Into the North

by Amber Huxley

The barbarian’s thumb traced the edge of his jaw. A tightness rose in Marcus’s chest that was different from the fear, and with it came a sliver of calm. The same calm he had felt when he’d met Agnar’s eyes at the altar. How did he keep doing that?

“You have eyes as deep and dark as the night’s sky, and I will look into them.”

“You are mine. I would not share if Nerthus herself appeared and demanded to have you.”

How pathetic could he be, to believe that a master could truly love his slave?

There was no world in which someone who owned another could also see them as an equal.

Agnar pulled him in tighter, until there wasn’t a hair’s width between the length of their bodies. “My bed has been cold without you.”

“Forgive me, I did not mean to say that your ale is without its charms. I have grown fond of it myself, and if I ever find the deer that pisses into your kegs, I shall ask him how he makes it.”

“The truth is that you cannot love me as a man and keep me as a thrall. You fear me running away, yet I have had a thousand chances to leave. I stayed for you. Because I let my heart grow fond of you even though I knew it was a mistake. And in my stupidity, I continued to believe that this would work.

“I will not have the man who saved my life humble himself before me. Rise, Marcus.”