Boards splinter and crack along the first-level windows as more men pour into his home. Rain blows sideways through the shattered windows as the storm descends on Toftlund.
The soldiers grab his little Queen, who screams and fights back with her fists. He hardly gets a moment to appreciate his training with her when they drag her to the main doors.
Sigvid is not fast enough.
He watches with a helpless fury he has not faced in twenty wintersas these men dare to restrain his wife. Their hands grasp her body as they tie her arms behind her back.
The situation thrusts him back to that godsdamn Treland Arena, facing off against the Battlemaster and his goons as they ripped her away from his arms.
No one touches Avina.
Fucking no one!
The mass of Skalor soldiers halts their attack on him and his son. Switching tactics, they clutch at every part of him and Bjorn that they can grasp.
By the time another stranger bursts into his home, he has lost count of the number of soldiers subduing him.
Queen Lavina strides into the foyer with the poise and haughty indifference of a spider, her cackling echoing against the high ceiling.
“Hello, Beast. My son said you and your little Queen would be here ripe for the picking.”
Red continues to color his gaze. The berserker rage hums in his veins, fueled by a need to hold his wife in his arms.
“Fucking bitch! I will rip you and all these fucks to pieces!” He charges, but her men pull him back.
“This is the second time someone has walked into Treland and captured someone at my behest. You’re losing your touch, Thordsson.” She glances around Blackwood, her lip curling.
“You took Aura?”
“Not me, per se, but someone who spent a lot of time with the Princess to learn her mannerisms and strike at the opportune moment.” Lavinia’s sneer makes him ill.
“Calder?”
Had Isabel been truthful?
If the Jarls have been tasked with delivering Aura to Lavinia, has Calder found a way to mislead Avina, too?
“I have what I was sent for. If you survive this, I’m sure you know where her Majesty will be held. Besides, I’m certain my son would love a chat.” She blows him a kiss from her palm.
Sigvid watches the wind bending the trees through the brokenwindows. Avina is thrown into a carriage pulled by no less than eight draft horses.
A frenzied urge to protect her overwhelms his senses.
He bites into the first wrist he can reach and rips out the man’s veins. Hisseidrvibrates beneath his skin as his berserker side tears through the soldiers.
“Avina!” He roars as an unusual emotion creeps along his spine.
Fear.
Sigvid has never been more enraged.
Who does he fucking loathe more? Calder? Lavinia? These damned soldiers? The storm?
Yet somehow, he is raging at himself more than all of them combined.
“Avina!” His roar sounds unnaturally pained to his ears. Hot, angry tears burn his cheeks as his composure implodes.
He grapples for the first weapon his hand touches and quickly eliminates the remaining Skalor soldiers until only one remains in the doorway, blocking his path to his little Queen.
