Colors swam in his eyes, making the silver and hazel sharper. The hard lines around his mouth and eyes faded, his lips softening.
“I didn’t intend to make you feel chained,” he whispered. “I only wanted to find you. To protect you.”
Find? Protect? What did he know of protection?
His people attacked and killed and slaughtered. They protected nothing! Hot tears burned her eyes. The fur fell from her grasp, unconcerned about what he saw.
“Like you protected Edmund?” she shouted. “Your people killed him. Slit his throat before he was a man. My brother. All for what? For gold. For glory to your gods?”
The last of her restraint snapped, defying every survival instinct.
Those eyes infuriated her, cold and curious as they followed her approach, neither concerned nor bothered. Her chest heaved, making the spot ache with each ragged pant.
With a crack, she slapped him across the face, her palm itching with the sting. Tears leaked from her eyes as his head snapped back into place, an angry red print coloring his pale skin.
A growl hissed through his teeth, but he did not move, glaring at her.
Pride and a hint of idiocy propelled her forward. Hard muscle hit her palms as her hands connected with his bare chest. Callused fingers closed around her wrists, not tight enough to hurt, but enough to still her assault.
Through wet lashes, she looked up at him.
“Many winters ago, your people came, attacked our village. Raped and stole and murdered. When my brother tried to defend us, he was killed, barely older enough to hold a sword. You stole him from me. From us. Now it is only me and my father left and you stole him from me too! What else will you take, demon?”
His nostrils flared as a muscle in his jaw ticced. Eventually, he spoke, his tone an unshakeable rumble.
“Many clans roam these lands. How are you certain it was mine?”
“Does it matter? It was yours this time. Might as well have been yours then too.”
A terrifying sound escaped him, and fear rooted deep in her belly, finally realizing she may have gone too far.
“So should I blame you for the Englishman who kidnapped my sister? Should I punish you for their trespasses?”
His grip tightened and he yanked her into him, holding her there. Her mouth turned dry, one of his massive hands securing both her wrists while the other pinched her chin in a hold strong enough to shatter stone.
Nails bit into her skin, but she refused to show pain.
“Are you to blame for the man who raped her?” Elara sucked in a breath. “The man who thought to use her as leverage against my father?”
Even as she tried to hide it, her hands trembled. She liked to imagine the mountain of a man towering over her as an unfeeling, unattached being. But when she heard his voice crack at the mention of his sister, it reminded her he was as human as she was.
He had people he loved. People he cared about.
A silence went on for a beat between them. His eyes flashed as they narrowed, darting back and forth, puzzling out some unseen riddle.
“We do not needlessly take. We honor Odin with battle. But as of late, the world has changed, demanding preparations.”
His hold softened, morphing into something more akin to an embrace than restraint. One that made her stomach quiver and her thighs clench.
“What sort of preparations demand stealing lands?” she said, the cut of her words not as venomous as they had once been.
The hard lines of his chest rose with a heaving sigh.
“War looms, little flame.” The pad of his thumb feathered almost reverently over her cracked lip and she longed to bite it, to make him bleed. “A great war between the gods, who will use our lands as a battlefield. Loki stirs. His daughter, Hel, at his side. They look to cloak the undead in unholy armor. The draugar. Human spirits twisted into undead warriors to tear open the veil between worlds.”
She blinked, her lips slightly parted. None of his words made any sense. The only thing she latched onto was the draugar. He knew of the creatures tormenting her. Knew whatthey wanted.
The floor fell out from under her, disintegrating like sand in water.
