I watch the tension in her face ease as I pull out, giving her a reprieve. Circling her drenched clit, I wait for her to want more. With one finger, I stretch and stroke until she bites her lower lip, and I feel her muscles relax enough for me to use a second finger again.
The moans slipping from her mouth make me want to drive my cock deep against her throat. I grip her ass, holding her in place, while my coated fingers stretch her in ways no one ever has. I want to lose myself in her until no part of her body is untouched.
“Look at me,” I whisper, and she strains her head the other way, caught in what I hope is the cusp of an orgasm. “Rasha, please.” I press my whole body against hers and keep two fingers buried inside with my thumb pressed into her perfect clit. “Look at me,” I whisper, and she slowly turns, her mouth parted as heavy breaths cave inher chest. “Look at how you make me come without touching me.” I can’t keep it together, grinding my own sensitive tip into her leg.
She reaches down to squeeze my shaft with her trembling hand, and I bite her shoulder.
“Promise it will be you.” She suddenly twists to face me, rocking herself into my palm, taking my fingers deeper.
“Come and I promise I’ll mold your virgin cunt to my cock.” Inhaling the sweet smell of her come dripping down my wrist, I watch an orgasm shake through her as my name falls in repetitive moans at the end of each pant. I bring her on top of my body and pull the blankets around us, gently stroking her ribs.
I want to tell her that it’s been a very long time since I’ve touched a woman—that I am equally as nervous to fall for her—but is that what she wants to hear? Or should I tell her the truth about the unfinished chain and let her hate me. Shattering her comfort seems cruel, so I kiss the top of her head and let her trace her fingers over the broken bits of my tattoo, wondering if she will get the chance to see my body as it once was.
“Shaw?” She breaks the silence. Snow birds chase away an eagle soaring overhead. All the creatures are relishing in the dawn of a new day. “Your ancestors made the tomb for the bow?”
“Something like that. Do you want to tell me what happened down there?”
Rasha moves away, wrapping herself in a blanket, and brings the quiver into her lap.
“I was ready to die, but Aslaug brought me this.” She pulls the bow out and tips the quiver over so the amulet falls into her lap. Laying the bow over her crossed legs, she holds up the amulet and waits with patient eyes for me to explain.
“The amulet protected you and opened the path to the edge, which is like a pocket between the Vanheim where things are sometimes stored.” I take the small oval piece out of her hands and hold it up to the sunlight, slowly turning it to move the coagulated blood around.
“That’s your blood or mine?” she asks.
“Ours,” I answer truthfully.
“How did you get my blood, Shaw?”
I hand it back to her and start opening bags to find clothes. The sun is strong, but it is still well below freezing, and I can’t think clearly if she’s naked.
“I carved it from the ice. You left an offering, and it didn’t need to go to waste.”
“You didn’t tell me,” she said, plainly letting her aggravation infiltrate her words. “I didn’t need to make a spectacle of myself. You could have said at any point that you had the key to getting the bow. That you knew about pockets between the Immortal and Mortal Realm.”
“Rasha,” I sigh and hand her my shirt.
Letting the blankets fall, she keeps talking. “I am not a child. I don’t want to be consoled. I needed the truth. I left all those women behind.”
“It wouldn’t have worked if you knew the truth. We won’t leave them behind. The clan thinks you’re dead, which gives you time to learn how to wield the bow. I don’t know if it will work the way I think it will,” I tell her, and she huffs a glare my way for good reason as she puts my shirt over her perfect body.
“You asked me to trust you, and I almost died.” She slips on pants that are far too big for her.
“I have tried to find the bow for many years to no avail. You” —I put my own tunic on and turn to face her— “you’ve been so determined, and it hit me when we did our runes at the divination feast.”
“What?” She looks down at the ancient bow. Her fingers are bruised from fighting with the men, but she glides over the carvings and marvels at the intricacy of the details all the same.
“That I have been carrying the empty amulet and the broken chain, not for myself to find the bow, but for you. And the gods wouldn’t have accepted you if you had previous knowledge. It would have clouded your judgment.”
“So where do we go from here?” Her anger is written all over her face. I broke her away from everyone and let her get hurt in the process, but I didn’t want to chance that I’d be left here for eternity. I need the bow to make amends with my family just as much as sheneeds it to save her clan. If I tell her that, I run the risk of her leaving me.
“We go to my cabin in the Sacred Forest and make a plan to cut Harald’s men off before Spring, when they will be able to reach the mountain pass. We will find the herd with my map and lead them to the other side, where they will be safe.”
“Are you asking or telling me?”
My shoulders fall, and I fear the desperate lust we felt an hour ago is shrinking in the cold, like a dying fire in the forest. When I approach her, she doesn’t move away, so I cautiously take my coat from the bed of the sled and wrap it around her shoulders, fastening it tight, which brings us closer.
“I am asking you,” I say, and she swallows, loosening her tightly clenched jaw.
