I looked her in the eye and drew in a breath, then recited my vow to her through gritted teeth: “I swear before God to honor and protect you, to love and cherish you. My body, my heart, and my sword are yours until the end of my days.”
“With these solemn vows, I pronounce you husband and wife,” Father Benedict called out, and the assembled crowd clapped politely like they couldn’t quite believe it had happened. I knew the feeling. Sigrid released my foot with an irritated huff, and I fought back a smile. I’d been forced to marry the woman of my dreams. Now I just had to convince her not to kill me.
“You may kiss the bride,” the priest said with a dramatic flourish.
She angled her head and spoke softly enough that only I’d hear. “I don’t know what you’re smiling about, Prince. My first two husbands died by my sword. I vow on Freya’s wild spirit, you’ll meet the same fate.”
I could’ve pointed out that I was being forced into this just the same as she was. I could’ve begged her to spare me or tried to bargain for my life. But I’d learned enough about Sigrid to know how she despised fear.
So I leaned closer and winked. “A chaste kiss, my darling…We’re in church after all.”
Her lips tilted up in a defiant smile before she grabbed the back of my head and fiercely slanted her mouth over mine. She kissed like she fought, with barely controlled ferocity that could bring any warrior to their knees. When I started to hear muttering, I tried to pull back, but she wove her fingers into my hair and kissed me deeper, caressing my tongue with hers until I stopped caring about all the reasons we shouldn’t be doing this here. Like she knew she’d won, she started to break away, but this time I snatched the back of her neck and nipped her bottom lip with my teeth. She moaned softly in her throat, and my dick was instantly rock-hard.
“Save it for the marriage bed,” my father barked from where he perched on his throne.
We broke apart, but when she met my eyes, there was a different kind of fire in hers than there had been before.
“Admit it, Sigrid. You still want me,” I whispered, as I offered my arm and walked with her at the front of the procession leaving the church.
She stroked her fingers over the silk on my forearm, knowing exactly how her touch affected me. “That won’t stop me from killing you.”
CHAPTER TWO
SIGRID
Don’t let them see you’re afraid.
“You’re shaking,” my new husband helpfully pointed out as we completed yet another silly Saxon ritual.
We had to share a massive flagon of ale behind a semitransparent screen as the whole crowd waited for us to emerge and fuck on the altar where we’d sworn our vows. For such prudish people, they had shocking wedding traditions.
The marriage feast had been entirely too formal, nothing like a Viking wedding, where the marriage was often consummated in a dark corner while the raucous party covered the noise. It had also been entirely too rushed, leaving me no time to find a way out of what came next.
“Shut the fuck up,” I snapped in response to Bastian, then took a deep swig of the saddest watered-down ale I’d ever tasted before passing it back to the prince.
The fuckingprince. I’d known there was something off about him when we took him captive on Talon’s ship, but I hadn’t guessed he could’ve made a royal hostage until it had been too late. Now I was married to the noble son of a bitch.
Married.Again.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to fuck the Saxon prince—I’d damn near done it on my brother’s ship just to see what he looked like when his tightly wound control snapped—but doing it like this, on their terms and with people watching, was going to dredge up memories that needed to stay buried for all our sakes. My berserker may have been magically leashed, but I still feared I’d lose control.
The consequences would be dire if I took the prince’s head before my oldest brother, Thorin, had time to rescue his mate. It would break Thorin if something happened to Layla.
I couldn’t lose another brother. My youngest brother had been killed five years earlier, in a Saxon ambush during my brother Talon’s wedding. A traitor in our midst had drugged the wine, and Axel had been killed in the immediate slaughter before we’d massacred the Saxon attackers.
I’d do anything to protect my two remaining brothers, which meant I had to master the memories making me shiver with trepidation.
“Sigrid, talk to me. I’m trying to make the best of this.” Bastian said it gently, like he was trying to calm an agitated horse. He’d have more luck with a rabid stallion. I’d never be a man’s docile possession ever again.
“We aren’t friends nor allies. You get to live as long as it takes for Thorin to find and secure Layla, and then I fulfill my vow.”
He passed the flagon back to me roughly. “I didn’t ask for this.”
“Neither did the pig they roasted at that feast.”
His eyes narrowed with betrayal. “That’s all you see me as?”
If I was going to survive this, I didn’t have space for his feelings. “No. The pig at least served a purpose.”
