CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Isle of Uist, Western Isles, Scotland
“Ek... heiti... Isolda.”
The words tasted foreign on her tongue—angular and rough. Isolda traced the corresponding runes beneath her fingertip.
Me name is Isolda.
She’d been at it for over a week now—stealing hours in Ragnar’s secret library when he was occupied with patrols or with the Council, working through his mother’s Norse sagas with a borrowed quill and a scrap of parchment she’d nicked from the solar.
The grammar twisted in ways that made Gaelic seem straightforward, and half the vocabulary shared roots with Scots words she already knew, which made it even more confusing.
But she wanted to do it for him.
She dipped her quill and the door opened without warning. Isolda’s hand jerked, the quill snapping against the parchment, ink splattering across her careful notes.
Ragnar filled the doorway, his dark blond hair damp at the temples from the morning’s training. His blue eyes moved from her face to the open saga to the ruined parchment to the broken quill dripping ink between her fingers.
“What are ye daein’?”
She flipped the parchment over with what she hoped was casual speed and not the frantic scramble it actually was. “Readin’.”
“In Norse?”
“In yer maither’s translations.”
His mouth twitched. He stepped inside, the small room shrinking around him the way it always did. “Ye’ve ink on yer chin, little wolf.”
Her hand flew to her face before she caught his expression. She stood, brushing ink-stained hands against her skirts. “I heard ye. In the trainin’ yard, with Freyr.”
Ragnar’s expression didn’t change. “How much did ye hear?”
She held his gaze. “Freyr wants tae send me tae Skye. Tae keep me safe by puttin’ distance between us.”
“Isolda—”
“Ye refused.”
“Aye.” He said it quietly.
“Ye could have agreed. It would’ve been the practical choice—the strategic one.”
She stepped closer. The narrow window threw a shaft of grey afternoon light between them, catching dust motes and the faint scent of leather and old vellum that clung to everything in the room. “But what ye did was the most reckless, stubborn, wonderful thing anyone’s ever done fer me. And I wanted ye tae ken that I ken. That I’m nae blind tae what it costs ye—choosin’ me over the safer path.”
“It daesnae cost me anythin’.” His voice had dropped to that low register that made her pulse skitter. “Because there is nae path that daesnae involve ye beside me.”
“Ragnar—”
“I spent too many years keepin’ people at arm’s length because I was convinced that was how ye protect them.” He closed the remaining distance between them. “Ye showed me that I was wrong, Isolda.”
His thumb traced the line of her jaw, and the tenderness in it undid something she hadn’t realized she was still holding together.
“So nay, little wolf. I’ll nae send ye away.” His forehead dropped to hers. “I need ye right here. Where I can wake up and ken ye’re still mine.”
“I was always yers.” The confession came out rough and raw. “Even when I was too stubborn tae admit it.”
His lips claimed hers with a heat that buckled her knees, his hand sliding from her jaw to the back of her neck, fingers threading into her hair, tilting her head to deepen the angle. She opened for him on instinct, her hands fisting in the front of his tunic, pulling him closer until there was nothing between them but wool and want.
