He motions with his chin, jerking it up and to the side. I assume that he wants me to turn around, so I do. My back faces him and I feel him wrap his arms around my body. It’s warm, or maybe that’s his body wrapped around mine. When his lips touch the side of my cheek, I suck in a breath, sinking my teeth into my bottom lip.
“Aaric,” I breathe.
“Minn dróttning,” he growls against my cheek.
I don’t understand the second word that he says, but boy do I understand minn, and that terrifies me. Maybe once I go to sleep and wake up tomorrow, it will all be over and I’ll realize that this was all some really freaky and realistic dream?
Aaric tucks me against his side, sliding his arm around my shoulders. I curl my fingers around the fur, keeping it closed and hiding my nakedness from the rest of the world as we walk toward the singing and shouting of the camp.
I expect the raucous celebrations to die down when we arrive, but they don’t. If anything, everything gets so much louder. It’s almost suffocating. Glancing around, I can’t hold in my surprise at what is happening.
There are a few men engaging in fistfights. Several people are having sex, some are engaging in threesomes and more. There is drinking, singing, laughter, and overall, I find that this must be what true debauchery looks like—I’ve never seen anything like it.
The man who came over to us earlier, Fiske, is sitting on a stump, drinking from a cup of some kind. He jerks his chin toward us, but he is not smiling. A few men stumble in front of us and we’re forced to stop. My attention leaves Fiske as I focus on the handsome men in my view.
They are talking excitedly, their hands waving around wildly. I can’t understand them, but I know that Aaric does. He laughs, his deep chuckle rumbles through him. I hate that it’s so damn sexy. He pulls me against him, his arm tightening even more around my shoulders.
I feel his chin rest against the top of my head as he listens, offers a word or two, then we’re off and walking away from them, the conversation clearly over. We’re stopped again. And again. And then again.
The last time, thankfully someone shoves a wooden cup in my hand and one in Aaric’s as well. Lifting the cup, I take a sniff. Wrinkling my nose, I try not to gag. It smells like straight-up gasoline.
Aaric chuckles. Turning my head, I tilt it back and look up to him. He tips his head back, drinking a healthy chug of the liquid. He looks over at me when he’s finished, his blue eyes dancing in the firelight.
He dips his chin in a silent urge for me to do the same, to drink this strong as fuck drink. Wrinkling my nose again, I hesitantly lift the cup to my lips and take a drink.
Forcing myself to swallow, I cough and wheeze as it burns my esophagus. Once I get past the burning sensation, I decide that it’s better than nothing, and take another drink.
Aaric laughs, it’s a boom and cheerful, so beautiful that I stare at him slack-jawed. Together we make our way toward a tent. Without a word, Aaric tugs a flap back, dipping his chin for me to enter.
I do, mainly because I don’t want to be naked, wrapped in only a fur, around the entire camp any longer than I have to be.
Climbing into the tent, I’m surprised to see that it’s bigger than I anticipated. There is also what looks like a bed in the back. It’s not like a cot, but more like a huge pile of furs, exactly like the one I’m wearing.
“Fara í rekkju,” he rumbles.
Looking back at him, I frown. “I don’t know what you’re saying,” I whisper. His lips twitch and he jerks his head toward the back again. “Bed?”
Aaric’s smile widens and he jerks his chin again toward the back, toward the bed. Okay, I guess we’re going to bed now. Turning away from him, I walk toward the back of the tent, it’s only a half a dozen steps, but it feels almost foreboding.
Reaching down, I grab ahold of several furs, not sure which ones I’m supposed to be sliding between, if there’s some kind of order or anything. I stand, holding the furs around my body, and on the bed, waiting to see if Aaric will guide me.
“Hvíla,” he rasps behind me.
Turning back to look at him, I frown, unsure of what he’s instructed me to do. I have no doubt that he’s instructed me to do something. He laughs softly, taking the furs from my grasp, pulling them back and dipping his chin toward the bed.
I lift my leg, sinking my knee in and it causes him to laugh a little harder. Without warning, without a single word, he reaches for the fur wrapped around my body and yanks it off of me. I yelp, as I’m stripped from the fur and am completely naked, again.
Spinning around, I tilt my head back to look up into his eyes. They sparkle as they take me in, dragging down my body, then back up to my face. I have the urge to cover myself from his gaze, but I don’t, a different kind of urge fills me, again.
He takes a step toward me, reaching one of his hands out, he cups my breast. Closing my eyes, I sigh as I feel his thumb slide across my hard nipple. His skin is so rough, so calloused, and I can’t help but love how it feels against me. I want more.
“Aaric,” I breathe.
I feel his lips slide alongside my own. Opening my eyes, I watch his dancing blue ones. “Hvíla,” he rasps.
“Hvíla,” I sigh.
He grunts, then releases me and takes a step back. I watch as he turns around and marches out of the tent, leaving me aching, alone, and worst of all, completely naked.
AARIC
It doesn’t sit right with me to leave her alone in my tent. I know that none of my people would dare to breach my space, though, so she is safe if nothing else. I am feeling conflicted though, truly conflicted.
“Who is she?” Gunnar asks.
He is my second in command, something that Fiske despises, since he thinks, as my brother, that he should be my closest soldier. Fiske is a good man, but he is not strategic and I need strategy and calmness at my side.
“I do not know,” I confess. “I found her in the woods, but she is not of this land.”
“I have never seen hair like that before,” he murmurs. “Or clothing.”
I think of her soft thin fabric. It was like nothing I have ever seen or touched before. It was delicate, not made to last, which makes me think that she could be royalty. No common woman would ever own something so fragile.
“Me either,” I grunt, adjusting my hardening böllur as I think about her, all of her.
“You’ve already had fundr with her, haven’t you?” he asks, his lips turning up into a smile.
I shrug a shoulder, glancing back at my tent. “She will be my dróttning when we return,” I confess.
“Aaric,” Gunnar warns.
Shaking my head once, I shift my gaze back to meet his. “Don’t. I am not a man who makes rash decisions. There is something that I cannot place with her, but one thing is very clear. She is minn.”
“If you think it is wise,” he mutters. “She is not from any of the islands. The people will not accept her as their true dróttning. You know this, do you not?”
Clearing my throat, I lift my arm, wrapping my fingers around the back of my neck and squeezing the sore muscles there in a lame attempt to relieve the pressure.
“Já, Gunnar. The seeress told me that I would be rewarded on this raid. If I opened my mind, heart, and soul, I would find a reward.”