Forsaken ✔

9

"No, I don't want dagmal, I want to know who is the person crying down the hall." He threw curse words at her, and her hands balled into fists. Throwing curses back at him, she moved away. She sat at the table, pretending she didn't hear him and started eating. He waved his hands around before growling.

"Fine." Growling some more, he marched towards the door. Once they banged open, her head snapped in the direction. She moved after him as those doors slammed close. When she saw him walking down the hallway, she hurried after him. Her hand latched onto his arm.

"You need to stop crossing boundaries." He didn't care and pushed on. And then without a thought, pushed the doors open. The doors she hadn't opened in over a year. Halfdan marched inside only to stop dead in his tracks. She grimaced, the sight before her wasn't pleasant. The man was thin, from the lack of eating. His hair was greying, deep wrinkle lines all over his face. He looked unhealthily pale, and his eyes were dead. Shaking her head, she found the courage to look at Halfdan.

"Meet my father." Halfdan looked utterly speechless. Her father, Ulf, gazed with unfocused eyes around the room. Then her eyes focused on her, and he started crying again. "Hilda," he sobbed his wails so loud she felt like crying. Irvina scratched at her arms, trying to rid herself of goosebumps. This always made her feel uncomfortable. That's why she hated going into this room, how he always called her that name. The name of her mother, the woman that she looked like so much.

"Irvina, father." He let out a soundless oh before laying his head down. She grabbed Halfdans's hand and pushed him out of the room. She let him go and defeatedly walked to her room. Feeling drained, she laid down on her bed.

He whispered, "I'm sorry," his head was bent and he was guiltily looking at the ground. She sighed. "It is not your fault. I understand the curiosity." Her eyes met his, and she shivered at his concerned gaze.

"I look a little like my mother, I guess. He can't look at me without thinking it's her." He climbed onto the bed and caged her under his arms. Those eyes of his searched over her face.

Pushing her hair aside and cupping her face, he demanded, "Tell me what had my brother done." She looked away, avoiding his eyes. "Please!" He didn't remember when was the last time he uttered those words. He could feel her shiver underneath him. And no matter how much he wanted to claim every inch of her skin, he ignored the urge for now.

"He never gloated?" Halfdan shook his head. He wasn't even there when his brother raided Trondheim. "It's been almost fourteen years, and yet it still feels like yesterday." Halfdan grimaced. Whatever happened to the family was painful.

"My father never encountered it. I mean how can you expect someone attacking your city, when you never even met the man." He grimaced as his guilt started to eat at him. "They came in the middle of the night, killing everyone in their path. My brothers and father fought while me and my mother with my brother's wife hidden in the great hall. Nothing stopped them, and I soon found myself defending my mother and sister in law. Not that I did much. One of the men practically butchered me-"

She was breathing hard, scowling her breathing was hard. She wanted to rise from this bed and ride into battle without any allies. "-And I found myself ripped open, bleeding out, while your brother took my mother and his men taken my brothers wife."

Her hand reached out, brushing his hair from his face. "They killed them afterward. Sliced them open and didn't bother to finish me off." His brows furrowed, and she could see his confusion.

"Sigrún saved me. Whatever she did saved me." He could only nod still slightly shaken that his brother would do something like that. "My older brother left. He couldn't bare ruling a place that killed his love. And my father—" She could barely finish a sentence, but she didn't cry. Unlike her whole family, she didn't have tears to cry. "My father can't get out of his bed. He loved my mother more than life itself. But he is also a coward and won't take his own life to meet her in Valhalla."

Halfdan cringed as she described her father. "And what about your younger brother?" Irvina shook her head. She hated every thought about her family. The family that was once so strong, now was filled with weaklings. Her brother who lives like a bear, another brother who could barely put on his pants right, a father who couldn't stand from his bed, and cried all-day and then her who was plagued by her demons and will probably never be able to move on.

"Hey" —he cupped her face—, "Hey." Once he saw that she was back from her thoughts, he grinned at her. She gave him an apologetic look she didn't even know, if she knew how to say sorry.

"My younger brother, Frode, is a drunk. You'll see him in alehouses all day." Halfdan grimaced above her. He drunk too, every Viking did, but not to an extreme that it destroyed him.

His hands stroked her cheeks before he leaned closer. His warm breath hitting her face. She wanted to lean closer and connect their lips. She wasn't betraying anyone. But wasn't she when his brother ruined her family. But he was not his brother. Yet blood was blood. She knew he could betray her the second he was close to his brother. Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, she followed his lead.

Leaning closer and gluing her body to his. Their eyes were connected both too competitive to look away. He smirked at her before finally connecting his lips to hers. Those soft lips of his were anything like she imagined, the first lips to ever touch hers. She copied his moves, trying to keep up. Her stomach tightened as she felt the nerves settle in. Her throat squeezed, she felt hypnotized by his mere smell. So masculine and sensual. She opened her lips, letting him control her, his dominance washing over her as her toes curled. But her euphoria was brought down by a knock on the door.