Freya writhed against the chains.Not because they hurt,But because they didn’t.Because the silver didn’t burn the way it should. Because restraint felt safer than freedom. Because without them, she wasn’t sure she could trust herself not to tear the world apart in her hunger.She had bound herself. By her own hands. By her own will. A wild, reckless act of desperation to deal with the heat. Because she knew what would happen if she didn’t. Because she knew what he would do if he found her like this.And now… He had. The only thing she wanted was for him to stay miles away from her until her heat gets over with.The door hung broken on splintered hinges, jagged wood veining outward like the cracks in her control. His scent—storm-drenched pine, steel, and something deeper, older—had filled the room like a rising tide. His blood painted the wall, smeared in a violent streak where he had punched stone.But it wasn’t fury in him anymore. It was something quieter. Something far more dan
The ink on the parchment blurred into meaningless swirls.Ragnar’s jaw clenched as he stared at the lines of text: trade negotiations, border patrol rotations, supply routes for the Northern post. Each line was etched in careful script. Each word meant to ensure the safety of his kingdom.But none of them mattered.Because his mind refused to focus. Every line blurred beneath the weight of her name.Freya.Her name was a curse and a prayer in the same breath. The taste of her still haunted him, sweet and defiant, like fire laced with frost. His lips remembered hers too well, remembered the way she pushed and pulled like she hated how much she hated him and wanted him. That kiss… gods, it had ruined him.He had touched her like a drowning man clinging to air. Desperate. Possessive. Reverent.And now... now he was unraveling.Across the desk, Nate’s voice droned on, steady and calm, oblivious to the storm rising inside the prince.“…the merchant guild is withholding grain until the tari
"let me down," Freya growled trying to free herself from his hold. It had happened so quickly the way he grabbed her and tossed her over his shoulder. The last thing Freya saw before the world tilted off its axis was Ragnar’s shadow slicing through the garden like a thundercloud about to break. And he was carrying her on his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.Her blood boiled because she was flung over his shoulder in one violent, seamless motion, his arm locked around her waist like a shackle forged in fury. And she didn't see it coming when he grabbed her. Her open hair moved wildly behind her, and her fists pounded against his back with no effect. The muscles beneath her strikes might as well have been stone.“Put me down, Ragnar!” she snarled, her voice cracking like a whip. “What the hell do you think you’re—”“Quiet,” he snapped, the word like a blade drawn behind clenched teeth. “You’ve pushed far enough.”Servants froze. Gasps echoed. Cloaks and baskets were dropped as he stor
One by one. Cries and gasps and whispered prayers fell from their lips like spring rain. Weathered hands reaching, trembling, unbelieving. They clung to her like drowning souls, pressing their foreheads to her shoulders, her hands, the fabric of her cloak. Some laughed. Some wept so hard they couldn’t speak.“Freya, by the gods... Freya-”“We were told you died, that you burned-”“They said your body vanished in the flames-”“We lit candles every night-”She held them. She let herself be held. Freya, the flame, the wolf, the storm, she let those things fall away. Here, she was just a girl who had come home.Their warmth pulled her back from the edge of everything. She could feel the grief unwinding from their bodies like thread unraveling. These weren’t people she ruled; they were kin. Her bones had been shaped by their stories. Her fury had been forged in their suffering.She sat among them, not on the throne they offered, but on the floor. The bare stone beneath her knees. Shoulders
The world returned slowly.Not in a rush, but in reluctant fragments, light bleeding through the gauze of unconsciousness, breath by breath. Freya stirred, her fingers curling against sheets soft as sin, heavy with the scent of cinder and frost.Her bones didn’t ache. They smoldered.Not broken, but reforged. Hammered by something ancient and remorseless. The hum was still there. The exhaustion. The pain. All of it was still there.Magic, slow and coiled, moved beneath her skin like a serpent too full of fire. The echo of the well still clawed at the edges of her senses, hungry, half-formed. She felt… other. Sharpened. Tempered. A blade that had finally kissed the forge.But something else had shifted too.A hollow space. A deep ache in her center, like part of her, had been carved out and offered as payment.The well had taken something.She didn’t know what. And it was terrifying.Her eyes snapped open.She winced at the bright sun rays falling on her face. Freya had to blink a coup
The moment Freya touched the rim of the well, the ground exhaled, a soundless, hollow breath, like the world itself bracing.And then something inside her shifted."Freya, step back a little," Ragnar said from behind her. She was standing too close to that cursed thing.A rush of sensation spiraled through her chest, not wind but memory. Not memory, but magic. It flooded her like smoke through a hollow vessel. The forest around her swayed as though caught in a dream, and the trees warped, shrank, and stretched. Time unraveled into a single, blistering pulse.Then it struck.Not a blast, not an explosion, something colder. A will older than gods. Invisible fingers seized her ribs from behind and shoved her forward, not away from the well, but into it.A scream tore through her lips as Ragnar dashed forward, trying to grab her. Freya didn’t fall into the well. She was devoured.Freya's scream died down. It caught in her throat as air vanished. Her hands flailed, fingers scraping at the