Page 489 of Flirting with Darkness

Fenrir seized her, clapping a hand over her mouth to silence her. “We can’t,” he hissed. “The fort is too far away. They won’t hear us. But the invaders will, and there are a hundred of them to two of us. They’ll kill us both, and it will not slow them down at all. We must stay here, silent, and hide, until it is safe.”

She bit down hard on his hand, and tore out of his grasp. “You promised you would protect me! Now you turn coward, when you might actually have to fight someone?” Yet it came out as a hissed whisper – she might not like it, but she knew she did not want the invaders to hear her.

“I am protecting you, Miss Astrid. I cannot fight a hundred men and win. Perhaps ten, or twenty, or fifty will fall beneath my axe, but all it would take is one left alive to take you, and he will. For a man would be a fool indeed to take one look at you and not fall under your spell.”

“Not even my father could fight fifty men singlehandedly,” she grumbled.

“For you, he would. As would I, and any man who serves him. Do not underestimate the love and loyalty you inspire, Miss Astrid.”

“If only love and loyalty would bring me a bed. I suppose we will have to stay the night here, on this beach?” she asked.

“I will make up a bed for you in the boat, where you may sleep safely until morning,” Fenrir promised.

When she was safely tucked under a sailcloth blanket, she patted the space beside her. “You need sleep, too, Fenrir.”

Madness truly had taken hold of him then, for him to share a bed with the jarl’s daughter. For when dawn lit the sky the next morning, it heralded Fenrir’s death.

2

“Traitor! Stealing my daughter away during the battle! What did Njal’s men promise you?” Jarl Erik demanded.

Fenrir wished he had the courage to tell Astrid’s father to ask Njal, but the pile of corpses on the beach told its own grisly story. Njal and his men were dead, their sneak attack against Erik unsuccessful. At least Astrid was safe now.

“I was protecting her, like you told me,” Fenrir said.

He didn’t see the blow coming, but it sent him reeling across the sand, to land at a pair of small feet.

Fenrir dared to raise his head. Astrid? She would vouch for him, surely.

But no – the feet were smaller than hers. These belonged to the witch, the old, wise woman Erik consulted on important matters.

Before Erik’s men could haul him to his feet or land another blow, Fenrir heaved himself to his knees, grabbing the witch’s hand. Something hard bit into his fingers – a ring with a large, red stone. Without thinking, Fenrir pressed his lips to it. “Please, Mistress Kun, you must believe me. I was only protecting Astrid. All I ever wanted was to protect Astrid. I will pledge my life to protecting her, if I am to be punished. Please. I ask only that you spare my life.”

The witch tried to pry him off, but desperation gave him strength. She managed to free her hand, but the ring came away in his fingers.

“Save my life, make me her protector, and I will protect her for as long as I live,” Fenrir said.

The witch gritted her teeth, but she nodded once, stiffly, as though she did not want to. “Very well. Hand me back my ring, boy, and I shall grant your wish.”

Fenrir held it out to her on his open palm. “Thank you, Mistress Kun.”

She snatched the ring from him, and slipped it back onto her finger, clenching her hand around it. “Now, I will turn you into her protector.”

She bit her lip, hard, so a trickle of blood oozed out, her dark eyes staring at him.

Pain stabbed at him, not once, but a thousand times, like she’d turned his bones to liquid fire. All Fenrir could do was scream until blessed darkness took him, and he knew no more.

3

Another battle, another victory. Fenrir had been the first prisoner her father had taken, but he was far from the last. But Astrid didn’t dare disobey him. Under her father and Mistress Kun’s gimlet gazes, she performed the foundation sacrifice ritual she’d first practiced on Fenrir’s tortured body. She’d lost count of the number of hearts she’d cut out, but their names still rang in her head.

Today, as she laid chunks of icy permafrost on each of their chests, she added three more names to her list: Thor, Loki, and Odin. Fierce warriors who would rise again to defend the fort they had dared to attack.

Her father’s warriors carried the fallen men to their graves, where they would lie until called to arms. Astrid kept her eyes on the burial, not daring to wash the blood and gore from her hands until the ritual was complete.

She could feel Fenrir’s eyes on her back as he stood apart from the others. As he had been, since the day Mistress Kun had turned him into a wolf man, before she’d made Astrid cut out his heart to bind him to her as her protector.

If it weren’t for the binding, he probably would have torn her throat out years ago, and she’d probably deserve it, too. She’d tried to tell her father the truth about that night – that Fenrir had been protecting her – but Father had not believed a word of it. Now, she suspected he had believed her, but he’d been so enraged that Fenrir had dared to kiss her, that her words had only made things worse.

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