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Tamsin loves these people… these men… her countrymen. But they do not deserve her love.
Olaf ordered a merciful slaughter. It is a paradox; an impossibility.
Let my brothers struggle with their mercy. I care not how many of those Briton curs we cull.
It hurts too much. To love him.
“If we die in some ridiculous manner, you find me in Valhöll,” Ivar tells me. “So I can express my feelings about it. With an axe.”
Forgive me, it says, the yearn swelling between us. And then the wish contradicts itself, the waves turning dark. No. Don’t ask that of her. She won’t, she can’t. She shouldn’t forgive.
He’s found out how to shut me out.
God, but I’d forgotten what a bunch of self-righteous bastards they all are.
Thrain’s wrong about this girl; she’s stronger than iron. She’s proven that to us so many times already.
I know the others feel the same as I while we move around her; this bone-deep belonging of pack. She may speak with her kin, she may bend over them protectively. But she is ours, now.
“I don’t think Thrain will want to do that.” “Well, I’m not going to give him a choice.”
“It feels like – like I’m dying, or –” “You aren’t dying. It’s just panic.” Just panic. He makes it sound like a small problem. I wish it were.
Somehow he is the perfect company for this strange night of pagan funerals and smoke. There is no one more appropriate than the witch’s son himself, to help break me apart.
“I am not gentle,” I warn. Her eyes glint in the dark. “Nor am I fragile.”
She must’ve known, surely. That this wasn’t a particularly good idea. She must also know that I’ll not discourage her when she comes to me with bad ideas.
“I’m here for you, lamb. Whatever you need.”
“I want you here,” she insists softly. “With me. With us.”
“Thrain,” she whispers into my hair. “Please don’t shut yourself off from me.”
“You always have a place in my nest, Ivar,” she replies groggily, her voice still breathy and intimate. That makes him go rather quiet.
“I changed you as profoundly as that?” “You did,”
we all exchange a glance that speaks of just how much internal screaming is going on.
“To friendship,” calls a drunken Armod, even as we try to shush him. “To those tiny Christian lads… and to sheer luck!”
We leave no survivors.
“Please… I need your knot.” “And you’ll have it,” I growl as I ruck up into her clenching, pulsing insides. “But I… I want him, too… Ivar,” she pants. “I want you both… is that all right?”
“And what do you want me to do with that regret of yours? Butter my fucking toast with it?
“Jarl, we thought – the King mentioned –” “Fuck the King,”
“Isn’t there any way I could help you? With the spell, or with anything else? I’d like to help if I can.”
“You want to help me with a spell? You, a Christian girl?”
hhhff, Loki stuff your mouth –” “Are you going to be good?” “Fuck you –” “You’re about to come, aren’t you?” “Yes –”
“But your father…” “My father’s wellbeing is not your priority.”
Tamsin is entirely spoiled by this mouth of his. I had forgotten what it felt like.
“I’d like to know exactly what, in the name of Loki’s horse cunt, happened out there last night.”
does she know what I would do to her, if she were chained to my bed?
“I don’t care,” I whisper against his golden rings. “I’ll wait for you.”
“Ask me, you idiot.” “Fine! Would you be all right with it if I bit your fucking wife?” “Yes! I would.” “Grand! That’s perfect then.”
well you see, I have three protectors… three men I care for deeply. And a fourth perhaps, who’s far away…
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to cut it off,” Heddwyn says through his grin. “I’m just going to give the devil’s son the forked tongue he ought to have.”
ear. In order to have everything, one must first accept to have nothing at all.
“How are you feeling, Ivar?” And he writes, fantastic. Tch. Of course he’d resort to sarcasm the minute he can express himself again.
“You wanted to kill some Vikings, boy?” I rasp at him. “Now’s your chance.”
she’s making me bald as a boy with a lice infestation,
“I will go if the Kátr-Ekkja leads us!”
“Princess. It would be an honour to have you by our side, in whatever capacity you can afford us.”
Maybe all this while, I was holding onto the hope that I would see the great man that Olaf loved so much. And now I have only just glimpsed him; but that is all I’ll ever see, and somehow it’s so fucking disappointing.
“Kátr-Ekkja,” Orm greets me, ruddy and smiling. “We were just talking about you –” “She is thirteen, Orm,” I tell him. His face turns ghost-white, his lips slack. He lifts his eyes away from her and gives a despairing kind of laugh. “Thirteen!” he says. Then he bows to her and turns away, as though he can’t bear to look at her any more. “Thirteen. Freya have mercy.”
“Unless this is just you trying to get me undressed –” “Yes, Ivar,” he deadpans, giving me an unimpressed look. “I cannot possibly have anything else than sex on my mind, even after you were tortured in their fucking dungeon.”
“Only you would stage your claiming ceremony in the middle of a full-blown siege,” he says, amusement in his tone.
He is only present; achingly attuned to me, staying quiet so he might heed me. Giving me control even while he has me pinned here.
“Ivar,” he pants, hand over my heart. “Can you take more?” I close my eyes before anything can spill; “Yes.”
“I think I understand better now,” she adds. “What you meant that day. When you said that fire doesn’t destroy you, but changes you instead.”
