Chapter One
-ASTRID-
16 October 1263
Largs, Scotland
“I’m never going to see her again, am I?” I whispered more to myself than to Declan, struggling with my emotions.
My sister, Freya’s, boat had just vanished into the night after I helped save her husband, Soren Dahl. He should have died in a nearby battle between the Norse and Scots, but I had nursed him back to health despite him being considered the enemy in these parts.
“I cannot see it any other way,” I went on, fighting a wave of sadness. “Freya's lost to me now.”
We would still have our mystical seer connection, but it wouldn't be the same with an ocean between us.
“Mayhap you willnae see her again,” Declan conceded, never one to decorate difficult situations with optimism. Especially not this one, given his father and chieftain, Lachlann, had secretly harbored Soren while I tended to him, whether Declan liked it or not. Which he most certainly had not, making it plain on more than one occasion.
“Come, lass,” he said, keeping his voice whisper-soft lest someone overhear us. Very few people were about at this hour but still. “We shouldnae linger out here. ‘Tis far too dangerous at this time of night.”
Although he didn’t voice it, I suspected he was tempted to say that it was far too dangerous for me, in particular, given I was Norwegian in what was increasingly becoming enemy territory for the Norse. Chieftain of an influential tribe, my father, Bjorn Helvig, had sent me here the previous year not onlyto help keep the peace among the Norse who had long called Scotland home, but also to make an advantageous marital match with an influential Scotsman, and I had. Declan’s father.
Since then, tensions between the Norse and the Scottish had escalated. After an unsuccessful attempt to purchase the Isle of Skye from Norway, the Scots attacked. In retribution, King Hákon tried to invade this very shore in what the locals were now calling the Battle of Largs, only to be driven off.
Now things were more unstable than ever.
“You could have gone with Freya,” Declan muttered after we quietly put distance between us and the shore and made our way through the dark woodland behind his father’s castle. A cold, gusty wind made the trees creak overhead, and newly fallen leaves crunched softly beneath our feet. “Youshouldhave gone,” he ground out, sounding more frustrated than ever.
“Yet I could not go,” I reminded, doing my best to keep emotion from my voice. “And I have told you and your father that on more than one occasion. My place ishere. Myfateis here.”
While Declan had mentioned several times now how dangerous it was becoming for my countrymen and me, this was the first time he’d said I should have left with such passion and conviction.
And it hurt for all the wrong reasons.
Reasons I had tried my best not to feel since meeting the obstinate Scotsman a few months ago, given his hatred of the Norse, but I couldn’t seem to help being drawn to him.
“Aye, I’m bloody familiar with your fate,” he groused as we kept to the shadows and snuck in the backside of Mackay Castle so no one would see us. He lit a wall torch, illuminating the narrow stone hallway, and scowled at me. “Married to my father, no less.”
Overly aware of how close we were in the limited space, I did my best to ignore the way he always managed to take my breath away, despite his oftentimes foul attitude. Declan Mackay, “The Ruthless”, was notorious among my people for being a fierce warrior, single-handedly driving most of us Norse from his shores, but I saw another side of him.
A softer side hidden beneath the pain in his eyes.
A soul that ached for the suffering of his people.
Undoubtedly intimidating to most with his tall, broad-shouldered, muscular build, Declan had never frightened me, even though he should, all things considered. He wore his usual attire, including a léine with a green and blue plaid wrapped over his shoulder, heavy boots, and a well-sharpened sword sheathed at his side, along with several daggers strapped here and there.
Although humor rarely, if ever, lit his gaze, he was handsome enough to turn most women’s heads with his thick auburn-tinted dark brown hair, chiseled features, and deep-set, emerald-green eyes. Yet, as far as I could tell, he seemed oblivious to their flirtatious glances. Mindless to anything but his own never-ending rage. Anger that churned deep within him.
“And I am grateful for your father’s proposal,” I forced past my lips in response to Declan's moody reminder I would be marrying Lachlann. Something I’d agreed to because I had no choice. It was my fate. Otherwise, staying here would have been impossible. “’Twas most kind of him.”
“Kindof him?” Declan exclaimed, his scowl deepening. “If anything, it might verra well be his ruin, given who you are and you bloody well know it.” He shook his head sharply. “He’s too kind by half and ‘twill be the death of him. The death of us all.”
Tired of his endless rhetoric about this, I couldn’t help but grind out, “Then you should have made sure I got on that boat tonight, Declan.” Though I tried to promote peace on theseshores, I was still a warrior, even if only at heart these days, so I wasn’t about to cower at the fresh anger churning in his turbulent gaze. Instead, I stood up taller and narrowed my eyes. “Yet you didn’t, and whilst you say ‘tis for the sake of seeing through your father’s wishes, I cannot help but wonder if you don’t have an ulterior motive.”
He narrowed his eyes in return, his voice guttural with what most would think a mocking warning, but I knew better. “And what would that be, Astrid Helvig, fierceshield-maidenof the north? She who was born of great ancestral seers who see all, even from the distant shores of Norway?”
Though he had stepped closer, I held my ground. I had to. Held it as I always did when we did this dance of heated words together. His pupils flared in the flickering torchlight as he dared me to say something that would allow him to close the distance between us, despite how wrong it would be.
Even though he couldn’t even admit it to himself, given that he considered me his enemy, there was no denying the simmering attraction between us. No ignoring the underlying passion in his cutting tone or the way he tried to hold my gaze, yet his gaze inevitably drifted to my lips.
