Erik doesn’t answer, just lifts me into his arms, and the ground lurches around us. My laugh escapes, breathless, caught between our mouths as he kisses me hard—his tongue pushing past my lips like he owns them.
“Show-off,” I whisper.
His shoulder hits the chamber door—it flies open, slamming against the wall with a crash. The firelight flickers wildly as we stumble inside. He doesn’t look where he’s going—his mouth is on mine, hungry, frantic. We claw at each other’s clothing like it’s in the way of breathing.
Ties snap. Leather drops to the floor. He curses a knot in my belt, teeth bared.
I smirk, tug him closer, and bite the edge of his jaw. “Let me.”
I untangle the knot, and he tears the tunic from my shoulders the moment it gives. His eyes drop, hunger sharpening. One hand grips my bare thigh, dragging it up around his waist, the other shoves under my furs.
He spins me, fast. My back hits the wall with a dull thud.
Then—he’s inside me.
A gasp rips from my throat. He groans into my neck as he thrusts deep, hard, unrelenting. His hands catch my wrists, pressing them above my head against the cold wood. Not gentle. Not asking.
I arch. I push against his grip, testing.
He holds firm—waiting.
I flex.
That’s the only answer he needs.
He grinds in, hips jerking with sharp rhythm. Each thrust slams me into the wall, sends a jolt up my spine. His mouth finds mine again—tongue sliding, biting, tasting. He swallows every moan he pulls from me. Our bodies slap together, slick and fast, hot with sweat. I clench around him, already close.
“Louder,” I pant in his ear. “Let the gods know you’re busy.”
He snarls and slams into me. I cry out, high and raw.
He doesn’t stop. He’s wild now—pushing, pulling, rutting like the world is ending and I’m the last thing he’ll ever touch.
And then—I come.
Tense, pulsing, grinding against him as the climax takes me. He keeps going, hips driving through the aftershocks as I shudder and cry into his shoulder.
But he’s not finished.
He tears me from the wall. I barely have time to breathe before we fall to the floor, tangled in pelts and furs. I drag him down with me, nails raking his back, catching his hair. He kisses me like a man obsessed—messy, all tongue and heat.
He flips me onto my back, one hand pushing my thighs wide. He watches my face as he slides back inside, slower now—but deeper. He rolls his hips, grinding against me in long, brutal strokes.
“This time you listen,” he murmurs against my throat. “Every breath. Every sound. I want to feel it.”
I grab his ass and pull him deeper. “Then fuck me properly.”
He growls low—and he does.
He fucks me deep and hard, pelvis grinding against my clit with every stroke. His abs flex against my belly, chest slick against mine. He doesn’t let me breathe—he keeps my body working, pulsing, shaking as he drags another orgasm from me. This one slower. Hotter. I feel it build in my thighs, in the pit of my stomach, in my teeth.
I come again—hard, clenching, breath ripped from me in a cracked cry.
He breaks.
With a raw, guttural moan, he jerks deep, burying himself fully as he comes—long, hard, spilling into me in hot waves, hips twitching through it, forehead pressed to mine.
We lie in the thin hush after. Wind noses the shutters. I breathe, count the places our bodies still touch and the few they don’t.
He watches me, storm-gray steady even in exhaustion, like rest is a position he has to earn. I trace his scars—small bright rivers across a country that survived itself.
“Where’d you get this?” I ask, circling a pale cut near his collarbone.
“Fell off a horse at twelve.” Beat. “The horse assisted.”
“Good horse.” He chuckles, as if I just made a joke.
I flatten my palm to his chest and feel his heart race. Mine keeps up. “I’m still angry with you,” I say, truth first.
“I know.” His thumb sketches idle circles on my wrist. “You get to be.”
“But I also think…” The words crowd each other. I choose the simple ones. “I think I’m falling in love with who you actually are. Not the Bloodwolf. Not the strategist. Just… Erik.”
His throat works; edges soften. He kisses my forehead, terribly gentle, as if the word might bruise. “That’s all I’ve wanted,” he murmurs. “To be seen as more than the reputation.”
“Don’t get used to me being soft,” I warn, because it’s always push and pull with him. “I need to have a reputation. New reputation for a new place. A terrifying river-witch who eats arrogant men for breakfast would work well.”
“I’ll present myself at dawn,” he says solemnly. “Bring jam.”
It makes me laugh—ridiculous, naked, happy. Laughter steadies me enough to open the small blue door inside me. I hook a finger under his chin so he has to look, so there’s no confusing this with a dream.
“I forgive you,” I tell him.
He inhales like surf breaking on rock. He starts to speak. I press fingers to his mouth. “Don’t ruin it. It’s a limited-edition absolution. Next time you want one, you’ll have to fight a bear.”
“I’d fight ten,” he says. “But I’ll start by not lying.”
“Good,” I say, thumb stroking the edge of his jaw. “Because if you backslide I’ll un-forgive you so fast the word will leave skid marks.”
That gets the real smile, not the one he uses like a blade. This one is a door.
I am shaping another joke when my gift turns, a quiet stream rearing into a flood. Heat knifes through me. The room tilts. I grip his wrist hard and the world rips open.
Not a soft blur. A command. Look.
Ravnfjord burns.
The harbor is a ring of torch-mad boats; smoke eats the sky; pitch and meat and salt choke the air. Screams shear the night. My father stands on the longhouse steps—only he doesn’t stand for long. An arrow blossoms in his throat like a cruel flower; he falls without the dignity he deserves.
Through the smoke a banner tears—black on red, a sigil I don’t know until I do: foreign raiders, sleek ships with wolf-prows that aren’t ours, men with braids I’ve never seen and laughter like broken teeth.
Beside them: Bjorn’s colors. Bjorn, grinning like a man who sold his shadow for a longer one, clasping hands with a stranger whose eyes are coin-flat. The bargain is sealed in fire.
The vision whips forward. Úlfheim stands quiet, sure. Then it doesn’t. The raiders’ prows lean toward us as predators scenting new blood.
I slam back into myself with a raw sound. Wall. Roof. The weight of Erik and the cool on our skin. He’s already up on an elbow, eyes scanning me like weather, hand reaching for the bed-knife without looking.
“Astrid.” My name is a command and an anchor. “What did you see?”
Air is stingy. I clutch his shoulder, nails finding purchase. “Ravnfjord,” I rasp. “Burning.”
His jaw locks. “Your father?”
“Dead.” The word is a stone that breaks my mouth and still must be said. My eyes sting. I hate the sting and I let it be anyway. “Bjorn is allied with foreign raiders. He’s sold us for coin and a crown that will cut him.”
He’s already calculating, already mapping storms. I don’t make him ask the next.
“Úlfheim is next.”
He looks at me—no doubt, only decision. He trusts the part of me he can’t see and never tries to break.
“A war is coming,” I whisper. “Real war. And we have days before it arrives.”