She felt him kick the door to a chamber, and he set her on her feet, shutting the door behind them.
She stood unsteadily, staring about her: this was a chamber much like hers, but vaster. Tapestries hung from ceiling to floor and a monumental fireplace dominated one wall, a roaring fire within it. Logs were stacked on either side of the mantlepiece. Ornate sconces held lit torches, flooding the room with shifting golden light and creeping shadows. Furs and gold-trimmed carpets covered the flagstones and elegantly carved furniture filled the room. The windows were long and narrow, flanked by heavy emerald-green curtains, silver moonlight falling through the misty glass.
To the left of the room, at the top of three wooden steps, lay an enormous bed, the four posters draped with heavy red velvet, soft white bedding covering the huge mattresses. Aster stared at the bed, feeling her cheeks burn at the sight of it. It was much larger than her bed had been.
“Is this it?” she whispered faintly.
“Aye,” Svagnar murmured. “Our marriage bed.”
Taking her by the hand, he led her to the bed. She followed, her stomach fluttering as though birds filled it with the frantic batting of their wings. Svagnar sat upon the bed, splaying his legs, and pulled her towards him until she stood between his knees. It was the first time she was taller than him. Yet even when she looked down upon him, he was still intimidating enough to raise goosebumps across her skin.
His piercing eyes were as grey as snow-bearing clouds, and they devoured her. He looked imposing and beautiful all at once, with his sharp nose and muscular jaw. The pink, raised scar that crossed his face made her knees feel weak with something inexplicable. Raising her hand to his face, she traced the scar with her fingertips, feeling the silken smoothness of it.
“How did you get this?”
Svagnar caught her hand in his, kissed her fingers tenderly.
“One day, we fought your father’s army on our shores. The battle was long and bloody, but we fought hard Just when we thought we were victorious, we were ambushed by Sefenan mercenaries. Jarl Isolf was struck down, and I ran to see to him, for he was like a father to me.”
He spoke frankly and thoughtfully, no sadness in his voice, only the slowness of remembrance.
“Isolf died in my arms, and I was too busy grieving to see that I was surrounded. A Sefenan mercenary slashed me across the face and left me for dead. I, too, thought perhaps I had died, for I am certain I saw the gods waiting to greet me. But it was not my day to die, for I awoke later, my face split in half.”
“That’s awful. I can’t… I’m sorry this happened to you.”
Svagnar shook his head: “A lot of good men died that day - but I lived. I cannot bring them back to life, but I can do my best to stop others from dying as they did. And now, I’m married to you, Adrienna, and perhaps this war will soon become a distant memory.”
A lance of guilt pierced Aster’s gut, and she felt tears burn her eyes. If she did not stop herself this very moment she would do something devastating - speak the truth. So instead she did something else devastating. Throwing her arms around Svagnar’s neck, she pressed her mouth to his as she had done the night of the feast, kissing him with despair and hunger.
He fell back, dragging her over him, and rolled over, his mouth hard and demanding on hers. She clutched his shoulders, her entire body aching for him. His mouth tasted of honey mead and something heated and wild, and she slid her tongue against his, craving closer contact. His weight was pinning her to the bed and his hand was reaching for her thigh, pulling it so she would spread her legs, his hips settling between her legs.
When he stopped kissing her she moaned in protest. But he murmured against her mouth: “Do you remember what I told you about the next time I would have you in a bed, hellhound?”
She remembered. His words had haunted ever since he’d spoken them. Now his mouth was sliding against her neck, hot and wet. His powerful hands pulled on the lacing at her throat, tearing the flimsy chemise beneath it asunder, exposing her small, firm breasts.
As he reached for her he stopped. A fine string of leather was tied around her neck, looped through the wolf ring he had given her. He had known it had been too large for her, but he had not expected her to wear it still. The sight of it, the silver ring dangling between her pale breasts, was enough to make his cock ache.
He grunted like a feral wolf and his head moved to the pale mounds of flesh, his hands holding her breasts even as he pressed wet, lingering kisses over them. His tongue found one of her nipples and she cried out in the shock of her pleasure, her hands finding his head, her fingers burying themselves into his hair.
“Do you know how often I’ve thought about those pretty breasts of yours?” he breathed against her skin.
His tongue lapped over one of her nipples, then sliding to the next, leaving the first one wet and vividly sensitive. He sucked on the other nipple until both were hard. Then he pulled away, his fingers pinching the wet, slippery peaks.
“Do you know how long I’ve wanted to know the colour of your nipples?”
She moaned in response. The liquid pleasure pulsing between her legs was too distracting to allow her to form words. Instead, she ground her hips against him beseechingly. She wanted more, she needed more.
He laughed, low and rumbling like thunder, and commanded huskily: “Pull up your skirts, hellhound. I want to see more.”
She obeyed, pulling up her skirts as his eyes watched her hungrily. When her hems slipped over her thighs, he grew too impatient to wait. Yanking up her skirts the rest of the way he bundled them around her waist. Falling to his knees by the bed, he pulled her hips towards him and began tracing lines of lingering kisses along her thighs. He found an old bruise on the sensitive flesh and groaned thickly as his lips brushed over the faint purple mark.
“The thought of this bruise on your thigh has kept my cock hard many nights,” he said hoarsely.
Aster was breathing hard, her mind misty with alcohol and lust. She could not understand why this bruise should have tormented him so: she had received it during a training drill, and it had almost faded now. She had never given it a moment’s thought. But Svagnar gazed upon it, his eyes glowing with adoration, and kissed it more tenderly than he had kissed any other part of her.
Until his mouth reached the apex of her thighs, where dark, silken hair hid her most secret part. Aster had never been kissed there, and when she felt his mouth kiss the delicate flesh of her inner lips a strangled squeal of surprise burst from her lips. She propped herself on her elbows, staring in shock at Svagnar.
“Lie back, my delicious wife,” he commanded softly, his hand pressing against her chest and pushing her back onto the bed. “Lie back and let me taste you. I’ve waited too long to do this.”
She lay back and closed her eyes tight, overwhelmed with the sensation of his lips sliding against the most sensitive part of her. She could feel how wet she was, and yet his tongue was wetter still when it slid between the lips of her sex, making her whine with pleasure. It was a hot, tantalising caress, so intimate and salacious that she felt more exposed than if she had been naked.
But Svagnar was relentless, and soon his tongue was stroking her, delving over her entrance, seeking the tiny pearl of pleasure hidden in the soft folds of flesh. When he found it, his lips closed over it and he suckled on it, so slow and deep and wet that Aster’s entire body buckled, and she covered her mouth with her hands to stifle the scream that escaped her mouth.
“Oh, Svagnar, Svagnar!” she whimpered, her back arching off the bed, her hips grinding against his mouth.
He growled against her intimate flesh and his tongue began lapping the pearl of pleasure he had found. Aster opened her mouth to beg him for something she had no words for. But the quickening between her legs held her motionless, trapped in terrible anticipation. Her entire body froze, her thighs quivering uncontrollably as the quickening reached an impossible peak.
“Svagnar!” she cried, her voice keen
ing and broken.
Then Svagnar’s tongue slowed and undulated and engulfed her, the movement so hot and deep that Aster felt pleasure crash through her, making her body convulse and twist against Svagnar’s mouth, a wail of anguished ecstasy pouring from her mouth.
Svagnar held her still as she bucked uncontrollably against him, riding the tidal waves of her orgasm against his tongue. Then, as the movement slowed and eventually stopped, he lay her back down upon the bed and stood above her, his eyes dark, and his mouth curled into a smug, triumphant smirk.
“I told you I’d made you scream my name,” he said hoarsely. “Now take off your clothes, wife. I’m not done with you yet.”
She stared at him, breathless and quivering on the bed. She pulled at her bodice but her arms and hands felt weak, weaker than they ever had before. She fumbled with her clothes, struggling to pull them off her. Svagnar watched her with steadily darkening eyes, then pulled a dagger from his boot. In swift, deadly motions, he sliced at the lacing of her dress, severing them.
“Svagnar, my clothes!” she protested breathlessly.
“I’ve never liked your clothes,” he snarled, dragging her skirts from her hips, pulling her bodice down her shoulders and arms and throwing it aside. Her chemise he did not even bother removing: he tore it with his hands, tossing fistfuls of gossamer fabric over his shoulder. “I’ve never liked anything that’s kept your body hidden from me.”
She swallowed hard as his gaze consumed her. His eyes caressed every part of her with ravenous hunger: her long dark hair, her flushed cheeks, her exposed breasts, her nipples that glistened from the wetness of his mouth, her flat stomach and long, lean legs. His hands were moving towards his belt, unbuckling it with slow, deliberate motions.
“The torches,” she whispered tremulously.
“Yes, the torches,” he said, unsmiling and intent now. “They allow me to see every exquisite part of you.”
He pulled his belt open with a hard, quick motion, and his cock sprung free from his trousers. Aster’s heart rose to her mouth: Kylan had not been lying. Svagnar’s cock, like the rest of him, was distressingly huge. It was long and pale and thick, roped with veins, the head pink and gleaming with moisture. And it was hard as marble, so hard it stood straight up.
Svagnar moved to the bed with the slow, prowling steps of a predator. He crawled down over Aster, so close she could smell the heady musk of him. Settling between her legs, he propped one arm beside her head and used his free hand to shift his cock so it pushed against her entrance.
“I intend to watch every part of you when I take you,” he continued, his voice husky and dark. “And when I impale you on my cock, I intend to watch every cry that escapes your mouth.”
His words sent creeping tendrils of lust through her. She was still pulsing and trembling from when he had made her come on his tongue, and she was shocked to find that she wanted more still. She wanted more of him. She wanted all of him.
She felt the blunt head of his member push against her entrance and she frowned up at him. Surely he was too large, and would never fit. But when she frowned, his lips curled into a smile, and he leaned down and caught her mouth in a kiss that stole her breath.
“I knew you would frown at me,” he sighed, resting his head against her cheek. “Do you know how much I’ve thought about that terribly serious frown of yours?”
And he pushed himself inside her.
Her reply was immediately lost in a moan. She gasped air into her lungs, shifting her hips as she adjusted around his girth. Even the tip of his cock was impossibly huge - and as he began pushing deeper inside, she felt stretched, and she breathed hard, whimpering low in her throat. Soon, he has buried to the hilt inside her, and he lay utterly still as she squirmed beneath him, getting herself accustomed to the feeling of exquisite fullness.
“Gods, you’re so tight,” he grunted against her ear. “You’re so fucking tight, so fucking wet.”
She felt her cheeks burn at his lewd words, and she felt the hot pulsing his words sent between her legs. He groaned as her inner walls squeezed him.
“You’re going to drive me to madness, you sorceress, you siren.”
Leaning on his elbows, he began to move slowly, pulling out of her. The sudden feeling of emptiness tore a pleading cry from Aster’s lips, and she looked up at Svagnar in surprise at her own reaction. He grinned, slow and arrogant.
“You enjoy being filled by my cock, don’t you, hellhound?”
She dared not respond, but she undulated her hips against his, and that was the only answer he needed. In one smooth motion, he buried himself back inside her. The pain between her legs was beginning to fade, replaced by a dull ache that felt more like hunger than anything else. She clutched him as tightly as she could, her face buried in his shoulder. He groaned as he began thrusting in and out of her, his cock sending bursts of sensation through her every time it penetrated her.
“Svagnar,” she breathed, her mouth against his shoulder, her fingers gripping him so tightly they hurt. “Svagnar, please… Please…”
“Please, what? Tell me what you want.”
“I want you, please, I want… I want more.”
She was blabbering; she did not know what she was saying. She no longer felt drunk or misty-brained - she felt more lucid than she had ever felt before. And in that glass-sharp lucidity, she knew only one thing: that she needed him, that she needed him desperately.
“I need you,” she told him with complete sincerity, her heart glad to be telling him the truth, finally.
“Gods, don’t speak like this, you’ll-” his words strangled to a stop, his expression tormented.
But he crushed her against him, his arms holding her close, and his mouth swallowed her cries as he pounded furiously into her. She felt him grow harder inside her, and she kissed him back hungrily, her tongue seeking his, her breath mingling with his.
The strokes of his cock were growing ever harder, his movements brutal and erratic, and then he cursed, an unholy litany bursting forth from his mouth as his climax gripped him. He thrust in hard and paused, spilling his seed deep inside her, and Aster felt sudden tears spring to her eyes. Hiding her face in Svagnar’s neck, she held on fast as he rode the waves of his climax with panting, laboured breaths. Finally, he collapsed at her side, his softening member slipping out of her.
Aster lay in his arms, gasping, her chest heaving. She blinked quickly, trying to will the unnerving tears from her eyes. She felt as though something life-changing and profound had just happened to her, and she longed to hold on to Svagnar, to beg him to never let her go. But now, in the balanced, crystallised moment of intimacy they were suspended in, she dared not say anything.
Svagnar’s eyes were closed as he caught his breath, and when he opened them, he gave Aster a look of such unashamed, guileless adoration that she could hardly bear it. Pulling her close to him, he slid one leg between her thighs so they lay entangled and kissed the top of her head.
“I’ve wanted to do this for a very long time,” he said against her hair. “And I can’t wait to do it again.”
Aster raised her head in surprise.
“Again? Already?”
“Oh, you’ve no idea. And the next time, I’ll have you on top of me, and I’ll watch you bounce on my cock.”
She looked up at him, frowning at the shameless licentiousness of his words.
“Stop frowning at me, hellhound. Your frowns make me hard as a rock, and I’m sick of going to sleep with a hard cock because of you.”
She stopped frowning. She had never realised her frowns would have quite this effect on him. She wanted to tell him that she most often frowned in thought, not in disparagement, but she was too tired to speak. Svagnar had worn her out, and now that they lay entangled, his seed leaking hotly from inside her, she wanted to luxuriate in the delicious exhaustion.
Before she fell asleep, she made sure to say: “Next time, I think you ought to be naked, and I, clothed.”
He laughed, the deep, delighted sound vibrating through his chest.
“Whatever you desire, my lustful little jarl.”
Safe and contented, she banished the fear and anguish from her heart. On the morrow, she would betray and sever and suffer - but for now, she would let herself be Svagnar’s wife. She kissed his chest, nestling into him, and soon fell into a velvety, dreamless sleep.
Chapter XIV
Svagnar the Husband
Svagnar awoke to the sound of songbird outside the windows, a head resting on his shoulder, and an armful of warm limbs.
He cracked one eye open: golden sunlight flooded the room, dust dancing like tiny sprites in the rays of light that fell from the windows. Next to him lay his new wife, with the long strands of her dark hair gleaming like silk across the pillows.
Making sure not to awaken her, he turned, propping her head on his arm. He wanted to observe her face. In sleep, she was as pale as a mountain flower, for there was no flush upon her cheek. Her perpetual frown drew the dark, straight lines of her brows together.
Now that she was so close to him in the limpid light of day he saw little details he had never had the luxury to notice before. He saw the way her eyelids were so translucent he could see the intricate pattern of tiny blue and purple veins within the skin. The way her cheeks and nose were scattered by the faintest smattering of fawn freckles. The way her upper lip was shaped like a bow perfectly.
Everything he saw, he loved, and he could not resist the urge to kiss her rose-pink mouth. She blearily opened her eyes, and he was struck through the heart by the blueness of them, like sapphires, like night skies, like bottomless oceans. He could not believe that she was his, that she was in his bed, finally. After waiting for so long, after yearning for this without hope that it would ever come true, he was half-afraid he would soon awaken from a dream.
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