Chapter Fifteen
-ASTRID-
From the moment I had no choice but to leave Declan guarding the front door of my cottage against Gustav if he made a drunken appearance, I felt unsettled. While yes, I desperately wanted Declan inside with me, wrapped up in my arms, it was more than that.
Different than anything I had ever felt.
An edginess that I feared when I rarely feared anything.
I tried to sleep but only tossed and turned, restless and uneasy, until I felt a sharp sense of alarm and bolted upright in bed. It took me a moment to realize the feeling was not my own but someone else’s.
Terrified for Declan when my talisman warmed, I nearly bolted for the door when the dwindling embers on the hearth hissed, spat, and a fire flared to life on its own.
Crawling out of bed, I drifted to the flames, only to see Freya weeping over our father’s body.
Unexpected emotion washed over me, and my throat clogged at the sight of him.
Gone was the big, robust warrior of my youth.
Instead, I gazed upon a rail-thin skeleton of the man he once was.
“He is gone, sister,” Freya’s voice whispered to me through the crackle of the flames without her looking in my direction. “Father now dines with Odin in the great halls of Valhalla.”
Where I had thought I would feel nothing upon his death, I felt a great deal. Not for who he had become but who he once was. The father who had, at one time, looked at me with such adoration. A powerful Helvig Earl who had led our tribe to greatness.
Honoring that, I did as Freya, Soren, Tove, and my father’s second-in-command, Knud did. I lowered to one knee, bent my head, and offered my blade in supplication to the superior warrior and leader my father had been.
Somehow, I wasn’t surprised when Declan sensed what was happening and flew inside.
I was, however, surprised when he knelt beside me.
He might not have offered his blade, given my father was his enemy, but he did lower his head in respect, and it meant a great deal to me.
Then he held me afterward as I wept, making a saint out of fate and my destined path in life, because I had never needed anything more.
When the fire eventually hissed and spat on the hearth like it had the night we married, it drew our attention and with good reason.
“What are we witnessing now?” Declan wondered softly.
“My sister, Tove.” I fingered my talisman when it grew especially warm. Tove had just stepped out of my father’s lodge with Freya, Soren, and Knud, only for our people to kneel and offer their blades to her in supplication. “They want her to be the next Helvig chieftain. ‘Tis a great honor.”
Declan's eyebrows swept up. “Women can become chieftains in your country?”
“Rarely, if ever.” Though I wished it were otherwise. “But ja, every so often over the ages it has happened.”
“Is Tove not to marry, then?” he wondered as the image faded and the fire returned to normal. “Or has she already married?”
“Nay, not Tove yet.” I shook my head and wondered how things would be back home from now on.
“Outside of our father, she was the only one who could rein in Knud, so Father kept her close. I could not say what he meant for her after his death. She was too important in the role she already played, taming his beast as Knud is more of a Helvig berserker than most.”
“Knud was the man beside her, aye?”
“Ja.”
“He looked formidable,” Declan granted, mulling over what he had witnessed with a furrowed brow.
“What do you make of this, Astrid? Where do Tove and Knud stand on their view of us Scots?” He cocked his head, watching me closely.
“Will they back King Hákon as Soren did? Will they fight for him despite knowing you call this country home now? That you are marrying one of its chieftains?”
“Without question,” I said, knowing well the hearts of Tove and Knud.
Their devout loyalty to king and country.
Dread filled my heart at the thought of what may lie on the horizon.
After all, I could very well someday face one of my beloved sisters on the battlefield.
“And they will fight for their king fiercely at that.” Gazing into the flames, I prayed that our fates didn't do that to us.
“Not for lack of love for me but for love of Norway. For love of their king.”
Other than the wind whistling outside and the crackle of the fire, silence descended for several long moments before Declan gently tilted my chin and gazed into my eyes.
“’Twill be all right, wife,” he said softly, gazing at me with such tenderness that it warmed me, fighting back the chilling idea of fighting my own kin. “Tonight isnae the eve to worry about such things but to feel your grief, aye? To worry about the morrow on the morrow.”
Never more grateful for him and all he had turned out to be, I managed a slight jerky nod of agreement and then kissed him gently, soothed by his presence. By his warmth and comfort as he held me. By the love in his gaze when he looked at me.
Needing more of that warmth, or perhaps at this moment, an escape from my grief and worries, I kissed him softly again.
Then once more, before our kiss deepened, making me need even more.
Crave all of what he could make me feel.
So I continued dropping soft kisses against his lips and straddled him, giving him no chance to escape me this time.
Understanding there was no getting away, he gave in, and our kisses grew hungry as his warm hands rode up my thighs and gripped my bare backside beneath my night rail. Hungrier still when I ground my moist center against him, desperate for more.
Growling with approval, he freed himself and steered me onto his rock-hard shaft, swirling the rough pad of his thumb over the tiny nub at the center of my pleasure as I sank onto him. Eyes rolling back in my head, I whimpered with approval as mini tremors of ecstasy pulsed through me.
Releasing a ragged groan of pleasure, he slowly steered me up and down his hot length, only increasing the sensation. Elongating it. Fanning it so skillfully that I utterly lost myself to him.
Seeming to sense the tables had turned and that he now held me prisoner, rather than the other way around, he gathered me closer and wrapped me up in his strong arms. Made me his in brand new ways.
Loved me so exquisitely, pulling forth endless emotions and sensations, that I continually crested the edge.
Soared to new heights as he moved even slower. Pressed even deeper.
This time, there was no rush or frenzy but a slow, deep, burning passion that ebbed and flowed.
Sometimes our lips met. Other times, we simply breathed each other in.
I lost count of how many times he brought me to peak.
How often I shook all over and had to bury my cries of pleasure in the crook of his neck.
Eventually, I realized how difficult it was becoming for him to hold back.
Saw the rabid, ruthless lust he battled simmering in his half-mast eyes.
The tension that tightened his features while he tried to give me all I could take before he finally let go, too.
Desperate to give him that, I moved faster, leaving him no choice but to follow me.
No choice but to surrender to me.
And he soon did, his features twisting with pleasure, as he pulled free from me seconds before taking any more chances.
We lingered that way for a time, trembling and holding each other while we could, basking in the incredible sensations pulsing through us.
Held on until we had no choice but to let go and resume pretending we cared nothing for one another.
“’Twill be good when all this secrecy is behind us,” he eventually murmured. “Though I dread why that might be.”
No doubt he did, as true transparency would likely mean his father had passed. Then, undoubtedly, there would be a third death, as I had foreseen while tending the wounded Norse.
“I saw something earlier,” he revealed when we finally stood and readied ourselves for the coming day, as the sun would soon rise.
“At least I think I did…” Clearly struggling with what he'd witnessed, he hesitated a moment before going on.
“If I didnae know better, I would swear I saw a grey wolf and then a white bear outside.” Hardly believing it, he shook his head.
“Then soon after, it almost seemed like I felt your grief.”
“Perhaps you did,” I said softly. “That was the wolf that gave my sisters and me our talismans as children. Or should I say the spirit of the wolf, or so we have long assumed.”
Knowing he would believe me now, I told him about the grey wolf pup that had appeared through the snow one night at the Russian border, when my sisters and I were walking home.
How it left us a Viking blade sent by the Valkyries, which transformed into three stones, each fated to carry us in different directions in life, and aid us in fulfilling our destinies.
“Since then, the wolf has only followed Freya,” I continued, shouldering into my fur cloak.
“And the spirit of the white bear, Tove. Yet Soren saw them when he nearly died on our shore. Now you, during what I suspect will be another turning point, that steers us three down the paths we must follow and the men we will walk them with.”
“Had you told me this mere weeks ago, I would have thought it a tall tale.” Declan reeled me close and cupped my cheek. “But after what I have seen, I no longer doubt.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry I ever did, lass.”
“You need not be,” I assured, leaning into his loving touch, wishing we need never separate again. “’Tis common enough not to believe such. And truth be told, as previously discussed, these days, ‘tis almost better than the alternative.”