Page 91 of Alliance Bride
Aevar blinked, stunned for half a breath. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t you remember all the time we spent together? Sparring and fishing and wandering the woods?”
He frowned. Of course he remembered. Oda had been around—loud, relentless, always tagging along. But that was her choice. He’d tolerated her. Nothing more.
“Oda, we were children. I loved Thora. I always did. It was never you.”
Something on her face cracked. For a moment, Aevar thought there were tears in her eyes. He wasn’t sure if it was grief or humiliation, but she blinked and they were gone, buried under the ice she wore like armor.
Still not convinced she accepted the truth even now, he lowered his voice, deadly serious. “This ends here. Spy on us again or go anywhere near Eadlyn, and I will have you banished from Fjellheim.”
Her brows shot up. “You’d banish me from my home?”
“I will do whatever I must to protect my wife.”
Eadlyn sat beside Aevar at the table, the comfort of the evening meal and the laughter of family weaving together. The weight of the day—of that moment in the woods and eyes watching when they shouldn’t have faded as the hours passed. It helped to know Aevar had taken action. Firm action. The kind that made her feel safe like she never had before her life here.
What lingered in her mind now were the moments before Oda’s intrusion and what might have been if they’d not been interrupted. She caught herself blushing and ducked her head. However, the move must have drawn Aevar’s attention because he looked over at her. His brows wrinkled in question, but she just smiled, leaning into his shoulder.
Later, after a few rounds oftafland a round of goodnights, the family retired to their rooms. The longhouse settled into its nighttime hush, and Eadlyn and Aevar moved through their evening routine with the same practiced rhythm they’d adopted months ago. She was once more in the bed while he’d returned to sleeping on the floor, but it hadn’t felt right since he’d been ill. She hadn’t admitted it to anyone, but she missed sleeping beside him.
As she changed into her sleep shift, she glanced over her shoulder to where he prepared for bed and caught sight of his healing scar again. She paused. She didn’t see the wound; she saw the man who had shielded her with his own body during danger. Who had clung to life while she prayed at his side. Who had fought the pain and grief of his past to give her a place in his heart. Who had come to meaneverything. The realization hit her now with such incredible force and clarity it knocked the air from her lungs.
She loved him.
Not just as the man she now trusted or as the husband she had vowed to honor. But deeply. Fiercely.
She took a step toward him. “Aevar.”
He turned to her and stilled. She held his gaze with purpose, her heart beating against her ribs as if trying to proclaim her thoughts faster than she could put them into words.
“I love you.” The declaration broke from her chest. “I will choose to love you for the rest of our lives. Not because of the alliance, or because it’s expected. I want to be your wife and for you to be my husband for no other reason than that we love each other. I want to live out every word of the vows we both took until death do—”
His lips against hers cut off her words, and he kissed her like he’d been waiting his entire life for this moment. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she kissed him back, sensing a shift in their relationship that would begin the rest of their lives together.
Chapter Thirty-four
MorningnudgedatEadlyn’ssenses, but she lingered in the space between sleep and waking, unwilling to leave the surrounding warmth. Yet as she drifted, she became aware of Aevar’s arm draped over her waist, solid and reassuring. She let her fingers trace over his. He responded by pulling her closer, and his chest pressed against her back, rising and falling with each steady breath. This was right.
For several peaceful minutes, they lay there in stillness, listening to the subtle creaks of the longhouse and the birdsong beyond the window. Then he shifted. A breath of air brushed past her ear, and a moment later, a kiss landed just beneath it.
She squirmed, laughing as his beard prickled her skin. “That tickles.”
He chuckled low in his chest. Fully awake now, she rolled over to face him. He was propped up on one elbow, staring at her as if content to lie there and watch her forever.
“Góthan morgin,” he murmured.
She echoed the words before he leaned in and kissed her, slow and lingering. The kind of kiss that made the rest of the world distant and unimportant. By the time they parted, sunlight streamed through the window. Eadlyn sighed, brushing her thumb along his jaw. “It’s late. If we don’t move soon, we’ll miss breakfast.”
Aevar didn’t appear even slightly concerned. “We could stay here all day.”
She raised a brow, though her smile betrayed her amusement. “Someone will come looking for us.”
“Let them,” he said, shifting closer. “I’ll send them away. Tell them you’ve been kidnapped by your husband and negotiations are ongoing.”
She laughed and sat up. “Tempting, but we both have work to do.”
He groaned and flopped back against the pillow. “You’re a princess. You shouldn’t want to work.”
