CHAPTER ONE
BASTIAN
My bride walked down the aisle towards me with murder in her eyes.
Her chin was high as she strode with purpose, her white gown billowing behind her like even the fabric was afraid to get too close. With her dark hair swept up to highlight her sharp cheekbones, she was regal and lovely.
But there was murder in her eyes.
The expectant silence seemed to echo off the cathedral’s vaulted stone ceilings as hundreds of courtiers dressed in silks and jewels stared in awe at Sigrid Thorvald, legendary Viking warrior and heir to the throne of Daneland. We’d been at war with the Danes since before my birth, so the idea of the Saxon prince marrying a Dane, especiallythisDane, didn’t sit well with many of the nobles.
“Get on with it,” she said, her soft voice somehow conveying violence, when the priest simply stood gawking at her.
He bristled, unused to women who gave commands. Like she hadn’t spoken, he turned to me. “Shall we begin, Prince Bastian?”
In another situation, I would’ve deferred to my bride, would’ve forced the disrespectful prick to acknowledge her authority…but my father was watching. The whole kingdom was watching. I wouldn’t do her any favors by making this worse. There was too much at stake.
I gave him a nod, trying to ignore the way Sigrid swiveled her murderous expression back to me.
Sigrid Thorvald, the monster in the stories told to make Saxon children behave, was being forced to marry me…and she wasn’t happy about it.
They’d managed to find a high-necked gown that covered most of the blue tattoos I knew were scattered on her shoulders and arms, but the curling lines of one wound up the side of her neck to her ear. Delicate pearls dangled from her lobes, but she still also wore a strikingly Viking line of hoops down the curve of her right ear. They’d made every effort to soften her, but the breadth of her shoulders and the way her upper arms strained at the sleeves hinted at the strength beneath. It was a travesty she’d be forbidden from wearing the trousers I’d seen her in on her brother’s ship. I could only hope to catch a glimpse of her muscular thighs when we were in private.
I raised my hand to offer it to her, fully aware of the risk I was taking even though she was unarmed. She exhaled slowly and deigned to place her hand on mine. With a start, I realized she’d pulled her dainty lace gloves off at some point, so I felt the rough palm of a hand more accustomed to wielding a battle-axe than an embroidery needle, but that in no way diminished how much I ached to feel it onother partsof me.
Maybe that made me a sick bastard, but I couldn’t help that she’d kissed me days before when I’d been a captive on herbrother’s pirate ship. It wasn’t my fault the tables had been turned and now she was the captive.
Our fathers—one the king of Daneland and the other the king of the Saxon lands, two endlessly warring nations—had plotted to force us both into this. Her father had taken her oldest brother’s mate hostage and threatened to torture the woman if we didn’t comply and give them an heir to unite the kingdoms. She’d be a hostage until then, but Sigrid would be stuck here forever. Sigrid may have been terrifying, but she loved her brothers enough to sacrifice herself to save Thorin from the agony of losing his mate.
The members of her family were berserkers, descended from the Viking gods. Each had a beastly inner being that gave them a unique power and made them all but invincible in a fight. A berserker’s connection to their mate was a soul bond, a loss they couldn’t recover from.
Sigrid had allowed my father to leash her berserker half to him through some fell magic; it was contained in metal cuff on his wrist and a matching band around her neck, and now she couldn’t access the part of herself that gave her godlike speed and strength in battle. When she had access to her berserker, her unique power was to sense people’s fears. In this room, she didn’t need powers to figure it out.Shewas the thing they all feared.
As the priest began to ramble in the holy tongue, Sigrid’s eyes flicked around the cathedral like she was thinking about murdering her way to an escape. I’d seen her fight—even with mortal strength and speed, she could probably slaughter her way past the royal guards…but unused to her limited powers, she might be killed in the process.
I couldn’t let that happen.
“Enough, priest,” I said quietly. “Get to the vows.”
Father Benedict’s cheeks turned bright red with anger. He’d waited years to preside over a royal wedding, and he flicked his eerie amber eyes to my father to bring me back in line.
That’s right, priest. I’m not the boy who fears you anymore. You have to run to your master for help.
The king raised and lowered a shoulder in a careless shrug. “Do as the prince says. If he’s eager to get to the marriage bed, who can blame him?”
The rumble of laughter from the crowd covered my audible wince as Sigrid stomped her boot on top of mine and ground her heel into my toes. I didn’t try to shove her away. If she was fighting me, she wasn’t risking her life fighting them.
“Do you, Sigrid Thorvald, swear before God to honor and obey the prince in all things, forsaking all others and taking…”
The priest continued with the vow, but Sigrid rolled her eyes and murmured, “I’ll swear anything you like before a god I don’t believe in.”
I cleared my throat, hoping no one else had heard her. She didn’t seem to understand how compliant my father would expect her to be in order to spare her brother’s mate.
“I so vow,” she said in a clear voice, when the priest had finished listing the litany of ways Saxon women were supposed to serve, honor, and obey their husbands.
“And you, Prince Bastian?”
I knew my part, so there was no need for him to recite it, but I was struggling to think past the crushing pain she was inflicting on my foot. Like she thought it might stop me from making any vows, she ground down even harder with her heel.
