Page 52 of Storm of Desire
He was making good on his promise not to touchher.
It wassensible.
It was...frustrating.
"You need sleep too," she pointedout.
"I'll wake you when it's myturn."
Then he turned and tugged his bow from the pile of baggage. "Stay here and don't leave the fire. I'll beback."
He vanished long enough to return with a rabbit for dinner, and then roasted it in silence once he'd finished skinning it. The quiet between them was beginning to irritateher.
"Are you not going to speak to me?" Not touching her was one thing, but he would barely look ather.
"I'm speaking." Using an old rag, Haakon cleaned the blood from hisknife.
"Yes. You've mastered the art of the terse reply. It's going to feel like the longest journey I've ever been on, if you insist upon continuing in thisvein."
There. There was a hint of emotion tensing his shoulders. Haakon stabbed the knife down into the log he was sittingupon.
His eyes flashed. "What do we have to speakabout?"
"You're not curious? About why Ifled?"
"I thought it was to avoid a mating ceremony," he said curtly, oh-so-curtly.
Fat sizzled as he turned the rabbit on thespit.
She couldn't reach him. It ached through her, and her hands fell uselessly into her lap. A foolish sort of pain, for she shouldn't even be pushing at him like this. If he was going to remain walled-off, then perhaps that was for thebest?
But a part of her still remembered the stirring arguments they'd always had. He'd always challenged her to think in other ways—pushed at her to be more than a spoiled princess who haddrekimales falling at her feet. This quiet, contained Haakon was a stranger. She wanted the one who growled back at her. The one who got that certain look on his face when the argument intensified, and they were no longer merely arguing over something, but yelling just for the sake ofit.
She wanted the one who kissed her when the tide finally turned, his mouth crashing down upon hers. His hands wrenching up her skirts as their bodies tumbled to thebed....
It was both a secret joy and a misery to be so close to him after all these years, and yet sofar.
"When you left me" —he broke the silence— "where did yougo?"
Árdís looked up slowly, her pulse beating thickly in her throat. It took her a moment to reorient herself. Haakon carved a slice of meat off the rabbit, passing it to her. He looked utterly disinterested in her answer, but at the last moment, their eyes met and she saw heat simmering there, before his gaze returned to therabbit.
Not entirely impregnablethen.
It gave her hope. She knew how to stir this man and breach hisdefenses.
Árdís chewed thoughtfully. Did she dare? The tension between them was becoming almost unbearable, and it felt like there was only one safe way to defuseit.
"I returned to court. I had no choice, not truly. My mother was furious with me for vanishing for three years without a trace. I've been there ever since. She barely takes her eyes off me. And you? Tormund said you were dragonhunters."
"I'm surprised he didn't tell you more than that," Haakonmuttered.
"He did." She watched his face carefully. She'd been doing that all day, trying to map the differences. There was a faint scar above his lips. Another slashing through his blond brow. He'd turned from a handsome young hunter who'd left flowers on her doorstep and promised his mother he'd have her home by nightfall, to a hard battle-scarred warrior who looked like he'd throw her over his shoulder if given half a chance. Dangerous torouse.
She wanted to rousehim.
Árdís moved a little closer, shifting along the log. "He said they call you Dragonsbane now. HaakonDragonsbane."
Haakon's lips tightened. "They'refools."
