ASTRID’S POV

I was adjusting the laces on my dress when the door opened behind me. I didn’t need to turn around to know who it was. The air in the room seemed to change whenever Ragnar entered, becoming thicker and more charged with an energy that made my skin tingle.

Through the reflection in my small mirror, I watched him step into the room and then freeze.

His ice-blue eyes met mine in the glass, and for a moment neither of us moved. I was wearing only my shift and the outer dress, my hair loose around my shoulders as I prepared for the day.

Any proper man would have apologized and left immediately. But Ragnar just stood there, his gaze traveling over me in a way that made heat rise in my cheeks. I expected him to turn and go, to maintain the careful distance we had been keeping since the night of the blizzard.

Instead, he stepped further into the room and closed the door behind him.

“We need to talk,” he said, his voice lower than usual.

I turned to face him, crossing my arms over my chest in a gesture that was both defensive and modest. “About what?”

“About this.” He gestured vaguely between us. “About how we’ve been avoiding each other like children afraid of their own shadows.”

The directness of his words caught me off guard. I had expected him to continue pretending that nothing had happened between us, that the kiss had been nothing more than a moment of weakness brought on by the storm.

“I haven’t been avoiding you,” I said, though we both knew it was a lie.

He raised an eyebrow. “No? Then why do you disappear whenever I enter a room? Why do you take the long way to the healing hut to avoid passing my chambers?”

Heat flooded my face because he was right. I had been avoiding him, and apparently I hadn’t been as subtle about it as I had hoped.

“I thought it was what you wanted,” I said quietly. “After… after what happened, I thought you regretted it.”

Something flickered across his expression, too quick for me to identify. “Regret isn’t the word I would use.”

The admission hung in the air between us, heavy with implications I wasn’t sure I was ready to explore. I could feel my heart beating faster, could sense the tension that always seemed to crackle between us whenever we were alone together.

“Then what word would you use?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

He was quiet for a long moment, his eyes never leaving mine. When he spoke, his words were careful, measured. “Complicated.”

I almost laughed, but there was nothing funny about the situation we found ourselves in. Complicated was an understatement. I was his captive bride, taken from my home and forced into a marriage I never wanted.

He was the Viking king who had destroyed my village and claimed me as a prize of war. Whatever was growing between us was more than complicated – it was impossible.

“Ragnar,” I started, but he held up a hand to stop me.

“There’s something I want to ask you,” he said. “Something I want you to consider.”

I waited, watching as he seemed to struggle with whatever he wanted to say. This was a side of him I rarely saw – uncertain, almost vulnerable.

“I want you to wear my clan’s mark,” he said finally. “In public. Where everyone can see it.”

I blinked, surprised by the request. I knew what he was talking about – the silver pendant worn by the wives of important men in his clan, a symbol that marked them as belonging to their husbands in a way that went beyond simple marriage.

“Your clan’s mark,” I repeated slowly.

“It would show everyone that you are truly mine,” he said, his voice gaining strength as he spoke. “Not just a political arrangement or a war prize, but my chosen woman. My equal.”

The words should have made me angry. They should have reminded me of all the ways he had taken away my choices, all the reasons I had to hate him. Instead, I found myself focusing on one word: equal.

“And if I refuse?” I asked.

His jaw tightened slightly. “You won’t refuse.”

The commanding tone in his voice sparked my temper immediately. This was exactly the problem – he still thought he could simply tell me what to do and expect me to obey without question.

“Won’t I?” I challenged, lifting my chin in the defiant gesture that had become second nature around him. “You’re demanding that I wear your mark like I’m some possession to be branded. You’re not asking me – you’re telling me.”

He stared at me for a moment, and I could see him struggling with his natural instinct to assert his authority.

But then something shifted in his expression, and when he spoke again, his voice was different.

“You’re right,” he said quietly. “I was demanding, not asking.”

The admission surprised me. In all the weeks I had been here, I had rarely heard him acknowledge that he might be wrong about anything.

“I won’t wear your mark unless you ask me with respect,” I said firmly. “Not as your captive, not as your prize, but as a woman with her own mind and her own choices.”

For a moment I thought he might argue, might fall back into the role of the commanding Viking king who took what he wanted without asking permission. Instead, he nodded slowly.

“Then I will earn it,” he said. “I will earn the right to ask you properly.”

Something in his tone made my breath catch. There was a promise in those words, a commitment that went deeper than I had expected.

“How?” I asked.

He smiled then, and it was different from his usual predatory grins. This smile was almost tender, with a warmth that made something flutter in my chest.

“Come with me,” he said, extending his hand toward me. “Let me show you something.”

I stared at his outstretched hand, knowing that if I took it, I would be crossing a line that could never be uncrossed. But something in his eyes, something in the way he was looking at me like I was precious rather than conquered, made me reach out and place my fingers in his.