Page 494 of Flirting with Darkness

But all he found was silence.

No beat, no breath. The monster had slain Astrid, while he, her protector, had failed to keep her safe.

11

She was so small and light in his arms as his pounding paws ate up the miles to the sea. He’d failed to protect her in life, but he would see to it that she received the funeral a jarl’s daughter deserved, in what might be the last of Erik’s boats. A boat that had tried and failed to drown her would carry her to Valhalla to be with the rest of her father’s warriors.

A place he would never see, nor deserve.

He laid her broken body on the sand, wiping away that telltale trickle of blood with the corner of his cloak.

Then he dragged the boat over to her. She deserved to be laid to rest with weapons and flowers, along with all her worldly possessions, but those had all vanished, along with her father’s fort.

So he emptied out the bag he’d taken from the cottage. Three knives, some bottles of water, and a lot of food she would never need again. Even as he laid her in the boat and arrayed her things around her, he knew it was not enough. Flowers he could find. It might be late summer, judging by the lack of ice on the ground, but there would be flowers still, he was sure of it.

His steps led him to the fort gardens, where he’d grown and picked vegetables and herbs with the other thralls. The fort might be gone, but some of the plants remained – including the stubborn weeds that he’d plucked every year, but had grown back to spite him.

He picked every flower he could find, until the bag was full. Only then did he dare approach her again.

She lay in the bottom of the boat like she was only sleeping, wrapped in the starred cloak. He tugged her braid forward, curling it over her heart, where he placed a posy of foxgloves. Then he began to spread the rest of the flowers, until she looked like she was lying in a summer meadow on a carpet of blossoms. Beautiful, as ever.

Almost as though she still lived and breathed, though he knew she did not.

Finally, he was finished. He had nothing left to give her but a proper burial. Truly, she deserved to go to her grave with his body at her feet, for failing her, but no blade could pierce his stone skin. His punishment was to go on living without her. Oh, the gods were surely laughing at him now, for daring to dream he might one day deserve her.

He would drag the boat out into the bay, swimming with it so that it might reach deep water before it sank, carrying its precious cargo to the deeps. Perhaps, if he was fortunate, the curse might break when Astrid left for Valhalla, making him once more nothing more than a mortal man. One who might drown in the currents out in the bay. He could only hope. For what had he to live for without Astrid?

A man was more likely to be overwhelmed by the currents than a wolf, so a man he would be. For the first time since he had awoken in this time, Fenrir shifted from wolf to man. If he was but a man, he was weak, and he would take one thing for himself. Something he hadn’t dared hope for, not once since he’d been cursed. But if these were his last moments, before he was doomed to spend eternity in Helheim, he would steal one last thing.

He dropped to his knees beside the boat, leaned over the gunwale, and pressed his lips to Astrid’s in one final, cursed kiss.

12

Everything hurt, like she’d been in a fight that Astrid could not remember. A fight she definitely had not won, for Valhalla surely would not hurt so much. Nor would it be so dark. Helheim, maybe…

Until she felt Fenrir’s lips on hers, for they could belong to no one else. Not Helheim and not Valhalla…so she lived on Midgard still.

Astrid’s eyes fluttered open. It was Fenrir, all right – as a man, and not a wolf. How…?

But as his lips claimed hers, she ceased to care about or question anything, except how good it felt to be in Fenrir’s arms again, and how much more she wanted from him. With her father and the village gone, he was all she had left.

Was it wrong to want more?

His body was hard and heavy atop hers, but no more than she could bear. His hands were warm as they stroked up her belly to cup her breasts beneath her dress.

“Yes,” she whispered as one hand slid down. “Yes!”

His claws shredded her leggings, so cold air kissed the tops of her thighs, and the parts of her that lay between. Before warm fingers stroked her there, too.

“Yes, yes!” she moaned, opening herself to him completely.

The heat of him burned as he entered her, before he set her insides on fire, too, in the best way. Over and over he plunged into her, as she arched her back up to meet him, thrust for thrust. Pleasure came in a rush she was not prepared for, crying out his name as Fenrir gave her everything she could have ever wished for.

When her body stopped shaking, she stared up at him, tears of joy blurring her vision. “Thank you. That was…I have never…I never imagined…and yet…I could do that all night.” She felt her cheeks burn at admitting such a thing.

His eyes were wide as he stared back, as though he could not believe her audacity, either.

Or so she thought.

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