by Bec McMaster
“No, you’re here for coin.” His hands brushed against hers in the water. Accidentally, she thought, when his eyes widened. “’Tis strange how you haven’t yet demanded your coin from Marduk.”
“We’ve been busy trying not to die.”
“He doesn’t recognize you,” he said. “I was wondering if he would.”
“My involvement with him was through a proxy.”
“Mmm. Who?”
Bryn bared her caged teeth. “That’s my business. Mine and Marduk’s. Did Haakon put you up to this?”
The innocent look in his eyes didn’t fool her. “Up to what?”
“Questioning me.”
“Of course he did.” Tormund shrugged, water sluicing over his shoulders.
Of course he did. She swam backward, her gut twisting in knots. “You’re a terrible questioner.”
“Why lie? You know he did. I know he did. Haakon’s not the type of man who lets his guard down very easily. Of course he wants to know more about you. And his interests currently align with my own.”
“I’m not very interesting.”
That smile. Her heart fluttered as he swam after her. “You keep saying that. In my experience, that means you’re very interesting. The more I don’t know, the more I want to know. Tell me something about you. Something important. Where do you come from? Are your parents alive? Do you have siblings? What is your favorite color?”
He was never going to give up. “My mother is dead. My father is dead. I was born far to the north in one of the border forts along the Norwegian border, though it was never my home. My father made sure of that. I have no siblings. And my favorite color is black.”
“As black as your heart?”
“Something like that.”
“How old are you?”
“Older than you,” she replied. By about two hundred years.
“You don’t know that.”
“Oh, I do.” Remember that völva? I met her when she was a wee lass of two-and-twenty. Though I definitely aged better.
“I’m seven-and-twenty.”
“I’m older.” She held a stalling finger to his lips. “And you would be wise to stop asking this lady her age. You may not like the answer.”
Perhaps it was her touch, but he subsided with a simple kiss to her finger that lingered even after she clenched her hand into a fist.
It felt like it had been branded into her skin—except she could remember the pain of hot irons stealing away her sacred runes. That wretched flash of bone-searing pain felt nothing like this, though she suspected she’d remember both for long years to come.
You shouldn’t be here.
You should leave.
And yet she lingered, because she simply couldn’t help herself.
Tormund’s gaze dropped to her mouth. “I don’t care how old you are, Bryn. Your answer would never have bothered me.” But he shrugged when she glared at him. “Fine, then. Your father was not a kindly person?”
“Straight to the heart.” She tipped her chin up proudly. She owed him this, at least. “My mother…. She couldn’t raise me as her own, so she left me on his doorstep. My father became a religious man shortly after my birth, though I was never quite certain whether I was the catalyst for that or not. He took me in because it was his religious duty to pay penance for straying outside the bounds of his mortal marriage. And then he spent the next nine years trying to beat the devil out of me.”
Tormund stilled as thunder rumbled in the distance. “I’m sorry.”
She shrugged as if she could pretend that even after all this time it didn’t hurt. “He’s dead and buried and his name is lost to the sands of time. I made sure of that. But I am still here.”
“I’m still sorry. No child should ever have to endure such a thing.”
“No, they shouldn’t. But it made me strong.”
There was a hint of sympathy in his eyes, as if he thought otherwise. “It does explain a few things.”
Bryn sighed and sank beneath the water, washing away the itch of anger that trembled over her skin. You have no idea, big man. But she let the water wash away her fury, still unabated after all these years.
The past shaped you. And you could either let it force you into the crucible others so desired, or you could use it to shape yourself.
She came up for a breath, wiping the water from her face. “Enough of such talk. You’ve asked your questions. And I have answered.”
“So you have. You saved my life yesterday,” he said, “and I still haven’t thanked you.”
“It was nothing,” she grumbled. “You would have done the same for me.”
“It was sweet.”
“Sweet?” Now she knew he was lying. “The cold has addled your wits. I’m not sweet, Tormund. I look after myself. I don’t watch over anyone else.”
“You were standing there between a furious dreki queen and me with naught but your sword, daring her to come and get you.” The rumble of a soft laugh echoed through his chest, and his brown eyes warmed. “If you were worried about your own skin, you would have left me there.”
She looked away.
“Why does it bother you so much to admit that you care about others?” This time his voice softened. “It’s not a weakness.”
“It is a weakness. It gives you hope. It makes you believe that you will be protected, only to find out you have a weak flank,” she whispered. She’d spent years drilling in a shield wall, only to discover that the one time she truly needed someone at her back, they weren’t there for her. “The only person who will look out for me is me. And the only one who will watch my back is me. I learned that lesson, Tormund. If I protected you, then… it was a moment of stupidity. The battle rush. Nothing else.”
He didn’t argue. Didn’t counter her. He merely cocked his head as if he saw straight through her. “I would watch your back.”
“Of course you would,” she said wryly.
Men would promise you the world, if only to steal their way beneath your blankets.
“Well, how about we settle on something we can both agree upon?” Tormund said, displaying the bar of soap. “If I promise to keep my hands to myself, will you let me wash your back instead?”
That innocuous sliver of soap held the danger of an unsheathed blade in inept hands.
“You do trust me, don’t you?” he teased.
It took her a long moment to realize the answer was yes.
He was too honest. Too open. Tormund wouldn’t be able to betray someone if his life depended upon it.
Bryn slowly turned around. “I trust you,” she admitted.
“Well, that’s a start.”
It was herself she didn’t trust.
And perhaps he should learn that lesson too. She sighed. Why did this particular job have to be so difficult? Why had she ever agreed upon it?
Enormous soapy hands brushed her hair forward over her shoulder. Bryn shivered, tilting her head forward almost in surrender, as he slid those callused hands over her smooth skin. Not for him the practiced touches of the seducer. She’d expected those hands to delve lower, to accidentally brush against her breast, perhaps, but he was, as always, impeccably polite.
Gentler than she’d expected, for such a large man.
Each slow stoke of his hands felt like a caress, as if he was soothing a nervous filly. And tension crept through her, for she wasn’t nervous and she wasn’t innocent, and she wanted him to stop being so fucking polite—even though she’d been the one to set the terms.
“What’s wrong?” he whispered.
Everything.
“I don’t think I should let you do this,” she admitted. “It complicates matters.”
Those fingers brushed against her shoulder, and then he rubbed his thumbs up the column of muscle on either side of her neck.
“I thought it would simplify them,” he replied, driving his thumbs up under the hollow where her neck met her skull. “You want me. I want you. It’s easy, Bryn. All we ha
ve to do is enjoy each other.”
Thought fled. Rational argument evaporated. Bryn moaned a little as every inch of her went slack. She’d never realized how much tension she carried in the muscles that banded her skull. Fingers delved into her hair, tracing firm circles over her scalp. It felt amazing.
“Murgh.”
“What was that?” The rumble of his voice sounded dangerously close to her ear.
“Don’t stop.” She tilted her head back and surrendered.
“I told you my hands were magic.”
It felt so good she couldn’t even reply to that comment.
His hands were amazing. He kneaded her scalp until she was resting her head back on his shoulder, careless of his embrace. She didn’t know how long it lasted, only that she was a sated, breathless mess when he finally finished.
Tormund cleared his throat. “I think I’m in danger of crossing that invisible line between us.”
“What invisible line?” she murmured, her eyes closed.
“The one that says ‘cross at your own peril’ whenever you glare at me. The one that says ‘keep your hands to yourself.’”
Bryn opened her eyes slowly. His hands rested on her hips. And there was a question in the placement of them, one he was waiting for her to answer.
Bryn’s breath caught. He wouldn’t be her first conquest. Nor would he be her last. And she was no shy maid. When it came to members of the opposite sex, she took what she wanted and left them grateful behind her.
But she felt strangely hesitant to pursue this with Tormund.
In the distance, thunder rumbled.
The ring in her shirt pocket burned a guilty hole in her heart. She’d found Marduk, as Solveig had demanded. Now all she had to do was summon the warlord princess and her task was complete.
She would have everything she’d ever wanted. Absolution. The loving embrace of her sister Valkyrie. The chance to finally see her mother’s grave marker and lay her mother’s sword to rest there.
Home. The ache of it was so sharp.
Almost as sharp as the sting of her forthcoming betrayal.
“You want me,” she whispered.
“It’s no secret,” Tormund replied, and his voice was rough-edged with need. “The second I saw you, I knew you were for me—"
“You barely know me.” This time her words came sharply, and Bryn pushed out of his grasp, spinning around. “I could be your doom. Your death. I could be sent to betray you. I could be fate’s cold, bitter kiss.”
“None of it matters.” He brushed the back of his fingers down her cheek, and Bryn sucked in a sharp breath at the sensation of his touch. “If you are my fate, then I surrender to whatever it has in store for me, for never was a future so beautiful and fierce.”
His thumb stroked the lush fullness of her lower lip.
He’d never crossed that line. Not yet.
And he waited now, for an answer she must give before he would push himself over it.
She bowed her head, closing her eyes. He would hate her when he finally realized what she was. “I will be your ruin.”
“Then ruin me.” The rasp of his breath sent shivers across her skin.
A rumble of thunder shivered across the skies, and Bryn kept her eyes closed, knowing they would gleam with jagged silver. That thumb splayed across her lip, back and forth, tempting her in ways she’d never felt before.
So be it.
She’d warned him enough times.
Heat flared beneath her skin as she opened her eyes and slid her hands over his shoulders. “We’ll both regret this.”
“Never,” he told her, lowering his face to hers.
The second her mouth met his, a lash of lightning shattered across the horizon. She felt the twist of it deep within her as Tormund captured her backside and hauled her close. Every inch of his wet, sleek body slid against hers, but it was the hungry demand of his mouth that stole her breath.
He kissed as if he’d spent a lifetime dreaming of this moment.
He kissed as if he intended to make her forget everything—the hole in her heart, the promise Solveig had given her, and even the hopes she had. For a second, some part of Bryn wanted to lean into his arms and never let go.
And this was the danger of the man.
It was far too easy to imagine a future without him and she didn’t like that future. At all.
Bryn drew back with a gasp, raking her nails down his forearms. He captured her hips, as if sensing her withdrawal, and they stared into each other’s eyes.
“No regrets,” he told her. “Just this.”
How easy it sounded.
She closed her eyes and felt the brush of his lips at her temple.
Something akin to desperation broke within her like a storm. She couldn’t control herself. She pressed into his hands, into his touch. Tormund’s hair felt like wet silk in her hands, and Bryn moaned as she wrapped both thighs around his hips and ground herself against him.
“Jesus.” The word was torn from him in a ragged gasp.
But his hands were moving, stroking the curve of her spine and slowly marking their way south. His broad palm splayed across her bottom, and she could feel the storm building in the atmosphere around them, feel it building within.
The glory and fury of her Valkyrie self ignited.
A ragged sort of joy filled her as curtains of rain swept over them.
She’d been lost for so long, unable to embrace the immortality that had been stolen from her that she’d long felt like she lived a half-life. But Tormund brought the storm back into her grasp. She felt some part of her blossoming, coming alive for the first time in over a hundred years. And it was so terrifying and tremulous—the thought that she could lose it all again—that desperation drove her to drink of his mouth and press herself into his skin, so she no longer knew where he ended and she began.
Was it him?
Or was she somehow unknowingly throwing off the shackles that kept her immortal self contained?
She didn’t care.
Bryn kissed the rain from his skin, kissed the heat off his lips. Their tongues darted together, and the brutish length of his cock brushed against her entrance. Yes. She felt invincible. Felt as though she could finally shed the human prison that had contained her for far too long, if she just let him take her.
“Bryn.” Hands stroked her spine. Calming hands. “Bryn, easy, love. Easy.”
She didn’t want easy.
She wanted to be her old self again.
But he drew back, burying his face in her throat and quivering with suppressed need. A laugh rumbled through him. “I only meant to kiss you, I swear it.”
“A hell of a kiss,” she whispered with a broken voice.
He looked up and his eyes were full of stars. “A hell of a kiss.”
Bryn slid her palm through his hair, clenching her fingers in it. “And we’re not done yet. Make me forget my name. Make me forget… everything.”
“Never did a challenge sound so sweet.” He captured her mouth in a bruising kiss, biting at her lower lip.
She lost herself in his arms, moaning as his cock rubbed between her thighs. Frigg’s breath. Every inch of them aligned, and her body practically screamed its desire. She wanted him. She wanted this.
Pure, utter oblivion.
And then his hands were playing lower, fingers finding her hot and slick. Bryn broke the kiss, breathing hard as she rested her lips against his forehead. He eased one finger inside her, and she bit her lip at the surety of his touch. This was a man who knew how to please a woman.
Tormund’s wet mouth closed over her nipple, as he stroked her within, his thumb settling over that little nubbin that brought her so much pleasure.
“Don’t stop,” she moaned, undulating against his hand.
The suckle of his mouth seemed to tug on some string inside her that was tied directly to her womb. Gods, it felt amazing. And she was close. So close.
Lightning flashed again as he push
ed her over the edge.
Bryn came with a scream, her fist clenching in his hair as she threw her head back. The storm echoed her passion, thunder shaking across the horizon. Lightning kissed its heels, not once, not twice, but thrice, until it felt as though the skies themselves joined her climax.
Shaking with relief, she came back to herself in his arms, her nails imprinting in the hard muscle of his shoulders.
Their eyes met as Bryn tried to regain some modicum of rational thought.
She felt torn open, ravaged deep, her heart an aching, bruised mess as she trailed the fingers of her right hand gently over his cheek. And she wanted him to feel the same as she met his mouth for another hot, wet kiss.
Until he shuddered and pulled away, pressing his forehead to hers. “No.”
No? “What the hell do you mean?”
Was that her voice, so hard and rasping?
A soft smile chased over his lips. “I’m going to hate myself for saying this, but perhaps we should get out of the water.”
Tormund looked up, taking in the flickering skies.
She slid a hand down the back of his neck. “The lightning won’t hit us.”
“I’ve been in storms before, and that looked awfully—”
She cupped both hands behind his head, desperate to ride the storm. “It won’t hit us. I swear by all the gods. Now kiss me, you fool. Or see your chance lost forever.”
Tormund kissed her.
Firm hands cupped her ass, and then he was grinding her against him, the slick length of his cock fitting perfectly between her thighs. Right where she wanted it.
Bryn bit her lip and slid her hand between them, her fingers wrapping around his erection.
“You’re so perfect,” he growled, biting her lower lip. “So fucking beautiful. Brave. Loyal. Powerful. And mine, Bryn. All mine.”
Brave. Loyal.
He couldn’t have hurt her more if he’d stabbed a knife in her chest.
A gasp went through her and then she was shoving away from him, the hot flash of her gaze warning him not to follow. Gods, what was she thinking? What was she doing?
She was here for her own purposes. For Solveig’s. The second the dawn broke, he’d know all of it.
“Don’t say those words.”
Tormund’s brow furrowed in confusion as she strode through the water. “What’s wrong? What did I do?”
