Page 85 of Soul of Fire

Arik shook his head and leaned down. He pressed his lips to my forehead in a chaste kiss before resting his brow against mine.

“You have something she didn’t.” His breath was warm between us. Intimate.

“What’s that?” I whispered, feeling myself begin to tremble from cold or fear, or all of it—I wasn’t sure.

He tilted my chin up and gave me a half-smirk. “Me.”

And then he was pressing his lips to mine, the kiss consuming in a way that chased the fear to a dark place in the corner of my mind. Idunn surged, her need pulsing as something flickered against the barren wasteland of our mental bridge. Something white and hot and familiar.

We gasped, breaking apart at the same time. “Baldur.”

“I felt him,” Arik said, grinning more widely than I had seen in days.

“Does that mean the mistletoe is wearing off?”

“I fucking hope so.” His mouth crashed against mine again, and I felt that bright spark of white light writhe against the darkness in my mind.

Idunn purred, wrapping her own sinewy blue form around the white spark and tugging insistently.Mine.

Arik’s hands roamed my body, their path casting a blaze against my chilled skin.

A break in the clouds above us bathed the clearing and the broken stones in silvery moonlight, and we broke apart again, both panting harder than when we had climbed a hundred stairs.

“This is it,” Arik murmured, grabbing my waist and pulling me close. “The perfect place. The perfect moment.”

“For what?” I was still breathing heavily, and Idunn was stoking the fire in me with a need for Baldur that was stronger than I’d ever felt.

“To make you my wife.” I looked up to find him smiling down at me, his eyes soft in the moonlight. “Marry me, Kjære. Here. Tonight, if the priestesses will do the honors. Or tomorrow, if you prefer. Or really any day. Just say you’ll be my wife.”

I gaped, not sure what to say. Idunn was battering at the wall between her and Baldur so loudly, it was difficult to think. All I could choke out was, “Why?”

Arik laughed. “Why? I thought that was a rather elegant proposal, under the moonlight, and your response is ‘why’?”

I shook my head, feeling like all the words were jumbling up incorrectly in my head. “I mean, your father isn’t forcing us.”

Arik’s eyes went hard for a moment before he dropped his forehead to mine again and sighed. “Just listen to me for a minute, Kjære. I need to put the words in order, and I’m worried I won’t get them right if you try to argue with me.”

“But–”

He kissed me again, and the argument I’d been about to make died on my lips. “No arguing. Just listening.”

I nodded, biting my lip to stop another word from escaping me. Something like excitement was rising in my stomach, making me feel giddy and nauseated and joyful all at once.

“I have loved you from the moment I saw you in Henrik’s tavern, even when I wasn’t ready to admit it. Baldur knew you were meant for us, but he isn’t here, so believe me when I say this.” Arik tilted my chin up so I was forced to hold his gaze, and his eyes were bright with reflected starlight.

“I would burn the world for you. I would break open the Rift to find you, and I would damn the rest of humanity as long as it meant you were safe. I love you more than my very soul-bonded dragon, and it’s not because we are mates, and it’s not because the fucking Norns decreed it to be so. It’s because you are strong and bold. You love fiercely and feel deeply, and you are everything that has been missing from my life for so long. And it would be the greatest honor to call you my wife, before this kingdom and the world.” He brushed a tear aside with the pad of his thumb.

“Marry me, Kjære.” My eyelids fluttered shut under the intensity of his gaze, and he pressed a kiss to one cheek. “Be my wife.” The other cheek. “Be my mate.” My nose. “And for the love of all that is good and right in this world, let me be yours.”

His lips hovered over mine, and I knew he was waiting for an answer. My heartbeat thrummed in time with the gem over my heart—the literal tear of a goddess—and all of the fear and anger from today’s revelations melted away under the force of his love.

So I gave him the only answer I could. The one my heart had longed to give since before Idunn awoke in me. Before the kiss inthe archives. Before the moment he had looked into my eyes and pleaded with me to help him close the Rift.

“Yes.”

Arik closed the distance, his lips meeting mine with such force that I lost my balance and stumbled backward. He caught me, cushioning my head with his hand as he righted us against one of the still-standing stone columns that had once been part of the exterior of the temple.

He continued kissing me, his beard leaving shivers as he worked his way down the slope of my neck. “Say it again.”