Chapter ten
Eisa
Pummeling the life out of each other must be a formative bonding experience for men, because after their display in the sparring ring, the soldiers in the barracks seemed to have accepted Jorgen and Arik as members of their own.
They had insisted we stay to eat in their dining hall, and I could swear I had heard about sixteen different retellings of my mate knocking out one of the commanders with his stick.
Arik had been gracious enough to teach the move to anyone who asked, and the thwump of a male body hitting the ground, followed by uproarious laughter, punctuated the meal every few minutes.
“Ye should fucking murder the smarmy bastard.” Arne swallowed his ale in a single gulp, slamming the tankard on the wooden table with a grimace. “Tastes like a bag of wet wool.”
Arik sat next to me, his thumb brushing over the back of my hand as his uncle plotted his brother’s untimely death.
“Maybe wait to plot regicide until we’re not surrounded by witnesses,” Arik suggested, ignoring the admiring glances the human soldiers kept shooting his way.
“It’s not regicide if it’s the fucking prince,” Arne argued a shade too loudly. “It’s…” he frowned, hunting for the right word. “Princicide.”
“Eloquent.” Arik tipped his glass up and drained the contents, his eyes landing on my mostly full plate. You’re not eating?
I took a bite of my roll to placate him. Training and the confrontation with Edvard had taken a lot out of me, and I was more tired than anything else. Just not very hungry.
You should eat the chicken, Arik said into my mind as he nudged my plate closer to me. Protein.
I scowled and took a pointed bite of potato just to annoy him.
His beard twitched, and he nudged my plate again.
“I’ve half a mind to string him up the ash tree myself,” Arne continued, oblivious to the protein debate. “Beruffled shirts and all, the skunner.”
“Why are you still angry about this?” Arik sounded genuinely curious at his uncle’s fury, which I had gathered over the course of the day tended to be frequent but short-lived.
Except when it came to Edvard, apparently.
Arne lowered his voice and growled, “Because everyone in this godsforsaken hell hole of a kingdom knows that you should be the fucking king.”
“If someone heard you—“
“Dinnae pretend they havnae thought it themselves.” Arne’s accent seemed to come out more thickly when he was irritated, and it was wildly endearing. “Of all the insufferable, sniveling—“
Why aren’t you eating? Baldur’s voice pressed into my mind this time, his white energy twining with Idunn’s. My mate is hungry.
Idunn is always hungry, I pointed out, wishing I could brandish my fork at the dragon. And I’m trying, but I don’t have the stomach of a dragon in this form, I’m afraid.
Leave her alone, you great lizard, Arik cut in, completely ignoring the fact that it was he who had begun the nagging.
A hand snapped loudly in front of Arik’s face, and we both looked up to see Arne scowling at us. "Are ye even feckin' listening to me?"
“Yes, and I’ve heard this all before," Arik replied smoothly. "I’ve no desire to be king.”
“Aye, but what about her?” He waved his fork wildly, turning the full attention of his bright green gaze on me. “Don’t ye think he should be king, lass? Wouldnae he do a far better job of it than his shite of a brother?”
“Arne—“
“I’ll hear what yer lady says, boy. Ye may have a dragon living inside ye now, but I could still turn ye over my knee if I had to.”
“I’d like to see you try,” Arik muttered mutinously.
“Go on then, lass.” The fork pointed ominously toward me. “What say you?”
Both Arik and Arne raised their brows at me as I weighed my answer, and it was almost comical how alike they looked at that moment.
“Yes,” I smiled, squeezing Arik’s hand. “He would. But I have no desire to be trapped in yet another cage, no matter how gilded, and neither does Arik.”
Arik brushed his thumb over the back of my hand again, approval caressing the edges of my mind.
“And ye dinnae think Ironholm is a cage?” Arne gave me an oddly calculating look, as if my answer would tell him something fundamental about me that I might not want him to know.
But I remembered asking Arik the same thing when he first wanted to take me to Ironholm.
“We are never free of masters.” I looked up at Arik, whose eyes shone faintly silver in the dim light. “The key is in knowing which masters are worth shackling yourself to. I believe I found a worthy one.”
I have no desire to be your master, Kjaere, Arik murmured into my mind as he pressed a kiss to my temple. But I’m honored by your trust.
Presumptuous to think I was talking about you, I teased.
Arik pinched my backside in retaliation, and Idunn purred as something in my core heated.
We should go upstairs, she suggested. It’s been too long.
It’s been less than twenty-four hours, you complete menace, I hissed at her.
Baldur growled so deeply in Arik’s chest that I was certain Arne had heard it.
“Elysia’s great saggy tits, ah cannae take this.” Arne stretched, throwing an aggrieved look at his nephew. “I can see why yer besotted with her, lad, but I beg ye to take yer maudlin demonstrations away. Spare an old bachelor his sanity.”
“Gladly.” Arik’s voice was still a rumble as he rose from the table to clasp his uncle’s forearm. “And the matter we spoke of?”
I frowned, waiting for an explanation as the men shared a look.
Arne nodded once as he dropped Arik’s arm. “Aye, I’ll think on it. I’ll go do some poking around and let ye know what I find.”
What’s going on? I asked Arik, unable to wait.
Tell you in a moment.
“Lady Eisa.” Arne forced me to let the subject drop as he took the hand that wasn’t being held by Arik and brought it to his lips. “It’s been a pleasure. Clearly, Arik chose his mate well. Please consider my life yours, should you ever have need of it.”
“Just Eisa is fine, really,” I replied, not sure what to say to such a vow. I settled on a rather lame, “Thank you.”
Arne smiled, the expression lifting at least ten years from his face. “We’re family now, lass. No thanks needed. Ever.”
“Now who’s making maudlin demonstrations?” Arik gave his uncle an exasperated but equally fond look as he retrieved my hand from his uncle’s grasp and replaced Arne’s kiss with his own. “You old softy.”
Arne made a noise of derision and threw up his hands in defeat, storming from the room as he shouted at several soldiers to get out of his way. He was the only jarl present, but it seemed that his temper was well known as the soldiers obeyed with laughter rather than fear.
I like him, I told Arik through the bond.
You certainly made an impression on him, Kjaere. Arik’s eyes glittered faintly silver as he helped me stand. I think I could count on one hand the number of times he’s kissed the hand of a lady, and two of them now are you.
“Are we leaving, then?” Jorgen stood and held out his hand for Branka, looking at Arik expectantly.
He’s a difficult man to read, Arik continued, ignoring his best friend.
Not like you at all, I quipped.
He gave my hip a squeeze, his eyes full of mischief. I’ll make you pay for your sass later.
Promise?
“For fucks’ sake,” Jorgen growled. “What is it you’re really doing during these long silences? Eye-fucking?”
I choked on a laugh. "Is everyone using this term now?"
Arik’s gaze met mine, his beard twitching. “You may as well tell him, since Branka knows.”
“Since Branka knows what?” Jorgen looked at his mate accusingly.
I nodded at Branka, and she blurted, “Arik and Eisa can speak mind to mind!”
Jorgen's eyes widened, then narrowed. A wicked grin transformed his face. “So you were mind-fucking, then?”
“Hearthmother, spare me.” Arik scrubbed a hand over his face and dragged me away as Branka elbowed Jorgen in the ribs.
He laughed. “What? It’s definitely what we’d do!”
“So I’m guessing this entire afternoon was a ploy to win the trust of your father’s soldiers?” I asked as I squeezed the water from my hair before the hearth again.
We had all retired after dinner, Branka begging fatigue, although I had a strong feeling she would not be sleeping any time soon based on the look Jorgen had given her as we’d said goodnight.
I doubted I would, either. Arik was sprawled across the bed completely nude, his hair still slightly damp from bathing, as he looked through the correspondence that had been waiting for us in our rooms.
Idunn was thoroughly intrigued, and she sent me several mental suggestions about what we might do with him lying in that same position.
“It was Arne’s idea,” he replied, seemingly oblivious to Idunn’s rampaging lust. “Something about showing them true strength.”
“It seemed to work. Did you speak to him about the Rift? The Althing? What was all that crypticness at the end of dinner?”
“Crypticness.” He snorted in amusement. “He’s going to the skalds tomorrow to ask about the Book. They’re all about a hundred years old, and I don’t want to frighten them into an early grave. Arne’s less terrifying than I am.”
“Yes, you’re very scary.”
I quickly braided my hair over my shoulder, the wet plait leaving a damp spot in the linen nightgown. It was far less beruffled than the one from the previous night, and Arik frowned as he looked up from his letters. “I think I liked the other nightgown better.”
“You destroyed the other one, if you recall.” I sat on the edge of the bed, just too far out of the reach of his embrace. “What’s in the letters?”
Arik’s beard twitched in amusement, his eyes glowing faintly. “Just reports and purchases that are more than a month old. It’s no wonder Einar was such an ass when this is all he had to look forward to.”
He reached for me in a sudden movement, and I let him catch me around the waist.
“It’s not kind to speak ill of the dead.” My comment was rather breathless as he kissed the spot below my ear and made me shiver.
Arik pulled back and gave me a sardonic look. “That was the kindest thing I’ve ever said about Einar. It was almost praise.”