Rune chuckled and brushed a brief kiss to my lips. He brought one of his hands up and tucked some of my damp hair behind my ear.
“No one is in the room with us. But someone is waiting for us, and he’s growing impatient.”
I didn’t realize I was staring at him with wide eyes and burning cheeks until he laughed again and patted my ass for me to get moving. I scrambled off him, sucking in a breath when he slipped out of me, and his warm cum dripped out. It was the weirdest feeling, but I loved it.
I really did have a thing for his cream.
He caught my eye and raised an eyebrow in question, wanting to know if I wanted to clean up. Even after he told me I’d be stuffed with his cum so it would drip out of me for others to know, he was still thoughtful by offering to clean up his mess if that was what I wanted.
Ears ringing and cheeks burning, I shook my head and yanked my pants on.
He chuckled, shifting his hips to pull his pants up and tuck away his softening dick. I knew men grew bigger as they were aroused, but even when Rune was sporting a chub, he was still a monster. And that made my face burn brighter because I seriously took him like a champ and screamed for more.
Throwing his head back, he laughed, deep and rich. It echoed in the hall with how loud it was. I took a step away, averting my gaze from him with my cheeks flaming as I fixed my leather armor on over my torn shirt. Rune stood, still chuckling, and helped me cover up. His fingers were quick and precise as he helped fix me up like he’d torn shirts a million times.
“Sorry,elskan mín,” he said through his laughs. “I haven’t heard anyone reference a dick as a chub. And add the monster comment with it...” He chuckled a few more times. “You’re adorable.”
I raised my eyes to his as he towered over me, his fingers tightening my straps and fixing my cape. The longer I stared up at him, the more I relaxed and let my embarrassment go. Because the lopsided smile he gave me and his carefree laughs helped me loosen up and see the humor in it.
Slowly I smiled, which made his grow bigger as his bright eyes landed on my lips before he met my green ones again.
“I like making you laugh,” I said softly, just above a whisper. My cheeks heated, and my heart raced. Butterflies flapped around in my stomach as I rested my hands on his chest. “And I like hearing you call me adorable. I love you,hjartans gjöf.”
He sucked in a breath, his eyes darkened, and his fingers stilled on me. His eyes flicked between mine, searching for something that I couldn’t hear in his thoughts. Strangely, he was now blocking them from me. But I still felt the echo of his one major emotion.
Hope.
“We should go meet with whoever is waiting for us,” I said awkwardly.
I didn’t know where I came up with that nickname. I didn’t even realize I said it until it left my mouth. My chest and neck burned with my blush because I had just unlocked another core memory I’d never forget in my embarrassment. Something that would make me stay up late at night and dissect why I was the way I was.
What the hell did I say, and what did it mean?
Why was it affecting him so much?
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard, giving me a nod before he stepped back. Bending over, he grabbed my sword and sheath, working it onto my waist so it stayed in place. He was quiet as he did and was stiff in the shoulders. He grabbed my hand and led me out of the room. We went through a darkened doorway I didn’t notice until we walked toward it.
Even though I had only seen Viking halls on a TV show, I remembered them only being one open room. But it didn’t surprise me to find there were other rooms connected. What was a historical fact in my realm wasn’t so here. Things had been added on and made into something bigger and grander than how it was in my world, and it surprised me because of my last visits to different realms. They always seemed stuck in the past and didn’t have anything basic, like running water and toilets.
We stepped into the semi-lit hallway with one lit torch coming from the wall that gave off enough light to see without falling over each other.
The hallway wasn’t large; the walls were dark wood with filigree and carvings on them in it. I caught a wolf’s head that wasn’t on the cute end of what I’d seen back in my realm. It was massive and looked borderline like a hellhound with its eyes and razor-sharp teeth. At the end of the hallway, it split in two different directions. We went left down another half-lit hallway with one torch and more hand-carved pictures into the wall, making it look three-dimensional.
The place was a maze of half-lit hallways as we silently made our way through. I wasn’t sure how the hell this was possible. It reminded me of a labyrinth, where things could magically appear and hinder us from reaching where we needed to get to.
A carving in the wall caught my eye. It was a woman with long hair and markings on her face, her sword raised, and a horse towering next to her. I stared at the protective posture of the horse and bunched my eyebrows together.
Rune stopped walking, and I smacked into him with an “oof.” He turned to me as he grabbed the door handle and pushed it open. Flickering firelight filled the hallway, and Rune led me inside the large war room. The walls were a deep burgundy, while some parts were golden. Because of the light, some corners were cast in shadows.
There were torches on all four sides of the room. The flames by the door flickered with our entrance and drew my eyes for a second before landing on a large man with bronzed skin having a golden glow to it. He had long black hair with some gray mixed in that went well past his shoulders. Half of his hair was pulled back in a ponytail to keep it out of his face. It reminded me of how Rune wore his hair in a half bun when I first saw him. He stopped mid-pace and narrowed his tired eyes at us. They first went to Rune in brief annoyance, then turned to me, and the annoyed look was wiped away.
Recognition flashed across his face as his gaze bore into mine as if he, too, could see into my soul and knew exactly who I was. Rune didn’t look fully convinced when he saw me for the first time in Starbucks, but he had a split second of recognition cross his face. But I was sure by standing here with Rune, this man knew exactly who I was.
Or maybe because of what Rune told me before that I wasn’t human, and this man knew that. Maybe because I was a goddess—still hard to swallow this fact—he recognized that.
He was a large man, but not as large as Rune. He had some lines around his eyes showing his age along with dark circles that meant he’d gone nights without sleeping. He had stubble that enhanced his sharp jawline and showed off his high cheekbones. His violet eyes held flecks of a lighter purple and were piercing. Everything about him screamed lethal.
He looked like he had seen some shit in his life.
