💥 This is a rough draft and is unedited. Each word is battle-born. Read at your own risk, be kind, and enjoy.

scene insp created by Wonder

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🫦 Read with caution. Vikings and spiciness ahead.

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“Oh . . . gods—my lord!” The shieldmaiden’s cries of pleasure urge me faster. Fraites is it? Or was it Frida? Her name doesn’t matter. I pound into her harder, chasing the peak of my high. Blood pounds in my ears, my body thrumming with the aftermath of battle and whatever the hell that was with Sylas below.

 My muscles ache with unspent energy, a familiar hunger gnawing from the inside out as the woman beneath me claws her fingernails into my back, her breasts bouncing, the scent of sweat and blood permeating off her as our skin slaps against one another.

She’s more than a willing vessel, and that she gives herself to me freely—that she wants me and isn’t disgusted by the thought of me—only makes my cock harder.

I bite into her neck, and she arches against me with a gasp, our satisfaction instant.

But in that moment, it is Imara’s heartbeat I detect in the distance. Imara’s scent I smell and crave.

No. I growl in frustration and focus on the shieldmaiden beneath me. Her blood is hot as it slides like liquid silk over my tongue and down my throat. Her arousal is thick in the air and should be intoxicating and all-consuming. Her blood is what I taste. Her scent.

But rich, auburn hair that gleams with shades of copper in the daylight, and defiant green-flecked eyes flash to mind. “Fuck,” I groan against the shieldmaiden’s neck. Imara’s somewhere close and it’s fucking everything up. My cock is so hard, it hurts in the most excruciating, delicious way. I pretend my partner has hair the color of autumn leaves, and that there’s a scar down her right temple, and I bury myself deeper in the warrior beneath me.

“Gods!” she cries. “My lord!” I fuck her faster, exploding in the depths of her body to the sound of her screaming my name. 

It’s liberating. It’s heady to the point of blindness, and if I wasn’t sating the hunger and my body’s animalistic desire at once, the bloodlust would win out. This warrior would be a meal and nothing else. But my release sates me, at least a little, and I relish another pull from the shieldmaiden’s neck. One last mouthful. A final swallow and I’m damn sure my eyes would roll back in my head if they were open.

As the tension in the woman’s body lessens, her euphoria utterly and completely met, I allow myself a final dreg before unlatching my fangs from her neck. With a growl and trembling muscles, I roll onto my back on the tabletop, one of many in the great hall, with plates of food discarded from the soldiers whose bodies now litter the ground throughout the fortress.

I stare up at the beams criss-crossing above and settle into the sound of the great hall. It’s empty save for the roaring fire and the flickering shadows that dance across stone walls and ceiling. 

“Gods damned, I needed that.” Rubbing my face, I inhale a deep breath, frustratingly but deliciously spent.

Whatever that was with Sylas and the princess threw me for a loop. I’d smelled the princess when we first arrived, but it was nothing more than a new, curious scent. But for Sylas—it gripped him in a way I’ve never felt through the bond before. And for an immortal who has spent his second life pushing every intimate feeling he might have away, my feeling his reaction to the girl—and his utter abhorrence of it—seems like a cruel joke the gods are playing on him. Again.

And Imara popping into my head? I exhale a heavy breath. That woman is beyond maddening, and the whole damn night has me on edge.

The shieldmaiden lifts onto her elbows, her chest still heaving as she peers over at me with a lazy, lust-filled gaze and glistening skin. “Feel better?” she murmurs, a catlike smile on her face. She runs the tip of her tongue over her upper lip and I imagine myself licking a small drop of blood from it.

With a brusque nod, I tear my gaze away, glancing at her body instead. “You’ll be weak for a day or two.” I may not know her name, but I’m not a total ass; she needs to be prepared.

A fleeting, uncertain look that might border on trepidation flits across her face.

“You’ll be fine. I promise.” With a grin, I reach up and gently lick her wounds closed. “The brotherhood thanks you for your service,” I tease, and that seems to squash any forming regrets. She grins.

“Sigrid.” Imara’s sharp voice cuts through the haze. Sigrid. Shit . . . I was way off. 

Unlike Sigrid, who startles at Imara’s sudden presence, I sensed her long before she entered the great hall, like I always do. 

Sigrid scrambles to her feet, and languidly, I tuck myself back into my pants. 

“We’re heading back to camp.” There’s an extra bite to Imara’s tone, the one she reserves just for me. “Help the others with the injured on the eastern wall”—she scours her shieldmaiden up and down—“if you can manage it.” Imara drips disapproval and her tone brooks no argument.

Sigrid glances over her shoulder at me, as if she’s asking permission to leave. I nod, a strand of hair falling into my face, loose from our activities, and the shieldmaiden wrestles into her leathers.

Imara’s gaze doesn’t waver as she waits for Sigrid to finish dressing. I look Imara up and down too, appreciating how battle-worn she is, her skin streaked with dirt and sweat, and her leather armor spattered with enemy blood, like me. 

Sigrid marches out the door as I climb off the table, and immediately Imara’s heated, loathsome gaze snaps to me. Her pulse thunders so loud I can’t ignore it, but the look on her face is one of anger, not desire.

My jaw clenches and I walk over to the warm water in the pot by the hearth. “Well,” I say and submerge my tunic. Imara’s eyes sear through my back as I scrub the dripping cloth over my shoulders, cleaning the blood and grime away. “Let’s hear it.” I keep my voice light and teasing, though tension coils in my gut. I submerge the cloth into the water again and scrub my arms next, wondering if a dip in the frigid river would be a quicker option.

“I don’t appreciate you using my shieldmaidens as your vessels.”

“Willing vessels,” I clarify.

“I don’t care. It affects us all when they are weak and useless and in some sex haze for the next two days.”

Grinning, I turn to face her, fully aware of her eyes shifting down my torso, even if she tries to hide it. “It sounds like you’re jealous.”

Imara’s glare sharpens. “I need them alert, Thorne, not weakened from blood loss, especially after battle. We’re already beat to shit as it is—we’re not immortals, like some.”

“Perhaps they enjoy a little extra danger—”

“Enough!” she growls. “You insist on taunting me, and I have had enough.”

My own annoyance flares, and in three strides I am only inches from her.

Imara swallows thickly, as if suddenly recalling who and what I am.

“And you insist on hating me for no reason other than you wish to.”

Imara’s jaw twitches. “They are warriors,” she grits out. “Not your personal fucking feeding stock.” Her nostrils flare, and I detect more than ire in her countenance, but something almost desperate. I scour her face, willing her to give something more about her feelings to me. How can I smell her a forest away, yet I can never get a proper read on her?

The firelight catches Imara’s hair, turning it to molten copper. I think of sex. I think of rutting and orgasms and how badly I want to fuck and feed from her.

“Find someone else to satisfy your . . . appetites,” she continues. “Or you can find another band of shieldmaidens to fight for you. They put their lives on the line for you. They deserve your respect.”

My eyes harden this time, and I close the rest of the distance between us. “Are you threatening me, Commander?”

Imara stiffens and takes a deliberate step back. “I am stating facts,” she says, though the edge to her voice dissolves to uncertainty.

Wet shirt clenched in one fist, I point toward the courtyard where our mangled army gathers.

“Then speak to your warriors, Commander. They are grown-ass women, fighting with and fucking a Darkborn by their free will. And as much as it bothers you that they would deprave themselves lying with me,” I practically seethe, “every vessel I have taken in the past sixteen winters has approached me.”

I don’t know if Imara’s expression widens with surprise at hearing my vehemence, or if she’s simply shocked I don’t have to beg for feeders and lovers, but her cheeks flush ever so slightly.

Without another word, she turns and strides from the great hall, every line of her body rigid with tension. Every footstep echoes with fury. The door closes behind her with a decisive thud, and I release a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.

I don’t know if I hate her or simply want to fuck the one woman who won’t have me.

Tossing my tunic across the room, I crack my neck from side to side. Whatever this is, it isn’t healthy or good for my sanity. Because, beneath the blood and battle-lust still coursing through me, something deeper stirs. Something more than mere temptation and challenge. Something terrifying.

The fire pops and crackles, matching the restless energy under my skin, and I sag against the nearest table. “Well, brother,” I mutter to myself, “you’re completely fucked.”

There’s more Darkborn coming - stay tuned!

Until next time….

xo, Lindsey (and Scarlet)

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The places:

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