Chapter 11
Chapter
Eleven
Gunnar stood beside the towering rock formation the locals called Grylusteinarnir—Gryla’s Stones—but he knew better. These jagged, wind-scoured pillars were his uncle Eirik, turned to stone after walking into the sunrise centuries ago.
Another mislabeling by humans—everyone lumped trolls under his mother’s name—but Gunnar didn’t mind. Resting here felt fitting. Eirik had taught him more about honor and restraint than anyone. If Gunnar’s end was to mirror his uncle’s, then this was the place to do it.
The mate bond inside him, dormant and aching, had flared not long ago—blinding, electric, frantic. A surge so strong it nearly ripped him from his path and drove him straight toward Wren.
For a breathless moment, hope had flickered. And then it quieted. Dulled. Stilled.
She didn’t need him. She had made that painfully clear.
The bond’s silence hurt worse than the sun ever could. The sun would at least be quick.
Ketill perched on a basalt boulder nearby, arms crossed, watching him with a mix of fear and stubborn brotherly irritation. “Are you certain about this? Waiting one more day would not be amiss.”
Gunnar turned to him slowly. Dawn lightened the horizon by the second, painting the jagged volcanic plain in shades of pewter. “You have tried all night to sway me, brother, but I am determined. Wren made her decision. I will not force what she does not want.”
“You’re not forcing her,” Ketill countered. “You’re giving her time.”
Gunnar pressed a hand against his sternum, the pain sharp, twisting, relentless.
“The bond hurts, Ketill. It is like a blade through the ribs, and the madness presses closer with every moment. Rage is building inside me, dark and wild. I do not want any of you to face the burden of stopping me if I lose myself.” His fingers brushed the cold stone of his uncle. “Eirik knew when it was time.”
Ketill groaned. “Wren is a good woman. She was overwhelmed. Gryla would overwhelm a mountain if it stood still long enough. You will regret this.”
Gunnar lowered himself beside his brother. The wind whipped around them, carrying the sting of salt from the distant sea. “I cannot take that chance. Just as you could not when Andrea refused you.”
Ketill shook his head. “And Andrea changed her mind. Which is why I advise patience.”
They both looked eastward. The horizon glowed brighter—orange bleeding toward gold.
“I wish I could,” Gunnar whispered.
“Gunnar!” A voice cracked through the rocks like a breaking wave.
He tensed. That voice. Her voice.
Wren.
She scrambled across the uneven terrain, Andrea close behind her, Gryla striding like an avalanche a few steps back.
Wren’s breath hitched as she reached him. “Don’t,” she gasped. “Please, don’t do this.”
Gunnar stared at her, afraid to believe it was real. “Wren…?”
She nodded, tears streaking her wind-reddened cheeks. “I was wrong. I was scared. You didn’t reject me. I rejected myself. I thought I wasn’t enough.”
Her voice trembled. “But I am. And I want you. I want us.”
The bond inside him ignited—blinding, fierce, an explosion of warmth that nearly drove him to his knees. His chest seized painfully as hope surged through him so swiftly it hurt.
Ketill let out a long, shaky breath. “Thank the ancestors.”
Gryla wiped at her eyes dramatically. “MY BABIES!”
Andrea elbowed her and winced. “Let them talk.”
Gunnar’s voice cracked as he whispered, “Wren, I thought you were gone. That you didn’t want me. The pain—” His voice fractured. “The madness was closing in.”
Wren took his hands, small and warm against his trembling ones. “I know. Andrea explained everything. And I should have listened to you. I let your mother get in my head.”
Gryla huffed. “I meant no such thing! I merely said she was small and—”
“Not. Now.” Andrea snapped.
Wren didn’t look away from him. “Gunnar, I love you. Not your strength. Not your size. You. Just as you are. And I want to stay, if you’ll still have me.”
The sun crested the ridge fully then, and light spilled across the rocky plains.
Gunnar stepped back into shadow instinctively, but Wren followed, gripping his fingers.
Not pulling. Not demanding. Just offering.
He swallowed hard. “Wren, I choose you. Yesterday, today, and for whatever comes. I would choose you a thousand times.”
She lunged into his arms then—warm, soft, trembling—and the mate bond snapped into place with a roar deep inside him. The pain vanished. The rage evaporated. The madness receded like a wave pulled back into the sea.
He crushed her against him, lifting her clear off the rock, burying his face against her neck with a ragged sound that wasn’t quite a sob.
Ketill cleared his throat. “I think the crisis has passed.”
Andrea swatted him. “Let them have their moment.”
Gryla sniffled loudly. “My son! My tiny daughter-in-law! My future grandbabies!”
Wren’s laugh was teary and breathless against Gunnar’s shoulder. He pulled back just enough to cradle her face in both hands.
“You saved me,” he said softly.
Wren shook her head. “No. You saved me first.”
They were still standing in the shadow of Eirik’s stone form, but the rising sun lit the world around them, shining on the black basalt. Hope warmed Gunnar’s chest, steady, solid, unshakeable.
“Come home with me,” he murmured.
Wren nodded, eyes shining. “Always.”
And Gunnar, with his fated mate nestled against his heart and his family watching proudly, finally stepped away from the stones, not toward the sun, but toward a future he had almost lost.
Wren figured, if she was writing her Guide to Emotional Catastrophes, this would be the lesson learned: If the Universe Gives You a Troll, Don’t Run—Kiss Him, Then Run Back When You Realize You’re an Idiot.
Wren wasn’t sure she’d ever been this tired and this alive at the same time.
The climb back toward Gunnar’s cave blurred into a mix of adrenaline, relief, and the heat of his hand wrapped around hers. Every time she glanced at him, her chest tightened with the terrifying memory of how close she’d come to losing him—of how easily he’d stepped toward that lethal sunrise.
But now they were climbing the winding basalt path, wind at their backs, the sky pale with early morning glow. They reached the rock face where Gunnar brushed his fingers over a barely-visible rune, and the cave entrance shimmered into being.
Home.
She hadn’t realized until she left how much the word now pointed to this place.
Once inside, Gunnar let the curtain fall behind them and quickly stoked the fire and lit a few lamps, transforming the cave from a gloomy space into a warm, inviting home.
When he was done, he turned to her, his expression raw and open in the firelight.
Her feet were rooted to the spot, heart hammering in her chest. This was the moment everything had been driving towards.
She had stopped him from walking into the sun, but they had more to discuss.
She broke first. “I was scared.”
His jaw tightened ever so slightly. “Of me?”
“Never.” She swallowed. “Only of losing you. Of not being what you needed. Gryla said all those things about me being too small, too fragile, that I had to toughen up, and it felt like being back in foster homes all over again. Like I needed to change myself to be loved.”
His eyes softened into something devastating. “Wren, you don’t have to be anything other than yourself.” He stepped closer and cupped her cheek. “I love you as you are, exactly as you are.”
The words cracked something wide open inside her. She grabbed his wrist, grounding herself. “And I love you. I just panicked. I thought walking away would protect me.”
His thumb stroked her cheekbone. “And coming back?”
She placed her free hand over his heart, feeling its steady, powerful beat. “Because I realized that losing you would hurt far worse than staying. I want a life with you. Here. In this cave. In your world.”
He drew a slow breath, almost pained. “Can you truly be happy here, little bird?”
She smiled—small, but sure. “Wherever you are, I can be happy.”
Relief and a hunger so powerful slammed into him as she finally accepted him, and he claimed her mouth with desperate need, his tongue sliding against hers. She moaned into him, fingers digging into his hair, pulling him hard against her as he backed her urgently toward the furs.
The furs welcomed them, hot and wild. Gunnar pressed her down, his massive body caging her beneath him, muscles taut with restraint.
His eyes blazed with rune-light, turning his gaze molten as it raked over her flushed skin.
The bond between them pulsed like a second heartbeat, sending waves of liquid heat through her core.
She dragged her nails along the runes on his arms, watching them flare beneath her touch. “I love you,” she breathed.
He growled—deep and possessive—the vibration traveling from his chest to hers. “I love you, Wren.”
He kissed her again, lips bruising, his hunger almost animalistic.
Gunnar’s breath tangled with hers, their teeth clashing as if neither could bear a moment’s separation.
He nipped her lower lip, drawing blood, and she gasped at the bite of pain, but softened as he soothed the sting immediately with his tongue.
His hands roamed her body feverishly, memorizing every inch as if they had been parted for a long, desperate winter instead of a day.
Each callused sweep over her ribs, her stomach, her hips, left her shuddering and keening softly, the sound swallowed by his mouth.
He cupped her breasts, squeezing gently, and his thumbs rolled her nipples until they ached.
She arched into him, shameless, begging for more.
She wanted to be consumed, wanted to be a part of him, bound by the mate bond, connected to him on a deeper level, finally belonging to someone.
Gunnar obliged, pinning her wrists above her head with a single hand, spreading her out beneath him like an offering.
The runes on his forearms lit at the contact, pale blue fire crackling under her skin, making her writhe and cry out.
His mouth left hers only to blaze a trail down her jaw, her throat, the hollow of her collarbone, leaving a line of stinging nips and wet, soothed kisses in his wake.
She bucked against him, feeling the rigid length of him hot against her thigh, but he was everywhere at once—hands and mouth and the weight of his body pressing her into the furs.
He let her wrists go and she raked her nails across his broad shoulders, delighting in the way he snarled into her skin, then slid her hands down his back, mapping each powerful muscle.
He kissed his way lower, lingering at the swell of her breast, his tongue flicking over the sensitive peak until she whimpered and tried to pull him closer.
Instead, he bit down, just a bite of pain, and soothed the ache with his mouth, his tusks scraping gently against her flushed skin.
Everything faded to static as Gunnar’s hand slid between her legs, finding her slick and ready.
He touched her with reverence and relentless intent, two fingers circling and plunging until her hips lifted off the furs, and every thought tunneled into the desperate, building heat.
She clung to his shoulders, legs quaking, the bond between them pulsing until her entire body felt only half her own.
When he pulled his hand away she nearly sobbed at the loss, but then he was bracing himself above her, his eyes wild and shining, and his body aligned with hers, thick and heavy at her entrance.
When he finally thrust into her, she cried out, nails scoring his back as he stretched her deliciously.
Gunnar’s teeth found her neck, biting just hard enough to mark as he filled her completely.
Their bodies moved in perfect, slick synchrony, the sounds of their coupling raw and uninhibited in the shadowed room.
The runes along his spine burned white-hot with each powerful thrust, his sweat-slicked skin sliding against hers. She wrapped her legs higher around his waist, taking him deeper, begging incoherently for more, harder, faster.
Gunnar’s voice was pure sin against her ear. “Mine to pleasure. Mine to mark. Mine to claim.”
She shattered first—her release tearing through her with such force she screamed, inner muscles clenching around him in pulsing waves. Gunnar followed with a feral sound, his hips jerking erratically as he spilled himself deep within her, the bond between them blazing like wildfire.
He collapsed beside her, both of them slick with sweat and trembling. She curled against him, feeling the thundering of his heart beneath her palm—alive and hers because she’d returned just in time.
It was perfect.
Right up until—
A soft chirrup sounded near the entrance.
Wren blinked. “Ketty?”
The Yule Cat padded into the cave, tail flicking, glaring at them with a highly judgmental expression before leaping onto the foot of the furs and kneading them like she owned the place.
Gunnar groaned. “Not now…”
And then—
“ARE YOU DONE YET?”
Gryla’s voice boomed from outside, echoing off every stone and rune.
“I WANT TO WELCOME MY NEW DAUGHTER!”
Wren slapped a hand over her face, mortified.
Gunnar sighed deeply. “Of course she’s here.”
Ketty chirped in agreement.
Wren let out a shaky laugh and pressed her forehead to his shoulder. “Well, I guess we should go out there.”
Gunnar wrapped an arm around her, kissed her temple, and muttered, “Let me enjoy this moment of peace for exactly three more seconds.”
She smiled against his skin.
And for the first time in her life, she truly felt like she belonged.