afraid I don’t trust your father, Blodvin. He accepted everything too readily.’
‘Surely anything like that is a matter for Hrolf,’ Blodvin said. ‘An attack against your family would be a direct insult to him. Leave it to your new husband to sort out.’
‘I have always looked after my family without help.’
* * *
Hrolf stood next to the priest and solemnly said his vows. He hadn’t planned for this at the start of the day, but sailing with fortune’s wind had always brought him good things.
Sayrid’s dress showed that he’d been right to marry her. The shortness revealed a shapely calf and the bodice clung, revealing the hidden curves he had encountered the other night. The flowers in the crown had slipped to one side and were all wrong for her colouring. But he was touched that she had tried.
He dreaded to think what she must have gone through for all those years—having to deny her sex and behave like a man. And it appeared that her younger brother had not taken on his role as head of the house, preferring instead to allow his sister to risk her life on the wild sea. It ceased now, Hrolf silently vowed. Sayrid would have the chance to be a woman.
At the priest’s final words, he cupped her face. A bruise showed under her eye. He brushed it with his finger. She flinched.
‘Does it hurt?’
She started to shake her head.
‘The truth, Sayrid Avildottar. I want honesty between us. Always.’
Her tongue flicked out, wetting her lips and turning them strawberry red.
‘I’ve endured worse,’ she whispered finally.
‘There should never again be any reason for you to suffer an injury in battle.’
Her blue eyes swam. ‘But...all I know how to do is fight.’
‘Learn how to be a woman.’
He gave into temptation and tasted her mouth before she could utter another word. Her lips trembled briefly under his, softened and parted. A sigh emerged from her throat.
Hrolf allowed his mouth one more heartbeat of pleasure and then lifted it. Her eyes were dilated and her lips full.
Ribald jests rang out. Instantly she stiffened and began to scrub her mouth. ‘What was that for?’
‘Your first lesson in being a woman—brides kiss their husbands after the ceremony. Tradition,’ he replied smoothly, seeking to cover his body’s intense reaction to her closeness.
‘Lesson?’ She froze in mid-scrub.
‘I would hardly want anyone else trying my wife’s mouth before me.’
Her cheeks glowed bright pink and her brow lowered. ‘I doubt you will have any cause to be concerned. I’ve managed thus far without a teacher.’
He ran a hand down her back. She jumped like a startled animal. Silently he cursed whoever had made her like this and he was willing to wager that her family had something to do with it. But he’d never been one to shrink from a challenge. He wanted to unlock the passion he’d briefly glimpsed in her eyes the night they first met.
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