A date was picked, and tasks were divvied out – Leif’s wolves would come in valuable for spying and for sneaking, and for fighting, when it came to that. Everything rubbed along well, and Leif was feeling positive about the path that lay ahead…
But then something he’d feared finally happened. Chairs were beginning to slide back, and there were murmurs of lunch, when Leif glanced up, and caught Edward’s gaze. The man was staring right at him, meaningfully, and Leif released the arms of his chair and stayed rooted, staring back.
The rest of the table quieted, as the others noticed their locked gazes.
Amelia said, “Edward?” A prompt.
He continued to match Leif, stare for stare – but then his gaze cut over, slowly and deliberately, to Ragnar, and back again. “He is a thrall? Your thrall?”
It was one thing to deal with his family’s disapproval over Ragnar – but they were Ragnar’s family, too, and even if they now all thought Leif should have laid his neck on the chopping block weeks ago, they knew well the charm and temptation of him. These people here, though, knew him only as the wild man wearing a collar, who’d dared to climb aboard Amelia’s temperamental stallion. He’d expected a fight, once the truth came out.
He hadn’t expected a Southerner to know the old Northern ways in which Ragnar was bound to him, now.
He said, “You know what a thrall is?” And let his surprise color his voice.
Edward said, “My family is not originally from Aquitainia. I have made it my business to study the ways and customs of this continent, new and old, and those of their neighbors to the north. You have said this man is your cousin and ‘beta.’” Hint of distaste on the word. “But if he is your thrall, then he is your war prize, also.”
There was no sense lying; the torq was damning, irrefutable evidence.
“He is, yes.”
To his right, he heard the rustling of Ragnar’s hair as he shivered. Where their arms bumped together, he felt the goosebumps on Ragnar’s skin, and the tremors moving beneath it. The sharp scent of fear-sweat filled the narrow space between them, and Leif didn’t have to meet his gaze or ask a question to know exactly what it was he feared: a cage. Being thrown in irons and tossed in a wine cellar somewhere. Traveling in a locked trunk cut with ventilation holes, because the Southerners didn’t trust him, and thought him a liability.
New alliances and pretty words be damned: Leif would gather his pack and march straight back home if anyone insisted on separating Ragnar from him, or confining him in any way. Only he could collar him, and anyone else who tried would lose a hand for the effort.
Still, he would try to use diplomacy.
He said, “Northern politics are as intricate and hot-blooded as those in the South, and as difficult for Southerners to grasp as it is for me to comprehend the sheer amount of plaster in this house.”
Someone – he thought it was Connor – snorted across the table, and was shushed.
“Ragnar is my thrall, yes,” Leif continued, and eased his arm over so the whole length of shoulder and biceps was pressed flush to Ragnar in what he hoped was a comforting gesture. “He wears an enchanted torq that cannot be released by him, nor by accident. He owes me a debt, and so he will pay it, as my war prize.” A slight nod to Edward, for knowing the correct terminology. “But his presence here, at my side, as my second in command, is not something I’m willing to negotiate. If you want me as part of your army, you shall have Ragnar as well.”
The last he said with a ring of finality, and a lowering of his brows in challenge. Try and take him from me, he thought. I dare you.
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