Page 158 of Ironling
The words reached deep inside him to wrench at his heart. The organ lurched within his chest, a painful pang that reminded him—
He was Hakon Green-Fist, betrothed to Lady Aislinn Darrow. He went nowhere without her.
“Aislinn.”
She smiled through her weeping. “That’s right. Hakon. Hakon.”
The red seeped from his vision, a world of green and blue and the brilliant gold of his mate’s hair coming into focus.
Hakon blinked, peering over her head to see their friends and allies gathered round them, looking on with worry. Whatever mercenaries remained were dead, the meadow strewn with their corpses.
It’s done. It’s over.
His arms gave, weapons falling away. He wrapped them around her, breathing her scent.
She’s safe.
“I’ll never leave you,vinya,” he promised her.
Aislinn nodded and collapsed into his arms. Hakon bore them to the ground, his legs giving out. On his knees, he held his mate, not quite believing but so damn grateful.
38
To a riot of applause, Aislinn rose from her father’s seat upon the dais in Dundúran’s great hall. The great room nearly burst to the rafters with people and noise, hundreds of hands clapping, hundreds of faces smiling, hundreds of bellies full of wine and meat.
After a grueling day, it was time for celebration. The wine cellars and kitchen stores had been thrown open, and the castle courtyard and city streets glowed into the night with people reveling in the day’s victories.
It’d taken the afternoon to make sense of the meadow. Efforts to bury the dead mercenaries would go on for days yet, and she had mounted parties patrolling the surrounding land and villages. With luck, the fleeing mercenaries would be driven right into the waiting crown forces and justice.
Their own dead had been brought back for proper rites, and Aislinn went herself to those families in Dundúran who’d lost kin. Some vassals had insisted her cut be seen to first, and that she should change, but Aislinn went as she was, bloodied and battle-weary. She wept with the families, offering them herdeepest sympathy and the sword of their fallen kin.
The pain of losing over twenty good knights wouldn’t soon go away. It hurt her heart more than the ache in her leg as she walked from one side of the castle to the other, seeing to everything that needed it. The activity took her mind from the horror of the day, and she was glad of the respite.
Eventually, though, Hakon’s patience came to its end. He insisted she be seen to and promised he would allow a healer to look at him if she did so first. Sitting in her solar as the physician cleansed and stitched, the day had fallen upon Aislinn, an avalanche of emotion crashing through her.
She’d wept into Hakon’s shoulder, trying to hold her left leg still for the physician. He murmured soothing things to her, things she would believe someday. For tonight, she was heartsick, and he seemed to understand.
When the stitching was complete and her eyes finally empty of tears, she’d leaned back to see the grim set of his face. There was no true triumph in bloodshed, and much had been spilled to secure her position as heiress. She wouldn’t soon forget her dead knights, nor the sight of her brother’s broken head.
As Fia helped her change into a clean kirtle and brushed her hair free of dirt and debris, Hakon finally allowed the healers to see to him. Aislinn couldn’t help hovering, worrying over the nasty slice across his beautiful chest and the gash to his side.
The physician assured them, but mostly Aislinn, that the wounds weren’t deep and would heal well. Hakon seemed not to mind them, but Aislinn found watching him being stitched more upsetting than having it done to her own flesh.
“Orcs heal quickly,”Hakon promised her. He sat calmly with a bare chest as the physician did their work, never flinching or groaning.
Aislinn could only chew nervously on her cheek and, when the physician was finished, assure herself of his health. Sheran her hands over his warm exposed skin, careful to avoid his bandages.
Somehow, fresh tears threatened to spill. Pulling her into his arms, Hakon cupped her head against his chest and purred softly for her. Her new tears came but at least without sobs, and she soaked up his warm comfort for a long moment, breathing deep of his rich, masculine scent.
His hand ran down the length of her hair in slow, soothing caresses, and after a time, she regained her composure.
She helped clean him of the grime and blood of the day, Aislinn herself scrubbing his hands. She sought every speck of blood and dirt with a militancy, not satisfied until he was wholly green again. He calmly let her, understanding that she needed this, needed to see that they were both washed clean of the day and its horrors.
When he was clean and freshly clothed, he’d offered her his hand and accompanied her back out to see to more.
Aislinn looked to him from her place upon the dais and winked. He grinned back at her from where he stood to the side of the dais, his eyes ringed with fatigue, but standing stalwart nevertheless. She didn’t know how she could have faced this day alone; through seeing the families of the dead and the healer and speaking with every person in Dundúran, it seemed, he was there beside her.
Thank fates for that. Thank every god, old and new, that we saw sense.
