Chapter 55 #2
“I thought myself a patient man, but you drive me to absolute madness! I think of you constantly. Dream of you at night. And each morning I awaken to this quiet, distant version of you, I lose my mind just a little more.”
Hekla stared at him in stunned silence.
“The truth,” said Eyvind, “is that I’ve been betrothed to Liv since I was a child. The other truth is that Liv has no interest in me…in men, at all.” He hesitated. “It was not my secret to tell, but when I was in Kopa, I got permission from Liv to share this.”
Hekla stared into the fire, refusing to meet his gaze.
“I’m sorry,” he said, thumbs pressing into the arch of her foot. He sighed. “You know I hate to waste the present by speaking of the future. But in this, I erred. Greatly.”
Hekla bit down on her cheek, desperate not to let his words affect her.
“It was my duty, as my father always told me, to marry Liv,” continued Eyvind. “I was willing to go through with a loveless but companionable marriage if it meant strengthening our ties to her family. Until I met you.”
Hekla grasped for the anger she’d held for so many weeks, despising herself as she felt it softening.
“My father,” continued Eyvind, “has planned my entire life, and I was desperate enough for his affection to go along with it. But then Istré happened, and everything changed.”
Despite her best attempts to stop it, Hekla’s gaze darted to Eyvind’s. His hazel eyes were so expressive—had always been effortless for her to read. Now his remorse was plain to see.
“You,” said Eyvind, “changed everything. Hekla, you’ve taught me what it means to truly live free. What it means to stand for something. I cannot go back to a time when I let my father shape my life. And so when I returned to Kopa, the first thing I did was end my betrothal.”
Hekla blinked, incapable of hiding her surprise. Despite herself, pride swelled in her chest. She knew this was no easy thing for Eyvind—that he’d longed for Jarl Hakon’s approval all his life, and breaking his betrothal would be yet another blow to their relationship.
She searched his face for the spoiled, arrogant lordling she’d first met in Istré, but she found an earnestness that made her chest ache. Hekla tried to find the hurt that his lie of omission had caused; tried to remember all the reasons this would never work.
“I will never marry again, Eyvind.” Her voice came out hard and sharp, a last desperate weapon to ward him off. “Don’t waste your time on me.”
His thumbs stopped on the ball of her foot. “Why would you think,” said Eyvind, “that any time spent with you was a waste?”
The pull of his gaze was magnetic, the emotion in her throat building with impossible force.
“A privilege, Hekla. That’s what I call time spent with you. An honor.”
Hekla felt as though the ground had just been ripped from beneath her—as though she was helplessly falling toward peril.
Because that’s what this was, was it not?
Her husband had also been handsome—had spoken honeyed words to her.
She’d loved him so fiercely. Had thought he was her dreams come true.
But he’d only been a monster who’d gambled all their money away and beaten all the soft, hopeful parts of her into submission.
Pains from her missing limb seized her with sudden fierceness. Hekla gasped, every muscle in her body taut with agony. How could something that wasn’t there hurt her so gods damned much?
“What is it?” asked Eyvind, setting her foot down. “Hekla, what can I do? How can I help?”
“You can help,” she gritted out, “by giving this up.” Pain sizzled through her like a fierce summer storm, and she sucked in air through her teeth. “You and I will never be.”
Her eyes slammed shut, in part to brace against the agony in her body, but also to avoid what she might find in Eyvind’s expression.
There had been a time when Hekla had spent her life fearing these pains and doing everything in her power to avoid them.
But today, she was glad for them. They were the reminder she needed of just what was at stake in these games of the heart.
The phantom pains blazed through her in a matter of short minutes, but as she emerged from their haze, Hekla felt more like herself than she had since she’d met Eyvind Hakonsson.
Eventually, her eyes fluttered open, meeting a pair of bright hazels.
But rather than the hurt she’d expected to find, Hekla found something altogether worse.
Eyvind looked at her with a tenderness she did not care for. “Lynx,” said the gods damned fool, “you can use those claws of yours all you wish. Can’t you tell I’m not going anywhere?”
Hekla stared in disbelief as she tried to understand. Was he mad? Had he lost too much blood? But his words sank into her, softening all her defenses. The pain had left her wrung out and exhausted—had probably addled her mind. It was the only explanation for what she did next.
Hekla reached out. Curled her fingers around Eyvind’s collar. And pulled his lips to hers.
The feelings she’d tried so hard to smother surged forth with new fire, suffusing every part of her body with heat.
She whimpered against him, then was swiftly furious at herself for letting him hear the effect he had on her.
It was dangerous, she knew, giving a man such power.
But at the moment, Hekla was lost to the sensation of his lips against hers.
Being vigilant of Eyvind’s wound, they sank against each other, then carefully lowered themselves on the smooth river stones next to the fire.
Her body tingled in response to his kiss—to the gentle brush of his fingers up her side—and she marveled at the way the feel of him brought her back in time.
Back to another riverbank where she’d met this handsome stranger and had confessed to him things she’d never told a soul.
But Eyvind suddenly tensed and broke the kiss.
“What?” she gasped.
“Did you hear that?” He pushed up to a sitting position, hissing as his wound undoubtably pained him.
Hekla’s senses sharpened in an instant. Slowly, she sat up and examined the dead bones of the forest. All was silent and dark, but then—movement.
Days they’d been trekking along this river, and they’d not seen a solitary creature. To see something now sent alarm flaring through her. Hekla and Eyvind clambered to their feet and drew their weapons, staring hard into the forest. The shadows shifted and merged, a low growl rattling the air.
Hekla braced herself for glowing red eyes—for the nauseating stench of the Turned beasts. Her heart beat an edgy rhythm as enormous lupine forms emerged from the woods—grimwolves. She counted the forms, giving up somewhere after twelve.
One grimwolf, perhaps two, they stood a chance.
But with more than a dozen, their odds were hopeless.
Her heartbeat was riotous inside her skull as the wolves prowled slowly closer.
A glance over her shoulder dispelled any hopes they had of fleeing across the river—more wolves descended from the bank behind them.
“We’re surrounded,” she whispered, searching desperately for a plan.
“They’re not Turned,” Eyvind muttered.
And she saw it was true. The wolves’ eyes glowed yellow in the last light of their campfire; their coats were thick and glossy; and only a single row of fangs was bared.
But each was the size of a small horse, and those gleaming canines were designed to tear into flesh.
It was clear these grimwolves were not friendly toward humans.
A large, white wolf at the front of the pack lunged forward with a warning snap, and Hekla and Eyvind scrambled backward. The wolves bared their teeth, creeping forward. Where had they come from? Why weren’t they Turned? It did not matter—Hekla knew they didn’t stand a chance.
But then came a new sound—a higher-pitched yip. The wolves’ ears pricked, and one of them barked in reply. And soon the wolves lifted their snouts to the sky, the air filling with a discordant chorus of yowls.
“What is happening?” whispered Eyvind.
“I don’t speak wolf, do you?” muttered Hekla, not daring to loosen her grip on her weapon.
Movement in the shadows, and then, disbelief. Because bounding from the woods was a form she knew.
Tears pricked her eyes. Hope unfurled in her heart.
“Kritka,” Hekla breathed. And as the wolf came nearer, she saw something dangling from his maw. It gleamed in the moonlight, and Hekla nearly fell to her knees.
Clutched in Kritka’s jaw was her prosthetic arm.