They handed her to me like a trophy from a raid I never wanted.
An English noblewoman, sharp-tongued and seething with the poison of her own kin's betrayal. She glares at me across the fur-strewn hall, her defiance a blade I ache to turn against her pride. But when our bodies collide in this farce of a marriage bed, that hate twists into something hotter. Something that makes her arch and gasp even as she spits her fury.
I am the Jarl who razes kingdoms, yet this woman unravels me. Her wounded pride demands loyalty no Viking oath can forge, but I see the craving beneath - for a man who will shield her savagely, body and soul. We clash forging iron in the smithy, sparks flying like the venom in her eyes, mirroring the storm building between us. Callused hands grip the hammer together, and I wonder if she'll ever let mine grip her the same way.
Storm winds lash our hall, thunder drowning her reluctant moans as limbs tangle on wolf pelts by dying embers. Sweat slicks our skin, her nails raking my back like war claws, each thrust a battle she fights and loses. She yields her ecstasy to the barbarian who stole her freedom, but chains her will to my hunger. It's captivity blurring into craving, resentment fueling the rut that leaves us both shattered.
Her autonomy hangs by the thinnest thread - her family's crumbling legacy, the scraps of self-respect she clings to like a shield. I want her fire as my equal, not my broken spoil. But if she never trusts this conqueror's touch to mend what's fractured inside her, our blaze will devour us both. And I'd bleed for that surrender anyway.
