The faint scent of her captured his attention, and Rurik tilted his head toward the back of the house. There.
She was just lowering a wooden box into the dirt near the hot spring behind the house. Baking more of that bread he liked so much, by the look of it. Taking her pitchfork, she swept the heated earth back over the top of the cask, then brushed strands of damp hair from her forehead.
“Good morning,” he called, striding down the slope toward her.
Freyja’s shoulders stiffened faintly, but she nodded to him. “Morning? I’ve been up for almost six hours.”
“So have I,” he told her.
Freyja shot him a doubtful look. “Doing what?”
Flying halfway across Iceland, and paying a small fortune for things he thought she would like. “Preparing a surprise for you.”
“A surprise? For me?”
“It’s the sort of thing one does when one is wooing a young lady.” Rurik crossed his arms over his chest, hoping her curiosity was stronger than her wariness. “Or so I am told.”
“I don’t have time for surprises,” she said, and he admitted she did look tired. But Freyja also hesitated, and glanced at him from beneath those thick dark lashes.
Curiosity engaged. He smiled. “Give me an hour, and I will give you my afternoon’s labor. After all, you do not know what I have in mind....”
“As long as it doesn’t involve hay,” she said.
“Nor stuffing it down someone’s shirt.”
Freyja tried to fight a smile, but couldn’t seem to help herself. “Do you never cease? You’re incorrigible and relentless and—”
“An excellent lover.”
She shot him a swift glare. “What happened yesterday will not happen again.”
Rurik brushed his hand against her hip as he moved past her; the lightest of caresses, as he murmured in her ear, “You shouldn’t make promises you might not be able to keep.”
“Do you think you’re the first man who has set his sights on me?” Freyja looked dangerous as she turned to follow him, pitchfork in hand. “Yes, you might own a silver tongue, and I’ll admit you intrigue me, but no man has won my heart before and I doubt one ever will.”
“Perhaps. But then, you have never been wooed by one such as I.”
A frustrated sound echoed in the back of her throat. Freyja stabbed the pitchfork into the ground.
“Spare me an hour, and I’ll leave you alone,” he said, taking pity on her and capturing her fingers. “One hour, Freyja. Do you not want to know what surprise I have in store for you?”
She was wavering. He saw it in her eyes. “One hour,” she finally said, sighing. “It had better be worth it.”
“Oh, it will be.” Tucking her hand in the crook of his elbow, Rurik led her around the house, into the sunshine.
He’d spread the blanket within a circle of birches that guarded the hilltop overlooking Freyja’s farm. The birches stood in a perfect circle around them, and though he remained wary about entering such a circle, he couldn’t sense any magic within it. Freyja’s interest was piqued when she saw the blanket and the basket he’d set out.
“A picnic,” she exclaimed.
“You work too much,” he replied. “You deserve a treat.”
“Someone must,” she replied, and folded her skirts neatly around her as she settled on the blanket. “Unlike others, I cannot rely on nisse.”
“No one can,” he replied, stretching out beside her. “They are unreliable little beasts, and if you don’t leave enough milk out for them, they’re liable to turn upon you.”
A smile softened her face. “Do you know, sometimes I almost believe you when you speak of myths and fairy tales.”
There was a hint of sadness around her eyes.
“Why would you not?” He stroked the edge of her skirts, fingers rubbing the soft wool between them.
“Because I know what hand of fate life deals,” she admitted, opening the picnic basket. “Nisse and huldufólk and trolls are all well and good, but they are stories for children.”
“You believed then, once upon a time.”
She set out the breads and meats he’d brought them, her face strangely devoid of any expression. “My mother believed. It was she who spoke of dreki and huldufólk.”
He hesitated. “What happened to her?”
“Five years ago, she disappeared for several days. When we found her in the stone ring up near Krafla, she looked like she had aged a decade, and nothing seemed to satisfy her. She wouldn’t say where she’d been, or what had happened, but she began to waste away,” Freyja said gently. “She didn’t want to eat our foods, nor drink, but she consumed just enough to live. Yet it was as though someone took the light from her life. It took her two years to die, and no one knew what was wrong with her. My father has not been the same ever since.” Freyja sliced some of the soft cheese onto a piece of bread, and handed it to him.
“I’m sorry,” he said, placing his hand over hers.
Freyja looked at him very steadily. “You remind me of her sometimes.” She turned her hand beneath his, her fingers lacing through two of his. “She was a dreamer too, but... I don’t think I have enough left within me to dream.”
Dreams could be dangerous. He understood that. He’d spent thirty years hibernating within Krafla, trying not to think of the past, allowing the locals to bring him food so he did not even have to hunt. Merely drifting with his mind entwined with the volcano beneath him, feeling the earth crack and groan as he tried not to think of all that he’d lost.
Rurik’s thumb caressed the smooth skin of her hand. “I think... I had stopped dreaming too,” he admitted. “Until I met you.”
That brought a blush to her cheeks. Freyja rolled her eyes. “Of course.”
But she didn’t understand. He watched as she devoured the small spread of cured meat and cheeses, mixed with fresh strawberry jam and white fluffy bread, the kind Freyja had never eaten before.
The night he’d taken her ram, his entire life changed. Driven from Krafla by hunger, he’d thought little of the hunt behind the desire to fill his belly, but it had brought so much more into his life.
It had brought her.
He could still recall Freyja brandishing that sword at him, her face full of determination and weariness. Years of sleepy dullness sloughed away from him in that instant. He’d stepped aside from the world, turning his attention to the earth and fire beneath him, but she brought him back in a single moment, slamming into his life like a thunderstorm of epic proportions.
He felt alive, for the first time in years.
And he was starting to think of the future, of what part she would play in it. For he couldn’t let her go, not now. Not when she was the catalyst for this new awakening within his heart.
“What are you thinking?” she asked, nibbling on one of the fat strawberries he’d hunted high and low for.
“I am wondering: what is your greatest desire?”
“To finish my work swiftly, so I may have an hour or two to myself tonight,” she replied, red juice staining her lips.
He wanted to lick the taste of it from them. “That seems a small dream.”
“You would say that, but just because it is a small dream, does not mean it is not a joy to me.” Freyja slowly rolled onto her back, resting on one elbow. Her braid slung over her shoulder, and she took her time with the last mouthful of strawberry, entirely innocent of what the sight of her eating it did to him.
“If you were not bound by time, nor money, nor any other mortal constraint, what do you wish you could do?”
Freyja gave him that serious look again. Rurik caught the end of her braid, toying with the ribbon that bound it. Her breath caught, and she tossed the stalk of the strawberry away.
Come on. Give me your heart. Tell me how to win it.
“Travel,” she whispered, as he tugged the ribbon loose. “See these great cities my books speak of. See this world.”
There it was. He smiled an
d began to unravel the bottom of her braid. Silky hair curled around his fingers. He’d dreamed of it spread over his sheets, dreamed of running his hands through it. “You like my stories, because you dream of adventure.”
“I like any story.” She watched what he was doing. Not with trepidation, but almost as if she wondered what he intended. “It reminds me there is something more out there, something beyond my day’s worth of chores.”
“And is this your greatest desire?”
“Why are you so insistent upon dreams?” she growled under her breath, capturing a handful of her unraveling braid. “They’re little more than wistful thinking. Wonderful in the moment, but rather insubstantial, because nothing will come of it.”
“To dream of something more is the greatest gift one owns. Without them, there is nothing to strive for. No reason to continue breathing. We might as well become the rock and stone beneath our feet.” Rurik brushed her hand aside and spread thick waves of golden hair across the picnic blanket, even as Freyja shifted as though she wasn’t certain she should allow him to continue. “And because you have set me a challenge: to give you your greatest desire, in exchange for your heart.”
Her heart began to beat a little quicker. He heard it. “That is not my heart’s greatest desire.”
“Then what is?”
Freyja suddenly smiled. “I’m not telling you. If you were paying attention, you should be able to work it out.”
“Vexing woman.” Rurik grabbed a fistful of her hair and tugged gently until she rolled onto her back. He came over her, shaking the last of her braid free. Thick strands of molten gold spread across the dark blanket, crinkled into loose waves. “I think you like being pursued.”
“You’re the mighty hunter,” she teased. “You wouldn’t enjoy the chase if it were too easy.”
“True. But then I know what comes at the culmination of the chase,” he replied, heat in his eyes. “And I enjoy that far more than chasing.”
Bringing a handful of her hair up to his face, he rubbed it across his cheeks. She smelled like a summer breeze, like a wild storm. And her mismatched eyes watched his expression as though she saw something there she didn’t know how to interpret. “What are you doing?” Freyja whispered.
“I have dreamed of running my fingers through your hair like this.” He rubbed a strand of it between forefinger and thumb, his eyelids lowering lazily. “You have beautiful hair and I want to see it down.”
Those perfect lips were so close to his, still stained pink from strawberries. Sweet, and lush, and practically begging for his caress.
Rurik lowered his face to hers, his fists curling in handfuls of her hair. One taste and he was lost. He licked her slowly, teasing his way into her mouth as Freyja opened up to him, slowly, softly, as if she were testing the waters.
The thought of yesterday consumed him, setting him on fire. Or maybe that was Freyja. She was light, and brightness, a catalyst of pure fire that awoke every single one of his senses. Something was happening to him, and he didn’t quite know what it was, nor what it meant. But she was the key to it.
Freyja put a firm hand against his chest. Not so much pushing him away, but asking for space, and perhaps time to gather her thoughts. Both of them were breathing hard.
“You make me feel alive,” he whispered, somehow perplexed by the complex emotions swelling within him.
“You make me want things I shouldn’t want,” she whispered back, as if it were some secret confession.
Not ready. Not yet. For though she craved him, something still held her back. Shifting to the side of her, he rearranged the painful press of his erection, and then stroked the soft river of her hair.
“What do you dream of?” she suddenly asked, glancing up from beneath those thick golden lashes.
Me? He froze. Nobody had ever asked him that. Nor had he dwelled on the matter.
“I long for... home,” he replied slowly, startled to realize it was true. A sudden yearning filled him: the urge to drag his sister into his arms one more time, and to see his younger brother’s smile. Just one more day at Hekla, where his people lived, and he could belong. Home. A sense of belonging, his father’s voice echoing through the halls—
A dream dashed. There was no home for him there. Nothing more than memories of a time thirty years in the past, before he’d chosen exile. His father was long gone.
For all his power, he could never, ever relive that time again.
“What stops you from returning?” Freyja stroked his cheek, fingertips trailing over the roughened hairs that marked his jaw.
Restlessness edged through him, despite the tender touch. “Freyja, I can never go home.”
Pushing away from her, he drew one knee up in front of him, his heart heavy. His erection was gone, thoughts of seduction fading away. Freyja dragged herself into a seated position, a thousand questions dancing in her eyes. “Do you wish to talk of it?”
“No.”
She accepted that. Simply began to pack away the remains of their picnic. This wasn’t what he’d intended when he set it out, the afternoon suddenly souring. And yet, he almost felt as though this was what he needed to broach the walls that guarded her heart.
“I am exiled from my clan,” he admitted gently. “If I returned, my uncle would try to kill me.”
Those witchy eyes locked on him with a dangerous intensity. “Why would he want you dead?”
Old wounds ached in his heart. “Stellan is my mother’s brother. When my father died, Stellan took his place as...” How to say this? “...head of the clan. I believe... I believe he had something to do with my father’s death, with my mother’s help.”
“You didn’t fight him?”
Rurik felt his face shutter. “I was exiled, instead. Blamed for the murder of my father.”
Freyja’s mouth fell open. “But—”
“I didn’t do it, Freyja. I loved my father. But I was the first on the scene, I found his heart pierced with a blade of pure iron. There was blood on my hands. And... a witness who claimed I did it. A witness whom no one disputed.”
“Who?”
His heart sank like a stone in water. That betrayal was one he could never forgive. “My mother.”
She reached out to stroke his face. “Why would she do that to her own son?”
Rurik pressed into the touch, capturing her hand in his and holding it there. The fury of the dreki within him melted at her touch. Only she could tame it. “She wanted power, most likely. She controls Stellan, and he comes from the same clan she did. She has never controlled me. You cannot think of her as you think of your own mother. She birthed the three of us into the world; Árdís, Marduk, and me. But she had not the raising of us. We were marks on a contract to her. A fulfillment of the oath she gave my father and his clan when she married him. A duty. It was my father who loved us and reared us.”
And his heart ached in his chest at the mere thought his own people could consider him the hand that murdered his father.
“I’m sorry,” Freyja whispered on a thought-thread she didn’t even know she sent.
And he could not link back with her, not when she thought he was merely human.
Rurik looked down, into her eyes. “I accepted the exile so my brother and sister would not be drawn into a war. They weren’t ready. Neither was I, to speak the truth. But this is not the first time my mother and uncle have tried to see me dead.” He squeezed her hand. “It is the first time, however, that I have something more to lose than merely my life. My family are... a proud people. They would not accept you, nor any consummation between us.”
Freyja drew her knees up to her chest, resting her chin upon them. “You miss your brother and sister?”
“Fiercely.”
“Not so small a dream,” Freyja whispered, as if cognizant of the turmoil within him.
“No.” He met those beautiful eyes, aware the ground beneath them both had shifted, and he suddenly understood her own quiet yearning. “Not so small
a dream.”
There was a long moment of silence, each of them lost in their own thoughts. He ached to know hers. Instead, he lifted a hand and brushed the backs of his fingers down her pale cheek.
Freyja tilted into the touch, her lashes shuttering her eyes, and her lips slightly parted. In this moment she was without fear or thought, existing only to feel.
And he thought he should kiss her again. The sudden urge to do so left him floundering as he realized this urge had little to do with pressing her against the ground and plundering her sweet mouth, or even body. It wanted nothing more than to taste her mouth, to share in her moment of peace, of acceptance. He wanted to kiss her for the sake of the kiss itself, and because she... she meant something to him.
Rurik drew back. What was this? He didn’t know what precisely he felt, but he knew it was different.
There was no endless curiosity in this feeling. No desire to claim, or plunder. Merely... tenderness?
Freyja looked up. And the moment passed, and suddenly he became aware he was staring at her as if she’d stolen his heart from his chest when he wasn’t looking, and he didn’t quite know what to do with that fact.
“The day is wasting,” he said abruptly, drawing away from her. “If you want some time to yourself, then now is the time to steal it. I have promised you an afternoon’s labor, so use my time wisely. We’re done here.”
We’re done here.
The thought plagued her as she tried to read.
She’d purchased a new book in Akureyri, and normally such a thing as Gulliver’s Travels would cause the room to vanish around her as she lost herself in the world within the covers.
Time to herself.... It seemed a dream, until one lived in the moment and realized all she had was time to herself.
Freyja closed the book with a slap.
“What’s wrong?” her father asked.
“Nothing.” And everything. Freyja found her feet. “I just feel restless, that’s all. I’m going out to check the fences.”
“Restless, hmm?” Her father closed his eyes, drowsing in the sunlight that spilled through the window. “Wouldn’t have anything to do with Master Rurik, would it?”
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