Chapter thirty-three
Eisa
Arik had to kick in the door to our bedroom, and I immediately understood why I had been shuffled off to Amaya’s room to prepare.
It had been transformed. The same flowering vines from the sanctum climbed the cold, stone walls, and candles lit the path from the door to the bed, already burning low.
The bed had been remade with fresh sheets and soft furs, and a selection of meats and cheeses and nuts had been laid out on a tray atop the dresser so there would be no need to leave for a meal.
But the real magic was the ceiling. Tiny pinpricks of light floated above us like stars, their light bobbing sedately as if the celestial heavens opened above us.
“Fireflies?”
“I wanted to take you under the stars, Kjaere,” Arik murmured, pressing kisses against my throat. “Or do you prefer ‘wife’ now?”
“That depends.” My breathing was rather ragged with the effort to hold Idunn back from wrestling our mate to the floor and ravishing him among the burning candles. “Do you want me to call you ‘husband’?”
Arik growled in approval, striding toward the bed and kicking over several candles in his wake. They snuffed out against the stone with a hiss.
“I suppose that’s a yes,” I laughed, his beard scraping deliciously against my neck. “I’ll maybe save it for special occasions. Or when I’m very angry.”
“I accept your terms.” Arik sat on the bed, draping me across his lap as he attempted to toe off his boots. “This is a fucking challenge with our hands bound.”
“But tradition!” I mocked, reaching for the braided cord with my free hand. “Let me.”
Arik nipped my fingers as I attempted to loosen the braid. “Don’t you dare, Kjaere. I intend to do this properly.” He grunted, one boot finally free as he worked on the other. “You deserve nothing less.”
I kissed him, making his task significantly more difficult as I caught his lower lip between my teeth.
“Plus,” he added, as the other boot came free. He met my eyes, silver swirling in their gray depths. “I don’t need Sigrid cursing me.”
I laughed as he rolled us, flipping us so that I lay on my back. “Do you think Revna and Arne are—“
“I don’t want to think about it.” Arik kissed me, raising our bound hands above my head to rest on the pillow. Much better.
“I hope they are,” I teased as he returned his attention to my neck.
Revna deserved happiness, but it was beginning to be increasingly difficult to think about anything other than Arik’s lips tracing over my collarbone.
I gasped as he pinned my other hand above my head, his eyes molten silver. “You’re going to crush the flowers.”
“Fuck the flowers.” He trailed his free hand down my body, examining every detail and fastening. “You’re wearing entirely too many clothes, Kjaere.”
I laughed, gesturing to his scaled leather jacket. “And you’re not?”
“My first act as your husband requires you to be bare before me.” He bent down, straining our bound hands to kiss the inside of my knee before looking up to meet my gaze again. “If you’ll allow it.”
I nodded as he adjusted our bound hands so he could kiss a trail of fire up my inner thigh.
Idunn writhed in my mind, irritated with his slow pace. Faster.
Arik chuckled. Baldur must have relayed her frustration.
“I’m going to take my time with you, wife.” Another inch of skirts. Another kiss to my thigh.
I felt heat flood my center as he teased his way up to my core.
“And then, when you are begging, I will let you come on my tongue. How does that sound?”
I whimpered as he kissed a torturously slow path upwards. “Idunn won’t like it.”
“This isn’t for Idunn,” he murmured, his beard scratching in a way that had me clawing the bedclothes. His eyes met mine again, almost pure silver under the glowing fireflies. “This is for us.”
I gasped as his tongue met my center, the warmth and pressure pulling a moan from me as I fisted my free hand into his hair. He teased the sensitive bud, and my clothes felt too tight and too hot, trapping too much skin that could be feeling instead.
Arik chuckled, hearing the thought, and loosened the laces on either side of my gown where it was rucked up over my hips.
As I struggled to free myself, he moved his fingers to my center, slowly inserting one as I bucked against him.
I managed to loosen but not remove the overdress and resorted to sliding my free hand beneath my serk to squeeze my breast as he added a second finger.
More, I whined, my voice mixing with Idunn’s as we writhed together. There was too much clothing. I needed Arik’s bare flesh atop mine, not all this leather and linen and human nonsense.
Arik and Baldur laughed in unison as Arik’s tongue lapped rapid circles around my heated flesh, and he moaned as if I was his own personal feast.
That’s it, wife. Let me feel you coming apart around me. His hand clenched more tightly around mine, the pressure building in time with the glorious pounding between my thighs.
He curled his finger inside me, and it sent me over the edge. Idunn shattered like the fallen star she had been born from, exploding into a thousand tiny fragments of pleasure that shuddered through my body.
Fucking gods, you are so good, Arik growled in my head, his tongue still working me. So beautiful.
I need these off, I gasped, trying to sit up and tear ineffectually at my overdress. Please.
Arik sat up, the evidence of his arousal firm against his leather trousers. He kissed me on the lips, the taste of us combining on my tongue as he released our bound hands. The braided cord fell to the bed, its leaves horribly crumpled. “Sigrid will have to be happy enough with that.”
“But I’m not.” I unlaced the shawl, far too warm now over my heated skin, and pulled the gown over my head. Baby’s breath fell from my hair like snow as I struggled with the clothing, and Arik laughed as he tried to help me.
“I told you,” he said as he finally freed me from the gown and folded it neatly up with the shawl. It was inside out, but I didn’t care as I stepped out of my slippers to stand bare before him. He swallowed, his pupils elongating into slits. “Too many clothes.”
“Your turn, husband.”
“Fuck.“ Arik tore off his clothing like it was burning him, his eyes never leaving mine. “That word has a dangerous effect on me.”
“Good.”
He wasted no time when he was finally naked, moving to pull me into a plundering kiss. His hard length pressed against me, and I wrapped one hand around it as he intertwined the fingers of his other hand in mine.
“Not yet, wife.” With a tug, he pulled me back onto the bed. I expected him to settle me atop his length, but instead, he shimmied us until I was perched atop his chest, facing the headboard. “I’m not done feasting.”
“What are you—oh!” I shuddered as he grabbed my thighs and pulled me over his mouth. I had to grip the headboards to keep myself steady as he plunged his tongue between my legs.
Fuck yes, he murmured over our mental bridge. I was afraid he wouldn’t be able to breathe, but whenever I lifted my hips, he pulled me back flush against his mouth. You won’t hurt me.
“Are you sure?” The words were breathy as I rocked over him. My nipples pebbled against the cold stone wall, the scent of the little star-shaped flowers wrapping around me seductively.
Positive. Arik groaned as he slipped his tongue inside me, exploring as he continued to make my pleasure climb higher and higher. If I were allowed to choose how I died, it would be like this.
Agreed, rumbled Baldur against my mind, his presence so close it almost felt like he and Idunn were one. More.
Idunn writhed, and hot licks of fire burned down my spine once more as I came apart around him.
He caught me as I collapsed atop him, rolling us over so he hovered above me. “And now, wife, I take you as the gods intended.”
I moaned in pleasure as he thrust into me, his length warm and wide in all the right places. It felt like he might split me apart, no matter how many times we did this, and I loved every second of it.
“On second thought,” he murmured, lowering his face to my neck, “I might wish to die like this. Rutting against you. Your scent filling my nostrils. Your fucking perfect pussy taking every inch of me.”
“Gods,” I moaned, as his fingers teased my nipple. “It feels…” I shook my head, not sure I could voice what I was feeling.
Maddeningly, Arik slowed.
“What, Kjaere?” He cupped my cheek, his eyes boring into mine as he tilted my face so I was forced to stare back. His eyes were pure silver, and I knew mine were the brightest blue. “Tell me how it feels.”
“Perfect,” I said, feeling my throat grow tight. Hearthmother above, I could not cry again.
Arik chuckled, hearing the unspoken thought, and kissed me so gently, it nearly made me weep. It’s alright when it’s happy tears, my love. My mate. My wife.
He kissed me again, his hands exploring my body as he continued to thrust firmly but slowly, our passion turning from pure fire to a smoldering flame as he made love to me.
I love you, I thought, sending the words between us, wanting to feel him everywhere. So much.
I love you, he rumbled, sending his desire and filling my mind with him. With us.
Like Idunn and Baldur, we were perfectly intertwined, and when we came together as one, I felt that pull of our mating bond—our shared souls—beat firmly behind my breast.
I was lying in my husband’s arms, lazily munching on bites of cheese and nuts between bouts of lovemaking, when it began.
The walls rumbled, stone shaking loose as the fireflies scattered, the remaining candles tipping over and extinguishing.
Earthquake? I asked, realizing that I hadn’t felt one since Stormhold.
I sat up, while Arik remained preternaturally still on the bed. It might stop.
The shaking intensified. Fifteen seconds. Twenty.
And then my mind split open.
Darkness flooded every corner, driving Idunn and Baldur back as the world cracked open.
Through the shattering pain in my skull, a voice took shape.
It was different from my memory in a way I couldn’t quite define, as if it were blended with another.
But it was one I still recognized. One that had both dragons shrinking back in terror as a pair of piercing amber dragon eyes met mine through the darkness.
AT LAST.
“Eisa!” Arik cradled me as the walls threatened to give way around us. “We have to get out.”
“He’s here!” I screamed, the pain in my temples pounding in step with the shaking of the walls.
And just as soon as it had started, it stopped.
“Eisa. Fuck.”
My nose was bleeding, and Arik held the bedsheets to my face to stem the flow as I trembled in terror at what I had seen. What I knew.
“What the fuck was that?”
“He’s here,” I repeated weakly, clawing at Arik’s arms to make him understand. “It’s here. The Rift.”
“What about the Rift?” Somewhere deep in the recesses of my mind, I knew he was shouting to Baldur to reach out to Kindra and the other drage in Ironholm to ask what was going on.
But I knew they wouldn’t know. Because the Rift had split the world open here in Stalheim.
And the Darkness had come with it.