I've stared down death on blood-soaked fields, but nothing terrifies me like the silence of my empty hearth.
No sons to carry my name. No legacy beyond these crashing fjords. Just a chief's grave, cold and forgotten.
Then I took her.
This captive wildfire, dragged from raided shores, her eyes blazing hatred as I locked iron cuffs around those slender wrists. She's no meek vessel. She bites back with words sharp as my blade, her body twisting under mine not in surrender, but in a war that sets my blood roaring. I meant to breed her ruthlessly - pin her to the scarred oak table beneath torch shadows, drive deep until my seed takes root, claim her womb as my right. Her gasps mix fury and something darker, her nails raking my back like she wants to destroy me even as she arches into every thrust.
But her defiance cracks me open.
Nights blur into fevered rutting by the brine-scoured walls, her smoldering glares demanding I see her - not as thrall, but as the storm that could match my own. I catch myself tracing runes of possession on her skin, murmuring oaths into her tangled hair while gales howl outside. She fights the tenderness I won't name, spitting vengeance even as her hands clutch me closer, pulling me into a vulnerability I've never allowed. Breeding was command. This? This is madness, her unbowed spirit weaving into my ravaged heart, turning mastery into a chain that binds us both.
My rule hangs on her belly swelling with my heir.
One wrong spark from her vengeful tongue, and my warriors whisper of weakness. My solitude shatters either way - by a child's cry or her blade at my throat. I've forged empires on brute will, but can I tame the one woman who makes me ache to yield?
