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Valkyrie Fallen Chapter 47

Writer's picture: Laurel KnightLaurel Knight

Brenna

After we’d cooled off and dressed, Björn and I returned to the longhouse and shared one tender, lingering kiss before we stepped inside. The girls were already asleep, and Björn crossed to his own sleeping bench while I stretched out on mine.
But despite the busy, exhausting day, sleep wouldn’t come. My mind spun with doubts. Was getting involved with Björn a bad idea? I still hadn’t sorted out the Leif situation. Part of my heart pulled to him too; his artist’s soul, the way he seemed to read me, understand me, the way no one else could. His admiration was like a wellspring of good for my heart.
Guilt bubbled in my chest; he would be upset if he knew I’d slept with Björn. Crushed, even. It wasn’t as if we’d talked about it, but I knew Björn wasn’t the type who just wanted a roll in the hay. Tonight meant something to him. It would mean something to Leif, too.
Did it mean something to me? My mind flip-flopped faster than pancakes on a diner griddle. Björn meant something to me, and tonight, the emotion I’d felt when we were together… I couldn’t call it fucking, despite my desperate desire to do so. He thwarted me at every attempt to make it purely sex. His gentle touches, steady hands, serious gaze; no, it was all more emotional than I wanted to admit, and I felt it when the tears prickled at my eyes as I came.
There was something there, something between us.
But lest we forget, there was also Søren. He was distant, and calculating, and difficult to read. He was also intelligent, powerful, and smoulderingly intense. The way he could read people as if he looked into their souls, as if he could read my soul when he gazed into my eyes with his predatory stare. Even now, still damp with sweat from making love with Björn, the thought of sex with Søren sent a ripple of desire through my belly. The intensity he would infuse in every touch, the way his absolute control would make my knees weak before him… it was so hot to imagine. I wasn’t sure I liked Søren, but I admired him, and I desired him. Perhaps it was a dangerous combination, but I wasn’t one to deny the truth.
Complicated relationships aside, did I really believe it was in my best interests to stay here? Perhaps, if I’d insisted on ingratiating myself with Skarde, I might have had a chance. My lips turned down as I thought about what ‘ingratiating myself’ with Skarde might have entailed. He hadn’t been horrible to me, in fact far more gracious than I expected, but everything I’d heard about him since made me question that assessment.
For a moment I wondered if Søren and the others might have exaggerated how horrible Skarde was… for all I knew, Søren could have lied about what Skarde reportedly said about me.
I swept that dark thought from my mind as soon as it popped up. Søren was calculating, but he was no liar. Nor were Björn or Leif, and they were certainly not calculating. All three of them were honorable, I was certain of it. So I trusted their word that Skarde was as terrible as they described.
Although, if Skarde was receiving help from the Asgardians, I needed to find out what exactly was going on there. Was Thor helping him just to thwart my success? Or was there a bigger machine at play in this small viking village? The gods loved to play with their subjects, almost as much as the Greeks claimed their gods had toyed with their lives. It wouldn’t surprise me if Odin had dumped me here for a purpose.
Well, that settled it. If Odin put me here to serve some nefarious plan, then I needed to leave. There was no way I could escape, make my own way, if I let him continue to manipulate me.
So I needed to determine why Odin placed me in this village, and if there was more involvement here than just Odin toying with my life.
And if I didn’t like what I uncovered, I would leave.
My heart pinched when I thought about how that would affect Björn, Leif, and Søren. And Signe, Yrsa, and Astrid, who had begun to treat me as an older sister; even, at times, a surrogate mother…
But there was nothing for it. They would all grow old and die eventually anyway, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
So I just needed to remember my priorities were to set myself up for a good life for my future.
Everything else was just a distraction.
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