13. Bryn
Bryn
I awoke to something brushing tenderly up and down my side, tracing the dips and curves of my body like they were memorizing every part of me. Heat warmed my back, a blanket still tucked around me. Peeking over my shoulder, I found Henrik’s warm gaze and a light flush across his cheeks.
“Good morning,” I mumbled and turned over, letting his hand glide and settle against my hip.
“Oh, it’s well past morning, little thief.”
My eyes widened, and I cast my gaze to the windows at the rear of the cabin. Sure enough, sunlight streamed through the thick panes of glass, casting harsh rays across the room and, most importantly, the table laden with apples and bread.
“And you didn’t think to wake me for food?”
His hand tightened on my hip. “I was enjoying the view.”
“You should always put my stomach first.”
“I will take that under advisement.” He brushed his hands up my abdomen but stopped before he reached my tender breasts. Trailing a finger across one of the marks there, he asked, “Do those scars have anything to do with that necklace that started glowing last night?”
“What necklace?”
He flipped us over, putting me on my back, his arms braced around my head. “The one I took from you last night. The one that almost got us caught by Foyn Knudson. The one that looks suspiciously like a long-lost treasure from mythical tales.”
“Oh.” I wasn’t getting out of this one. Then again, considering our current position and the press of him against me, perhaps I didn’t want to. “That one.”
“Do you know what it is?” he asked.
“Do you?”
An eye roll to best all eye rolls responded.
Shite. “I take it you know what it is, then?”
He nodded. “Why do you have the Heart of Hrim? And how in the ancestors did you get it?”
I gently brushed my fingertips across the dense muscles of his chest. “I’m very good at my job.”
“Among other things,” he said with a smirk. “Why, though?”
I swallowed hard and averted my gaze.
“This has something to do with the scars.” He shifted, putting himself within my line of sight. “Tell me, Bryn.”
If I told him… No. It would show him how weak I truly was. How vulnerable I could be.
“Bryn, please tell me. I won’t hurt you, but I promise to hurt them.”
My heart throbbed like I’d run the length of Skolvik Fjord and a numbness set into my bones.
“If it’s too much, then I understand. Just know that I want to help you.”
No one had ever, not in my 150 years, made such an offer. At least not without counters and exchanges.
Unwelcome tears started to well at the corner of my eyes and my chest tightened.
This wasn’t the postcoital bliss I wanted.
This wasn’t the sleepy, lusty, haze-filled coziness that I dreamed of last night.
But… Perhaps it was what I needed? A safe space to share the terrors that usually haunted my nightmares and fueled my recent excursions.
It was worth a try. If anything to relieve me of the pressure in my chest.
“It wasn’t long after we met,” I started, my voice raspy and strained. “I’d just returned from a trip to the market for food and came home to find two men in my cabin. How they slipped past my security measures, I don’t know.”
Henrik let out a low grumble beside me, and his entire body went rigid.
“I knew them, of course. It’s always someone you know or have briefly met. I guess I hadn’t been careful enough with my daily routines, had fallen into a regular pattern. One they took full advantage of.”
“They were there to steal from you?” Henrik asked gently.
I nodded and looked to the ceiling to stop the tears from falling as I recalled the events of that day.
“I’m careful with how and where I store my treasures, but several of them are kept at my home, close at hand.
It would have been fine, really, if they left with any of the gemstones or other trinkets.
I would have recovered. But they picked…
” I sucked in a breath, but a stray tear fell down the side of my face.
Henrik reached out and stopped it with his finger. His touch as gentle as a feather.
“They…” I tried again, but my throat was closing, chest aching from the memory, the loss.
Henrik wiped away another tear and scooted in closer, enveloping me in his arms and warmth.
“They took the last thing I had left of my mother. A locket.”
“Fuck.”
“It wasn’t worth much—pure gold, certainly—but it was beautiful. An oval with ornately carved filigree, and inside was an etching of an owl with tiny sapphire eyes and a bear with tiny ruby eyes.”
“How else did they hurt you?”
“Knife fight. They didn’t… Didn’t touch me, but I had to fight them to try to get it back. The two of them landed too many swipes across my midsection in my untethered rage. It was sloppy of me. I could’ve done better.”
He shook his head. “Your focus was elsewhere.”
Unfortunately, that was often the case, but in this situation I’d been so wrapped up in the emotions of losing that particular necklace that I’d forgotten all my training.
“What are their names?”
I sighed. “Sander and Marven. They live in Grim. Regulars down at the alehouse and run things inland on horses and wagons, usually supplying fish to the villages and Forest Fae.”
And you could always smell them coming. The scent of dead fish lingered on their clothing like the worst perfume imaginable. My house had reeked of it for days after they left, serving as a constant reminder of my failure. Failure to protect the most precious belonging I had.
“Fae?”
I nodded. “Fjord.”
“Have they done anything like this before?”
“They’ve tried.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mean is a good word for it.”
Henrik sat up and stared down at me, his brow furrowed in what I could only assume was anger. “Did they bully you?”
“Unfortunately, yes.” I hated admitting to it.
Airing that I had weak spots. That those spots had been found by others who sought to take advantage of them, and when I’d fought back, I’d been bested.
It was why I never trusted people. Never laid my trust and well-being in the hands of others. Others could not be trusted. I could.
And maybe…
Maybe Henrik could too.
As if he could hear my thoughts, he nodded, encouraging me to continue.
With a deep breath, I relented and threw my trust at him. “They targeted me because of my size and lack of family. It made me an easier target. Someone who had no one to come to their aid. Someone smaller than them. Weaker than them. Someone who had, in the past, struggled to fight back.”
Henrik’s jaw went rigid, those blue eyes churning like a vicious storm.
“I worked with them on a task once a long time ago. That was a huge mistake. The job went sour quickly when they didn’t heed my experience and advice.
Then they blamed me for it. After that it devolved into regular jeers in town.
Calling me horrid names—the forgotten one, the leftovers, the twig.
Cornering me in alleys. The worst was when they caught me by the throat and took the gold I had in my pockets.
Those fingerprints had taken nearly a month to fade from my neck. ”
Like a tidal wave, the words and emotions flowed free. I couldn’t have stopped them if I wanted to.
“That was when I started learning how to fight back. Trained harder. Snuck up on Forest Fae training sessions in the woods and watched and learned. I taught myself how to stand on my own two feet without anyone’s aid. All so that I wouldn’t be vulnerable… But then…”
“They hit you in a safe space and took from you.” The energy of a torrential downpour filled the cabin and swirled around Henrik. He was like a storm readying to be unleashed. “So, you stole the Heart of Hrim to barter with them?”
I nodded. It wasn’t my brightest idea, but it was one I was sure they wouldn’t reject.
Sander and Marven had always been hungry for wealth and status, which was something the Heart of Hrim could provide them.
They’d be the talk of the town. Ale would be bought for them for months, if not years, all so folks could hear the tale of the necklace and see it.
The two of them would wear it around their necks—arguing about whose turn it was—until they died.
But that wouldn’t matter to me. As I’d have my mother’s locket back.
“We’ll get it back for you, Bryn.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do. Why I want to get back to Grim.”
He straightened. “I think you misunderstand. We will get it back for you. You don’t have to do this alone.”
I couldn’t have heard that correctly. Sitting up, I pulled my knees into my chest, the blanket bunching around my hips. “Why would you and your crew help me?”
His eyes softened. “Why indeed.”
I propped my chin on my knees. “Don’t commit to something you cannot deliver on.”
Henrik reached for me, pulled me against his chest, and tilted my face up to meet his. “I always deliver on my promises, Bryn. And I’m promising you, right here, right now, that I will get that locket back for you.”
He pressed the lightest of kisses to my dumbstruck lips.
“I wasn’t lying last night. Ever since you left my bed last year, I have been searching for you.
Hoping to catch a glimpse of this gorgeous hair.
” He brushed his hand over it. “To see that teasing smile. To hear your voice. To be near you. Bryn, I haven’t stopped thinking about you. ”
“Why?” I asked, near breathless as we stared into each other’s eyes.
“If you’re asking that then you already know the answer.”
He liked me.
Wanted me.
No one had ever felt that way about me before. All I’d ever had were dalliances that always left. People who hurt me. People who abandoned me. People who ultimately didn’t care whether I was with them or not. Alone. I was always alone.
“I understand what it feels like to be by oneself,” he said as if he could hear my thoughts. “To be abandoned. Cast aside as the spare to the spare.”
Settling my arms around his neck, I let him continue. He was opening up. About his family. The life of a royal prince who wasn’t the heir.
“My father has a prolific history of procreating and casting aside his offspring unless they are needed for something that would benefit him. Even as a child, he asked my mother and I to move out of the palace in Skolvik because he no longer had need of her or me.”
My heart spasmed. He did know that feeling. But as a child?
“Let me in, Bryn. Let me help you.”
I wanted that. More than anything. So I nodded.
Henrik sighed and pressed his lips to mine once more.
I melted in his arms, opening up to the swell of emotions that took hold and drowned me.
That push and pull between us morphed in that moment into something more.
Something solid and robust that would withstand a tidal wave.
Trust. Understanding. The foundation for teamwork.
Something I’d pushed away for so long, but was now carving myself open for and accepting.
Pulling back, he set his forehead against mine and smiled. “Now, before the day goes on any further, would you like some food?”
I smiled back. “It’s like you know me.”
Somehow his grin grew wider and he hopped out of bed, still stark naked, and brought over an apple and a bread roll that was still warm. “Eat up, little thief.”
I snatched the bread from his outstretched hand and took a massive bite. Ancestors, bless whoever makes these rolls. I’d have to go and personally thank the kitchen staff once I was up and dressed.
We spent the next hour conversing, washing each other with our water magic as the sun started to set, and pulling our clothes back on.
As I was wrapping my belt around my shirt and trousers, Henrik midway through the same, asked, “Is there anything else you’re hiding from me?
More scars or dangerous treasures that I need to know about? ”
I bit my bottom lip.
His eyes widened. “Bryn?”
“Define treasure.”
“Brynhild Jakobsen, I will strip every last thread off that gorgeous body of yours and search you thoroughly.”
Well, that sounded rather delightful, but we’d been in here for almost a full day. Without further fanfare, I pulled out my compass and set it on the table with a smirk.
His smile matched mine as he shook his head and set his hands on his hips. “I knew it was you.”
“Of course it was me. Unless there were some other blonde-haired damsels in your bed that night?”
“There’s only ever been one, and she took my damn compass.”
“I think I did you a favor, though.”
“Really?”
I nodded. “It’s fickle. Never gives a steady heading.”
He huffed. “It was the same with me. Which is why I went back to the same small shop in Egersund and demanded a second one that actually worked. Looks just like it.” He reached into his pocket and threw a lump of gold metal onto the table.
I gasped. No, it wasn’t merely a lump of metal. It was an exact replica of the other compass on the table. They could be twins!
Leaning forward, I opened one in each hand. Both had a dark blue inlay that reminded me of the night sky above the ocean, with gold markers and arrows that swirled around like something had possessed them. As I brought them closer together, the spinning slowed. How odd.
I pulled them apart and brought them back together again. Same thing.
My brows furrowed, and I tried it one last time as Henrik came to stand behind me. The two compasses clinked together and their arrows stopped turning. I sucked in a breath.
They were pointing at each other.
That couldn’t be possible. Compasses always pointed north. Not toward some magical twin object.
I peered over my shoulder at Henrik who had an equally quizzical expression on his face. “You don’t think?”
“I’ve never seen magic like—”
An almighty roar sounded and something crashed against the hull, shifting the ship and sending us flying across the room. The table slammed against the bookshelves, with me and Henrik following behind it. Head cracking against a wooden beam, my world faded in and out as someone screamed.