Being in the wrong place at the wrong time was all it took for Adelasia's whole life to turn upside down. After being captured by the heathens raiding her city and taken all the way to the cold North, the youngest Ragnarsson takes an interest in her...
The next morning Alasia woke more well-rested and comfortable than she had ever since Björn had taken her captive and she decided that if she had earned enough money by selling dresses and tunics, she would purchase enough feathers and linen to make such a comfortable mattress herself. It was the sun offering her light that actually woke her and with a groan, she turned around and buried her face under the covers. Sleep like this was a rare experience and she was positive that Ivar's offer had only been because of the remains of his spells, which meant that it wouldn't happen again soon and she should take all of it while she still could.
She was just dozing off again, when suddenly the covers were pulled from her, exposing her bedhead and sleepy expression. The way Ivar looked down at her, wearing his typical infuriating smirk and sending a wink in her direction, made her heart skip a beat and quickly shook her out of her sleepy state. Feeling her cheeks redden, she did a futile attempt to hide underneath the covers again, but Ivar kept them firm in his hands. So instead, she simply laid her head on the pillow and stared up at Ivar, unsure of what she was supposed to do now.
Ivar's smirk turned into a soft smile and with his hands, he concentrated on brushing one of her wild locks behind her ear. His eyes flickered back to her face and Alasia was relieved to see that most of the blue had disappeared from his sclera. "How did you sleep?" Ivar asked, his voice husky and sending a chill down her spine.
"Surprisingly wonderful if you take into account how horribly you thrash around in your sleep," she countered innocently. Truth be told, Alasia had been in such deep sleep that a battle could have been going on outside the room and she wouldn't have been woken, but she remembered from the time they slept in the same tent that Ivar would spend entire nights rolling from one side onto the other, kicking at the sheets and drawing them up again.
"I trash in my sleep, huh?" Ivar asked in disbelief. He sucked in a deep breath and raised his eyebrows, pointing an accusing finger in her direction. "You turn every other second and you mumble too."
She shoved her hand underneath her cheek, crossed her ankles underneath the sheets and kept on staring at Ivar, tilting her head ever so slightly. "How would you know?" she countered. With satisfaction she watched the smirk fade from his face, his eyes quickly flickering to her mouth before they found her eyes again. "Did you watch me sleep, Prince Ivar?"
Ivar cleared his throat and looked at her in amusement. "You kept me awake."
"I'm terribly sorry," she replied curtly. She rolled her eyes and turned on her back instead of her side, folding her hands over her stomach and plucking at the sheets with her fingers. Never before had she slept in the same bed as somebody else and she had no idea what the customs were. If she was supposed to run out of his room to leave the thralls to tend to him, she definitely wasn't planning on following those standards.
