Erik's voice is low, urgent, his hand still on my elbow from steering me away from Gunnar. I opened my mouth, closed it, opened it again but nothing came out.
What am I doing here? Looking for hope? For escape? For him?
"I don't know," I finally admit.
He's dressed for travel—leather armor, weapons strapped to his back—but his storm-gray eyes are fixed on me with an intensity that steals my breath.
"You came looking for me." Not a question.
"I…" The words tangle in my throat. "Y-yes."
His thumb strokes across my pulse point, feeling how it races. "Come."
He doesn't wait for an answer, just guides me away from curious eyes. Away from the camp and compound, toward the fjord where fishing boats cluster like sleeping birds.
We stop at a boathouse—weathered wood and salt-crusted rope, abandoned for the season. Inside, it's dim and quiet. The smell of the sea hangs thick in the air.
"Tell me." Erik releases my wrist but stays close. "What drove you to seek me out?"
The story spills out about what happened in my father's strategy room. How I begged him to cancel the wedding, recounted every cruel thing about Bjorn. How he dismissed it all.
When Erik speaks, his voice is low and dangerous. "Your father is a fool."
"He's a jarl. He's doing what he thinks is right for our people."
"He's sacrificing his daughter to a man who will break her." The fury in his tone is barely leashed. "That's not leadership. That's cowardice."
Something in me splinters at that.
The last fragile hope that maybe Father was right. That maybe this is what duty demands. That maybe I'm selfish for wanting more.
A sob tears out of me. Then another. Erik pulls me against him, one hand cradling the back of my head, the other wrapped firm around my waist.
I cry into his chest—for the illusion of love, for the father who sees me as currency, for the girl I was before I understood what it meant to be a daughter in a world of alliances.
He holds me through all of it, steady and sure, his voice a low murmur in his northern tongue. Words I don't understand but feel anyway—comfort wrapped in fury on my behalf.
Gradually, my mind calms down, my breathing steadies.
And I start noticing everything else.
The solid warmth of his body against mine. The way his hand moves gently through my hair. How his heart beats strong beneath my cheek. The scent of leather and steel and something wilder that's purely him.
I pull back just enough to look up at his face.
His eyes have darkened, pupils blown wide. His jaw is tight, like he's holding himself rigidly in check.
"Erik," I whisper.
"Don't." His voice is strained. "Don't look at me like that."
"Like what?"
"Like you want something I shouldn't give you."
My heart pounds. This is madness. Absolute insanity. But in two days, Bjorn will take what he thinks he owns. He'll break me, use me, make me understand my place.
Unless… "I want you to be my first."
The words hang between us, heavy as stones. Erik goes completely still. "Astrid—"
"Before he can take what he doesn't deserve. Before I become property in truth." I press closer, feeling him tense. "Let me choose this. Let me choose you."
"You don't know what you're asking."
But his hands tighten on my waist, betraying him.
"I know exactly what I'm asking." I reach up, trace the scar through his eyebrow. "I'm asking you to give me something that will be mine alone. A secret he can never touch."
He catches my wrist, but doesn't push me away. "This is revenge talking. Pain. You don't actually want—"
"I want you." The truth of it surprises us both. "I've wanted you since I saw you in my father's hall. Since you found me crying and offered to kill for me. Since you kissed me like I was worth burning the world down for."
He tries to laugh, to joke, to deflect. "Little seer, you're not thinking clearly—" I rise on my toes and kiss him, swallowing whatever reasonable thing he was about to say.
For a moment he's frozen.
Then he growls something that sounds like surrender and his control snaps.
His hands frame my face, searching for doubt, for hesitation. He finds only fierce resolve, desperate need. Then he's kissing me back—slow at first, like he's savoring something forbidden. But the careful doesn't last
His mouth grows hungry, demanding, and I open for him with a gasp.
He walks me backward until the wall stops me, his body pressing against mine. One hand tangles in my hair, angling my head exactly where he wants it. The other spans my waist, thumb stroking along my ribs.
"Are you certain?" His voice is rough, desperate. "Once I start, I won't stop. I won't be able to."
For answer, I pull him closer, letting him feel how my whole body trembles for him. "Please…"
With that his hands are everywhere. Rough palms skating over soft skin, learning every curve, every hollow, every place that makes me arch and gasp.
His mouth follows, hot and demanding. Marking a path down my throat, across my collarbone, lower still until I'm trembling and desperate, my fingers tangled in his dark hair.
"So beautiful," he growls against my skin. "So fucking perfect."
When clothing becomes impediment, he tears at laces with barely controlled hunger. My dress pools around my feet. His vest and tunic follow.
The first touch of skin against skin makes us both groan—him rough and scarred where I'm smooth, hard where I'm soft. He spreads his cloak over an old sailcloth, lays me down like I'm something precious, then covers my body with his.
"Look at me," he commands, voice rough as gravel, positioning himself between my thighs. "I need to see you when I make you mine."
I meet his storm-gray eyes as he pushes inside, slow and relentless. The stretch burns, steals my breath, but his thumb finds that sensitive place that makes me see stars, turning pain to pleasure.
He stills when he's fully seated, jaw clenched with restraint, whole body trembling.
"Gods," he breathes against my mouth. "So tight. So perfect… So mine."
I want it to be true. Want it so badly it aches worse than what's between my thighs.
"Move," I beg, nails digging into his shoulders. "Please, Erik—"
He does, setting a rhythm that destroys and rebuilds me with every thrust. His mouth claims mine, swallowing my cries as he takes me apart, whispering filthy promises between kisses.
When release crashes over me, I bite his shoulder to muffle my scream. He follows with a growl of my name, spending himself deep inside me, marking me in ways Bjorn will never know.
After, we're tangled together in the dim light, sweat cooling on our skin. His fingers trace idle patterns on my shoulder—possessive, tender, like he can't quite stop touching me.
"In two days you'll marry him," he says softly, breaking the silence. "But tonight you chose me. Remember that when he tries to claim you." His hand tightens on my hip. "Your first choice is something he can't take."
I almost tell him then—about the visions that have haunted me for months.
The dreams of his face, his voice calling me 'my love,' the way my gift has been trying to tell me something I couldn't understand until now.
But the words stick. Prophecy feels too heavy for this moment, too dangerous.
Instead, I turn in his arms and kiss him. Slow and deep, goodbye edged with dangerous hope.