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Eir watched the exchange with her heart in her throat.
At least, it felt that way. Something achy was definitely stuck in the vicinity of her throat.
It made it hard to breathe. Her heart beat hard and fast, and her belly felt filled with rampaging butterflies.
It was the most confounding, disorienting feeling. She felt as if she’d been drugged or clubbed over the head.
She absolutelyhatedit.
“We should stand our ground this time,” a woman said in the background.
“Our hero has come. He is here amongst us now. We finally have a chance to defend our home!”
Others murmured in agreement. While many of the villagers still muttered with doubt, Eir could sense andseethe swell of hope that lifted them.
Kai, however, seemed oblivious to the attention. He continued to bounce the two girls on his knees and downed another tankard of mead.
Was this the battle that was prophesized? Eir wondered.
Was this where and when Kai would be marked for Valhalla?
It was her duty to mark him, if so.
That is up to you, my friend…
Just then, he looked up and met her eyes across the way, that soft smile he’d given to the girls in his lap still hovering on his lips.
Fucking Hel, she thought, all of her breath suddenly knocked out of her as she came to a game-changing, never before contemplated realization—
For the first time in her long existence, Eir wanted,needed, a mark tolive.
~ * ~* ~ *~ * ~* ~ *~ * ~
One of Kai’s favorite things about being human was the luxury of getting drunk.
It didn’t happen often.
He was a big man. His strength and metabolism were superhuman even in this fragile form. It took determination and a well-trained bladder for Kai to get smashed, as Ere would say. He had to hold it all in and let the witch’s brew infiltrate his entire bloodstream.
Couldn’t afford to piss it away before he even felt a buzz.
Tonight, he was well on his way. And he had sixteen tankards of the village chieftain’s finest mead to thank for the lightheaded euphoria he was currently under. While he was hardly insensate, he was beginning to pleasantly hallucinate.
What else could explain the vision of stunning womanhood before him?
It was Eir.
But it wasn’t Eir.
Perhaps it was Eir’s twin sister.
Her rosy-cheeked, shy-looking, dress-wearing twin sister. Who, for some inexplicable reason, decided to join Kai at his table, sitting on a stool just two feet away, their knees almost touching.
He barely noticed when someone took away the two little mites who’d been parked on his thighs for most of the evening. It was past their bedtime, he thought, his own eyelids feeling heavy in sympathy.
He peeled them back with a couple of hard blinks, shaking his head slightly to clear it.
Or, if not to clear it (for that would defeat the purpose of getting drunk), then to at least focus his vision. He didn’t want to miss a single moment of gazing upon the black-haired beauty sitting just an arm’s length away.
