Warmth cascaded through his bloodstream, and he chose not to question it, not to linger on it. Not linger on what she had been thinking or what he felt in response.
“Take my arm,” he said.
He needed to become immune to her touch.
She was only a woman. It was only her hand. But he realized as the two of them began to walk toward the balcony that one thing she had done by turning this into a love story was cut him off from his ability to find release. He had been celibate for three years. The idea of being celibate for two more suddenly seemed unbearable.
He could make arrangements, he knew. He could have the women sign nondisclosure agreements. But she had made this very difficult for him.
“Of course, with the story that you have told, you’ve made it very difficult for either of us to take lovers.”
Her fingers curled, her nails scratching him just slightly through the fabric of his military jacket. “Excuse me?”
“Now that you have painted it as a great love story, you have put us both in the position where any love affair we might have could be weaponized.”
“I wasn’t aware that you were considering having one.”
“Two years of celibacy?”
“Ragnar, I have been in a convent for three years.”
He might as well have been. Though he didn’t wish to tell her that. Because it might give her the idea that she had more power to exploit.
“And before?”
“I was barely eighteen and living in a palace. You could put those pieces together yourself.”
But they were then swept out onto the balcony, and he was prevented from following that down the logical road.
There was a sea of people down there, and the cheers when they came out were deafening. Even up there.
His country had turned out to see this. His people.
He felt suddenly overwhelmed. By a wall of something inside of him that was pushing against his chest. Creating pressure behind his eyes.
He had been cut off for all of his life. He had been alone. But these people, they had waited for him. They had needed him. This was why he had made it this far. He would not make a mistake now. He would not fail them.
He would manage this, all of it unerringly, for them. He would give them whatever they needed.
He took that feeling and pushed it down deep, added it to all of the dogged determination that lived inside of him.
This was the right thing.
So long as he remained in control.
The officiant came forward, an Orthodox priest who incorporated new and old ways. And he began to speak thevows for them to repeat. Ragnar realized that Fern would not understand.
“I give myself to you,” he repeated in English. “For all of my life, and into the next. I give you my heart. My body. My breath. I give you my sword, to raise against your enemies, for they are now mine. In my home you are always safe. You are the most important battle I will ever fight.”
He pulled his knife from its position on his thigh and grabbed the edge of his cloak, cutting the end off, and tearing a strip.
Her eyes were wide, the green more intense as she stared up at him. And he pressed his hand against hers, that strip of cloth held between their palms as he began to wind it around them.
The priest began to speak her vows. She looked at him, repeating the words as best she could, but clearly not knowing what they meant.
“Now I am bound to you,” he translated. “To keep your hearth and home. To forsake the touch of any other, and their children for your name. My bloodline is now yours. Your home is now mine. I forsake all that I was, to become all that you need.”
The color drained slightly from her face, and he tightened the cord, even more so cementing the bond.
