N: SM owns it all. The author of this fic (that's me) does not support these "faux-Viking" views or beliefs, or male chauvinism in general. At the same time the author also believes Edward can do as he damn well pleases (at least with me he can).

Secondary disclaimer: The story you are about to enjoy is entirely fictional and bears little relevance to historic authenticity. Please do not form any lasting perceptions, nor use my material as reference while taking a History exam (you will fail). Because this is fiction and I have taken vast liberties in many areas. If you wish to read about the real old-Norse people, you will need to turn to those who have dedicated their entire lives to the philanthropic study of this wonderful group.

That being said, my first fan-fic, so be the friendly readers I know you are. Okay?

It was the mild winter in the year 840, on the coast of Wessex. Mild enough that my father had let me travel to the Lindisfarne Monastery alone, something other fathers would have not even thought of. Had it been spring, Sir Charlie probably would have not permitted it. The agreeable weather always brought the Viking raids along with it. But he let me go. Mostly because my wedding to Jacob was a fortnight away, and he realized that it might be helpful to me to seek counsel, counsel he had failed to give.

Father was always dense when it came to the proper thing to say. His only comforting words about the marriage were, ''…at least you're to be wed to one you know." And while they were true, they did not offer much reassurance.

I did know, Jacob. We had grown up together. At 17, I was his senior by a year, but he was not a boy by any means, or so everyone else said. He was wealthy, had a grand title and his own estate along with a following of brave me. So he was a man.

But somehow the thought of making him my husband, made my stomach churn. He was far from prepared for marriage.

We were friends, and had been since our early days. We went riding and hunting and swimming in the river behind his citadel. And somehow, I could not help but feel that this is what Jacob wanted in a bride, a playmate, someone who would keep him company and laugh at his jests. But what he would want from me years from now I was unsure of. What was to happen when he fell in love with another. Would I still be his playmate then? I was to be wed into a loveless marriage, just like my mother.

Marriage was not something that I had actively pursued. In fact, unlike most women, I avoided attention altogether. My skills in the art of flirting were nothing short of dreadful. And I had this thing about me where I wore my emotions on my face. If you bored me, I could not fake interest for the life of me. So in short, courting and marriage were not among the things that consumed my thoughts. And I was happy in my solitude. I did not need love, not the kind my mother had, not the kind that harebrained suitors offered.

My father and Sir William were the ones to arrange the dreaded thing, all for their connivance of course. Jacob's father gained land. While Sir Charlie had me close enough I could still manage my household and his. He feared losing me so much that he married me to his neighbor. All so I could still direct his dinner and washing! Since my mother had died the man was useless. I cared for him but he was useless.

With all of this heavy in my mind, I had traveled to the monastery in silence.

Lauren and Angela, my ladies in waiting, came along gladly, prattling about wedding preparations the entire half a day trip. The chatter was not easing the dread I had about the union. I tried my best to ignore them, reading until the jolting of the carriage had caused my head to ache. I pulled my hair brown hair down from its bindings and slumped down in my seat in the most unladylike way, earning me a brutal disapproving scowl from Lauren.

We were a couple of hundred yards off from the Monastery when I could make out high-pitched shrieking in the distance. Both alarmed and intrigued, I poked my head out of the carriage and saw quite a commotion along the shoreline below. People were running this way and that while four dozen small boats lined the rocky coast.

The pagans stood a head taller than most of the balding monks and stuck out for their chests bare save for the glittering metal breast plates. There were lots of them and I was surprised to find them highly organized. Many of the smaller boats were rowing away, now weighted with their plunders, while the others were still being loaded in an orderly fashion.

It did not seem to me that they were taking captives, but then again old monks were not ideal slaves.

"Vikings!" an old man called in the distance, "Save yourselves!"

Just then, Lauren yanked me back into the carriage with a sharp tug to my blue silk dress.

"Are you daft Bella? They will see you and take away to a life of sin," she snapped in her overly dramatic way. I could not resist rolling my eyes. Lauren thought a woman who read was living a life of sin; a Dane was the devil in her eyes.

English women talked of their brutality and gossiped about their barbaric ways. They said, they beat their wives and bedded their sisters. I was certain most of what was said was purely fabricated, teatime gossip. Yet, I could not believe how many women alleged it as truth. They all crawled under their beds at the word Viking. But I, being a scholar who studied books on people of all sorts, was not afraid of these people. They were men just like our men; it was not as if they had some supernatural advantage.

"We must turn around, posthaste!"

"Lauren," I countered, aggravated that one of those women happened to be in my carriage, "that will only call attention to us." Her eyebrows lowered and her lips tightened into a scowl. "We should continue on and turn once we reach the fork in the road. Besides, they do not seem interested in taking people," I explained in a leveled voice. Angela just nodded at my logic, but Lauren grew hot with anger.

"BELLA! For once in your life act like a woman and practice some prudence! These are blood thirsty Vikings! They enslave children and steal women's virtue, for amusement. We are not going to just slip on by," she argued in a bitter tone, but I would hear none of it.

It did not make sense to turn around. The road was narrow and chances were, turning around would take time and only call more awareness to the lavished carriage we were running off with.

"Continue on," I ordered Eric, my driver, with a rap to the thin roof. I resorted to glaring at Lauren to keep her from open her mouth. My brown eyes just dared her to contradict my order. Angela scooted her frail frame as far away from Lauren as our confines would allow. She was clearly withdrawing from adding her voice to the argument. It was alright, Lauren was voice enough.

"TURN AROUND," growled Lauren in a deep but frantic voice. She often tried to boss me around. But today, I was not going to give in to her melodrama.

"Keep going, Eric," I countered folding my arms across my chest.

The two of us continued to give poor Eric opposing instructions. He in turn, attempted to abide by both set of orders, making the carriage jolt this way and that.

And then it just stopped, not moving at all.

"Eric? ERIC?"

I was losing my patience and was about to storm out and reprimand Eric for listening to Lauren's voice over mine, when the door was ripped from its golden plated hinges.

His warm brown eyes took me off guard and for once in my life, I found myself cowering before a man. I Isabella Swan, who claimed to fear no one, was now fighting not to quiver with alarm. Across from me both Angela and Lauren fainted in fright. Lauren screamed something, that sounded like, "Lord have mercy!"' before she joined sweet Angela on the carriage floor.

But I, I just stared.

He had a mop of messy mahogany curls and a warm handsome face. Unlike what I would have expected, he was smooth and shaved. While his trousers were made of simple leather his bronze chest plate was ornately gilded, inlaid with gems and diamonds. The plate barely covered his massive, brawny chest. His shoulders were broad and his waist was trim. The physique of this man was absolutely astonishing; he stood three and a half heads taller than I. His build was the kind you read about in the tales of the Greek gods.

He noticed my appraisal of his size and let his dimples furrow even deeper. He was smiling, and it did not seem to be an ill mannered smile, just a cheerful one. In one moment's time, he picked me up, pulled me from the carriage and hoisted my body in the air, as if showing off his find.

"Jasper, look at this. And you claimed that we would not find a women for Edward to bed," he said laughing at the tall man who was tying up Eric a few yards away. The fair haired man looked up and scowled.

"Put her down, Emmett. The girl's heart will cease to beat, if you toss her around like that," he scolded lightly as he finished the last knot with a violent tug. Eric was now rolling around in the damp grass gagged and restrained. "I honestly do not understand Christian men. How does he consider himself a man when he abandoned a woman without fight? They truly are wretched!"

The two were speaking a language that I had studied for a long time. In fact, I spoke the Celtic tongue, Norse, English and the dialect specific to the Danes. I followed their Dane tongue well enough that I could tell he was speaking of Eric.

He had ran off and left us? Eric, who had served my family for entire life, left us here to die?

When the other man stood up, I got a better look at him. He was dressed in the same ornate fashion, and while tall, he was not nearly as buff. His build was lean but his face equally handsome, equally smooth and hairless. The honey locks, pushed back from his face, and fair skin looked standard for a Viking man.

"All of these men even the old religious ones, should have their manhood removed for being so fearless. I demanded Alice to stay aboard just to keep her from scum like this."

"Yes and luckily brother, she obeys you," said the big one, his hands still firmly planted on my bony shoulders.

"She obeys because she knows the consequence of going against me," intoned the tall one, swiftly kicking Eric with a booted foot.

"Alice is just good-natured, it is not as if you made her that way," replied the brother, in a tart manner. It was as if they were edging each other one, jesting to irk each other's nerves. The taller one smiled at the truth he was not going to acknowledge, then picked up Eric and stalked down to place him amongst the loot.

To my right a smaller Viking approached with a scoff, their face covered by a helmet and their upper body more plated in armor than the rest of them.

I blinked twice when I recognized the shape as woman. Her waist flared into undeniably female hips and her long legs were clothed in tight leather britches, showing off the rest of her curves quite faultlessly.

She ripped off the helmet letting her long golden locks fall around her shoulder and down her back. With her view now unobstructed she glared at me with her deep blue eyes. She was gorgeous.

"We do not need slaves! Strip her of her dress and leave her here. When they are dressed like that, you have to beat them too often to get them to work," she nagged the large man in a pouty tone. She tucked her helmet under her arm and let her hips swing as she approached him, using all of her feminine charm to convince him.

"Rose, we have room for slaves. So we are taking them," he said in a firm but well-bred tone, but she scowled even more at the decree. He showed he was serious by gagging me with a wool strip of cloth. I twisted as he secured the gag.

"I will not have it, Emmett! I do not want more slaves, nor do I need them!"

"Rose, they are not for you," he informed in a growl, "and if you continue to question me, I'll beat you like everyone suggests I should. I let you raid with us because it makes you happy. But even as a shieldwoman, you are still my woman. Now tie her up and get her to a boat!"

She turned away for a moment to shield her emotions from me. Even if she thought I did not know their language, she knew better than to think I did not recognize such a rebuking tenor. When her helmet was back on, the woman sulkily complied with his orders, tying my hands viciously tight as punishment. All the while the giant man locked me forcefully in his grasp. I squirmed for my freedom, but the woman just laughed an acidic laugh. My struggling was pointless, and her laugh was only to remind me.

I could tell that she did not like me; the stares she gave were venomous and cold yet burning like hot iron. She began to tug me back to the shoreline, when the giant man pulled her into his arms, pulled off her helmet and began to lavish her with kisses. While she was tall, in the man's embrace she appeared undersized. Her one hand still held my confines while her other was wrapped around his neck. I stood as far away as I could. Meanwhile, the other brother had returned and jeered at the display.

"I'm sorry, love. I did not mean to grow cross with you. I'm just in my raiding manner and you barked at me," he whispered between tender kisses. It was clear he did not want the other man to hear his affectionate words, as if by apologizing to her he was less of a man. "I would never beat you as they suggest. Only if you really deserved it."

The woman smiled, warmed by the promise. I could not see why, to me that was not a promise at all. The lean man walked over to me and pried my ropes from the blonde woman's hand and hoisted me over his shoulder, tramping back down to the last two row boats left.

"Brother, Sister, make haste. Father wants us home for mother's banquet. Get the other two girls and get to the damn boat!" he ordered to the Viking couple. My heart fluttered in my chest. They all shared the same father! Perhaps they did beat their wives and bed their sisters. I was not sure if they were as barbaric as those ninnies claimed them to be, but the one thing I was sure, they were taking me away and my life was never going to be the same again.

Reviews will get you hot-controlling Edward! Who does not want that?