“I don’t know where it is.” Glancing up at him, I added, “You’re the one who is injured.” No lie, given that half of his face was covered in dried blood, his sleeve was soaked in crimson, and I was sure he was sporting many bruises from his battle with the draug jarl.
“You’re right,” he answered. “Not only am I in a great deal of pain, but this cut”—he tapped his face—“was also from a rusty draug blade and is likely going to fester, thus ruining my good looks. And I know how you value them, Born-in-Fire, because you’ve told me twice.”
It was impossible not to roll my eyes. “I told you to let me tend to it. You said you were fine.”
“I changed my mind.”
Sighing, I twisted onto my knees, my chilled muscles protesting the motion as I lifted up enough to look at the injury. Just below the hairline, the cut was about as long as my little finger, and was likely down to the bone. It should’ve been stitched but I didn’t have the tools. Digging into my bag, I retrieved a clean rag, which I dampened with water, and then cleaned away all the blood.
It was hard to focus with his breath brushing my throat and his skin hot beneath my cold hands. “This was from a blade?”
“A rusty blade.”
Frowning, I shook my head. “When we reach Fjalltindr, someone will have herbs to better clean this. Cloves, perhaps,” I added, having seen some in the spices carried by Snorri’s thralls.
“There are cloves in Liv’s salve.”
“True,” I muttered, reaching into my bag, my hand closing over the little pot before I froze. “You arse.”
“Always with the insults.” Bjorn slid his hand down my arm and into my bag, where my hand clutched the pot of salve, his fingers wrapping over mine. The sensation sent sparks dancing over my skin, and my stomach did flips as he drew our hands out of the bag.
Unfolding my fingers, he extracted the pot from my grip and opened it with his thumb. “Lucky for me that you didn’t lose it. Or”—he dug out a glob and smeared it across his cut—“lucky for you, as now my face is saved.”
“You are so vain.” Flopping on my bottom with my back against the wall, I crossed my arms. “It’s not right for a man to think so highly of his own appearance.”
“You’re the one who said you thought Baldur had finally been freed by Hel when you first saw me,” he replied, prying my arm away from my side and depositing a glob of salve on my scarred palm. “And also the one who thought I blinded my enemies with beauty by charging them shirtless. And—”
“I hate you.”
“If only that were true,” he murmured, his strong fingers digging into the stiff tendons of my hand, driving away the cold and the pain and replacing them with something else entirely. A longing to feel them touching other parts of me.
A longing to touch him.
I said nothing, only watched him work on my hand long after the salve was rubbed into my scarred skin. Then he turned it over, tracing the twisted lines of the second tattoo Hlin had given me. Needing to break the silence, I asked, “I wonder what it was meant to look like?”
“Maybe this is what it was meant to look like,” he countered, taking my other hand and examining the crimson shield tattooed across the back, the lines pulsing with each beat of my heart. “The gods foresaw that you’d take my axe. That you’d be burned. What they saw was why they said your name would be born in fire.”
“Unless I acted differently than they foresaw,” I said. “Unless I altered the fate the Norns planned for me. Maybe that’s why this tattoo is twisted, because from that moment, the path they saw for me ceased to exist.”
“Only the gods can answer that.” Bjorn hesitated, still holding my hands. “Or a seer.”
“Know one?” I asked, then immediately regretted it when he dropped my hands. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. What happened to my mother was not your fault.”
And clearly not anything he wished to talk about. I wracked my brain for a way to change the subject that wouldn’t feel awkward, finally blurting out, “What does your tattoo depict?”
Bjorn huffed out an amused breath. “Which one?”
“The one Tyr gave you, obviously.”
“That one’s hardly hidden.” He gave me a sideways glance, the corner of his mouth turned up once again. “I thought you meant the one on my arse.”
My chin quivered with the effort it took not to laugh. “I already know what that one depicts.”
“Do you now.” Both his eyebrows rose. “Have you been spying on me when I bathe, Born-in-Fire?”
“Difficult, given that you don’t.” Keeping my expression steady, I added, “And I don’t need to see it to know that it depicts the poor decisions that you make when you are drunk, whereas I imagine Tyr put more care into his selection when he inked you in blood.”
Tipping his head back, Bjorn laughed, the rich sound filling the tunnel with echoes. “You are a goddess among women,” he finally said, wiping tears from his eyes. “Look for yourself, then.”
He turned his back to me and lowered his head to expose his neck. His height kept me from getting a good look, so I rose back onto my knees, holding his hair to one side and leaning close. “More light.”
“Demanding,” he murmured, but picked up his axe, holding it high to illuminate his skin.
Not unexpectedly, the tattoo was shaped like an axe, the blade etched in incredible detail, though the rune representing Tyr was what drew my eye. Like my own tattoo, the crimson inkwork pulsed with the beat of his heart, and, beneath my scrutiny, it seemed to throb faster. “Nervous?”
“My neck is exposed to you, Born-in-Fire,” he answered. “I’m fucking terrified.”
Smiling, I traced my left index finger over the thin red lines. He shivered beneath my touch, and his reaction stoked the embers of desire in me that felt impossible to extinguish. Swallowing the dryness in my throat, I said, “You’re the one holding the weapon.”
“And yet I feel entirely at your mercy,” he said under his breath, lowering his axe back to the ground. Bjorn turned to face me, and on my knees as I was, we were at eye level. Breathing the same air, though the tension between us was so thick I felt light-headed.
“Satisfied?” he asked, green eyes rendered black by the shadows.
I wasn’t. Not even a little bit, but the things it would take to sate me were so very forbidden. “It’s good work.”
Bjorn inclined his head without breaking our gaze, and I suddenly found I couldn’t breathe at all. We were alone in these tunnels, which meant there was nothing to stop us but ourselves, and I felt my will to do so waning.
I wanted him.
Wanted his lips on mine. Wanted to feel his hands on my body. Wanted to touch the hard muscles and taut skin beneath his clothing and mail until I knew every inch of him.
He’s your husband’s son, a voice screamed in my head. Nothing good could come of this!
Husband in name only, I screamed back at the voice. A sham of a marriage!
That doesn’t mean you aren’t bound! That doesn’t mean you won’t pay if you get caught!
The thought rattled sense into me, and I looked away. Lowered myself down so that my back was pressed against the wall, my eyes again fixed on his axe. As my desire faded, so did the adrenaline that had come with it, and exhaustion pressed down. Cold leached into my legs, into my back, and I shivered.
“Come here.” Bjorn’s voice was low and rough, and I didn’t resist as he pulled me against him, the heat of his body driving away the chill. I rested my head against his chest, so painfully tired but unable to close my eyes. Unable to relax because the misery in my heart refused to let me.
“What’s it like in Nordeland?” Perhaps no better a topic than his murdered mother, but I needed to fill the silence with something heavy. With something that would pull me down and down until I finally fell asleep.
Bjorn cleared his throat. “Colder. Harder. It makes Skaland seem like soft living by comparison.”
That was hard to imagine, though I didn’t doubt that he was telling the truth. “What are the people like?”