Page 21 of Soul of Fire

“What do you think it means?” I took the towel from him, averting my gaze.

He sat back on his heels and sighed. “Nothing good. We need to talk to Sigrid about that necklace. Perhaps she knows what the mark it left on you means, too.” His eyes trailed down over my breasts where the diamond-shaped scar lay hidden beneath the frilly nightgown.

The next time I met his eyes, they were pure silver with desire, and I had to get a firm grip on Idunn as her power tried to surge out of me. “Are you planning to get dressed, or will you be sleeping like that?”

Arik chuckled, his eyes flashing back to their usual gray as he gestured to his naked body. “I rather hoped we wouldbothsleep like this, Kjære.“ He flicked the ties that held the nightgown together at my collarbone. “Not that I’m not enjoying seeing you in whatever this is.”

“And scandalize the castle?” I gasped dramatically, placing a hand against my heart. “But we are not wed!”

Arik rolled his eyes and scooped me up, towel and ruffles and all. I yelped as he pressed me to his damp chest, which was warmed by Baldur’s heat. “If I truly thought you cared about such things, we would already be handfasted.”

“I thought drage didn’t bother with such human notions.” I still held the towel to my face and felt rather ridiculous as he carried me to the bed, a huge four-postered monstrosity of carved wooden wolves covered in woven blankets and soft furs. It was almost laughable, especially considering I used to sleep on a narrow pallet in a closet shared with two other people.

“We don’t.” Arik lowered me gently onto the bed, and leaned over me. He lifted the towel away from my face, gently tilting my chin this way and that with his warm hand. He felt like my own personal hearth, and the chill that had settled into my bones finally began to lift. “But for you, I will gladly make an exception.”

I swallowed, the confession making something stick in my throat as his large hand continued to cradle my chin.

“Looks like it’s stopped,” he murmured, leaning down to kiss the place where my jaw met my neck. The place he knew made me shiver. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.” My breath hitched as his lips moved to the lobe of my ear, and Idunn burned with need as his scent of leather and smoke enveloped me. “You never told me howyouare. If you’re alright after that scene in the hall downstairs.”

Arik pulled back, and Idunn growled in protest in my chest. His stony mask had fallen into place, and I had the absurd urge to lean up and kiss away his composure. “I’m fine.”

“Liar.” I scrambled to sit up, ignoring Idunn’s whine of protest and my own traitorous body, and tucked my feet under my body. I reached up to cup his face, which had drawn into a frown as he sat next to me, still distractingly nude. “You were furious. I could feel Baldur.”

His frown smoothed as he took my hand and pressed a kiss to the palm. “My father usually has that effect on me.”

“Because of the word he used?”

“Among other things. Calling you a whore while openly being unfaithful to my mother doesn’t exactly raise him in my esteem.”

“I meant theotherword.”

Thrall.

It wasn’t a nice word, but it had been thrown at me more times than I could count at Henrik’s tavern. Sigrid had always said thatbeing indentured to a man like Henrik required growing a thick skin. Mine had never been quite thick enough.

Arik stilled, his eyes going steely as they met mine. “If he ever calls you that again, I’ll let Baldur rip his heart from his body.”

“Why?” I asked, genuinely baffled. Surely Arik had heard that word used his whole life, just as I had. I thought of the servant girl who had come to prepare our rooms. If his father was willing to shackle his indentures to stop them from running, surely he called them worse than thralls.

Arik’s jaw was tight. “Because he knows how I feel about it. He used it to get a reaction out of me.”

I frowned. There was something that Arik was keeping from me, but I wasn’t sure how far to push him on it. He’d already skirted the topic once, and our relationship was still so new. We’d only recently gotten to a place where I felt safe enough to open up about my own past. Was it fair to hold him to a higher expectation?

He will tell you when he is ready,Idunn assured me.He is ours. He is not hiding it to hurt you, but to protect himself.

You know?I asked, a little wounded that my dragon knew more about my mate than I did.

Baldur hides nothing from me. It will be the same for you. Eventually.

I sighed, blinking back into awareness long enough to realize I had been staring off into space.

Arik regarded me with an amused smirk and pressed another kiss to my palm, as if we hadn’t been discussing something that deeply upset him. “Done with your private conversation?”

“What about your brother?” I asked, unable to help myself.

Arik sighed and released my hand. “You aren’t going to let this go, are you?”