Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
BASTIAN
Iclimbed from the bath and quickly wrapped a towel around my waist to cover my erection. It wasn’t that I was embarrassed, but I didn’t want her to think I expected more. She’d just trusted me with her body. I wouldn’t risk shattering the tenuous truce of the moment.
God, the way she whimpered before the last time she came. My wife had been desperate for my touch. My cock twitched at the memory. I’d give up my own satisfaction forever if only I got to be the cause of that sound again.
To my shock, she let me help her from the bath and gently dry her with another towel. It was its own form of intimacy to take care of her like that, and it felt like she was rewarding me for a job well done by allowing me to do it.
I led her to the enormous four-poster bed in the center of the bedchamber and then tucked her under the covers before perching on the edge.
She was stiff and defensive at my proximity, as though she thought I meant to climb in and attempt to force my marital rights on her…
or perhaps worse—snuggle. She was a viper ready to strike, so I took the only sensible action and respected her space.
“Good night, Sigrid,” I said softly as I rose to put out the torches.
When I settled on the chaise in the corner, the soft glow of the fire was just bright enough to let me see the ripple of emotion that crossed her face—something like relief.
It was the first time since we’d been forced into this that she’d looked at me like that, and it twisted something in my stomach to know it came from my basic respect for her consent.
What the fuck happened on her other wedding nights?
I closed my eyes even though sleep would be a long time coming.
They flew back open moments later when something soft landed on me, followed immediately by a pillow smacking me in the side of the head. The spare blanket was in a heap on me, where she’d thrown it.
I grinned at the unexpected kindness. “Worried I might freeze to death?”
“You’re too fucking soft, Saxon. I can see you shivering from here.” Her tone was gruff, but the bite was tempered by the gesture. She let out a long breath. “Today could have been worse.”
Joy erupted in my chest, making my heart race faster. Sigrid Thorvald had just opened a crack in the wall between us.
Her posture had softened, but a frown creased her brow. “What did the priest do?” She said the words reluctantly, like she’d tried to resist asking.
Now my heart thumped heavily for reasons other than joy. I didn’t want her to see that part of me, but it was a risk I was going to have to take. If I didn’t show her something meaningful, she’d never do the same.
“He was tasked with purifying me, with making sure my soul was clean enough for me to be the heir. When I was a child, it involved mostly whippings and long lectures, but as I got older, he got more creative. He had…a chest. A big wooden one that could lock. He called it the ‘Box of Contemplation.’ When he felt my thoughts had strayed too far into sin, he’d shut me in it until I’d had enough time to purify them again. ”
“Did it work? Are your thoughts pure now?”
I breathed a laugh. “I suppose it must have. I have many carnal thoughts, but they’re only for my wife.
” Before she could snap at me, I told her the rest. “One of the times he shut me in the chest, there was a fire in the chapel. I suspect another boy named Elric set it, but I was never able to prove it. Father Benedict ran without getting me out, and I was trapped in there, listening to the screams of people fleeing, convinced I’d burn alive. ”
“How did you escape?” Her tone was tight and furious, almost like she cared.
“My mentor was a man named Wulfstan. If Father Benedict was responsible for my soul, Wulfstan was in charge of making me a man worth following. He taught me to fight but also how to lead. I rarely saw my father growing up, so Wulfstan became a father to me. He ran into the burning chapel and broke the lock open with a sword to get me out. Father Benedict had him lashed for destroying a church relic, arguing that Wulfstan could’ve simply dragged the chest out.
” I rolled my neck, having to push away the memories of smoke and dark terror.
“What does this Wulfstan think of your turn to piracy?”
I’d been torn between eagerness to see him and fear of seeing disappointment on his face.
I hadn’t asked why he wasn’t at our wedding in case the answer was that he was ashamed of me.
He was a man of honor, and my actions would’ve gutted him.
“I’m not sure. He must be away from the castle on some errand.
There wasn’t much time to call him back. ”
“I felt it,” Sigrid said, so low that it was practically a growl.
“You still carry that fear, and I felt it when we took you prisoner on Talon’s ship.
The moment you were shut belowdecks, you were back in that chest, fists hammering on the lid even though you were sure no one was coming to help.
But on the ship, you were outwardly so calm, I wondered if I was confusing the source of the fear because it was so crowded and everyone was scared. ”
“My panic would’ve done nothing to reassure our crew. I’ve learned to master it. Wulfstan taught me how to breathe through it.”
She nodded like she understood.
“What’s it like when you sense people’s fears?” I asked softly, daring to ask her a question in return. “Can you see the image as they do, or is it purely a feeling?”
She was quiet for so long, I thought she wouldn’t answer.
“Depends on the person and depends on the fear. Most of the time, it’s just an awareness I’m surrounded by all the time.
If I focus on someone, then I simply know the things that haunt them.
Those are the things they may not be thinking of in the moment, but if left alone at night, they’re what would torment them.
But when someone is actively afraid, it’s more tangible and harder to ignore.
I’m bombarded by flashes of the specific things they fear, but I don’t just see them—I can feel their terror and sometimes taste the bitter tang of their cowardice. ”
“How does that work on a battlefield, then?”
She shrugged. “My opponents all but give me instructions for how they want to die. They imagine my axe crushing their head, and I know that’s the blow that’s certain to land.
They give away their weaknesses.” Her tone turned playful.
“It’s more potent with torture. The horrors they feed me with their fears…
such inventive ideas that never would’ve occurred to me. ”
I’d heard the stories that her father used her as his torture master when she’d still been a child, but I’d never really thought about being brutalized by someone who could sense your fears.
It must’ve shattered people’s minds to imagine the worst that could happen only to have that very thing carried out.
“Does it bother you? Seeing yourself through the terrified imaginings of people who hate you?”
She chuckled softly. “If I did, it would’ve broken me. I have no need to be liked.”
Yet she was deeply respected on Ocracoke and clearly loved by her brothers. Who would she be if she hadn’t been turned into a weapon by her father?
“But isn’t it exhausting?” I asked. “Feeling everyone’s fears all the time?”
She exhaled slowly. “Until now, I’d never known anything else.” She was silent for a beat. Then I could hear the wicked smile in her voice. “Aren’t you going to ask me?”
“Ask you what?”
“What other fears of yours I gleaned in those days on my brother’s ship? Everyone always asks me.”
She was toying with me, trying to make me think she’d learned something that gave her leverage over me, but she hadn’t. “The only thing that matters is that it wasn’t you.” I studied her in the dim light like I might be able to read her expression. “What do you fear, Sigrid?”
She breathed a laugh. “Right now, it seems obvious. Thorin can handle himself. If he were the one being held captive, I wouldn’t be worried.
But Layla is more breakable, and for all I know, my fuck of a father has already inflicted worse on her than he did in the past. We’ve known her since we were children, and Thorin has loved her since then.
When my father found out, he sent Layla to be trained as a courtesan to punish Thorin. ”
“How did she escape?”
She snorted. “Thorin rescued her when we fled Daneland. ‘Abducted her’ might be a better description. He took her to Ocracoke with us and thought she’d marry him then, but she refused to give up her profession.
She started a brothel on the island, and now she’s the highly successful madam.
Thorin has been a stubborn bastard and won’t accept that she wants to keep doing her job…
but they’re meant to be together. If they don’t get a chance to work their shit out, I’ll never forgive myself. ”
I wanted to cross the room and hold her to soothe her fears, but I knew better. “They’re going to be fine, but it wouldn’t be your fault if something happened.”
She was silent for so long, I might’ve thought she’d gone to sleep if I couldn’t see the tense line of her neck against the pillow.
“I failed my youngest brother, Axel. The night of my brother Talon’s wedding, the Saxons attacked Ocracoke.
They’d secretly drugged the wine at the feast, and it was an ambush.
Axel was killed before I could protect him.
He died with a sword in his back and no weapon in his hand—a shameful death for a berserker.
They say he’s condemned to Niflheim and can never reach Valhalla. Unless I avenge his death.”
My heart had started to thump faster the moment she mentioned that night, but now it raced, realizing she had a greater agenda here than simply biding her time.
I didn’t care if she killed my father as long as she wasn’t killed in the process, but dread lurked in my stomach because I was sure she meant something more.
I tried to sound calm. “How would you avenge him?”
The silence that hung between us spoke volumes.
“Maybe I’ll drug the banquet tomorrow and slay them all. Wouldn’t that be poetic?”
She didn’t mean it. I was sure she didn’t mean it. But what did I really know about her to make me sure? Was my infatuation clouding my judgment?
Even if she did, she couldn’t do it yet. Unless she already knew Layla was secure and was simply playing with me.
“Were you there?” she bit out suddenly.
There was no point in lying. She’d learn the truth eventually.
“Yes.” I let out a shuddering breath. “I’d been told there was a fleet of Vikings hiding on the island, ready to ambush us.
It wasn’t until we landed that we discovered it was an island of people who didn’t hold allegiance to either kingdom.
As soon as I learned the truth, I tried to stop it, but I wasn’t in command yet.
We didn’t learn until later that my father had a spy on the island who’d drugged the ale.
I refused to take part, Sigrid, wouldn’t ambush innocents we had no quarrel with.
But I still saw the massacre from the boat I took, and it was…
horrific. I never returned to court after that, rejected my title and left for Atlantis.
Sailed as a pirate for five years until this. I never wanted to come back.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” she snapped. “You’re the prince of the realm, and you stood there and let it happen, then took the coward’s way out, fleeing.”
As though I hadn’t berated myself for it over and over since then, hadn’t wondered if I could’ve tried harder to stop it, even though I knew I couldn’t have. Not without killing my father. He’d been too well protected then.
But I hadn’t been the only one who’d run away instead of facing a tyrant.
“Like you stayed and fought the Viking king?”
She sat up angrily. “You don’t know a fucking thing about my father. My brothers and I openly defied him when we made a refuge for people from both kingdoms on Ocracoke. While you were off playing pirate and hiding from who you are, I built something that matters.”
Guilt and shame twisted in my stomach. I’d abandoned my people and left my father unchecked. That she was willing to shame me for it only made me respect her more.
But I was done running from the responsibilities of my crown. “There are good people here, Sigrid. Innocent people. Take whatever revenge you want on my father. He was the one who planned that ambush. But if you try to take it out on innocents, I’ll stop you.”
A bubbling laugh rolled out of her. “Will you, now? You’re reminding me why I need to kill you and be done with it.”
“Then I’ll have to keep reminding you why you want me alive.”