I never asked for chains.
Or for the Viking who snapped them around my wrists, his eyes burning like the fjord storms that howl outside this fur-draped longhouse. He dragged me from my old life, a conqueror with hands rough from raids and a voice that growls commands I should despise. But nights come, and my body betrays me, arching into the very man who shattered my world.
Hatred was my armor. Simple. Sharp.
Until he pinned me down in torchlight, sweat-glistening skin sliding against mine, his weight a promise of ruin. I fought, spat curses, clawed at the enemy who stole everything. Yet his mouth on my throat, his hips claiming deep, twisted violation into something darker. Voluptuous. I shudder now, whispering surrenders in ancient grove shadows, craving the seed he plants like a legacy I never wanted to bear.
He's ruthless power wrapped in hidden cracks, a jarl unraveling for me alone.
That gravelly urgency when he bares his soul between thrusts, the tenderness flickering after he fills me by the hearth, skin glowing in post-climax haze. My insecurities scream to run, to reclaim the shreds of self-respect he dangles like bait. Freedom waits beyond these walls. But this soul-deep possession terrifies me most, because admitting I need his savage hold might break me forever.
What if my defiance isn't armor at all, but the thinnest veil over hunger that could forge us unbreakable, or burn my heart to ash?
