by Bec McMaster
Her male.
Oh, gods. She nearly groaned. She'd never been good with temptation, and this was only a reminder of what a strain on her willpower these next few days would be. She could feel the silk of his hair against her hands and wanted to curl her fingers through it.
"Sorry," Tormund called, sounding anything but.
"Son of a bitch," Haakon muttered. He shot a glare over his shoulder, and Árdís suddenly realized it hadn't been a wave that sent her falling, but one clearly unrepentant matchmaker.
Haakon growled under his breath and swung an arm under her thighs. He hauled her up into his arms, and Árdís grabbed at him inelegantly as he juggled her.
It seemed he'd changed his mind about making her walk through the water.
"Ride safe, Princess," Tormund called. "And remember our bet."
"What bet?" Haakon's gaze cut to hers.
Árdís's cheeks burned, as he started to carry her toward the beach, striding through the skim of waves. "Nothing."
Behind her, Tormund merely laughed as he began to haul the boat back out to sea.
The second challenge came later that night, when they stopped to set up camp. They'd covered only a handful of miles with all the subterfuge with the ship, before Haakon insisted upon pulling off the road and finding a secluded place to sleep.
He'd barely spoken to her all day.
Despite what Tormund had told her on the ship, there was no sign of the man who'd married her. Nor the one she'd met again in Reykjavik. Haakon wasn't mad with fury, nor boiling with frustration. He was cold. Closed off.
A part of her wanted to break through those walls that locked him away. Ever since Tormund had spoken of their wedding, she'd been unable to think of anything else.
"There's only one bedroll," Árdís pointed out as she finished building the fire.
Haakon continued to roll the bedroll out, his movements quick and sure. She'd always liked that about him—he was constantly moving, constantly doing some chore. The only time he'd ever been still had been those moments when she'd managed to talk him into lingering in bed, or those rainy mornings when he was trapped in the house they'd shared and they would talk or read together.
"Are we sharing that too?" she dared to ask.
Haakon's hands paused, and then swiftly resumed the task as if it had never happened. But she noticed.
"No."
"Then how are...?"
"You're taking the bedroll. I'll keep watch."
He was making good on his promise not to touch her.
It was sensible.
It was... frustrating.
"You need sleep too," she pointed out.
"I'll wake you when it's my turn."
Then he turned and tugged his bow from the pile of baggage. "Stay here and don't leave the fire. I'll be back."
He vanished long enough to return with a rabbit for dinner, and then roasted it in silence once he'd finished skinning it. The quiet between them was beginning to irritate her.
"Are you not going to speak to me?" Not touching her was one thing, but he would barely look at her.
"I'm speaking." Using an old rag, Haakon cleaned the blood from his knife.
"Yes. You've mastered the art of the terse reply. It's going to feel like the longest journey I've ever been on, if you insist upon continuing in this vein."
There. There was a hint of emotion tensing his shoulders. Haakon stabbed the knife down into the log he was sitting upon.
His eyes flashed. "What do we have to speak about?"
"You're not curious? About why I fled?"
"I thought it was to avoid a mating ceremony," he said curtly, oh-so-curtly.
Fat sizzled as he turned the rabbit on the spit.
She couldn't reach him. It ached through her, and her hands fell uselessly into her lap. A foolish sort of pain, for she shouldn't even be pushing at him like this. If he was going to remain walled-off, then perhaps that was for the best?
But a part of her still remembered the stirring arguments they'd always had. He'd always challenged her to think in other ways—pushed at her to be more than a spoiled princess who had dreki males falling at her feet. This quiet, contained Haakon was a stranger. She wanted the one who growled back at her. The one who got that certain look on his face when the argument intensified, and they were no longer merely arguing over something, but yelling just for the sake of it.
She wanted the one who kissed her when the tide finally turned, his mouth crashing down upon hers. His hands wrenching up her skirts as their bodies tumbled to the bed....
It was both a secret joy and a misery to be so close to him after all these years, and yet so far.
"When you left me" —he broke the silence— "where did you go?"
Árdís looked up slowly, her pulse beating thickly in her throat. It took her a moment to reorient herself. Haakon carved a slice of meat off the rabbit, passing it to her. He looked utterly disinterested in her answer, but at the last moment, their eyes met and she saw heat simmering there, before his gaze returned to the rabbit.
Not entirely impregnable then.
It gave her hope. She knew how to stir this man and breach his defenses.
Árdís chewed thoughtfully. Did she dare? The tension between them was becoming almost unbearable, and it felt like there was only one safe way to defuse it.
"I returned to court. I had no choice, not truly. My mother was furious with me for vanishing for three years without a trace. I've been there ever since. She barely takes her eyes off me. And you? Tormund said you were dragon hunters."
"I'm surprised he didn't tell you more than that," Haakon muttered.
"He did." She watched his face carefully. She'd been doing that all day, trying to map the differences. There was a faint scar above his lips. Another slashing through his blond brow. He'd turned from a handsome young hunter who'd left flowers on her doorstep and promised his mother he'd have her home by nightfall, to a hard battle-scarred warrior who looked like he'd throw her over his shoulder if given half a chance. Dangerous to rouse.
She wanted to rouse him.
Árdís moved a little closer, shifting along the log. "He said they call you Dragonsbane now. Haakon Dragonsbane."
Haakon's lips tightened. "They're fools."
"No, I like it. It's a worthy name. You've killed three dragons. There are few men who could claim such a thing."
"Hell, Árdís. I didn't do it for the bloody accolades—"
"I know." This was not going the way she'd hoped. "He told me you went mad when I left. You drank too much. You didn't eat enough. And you insisted upon rescuing me. You gave yourself over to hunting dragons and searching for word of me. Tormund had to ride along with you to keep you safe."
"Tormund rode along because he thought it would be a grand fucking adventure," Haakon snapped, "and he wanted to hear his name sung in the ballads they'd sing."
"There are ballads sung about you?"
"No. There are no ballads." A vein throbbed in his jaw. Firelight gilded the sharp slash of his cheekbone, as he turned to look at her. "If I'd known he'd dribble such foolishness into your ears when you boarded that ship, I wouldn't have bloody put you upon it. What did he do? Tell you everything that's happened in the last seven years?"
"Not everything." She twitched her skirts.
He hadn't, for example, answered the question of whether Haakon had ever had another woman in his bed.
"You want to know the answer to that, Princess, then you're going to have to ask him yourself."
"Bloody meddling fool." Haakon yanked his knife out of the log, and swung the rabbit off the fire.
"He did, however, bet me a golden crown and a fistful of emeralds that we're going to fall into bed together by the end of this journey."
Haakon froze.
His stormy eyes found her, but they didn't linger on her face. A swift glance dipped lower, stroking over her lips, her hands, her breasts. Then away. "I swear to the gods, I'm going to kill hi
m."
A thrill lit through her. This was one way to fight his coldness. Árdís straightened, letting her cloak fall away from her shoulders.
"You didn't ask," she whispered.
"Ask what?" He tore a joint from the rabbit with impatient hands, and set it on a tin plate to cool for her.
"Whether I accepted his bet."
Haakon stilled. "Árdís. Are you trying to torture me?"
A flush of heat went through her, like the glide of heated honey across her skin. "I wouldn't consider it torture."
His eyes darkened. He'd finished separating the cooked rabbit onto a pair of plates, and licked his fingers and thumb. Slowly. "No? What would you call it then?"
Árdís bit her lip. She suddenly wanted to lick those fingers herself. "I would call it... an opening gambit."
Haakon straightened to his full height. The leather of his body armor flexed as he stiffened. "An opening gambit."
It was hard to gauge whether she was making any headway. If he were a castle, he might as well have just drawn up the drawbridge. But the soft way he repeated the words.... And the way he crossed his arms over his chest, while staring down at her, didn't feel like he'd slammed the cannons into the breach. Wary, yes. Defensive, yes.
But he was also listening.
Intrigued.
"Making amends, perhaps."
A muscle in his jaw ticked. "And how would you begin to make amends?"
"I could kiss it better," she whispered. "I could kiss it all better."
The heat of his gaze had weight now. Firelight caressed him from head to toe. He shifted and she could make out the faint, hard shape pressing insistently against his leather trousers.
She liked them much better than the wool he used to wear. They did terribly tempting things to his strong thighs and firm backside.
The heat flickered. And died. "And just like that, the pain goes away, does it?"
One step forward.
One step back.
"What did I promise you on the docks?"
"That you were my guard," she said, "and nothing else."
She thought he was going to finish the conversation there, but he merely circled the fire, watching her the entire time. She'd seen dreki stalk their prey like that before, and her sex suddenly clenched in response.
How odd. She'd never thought of herself as prey before.
And she certainly hadn't expected to like it.
"So you're pushing at me to get a response?"
"I don't know," she cried, curling her fingers into fists. "We fight. We argue. We—"
"Fuck?"
The word slammed through her, leaving her breathless. "That's the way it's always been with you. I keep waiting for you to explode. I hurt you, but you're not angry enough. I don't know...." How to respond to this. She shrugged helplessly.
"Maybe I'm not the same man I used to be. And maybe our lack of communication was the problem, hmm?"
It unsettled her.
"Or not?" He cocked his head on an angle.
Árdís stared down at her lap, knowing he sought answers she couldn't give. "I liked arguing with you. And the aftermath."
"Aftermath?" His voice softened with a hint of a laugh. "That's one way to put it. Carnal warfare is another."
Her nipples pressed roughly against the linen of her chemise. The rough edge of his laugh held a hint of anger, and that always stirred her blood. She felt at ease now, for she knew how to deal with this.
"I wouldn't call it anything as civilized as that," she whispered, remembering times when he'd pinned her to their bed, their mouths clashing in a heated mix of teeth and tongues even as he jerked her skirts up. She'd leave little imprints of her teeth across his shoulder and throat, relieved to unleash the dreki within her, even if she couldn't tell him. Carnal warfare implied that at least one of them—if not both—had held any control over what happened in their bed.
He knelt in front of her, setting both hands on the log on either side of her hips as he leaned tauntingly close to her. "What do you think is going to happen here?"
"If I'm being perfectly honest—"
"Please do so."
"Then I'm not entirely certain I'm thinking right now, at all." She searched his eyes, holding perfectly still. His mouth was so close to hers, that a simple push forward would meld their lips together. One inch. But she couldn't read his intentions at all. Frustration churned through her. She wanted those hands on her skin, not beside her. "I know we said there would be nothing more between us until I got this bracelet off. But...."
"You want me," he whispered, his eyelids growing heavy as his gaze dropped to her mouth.
Árdís's heart pounded even as she watched the slow flush of red creep up his throat. She didn't dare move in case she broke the spell. But her fingernails were curling into her palms again. Touch me. Please.
She closed her eyes, unable to bear the look in his. "I thought we'd already established that in Reykjavik. I want you. I most likely always will. Nothing has changed."
If anything, the pain of unfulfilled lust only twisted the knot tighter inside her.
His breath stirred the sensitive skin of her throat. Árdís sucked in a sharp breath, her lashes fluttering. She wanted to take his hand and cup it between her legs, where it ached the fiercest. To push against him, and take what she needed.
Soft lips ghosted over her jaw. Árdís tipped her head back to grant him full access, her breasts feeling heavy and flushed. She sank her teeth into her lower lip.
"Does it ache, Árja?"
"Yes."
The answer came out softer and breathier than she'd expected.
One hand reached out, brushing a lock of her hair behind her shoulder. Árdís's breasts lifted as she breathed in. She wanted, very badly, to feel that touch on her skin.
She reached for him, but he captured her wrist.
"Good." The sensual languidness slid from him like a cloak, his eyes shuttering down firm and hard. Then he pushed to his feet and stepped away from her.
The course of lust slammed to a halt within her.
She was slower to react, her lips parted, and heat crawling all over her skin. She curled a hand around her throat. "You're playing a game with me?"
He picked up his plate, cool and implacable. "It's not very enjoyable, is it?"
Árdís slammed to her feet, gaping at him. "But I'm not—"
"Eat your dinner," Haakon insisted, flinging his fur cloak around his shoulders and stalking to the edge of the circle of firelight. "Then get some sleep. I'll wake you when it's your turn to keep watch."
"How am I supposed to go to sleep after that?" she demanded. He hadn't even touched her, and she felt ready to melt.
The ghost of a smile played over his hard mouth. "That's not my problem."
Árdís's eyes narrowed.
You, dear husband, just started a war.
10
The next morning, fog lay across the land like a thick blanket. Haakon swiftly secured everything to the back of Snorri, and then went to wake his wife.
Árdís's hands were tucked up under her chin, and her golden hair streamed across the blankets. Thick golden lashes fluttered against her cheeks, along with the faint splash of freckles. The sight of her so vulnerable felt like a mule kick to the chest. She slept as though she had absolutely no doubt in her mind that he'd protect her.
He wanted to.
And that was the rub, wasn't it? Despite all the years between them, despite everything, a part of him would open his arms to her if she gave him a single hint she'd run into them and stay there forever.
But last night had been about scratching an itch, nothing more. He knew if he'd given in to her, they'd have ended up in bed. Perhaps they'd stay there for the next couple of nights. But the second she got her bracelet off, she'd fly away, and he'd be the one trying to pull himself back together again.
"You didn't ask... whether I accepted his bet."
The innocent look didn't become
her.
At all.
Leaning down, he curled his hand around her shoulder. "Árdís?"
Her lashes fluttered, revealing the slow dawning of awareness in her amber eyes when she saw him. A smile softened her mouth, and she brushed her cheek against his hand like a cat, stretching in a yawn before she suddenly stiffened.
He became the recipient of a hot-eyed look that felt like her hand curled directly around his cock. She wasn't the only one who remembered the way they'd solved arguments in the past, and his cock recognized that expression as if it had been trained to rouse at the sight of it.
"You," she said, sitting up, the blankets sloughing around her waist. "Is it morning? Did you sleep at all?"
"Me," he agreed, straightening away from her before he could do something foolish. "I dozed here and there. Time to get on the road again."
"You should have woken me."
Haakon shrugged. "You were snoring. I didn't want to disturb you."
"I do not snore."
"It wasn't Snorri. Sounded like him, but he was wide awake too."
"Ha." She rolled her eyes.
Árdís dressed with stiff-legged enthusiasm, grumbling her way through a mouthful of bread and cheese as he stowed the bedroll on Snorri. She'd never taken to mornings well. Always preferred to drag him back into bed with her, where she'd nestle her face against his shoulder and soften back into sleep, or slide a playful hand down his abdomen. Haakon tugged the leather straps into place stiffly. As much as he kept trying to pretend they were strangers, he was sharply reminded of how much she hadn't changed. It was difficult to put the truth together. What had been real? What had not been? And could he trust that anything had been real, when he had no idea, which was which?
"Ready?"
Árdís eyed Sleipnir with as much enthusiasm as she would have shown if asked to stick her hand in a bucket full of mice. "I guess."
Haakon mounted and reached down to haul her up behind him. She settled there gingerly, and his first guess had been correct. She was new to this body, and hence to its aches and pains.