. But the past he and Adlin shared was a complicated one and now he was stuck with what he had. And it just so happened that it was a Scottish traitor determined to marry his daughter.
    There was no doubting it…he’d gotten the raw end of the deal.
    “We should have gone further, raided more,” his brother Raknar said from his left as he drank from his horn and pushed away any woman advancing on him.
    “Agreed,” his brother Kol said from his right, trying to pile as many women as possible onto his lap.
    Naðr absently stroked the thigh of the woman on his lap and tried to figure out how to turn Meyla’s attention from the Scotsman. There was always a way.
    “You give Rennir too much room with this move,” Raknar muttered.
    “To Niflheim with Rennir till we figure out what to do with him,” Kol said, grinning before his lips dragged from one woman’s mouth to another.
    “We should have pushed on,” Raknar continued.
    Naðr ignored his brothers and kept an eye on the hall. His people were doing well and celebrating heartily. But that’s not why he watched everything so closely. No, he was waiting for her . He ignored the woman purring impatiently in his ear as he again scanned the room. Where was she?
    No sooner did he think it for the hundredth time then she appeared.
    And his cock at last stirred to life.
    Interested, the woman on his lap grabbed at it. He snatched her wrist and shook his head. But he didn’t push her away. Instead, he watched the woman called Megan trail his daughter into the crowd. Naðr ran his tongue slowly over the roof of his mouth and eyed her. Never before had he seen a woman quite like her. Rolling his tongue slowly, he tempered his breathing.
    She was gorgeous, wild…untamed.
    He wanted to taste her from the inside out then start all over again. Her hair was longer than he expected. Somehow, somebody had managed to hold back her blond curls by roping them into a few braids on either side of