Claimed by the Vikings
by Isabel Dare
The sun slanted low through the windows of the scriptorium, spilling a reddish light on the manuscript page that Brother Leo was working on. Its rich colors glowed, making the tiny drawings almost come alive.
Very carefully, he dipped his goose-quill pen into the pot of ink and drew a long curve that turned into a thorny stem. It twisted around the red roses that spilled from the topmost corners of the page, curling around the giant initial A.
Despite his care, Leo had spilled a whole pot of ink over his desk last week, and the Prior had made him scrub the stone floors of the scriptorium for a whole week as a punishment. Brother Leo was young and fit, and his knees didn’t creak when he knelt for prayers, unlike those of the other monks, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed scrubbing floors.
Next to the roses, he traced the outlines of an angel’s face with his pen. It would be a noble angel, firm of chin, with strong features and a sensual mouth.
Brother Leo liked drawing angels. Most of the other scribes weren’t good at faces; they sometimes asked Brother Leo to take over, but then they complained that he was drawing the angels too masculine.
Angels weren’t supposed to look male; they were supposed to be sexless.
So was Brother Leo. Or at the very least, celibate.
That restriction of monastic life wasn’t something he wanted to think about; in fact, he earnestly tried to avoid those thoughts, but they crept up on him anyway.
He was the youngest monk at Culverston Priory, and he sometimes wondered if being a monk really was his calling, or just a convenient way for his overburdened father to get rid of a troublesome younger son. Leo certainly hadn’t been given any choice in the matter.
If God truly meant for him to live like this all his life, wouldn’t He send some sign? Or was it only saints who got signs and omens, and not ordinary mortals like Brother Leo?
At night, when Leo lay in his narrow bed in the dormitory, surrounded by snoring monks, he struggled with the urge to touch himself. That forbidden, sinful urge could be very strong, and sometimes he would wake from wicked dreams to find himself gripping his stiff cock, his hand already moving beneath the blankets.
Once or twice, when it was early enough that nobody else was awake, he gave in to the urge. It was too powerful to resist, he told himself as he moved his hand slowly, blissfully up and down, closing his eyes and trying very hard not to moan.
He would milk himself very slowly, so that the blankets barely moved, making no sound at all and pretending to be fast asleep until he felt release coming upon him. Then, when the delicious waves of pleasure washed over him, he would lie back and tremble with bliss, biting his lip to stay silent, hoping no one spied him in the throes of ecstasy.
When it was over, his young, eager body relaxed into a blissful indolence, and he would slowly move his wet hand up to his mouth and lick away all the traces of his sin.
His seed tasted bitter and salty, and yet he secretly rather liked it. It tasted like a forbidden thing should taste: strange and wild. The taste of sin.
Now, as Leo worked on his illuminated manuscript, he tried not to let his thoughts stray into that dangerous direction.
But in truth, the angel he was drawing was the embodiment of all his secret thoughts. The celestial being was so beautiful, with a dangerously lush curve to that sensual mouth, and Leo could not stop himself from wondering what it would be like to kiss those lips.
Leo had never kissed anyone, and the only loving hands he had ever known had been his own.
His pen scritched busily over the vellum, drawing every curl of the angel’s golden hair. Later, if the stern monk in charge of the scriptorium would let him, Leo would take slivers of precious gold leaf and fill in the hair with real gold.
“Another angel?” Brother Thaddeus said, leaning in over his
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