Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
She’d gone to the library because it was quiet.
The rest of the keep hummed with the frantic noise of preparation. Boots thudded faster than usual on the stone stairs. Voices carried from the sweltering kitchens. In the Great Hall, heavy oak tables scraped across the floor as the space was rearranged for the gathering.
Matilda needed a place the clamor couldn't reach, a sanctuary where the air didn't vibrate with expectation.
The library sat at the end of the west corridor. It smelled of ancient leather, woodsmoke, and the deep, persistent chill of a room that rarely felt a hearth's heat. Three lairds' worth of books crowded the shelves, their spines cracked, and gold-leaf lettering faded to ghosts.
She’d claimed the high-backed chair by the fireplace as her own. She built the fire herself, watching the sparks catch and the small flames lick the dry wood, and lit the candles until the shadows retreated. She sat with her book and let the silence settle over her like a heavy cloak.
She didn't know how long she’d been reading when the draft found her.
It snuck through a hidden gap in the heavy shutters, pushing through in one cold, purposeful gust. The candles guttered and died in a swift, merciless sequence.
The amber glow only came from the dwindling fire, replaced by a suffocating, slate-colored grey.
Matilda went rigid. Her fingers dug into the vellum pages of her book until the edges bit into her skin.
The fire is still going. There is still light. The room is nae dark. Ye are fine.
She stared at the pulsing orange embers in the grate. She kept her hands flat, forcing her palms to stay still against the leather cover, and dragged air into her lungs in slow, jagged pulls.
She had the flint in her pocket. She could feel the hard, familiar weight of it through the thick fabric of her dress. It was a weight she'd carried for eight years, a charm against the darkness. Her fingers twitched ready to strike, an old reflex before her mind could finish the thought.
She did not reach for it.
She looked at the nearest wick, a thin thread of smoke rising from the dead candle, and willed her arm to move. Her hands stayed locked on the book.
The thought arrived without her permission, a quiet, honest truth that echoed in the hollow of her chest.
Because ye want tae see if ye can hold until he lights them.
Now that the thought had taken root, she could not pull it out.
One. Two. Three.
The grey pressed in from the corners of her vision.
The room was still there. The dark bulk of the shelves, the silhouettes of the books, but the other grey was closer.
The one that lived in the dark, the one that had been haunting her for eight years, knowing exactly which part of her soul was the most fragile.
She counted. She breathed.
Four. Five. Six.
She was twenty-three years old. She was in a Norse keep on the Isle of Mull. The door was not locked. No one was coming to hurt her.
She heard his footsteps in the corridor before the latch turned.
She knew his gait now, the weight and pace, the way his boots landed with a solid thud on the stone. Something deep in her chest unknotted two full seconds before he appeared.
The door swung open. The torchlight from the corridor spilled in around him, casting his long shadow across the floorboards. Matilda exhaled, a long, shaky sound she hadn't decided to make.
"Matilda." His voice was low, vibrating with an immediate, sharp focus.
He crossed to the fireplace without a word. He crouched, his large hands moving with efficient speed to build the fire back into a roar that sent orange light dancing across the room. Then he pulled a taper from his cloak.
He moved through the room. Table first, then the shelf, then the stand by the door. Matilda watched the flames bloom under his hand. She felt the grey pull back, retreating into the corners as the warmth returned.
He set the taper down and crouched in front of her chair.
His eyes were level with hers. He looked at her with steady, unhurried attention, reading the tension in her jaw and the way her knuckles remained white.
"I'm fine," she said, her voice sounding thin to her own ears.
"Aye," he said, his gaze never wavering.
She pressed her lips together. "Ye dinnae have tae be irritating about it."
"I'm nae being irritating. I'm agreeing with ye." He stayed where he was, forearms resting on his knees. He looked perfectly at ease in the crouch, a predator at rest. "Though if ye were actually fine, ye'd have lit the candle yerself."
She glanced at the nearest candle, then back at the heat in his eyes. "I was managing."
"Aye." His voice was a low rasp. "Ye were daein’ an excellent job."
She opened her mouth to snap a response, but he stood and held out his hand. It wasn't a command. It was just an open palm, still and waiting in the amber light between them.
She looked at it.
She thought about two weeks of this man. The way he positioned his body between her and every door before he slept. The ventilation slit he’d cut in the canvas of the training tent. The candles in every corner of their room that were never allowed to burn out. He had never once asked her why.
She put her hand in his.
He drew her to her feet. Then, his arms came around her. One broad palm at her back, the other cradling the back of her head.
Matilda went still. Her body ran its familiar, frantic check. The scan for a threat, for a grip that meant a trap, for the suffocating shape of a cage.
It found none of it. Just warmth. And the unhurried steadiness of a man who had decided exactly where his hands were going to stay.
She leaned in.
Her forehead found the rough wool of his tunic. Her hands bunched into the fabric at his chest and held on. The tight, practiced management of her breathing finally fractured.
He stood like a statue and let her lean. His chin rested on the crown of her head. She could feel his pulse where her forehead pressed against his chest, steady. But there was a thrum beneath it, a lack of the ease he projected.
That small crack in his composure hit her harder than any word.
He wanted a great deal. She could feel it in the rigid stillness of his frame, in the specific, heavy quality of his restraint. He was holding himself back for her.
Something shifted in her chest, a door opening.
"When he took me," she said, her voice muffled against his chest. "The first night, he locked the door. There was nay light. None at all."
His hand at the back of her head didn't move, but she felt his fingers flex slightly against her hair.
"I was fifteen. I'd never been afraid of the dark before that. It was just dark." She paused. The words felt like stones in her throat. "After that, it was something else. Something that lived and knew where tae find me."
He said nothing, only breathed. Long, deliberate draws of air. He was working hard to stay still when every instinct told him to strike at something. She understood that need. She found, unexpectedly, that she didn't mind the violence of his protective instinct.
"I learned tae count," she said. "One, two, three. Sometimes tae ten. It helped. Nae always. But it helped."
His hand moved, a slight, deliberate pressure against the back of her head.
"I was afraid of men," she said, her voice dropping. "After. Fer a long time. Any man who stood too close or reached without warning, me body would…" She stopped. Started again. "It ran its calculations. I thought it would always be like that. I'd made a kind of peace with it."
She lifted her head and looked at him.
He was already looking down at her, his face a mask of iron stillness, his eyes dark with a heat.
"And now?" he said. His voice was low, lacking its usual rasp.
She held his gaze. "Ye ken the answer tae that."
"Aye," he said. "But I want tae hear ye say it."
The audacity of him. Warmth climbed up her neck, and she looked at his mouth instead of his eyes. That was a mistake. His lips were close, too close.
"It daesnae run the calculations," she said. "When it's ye."
Something shifted in his face.
"Good," he said.
He tipped her chin up with two fingers and kissed her.
It was slow. It wasn't the formal performance of their wedding day. It was deliberate and warm. His thumb rested on her jaw, holding her there. Matilda felt her hands tighten on his tunic, her fingers knotting in the wool.
She didn't pull away.
She kissed him back. She started carefully, then stopped being careful. Underneath the caution was a well of want and a specific, staggering relief. She leaned into him because it felt right, and because the suddenness of the feeling frightened her.
He felt the shift. She knew he did. His hand at her jaw tightened a fraction. His breath hitched against her mouth. For one unsteady moment, his restraint nearly snapped.
He held.
He pulled back, his eyes dark and dilated. Matilda stared at him. She had no idea what was written on her face and she didn't care to hide it.
He looked at her mouth, then flicked his gaze away. His jaw worked once.
"Better?" he said, his voice rough.
A tiny smile touched the corner of her mouth. "Aye," she said. "Better."
"Good." He stepped back, releasing her jaw. His voice was still unsteady. "Come then."
She smoothed the front of her dress, her hands trembling slightly, and followed him out.
The chamber was warm, bathed in amber light. Every candle was lit.
Matilda emerged from behind the screen in her nightgown and crossed to the bed. She watched him move through his nightly ritual, checking the heavy shutters, banking the fire for the long night. She was acutely aware of him. She tracked his shadow across the stone floor.
He turned toward the chair.
"Ivar."
He stopped. He stood with his back to her, his shoulders square and rigid. He didn't turn around. She watched the tension in his spine, the stillness of a man who had heard a call he was already expecting.
"The chair," she said. "Ye dinnae have tae."
A long, heavy pause followed.
"Matilda." His voice was a low warning. It was aimed at himself.
"I'm asking ye tae come tae bed," she said, her chin lifting. "Nae tae start a war."
"Ye'd think those were the same thing," he muttered. He finally turned.
She looked at him across the room. He took her in, her hair loose across her shoulders, her hands resting on the covers. He looked at the angle of her chin. Something flickered across his face, a raw emotion he quickly tried to mask.
"It's a large bed," she offered.
"It is."
"Ye've been sleeping in a chair fer almost two weeks."
"I've ken."
"Ivar."
He crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed. He pulled off his boots with slow, methodical patience. Then he lay back on top of the covers. He stayed on his side, facing her, but he left a wide gap of white linen between them. He gave her the choice to close it.
She lay on her back and stared at the ceiling.
The candles burned bright in every corner. The fire hummed. There were twelve inches of pillow between them, and she was aware of every single one.
She turned her head.
He was already looking at her.
"Ye're staring," she said.
"Aye."
"Ye could look at the ceiling."
"I could but I dinnae want tae." He didn't move his gaze.
She held his stare in the candlelight. His eyes were dark and direct.
Heat climbed her neck. "Ye are insufferable even horizontal."
"New territory. I'm adapting."
She pressed her lips together. He watched her with a quiet intensity. "Good night, Ivar," she said, with what remained of her dignity.
The corner of his mouth twitched. "Good night," he said. Low. Close.
Matilda turned back to the rafters.
The fire settled. The candles flickered. She lay in the warmth and felt the impossible weight of him just inches away. His steady breathing, his absolute stillness. She thought about the library, the way he had held himself back, and the debt he was paying with his restraint.
Nae afraid.
She had told him. She had meant it.
She was not afraid. She lay there with the candles burning and his breath beside her and realized it would take her a long time to find the right word for what she was feeling instead.
She closed her eyes. Her breathing slowed. For the first time in longer than she could count, she did not count at all.