Page 124 of Fortunes of War

New alliances and pretty words be damned: Leif would gather his pack and march straight back home if anyone insisted on separating Ragnar from him, or confining him in any way. Onlyhecould collar him, and anyone else who tried would lose a hand for the effort.

Still, he would try to use diplomacy.

He said, “Northern politics are as intricate and hot-blooded as those in the South, and as difficult for Southerners to grasp as it is for me to comprehend the sheer amount of decorative plaster in this house.”

Someone – he thought it was Connor – snorted across the table, and was shushed.

“Ragnar is my thrall, yes,” Leif continued, and eased his arm over so the whole length of shoulder and biceps were pressed flush to Ragnar in what he hoped was a comforting gesture. “He wears an enchanted torq that cannot be released by him, nor by accident. He owes me a debt, and so he will pay it, as my war prize.” A slight nod to Edward, for knowing the correct terminology. “But his presence here, at my side, as my second in command, is not something I’m willing to negotiate. If you want me as part of your army, you shall have Ragnar as well.”

The last he said with a ring of finality, and a lowering of his brows in challenge.Try and take him from me, he thought.I dare you.

Edward held his gaze a moment longer, and then inclined his head a fraction, gaze dropping in concession.

Leif read a note of respect in his scent as well, and thought he’d been tested, and had passed.

Ragnar let out a slow, deep breath, and leaned into Leif’s side.

It was silent a beat, and then Amelia said, “Well, then. If that’s everything?” The sunlight had gone deep gold and slanted at the windows, the horizon beyond the glass pearly peach with the rushing on of evening. “I suggest we all get as much rest as possible between now and our departure.” She stood, and then the rest of them did as well. “I’ll see you all at supper.”

~*~

Ragnar was shaking so badly that Leif didn’t stay inside the manor. Standing upright and hiding the twinges in his torso as best he could behind a bland, but unapproachable expression, he headed out onto the terrace, and then down its steps, and hung a left on the path, Ragnar tailing behind him. When Ragnar gathered a breath to speak, Leif held up a hand for silence and kept walking. Through a gate, beneath an overgrown rose trellis that was just beginning to leaf out for spring. Past topiaries that had gone back to their natural shapes, and through another gate, into a tunnel of gnarled apple trees, the branches grown together overhead so the sun fell in sparse dapples on the stubby grass below.

Leif put his hand down.

“Gods.” Ragnar charged a few strides ahead of him, and then stopped, one hand propped on his hip, the other holding his hair off his neck. A breeze came funneling down through the alley of trees, cool, but sun-scented, carrying all the smells leftover from the warmest part of the day. Leif could see the gooseflesh on his arms and throat, the part of his chest exposed by his half-laced tunic. “I knew someone would say something. Iknewthey would.” He smelled stressed, and he was whining – unconsciously, Leif thought – under his breath, a quiet squeaky note like an unoiled hinge closing.

“Ragnar,” Leif said, and then, softer, “Hey, look at me.” He stepped in close, and Ragnar’s gaze was wide with surprise when he turned to him. “I thought someone might ask as well. I was prepared for it, and I handled it.”

Ragnar’s mouth twitched to the side, lips pressed to a fine line. “They know about me, don’t they? What I did to earn this?” He let go of his hair, and gripped his torq instead. It had always been fleeting touches, quick passes of his fingertips – but now he held it firmly, the gap between metal and skin just big enough to get the ends of his fingers through so he could grip it tight. Until his knuckles went white, and flexed with sharp cracks.

Leif said, “They only know what I said in there, and I don’t plan on enlightening them further. Amelia knows a little more, I think. Oliver wrote to her of you.”

Ragnar’s brows went up. His smile was wide, and not at all true, a mocking semblance of happiness that left Leif’s chest aching. “Ah, sweet Oliver. Warning his cousin about the terrible wolf man with the shiny necklace. Be careful: he might lure you up into the mountains next! Ha!”

Leif frowned. They’d not spoken of that – of any of it – in a long time. Not since Ragnar was confined to the dungeon in Aeres. Dredging it up now felt like going backward…especially given how things had progressed since Leif had brought him up into the sunlight, and clicked the torq into place.

“I don’t know how much he told her,” he said. “But I don’t think he was trying to frighten her, or poison her against us.”

“Us? What do you meanus? There’s you, your grace, and then there’s me, the villain of your story.” He shook his head, lip curling off his teeth to reveal his too-long, too-sharp eye teeth. “Your entire family can’t fathom why you didn’t take my head with an axe and save yourself and everyone else the trouble of knowing I still exist. Oliver is no different, and he will have warned his cousin well.”

“Has she treated you poorly?” When a sideways glance slid his direction, Leif said, “Has she behaved as though she thought you were a slave? Leave you tied to a tree like a dog? Or did she have her people tend your wounds, and let you sit at my bedside?”

Another head shake. “It doesn’t matter.” He took a deep breath, and looked exhausted suddenly; older and paler and sicker than he had moments ago.

“You’re feeling sorry for yourself,” Leif accused.

Ragnar turned his head toward him once more, and his face was a mask of defeat. Resignation. “One way or another, I’ll end up in chains again,” he said, quietly devastated.

Leif huffed out a breath through his nose, a growl curling along the edges of his voice – one that left Ragnar’s shoulders flinching downward. “I willneverlet that happen.”

“Bold words, alpha, but you can’t guarantee that.”

“I can. Watch me.”

Ragnar bowed his head, and shuddered. His breath was an audible rush across his lips. His hair parted at the back of his neck, as it swung forward to hang and shield his face; the dappled shadows kissed his nape, vulnerable, bared to his alpha.

Leif found that glimpse of hairline, the pale skin, untouched by the sun, smooth and without blemish, always covered by his hair, irresistible in that moment – as was the urge to offer much-needed physical comfort to his beta. His packmate.Pack. Mine. Mate. That last was growing more insistent by the day. In the quiet of the alley of trees, alone, without so much as the faintest scent-trace of the rest of the pack, he allowed himself to accept the word, and all its implications.Mate. That was the way his wolf thought of Ragnar.

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