Chapter 47
Nordin finds me in the longhouse playing Rafbo with Vanoo and Nika.
“Are you winning?” he asks as he straddles the bench I sit on and hooks my waist, scooping me into his warm, wind-scented body.
My stomach erupts with butterflies that take flight when he presses a kiss to the crown of my head.
“She is killing us.” Nika sighs. “You taught her the game too well, Nordin.”
I hunt her expression for jealousy. And hunt. I find none. Perhaps I should make an effort to dislike her a little less.
“Where’s Saga?” Nordin asks, peering around the room.
“Getting to know a Ravine intimately on the mezzanine.” Nika nods to the upper floor of the longhouse that could’ve been hers had she taken Havrik as her true mate.
I wonder if she ever regrets turning down a preordained bond to a Jarl. I also find myself wondering whether she sensed his death. I file the questions away for another time. Like for Saga’s birthday party, which Nika and I have decided to host together, here.
Yes, together. It was Nika’s idea. Doing it in the Ravine Valley was Vanoo’s, since he rightfully pointed out that, what with the vampyrs hanging over the Vale sky like smog, it’d be more festive here.
“Will your father give Tyron up?” Nika asks Nordin.
“No.” His chest grows rigid. “Gustafson’s now considered a hero.”
“Obviously not by you.” Nika flips the hourglass so Vanoo can commence his turn, but he doesn’t.
I suspect we’re done playing.
“Didn’t he do Zaskja a favor?” she asks.
Nordin’s fingers spread on my stomach as though he worries I may slip away from him if he doesn’t hold on to more of me. “In a way. In another, he’s brought every dragon to our skies.”
“We have half the Wilds. And solid wards,” Vanoo says, meaning to reassure his friend and leader.
But the tension rippling through Nordin’s fingers tells me his mind remains infested with restlessness.
“A much greater war than you were planning is on the horizon, isn’t it?” Nika asks.
Nordin swallows, the apple in his throat so sharp I worry its bobbing will end up carving through the strained column of flesh. “The Firs have aligned with Far. The Glaciers with me. If your father doesn’t back my vote to hand Gustafson over, then yes, Nika, we’re looking at a much greater war.”
A war that the valkyries won’t aid us in winning, since no one in their right mind will travel to a part of Isrike overrun by the beasts that can chew away their magic and make them mortal.
“I’ll go talk to my father.” Nika gets up, then smooths her dress, which hasn’t acquired any wrinkles considering the fabric’s fineness.
I glance down at my dress—the one Thyra lent me the night I was covered in Havrik’s blood and she insisted I keep. The wool is far nicer than any I owned in the past; nevertheless, it’s still not as lovely as Nika’s.
As a Jarl’s mate, I could acquire finer dresses, but what if Nordin, who’s only added a few modest tunics to his wardrobe, thinks me vain for desiring more luxury?
“If you succeed in bringing him to my side, Nika,” he adds, staring at the Fjord shifter with an intensity that grates my nerves, “I’ll be eternally grateful.”
She holds Nordin’s stare for so long that the grating turns into kicking, one that casts me outside the intimate place they’ve erected between them.
I touch my neck and toy with the choker, which suddenly feels too snug. My dress’s bodice also feels too tight. Not Nordin’s grip, though. It no longer feels tight, only rigid, like he could be holding on to an inanimate object.
“I’ve no need for gratitude, Nordin Stormsson, because peace would benefit us all.”
“You’ll still have it,” he insists.
When she offers him a smile, I twitch. Which finally…finally draws Nordin’s attention back to me.
“I’ll go check on Saga,” I mumble, disengaging myself from Nordin to catch a much-needed reprieve. I walk woodenly toward the stairs and call out, “Saga, Nika’s leaving! Are you heading out with her?”
“No,” is all Saga shouts back before bursting into a fit of giggles.
At least one of us is having a good time.
Saga’s suddenly leaning over the balustrade, breasts propped so high in her dress that the pink rings around her nipples peek out.
“Thanks for accompanying me, Nika!” she yells before turning to me.
“Leave your door unlocked, Zas? I’ll be another hour.
” She glances over her shoulder and grins.
“Or two.” When she looks back down, it’s no longer at me, but at the broad presence looming over my shoulder.
“Unless there’s no more room for me in your bed… ?”
Nordin’s hand warms my hip. “Zaskja’s bed is all yours, Saga.”
The corners of her mouth lift up and up. “Can’t wait for breakfast.”
Clearly, what Saga can’t wait for is the conversation we will have during breakfast. She blows us a kiss before returning to her latest conquest.
“Ready to go?” Nordin asks.
Without meeting his eyes, I nod.
He watches me the entire way back to his house, but it isn’t until we’re inside that he cups my face and demands my stare. When I keep it fastened to the scar on his chin, he murmurs, “Zas, love, let me in.”
I roll my lips, lick them, then finally meet his eyes. “Let you into where?” I ask, feigning naivety.
His chin drops some more. “Into your mind.”
“I’m not your true mate, so unfortunately, that won’t be possible.”
How deeply his eyebrows slant. “What did I do to earn such snark?”
You looked at Nika as though she were Fenrir’s gift to wolfkind.
“Nothing,” I snipe, shifting my gaze to the lacquered shiplap. “You did nothing.”
“Does this have to do with Nika?”
“No.”
“Liar.”
“I’m not lying.” I lift my chin in defiance. “This has to do with my lack of self-confidence.”
“And confidence in me, manifestly.”
“No. In her. And don’t say I have nothing to worry about, because that won’t make me stop worrying.”
Nordin sighs, then cradles my jaw to hold it steady.
Lips a mere breath away from mine, he says, “Will seeing your name on my ear reassure you that no one will come in between us? Because if that’s the case, then I’ll rouse the pack and Gothi Dorson so that he can prepare his inking tools this very night. ”
I try to swallow, but with my face tipped as it is, the saliva merely pools in the back of my mouth, burning my throat like beads of moisture now burn my lash line.
“No. I don’t want a rushed ceremony. And I don’t want to tear people out of their beds.
And I certainly don’t want to marry you because I feel insecure. ”
“Whenever you’re ready, I’m ready.” He brushes a kiss against my lips. “And except for Ravines—and my sister—no one else needs to be invited.”
“I want Koppar and Astrid there,” I say.
“Done.”
My stiff dread turns into molten relief. “Thank you for putting up with my madness.”
“I love that you’re mad for me, because I’m fucking mad for you.”
I throw my arms around his neck and kiss him hard. So hard that I almost chip a tooth. So hard that his lips bend into a smile at my ardor. Gods above, I love this man.
The Norns must’ve pushed me through that portal and onto his path. My ingress into the land of wolves couldn’t have been a mistake, especially on a night filled with auroras.
When the strain on his spine becomes too much for him to bear, he bundles me into his arms and glides me up his body. And then he’s walking us toward the bedchamber, raining tender kisses down my neck.
“I’ve got a jar of blubber in my pocket,” I rasp.
A short exhale licks across my kiss-damp skin. “Are we about to craft tallow candles?”
I laugh. “No.” Another huff of laughter escapes me. “Don’t you know one of the primary uses for whale fat?”
“Cooking?” he suggests before suckling the skin at the base of my throat.
“Lubricating.”
He releases my skin with a pop, his head practically ricocheting backward. The shock etched across his face only fans my amusement.
“I thought it could come in handy.” I nuzzle the edge of his square jaw. “And not to make candles.”
A shudder breaks the spell. “You’re not sore anymore?”
A little, but not enough to stop me from wanting him to explore me with his hands, mouth, and cock. I shake my head.
He clears his bedchamber’s threshold and pounds toward the bed.
My feet have barely touched the rug before he’s rid me of my belt and then of my dress. Before tossing the latter aside, he retrieves the glass jar from my pocket and studies it as though it were some magical orb fallen from the sky.
I sit on the bed and pull off my boots as he twists open the pot and sets it on the nightstand. And then he’s ridding his body of clothes, muscles swelling and moving beneath his taut skin.
He’s fully bare before I am, which makes him lean over me, hook my knickers, and help me out of them.
And then he’s bearing down on me, chest to chest, easing my spine onto his furs. He kisses my mouth, my neck, my collarbone, one nipple, the other. The wet press of his lips on the pink points echoes down my body, converging toward another sensitive spot.
When a moan floats from my lips, he looks up, swirling his tongue on the tight areolas. “Do you know how fucking sexy you are?”
I don’t, because in my mind, sexy comes with luscious curves, and a woman who actually knows how to use them. Like Saga. Like—
No, I chide myself. Don’t bring Nika here.
I shove the Fjord wolf as far away as I can, mentally picturing tossing her from the western cliffs of the Vale Valley. The same ones from which Askor’s remains were thrown so that they’d sink straight to Jotunheimr. Or so shifter lore claims…
Nordin is so concentrated on my breasts that he thankfully doesn’t pick up on my mental ramblings. When he begins his descent, trailing his mouth down the center of my stomach, my mind turns blissfully quiet.
He watches me the whole time, observes how I shiver, how my skin pebbles, how my lungs fill while my navel dips. When his knees thump into the floor and his nose splits my curls, I forget how to breathe.
I forget my name.