Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
BASTIAN
Sigrid’s berserker was killing her.
Berserkers were meant to be unleashed, not contained, and it seemed hers was beyond reason, willing to tear open the very vessel that contained her in order to be free of her bonds.
I didn’t understand how, but I could feel what churned within Sigrid, was experiencing an echo of her agony, and it nearly took me to my knees. How was she still standing?
She was a danger both to herself and the men around us, so I’d all but dragged her to the low stone building that lay between the maze and the gardens, an outbuilding used for the guards to warm themselves in the winter.
She fought me every step of the way, but was so weakened by pain that I still managed to shove her into the hut.
The men were confused, and I couldn’t blame them. One minute Sigrid had been valiantly fighting at our sides, and the next, she was punching me, snarling like she’d become a feral beast.
With Sigrid inside, I moved to pull the door closed behind us. “Get the wounded who can be moved into the castle, and send for any healers who aren’t already here. Do not open this door. No matter what you think you hear.”
Elric looked like he wanted to argue, but I slammed the heavy door shut and barred it before anyone could protest.
Sigrid was mine.
If the creature within her needed an outlet, I would be it.
I’d no sooner closed the door than she took another swing at me. My eyes were still adjusting to the dim light of the dark hut, but I managed to dodge her.
She shook with rage, clenching her fists like she was trying to master it. She clawed at the collar around her neck, to no avail.
“Get the fuck out before I kill you!”
She swung again, and I stepped out of her way, chuckling even though nothing about this was funny.
“Either you’re more injured than you realize, or you don’t actually want to kill me.
Which is it, wife?” I stepped around the room, keeping my back to the wall, and she stalked me like a predator, her eyes alight with interest now.
The pain abated as she recognized this game of ours, this endless push and pull of baiting her into giving me more.
I’ll take everything you need to give.
“We both know you don’t want to kill me. You and your lovely beast only want satisfaction. Let me give it to you.”
She tilted her head, her smile deliciously fierce. “As though you could satisfy us both, Prince.”
She slammed me back into the wall, making dust fall from the roof. Suddenly her hands were on my throat, cutting off my ability to breathe. I grabbed the back of her head and pulled her to me, flipping our positions so her back was against the wall and she couldn’t stop me from kissing her.
The second our mouths met, she loosened her hold on my throat, groaning like she was the one who’d been deprived air.
She kissed me back as though it was the only thing tethering her to herself, letting her hands roam down my body as her lips slanted over mine, grabbing my ass and pulling me harder against her.
I felt just as frenzied, equally desperate to touch every part of her.
We almost died.
I’d never been so sure I was about to meet my end. But that terror had nothing on the moments I’d been sure my wife was about to meet hers.
“They almost killed you.” I blurted between frantic kisses.
She caught my bottom lip between her teeth with a low laugh. “But they didn’t.”
The words were triumph and a prayer of thanks, awe laced with the trembling, gut-wrenching terror that hadn’t quite released either of us.
We almost died.
The agony that had been tearing her apart turned to agony of a different kind, building into a fever to be joined.
With a harsh jerk, she ripped my shirt open and pulled it from my shoulders, then unfastened and yanked my pants to the ground.
Her nails raked down my chest, and I arched my neck back, silently presenting my body to her to do as she pleased.
Something animalistic flashed in her eyes when she picked up a knife and flipped it in her palm, letting the tip come to rest against my sternum.
I stared at the sharp edge as she dragged it along the contours of my torso, leaving a shivering, charged sensation in its wake.
I wanted her beyond reason. Trusted her with my life. Surrendered to her every need.
She knocked me backwards, and suddenly we were fighting again, rolling across the hard ground in a struggle for power in which the outcome was already determined.
Sigrid landed on top, straddling my hips with her skirt rucked up around her waist. My cock was crushed beneath her pelvic bone, pinned where I could feel the warm, wet heat of her, but couldn’t do anything about it.
She looked into my eyes, mirroring my desperate lust with her own expression, but her face twisted into a snarl, and she placed the knife against my throat. “I hesitated! When he became you, I hesitated.”
I’d seen it happen. The Banamaer had morphed into me and she’d missed a chance to kill him.
“Wasn’t your fault,” I murmured, not missing the way she rocked her hips over me, like she was just as close to losing control.
She narrowed her eyes in rage, refusing to release the knife.
“I didn’t hesitate when it was Talon. Or Thorin.
Or even Axel.” Her dead brother’s name came out as a breath of anguish.
“But because of you I missed my chance. Because of you I was weak. Men died for that weakness. You almost died because of that weakness.”
The churning tension of her berserker rose once again, lancing my chest with pain I shouldn’t have been able to feel.
I stroked her lower back, coaxing her to give in to what she really needed to quell this storm.
She pressed the knife to my throat so hard that blood trickled down the side of my neck. “I betrayed my purpose, almost condemning Axel to suffer eternally. I should kill you now and rid myself of such an intolerable weakness.”
She wanted to. The resolve in her eyes warred with the excruciating pain in her body.
I put my hand over hers on the knife, tilting my head to expose my throat. “Kill me, then. Kill me…or accept that you’re mine.”
For a split second, sensation overwhelmed me and I didn’t know which she’d chosen. Was this the bliss of entering the afterlife?
The knife clattered to the ground next to my head as she thrust her hips forward again, pushing my cock deep inside her tight, slick pussy. I sunk in to the hilt and we both groaned, lost to the feeling of being one.
“Mine,” she growled, rocking harder, riding me in a powerful rolling motion that took my breath away.
She’d chosen me, chosen us.
I cupped her breasts over her dress, and she thrashed her head, yanking at the dress. “I need to feel you!”
I picked up the knife to cut the laces, tugging it open and pulling her shift down to let her beautiful breasts spill out.
When I still had the knife, so I did as she’d done to me, lightly tracing the point over the sensitive swell of one breast. When I reached her nipple, she moaned breathlessly and snatched the knife back, pressing it against my throat again.
“You play dangerous games, Prince. Baiting a monster.”
“I’m not afraid of you, Sigrid.”
I’d said it to her before, but this time was different. She closed her eyes and shook her head like she didn’t want to accept it, but when she opened them again, the connection between us became something palpable.
I’d never felt like this with anyone, never trusted anyone so wholly with my body and heart.
I reached to where we were joined, stroking my thumb across her clitoris, needing to make sure this was good for her too.
She arched her back and moaned with pleasure, digging her nails into my shoulders as I thrust into her even harder.
Our bodies slapped together each time I slammed into her, and all I could do was marvel at the perfect feel of her.
I wanted it to last, but she stripped that control from me when she came.
The moment her cunt clenched around my cock, I tipped over the edge of sanity, clinging to the feel of her astride my body as though she was the only thing holding my soul here.
I came inside her, claiming her as my own even as she’d accepted me as hers.
It didn’t take the consummation of our marriage to do that, but it felt fundamentally right to be with her like this.
We were both covered in blood and small wounds, panting and filthy, exhausted to the very edge of reason.
We almost died.
Instead I’d been shown the reason I was alive.