Page 110 of The Viking in the Vault
I go still. “Did I say something weird?”
He laughs, the low, delicious kind of laugh that I feel more than hear. “Mostly my name. Once, you demanded soup.”
That makes me snort. “Sounds about right.”
Ragnar shifts just enough to look down at me. “Are you hungry, fenvarra?”
My stomach chooses that exact moment to answer for me, growling loud enough to make me wince.
Ragnar grins.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” he says.
I squirm a little, trying to push the furs aside and sit up, but my body is…well, not cooperating. Everything aches in that tender, overused, well-ruined way that makes me feel embarrassingly proud. The Elena of two weeks ago would haveneversaid that, but this Elena?
I think she’s kind of a ho.
“You struggle,” Ragnar murmurs. “For what?”
“Pants,” I reply. “Or at least, like, underwear.”
Ragnar tucks the furs tighter around me, thwarting my escape. “No need.”
“No need for pants?”
“No need for anything but warmth,” he says, kissing my bare shoulder. “You are Vethari now. You aremine. Let them see.”
I blink at him, not sure if I’m getting his meaning. “Okay…butlet them seeis very different fromlet them see me without pants, Ragnar.”
He chuckles, utterly unrepentant, and stands without shame. I realize he’s just as gloriously, obscenely naked as he was when I went to sleep, and he’s not making any effort to change that—beyond grabbing one of the furs and draping it around his shoulders like a cloak. My eyes go straight to his muscular thighs, and the cock that is somehow still massive even when he isn’t hard.
“Stay there,” he says when I start to fidget again. “I will make you presentable.”
“Oh no,” I breathe. “You’re going to turn me into some kind of ceremonial blanket burrito, aren’t you?”
“I…do not know what this ‘burrito’ is,” he says (and I make a mental note to introduce him to burritos when we get back to Snowveil). “But if it is a beautiful, bedecked mate, then yes.”
It really isn’t, but I let that slide.
Ragnar moves to the crate and returns with a heavy slate-colored fur cloak trimmed with cream and gold thread. It looks unnecessarily regal, but I have to admit it matches the bracelets and torque as he drapes it over my shoulders and wraps it around me.
“This is excessive,” I mutter.
“This isappropriate,” he corrects me, fussing with the way it drapes down over my body. “You are the captain’s mate and should be adorned as such.”
“Yeah, but I’m not wearing anything under this.”
He cups my cheek in one giant palm and leans in, his voice a low purr against my ear. “Exactly.”
I’m still getting my head back on straight after the rumble in his voice when he sweeps me up into his arms like a bridal carry…and I don’t protest because I’m too sore to feel like walking anyway.
He carries me out of the tent into the early dawn light, pale pink filtering through the glacier overhead. I can hear the soft lapping of ocean waves where the Stormcaller is frozen into the edge of the glacier, then I feel what is definitely atongueon my bare toe, and I jerk it away.
Fenrik whines in response.
“Oh!” I say, seeing the skarnhound a second later and reaching toward him. “Oh, I’m sorry buddy. I didn’t know it was you.”
“Very kind of you to give us our privacy last night, my friend,” Ragnar says.
