Page 16 of The Holly King's Sacrifice

This is hungry, wild, rough. Ulfric doesn’t stop until he has my surrender, which I give freely and without reservation. I revel in the sensation of his hands roaming over my back, my hips, lifting me toward him and squeezing my ass.

This is the answer to a question I’ve been silently asking for the past four days as we rode through the forest…the question of what it would be like to have him.

It’s all I’ve dreamt of and more.

Ulfric lifts me into his arms, and I wrap my legs around him as he moves me to where we’ve laid out furs to sleep in. His lips move to the hinge of my jaw, down my neck, his big hands gripping my thighs like I belong to him. When he lowers me to the furs, I wonder if that’s exactly why I was brought here—to be his. And I don’t much care that we hardly know each other, that he’s a monster from another world, that I’ve been raised my whole life to think he’s evil…

Because at my core, I know that he’sgood.

And he’s warm, and he touches me like I’m cherished, and the way his hands and lips and tongue drag over my throat is setting my whole body on fire…

He pulls me up to shrug out of my coat, then his hands are at the hem of my thermal, touching the bare skin underneath. Sparks fly where his knuckles graze my stomach, and I arch toward him in a silent plea for more. I reach to tangle my fingers in his dark hair, pulling at where he’s tied it into a topknot.

“Do you long for me as I long for you, fair Aspen?” he murmurs against my collar bone. “To touch and kiss and rut until the sun returns to bless the cold forest?”

I feel like we could weather these dark nights together, and bring back the sun through the force of our desire alone.

I’m scared that it will hurt, nervous that I won’t do it right, angry that I’m twenty-five and have always been barred from sex because of my damn puritanical family…but I don’t want him to stop. I’ve felt the way he touches me these past days, the way he’s kept me warm and made me feel safe.

“Yes,” I breathe. “Please, Ulfric. Make love to me.”

I put my hands on his chest, greedy with my touch as my fingers skate over scars and tattoos. Ulfric’s shoulders flex as he drags my shirt up my stomach, revealing the gentle curve of my hips, the rolls of fat over my ribs. His eyes linger there, and he clutches at my waist with a proprietary touch.

“My beautiful Aspen,” he growls. “You are fair indeed.”

His lips go to my ribs, and I gasp when I feel teeth there. It tickles slightly, and I twitch under his touch…

But he pauses.

In the silence, I hear Laka scuffing nervously at the floor with his hooves. I’ve been around herd animals enough to know that something is wrong, especially when thecjoralets out a grumbling whine.

“We’re not alone,” Ulfric murmurs.

That’s when I hear footsteps.

They aren’t quite like anything I’ve heard before, moving slowly and plodding through the deep snow outside. Laka keeps getting more and more nervous, shooting anxious glances toward the icicle-covered entrance to the cave. I right my clothes and Ulfric stands tall, his shoulders tensing as he watches the entrance.

“Hide yourself, Aspen,” he says. “It isn’t safe.”

But there’s no time to hide before a monster breaks through the ice with a roar.

8

Ulfric

Morethananything,Iknow I must keep her safe.

We bring our offerings to the woods alone as a trial, to discover if they will try to hurt us when our backs are turned. For eons, the Skoll have formed marriage bonds with other races across the galaxy, forging alliances out of shared desire and kinship. Now, finally, we may have found a way to forge such a connection with the humans of this forest.

Aspen has proven to be a trustworthy human—the first of all eight that we have been given from the village. All others have tried to flee, or worse, tried to kill us when we gave them our truth.

And yet…she trusts me. Takes comfort in me. Believes me when our war is not what it appears to be.

She is the light on the other side of these dark winter nights, and it is my solemn duty to protect her—even if it means she will marry another of my war band.

The beast from outside crashes through the ice, far larger than any of the native species I’ve seen in this forest. It has the appearance of what I’m told is a black bear, but it stands at least ten feet, its jaws dripping with bright blue venom and its eyes black with murderous intent. Frost coats its ragged fur, falling off in patches to reveal pale white skin underneath.

This is Borean meddling.

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