Filed to story: A Fate Inked In Blood Free
“Bodil thinks that just because she’s allied with my father, she’s privy to clan business,” he said. “So it was her I was escaping, not you. What’s your excuse?”
That I want to lose myself in your arms and I’m afraid everyone knows it. I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I’ve been occupied with my training.”
“With Bodil.” His voice was flat.
“Yes, with Bodil and her warriors.” Why couldn’t I look at him? Why couldn’t I meet his gaze? “What of it?”
Bjorn opened his mouth, but instead of allowing him to speak, I blurted out, “You made it clear it was not a role you wanted. Denied in no uncertain terms that our destinies were entwined.”
“Freya-“
“Even if you felt differently, Bodil is a better teacher.” My underarms were dampening, my voice breathy in a way I detested. “You rely on size and strength when you fight, but I’m small and weak and-“
“You aren’t weak.”
My cheeks flushed. “Well, perhaps not. But I am weaker than most men, which means that I can’t fight like a man. I want to learn to fight like a woman.”
Silence.
Biting the insides of my cheeks, I waited for Bjorn to speak, the anticipation of what he would say the purest form of misery. I was sweating like a pig, and even if he couldn’t see it beneath my cloak, he could probably smell it and all I wanted to do was jump in the deeper current of the stream and allow it to wash me away.
Instead, I forced myself to turn around.
Rather than glowering, Bjorn’s expression was thoughtful. As our eyes locked, he gave a nod. “You have the right of it. Bodil will teach you better than a man ever could.” But then his head tilted, his eyes narrowing. “Yet that does not explain why you refuse to even look at me.”
My heart skipped, then raced, and I swallowed hard. Excuses sat on my tongue like thorns, words that he’d have to accept even if he didn’t quite believe them.
But I didn’t want to lie. Not to him.
Taking a deep breath to steady myself, I said, “I’ve been avoiding you because of what happened between us at Fjalltindr.”
Bjorn huffed out an aggrieved breath. “We did what we needed to do to keep Harald’s men from taking you, Freya. Not even my father would judge.”
“Then why did neither of us tell him?”
“Because it wasn’t necessary!” Bjorn threw up his hands, looking away. “It didn’t mean anything.”
I flinched, then tried to cover it by shifting my feet. Wasted effort because Bjorn’s eyes narrowed as he said, “What more is there to say?”
Everything.
It would be easier to shrug and say nothing than to admit the truth. Easier to leave the conversation as it stood and walk away, my pride intact.
Except that would be the act of a coward who’d rather lie and pretend than own the truth, and that wasn’t who I was. Or rather, that wasn’t who I wanted to be.
“It wasn’t nothing. Not-” My voice cracked, my chest painfully tight. “Not to me.” My eyes burned and though the last thing I wanted to do was cry, I could sooner have stopped my heart from beating than hold my tears in check, hot droplets rolling down my cheeks. “I wanted to do what we did. Wanted you.”
Bjorn went still, not even seeming to breathe.
I tried to suck in a breath to calm myself but my whole body shuddered. I was supposed to be a warrior. A leader. The woman who’d unite Skaland beneath the rule of a king. Yet I couldn’t get through a conversation without crying like a child. “I know you know this,” I said, struggling to speak without my breath catching on every word. “That you’re excusing my actions to spare me shame and make things easier for us both. I know I should feel grateful for that, but…”
“Freya.” His hands cupped my face, thumbs brushing away my tears, but I pushed him away because his touch would shatter what remained of my composure.
“I am married to Snorri.” The words came out in a rush of breath, and I squeezed my eyes shut. “He is your father, and while you might not always see eye-to-eye, I know you are loyal to him. Which means my behavior disrespected you both. You were trying to protect me, whereas I…I…”
Then Bjorn’s lips were on mine.
I gasped, my eyes snapping open as my back struck the wall of the ravine. His hands caught my wrists, holding them above my head even as his hips pressed hard against mine, holding me in place. “Bjorn-“
He silenced me, tongue delving into my mouth and stroking over mine, stoking the heat that had already ignited between my thighs. “I,” he whispered, biting at my jaw, then my throat. “I, I, I, Freya. You love that word because you relish taking the blame for everything, whether it is your fault or not.”
My eyes shifted left, looking down the ravine, because all it would take was one of the hunters or foragers seeing for us to be doomed. We needed to stop this. But as he ground against me, any thought of leaving evaporated.
“I came up with the plan. I kissed you first.” His mouth claimed mine, sucking and stroking and biting. “I touched your perfect breasts.” He pressed my left wrist against my right, gripping them both easily with one hand so that he could run the other up my side, his thumb rubbing over my peaked nipple.
His stubbled cheek brushed against mine, his breath tickling my ear as he said, “And don’t you dare tell me that it was respect for my father that you felt pressed between your thighs that night.”
It hadn’t been then. And it wasn’t now.
No, what I felt was the thick ridge of his hard cock pressing through his trousers as he lifted me with one arm, putting me back where I’d been that night in Fjalltindr. Desire throbbed at the apex of my thighs, and I ground against him, hunting the release I’d been denied before.
Bjorn groaned into my throat and released my wrists. Freed, I wrapped my arms around his neck, unfastening the tie holding his hair and then tangling my fingers into its silken lengths.