Page 96 of Lord of Fire and Ice

He warred against the downward pull of his groin.

The sight of his beautiful wife bent over him with his cock slipping in and out of her lips was almost more than he could bear. Pressure rose in his shaft. He fought to keep from spewing his seed in her mouth.

“Do not come until I tell you,” she’d said.

Why did she think it was that easy?

She took in as much of him as she could and began fondling his balls again. In. Out. Her wet lips brushed the sensitive spot near the head with each pass with just the right amount of pressure to send him into ecstatic torment.

Was this the vengeance she meant to wreak on him from the beginning? To make him want her beyond bearing while she denied him release?

A pinprick of pain stabbed the base of his skull.

“Brandr.”

Her mouth never left his cock. How had she said his name?

“Brandr, my love.”

There it was again, echoing sure and sweet in his head.

“Katla?”

He heard her laughter, giddy, ecstatic laughter, but not with his ears. The sound danced through his mind. Joyful. Triumphant.

So she wasn’t imagining it when she said she could hear his thoughts, because now he was hearing hers. If they were mad, at least they’d tumbled into lunacy together.

“Beloved.” Her soul’s voice caressed his. “Come.”

Chapter 33

Days passed in a peaceful procession. Without the burden of an entire farmstead on her shoulders, Katla’s world constricted to the pleasant little domestic circle of two she and Brandr shared. Linnea flourished in its center, squealing with delight when Brandr dandled her on his knee. Once Katla’s moon subsided, she and Brandr loved each other to exhaustion each night.

Every day they learned more of what it meant to share inn matki munr. With Dalla’s help, they practiced sending their thoughts to each other and, just as importantly, according to the old woman, learned to erect a wall in their minds when one was warranted.

“Everyone needs a private center for their soul that’s all their own,” she told them.

Katla was happy, happy as she’d never been in her entire life. Yet in quiet moments, she feared this happiness. It was too much. Too glorious.

Too fragile.

Like Frankish glass, it could all shatter in a moment. After having so much, the loss of it would be crueler than never having had such joy at all.

***

Brandr sat in council with his friends after Arn retired to his chamber, spent from the exertion of walking from his bed to his throne and back. So long as Brandr confined the attendance in his secret meetings to just his friends, Arn would have no idea his brother was acting in his stead on behalf of the jarldom.

“We could wait for the return of the king,” Harald suggested.

“Olav is in Ireland,” Brandr said. “He’s so busy expanding his boundaries, who knows when he’ll return to the main bulk of his kingdom? The defense of Hardanger Fjord is up to us.”

In the end, it was decided that Harald, Ragnar, Torvald, and Torsten would visit nearby jarls in the fjord with warnings about the return of Bloodaxe. Brandr insisted on sending a generous gift of silver to his potential allies from his portion of the cache the men brought back from Byzantium.

“Wealth makes itself friends,” he said. “And I fear we’ll need them.”

The emissaries from Jondal would shore up alliances and make sure the signal-fire system was in place and manned at all hours. Then in a week, they were to meet back in Jondal to report their progress.

“What are you and Orlin going to do?” Harald wanted to know.