Chapter 38
Chapter thirty-eight
Kai
We’re in the bathroom after getting clean, then very dirty again. The shower shuts off when I’m spitting toothpaste into the sink.
In my peripheral vision, a glass door swings open, and I glance up into the fogged mirror in time to watch Vidar strut out of the shower, towel dragging through his hair in rough, hurried strokes.
My mate is always a walking mountain of pure muscle, but wet and naked?
Hell yeah.
Teeth graze over my bottom lip as I follow water droplets cascading down his broad chest and over his pierced nipples.
Vidar catches me looking, and I don’t even pretend to stop.
“Enjoying the view?” he asks, so cocky that I want to flip him off.
But as he approaches, his big sexy feet hitting against the grey tiles and long uncut prick swaying between sculptured thighs, all my willingness to call him a bastard drains.
Vidar circles me in his wet arms, nestling his prick between my bare ass cheeks in a way that should be sexual—and it is when I playfully wiggle my hips, and he groans—but really, it’s just nice being held.
I lean back into him, head turning to rest my cheek on his chest. “Your tattoos need a touch-up.”
“You’ll do it for me.” The strong timbre of his voice is syrupy and warm.
“Obviously.” Turning in his embrace, I scan the tattoos across his upper body. “Whoever did them was talented.”
I reach out, wanting to learn the shape of each design as Vidar says, “My father, mostly. Some by others.”
My hand halts.
I always assumed his tattoos were meant to make him look like a badass, and as a tattoo artist, that’s something I can greatly appreciate. But I hadn’t even considered the deeper meaning behind the ink he’s carried under his skin for over a thousand years.
Vidar's lips quirk up.
“Each one is important.” He takes my palm before I can pull it back, laying it flat across the serpent coiling around his shoulder, gaze softening. “Special.”
“Tell me more.”
Vidar kisses my forehead, then slides my hand down the thin hairs of his arm, and to a tree at his elbow with no leaves. It’s a simple branch design done by a confident artist, if maybe inexperienced, from the shaky lines.
“úlfr, my eldest son.” Vidar’s proud chin juts up. “Smart, but stubborn as a boulder.”
“So just like his father?”
Vidar winks, and I push up on my toes to brush a kiss across his lips.
He moves my hand over to a rune at his wrist; a lopsided ‘N’.
“My second eldest, Ketill, did this. He’s a flirt and is forever chasing skirts,” he scoffs. Yet his pride shines, and now more than ever, I can’t wait to meet his sons, just so I can tell them how much their father loves them. “When it came to a broadsword, however, he had no match.”
Our next stop is a paw at his elbow. The ink was pushed in too deep and bled out, like a picture dropped in a puddle.
“And this one?”
“Sigurer, my third son, was born so he could leave.” Vidar laughs, eyes crinkling. An expression I’ve never seen on him, and one I secret away to always keep in my memories. “That boy learnt to run before he could walk. My wife would always ask where he was in such a hurry to get to.”
He takes my cupped hand to the hollow of his neck, where a single arrow rests.
“Finally, Einarr. He’s quiet, like your Teagan, and prefers his own company, a damn fine hunter, too.”
“They all sound amazing,” I tell him truthfully. “It’s been too long since I spoke with any of my boys…”
An array of emotions flickers through him, his features becoming soft. Maybe even a little lost.
“I want to contact them.” Vidar’s voice remains strong, yet a vulnerability peeks out in a way I doubt he’s allowed many to witness.
I move so my body is pressed entirely into his front, like a shield, telling him without words that his heart is safe with me.
“I’m not good with words like you, Kai,” he says, “will you…help me?”
“Of course. Always,” I answer without reservation.
We slip into an easy embrace, like we’ve been holding each other for years, and this close, his beating heart presses against my new scar, and pushes away the hurt that pounds there harsher than my heartbeat.
Without warning, I’m lifted and perched on the edge of the sink, Vidar nudging my chin up to kiss me. His tongue slips into my mouth, going deeper when I moan around it.
“You will give me a tattoo one day.”
“Obviously that was gonna happen.”
“But now we’ll do what we came in here to do.”
My face falls, my stomach doing an uncomfortable flip.
“You wanted to do this,” Vidar says as he collects my jacket from the side.
When he hands it over, knuckles brushing against mine, I hold the worn leather in my lap like it’s more me than my actual skin.
I could close my eyes and know every scratch and mark and where it came from.
And even when I unknowingly painted purple demon Script across the black material, I knew deep down every line was important.
“What if I burn down Vampire Manor?” I mumble.
“You wanted more practice,” Vidar tells me, then shrugs. “Not like we own this place anyway, so burn it down for all I care. Golden burnt down the other mansion.”
“Hold on.” My chin snaps up to shoot him with a dumbstruck look. “None of you owns this mansion?”
Vidar cocks an eyebrow. “Why would we when we move so often? We just compelled the owner to leave.”
My jaw drops. All this time I thought they were rich vampires, but in reality…“You’re squatters?”
Vidar smirks. “Never mind that. Focus on your fire magic, little prince.”
I’m not sure what to say, but after a pause, I just huff. Out of everything I’ve learnt, I guess this isn’t the craziest. “Alright, but I’m not forgetting about this.”
Vidar doesn’t say anything as he moves between my thighs. Waiting patiently for me, and any humour I had drains as I attempt to tackle my fire. My fears.
But I guess I gotta start from the beginning.
“My biological dad taught me to love art.”