I claimed her for one purpose only.
An heir.
To secure my bloodline in these unforgiving fjords, where rivals circle like wolves and a jarl's throne demands sons from pure stock.
She was no kin of mine. Just an outsider thrall, sharp-tongued and defiant, dragged into my longhouse with fire in her eyes and nothing to her name but desperation for a scrap of belonging.
I told myself her body would serve duty. Nothing more.
But the first time I pinned her down on blood-warm furs, sweat binding our skin as I drove deep to plant my seed, enmity cracked.
Her gasps turned to claws raking my back, her hips rising to meet mine in a rhythm that mocked my control.
We rutted like beasts in the smoke-hazed shadows, her outsider blood defiling my sacred line, yet her surrender pulled secrets from me I swore to bury.
Duty's cold blade dulled against the heat of her whispers, begging for trust I never gave freely.
Isolation has been my armor since the raids took my kin, leaving me a strategist who trusts no one.
Yet she sees through it.
In a dripping cavern, bloodied bandages pressed to wounds as we confessed ragged truths, her touch unraveled me.
I crave her unguarded vulnerability now, the way she denies it even as her body yields.
Hearts war while flesh entwines, obsession blooming from these forbidden breedings that promise power but deliver ruin.
What breaks first?
My contested legacy, if rivals scent weakness?
Her fragile foothold in this hostile world?
Or the armored shells we've worn, shattering into need that could claim a throne or drag us both under?
A full-length Viking breeding erotic romance featuring a ruthless warrior jarl's heir and a defiant outsider thrall.
