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July 17 - July 26, 2025
Snorri snorted. “I’m not sure you could if you tried. It was foretold that her name would be born in the fire of a god. Her fate was never to die at your hand.”
“Nearly two decades ago, a seer spoke a prophecy to me of a shield maiden who’d been birthed the night of a red moon. She told me that this woman’s name would be born in the fire of the gods, and she would unite the people of Skaland beneath the rule of the one who controlled her fate.”
“I’m sorry,” I said to him, a tremor running through me. “You should be.” He held my gaze, and I swore it was the only thing keeping me from screaming. “All the women in Halsar will curse your name if I lose half my fingers.”
Children of the gods were created when one of the gods gifted a child a drop of their divine blood upon conception. In some instances, the gods were active participants in the sex, but it was not necessary—they need only be present for the act of creation.
“Nothing about you is ugly, Freya, least of all the scars you earned defending your honor and family,” he said. “And those tattoos are a sign you have the blood of a goddess in your veins. You should wear them with pride, not hide them as though they were a brand of shame.”
“You keep telling me I’m good-looking,” he answered as he pulled me back toward the beach. “If you aren’t careful, I’m going to start to think your intentions toward me are less than honorable.”
“Don’t worry,” I mumbled as he hauled me onto the beach, rocks digging into my back as I looked up at him. “Your looks aren’t good enough to compensate for your tongue.”
“She, the unfated, she the child of Hlin, she who was born in fire must give sacrifice to the gods on the mount at the first night of the full moon else her thread will be cut short, the future that was foreseen unwoven.”
“Kiss my arse, Bjorn.” A smirk worked its way onto his face. “Perhaps later. I doubt that was the last we’ve seen of the draug, and while meeting my end with my lips pressed against your backside might not be the worst death, I don’t think it will earn me a place in Valhalla.”
“It is hard to keep one’s wits when faced with a woman as beautiful as the sight of shore to a man who has been lost at sea.”
“And don’t you dare tell me that it was respect for my father that you felt pressed between your thighs that night.”
“I wanted you the moment I first set eyes on you. I wanted you in Fjalltindr. I want you now, and tomorrow, and all the tomorrows, Freya.”
“I was going to point out that you have a habit of getting very wet around me,” he said. “I’m starting to wonder whether it’s purposeful.”
“Then we can’t do this.” Bjorn pulled out of my grip, retreating a step so that his back pressed against the building opposite. “I won’t do it, Freya. I won’t skulk around with you in the shadows, living every day a lie while I watch you be changed by my father’s ambition. I’ll have all of you or none of you.”
“You will have everything I have the power to give, Freya. I swear it.”
“No oath is worth your life. No amount of vengeance is worth your happiness. I’ll let the past burn to ash, Freya, because you are my present. My future. My destiny.” He lifted his other hand to cup my face. “I love you.”
“Do you have any idea the madness it drove me to, sliding my fingers into you that night and feeling how fucking wet you were but not being able to have you on my tongue?”
“Her fate is inked in her blood,” Harald said, giving a wry shake of his head. “It’s carved in her bones. This power is Freya’s destiny.”
