#sihtric

Bits of rain clung to the dark threads of Sihtric’s braids, water slicking the sharp angle of his jaw, he shook himself like a dog on the threshold, trying and failing not to splash you.

The common room was surprisingly bright and tumultuous, illuminated by candles and the fire, burning low and steady in a clay-bricked hearth, casting a soft copper light over the people.

The rain had forced more than just one traveller to seek refuge in the small inn.

The innkeeper looked up from the counter, eyes first suspicious at the sight of the sword and Thor’s pendant on Sihtric’s chest, but softening at the sound of coins in the pouch you carefully placed on the old wood. 

“Rooms?” Sihtric asked. He always did the asking. People answered him.

“Lucky you came when you did,” the woman said, wiping her hands on her apron. “One room left. Good mattress. Roof tight.” She cut you a knowing smile that included the rain on your hair and the mud-streaked hem of your damp cloak. “You’ll be wanting it.”

You glanced at Sihtric; he was already nodding. The agreement fell between you as easily as it always did: he handled the bargaining, you handled the coin. He handled the horses; you chose the road. He scouted; you observed. He checked your boots for thorns; your fingers rebraided his hair by firelight.

Neither of you named the way his eyes sometimes lingered, or how your pulse answered. He was your big brother. You were not bound by blood, but by something equally strong: by death.

After Osferth fell, word reached you late and crooked, carried by a monk who could not quite meet your eyes. You came to Bebbanburg with your brother’s rosary in your palm and questions burning your throat. The world had torn you apart when you were still small, yet Osferth had found you, had shown you there was life beyond the convent’s walls and pressed hope into your hands.

You were afraid that hope had died with him.

Sihtric was the one who had met you in the yard. You’d known him in passing from those rare days Osferth wrung free to come to visit or take you to the market, or smuggle you in the alehouse one evening. Even then, the broad-shouldered, quiet Dane’s gaze had warmed you like the sun, finding you in a crowded room without trying. Those big, mismatched eyes that once lit when they landed on you were shadowed now with grief.

There, in Bebbanburg’s inner yard while you waited for his lord to speak the hard truth, Sihtric swore softly, to Osferth as much as to you, that you would not be left unguarded.

Uhtred did not turn you away and soon enough you proved you were not just another mouth to feed. The sisters had done at least one thing right as they’d taught you your letters, whether out of principle or because Osferth’s persuasive look and a discreet handful of silver had helped, you never learned. Your talent was welcome in your new lord’s hall.

Sihtric took the sword-work and the scouting; you took the parchments and the listening. You were good at being overlooked, good at catching fragments of conversation and fitting them together to give Uhtred the right answers, not the obvious ones.

Suddenly there were three big brothers where you’d had one: the loud Irishman with a bear’s hug and a bigger heart; Uhtred, who wouldn’t let you call him lord, and Sihtric, steady as a star in the sky, rarely more than an arm’s length away.

Riding with Sihtric was easy. Sometimes it seemed you understood each other without words. One glance, one small nod, and it was settled, just like tonight.

You were taking that last room.

You slid a small stack of coins across the counter, and the woman’s fingers made them vanish before you could even blink.

The room was at the end of a narrow stair and a tighter hall, the door stuck halfway swollen with weather and Sihtric had to set his shoulder to it, pushing until the wood gave with a sigh. 

It was small with one three-legged stool, a small table and a single hook hammered into the wall. One single bed sat at the wall opposite to the window with a straw-stuffed but clean mattress and one blanket from good thick wool. The fire in the small hearth had been let to embers and needed coaxing.

“It will do,” you said, because it had to. The roof did not drip, and the wind and rain were locked out at least for now. Maybe you were lucky and the weather would settle tomorrow. 

Sihtric’s mouth did that brief, almost-smile that you were so used to as you smoothed water from his braids, retwisting one loosened plait behind his ear. He leaned into your touch with the trust of a big furry hound, eyes half-closed. You loved the feel of his hair, it was warm and thick, and silk-soft. 

“I’ll see to the fire,” you whispered, drawing your hands away, and for one tiny moment his breath hitched, or so it seemed. You shook the thought off with a sigh. There was no reason, there was never any reason, to think he could see something more in you than a child that needed his protection. 

You lowered yourself near the hearth, added a few logs to the embers and tried to coax the flame back to life with your breath. It took a while but it worked and the flame finally picked up. 

When you rose, smoothing your damp tunic over your hips, Sihtric had already shrugged out of his wet cloak and hung it on the hook. You followed his example and watched water dripping steadily from its hem to a small dark circle on the floor before your eyes landed on the bed. 

It looked even narrower than it had a heartbeat ago, not much wider than Sihtric’s shoulders, and you felt your stomach folding itself into a neat, complicated knot.

Sihtric’s eyes flicked to the bed, then to you, measuring the space, measuring you with something like caution banked behind his pupils, like a warrior assessing the tightness of a pass. 

“You take it,” he said, too quickly. “I’ll…” He glanced at the cloak he’d hung on the hook, at the stool. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”

“Don’t be foolish. There’s room…”

“There’s room for you,” he cut in, soft but firm. 

It was not the words alone but their speed, the way he kept his eyes on the bed and never once on you. Heat rushed up your throat, then settled like a stone behind your ribs.

Sihtric took his cloak, dropped to the floor and spread it, smoothing it with his palm. “I’m used to it,” he said, and because he was trying to be kind, he added, “Truly.”

Of course he was. He had slept in ditches and under carts and upright with his back to a wall and his hand on a blade more times than you could count. Of course he would choose the cold floor, he would always choose your ease and comfort over his without thinking. 

And you were supposed to be grateful, and you were, you really were, but something in you flared up at the same time, a mean little voice muttering: he will never see you differently, you’re just not enough… you know nothing of men… a wallflower…

“Don’t, be silly,” you said, and your voice came out softer than you meant. “You’ll wake with your joints cursing you and we both will freeze.”

“I’ve woken to worse,” he said, raking a hand over his hair. He looked at the bed again and then away, as if it might bite him. “We’ll eat,” he said finally, as if that were a solution to a problem neither of you would name. “Get warm. After that, we’ll see. I like the floor.”

You nodded because you didn’t trust your mouth with better words. 

Sihtric stole a glance as you turned to the hearth, and the furrow between his brows eased, the way it always did when he watched you fuss over small tasks. For a heartbeat he let himself imagine those motions somewhere else: not in a small and cool, rented room but in a hall that was his and yours, a small house with a strip of garden, your hands busy with the ordinary chores of living. He exhaled and set the thought aside like a blade he wasn’t ready to draw.

It was getting harder to set it aside. The more miles you shared, the thinner that line felt. He’d told himself a hundred times he was your shield now because Osferth could not be. That was it, there was no place for anything else. But lately, he didn’t always trust himself to be just that. He looked from the bed to his cloak on the floor. 

He had even considered asking Uhtred to send another companion on the road with you, someone safer, someone wanting less, but the thought burned him the moment it formed. If he didn’t trust his own restraint, how could he trust another man’s? He couldn’t risk you to a stranger. 

The cloak on the floor would have to do. Some parts of a man obeyed less readily than his sword hand, especially when you stood too near, when your fingers threaded his braids, when your breath warmed the back of his neck. He would not touch you, he’d sooner bind his hands, but one careless shift and you would know it all the same, a treacherous confession against your thigh, his body speaking where his mouth would not.

He flexed his hand once, grounding himself in the simple work ahead: food, fire, sleep. Keep your wits, he told himself. You have a promise to keep. 

Rain surged against the window shutters and somewhere below, the scrape of benches and a burst of laughter rose from the common room, rich with warmth you could almost feel through the boards. Your stomach, unhelpfully literal, chose that moment to complain.

Sihtric’s mouth tipped. “Stew before your belly declares war.”

“Stew,” you agreed, grateful for the way he could turn the air to something easy when he chose. “And an ale. Maybe two.”

“Two,” he said, and this time the smile reached his eyes. “But I’ll keep my wits.” He lifted a brow at your look. “So one of us remembers how to find the bed in the dark.”

You opened your mouth and then closed it again, because you did not know how to answer without saying more than the walls should hear.

“Come on,” you said instead and pushed past him to the door; it stuck again and he reached over your shoulder to set it free, his palm braced against the wood beside your cheek. The closeness came sudden and whole, his heat and the scent of him crowding your senses. Your breath tripped, his did too and for a suspended second you felt the weight of every almost-touch you’d ever shared.

He drew back a fraction, as he always did. “After you.”

Down the narrow stairs and into the din, Sihtric set his hand at the small of your back. You shivered but didn’t shrug him off. Of course you didn’t. It was a simple, protective touch telling you: I’m here, I’ve got you. You would have given anything for it to mean more, but you knew it didn’t. 

“Stew?” the innkeep called.

“Two,” Sihtric answered, then added, “And two ales.”

You slid onto a bench by the fire, shoulder-to-shoulder, the place was crowded and there wasn’t much choice left. Heat from the hearth seeped through your damp clothes until your fingers remembered they were yours. The ale came and you took a sip. Mmm, it was sweet and strong, and warmed you all the way down.

Sihtric watched you over the rim of his mug. 

“I really don’t mind the floor,” he murmured, low for you alone. “I don’t want you feeling crowded. Besides… I snore.”

“We’ll speak on it later,” you said, pretending your heart didn’t soften at the care in his voice. You bumped his elbow. “For now, feed me.”

The stew came thick and steaming, and you were halfway through the first bowl when Sihtric tipped his coin pouch over the table to see if there was enough for a second. A small clatter of pennies and clipped silver scattered in all directions and among them, something bright rolled out and flashed – a narrow band of worked silver, delicate and beautiful. You blinked.

Sihtric’s hand darted, quick as a hawk, as he scooped the ring back into his palm and swept it into the pouch with the coins. “Plenty,” he said a shade too lightly, already nodding at the innkeeper for another bowl.

Before you could ask, a man shouldered in from behind, pressing close to your elbow under the pretense of no space. “Crowded night,” he said with a loose grin. “Such a pretty voice in this place is a rare thing. Can I buy you another ale?”

You drew back an inch, looking for a gap on the bench that did not exist. Sihtric didn’t even bother to look up all the way, his voice came quiet and flat, sharp as the knife on his belt. “The lady is set.”

The man flicked his gaze over Sihtric as if weighing the risk, but the moment  Sihtric finally met his eyes, the man’s grin thinned, he muttered something about touchy company and peeled off toward another table.

Sihtric’s attention returned to you as if the interruption had been a fly. “You all right?”

“Fine,” you said, though your skin buzzed with the aftertaste of being looked at like a thing on a shelf. The innkeeper put a fresh bowl and two second ales before you. You wrapped your hands around the cup to let your breath settle.

You should have let the moment go, except that you couldn’t. 

“What was that?”

Sihtric tilted his head, wary. “The man? Don’t worry about him, he’s gone.”

“The ring,” you said, keeping your tone even, as if discussing the weather. “In your pouch.”

Sihtric went very still, he hadn’t expected you to have seen it. “A trifle,” he said at last, too casual. “Nothing.”

“It didn’t look like nothing.” You tried to make it sound like simple curiosity, but it came out too steady to be casual. “It was… pretty.”

He cleared his throat, eyes dropping to his ale. “Just a thing I… found,” the corner of Sihtric’s mouth tugged, annoyed with himself for lying poorly. “Bought,” he corrected, softer.

“For someone?” The question surprised you with how quickly it left your mouth.

A flush climbed the line of his throat, that surely had nothing to do with the heat of the drink. “It’s not…” He stopped, started again. “It’s nothing you need to fret over.”

You forced a small laugh. “I’m not fretting.” You were absolutely fretting. “It was just… delicate.”

His fingers tightened on the mug. “It is,” he said, and the admission sounded like it had cost him. His gaze skated to your hands where they cradled the cup, then jerked away. “I shouldn’t… It was foolish. I haven’t… worked out how… ” he bit the end off the sentence and took refuge in his ale, the swallow audible.

How to what? Gift it? To whom? The answer arrived in your chest like a punch. Of course, he’d found someone – some woman who had space for a man like him, the kind of space that wasn’t built on grief and old vows, a woman who would look right wearing a slim band of silver, who would know what to do with a man’s devotion, who would know how to please him.

You felt your stomach drop and then catch, the way it does when a cart hits a tree root. It made perfect sense of everything that didn’t. Of course that’s why he doesn’t see you. 

“Well,” you said, amazed at how even you sounded. “She’s lucky.”

Sihtric’s head lifted as if you had struck him, confusion and alarm flaring at once. “Who?”

You stared at him, you couldn’t say the woman you bought the ring for without sounding ridiculous, so you just shrugged instead. “Whoever you mean to give it to.”

Sihtric’s mouth opened and closed without a single sound. The color in his face deepened and his hands flattened on the table as if he needed something solid to hold. 

“It’s… I’ve not… It isn’t…” He shook his head, a small, helpless motion that looked nothing like him. “I’m making a muddle of it.”

“You don’t owe me an explanation,” you tried to hide behind your mug of ale. 

“I know,” he said quickly, too quickly, and his gaze dragged to the pouch again. “I only… It’s not the right moment.” The last words came out raw enough to be true, and they didn’t help at all.

You drank to keep your mouth busy. “Right moments are like beds in this place,” you said lightly. “Hard to find, smaller than you want.”

He tried to smile. “Eat before it gets cold,” he added, nudging the second bowl of stew toward you like a peace offering.

You picked up your spoon and made it move even if you had suddenly lost the appetite. The room sounded far away and under the table, Sihtric’s thigh brushed yours and stayed there. It didn’t soothe, if anything, it made the ache sharper.

Upstairs, the bed would still be small, but down here, the world had narrowed to the weight of a silver ring you would never wear and a man who would prefer sleeping on the floor to sharing a blanket with you.

The second ale sat untouched by Sihtric’s elbow, while you’d drained yours to the dregs just to have something to do with your mouth besides ask questions you weren’t entitled to.

Sihtric watched you tip the cup, watched the frown you didn’t mean to wear and the crease between his brows deepened. He didn’t know where he’d misstepped, only that he had, and that the knowledge didn’t help, just made him clumsy.

You lifted the empty. “Another,” you called to the innkeep, too bright.

Sihtric’s hand came down just a touch to the table, steady. “We should go up,” he said quietly. “We need some rest.”

You blinked at the ale by his elbow. “You’ve not touched yours.”

“I’m keeping my wits,” he said, and the gentleness in it made something spark in you, not kind.

“I don’t need you to keep them for me,” you said, the bitterness in your voice making it sound low and rough. “I’m not a child.”

His jaw flexed. “I didn’t say you were.”

“You don’t have to,” you hissed much sharper than you had intended. “You decide. You always decide. Roads. When we stop. Bed. How much I drink, apparently.”

He breathed in like a man about to plunge himself into cold water. “I decide what keeps you safe.”

“Do you?” Your laugh was a small, brittle thing. “And why do you think you’re entitled to? You’re not my father, you’re not my brother,” you didn’t really want to say it, but the words escaped you before you managed to tuck them back, the hurt you didn’t even want to recognise burning a hole in your chest.

Sihtric went very still, contrition moving over his face like shadow, as his eyes flicked to your empty cup and then to your face. You stared back at him. 

The innkeeper had caught your call and was already bringing another ale, but Sihtric cut it off with two fingers and a tiny shake of his head, then looked instantly stricken, realizing he’d done the very thing you accused him of. He swallowed.

“Please,” he amended quickly, turning back to you. “Let’s go up. Let me try again where there’s less noise between us. We need some sleep, the road ahead is still long.”

You wanted to argue, you wanted to stay and drink until the sting dulled and the ring turned into a simple circle of metal in a pouch belonging to someone else’s story, but the truth was your bones ached, you were tired and the room’s warmth had turned you sleepy, so the thought of climbing the stairs wasn’t that unappealing as you wanted it.

“Fine,” you said, which meant no, but I don’t know how to make this better here. You stood, the bench scraped the floor and Sihtric rose a heartbeat later. His untouched ale winked at you from the table as you left it behind. 

The hall upstairs was colder, your breath showing in the air, the stuck door surrendered under Sihtric’s assertive palm, and the stubbornly small bed greeted you from its place at the wall. 

Sihtric fed the fire this time while you slipped out of your boots and aligned them near the bed before sliding under the blanket without a word, turning your back to the room and to him, making yourself a stripe along the far edge, as if trying to blend in with the wall. 

The mattress bowed, tugging you meekly toward the middle but you refused the slide by sheer will.

Sihtric lingered at the foot of the bed, hands loose at his sides. He didn’t move at first, but you could still feel him there.

You’d never turned cold on him before, and the shock of it rattled his bones as he spun the evening back. 

The room breathed with the ember-glow from the heart, rain drumming against the shutters, and your small, stubborn stillness under the blanket. 

Sihtric scrubbed a hand over his face. The pouch at his belt nudged his hip. Did it start there? He’d tried to speak and only stammered like a boy caught with warm bread under his tunic. How could he tell you he’d bought it for you? That he’d seen a delicate, beautiful thing and thought of your hands at once? He had no right to say that, and no good moment to give it. There wouldn’t be one. 

He pictured you downstairs at the bench, the way your mouth had tried to smile and couldn’t quite, the flinch when he’d cut off your ale, the way your voice had gone careful. He hated that careful, he wanted your easy, your laugh, your elbow in his ribs and your cheeky feed me and the warmth you gave him without even noticing it, but it all came more and more seldom lately. 

Sihtric sat on the edge of the bed as if it might buck him, careful not to jostle you, but the frame answered with a low, traitorous creak. He kept his eyes on the floor, looking at your turned back hurt too much. 

You shivered under the thick wool, and he knew you’d been right, it would be warmer to share it. You’d offered. He’d refused, out of fear, not of you, but of himself. Had his clumsy excuses already betrayed him? Gods, let them not. He wanted you warm and he wanted you not angry with him. 

“I don’t mean to make your world smaller,” he said into the half-dark. “Or to choose for you things that are yours to choose. If I do it, it’s fear that makes me.” He huffed a breath that might have been a laugh if it had any light in it. 

You said nothing, the blanket rasped under your chin and your eyes burned in a way that had nothing to do with smoke from the heart. 

“I don’t want you to feel kept,” he added, softer. “Only…kept safe.”

You pressed your lips together in a thin hard line. This was not what you wanted to hear.  

“May I lie here?” he finally asked. “On top of the blanket. I’ll keep still.” He forced himself to wait for the beat where you could say no. You didn’t, but you also didn’t say yes.

He lowered himself slowly, staying on the wool, leaving a good hand’s width of air between you. The bed dipped and tried to pull you together, but he braced against it. 

He studied the space between your shoulders, breathed in and reached, then stopped, swallowed, reached again, only his fingertips to the back of your hand, a touch light enough to take back as if it hadn’t been there.

You flinched, he reeled, withdrawing, fear spiking clean through his chest. 

You didn’t want him to notice how your whole body trembled and ached for something you didn’t even know a name for, just that it had to do with his warm breath at your neck.

“I’m cold,” you whispered, and the tight band around Sithric’s ribs loosened a little.

“May I?” he asked again, quieter. “You choose. All of it. If you want me on the floor, say it and I’m there. If you want me to leave the room, I’ll take the rain. If you want…”

You didn’t answer with words, but you moved, you inched closer, just a finger’s width. 

Your back still didn’t speak to him, and he hated it. Carefully he slid his forearm across your middle, letting the mattress dip and shift him closer. He could always tell it wasn’t him, it was the treacherous straw shifting beneath his weight. He held his breath like a man who had stepped onto thin ice and wasn’t sure it would hold.

He felt your fingers find his and press, small but sure, and relief ran through him so hard it stung his eyes. 

“Say something,” he asked at last, not command but plea.

You didn’t trust what would come out if you tried, so you let your hand slide over his and pressed it closer to you, answer enough. The heat of him poured in through the thick wool between you, but you shivered only more.

Sihtric eased closer, the length of him fitting to the line of you as if the bed had been carved for this. 

“I just want you warm. If you want me to let go, say it,” he murmured in your ear.

You didn’t say anything, but you didn’t push him away either, you just lay silently until your breaths found a shared rhythm, the kind that would have embarrassed you to notice in the daylight. 

“For what it’s worth,” he said after a while. “I don’t think you’re a child. I think you are brave and  clever. I think…” He swallowed whatever was supposed to come next. “Sleep,” he said instead. “Please.”

You closed your eyes, feeling the careful way he held himself, muscle by muscle reined in, so you wouldn’t mistake warmth for something else and all you wanted was to cry, because you didn’t want the warmth, you wanted that something else, that thing he held back, that was not yours to ask for, that must already belong to the lucky woman whose finger would fit that delicate ring. 

You meant to sleep, you almost did, muscles loosening, as you shifted, not intentionally, just reaching for the warmth radiating off his body and pressing your back towards Sihtric a fraction more. The bed answered with a low creak, the mattress dipping even more and pressing you tighter together in the middle of it and his body, human and tired, answered too, a slow, involuntary rock of his hips against you that drew a silent curse from him and a startled spark from you.

Sihtric went rigid, everything in him stilled but his heartbeat against your spine.

“I’m sorry,” he breathed, and you swore you could hear the scrape of his teeth against the word. “I shouldn’t… It won’t happen again.”

You swallowed and before you could think better of it, your body moved of its own accord with a slow, deliberate rock of your hips back into him and against the unmistakably hard bulge in his crotch now pressing firmly against your ass. You both drew in a ragged breath and went very still. 

His breath broke, his arm twitched to release you, and the mattress dipped as he began to pull away.

“I’ll go,” he whispered, voice wrecked. “I’ll take the floor, no… I’ll take the stables  I’m… I’m sorry.”

You turned and caught his wrist before he could retreat. “Wait, please.” The words surprised you with how quickly they came, with your heart a war drum and mouth suddenly dry. 

“I won’t touch you,” he said, hoarse. “I didn’t mean… I…” he stammered.

“Sihtric,” the dark made you brave. “I’m not afraid of you.”

He tried to laugh and couldn’t.

“I… I don’t have experience with this,” you admitted, clumsy, honest, tugging the words out one by one “but… but does that mean… does that mean that you want me? Like a man wants a woman…” 

He breathed once, deeply, and then again, as if relearning it.

“I can’t make it stop,” he said. “Not with you here, not with the bed pulling us like this.”

His eyes were huge in the low light, mismatched and stricken.

“You didn’t answer my question.” Your voice was steadier now. “I need you to tell me the truth.” You wet your lips. “Do you want me?”

He shut his eyes like a man awaiting the executioner’s blade. “Yes,” he answered quietly. 

“I know I shouldn’t, I have no right to… I just… I can’t stop it.” A breath, ragged. “I’ll ask Uhtred to send someone else with you next time.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” you asked.

His jaw tightened before he answered. “Because you trusted me.”

“I still do.”

“You shouldn’t,” he whispered, the words tasting like ash.

You held his gaze. “And if I told you I want you too?”

For a moment, he didn’t breathe, not properly, not in any way that would give his lungs air, he sat up abruptly and then scrambled to his knees ready to flee. His voice cracked and failed, his fingers curled into the bedding. 

“You don’t mean that,” he managed at last, hoarse and frayed.

“I do,” you said, as steady as you could make it, following him upright. 

Your hand reached out, it trembled, but it found him anyway, cupping his cheek, stubble rasped your palm, and Sihtric’s breath caught audibly. Your thumb hovered, then grazed the soft part of his lower lip, unsure of what to do.

“Tell me to stop,” you whispered, because you had to, because you needed to give him the way out, even if your whole body prayed he wouldn’t take it.

He shook his head, a small, stunned movement.

“Don’t,” he breathed, almost soundless and your palm stayed on his cheek. You felt the rough nap of stubble under your thumb, the fine give of muscle clenching and easing as he held perfectly still for you.

You let your thumb trace the bow of his mouth once more, slower this time, learning the shape you’d been pretending not to study for months. 

Your mouth went dry and you wet your lower lip and saw his eyes flick there and back, the tiniest betrayed hunger, gone as soon as it showed.

You leaned in and missed the angle by a breath, your nose brushed his in an awkward bump and you pulled back a finger’s width, mortified and breathless.

He reached for you then, two fingers first, cautious at your jaw, then the rest, warm and trembling, cradling your face as his thumb traced a slow line along your cheek. 

You let the world blur and closed the final distance with your mouth, pressing your lips to his.

God, the sound that escaped him, a low, helpless moan, that vibrated softly against your mouth, setting every fine hair along your neck on end.

He tasted of rain and warmth, of ale and the faint smoke that clung to his skin from the hall, the press of his mouth deepened against yours and the warmth of him rolled over you in slow waves.

His lips moved over yours in a tender and searching rhythm, his tongue brushed the seam of your lips gently, making your breath catch and heat blossom between your ribs, spreading outward in waves that made your skin hum.

His hand shifted from your jaw to your neck, fingers brushing the delicate sweep just beneath your ear, and his thumb traced the edge of your throat.

You exhaled through your nose, slow and shaking, and leaned into the touch.

He broke away for breath, and your fingers slid into his hair, still slightly damp, thick and soft at the roots, and you tugged gently, not wanting to let him go. 

“Sihtric,” you said softly, feeling the way his body went alert at the sound of his name on your lips.

“Mm?” he murmured.

“Again,” you said.

He groaned softly against your lips, a low, fractured sound that sent sparks tripping down your spine. He kissed you again and this time it was exactly how you always imagined he would, like he was starving for it, like he’d been holding this back for far too long.

You parted your lips for him, not because you knew how to ask, but because it felt right, and he answered by slipping his tongue between them. You let him in and a soft moan escaped you the moment his tongue brushed yours, making your pulse suddenly pound between your thighs.

His mouth never truly left yours, just shifted, tasting you, learning you, returning over and over like he couldn’t bear the space between breaths. You sighed softly against him when his tongue brushed against yours again, coaxing, tender, and then dipped to graze your bottom lip.

Then he sucked, lightly, deliberately, drawing your lip between his, tugging it with the faintest edge of playfulness that sent a shiver straight down your spine.

He pulled back just enough to let you breathe, and you did, just barely, your lips tingled, kissed-sore and trembling.

“Too much?” he whispered against your throat, his lips brushing the place where your pulse fluttered.

“Not enough,” you breathed, barely able to speak around the ache in your chest. “Please!” You begged leaning into him, your whole body feeling on fire and the only balm – his mouth. 

He blinked, slowly, as if the words cost him something to hear. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“I think I do.”

“You’ve never…” He broke off, gaze skidding away. “You’ve nothing to measure this by. It could be…” he swallowed, “A mistake. I could be too much, or not enough.”

“That makes no sense, Sihtric, you know it does not,” your mouth tilted, humor and hurt in equal parts. “Do you truly want someone else to touch me first so I can bring you a comparison?”

You reached for him again and your palm found his chest, fingers curling into the linen at his collarbone. His heart hammered against your hand, but he didn’t pull back.

“I don’t want a comparison,” you said. “I want you. Exactly as you are.”

“We cannot undo it if you regret it,” he warned.

“Then let me decide. Don’t take it from me again, let me, for once, choose for myself.”

His hand still cradled your hip like a fragile thing. “You think you’re ready for what this means, but … but you don’t even know what that truly is…” 

“Then I want you to teach me,” you continued, your voice softer now, but unshaking. “I want you to be the one to show me.”

Sihtric closed his eyes, as if the weight of your certainty was harder to bear than rejection.

Your lips brushed his cheek, then his temple, your breath trembling but sure. “I trust you.”

His hands moved again, one rising to your face, the other curling fully around your waist now, no longer feather-light, firm, claiming, holding you like a man surrendering.

You pressed your forehead to his, your lips just brushing the edge of his mouth, your voice barely more than a breath:

“I want to feel safe in your hands. I want to learn what it means to be loved because of who I am, not in spite of it.”

His hand moved, hesitated a heartbeat and then slid from your waist to the small of your back as he pulled you toward him.

You let him, your hands found the edge of his armor, fingertips grazing the rough leather, the ridges of laces and buckles as you slowly, clumsily started to work them open. He didn’t say a word, only watched your fingers move, as if your hands stripping him down were some kind of miracle he didn’t dare interrupt.

You loosened the first strap across his chest, then the next, the armor began to fall away, piece by piece and you ran your hands up under his tunic next, fingertips skating over the ridges of old scars, the dip between ribs, the steady rhythm of his breath against your palms.  You pulled the garment upward and over his head and Sihtric drew in a sharp breath and stilled. You paused, looking at his bare torso.

You had never thought about it, never let your mind wander so far as to what you would find beneath that leather armour. 

Sihtric’s broad chest rose and fell in fast and unsteady rhythm as you took him in. He was scarred and, God, he was beautiful. 

Sihtric’s first instinct was to hide, but your gaze was so soft, unafraid, you didn’t flinch from the scars, you didn’t ask where they came from, you just… touched.

You reached out, tracing a pale gash over his ribs with the soft pad of your finger and his breath hitched and picked up. No one had ever touched him like that before, like his wounds deserved reverence instead of shame.

And then you leaned in and pressed your lips there, his breath broke, a sound escaped him that he didn’t recognize, like something trapped in his chest had finally found its way out.

Your lips were soft, warm, human. His cock twitched in his pants and he had to bite back a groan.

Sihtric’s hand came up, cupped the back of your neck, thumb brushing the edge of your jaw and he bowed his head, eyes closing and lips parted. 

You kissed higher, up his chest, to the hollow of his throat, tasting salt and skin, and something that felt like home. He moaned quietly into your mouth as you pressed your lips to his again. 

He guided you gently back onto the bed and your legs parted instinctively, his thigh slid between yours, and your knee curled around his hip, anchoring him close, closer than you'd ever imagined being with anyone, closer than you thought your heart could bear.

That made him shudder, visibly, completely, a sound caught low in his throat, something like a groan and a gasp tangled together. He pressed forward again, hips shifting without thought, and you felt him hard and pulsing against you.

Your hands slid down his broad back, feeling the strength beneath the fine tremors in his muscles, he was holding himself back with everything he had.

Sihtric’s body began to move over yours, learning you by the way you softened beneath his weight, or how your breath caught when his hips nudged forward again, how your hands clung to him in quiet desperation.

He kissed your cheek, your shoulder, the soft spot beneath your ear that made your breath stutter.

You tilted your head back, offering your throat to him, not because he asked, but because you wanted it, you craved that soft touch of his lips on your racing pulse.

His mouth trailed lower, pressing open-mouthed kisses along your collarbone, warm and wet and slow. His hands slid down your sides, palms warm through the linen, as he pushed the hem of your tunic upward, inch by inch.

His knuckles brushed the underside of your breast, and his breath faltered sharply.

“Can I…” he didn’t finish, you nodded eagerly, your lips parted, your chest rising in anticipation as you lifted your arms wordlessly, helping him to pull the tunic over your head.

“You're… gods, you're perfect,” he whispered, when the fabric slipped away exposing your breasts to him.

He cupped your breast with both hands, his thumbs brushing over your stiff peaks. His lips followed, trailing down to the center of your chest. He took you in his mouth, sucking softly at  your nipple, and a sharp wave of pleasure made your hips shift against him.

You moaned, soft and surprised, and he groaned in response, the sound vibrating against your skin.

You gasped when his fingers found your waistband, then whimpered as he eased your trousers down. His palms callused and rough skimmed your thighs with a gentleness that made your breath catch. He bent to your neck, you raked your fingers through his hair as he kissed and sucked lightly at the tender place there, and you arched into him, greedy for more.

“Beautiful… so so beautiful,” he whispered into your ear and your breath stuttered when his hand slid between your legs. You opened for him without thinking, a soft, helpless sound left you as Sihtric fit himself between your thighs and his fingers dipped into your core.

A low satisfied chuckle left him as he parted your folds and found slick. 

Your eyes widened in surprise and you drew a sharp breath as he teased your entrance with one finger and then pressed it inside. The stretch was new and startling. He groaned low in his throat as your tightness closed around him.

His thumb found the small, aching knot of pleasure at the top of your cunt and circled gently, you bit your lip to swallow the sound that rose, failed and let it out anyway. The noise that clawed through you was raw and unguarded, your head snapping back onto the pillow. Shame flickered, then vanished at Sihtric’s pleased hum.

“Good girl, don’t keep it inside,” he coaxed softly. “Let it out, let me hear you.”

His thumb drew slow, coaxing circles around your perl as he slid a second finger in. You gasped and he stilled, waiting for your body to welcome it before he started to move them and your thoughts scattered. 

You had never felt anything like this. Your hands fisted in his hair, your back arched against the mattress and your breath stuttered, melting into wild whines and whimpers as he began to stroke, steady and patient, his fingers gliding in and out, thumb rubbing that sweet spot. You held onto him and rocked your hips to meet him, to chase that insane feeling you had no words to describe. 

“Greedy little minx,” Sihtric hummed as he dipped to kiss the skin between your breasts, then took your nipple back into his mouth, tongue and lips teasing in time with his fingers. 

You whined when Sihtric’s mouth left your breast and started traveling lower. Fingers still sliding in and out of your wet cunt, his lips traced your ribs, your belly, the soft flesh in the inner of your thigh. 

The first soft lap of his tongue against your slick made you jolt, your back bowing off the mattress.

“God, Sihtric, what…” you whimpered, but the question dissolved into a long, broken moan as his lips sealed around your pearl and sucked. You cried out, fingers tangling harder in his hair, trying to squirm away, but he didn’t let you. Sihtric’s large palms on your hips pinned you down while his tongue continued its onslaught on your cunt. 

You pushed up on your elbows just enough to see him settled between your thighs, face buried in your cunt, eyes glassy and half lid as his tongue worked you in quick, sure strokes. 

You fell back, thighs trembling and he groaned against you, his tongue flicking over your perl.

“Good girl, my perfect, sweet, beautiful girl,” he breathed against you, just as his third finger slid inside. 

You let go of his hair and dug your fingers into the blanket beneath you in a desperate attempt to steady yourself. Sihtric’s hand kept moving in a steady rhythm while his tongue and lips licked and suckled your pearl. You felt your body clenching around his fingers and he moaned into you at the grip, the sound vibrating through your skin.

The wanton sounds spilling from you surprised you even as they kept coming, tangled with his low groans and the faint grind of his hips against the bed. He curled his fingers against the inner wall of your cunt, digging them into a place that made you cry out as heat coiled tight and  then bursted with sparks behind your half lid eyes and butterflies in your bones as indescribable pleasure tore through you hot and shaking. Your jaw slacked, your head snapped back and your body shook in waves of pleasure.

He stayed with you, fingers deep, letting you ride out the high, his mouth gentled only when the last shudder loosened, when your body sank back into the mattress limp, pliant and spent and the last of your moans faded away into the dark.

“The sweetest girl,” he murmured, kissing a path up your belly toward your mouth. You whined when he eased his fingers free, he soothed the sound with a kiss to your forehead, then your lips.

“What was that?” you breathed when your wide eyes found his. For all you’d been told, all you knew – being with a man was supposed to hurt and yet this had been the most breathtakingly, sinfully, devastatingly beautiful sensation you’d ever known.

“Shhh,” he hushed, threading his fingers through your damp, tumbled hair. “You asked me to teach you. That was your first lesson, sweet girl.” His mouth brushed yours. “Your pleasure comes first. Always.”

“But… what … what about you?” you whispered.

“Don’t worry for me, sweetheart,” he said softly. “Another time.”

You shook your head, stubborn and certain, and reached for the waistband of his breeches. “I want to see you,” you said, barely above a breath. “Please.”

He paused, his hand covering yours, eyes searching your face. With a sigh that sounded like surrender, he gently moved your hand aside and undid the laces himself. His cock throbbed against the fabric, begging, and still he didn’t rush.

You watched him stand and push the breeches down, kicking them aside before turning back to you. Your eyes widened at how long and thick, flushed and veiny he was, beautiful in a way you hadn’t known to imagine.

“You don’t owe me anything. You’ve already given me too much,” he said as he came closer.

“May I… may I touch you?” Your gaze stayed fixed, wonder-struck.

“You… want to?” Bewilderment colored his voice, tender and raw.

“Please!” you asked again.

Sihtric swallowed and nodded, you reached, fingertips running the length of him, silk over heat, smooth and impossibly soft-skinned, red at the slightly leaking tip. He shivered, breath catching, and the darkness in his eyes made you brave.

“Tell me what to do,” you asked, wrapping your hand around him. It felt heavy and hot in your hand. 

“What… wait…” Sihtric breathed as you suddenly leaned in and pressed a gentle kiss to the tip, your tongue flicking out as it licked the bead of precum at the tip. 

He almost lost it then and there. By gods, he had never even dared to imagine your lips near his cock.

Sihtric’s cock twitched heavily in your palm and you let it go, afraid you had done something wrong. 

“You kissed me there,” you whispered crimson creeping up your neck. “and it felt heavenly. I thought… I thought it would feel the same for you.”

“It does… oh gods, it does… I just…. ” Sihtric stuttered, his fingers curled under your jaw as he pushed your chin up to meet your eyes. 

“Tell me… teach me,” you whispered, looking up at him, licking your lips and inching closer again. 

Sihtric’s thumb skimmed your bottom lip, and you parted your mouth just slightly, your tongue flicking against his thumb.

“I… I will put it in your mouth…,” Sihtric’s voice almost cracked and you felt his fingers shiver under your chin. You opened your mouth wider, waiting, eyes up on him. 

He took his cock in his hand and put the tip on your tongue. You licked it, circling his sensitive tip with your tongue just as you remembered his tongue circling your perl. He moaned, loud and unrestrained, his hips jerked forward, pushing more of him into your mouth and you gagged on it.

Sihtric pulled back and his hand reached for yours, placing it at the base of his length, wrapping your fingers around it.

“You can guide me, if it gets too much,” he said as his cock slid back deeper inside your mouth. Instinctively you closed your lips around him and his breath hitched audibly. 

His hand tangled in your hair and you let him guide you as he slowly started to fuck into you mouth. You were quick to catch the movement, your grip on him tightened as you took over bobbing your head up and down his length, letting your tongue slide over his underside and lick at his tip.

Sihtric’s head snapped back, as he hissed, muffled and restrained at first, but after a few moments he couldn’t hold it back anymore. You felt his cock throbbed in your mouth and encouraged by the sinful sounds that started to leave him you fastened your pace until his grip in your hair tightened and he pulled you off him with a wet plop.

Sihtric breathed heavily as he leaned down and kissed you, pushing you slowly back onto the bed as he held your legs open and crawled between them.

He took his cock in his hand and dragged it through your wet and swollen folds. You whimpered, your head tipping back as he stopped at your entrance.

He pushed just the very tip inside you and you whined. It was hot and pulsing, and huge. 

“Hold on to me,” he whispered against your throat. “Mark me up.”

You nodded, holding on to his broad shoulders.

His other hand found your pearl and rubbed it, making your back arch again, and then he pushed forward. Your walls stretched around him and you whimpered. 

He didn’t stop. He groaned and pressed further. It stung. Your body protested the intrusion, the unusual stretch, you whined as tears popped in the corners of your eyes. Sihtric groaned and paused, breathing heavily into the crook of your neck. 

“It… it doesn’t fit …” you whined, digging your nails into his flesh with full force, certain to leave marks. 

"Shh... just a little bit more," Sihtric murmured against your lips as he stilled within you and then with one sharp motion he thrust into you, breaching the thin barrier that was holding him back and sliding deep inside you. 

You felt him, all of him, filling the space inside you, stretching you beyond possible, you cried out and felt Sihtric’s arms instantly wrapping around you. 

“That’s it, you have me,” he whispered, brushing his nose against yours. “I‘m yours. I’m forever yours." He held you tight against him, kissing away the few salty tears that had rolled down your cheeks. 

Your breath evened out as the sting slowly faded, leaving only the feeling of impossible fullness, as you felt his cock pulsing and twitching inside you, yet he didn’t move.

“Are you good?” he whispered into your ear and you nodded, swallowing hard, equally afraid and eager of what was to come next.

You felt him slowly drag his cock from you, the sudden feeling of emptiness making you whine. He mistook it for pain and stilled again completely. 

Your lips searched his. “More,” you pleaded against them, as Sihtric kissed you and thrusted back into you, filling you completely again. 

“I love you. I’ve always loved you. From the very first moment I saw that warm smile hiding behind Osferth’s back,” he breathed out as he did it again, the slow drag of his cock against your walls lightening up every nerve in your body. It was as if your senses had suddenly sharpened to the impossible. You felt every ridge of his cock, every shudder, every pulse of him inside you. You felt his breath burning your skin, and the soft press of his thumb against your pearl sent your senses reeling. 

He kissed you again, and you moaned softly against his lips. It spurred him on, he groaned against your mouth and fastened his pace. 

He buried his face into the crook of your neck and you felt his ragged breath on your skin. It didn’t take long before pleasure bloomed again in your abdomen, spreading all along your body till the very ends of your fingertips.

It was different, sharper, hotter. His cock thrusted in and out of you, brushing against your swollen walls, and with every thrust his pelvis rubbed up against your pearl. You felt heat flowing through your veins and you began to push back against his thrusts, wanting and needing more.

He could feel it, the way your impossibly tight walls pulsed around him and squeezed him. Your breath was picking up with each drag of his cock, your muffled whines and whimpers fading into moans, turning him on to the brink of madness. Sihtric gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, trying to ground himself, to prevent himself from starting to wildly pound into you. 

“Feel it, embrace it, let go,” he whispered in your ear. “Give into the pleasure,” he groaned, breath getting more ragged with every thrust. You were too gone already, too drunk on the heat and pleasure. 

Your eyes rolled back in your head, your jaw slacked again and all you could do was to hold on to Sihtric’s shoulders as you shattered with a broken moan against him. Climax washed over you in hot pulsing waves sweeping everything in their wake. 

Sihtric’s pace slipped loose, it got harder, then uneven, before he buried a gasp against your neck and seized, shuddering, release racing through him in long, helpless beats as he spilled inside you, filling you with endless spurts of his hot seed. 

He kept rocking his hips slowly against you, until the last tremor faded and you went still in his arms. You felt his cock growing limp inside you but he did not make the move to pull it from you and when he finally moved, it wasn’t to leave but to pull you closer, to shift next to you, while his hand smoothed over your back, tracing small circles that had no purpose except to remind you he was real.

You felt the tremor leave his body, the weight of him soften, and for a long time, you simply breathed together. 

At last he shifted carefully, gently sliding out of you, but  still keeping you close, gathering you into his arms like something he meant to carry even in sleep. You went with him, tucked beneath his chin, your leg slipping between his as if your bodies already knew how to rest together.

“Was I…” he began, then faltered, and you looked up at him.

“You were good,” you said. “You were careful and you didn’t let me go.”

His throat worked, a flicker of emotion moving through him too quickly to name. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“It hurt a little,” you admitted, honest as breath. “But not the wrong kind and not the way I was expecting it.”

Morning found you warm and weightless, naked, your legs tangled with Sihtric’s under the blanket, his cloak draped over you both like a second hush. The hearth had gone to a soft red heart and the rain was only a memory on the shutter. Your cheek rested on Sihtric’s shoulder, his arm lay heavy at your waist, hand tucked into the hollow above your hip as if it had always belonged there.

You shifted and his palm tightened, drawing you back until your spine met his chest. He made a small sound, half-groan, half-contentment, and pressed two drowsy kisses to your shoulder, the rasp of his stubble a soft scrape that raised a shiver. 

Careful not to jostle the narrow bed, you eased his arm down and unwound your legs from his. He let you go, slow and reluctant, fingertips tracing once along your side as you turned to face him.

Light from the shuttered window cut a pale line across his cheekbone, and his mismatched eyes seemed to glow in that soft shimmer, but something in his expression made your brow crease. It was the look of a man bracing for a thing he meant to say, courage gathering behind it. 

“If you want,” he murmured, thumb brushing a stray strand from your brow, “if it’s easier… if you want me to forget last night, to pretend nothing happened, just tell me.”

You went very still as the quiet between you changed shape, getting thin, sharp and painful.

He swallowed. “I mean…, ” the sentence faltered, but he tried again, softer. “Daylight is… unkind and certain things look different… If… if you need quiet, I’ll keep it.”

“Of course,” you said, the words orderly, the hurt beneath not, as you put all your willpower into them to sound at ease. ““Daylight is honest,” you continued, sharper than you meant. “It shows things as they are. I won’t remind you of anything.”

Your lashes lowered to keep the tears from spilling and you missed the quick flicker of hurt that crossed his face just to be tucked away in the next heartbeat. 

Sithric’s hand withdrew, falling to the blanket.

“Right,” he said, voice careful to be nothing at all. “Of course.”

What a fool he had been to hope. Deep down he had known you would regret it came the daylight and Sihtric was not the kind of man who asked to keep what he did not think he deserved. If you wanted last night folded away, he had no right to do anything else than to tuck it as far as he could and throw away the keys to the drawers. 

You heard only his agreement and took it for relief.

He’s glad I said it, you thought, and the thought stung worse than you’d braced for. Of course he is, there’s someone else, you knew it. You knew it the moment you had seen the ring. It had been so foolish of you to ask for something that wasn’t yours to have. 

You sat up, drew the blanket to your chest and turned away. He let his arm slip from your waist, moving like a man careful not to break what was already cracked. 

You swung your legs over the edge of the bed and stood up, letting his cloak slip away and embracing the chill threading your skin.

You both dressed without looking at each other. 

He found his breeches by the bed and laced them with fumbling fingers. You pulled your shirt over your head and cursed at the stubborn ribbons that didn’t want to yield to your shaking hands. He almost offered help, and then didn’t, because help now would be presumption.

He found your boots and set them by your foot without meeting your eyes. You took them with a small nod but you didn’t thank him, because thanks now would be a confession.

His knife went back to his belt.

Your hair was twisted back into something passable with hands that trembled.

She regrets it, he told himself, and tasted iron.

He wants someone else, you thought, and the ring in his pouch burned a hole in your heart.

When you were both buttoned back into the people you knew how to be, your eyes betrayed you and, despite yourselves, you both glanced toward the narrow bed.

The blanket still held the hollow where your bodies had met, his cloak lay rumpled like a second shadow.

Longing clawed through you like a tide, threatening to drown you, a matching ache crossed his face and vanished, as if it had never been, but neither of you noticed it, your eyes glued to the simple straw mattress.

He cleared his throat, softening his voice to the one he used with skittish horses.

“We should get breakfast,” he said. Not a question. Safer ground. Daylight words.

You nodded, not trusting your voice not to tremble. You turned and suddenly the room tilted, you stumbled and Sihtric was there before the thought could finish, his hands closing around your elbows.

“Easy,” he murmured. You caught your breath. He didn’t let go.

Up close, you saw it clearly: the fine tremor in his fingers, the way he made himself smaller, shoulders drawn inward, like bracing for a blow.

“I’m sorry…” he began, apology already forming.

“Don’t,” you said, too quickly, your voice splintering. You tried to swallow it down but failed, the tears welled anyway, hot and unbidden.  “It was my decision. All along.”

You dragged in a breath that scraped the inside of your throat. “I knew there was someone else.”

He froze.

“Someone… else?” he echoed, blank, stunned, as though you’d spoken a language he no longer understood.

You laughed, a single, small sound that broke on the way out.

“The ring, Sihtric. I’m not blind,” you shook your head hard, blinking fast. “You don’t have to explain. I don’t want… comparison.”

Sihtric’s jaw clenched once, then again, as though he’d bitten into something sour.

“The ring,” he said, quietly and felt you flinch.

“Breakfast,” you said, slipping from his arms, and your hand reached for the door handle.

Sihtric’s fingers closed around your wrist and turned you. The door caught your back with a soft thud and he stopped a breath away, shoulders squared as if holding up a collapsing roof, then forced himself to ease.

“I won’t crowd you,” he said, voice roughened. “If you say go, I go. But…” he swallowed. “You have to tell me what I’m standing in.”

You blinked and he drew a breath like preparing for the final judgement.

“When I said we could pretend nothing happened, I didn’t mean I want to forget it,” he went on. “I meant, if you feel you made a mistake, if you regret it, I can’t undo the night, but I can refuse to make it a debt. If keeping your smile means I pull out my heart and bury it, I’ll do it.”

He searched your face as if for a sign he’d missed in the dark. “I gave you everything I had last night – all the care I know, all the truth I’ve swallowed for months. If I’ve mistaken you or if I’ve hurt you, say it clean and I will take it. I’ll take anything you say, but I can’t take guessing.”

“Sihtric…” 

“Everything I said to you last night is true. I love you, I’ve always had,” he released your wrist only long enough to reach for the pouch on his belt. 

He laid the ring in his palm between you, hands trembling.

“This,” he said, eyes on you, not the metal. “This has always been yours. There is nobody else. I meant it for you the first moment I saw it, I only lacked the courage to say it.”

You felt your bottom lip tremble as you fought for any coherent words that stubbornly refused to leave your throat.

“Say you believe me,” he asked and your breath snagged. 

“I do,” you managed at last. “I believe you and… and  I love you too,” you sobbed and watched the ache and the awe move through his mismatched eyes like weather breaking.

“Good,” he breathed, lifting your hand and putting the small delicate ring on your finger. 

And then he kissed you.

Not cautious, not this time, he kissed you like a man who had been careful for years and had finally been handed permission to be whole. His mouth was warm and sure, the press honest and hungry. The door steadied you when your knees went foolish, his hand steadied you more, sliding from your waist to the small of your back, drawing you flush. 

You opened to him and he deepened the kiss, a rough sound escaping into your mouth. His palm lifted to cradle your jaw and your own hands rose without thinking, one fisting lightly in his shirt, the other tangling in his hair. 

The kiss said what both of you had tried and failed to name – no one else; never anyone else; mine if you want; yours if you’ll have me – until the last of the old doubts ran out of places to hide.

“Breakfast?” he asked, pulling back just enough to look at you, one hand sliding up your spine to cradle the base of your neck. His thumb brushed your jaw.

𝐔𝐡𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐝

・In the late afternoon sun, you were riding in the march towards the battlefield.

・Not far from Uhtred, you heard the gallop of someone approaching.

"Lady," a young soldier said.

"Aye, you have eyes. Good for you," you replied without looking at him.

"No, Lady, you've been summoned."

・You snorted.

・As did your horse.

Your voice fell flat as you spoke, "no one summons me."

・The young soldier looked around for help, and his eyes saw Uhtred, who broke from the formation.

"She is right, no one summons her-" Uhtred began to say.

But the young, and quite nervous, soldier, butted in "-sir please, can you tell your wife that she is needed elsewhere."

・You looked at Uhtred, who looked at the soldier than at you.

・Father Pyrlig had appeared from nowhere (he had been galloping behind the soldier trying to get him to stop before he reached you.)

"Did you not hear me, boy?" Pyrlig rasped from his horse.

"No Father Pyrlig, I had my orders-"

"You have been a soldier for all of five minutes and now look. You've made things awkward. And held up the line. Look! Anyway. I was trying to tell you...she listens to no one but Uhtred."

And without missing a beat, the boy-soldier said,

"Yes, like a good wife should."

𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐧

・You had been in a constant battle of wits with Finan all morning.

・The rule was that the first to break i.e., smile/laugh, would lose and have to do what the other says for the rest of the day

・As noon ticked by, Uhtred's men and yourself had reached your destination.

・Men nodded to one another, climbing off of horses and clasping arms.

・It wasn't until a young ... well you couldn't even call him a man yet, he barely fit the uniform...

・So the young man had approached you two, helmet still on and asked, "why did you bring your wife to battle?"

・Both, you and Finan blanched.

・You looked at Finan, who looked back at you and smirked.

"Aye, can't get rid of her. So, I just take her with me," and then the Irishman shrugged.

・Your nose flared.

・The young soldier nodded and disappeared.

・Finan started laughing.

・You were bright red.

"Finan...I win."

"What? No!"

"Yes! You smiled! You're laughing!"

"Only because -"

"No, Finan. Rules are rules. You must do what I say for the rest of the day, Husband."

・But oh...You have no idea what that word, coming from your mouth, does to him.

・He so desperately wants it to be true.

𝐒𝐢𝐡𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐜

・You laughed along with Finan, spilling ale and wheezing at his jokes. A funny man became hilarious when drink had been drunk...

・Sihtric watched from the opposite bench, with stars in his eyes as he looked at you.

・He had barely drunk any ale, but still smiled, with everyone revelling around him; all he could think about was you.

・Truth be told, you were on his mind constantly.

・At night he lay with your smile in his mind. The way you rolled your eyes behind Uhtred's back. Or the way you pointed out cows when travelling.

・You hadn't drunk this much in a long while. But you wanted to celebrate with everyone else.

・But with Osferth gone to bed, Finan being hoisted onto the back of Uhtred, Sihtric was ... well he was your designated handler.

・Ushering you out the door, you walked ... well, you wobbled to your room

・Finan was nearly unconscious, but still making it difficult for Uhtred to carry him.

"I want another drink-" Finan began, and Sihtric laughed, "there is more in your room."

"Oh, is there!" You said, turning to face him. But the movement was too much and you tripped.

・Luckily Sihtric had caught you.

・Then an unfamiliar voice sounded behind you all, making Sihtric, Uhtred and yourself turn:

"Your wife seems quite the handful!" The man said and kept on walking.

"That was odd," Sihtric murmured.

𝐎𝐬𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐡

・You two had risen with the sun, unlike Uhtred, Finan and Sihtric.

・You decided to take a stroll with one another. It was a thing you did together often. Both close friends, having spent much time together, you grew to like his company...

・In the dim morning light, you walked through the edge of town, and came across two girls. Sisters. Not many years apart.

・They were both holding a bunch of wild flowers, and walked straight toward you two and looked at Osferth.

・It was the older girl who spoke, "Does your wife want a flower? They're pretty!"

・Osferth was shook to the core.

・But you just smiled and nudged him.

"H-How much?" Osferth asked, and the girls squealed. They had not approached you two for business.

・Osferth gave them more money than they had ever seen (which wasn't much in the big picture of things. But to two girls under ten, it was a lot.)

・They gave you half the bunch and ran home, giggling all the way.

・You looked at Osferth, and suddenly became shy. He looked at you and smiled, tucking one flower behind your ear and handing you the rest.

𝐀𝐥𝐝𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐦

・A month had gone by since the last time you saw Aldhelm and you missed him dearly.

・unbeknownst to him, he had missed you more than you could imagine.

・You finally had the chance to visit Mercia and so you went.

・Travelling the roads until you got to the gates.

・Lady Æthelflæd was glad to receive you. She knew the feelings Aldhelm had for you, but she never pried.

・After refreshing yourself, you walked to his chambers and knocked on the door.

"Just a moment," a called out. He was nearly completely dressed to walk out the door.

・You didn't say anything

・Aldhlem opened the door and his jaw nearly fell to the floor.

"Why didn't you tell me it was you!"

・His arms slid around you, pulling you flush against him.

"I wanted to surprise you!"

"Well consider yourself accomplished. Because I am."

・All you could do was smile. And hope that Aldhelm couldn't hear your thumping heart.

・He took you down to the alehouse; telling you this was a cause for celebration.

・The whole while, your arm was threaded through his, your shoulders bouncing against one another as you walked.

・Then suddenly an old, grouchy voice sounded -

"With that much touching, I do hope you are married..." the old man said. His skin weathered. Lips thin.

"Very immodest," another grunted.

They nodded along with one another, and you couldn't help but blush.

"Do not worry about them," Aldhelm said, still holding onto you, but the look in his eyes was all too obvious...to everyone but you.

𝐋𝐞𝐨𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐜

・You both had been riding day and night to catch up to the King.

・News from Uhtred had shaken the very course of this war with the Danes.

・Arriving at first light, you both dismounted, and slightly grunted in doing so.

・Leofric helped you, and stayed by your side as you both searched for the King's tent.

・Just as you were about to enter, a guard standing at the entrance made a comment.

"Oh, so once Leofric humps a woman, he drags her with him, wherever he goes? I want a woman like her."

・Leofric turned slowly, eye twitching as the words hung in the air.

"Say it again," he growled. Looking straight at the man. He was shorter than Leofric, and was much stupider than he.

・The man mumbled something.

"Aye? What was that?" Leofric grunted, taking one step forward.

・You watched Leofric, who was the most mad you had ever seen him.

"I'm sorry," the man said. Barely above a whisper.

"Don't apologise to me, you ass. Apologise to the lady."

"I'm s-sorry m'lady," the man wobbled as he spoke and lowered his head.

there would be a feast that night. music; dancing; ale and wine; women.

the two men glared at one another, pumping out their chests.

“ya only want her ‘cause i do.” finan accused, narrowing his eyes.

sihtric smirked, oddly-coloured eyes darting to you, then back again. “i would have spotted her eventually, my friend.”

“well i spotted her immediately,” finan countered, thumbing the leather of his doublet. “how many times do i wonder ya’ve seen her before and not batted an eye — blue or brown?”

the dane scoffed, thumbing his own leathers as he shifted his feet. “i think i would remember a lady like her, finan.”

“funny,” finan took a step nearer. “i don’t recall seeing her around. i’d remember her, too.”

sihtric quirked the brow that bears a scar beneath it. “uh-huh, what is her name?”

“. . .”

“. . .”

“well i don’t know that yet, do i?” finan chided, a little too defensive. “ya little runt.”

“can i get you lads anything?”

they both jumped at the melody of your voice, finan’s hand flying to his chest while sihtric gazed down at you with bulging eyes.

you gave them a strange look, lips smirking. “did i scare you?”

once finan regained his composure he cleared his throat and leaned against the bar, eyes soft. “you could never scare me, lady. please, excuse my friend,” he leaned forward to whisper the next bit. “he’s not great with women.”

you shot a glance at sihtric who rolled his eyes at the irishman.

“ale?” you offered, jug in-hand.

sihtric parted his lips to speak, but finan turned to him with sour features and hissed. “i saw her first.”

then he returned his gaze to you. “i’d love one, sweet lady.”

you smiled and filled his cup. “and you?”

“i would also love one.” sihtric propped his elbows atop the bar as you poured him some ale, eyes wondering over your face.

“it is rude to stare, my friend.” finan scolded him, which earned him a giggle from you. he smirked, proud. “and get ya mucky elbows off the lady’s bar.”

sihtric only motioned to finan’s own arms which were bent against the oak, then uttered his thanks when you slid the cup into his open hand.

“what is your name?”

finan scoffed at the dane’s question. “smother the poor woman, why don’t ya?” though he was only annoyed he hadn’t asked you that first.

you looked between them with a smile, then gave your name. sihtric grinned at you, igniting a flutter within your stomach. “a pretty name for a pretty lady. please, call me sihtric.”

he offered his hand and you took it, only to flush deeply at your cheeks when he turned it in his palm to kiss it. “and this here is finan.”

the man in question glared at sihtric through a swig of ale, then turned to you. “i would kiss your hand, lady, truly i would. only, i don’t know where my friend’s mouth has been. . . on many other women, i reckon.” he leaned closer to murmur, “if i were you, i’d wash ya hands.”

“thought i was not great with women?” sihtric nudged him. “do not listen to him, lady. he is a jealous little man.” he leaned closer also. “but i am not.”

finan took another sip, then forced himself between sihtric and the counter. “i saw you first.” you chuckled at that, resting a hand at your hip.

“and i do not think ya pretty, i think ya beautiful.” then he glanced back at sihtric as if to say ‘hah.’

“would ya dance with me tonight?” he asked you, and behind him sihtric huffed.

you took your lip between your teeth, eyeing each of the men as they awaited your answer. “the tavern will be busy, but if i find the time, then yes, finan, i’d be honoured to dance with you.”

he pushed himself away from the bar with a grin, the masculinity that festered between them almost as potent as the stale air of the alehouse.

“i will see you boys later.” you said with a smile, then left them to their bickering.

they both wished you farewell at the same time, then exchanged standoffish expressions once you’d gone.

“you only did that because i was winning.” sihtric grumbled, drinking from his cup.

“i was going to ask her anyway. it’s like i said, old friend,” and finan took a gulp from his own. “ya not great with women.”

“at least i asked her name.” the dane shot back.

“i was going to ask her for her name before ya interrupted me.” snapped finan, his brow wrinkling.

sihtric finished his drink, then clapped a hand to the irishman’s shoulder. “so it begins, then.”

finan shrugged his hand off. “so begins nottin’. she’s mine, you’ll see.”

“for now, maybe.” sihtric leaned toward his ear. “soon we will see who is truly great with women.”

as he sauntered away, finan watched him with a face like a slapped arse. “ya just a baby!” he called after him, then sunk his weight against the counter. “i saw her first.”

“might i have this dance?”

you turned at the voice’s familiarity, the steel tankard in your hand squeaking as you polished it. “still competing with your friend for the first dance?”

“well, i asked first.” finan reminded you with a cheeky glint, a far less predatory gloss to his eyes this time.

you nodded and returned the tankard to its shelf, then leaned against the counter. he mirrored you, leaving a small gap between your faces.

“like how you saw me first?”

“precisely,” he glanced around, then turned to you again with that same mischievous gaze. “i think ya can retire from ya duties to join me for a moment.”

the bar was empty, save for you. everyone else was dancing or drinking or both. “i think i can, too.”

so he led you into the space where people swayed to the music, lost within themselves and each other.

“ya look beautiful.” he told you, one hand landing at your waist whilst the other took yours in his.

“why, thank you.” you gushed, resting your other hand atop his shoulder.

you moved in time with the song — a slow, steady beat. he pressed you to him, holding you close. over his shoulder you caught sight of his friends, a familiar face standing out from the rest.

sihtric watched you behind his alehorn, not drinking from it, but rather trying to conceal his thoughts. you could read them just fine; his expression did him little justice.

“your friend appears thwarted, to say the least.”

finan did not need look to know. “he is not known for taking defeat so lightly.” he hovered his lips at your ear, breath tickling it. “just another reason why i am the better choice.”

“i see.” you lifted your fingers from his shoulder to give sihtric a small wave. the gesture was not returned, his focus solely pinned on shooting daggers at the back of finan’s head. “he is not happy.”

“let him stew in his misfortune.” finan gave your back a light pat, regaining your attention. “and let us enjoy ourselves.”

you challenged him with an arch of your brow and a broad, goading smile. “you hardly know me. do you think my affections are won so easily?”

“i know ya enough.” he retorted with practiced charm. with a silver tongue such as his, it was small wonder to you how he survived so much. “and i plan to become acquainted with ya all the more, if i may.”

you glanced at sihtric again, his eyes fixed to yours and finan’s interlaced fingers. “you may.”

— HOW IT PROCEEDED.

you’d never known such attention, especially not all at once. it got to the point that you contemplated asking uhtred he put the two men on leashes.

“finan, i can manage.” you griped as you heaved a barrel from the wine cellar.

“are ya sure?” he asked, arms at the ready should you changed your mind.

you huffed, eyeing the man. “very sure.”

“here, allow me.” offered sihtric, reaching for the barrel.

“thank you, but that’s quite alright.” you rebuffed, wishing they’d stop badgering you.

“you heard the lady,” finan folded his arms. “she said she could do it. are ya questioning her ability to move a barrel, sihtric?”

you groaned, on the verge of banning them both from your tavern.

“i am simply concerned for her wellbeing,” his friend parroted back. “those barrels can be heavy.”

“so are ya questioning her strength?” finan continued to stir the way he would when he felt sihtric had, how he’d say, the upper hand.

“you tried to carry it first.” sihtric shot back with his usual sass. “you are usually the first to point out how you are the first.”

“so childish.” finan said with a tut, then turned to you. “such a man-child. ya cannot be doing with that, sweet lady.”

you scrubbed at your eyes, hands dropping when you could finally face them again. “listen—”

“he started it!” sihtric blurted, pointing at the irishman who looked between you with a shake of his head.

“see now, i would never snap at ya like that—”

“right, both of you out.” and you herded them toward the door. “come back when you have grown up.”

finan began to chime in but you held up a silencing hand. “no, i have heard enough.” you told him sharply. “out.”

sihtric sniggered.

“i am angry with you, too.” you told him with a jab of your finger.

his face dropped and you slammed the door before he could pipe up.

“now look what ya did.” finan hissed, delivering a smack to the back of his head.

and then there was the time the door to the tavern just ‘came loose’. to this day you’re certain one of them loosened the hinges on purpose.

“my sweet lady,” finan announced, opening and closing the door a few times, then gave it a tug. “it would seem this door has seen better days.”

“you did slam it rather hard.” sihtric voiced, barging finan from his way to inspect the hinges.

“yeah, ‘cause of you.” finan grumbled, batting the dane’s hands away. “ya don’t even know what you’re looking at, little dane.”

“i am taller than you.” sihtric quipped.

finan tsked at that. “by a finger nail, perhaps.” and stuck his middle finger up.

sihtric swiped for it. “how many doors have you fixed, anyway?”

finan threw him a sidelong glance, then gave the door an ‘expertly’ tap in several different places, pressing his ear to the wooden face of it. “ah, i know what the problem is.”

sihtric glared at him, incredulous. “what are you listening for?”

“it has woodworm.” finan concluded, thumbing his belt as he turned to you. “an easy fix, if i may, my darlin’.”

“woodworm.” sihtric scoffed. “you made that up.”

“everything was made-up by someone.” the irishman retorted.

you smirked at their exchange. “what is woodworm, finan?”

“it is a wood-eating infestation, my dear woman. it burrows into the timber, ya see,” he pointed at the door, but at no part of it in particular. “nasty things, so they are.”

“you do not talk like that,” sihtric remarked. “you read that in a book, didn’t you?”

“at least i can read.” replied the irishman lowly.

“how did it get in there, then?” sihtric challenged, arms folded.

finan blinked, then squinted at the man. “in all manners of ways, i’ll have ya know.” he took a step toward him. “care to explain in which manner my foot ended up your arse?”

sihtric snorted. “your foot is not up my arse.”

“not yet.” finan leered.

“you are funny, finan.” the blue and brown-eyed man took a step forward, too. “if you are looking for a stick, i might know where you lost it.”

“spose i should start looking at my lovely lady’s backside where i’d be sure to find yer lips, ya little arse-kisser.”

“children, children, please.” you wrenched an arm between them and they backed away from one another. “fix my door, if you must, then kindly be on your way. i have much to do and would rather do it without your squabbling.”

they glanced at you; then at each other, stared the other down; then both raced for the door.

you watched them fight over the hinges, trying to jam their hands into the small gap whilst shoving each other in the side.

it was like watching two kids fight over a slice of cake.

then finan snapped his hand back with a wince, cradling his fingers. “ya did that on purpose, ya shite!”

“i did not!” sihtric placed a hand over his chest, feigning shock or even offence. “you are clumsy.”

“they call me finan the agile, not finan the clumsy.” he growled. “i dance around men on the battlefield, y’know.”

“well, work your magic, by all means.” sihtric took a step away from the door. “dance.”

you shushed them and took finan’s hand in yours, assessing his fingers. “well, they are not broken.” you told him, stroking them gently. “but swollen, yes.”

“he could have crushed them.” finan mumbled, laying it on thick. “ya don’t want to let a finger-crusher court ya, lady.” he kissed his teeth. “bitter little man.”

“if i were truly courting her, it would not be her fingers that risked injury.” sihtric deadpanned, though the implication made you blush all the same.

“and you keep calling me little,” he went on, smirking over his shoulder. “you are the one with small man syndrome. i know this because you display every symptom, friend. temper-tantrums, a fuse almost as short as you, and the like.”

finan huffed out through his nostrils. “by a finger nail.”

you shook your head, adjusting his fingers within your grip. “can you bend them?”

“of course, i can, sweet’eart. we irish aren’t so brittle.” and he bent his fingers in front of your face, then booped your nose. “gotcha.”

“you put your fingers in the way because it is the only way you can get the lady to hold your hand.” sihtric accused, wobbling the door in its frame.

“ya just shitting y’self ‘cause a bruised ego isn’t so easy to tend to.” finan quipped, then leaned down to murmur. “he has chased so many other women, ya see. now he has many wounds from his attempts to show for it.”

sihtric muttered something under his breath, still struggling with the door.

“such a shame that he’ll soon have a broken heart to accompany them.” finan chortled, then let out a pained noise when you bent one of his fingers back.

“be nice.” you berated, then approached sihtric. “those women must have been blind.”

the younger man smiled down at you, finally freeing the door from its rusted hinges.

“what’re ya doing?!” finan marched up to him, conveniently placing himself between the two of you. “why did ya take the whole bloody thing off?!”

sihtric looked at him like he’d been asked to recite the alphabet backwards. “you said it had worms.”

“it’s not a physical worm, ya absolute menace.”

“finan is right.” you laid a hand atop his shoulder. “they are beetles.”

they turned to regard you with expressions that alternated between both surprise and perplexity.

“how d’ya know that?” finan asked, genuine.

“because i know what woodworm is,” you told him with an amused smile. “and my door does not have it. if it did, you would see the damage.”

finan opened and closed his mouth again with a furrowed brow, then you turned to sihtric. “please, put my door back.”

“yes, go on. very bad manners to rip a lady’s door off.” finan told him with a wag of his finger. “he is heavy-handed, always has been.” he drawled, low like a murmur.

“you said it had worms.” sihtric hissed, trying to realign the door.

“i said it had woodworm which is a beetle.” finan corrected with a smirk.

“well you were wrong.” then sihtric switched his glare to a sweet smile when he looked to you. “do not fret, my fair lady, i will fix it.”

“with what? hopes and prayers?” finan pushed him aside. “let me handle this.”

you ended up having to replace the door entirely and fitted it yourself whilst they watched.

oh and how could you forget about the bouquet debacle? you’d never received so many flowers.

“those are pretty flowers.” sihtric had observed one day, nodding to a cluster of floral wildness that sprouted from the soil before him — each petal differing in shade from the last.

“so they are.” finan agreed.

they looked at each other, then the flowers, then each other again. there was a pause, then the two men dove for the bloom, hands wrestling for their stalks.

“find your own flowers!” sihtric seethed, clenching them in his palm while his free hand tried to pry finan’s away. “and do not tell me you saw them first.”

“how do ya know i didn’t?” finan grunted, digging his boots into him.

but it was the dane who prevailed. he leapt to his feet, bouquet raised tauntingly. “you got to dance with her, it is only fair.”

finan rolled onto his side, dusting his front down. “that’s fine, some men do not need flowers to impress a lady. make it your apology gift for breaking her door.”

“i helped her mend it.” sihtric defended, wiping bugs and dirt from the flowers.

“ya did not,” finan took to his feet. “ya got in her way until she kicked ya out.”

sihtric narrowed his eyes at him. “you hammered the nails in upside down.” he waved his hands around, exasperated. “how do you even hammer something that only has one sharp end in upside down?”

“i was distracted by her beauty.” finan grinned, arms spread out at his sides.

“she cannot hear you, you know.” grumbled the former.

so that night, sihtric presented you with the bouquet—a little bent and misshapen—but you appreciated the gesture, placing them in a vase along with the others that both men had offered you over the weeks. you’d acquired quite the collection; the tavern never smelled so nice.

and finan arrived soon after, unveiling a fresh loaf of bread. “here,” he’d said. “a lady who works so tirelessly must keep her strength.”

your stomach growled at the sight and you took it in both hands, very thankful indeed. “oh, thank you! i will get some bowls. please, eat with me.”

the irishman grinned, triumphant. he was absolutely considering it a date. but his smile faded as soon as it came when you invited sihtric to join you.

when you disappeared to the kitchen, sihtric threw an angry finger at the man. “you do not bake.”

“i never said i do.” finan sighed, helping himself to a jug of ale. “you did not grow those flowers.”

“no, but i picked them personally.”

“and i bought that bread personally.”

the only time the pair of them saw eye to eye when it came to you, was when you dared to spike another man’s interest.

“are you seeing what i’m seeing?” sihtric nudged his friend.

“i am.” finan answered into his cup.

“she is laughing.” sihtric panicked, shifting in his seat.

“yeah, at him.” finan slammed his cup down, straightening in his chair to watch more closely. “he is making a fool of himself, surely.”

they both watched from afar, faces thunderous when the man touched your arm. you didn’t back away.

sihtric shook his head, jaw ticking. “i think she is enjoying his company.”

“so the man has jokes,” finan was practically seething. “so do i.”

you indeed were laughing when they approached, though on closer inspection your laughter seemed forced and solely at the man’s expense.

two gravelly throats cleared themselves behind him and he turned, jumping a little. “can we help you?”

you smiled, then took that as your opportunity to escape.

“no, but you can.” sihtric told him, hand poised at his sword’s hilt.

the man glanced at it, then back up, gaze flitting between them. “and how might i do that?”

“by leaving.” finan jutted his chin in the door’s direction.

the man frowned. “i don’t understand—”

“i do not think we can make it any clearer.” sihtric warned, slicing at the words with his tongue.

finan took a step nearer, expression fierce. “we could arrange to have ya carried, big man.” the threat was delivered icily, so much so that the man shuddered.

he never bothered you again.

— IF YOU CHOSE SIHTRIC.

it was probably through rather traditional means. with uhtred’s blessing, he vowed to wed you before he bed you.

he would not wait long before taking you for his wife. the battle for your heart had been a tedious one, perhaps the toughest he’d ever fought.

might as well make it official before his god.

but it had been uhtred who took it upon himself to hurry things along. “sihtric, loyal friend, we cannot bear these longing looks of love much longer. wed the girl, of this i actually beg. you know i do not beg.”

it made sihtric laugh, deep and from the pit of his chest. “lord, i fear the longing looks will not stop with marriage.”

finan, to your surprise, was not as sore of a loser as you’d expected. you broke the news of your decision to him gently out of fear he might kill his opponent, but if anything, he took it on the chin like it merely inconvenienced him.

he took sihtric’s hand, then clasped his shoulder with the other. “ya fought well, my friend. i guess all that arse-kissing paid off.”

sihtric chuckled, genuine and hearty. “it did, friend. she will be my bride, finan. that means you will not have to worry about losing to me next time.”

the irishman guffawed and drew a cross over his chest with his fingers. “well, thank the lord for that.”

of course, he still held a torch for you. a flame like that is not so easily extinguished. on the odd occasion, finan would throw a wink or a flirtatious comment your way; harmless, and no doubt to soften the blow of seeing you at his best friend’s side every day.

he might remind you of what you could’ve had, but sihtric would soon shut him up with a stern glare.

so they drank to it like men, both of them secretly relieved that their little contest had come to an end, which in the grand scheme of things was pretty silly.

“i let ya win, y’know.” finan jeered through a mouthful of ale.

“well then i must thank you, finan,” sihtric grinned. “thanks to your act of virtue, it is me who gets to hump her, not you.”

“virtue?” finan grinned. “a big word for a dane. where’d ya learn it?”

“it is not that big.”

“y’know what else isn’t that big?”

sihtric huffed. “please, do not say my cock.”

— IF YOU CHOSE FINAN.

you went to sihtric first, letting him down gently. he did not try to hide his disappointment but he smiled and said, “the heart wants what it wants. i wish you both happiness, sweet lady. and my friend deserves a woman as kind as you. finan, he can be a lot, but he will never harm you.”

so you went about seeking out the irishman, though you always hear him before you see him.

and when you told him the words he’d been yearning to hear since the moment his eyes first found you, he ravished you in a way one might inhale a mutton chop amidst starvation.

a man starved, he certainly was.

he had not been with a woman since meeting you, and with a sex drive as high as his, he was pleased he had not deprived himself for nothing.

to put it simply, he did not wait until your wedding night to hump you.

if anything, it was uhtred who encouraged him to elope before he impregnated you. “finan, the two of you are like rabbits in spring. for the love of what is good and pure, marry the poor girl.”

and so he did. and before long, there were many mini finans running around to remind sihtric of his loss.