I recoil back, my spine hitting the wooden door as I take in his straining muscles to shift himself to sit. His lips that are outlined by his dark beard are wet by his tongue.
Ever since Rohana left me alone in the castle, I’ve seen both of them alive, and that’s impossible.
I’ve seen them both take their last breaths.
Felt the emptiness fill my whole body.
Tobias and Dagen, they were ghosts or spirits back to haunt and torment me for my sins against them.
“Get your ass over here,” he recites clear as day. “And kiss your man.”
Slowly, I shake my head. “You’re not real.”
He perks a brow. “Are you already asking me to show you how real I feel inside you?”
“Dagen,” I plead. “You’re...dead.” Looking down at himself to confirm that he isn’t, he pulls his eyes back up to mine. “Apparently not.”
My body begs to get closer, to feel him for myself and see if my skin collides with his or goes through it like mist. He watches me, intently and impatiently, as I expect the worst but hope for the best. My mind cautions me to be ready for my hope to fall flat while my heart implores that it’s him.
My Viking.
His hand reaches out for me, locking around my wrist as my body settles in between his thick thighs.
Chest against chest.
Breaths mingled together, and that’s all that I get to recognize before his lips are draped over mine, coaxing me to open wider so he can taste me. To possibly know that he’s not dreaming either.
I oblige, his expert tongue making its way to mine, dancing and savoring. Making my body buzz with excitement, relief, and confusion.
“You’re really here,” he mutters against my lips. “You still taste the same.”
“How are you here?” I feel him shrug as his arms wrap around my back.
“I don’t fucking care as long as this is real.”
Another lapse of his tongue along with mine and my mind starts to blur with everything but him.
His thick arms caging me closer. The stubble on his face that my thumb can’t help but caress over and over again. The soft intakes of air that he takes in between kisses that heat the apex between my legs.
It feels real. I want it to be real, but my grandfather only gave my sisters and I one option of life.
Reluctantly, I break from him, staring into his lust-filled eyes that look back at me.
“What’s the matter?”
I hold his gaze. “How are you here?”
“I don’t know, what did you do?”
“I was saying goodbye,” I reply. “Yelling mostly.”
He cracks a smile. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” He presses a lingering kiss on my cheek and heads to my ear. “What else?”
“I got angry that you weren’t responding to me.” His tongue licks the lobe of my ear, followed by his teeth, and I release a frustrated groan.
“What else, baby?”
“I told you that I loved you.” His head jerks away like I just burned him.
“You said what?”
“I said that...I love you.”
He gives my face a once-over before saying, “One more time.”
“Dagen…”
His hold presses tighter, crushing me to his chest. “I want to hear you say it like it was the first time.”
“I’m in love with you, you brainless Viking,” I snap.
“Ah, yes,” he mutters. “Just how I always imagined it.” He presses a chaste kiss to my lips. “And so much fucking more.”
His fervor heightens, more desperate and wanting, as he owns my mouth. Teasing me with his tongue as his hand squeezes my butt.
I flinch back, my fingers falling to his grueling kisses. “The bottle!”
“The what?” His brows fall together.
“The bottle my mother was kept in when she died.”
“Kept in?”
I shake my head. “Well, no, it was her powers.”
Dagen gapes at me, obviously lost. “Alright.”
“Taysa said the missing cuff went to Tobias because he was the nearest bloodline to her when she murdered my mother. It contained the lock and key she needed to combine everything together. My mother’s cuffs with her bottled-up power meant she’d have the power of a goddess.”
He blinks at me.
“I threw the bottle against the wall because you couldn’t answer me,” I convey. “It held her power in it.”
“And since I’m the closest...bloodline to Taysa who killed her, it went to me,” he finishes.
“It brought you back,” I quip with a smile. Dagen’s face remains solemn. “What’s wrong?”
“Where is Tobias?” My heart nearly floats in my chest at the mention of his brother. How he is actually concerned about him after a short time of knowing