“You smell like you’re ready to be fucked, but I can’t.” He sounds strangled.
“I want this with you,” I say, meaning it. I don’t care if he ruins me, and Harald kills me. I want to feel something for one night.
“Gods, Rasha. I need you to kiss me.”
“You don’t have to ask.” I turn around and loop my arms around his neck. In seconds, he hoists me up, and I wrap my legs around his waist. As my back bangs into the solid stronghold wall, a faraway thought reminds me the opposite wall could move, and we would be caught.
“Yes I do, and if you want to stop, I’ll stop,” he growls against my chest. Pulling my dress up, he takes fistfuls of my ass in his hands as I balance over his shoulders.
I don’t ever want him to stop.I slip my hands over the strong edge of his jaw and crash my lips into his. Meeting me with equal ferocity, his mouth seeks to know me in any way possible. With every little whimper and moan, he changes his position. His hands slide up my back, molding us together. I need him beyond this night and these clothes and this mask. We kiss each other like nothing exists, except for his tongue swooping over my lips and my teeth nicking his skin.
His impossibly hard length rests against my core. Grinding myself into him, I know we are lost in the moment. Rough fingers caress my thighs, and my breath hitches in anticipation of him touching me where no man has.
Moonlight catches from a new angle, and the reflection of silver across the gold mask stops me. The crunching of gravel and snow as the partition rolls away raises the hair on my arms in alarm. Slowing each painfully hot breath, I know there is no going back now as my breasts rise and fall against his naked chest.
“The Maiden is mine.” Harald’s voice reeks of death behind us.
17
RASHA
Every muscle in Shaw’s body contracts, ready to fight. Setting me down, he keeps himself in between Harald and me.
“She is fair game in the Hunt,” Shaw replies, like he glazed venom over a sword.
“She evades me, and now I know why,” Harald spits back.
“Rasha come.” Jorvik is here, of course. He walks from the corner of a partition with his pants unbuttoned. Joanna follows from behind him, pulling her undone dress back over her exposed breasts. My brother doesn’t even care to help her.
I don’t move from Shaw’s back, but I don’t know if I can risk him getting hurt on my behalf.
“And who do you want, little Rasha? Who is behind the mask?” Harald asks, and I suddenly see a path without bloodshed. Stepping around Shaw, I place a steady hand on his back and pray to Freya he understands what I am about to do.
“I don’t know who this man is. We are in masks.” I muster every ounce of confidence and walk up to Harald. Shaw doesn’t move; he might no longer be breathing, but I don’t look back.
“She killed Axsel,” Ivan shouts, picking up his family’s ritual knife from where I dropped it.
“Is that true?” Jorvik questions. Ivan and two other men push their masks off to drag Axsel out from the partitions I rolled around the body.
“Rasha!” Harald yells this time, prompting Shaw to come to my side and take his own mask off.
“Shaw?” Harald spits, wiping his disgusting mouth with his sleeve. “So your plan before you die is to take the Maiden from me after everything I’ve done for you?”
“They kissed, Harald, which is nothing more than what you have done. Rasha is untouched as I promised she would be.” Jorvik, ever reframing the problem, moves in front of Harald.
Shaw leans into me and whispers, “Whatever happens, you are worthy of what you seek.”
I steal a glance at his unmasked face. The swirls of blue on his scalp are new but seem familiar. I can’t place them as Harald begins his petulant barrage. Jorvik strides over to us as Joanna tries her best to grasp his shirt or hand to keep him away from me.
“What the fuck have you done?” he hisses in an awful whisper.
“She did what she had to do. Where were you to protect her?” Shaw takes over. He’s twice the size of Jorvik, but Jorvik as stupid as he is, doesn’t back down.
“Leave,” Jorvik threatens Shaw, causing Joanna and I to exchange nervous glances. I mouth to her to go, but she shakes her head and folds her arms over her chest. Everyone is beyond stubborn when they don’t need to be.
“I killed him because I recognized him from the night Ingrid was taken, and I was not confident he would be respectful to me,” I say, leaving Jorvik and Shaw’s staring contest to go to Harald. Harald is the Jarl, and he’ll have to make a decision as to my punishment. Maybe, if I am lucky, he will choose to not force me into marriage now that I am a murderer.
His eyes narrow on my chin where the blood from his fingers once coated it, now consumed by Shaw’s lips. I have an inkling Harald cares more about who I kissed then who I killed.
