Breaking eye contact with him was next to impossible. I couldn’t find the will to look away as he watched me with calm but turmoil-filled eyes.
Did I cause him pain by not wanting him to help? For not wanting the link connected?
Placing my hand on the bed by his shoulder, I pushed myself up until I half straddled him while still bent over him. Locks of my hair tumbled over my shoulder and hung like a curtain around us as I gazed down at him.
He grabbed my waist, holding me with care and not desire. Even though I felt his growing erection under me, he made no advances.
My chest tightened, and my lower lip trembled before I caught it between my two front teeth. I took a moment to swallow back the thick emotion before releasing my lip. Bringing one of my hands to his face, I ran the pads of my fingers along his cheek and into his beard.
His pupils dilated, but his face remained stoic and showed no other signs of his desire. He lay beneath me, still and patient with me as I touched him and marveled over him.
I hoped through my touch and stinging eyes that he knew I loved him.Reallyknew. I hoped he understood from the strokes of my fingers and pleading eyes how scared I was for him to see and feel how much I struggled. How afraid I was.
He showed no sign that he understood. Only watched me with his unblinking eyes.
I licked my dry lower lip, then took a deep breath before I released it on a shaky exhale. My lips parted, intending to tell him I was scared to connect the link because of all the pain.
The same darkness he mentioned from other women that I was feeling.
But no words came. I couldn’t force them out. Couldn’t make myself admit to it.
Closing my mouth, I averted my gaze as I lowered myself back onto him and rested my cheek on his chest.
“I need to sleep,” I whispered. Begged.
If I got some rest, then maybe I’d feel better when I woke up. Maybe I wouldn’t be as sad, scared, and on the verge of a breakdown every five minutes.
Rune’s hand rested on the back of my head, his sigh loud in my ear. His disappointment was louder, though. But he folded me in his arms and held me while I forced my mind to shut everything off and fall asleep.
I realized now that I’d forgotten to pack the one thing I needed to help me sleep while in the new realms the first time around.
Because of everything that happened and breaking down and crying, falling asleep wasn’t hard. It was a reprieve from all the shit that happened.
Though it didn’t stop the whispers as they came while I slipped under.
“I don’t know what I did...”
“He’s sick...”
“Are you listening?”
ChapterThirteen
The main hall we gathered in to drink was full of men laughing with giggles and soft whispers from the women who sat on their lovers’ laps. Tonight was a special night as we drank Ivar’s latest mead that he’d been working on many full moons.
The wild berry mead dulled our senses while replacing it with a floating feeling of the mind and body. It wasn’t drunk often, especially by me, because of the current threat of the tribal wolves who wanted more land and women to breed. A group recently crossed the dangerous Kraken Sea and were coming into my territory.
I sent a warning to their King, sending back one survivor tied to their remaining ship’s bow, a decapitated head strung on him like a necklace. The rest of the dismembered bodies were thrown in a pile in the middle of the Viking ship because, even while dead, they weren’t allowed to pollute my land. They had diseases that were killing their women, and I refused for it to pass to the women here.
It wouldn’t be another week’s time before the message was received. And that gave me tonight to enjoy the numbing of my mind with the mead I drank with my people.
And withhim.
It’d been a while since I joined them in a long night of drinking. Especially with the one man who made me smile and treated me like a friend he wasn’t scared of. The others were good about hiding their fear, but I still saw it in their eyes as they watched me with worry and tension in their shoulders.
I hadn’t seen him for a few days as I left after our attack on the small wolves group. From all the pain, fear, and torture of the men we killed, I needed to find an escape to calm myself. To ground and forgive myself for wanting to do worse to those wicked men who planned to do evil things to my people.
But when I was gone, I missed him.
