The man ran steady fingers along her sides and cupped first one of her breasts and then her behind, forcing their bodies closer until there was no space between the two of them. When he tweaked her nipple, Frida gasped into his mouth and pulled away to rest her forehead against his collarbone. “It's been a long time since I've been with a man,” she admitted.
Daegal pulled away so he could see her face, looking quizzical. “Are you sure you want to–“
“Yes,” Frida said impatiently. She caught his hand and drew it down between her legs, letting him feel how damp she already was in the cleft there. “I want this. I just...” She trailed off, blushing.
“What is it?” Daegal asked, sounding confused.
“I just… Don't expect me to be much good at it,” she said quickly, a blush staining her cheeks as she stared at their feet.
Daegal, to her further embarrassment, started laughing. But he caught her and pulled her close again, lightly stroking her hair. “Oh darling,” he said, his voice surprisingly serious, “that's quite all right. In fact, that's utterly endearing. Just do whatever feels right and leave the rest up to me.”
Frida gave him a shaky smile and looked around a little. “How do you want to...”
“Here,” Daegal said, bending down to grab his cloak and shaking it out there on the floor of the cave. “Lay back—and get comfortable.” He grinned encouragingly at her as she spread out her pale curves on the dark, woolen cloak. Then, he got down on his hands and knees and crawled into the space between her legs. He ran his hands up the insides of her legs, making his way from her knees up to her hips. “Look at you,” he said appreciatively, shaking his head.
Frida blushed and bit her lower lip. She'd been with a few men in the past, but this was the first time someone had looked at her with such naked admiration. She urged Daegal forwards, using her knees at his sides to pull him down on top of her. “Come on,” she whispered.
Daegal cupped her cheek for one more second and then bent to kiss the hollow of her throat in a tender gesture that had her heartbeat fluttering in her chest. But he followed it up with a line of savage bites and licks from her collarbone to her navel, igniting a line of scorching fire that made her gasp and arch against him. When he flicked his tongue against the nub between her legs, she whimpered in need.
The man raised an eyebrow at her, smirking. “You're impatient, aren't you?” he asked.
Frida rolled her eyes a little. “Like I said, it's been...oh...a while,” she reminded him. She writhed as his fingers plunged inside of her. He moved them ruthlessly, hardly giving her time to relax around him before he was doing something new, giving her a new and much-needed feeling of pressure in all the best ways. She squeezed her eyes shut, concentrating on only feeling him.
Suddenly, he removed his fingers, leaving her mewling in need. He grinned apologetically at her and gave himself a few quick strokes before replacing his fingers with something much better. They both groaned simultaneously.
“I'm not going to last long,” Daegal warned her.
Frida wanted to grin and say something cheeky in response to that, but instead she found herself crying out and arching wildly against his cloak, her fingers digging ten points of firm contact into his muscular arms as she abruptly reached her own climax. He quickly followed her, calling out her name as he spent himself deep inside of her, his warm body collapsing down against her.
They lay there for a long moment getting their breath back. Finally, Daegal rolled to the side, pulling her close and nuzzling into her skin. Frida allowed him to for a moment and then carefully disentangled herself, rolling away and beginning to gather and replace her clothing, keeping her eyes steadily away from him.
It was silent in the cave as she walked to the entrance and sat there, looking out at the still-falling snow.
Chapter 10
The next day, they were on their way again. Even though Frida knew it would be faster for them to utilize Daegal's dragon form and fly north, there was no discussion of that. And she was avoiding talking to him as much as she could, still trying to sort out her feelings about the night before.
The thing was, she wanted to just chalk it up to their physical attraction. She wanted to chalk it up to having her needs fulfilled. As she'd told him, after all, it had been a long time since she'd slept with a man. She'd craved the feeling of being filled, of getting to that perfect moment when her brain just totally whited out with bliss.
But that wasn't it, was the thing. There had been something there, something she had sensed. It was there in the nervous energy that lit the area between them whenever they were close enough to touch. It was there in the way they interacted with one another. It was there in those little gestures that Daegal made, when he gave her that roll back in Daelfjord, that first night that the raiders had been there—or when he'd taken a lashing just to keep her safe from punishment.
It had been there since their eyes had first connected across the Great Hall.
She didn't know what it was, though. The closest she could come to it was that thing that he had said about her magic, that it was practically reaching out to him every time they touched.
Whatever it was, it had made the sex all the more incredible—but it left her feeling incredibly shaken, as though she were missing something very important.
Their ride that morning was mostly in silence, broken only when one or the other of them needed to stop or when Daegal began whistling before quickly falling silent and glancing over at Frida.
It was midway through that afternoon when they were attacked.
The raiders seemed to come out of nowhere: it was just Daegal and Frida and their horses, and then there were raiders swarming them from all sides.
Frida's horse reared up on its hind legs, very nearly throwing her from the cheap leather saddle that it had been outfitted with. She struggled against the reins for a moment, until one of the raiders leapt from an embankment at the side of the road and knocked her flying.
She fell to the ground and rolled, managing to come up with a short knife in her hand. If she had had a moment of thought to spare, she might have thanked Daegal for giving that to her the first day after they'd left Agnarr's.
The raider lunged at her, a sword in hand, and she ducked out of the way, mentally making a count of how many attackers there were. It looked like eight of them versus the two of them. All she needed was to get one of them away from their sword and she could do a fair amount of damage, if what her father had taught her was still there somewhere in her muscle memory. But getting a sword away from one of them was proving to be difficult.
She was fortunate, at least, that most of the raiders seemed to be targeting Daegal, no doubt because they sensed that as the female, she was the weaker link and thus would put up little to no fight against them. Daegal was the one they needed to disarm first.
But when Daegal backed around behind her, Frida found that she was suddenly the target for all eight of them. Not for long, though: the move bought Daegal enough time that he was able to quickly weave together a spell. When Frida ducked out of the way of a sword, he let it loose with a wave of his hands, and all eight of the raiders fell to the ground still as stone.
Frida stared at Daegal for a long moment, eyes wide with fear. “Did you just–“
Daegal groaned lowly and swayed a little, putting a shaky hand across his eyes. “I forgot how much that spell takes out of me,” he said breathlessly.
“Did you kill them?” Frida asked, her voice going shrill.
Daegal blinked at her for a moment and the shook his head. “They're just...incapacitated. They'll be back to normal in a couple days. Or mostly normal, anyway.”
Frida scowled at him. “That's–“
“Frida, if you're going to tell me how morally wrong that was, remember that they attacked us first,” Daegal said peevishly. He took a deep breath and straightened, his eyes flashing. “All's fair when war's on the table.” He moved towards the closest ma
n and kicked him in the side. “Anyway, did you take a look at who we were dealing with? These are Agnarr's men.”
There was sarcastic clapping from the road behind them, and they both spun to see Agnarr himself sat there atop a proud-looking black stallion. “Very well done, Magician,” the man said, but his words sounded like a curse.
He swung himself down off his horse, coming closer to the two of them. Frida quickly grabbed a sword from one of the men, although she doubted it would do her any good against the war-king himself. Especially given how Daegal hesitated, as though he was loathe to harm his previous lord.
“Pick up a sword, Daegal,” Agnarr commanded, drawing his own steel out of its long wooden sheath. “Fight me like a man. If you win, I'll let you leave unimpeded.”
“You know I won't win against you,” Daegal said, glancing over at Frida with a grim look on his face. “Especially not since I know you don't fight by the rules. You play dirty, Agnarr.”
Agnarr threw back his head and laughed, as though what Daegal had said was particularly funny. “I raid from contented fortress-dwellers, and your complaint is that I don't fight by the rules?” he asked. “You were once part of that life, too—don't you forget that. The only reason you stand here before me today is because you found a way to make yourself useful to me, at whatever cost to everyone around you.”
Daegal ducked his head a little, looking almost like a chastised child. Frida stared back and forth between the two of them, trying to devise some sort of a plan. Daegal didn't seem to believe he could win against Agnarr, giving up before he'd even started. She knew she couldn't win either, but perhaps she would have the element of surprise on her side and would be able to prolong things. And then, if Daegal was willing to fight dirty, perhaps he could use the same sort of spell on Agnarr.
She took a step forward. “I will fight you,” she said, her voice ringing loudly in the air between them. She narrowed her eyes. “I have a lot to fight you for, Agnarr,” she told him. “You killed many good men in Daelfjord, and you took me away from them at a time when they needed me the most. You've stripped me away from my home, and you've shown me the barest hint of respect over the past month.” She threw her shoulder back, trying to appear just as proud and fearsome as he did. “I will fight you.”
“Frida–“ Daegal said, but when he reached for her arm, she took a step away from him.
Agnarr was laughing again. “No, let her,” he said to Daegal. He shook his head. “I knew you had spirit, girl. I should have had you doing much more interesting things than tending to livestock over the past month.”
“Frida,” Daegal tried again. “The man–“
Frida scowled at him. “Well, if you're not going to fight to win, then leave the fighting for someone else,” she said, eyes flashing. She turned to face Agnarr, holding the downed man's sword in front of her and hoping beyond hope that she would be able to hold it steady during the fight. The thing was, she knew she was no match for Agnarr's size. But she was counting on her speed to help her avoid the worst of the man's attacks. And she only needed to avoid them for long enough for Daegal to do something with his magic. She was only buying time. She just hoped Agnarr didn't manage to do her a serious injury in that time.
Without warning, Agnarr lunged towards her. Daegal moved to get between the two of them, but Frida kicked his legs out from under him with a practiced move that she had learned from her father almost before she could remember him clearly.
Agnarr paused for a moment, staring appreciatively at her, and when he came back at her, circling away from where Daegal was still sprawled on the ground, he moved with the slow, cautious grace of a feline. Frida ducked under the arc of his attempted strike and came up on his other side, still circling carefully with him. She wanted to get a sense for how the man fought before she tried anything against him.
She hoped she wouldn't even need to attempt anything against him. She couldn't understand why Daegal was still stalling, but his hands didn't seem to be moving, and instead, he was just watching the two of them. She couldn't spare another thought for him, though. She needed to continue moving, needed to continue making sure that Agnarr couldn't find all her weak spots.
But the man seemed to be playing with her, almost, letting her duck under each of his swings, and barely feinting at her with the tip of his sword. He was moving slowly, each move precise. And she suddenly realized he was doing it to tire her. She quickly changed to a two-handed grip on her sword, but she wasn't sure how long she would be able to maintain that either. It had been a long time since she had wielded more than her simple seax, and even that, she hadn't practiced with as much as she probably should have. Her arms were strong when it came to grinding up potions and things like that, but she was no warrior.
Agnarr grinned at her, clearly sensing how much she was weakening. With his next move, the man kicked out Frida's feet, using a very similar move to the one she had used on Daegal—a move that she should have seen coming and been ready to counter. But she was so focused on what the man was doing with his sword and what she was doing with her own sword—which admittedly wasn't much—that the next thing she knew, she was flat on her back staring up at the grey sky.
Agnarr's battle-cry rang out, but his blow never landed.
Frida pushed herself to a sitting position and was surprised to see Agnarr flat on his back as well, with Daegal standing over him, the point of his sword at the war-king's throat and a heavy foot on Agnarr's chest. “This is what happens when you fight dirty, Agnarr,” Daegal snarled. “One day, someone else will fight dirty right back at you.”
Agnarr still looked amused, though, even with Daegal's blade nicking his neck. “Go ahead, Daegal,” he said. “Stick me through—kill me. But I don't think you'll be able to.”
Daegal scowled down at the man, but Frida could sense the same thing that Agnarr could sense: hesitation. It radiated off the Liskandian in nearly-palpable waves. And suddenly, she realized why Daegal had never returned back home. He must have been just a child when Agnarr had kidnapped him, and Agnarr must have raised him almost like a son. Of course, Daegal seemed to believe it was all because of his own choices that he had risen up in the ranks until he hardly seemed like a slave, but Frida would bet there was something more to it.
Agnarr didn't have a son of his own blood. For all intents and purposes, Daegal was his son, and Agnarr was Daegal's father. Daegal would never be able to kill the man.
And sure enough, Daegal dropped his gaze, his breathing gone heavy. He swiped at his eyes, and Frida wondered if he was crying or if he was just wiping away the sweat of exertion caused by the heavy magic he had performed before.
“You said if I won, you would let us leave here,” Daegal said quietly, pain in his voice—and Frida wondered whether he had even wanted to win. Perhaps that had been part of his hesitation right from the start. It had to be an unsettling position to put himself into.
“And I hold to my word,” Agnarr said, looking positively beatific. “If you send me on to death, I will allow you to leave here without impediment—although I'm sure my wretched wraith will walk this earth for many eons to come. But you will be free of my curse.”
“I don't consider killing you to be winning,” Daegal said, shaking his head. He glanced back at Frida, who could only stare back at him, not even sure what she should be feeling in this situation. It wasn't as though she could tell him to kill Agnarr, not seeing what the man meant to Daegal. But she also knew, somewhere deep inside of her, that if Daegal didn't kill Agnarr now, it was something that would come back to haunt them in the future, as surely as a curse.
Daegal continued to hesitate, and then he suddenly threw his sword to the side, kneeling down and grabbing both sides of Agnarr's head in his hands. “You were like a father to me,” he said, echoing what Frida already knew to be true. “And for that reason, I cannot kill you. Perhaps I am too weak a man, and perhaps letting you go is a mistake. But let you go, I must.”
Frida
could see the spark of his energy leaving through his hands, and she saw the way Agnarr's face fell slack, just like the faces of the rest of his band of raiders.
Daegal stood, and for a long moment, he simply stared down at Agnarr. Then, he turned, pulling his cloak around himself. “Come,” he said to Frida, not even looking at her. “We should be far away from here by the time they awaken. I've bought us as much time as I can, but we need to move quickly.”
Chapter 11
Frida didn't realize they were headed for Daelfjord until they were practically on top of the gates. She had never approached the walls from this side before, and never from so far away. You couldn't see the ocean from here on the east side—that was part of it, she was sure. And you were deep in forestland until you just...weren't.
She glanced over at Daegal, trying to figure out what he was planning. The man was slumped forwards over the pommel of his saddle, as he had been for much of the previous day after they had left the raiders behind. He didn't seem capable of pulling himself into an upright position anymore, and his face was pale. She had been thinking about what he'd said, about magic always shredding someone's soul, taking something out of a person. She wondered if it was possible to let magic take a little too much out of a person, but she didn't feel like asking that with him in this state.
“Daegal,” she hissed, though, trying to rouse him from his stupor.
The man blinked up at the walls and then glanced over at her, a small, wry smile on his face. “Daelfjord,” he said, nodding at her. “I thought you might be able to find us a place to hide out here until...I've recovered some.” He frowned. “But you wouldn't be able to be here as yourself, I hope you realize that. It would be too suspicious if Agnarr were to come asking. I don't think he will since this is the obvious place to look for us and he'll expect us to avoid it. But just in case...”
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