Page 40 of Ulf's Destiny
Every inch of Ylva’s body rippled at the sound of Ulf’s voice. Oh, how she had missed it. Missedhim.
“Good afternoon,” she forced herself to say. He was looking at her with so much intent that it was making it hard for her to breathe. Somehow in these last few months, though she had constantly thought of him, she had forgotten how overwhelming his presence could be.
“Will you please leave us alone?” Ulf asked Judith without even glancing her way.
“Are you going to?—”
“I’m not going to hurt her,” he snapped. “What do you take me for? I’d rather cut my own hand than harm a woman. Didn’t the way I dealt with Mildred make that clear? I should have ripped her limb from limb, yet I allowed her to leave unscathed!”
Oddly, this burst of temper seemed to convince Judith he posed no danger. It was as if she understood that the aggression came from Ulf’s absolute abhorrence of violence, as if he’d proven he could not bear to be taken for a mindless brute.
She nodded and exited the hut, leaving them alone.
Ylva didn’t dare move from where she was, sitting at the table. If she stood up, Ulf would see what she was hoping to hide.
“Why are you here?” she asked, even though she already knew the answer.
“Judith came to find me. She said you needed my help. Well, actually, she said thatsheneeded my help, but it think she really means you, because I cannot fathom why she would want to have anything to do with me, considering what she seems to think me capable of.” This was said with a grimace.
“Don’t worry about her. I told her you had never done anything to hurt me and she believes it, deep down,” Ylva hastened to assure him. “She’s just very protective of me.”
“Yes. I can tell. And I think I know why.”
Heat suffused her chest at the allusion. “We are not a couple,” she mumbled. “We never were, really, it was just… Since we’ve been freed we’ve not?—”
“You can do what you want with whomever you want,” he cut in, looking fiercer than she had ever seen him.
But that was precisely the problem. She couldnotdo what she wanted, because what she wanted was to be with him. She had fought the notion for months but now that he was in front of her, she knew that he was what she wanted. A hand landed on her stomach. Yes. A future with this man was what she was desperate for.
But… it was something that could never happen.
“So, anyway,” he said, straightening up to his impressive height. Had he grown since they hadn’t seen one another? It was unlikely, and yet… “Why do you need me?”
“I don’t need you.”
Ylva regretted the words the moment they passed her lips. Ulf’s face had gone as dark as thunder. It was obvious that her clumsy answer had hurt him. Besides, it was a lie. She did needhim. But she knew he would never agree to have her now, which was why she had fought the urge to go to him for months, arguing with Judith almost daily about the matter.
And now her friend had forced her hand in the most shameful way. How could she minimize the damage? Was it too late already?
“I’m sorry, that came out wrong. I?—”
“No, I think it’s very clear. You don’t need me, and you don’t want me. I should have guessed. After all, you disappeared without a trace, never letting any of us know where you’d gone. That’s hardly the behavior of someone who wants to have anything to do with me.”
Ylva’s heart started to race in her chest. He sounded more dejected than angry at the idea of her not letting him know where she was. Had he been hoping to see her all this time, maybe even looking for her? Was that what he was saying? She had considered sending a message to the village once she and Judith had found a place to live but it had seemed awfully presumptuous to assume the Norsemen would worry about her now that she was free and had left of her own accord. As to going herself, that had been out of the question. She had been too afraid she would never want to leave if she went back. For weeks she had agonized about what to do.
And then she had understood that she would never be able to go back, because Ulf would never accept the situation she was in.
“It would seem to me that you’ve had all you were going to need from us,” he said when she remained silent. “And especially from me. So I think I’d better go. You can argue with your friend about the point of going to get someone you don’t want and who has better things to do.”
He turned and made for the door. Everything in Ylva rebelled. He could not leave, not so fast, not like this! She had decided not to go to him, and she was furious at Judith forhaving brought him here, but now that he was here, she could not bear to watch him go.
Before she could think, she stood up and ran to him. “No, wait!”
Ulf turned around—and his gaze instantly fastened on her stomach. Thunder seemed to fall at his feet. She stilled as his demeanor changed from bitterness to shock and then something she could not identify. Worry? Jealousy? Horror?
“You’re with child,” he whispered after what felt like an eternity.
“I am.”
