Page 145 of Storm of Fury
Tormund coughed, and he swore the inner lining of his lungs tore free. Rolling to the side, he tried to hack the lump loose.
“Here,” said a familiar voice, and there was a bowl in front of him and a gentle hand caressing the back of his neck.
He collapsed back on the bed when he was done coughing, blinking at the ceiling. Even his eyes hurt. And he was fairly certain Bryn was sitting on the edge of the bed, holding a glass of water like some sort of angel of mercy.
She tipped the glass to his lips and helped hold his head up so he could drink. Nothing had ever tasted as good as that water.
But he was still confused.
“Did I die?” he rasped, his voice sounding like an angry bear’s. There were fingers in his hair, gently stroking his skull. Gods, it felt good. “Are you here to haunt me?”
“Haunt you?” Her voice rose. “Is that any way to speak to the woman you love?”
His heart skipped a beat. “I thought love was a god’s trickery? A lie that mortal men tell themselves to console them for the misery of their pathetically short lives? A means to control their women?”
Bryn’s fingers stilled in his hair. “Those were words I told myself before I met you,” she admitted gently. “Because I knew there was nobody in the world who loved me, and sometimes, it aches less to deride such a notion. Sometimes, you don’t feel so lonely when you make a mockery of something that everyone else seems to have except for you.”
“You were always destined to be loved, Bryn. I just hadn’t been born yet.” Tormund captured her hand. The backs of his eyes ached, and he could have sworn there was ash in his lungs. “What happened? The last thing I remember is….” His thoughts skittered away. A swirling green vortex of magic. An arrow. Pain. “Holy shit.” He clapped a hand to his chest. “He shot me. I… I thought I died.”
Bryn curled under the covers with him, sliding her arm across his midriff, which was another unusual event. “Yes,” she finally whispered. “You died.”
Shock sent an icy splash of water through his veins.
He froze.
“I…. What?” How then was he breathing? How then was he holding her in his arms? Horror tiptoed down his spine. He grabbed her arms. “What did you do? What the hell happened to your eye?”
There was a jagged lance of gold slicing through the iris of her right eye.
“Perhaps you should ask what happened to yours,” she murmured.
He clapped a hand to it, but it felt no different than the other.
“You were dying,” she whispered. “One of my Valkyrie sisters appeared, in order to take you for Valhalla. I had no other choice. I offered my life for yours. My immortal life.”
He sat up abruptly, a hollow forming in his midriff. “What does that mean? You’re mortal now?”
Bryn closed her eyes. “As mortal as you are. Great Freyja does not give her children gifts without a cost. She demands a sacrifice to prove the gift is worth it.”
No. Wait.“But Valhalla? Your sisters—?”
“Are no longer my sisters,” she said firmly.
“But you had your confession! You had—”
“I burned the confession,” she told him stubbornly. And then she smiled. “I don’t need it anymore. I don’t need that pathetic excuse of redemption. I don’t need vengeance. It was nothing more than an anchor around my throat, slowly drowning me.Youare all I have ever needed.”
“Bryn.” He reached for her hand. “You would do that? For me?”
A tear slipped down her cheek. “How could I not? Iloveyou, you big fool.”
The sound of the word on her lips nearly choked him. He’d not expected her to ever say it, let alone concede to it.
She launched herself at him, wrapping her arms around him. A breathless kiss took him by surprise, but he barely had time to taste it before she was drawing back.
“I couldn’t bear to lose you. For everything I’ve suffered—my mother’s death, my honor, Valhalla—you were the one loss I couldn’t survive.”
Tormund curled his arm around her as she buried her face in his chest. He could feel the tremor through her back, and cupped the back of her neck, rubbing her nape. “Easy does it, love. I’m still here.”
