Page 65 of The Serpent’s Shadow

“O-Okay, okay. Now you’re just teasing me.”

He grinned.

The bear shifter was managing to keep his body not-quite-pressed against me, showing incredible restraint. I mean, my bare ass was practically pressed up against his middle, yet I couldn’t feel his warm cock on me because he was keeping it away.

Swallowing hard, trying to force away the incredibly lustful feelings lighting my body on fire, I changed the subject. “Can I trust Arne, Grim? I want your honest opinion.”

For a moment, all was silent. I turned once he had finished with my back, stared up at him because I wanted to read his eyes. They told the truth of a man.

In them, I saw determination. He said, “At first, I wasn’t sure. At his core, the iceshaper is untrustworthy. Yet he fights for family. When Sven captured him, I lost control and slammed him against a wall, little sneak. I’m not proud of it.”

“But?”

“Sven and I agreed it wasn’t up to us to kill him, because that would beyourdecision. I stand by that. We told him he couldn’t follow us to find you. But he was waiting for us in Isleton, the slippery cur.”

Grim rubbed the back of his neck and scratched his bulging shoulder, like he was embarrassed about something.

He stared down his nose at me. “Arne led us to the bog-crone’s cave, Ravinica. There, Sven tracked you all the way back to the elf camp, and to where we found you. We wouldn’t have been able to do it without the iceshaper, honestly.”

I blinked, taking it all in. Grim rarely spoke so much. When he did, it was because he had something to say.

I could read his amber eyes and see the confusion there. He didn’tknowif I could trust Arne—he was still trying to piece it together himself. But I believed hewantedto trust Arne.

Just like I did.

“For what it’s worth, little sneak, I think Arne Gornhodr is trying to make amends, and beg your forgiveness. He wants to prove himself worthy to you.”

Amends. Exactly what I sought.

“What . . . should I do?” I asked. It was silly of me to ask, yet I was at a loss.

Grim brought me close, cradling the back of my neck and pressing my cheek to his burly chest so he could pet me.

“That is up to you, love. I can’t begin to tell you how to feel or react to what he’s done . . . But maybe, if your heart is big enough to entrust pieces of it to me and Magnus Feldraug . . . perhaps you can find a piece for Arne Gornhodr, too.”

I held onto Grim’s words long after we left the picturesque pond, the bloody hillside, and made our way toward Vikingrune Academy.

I realized the ball was not in my court. I wasn’t the kind of woman to forgive a man just because he was charming and attractive.

If Arne Gornhodr truly cared for me, he would prove it to me with his actions. Words were cheap. So far, as Grim had told it, he was on his way to atonement.

But he wasn’t nearly there.

I left it at that, and thought no more about the situation as the dawn cracked the sky and filled with morning clouds and a thin fog.

All of us were dead on our feet, absolutely exhausted and famished. We kept each other moving with idle chatter, the guys telling me about some things I’d missed in the month I’d been gone.

Somehow, Vikingrune was both our prison and our freedom. We felt that if we could get there unseen, we could somehow escape this. Yes, tens of Huscarls were missing, and they would eventually be found rotting in the open sun.

However, nothing, so far, connectedusto their deaths . . . which was a grisly way to think about things in and of itself.

At the same time, as poor Logaithn had reported, Vikingrune’s western and southern gates had been closed and guarded. No one could leave or enter on their own, which was causing problems for shifters there. The full moon was nearing, and once they went into heat, well . . . all bets were off. The Hersirs would learn if their plan was horribly misguided.

My guys assumed the closing was due to the elves’ initial attack at the creek, when the guards had been bringing me back to the school as a captive.

The humans’ hated enemies arriving back in Midgard spooked the Hersirs and Gothi Sigmund.

Of course, no official announcement was ever given to the students saying that was the reason for martial law.

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