Filed to story: A Fate Inked In Blood Free
This was how it was supposed to feel. What I’d always dreamed it would be like. Not to be used as a means to an end, but to be worshipped as a woman beloved. To matter to my lover.
Bjorn unhooked my legs from his neck, moving them around his waist so that the water once again poured over me. “You’re so beautiful, Freya,” he whispered. “Like a goddess.”
I opened my eyes, blinking at the brilliance all around me.
Magic poured from my hands where they gripped the edge of the pool above me. It clung to the water as it swirled down, painting my body with rivulets of silver light, spilling over the curve of my hips to fall into the pool below where it spiraled away on the current.
Bjorn bent over me, kissing my lips with such reverence that my heart broke and re-formed. Gods, but I loved him. Wanted him. Couldn’t imagine ever being parted from him, the very thought of it sending a slice of panic through me. I wrapped my arms around his neck, my magic spilling over his skin as I tangled my fingers in his hair, my tongue in his mouth. He tasted of salt, every breath I took filled with the scent of him.
“I want you in me,” I whispered, pressing myself against him, a whimper pulling from my lips as his thick tip entered me. “I want all of you.”
“Not yet,” he murmured, lips tracing fire down my throat even as he slipped a hand between my legs, holding my hips down against the rock, thumb stroking the throbbing knot of my clit. “I want you wet and ready when I take you.”
I moaned as he stroked me, his other hand on my breast, teasing my nipple and sending sparks of pleasure through my body. My breath came in rapid pants, my back arching off the rock, and my muscles clenching around his tip, which teased the inside of me with the promise of more. “I’m no maid,” I hissed, the need to be filled surpassing my need for breath, wild and desperate. “I’m ready.”
“Not ready enough.” His teeth caught the curve of my shoulder and marked me, claiming me as I cried out. “I want you hot and wet and so desperate for my cock in you that you beg for it, Freya.”
All featherlight touch was gone, his thumb rubbing me hard, throbbing pulses spiking down my legs with each stroke. Another climax was rising, my breath rapid pants, the need so intense it bordered on pain. I opened my mouth to scream, Please.
But he already knew what I needed. He always did.
Bjorn’s arm slid under my back, lifting me off the rock and dragging my hips forward as he thrust into me.
A sob wrenched from my lips as he buried himself deep. So long and thick it seemed impossible I could contain him, but my body took him in like the first breath of air after too long under water.
“Gods, you feel good,” he groaned, withdrawing and thrusting into me again, the sensation driving me to the brink. “And you are mine.”
I was his.
Every part of me for all of eternity. I clung to his neck as he drove into me again and again, with each stroke the base of him rubbing against the spot his thumb had abandoned. My nails clawed his skin, my heels digging into the hard muscle of his arse as I pulled him into me, my climax teetering on the brink.
Bjorn kissed me, our teeth knocking together with the force of it, his tongue chasing over mine as he plunged into me, breath hot and rapid. Then his hands gripped my hips, nearly pulling me off the rock as he drove deep.
Release surged over me like a storm. Like a tempest that would tear the world apart, my body shuddering as it drowned me in pleasure, dragging me back under each time I broke the surface. Never had I felt anything like it, the sensation washing away sight even as it drowned me in color, my ears filling with the sound of my name on Bjorn’s lips as he climaxed, spilling into me in a flood hotter than the waters we swam in.
He buried his face in my neck, rocking against me, leaving me boneless and spent. “I love you,” I breathed, allowing my magic to dissipate, leaving us wrapped in darkness. “You are all I want.”
Bjorn shuddered, fingers tightening around me. “I’ll kill anyone who tries to take you from me.”
I shouldn’t like it, the violence, but it was men wishing violence upon me who would try to tear us apart, so I relished his words. Relaxed into the protective embrace of them as he lifted me down into the water, holding me close in the darkness.
“How long can we stay here?” I asked, beads of condensed water and sweat running down my cheeks as I nuzzled his throat. Part of me hoped he’d say forever because I never wanted to leave. Never wanted to step outside to face the world, despite the knowledge it was a different world we’d walk toward.
“We should leave in the morning.” He traced his finger over the curve of my hip. “I want to get you out of Skaland.”
“South?” I murmured. “Where it’s warm?”
“Not too far south or I’ll overheat.” He carried me down the length of the pool. “I need to feel the bite of winter for at least part of the year.”
I drowsed against him, thinking of summer lands. Imagining building a home. Having a child. Raising animals and tilling the land. My mind stalled on the last as I tried to imagine Bjorn farming, the vision refusing to manifest. Refusing to give me anything other than images of him running into battle, blazing axe in hand.
It’s only because you’ve never seen that side of him, I told myself. Not that it doesn’t exist.
Bjorn carried me out of the water, a cool night breeze blowing into the chamber and chilling my skin. I shivered as he set me down, the rock cold beneath my bare feet. Still naked, Bjorn left the cave, returning with an armload of branches. Using his usual haphazard method, he dumped the wood on top of his axe and waited for it to light. “Here. It’s a bit soggy, but edible,” he said, handing me some dried meat that had been in his belt pouch, then retrieved my sword and both our mail shirts, which were probably already setting to rust.
“Throw them away.” I rested on my elbow as I watched him work, drinking in the sight of his naked body. “I never want to wear armor again,” I added, full well knowing that wearing it had once been my dream.
Bjorn lifted his face, firelight glinting off his eyes. “We aren’t out of Skaland yet, love. And no matter where we go, there will be dangers we’ll need to protect against. Besides, this mail is worth a small fortune and-” He broke off, giving his head a shake. “You don’t have to wear it, Freya. I’ll pack it away.”
I knew what he’d been about to say. That wealth would no longer be ours for the taking. He was used to being the son of the jarl. To raiding every season to fill his pockets with gold and silver. Neither of which would be possibilities where we planned to go. Which meant that, in many ways, it would be a harder life.
Unease chilled my stomach and I tried to push away the many challenges that would face us in the days to come, the euphoria of finally being together fraying around the edges. I was used to a simple life on the farm, so it would be easy for me to give up the weapons and the fighting, to turn my back on power. Much less easy for him, because he’d been a warrior all his life.
Was that why he didn’t want to give up the armor? Because he couldn’t imagine life as something other than a warrior? Ask him, I told myself. Better to know now than later.
My tongue felt numb and my throat tight as I finally managed to say, “What do you think it will be like?”
He lifted his shoulder in a shrug, then moved to hang up the oiled mail away from the steaming pool. “We’ll want to keep to the wilds until we’re far enough away that no one will recognize us. Even then, we’ll want to keep our magic hidden until we’re out of Skaland and across the sea. They have different gods and magic than ours, and rumors about strangers travel far.”
“I meant,” I swallowed hard, “afterward.”
He had my sword in hand, warped blade half out of the scabbard, but he paused, then sheathed it. “Wherever we end up, whatever we do, all that matters is that I am by your side, Freya.”