It wasn’t the most delicate way of putting it, but was undeniably accurate.
He looked down at me, but said nothing until I pressed my knee up, just enough to make him uncomfortable. A low growl rumbled from his throat. “Stop that.”
“You can make me stop, so why aren’t you? I’ve noticed something off about you ever since you got here, and you’re going to tell me what’s happening with you.”
My knee pressed more and he finally took the initiative, shoving me away. I stumbled but caught myself before I fell. “You were my gods damned wife, Freya,” Shan mumbled.
I almost called him out on making things up, but the way he was avoiding eye contact was unusual. His expression was vulnerable. “What do you mean?” I asked when he didn’t clarify.
“In a past life, we were married. Since I met you I’ve had trouble separating the past from the present, but when you gave yourself up everything blurred. A lot. It hasn’t cleared yet.”
My knowledge of angels was limited, but I’d thought they didn’t remember their past incarnations. None of the other races remembered. “How do you know this?”
Backing up, I sat on the edge of the mattress. Shan wanted me to fight him — he’d been egging me on like I did with him so often. We wouldn’t punch this out, not if I was the only one throwing them.
He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. It was loose and messy and far too sexy. “Angels can have memories come back of their past lives, since the angel life is the last part of the soul’s cycle. We’re not supposed to remember, and there are ways to scrub the memories again, but I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t think I’d ever meet the reincarnation of the wife I had in the Viking era, but then I met you. Your scent was near identical, and now that you’re not using the dampener it’s exactly the same.”
“And this history that I didn’t know about affected how you treated me?” I asked.
“Considering I died trying and failing to save you and our two children from raiders, I was having a hard time not letting it affect me.”
His behaviour was clicking into place. His overprotective nature and demands to know everything were making more sense. It didn’t excuse him completely, of course, but this man had serious PTSD. Maybe Nolan had a therapist on staff for him to talk to, because mixing the past and present wasn’t healthy.
“I’m not your wife, and you know that because I don’t need anyone to save me. Plus, children? Not really on my life agenda,” I said.
“Sigrid didn’t need anyone to save her either,” he said. “I wish I knew what happened after I died, but the more I think about it the more I realize she would have fought tooth and nail and gotten our kids free.”
“My name was Sigrid?”
“We were Vikings, Freya. My name was Aric.”
“I much prefer our names now.”
“I’ll agree with you.”
For a while we were silent. I pushed myself back on the bed so I was leaning against the headboard, no longer perched on the edge. Then I lifted the bottom hem of my borrowed t-shirt and pulled it over my head. With nothing on underneath, the move exposed me from the waist up. One more movement had my shorts on the floor beside the shirt.
Shan visibly swallowed. “What are you doing?”
“Apologizing for reminding you of a traumatic experience. You’ll only ever have one apology from me, because it’s not my fault. I’m not your wife in this lifetime.”
“I know it’s not your fault. I’m the only one responsible for how badly I reacted.”
“You’re doing better at communicating than you ever did before. Maybe being in Nolan’s prison has been a positive for us,” I said.
“Fuck off,” he grumbled, but it was half-hearted.
“Fuck me,” I countered. “Remind yourself it’s me and not her… or old me, or whatever. We’re not in the same positions we were in back then.”
He let out another growl that had me clenching, but he didn’t pounce on me as fast as I wanted him to. Shan stepped across the room slowly, pulling his shirt off and tossing it with mine. His pants stayed on, but I eagerly eyed the bulge in them. All sex would do was make my heat come faster, but I was past caring. This was the safest place we could be right now. I had two men who wanted to help me through it and more who I knew would protect me, as much as I claimed I didn’t need it.
This was the best position I’d been in since I revealed.
“I’m never going to stop being overprotective,” he said, grazing his fingertips against my ankle.
“Just don’t try to control me,” I said, already breathless.
“I’ll try, and you’ll call me out. I’ve been trying to fix my past mistakes for too long to turn it off instantaneously.”
