Page 26 of Heart of Fire
“You’re being ridiculous. All thesewords—”
“I am bound by every word I utter,” he told her, and this time when he stepped toward her, she lethim.
Treacherous heart, beating swiftly in her chest. Unfaithful body, wet with anticipation, and trembling with desire. Freyja swallowed hard and shut her eyes. All she had was her faltering will. Her steadfastnature.
“When have I ever lied to you?” Rurik whispered, as though sensing her hesitation. His fingertips skated over her cheeksagain.
This time she lethim.
This time her shoulders sank and she finally lifted her eyelashes to look him in the face. Some part of her wanted to believe him, to lift her mouth to his and offer herself up to him. But the warier part of her, the part that remembered Benedikt’s subtle viciousness, stayed her hand. “Whyme?”
“Oh, precious Freyja.” His breath shivered over her skin. Rurik cupped her face, callused thumbs stroking gently against her cheeks. “You are a fascinating contradiction. Barely afraid of me when you should be, but frightened of me when I am at my least dangerous. Every second I see that flash of fire in your eyes ignites something within me I have not felt for a long, long time. Your very contrariness captures me, your intelligence, your fierceness... and the gentle nature that hides within. Shall I goon?”
“You see this as a challenge.” And she knew men played to win. “That isall.”
“The fact you challenge meispart of the attraction,” he breathed. “I’ll concede that point. What man or woman does not care to be challenged within a relationship? If you agreed with me all the time or kissed my shoes, then you would be quiteuninteresting.”
“I willneverkiss your shoes.” The very idea offendedher.
A slow smile spread over his lips. “Iknow.”
“I will rarely agree withyou.”
“Evenbetter.”
“I am stubborn, and angry, and not very good at conversation,” she said, giving in to exasperation. “I am notbeautiful—”
“There you are wrong.” He cupped her cheeks in both hands and tilted her face to his. “Every inch of your skin pleases me. Every time our eyes meet, I want to consume you. You have lightning in your veins, precious Freyja. And when you kiss me it feels as though I can taste that lightning too. There is something between us that cannot bedenied.”
“Fate,” Freyja whispered. She still didn’t believe in the word, but there was... something there. In that he spoke thetruth.
Her heart kicked a little faster behind her ribs, the treacherous organ. There was a part of her that knew he was going to kiss her again, and this time she didn’t think she’d push him away. Even just the rasp of his thumb against her jaw felt so good, a renegade pleasure she could barely admitto.
Just who was she lying to? Him? Orherself?
“I don’t know if I believe you,” sheadmitted.
“Then set me a challenge. How shall I prove my intentions are true? How shall I win the heart of fairmaiden?”
He was mockingher.
“Give me my heart’s greatest desire,” she shot back, dashing his hands from her face and darting for the door, “and I shall give you myheart.”
Rurik stilled. It felt almost as if an enormous tail lashed behind him suddenly, like a cat about to pounce, and then he smiled. “So beit.”
Eight
DISCOVERINGHER HEART’S greatest desire was proving to be more vexatious than Rurik hadthought.
The next two days passed with little sight of her. Freyja was adept at maneuvering on silent feet, and spent countless hours tending to her home, or to the flock of animals that relied upon her. Every time he found her he was either handed a broom or a shovel and told to earn his keep, or several dozen bleating sheep rousing into a sudden panic sent him fleeing before Freyja could question their terror. Rurik himself was forced to keep an eye on the skies. There’d been no sign of the otherdrekiin the area when he arrived, but he knew they were out there somewhere. He strengthened the wards on his lair, watched curiously as Haakon led fruitless expeditions around the volcano, then subsided at Freyja’s to wait the otherdrekiout.
Two could play at thisgame.
And he was patient, for adreki.
Or at least, he thought he was, until he encountered the might of Freyja’swill.
It didn’t help matters her father, Einar, insisted on sitting with him for hours, inadvertently playing the part ofchaperone.
