My Viking Son’s Two Fathers

Chapter 20

The courtship that follows becomes the whispered scandal of Skálholt.

Two kings pursuing a single woman—not a foreign princess whose dowry includes trade routes and alliances, not a powerful jarl's daughter whose family commands armies.

A shield-maiden with three bastard sons and a sword arm that has killed more men than most warriors present.

The court watches with fascination and barely concealed outrage as Ragnar and Leif vie for my attention in vastly different ways.

"Have you heard? She dined with both of them last night. In his private chambers."

"Shameless. Utterly shameless. And they encourage it."

"Perhaps she has bewitched them after all. No natural woman could hold two kings so enthralled."

I hear the whispers and let them wash over me like rain against oiled leather. Let them talk. Their words cannot touch what is building between us.

Ragnar's courtship is subtle and intense, woven into the fabric of daily life like threads of silver through dark wool.

He invites me to council meetings where my presence once required justification, and when I speak, he listens, his ice-blue eyes fixed on my face with an attention that makes the older commanders shift uncomfortably in their seats.

"The shield-maiden's assessment aligns with my own," he says after I outline weaknesses in the coastal defenses. "We will proceed as she suggests."

Lord Hákon's jaw tightens, but he does not argue. No one argues with that tone.

Ragnar gifts me a sword of such fine craftsmanship that my current blade looks like a kitchen knife beside it.

The steel gleams with subtle patterns forged into the metal itself, perfectly balanced, the hilt wrapped in leather soft as silk. When I draw it, the blade sings.

"This is too fine," I protest. "This belongs in a king's hand."

"It belongs in yours," he replies simply. "I had it made for you. The smith worked three months on the balance alone."

He finds me on the battlements at night, when sleep eludes us both, and speaks of things he has never told anyone. His fears for the kingdom—that the peace they have built will crumble when they are gone.

The weight of crowns that never lifts, even in sleep. The loneliness of ruling, even with a brother at his side.

"Leif understands the burden," he says quietly, staring out at the moonlit sea. "But understanding and sharing are different things. There are thoughts I cannot speak even to him."

"And you can speak them to me?"

"I am learning to." His hand finds mine in the darkness. "You are teaching me."

One evening after a sparring match leaves us both breathless and bruised, Ragnar catches my wrist before I can leave the training yard. His grip is firm, his eyes dark with something that has nothing to do with combat.

"Come with me."

He pulls me into the shadows of the armory, pressing me against the wall, his body a cage of heat and hard muscle. The scent of sweat and steel fills my senses.

"You fight like you were forged for war," he murmurs against my throat, his lips brushing skin still damp from exertion. "Every movement precise. Every strike calculated. But I wonder how you would yield."

His kiss is slow and devastating, his hands mapping my body with deliberate patience.

He finds the places that make me gasp—the curve of my hip, the sensitive skin below my ear, the small of my back where his palm spreads possessively.

He draws sounds from me that I did not know I could make, each one swallowed by his hungry mouth.

When he finally releases me, my knees barely hold me upright.

"That," he says, his voice rough, "is merely the beginning."

***

Leif's approach is open and overwhelming, impossible to ignore.

He writes me terrible poetry and reads it aloud at breakfast, his voice carrying across the hall while courtiers choke on their porridge.

"Your eyes are gray like storm clouds brewing, your sword arm makes my heart start stewing…"

"That does not even rhyme properly," I interrupt, fighting laughter.

"Art requires no rules!" He clutches his chest in mock offense. "Besides, you smiled. That was the only goal."

He fills my chambers with wildflowers from the sea cliffs, their salt-sweet scent greeting me each morning.

He challenges me to competitions, racing, archery, dice, and delights equally in victory and defeat, his laughter ringing across the castle grounds.

But beneath the playfulness burns something fiercer.

He corners me in a corridor one afternoon, his green eyes dark with wanting, all humor stripped away.

"My brother courts you with words and strategy," he says, crowding me against the cold stone. "Gifts and councils and whispered confidences. But I am not my brother."

"I had noticed."

"Let me show you what fire feels like."

His mouth claims mine with hungry urgency, his hands sliding beneath my tunic to find bare skin.

Heat blazes through my veins as he lifts me, my legs wrapping around his waist, my back arching as his lips trace down my throat. I feel the hard length of him pressing against my center, separated by nothing but cloth.

"Say you want me," he demands between kisses, his hips rolling forward in a rhythm that makes stars burst behind my eyes. "Say it, Hild. I need to hear it."

"I want you," I breathe, and his smile turns wolfish.

"Again."

"I want you."

He groans against my throat, his fingers digging into my thighs. "When this courtship ends, I am going to take you apart so thoroughly you forget every moment of loneliness you ever felt."

***

The boys watch their mother being wooed with varying reactions.

Bjorn remains suspicious, his ice-blue eyes tracking every interaction with protective wariness. "They are competing," he tells me flatly. "What happens when one of them loses?"

"Neither of them loses. That is the point."

He does not understand. Perhaps he cannot, yet.

Erik thinks it wonderful and announces to anyone who will listen that his mother will be queen. "Both queens," he clarifies to a bewildered serving girl. "She will be queen twice. That is twice as good."

Ivar says nothing, but I find drawings hidden beneath his mattress—a woman flanked by two men, three children at their feet. A family taking shape in charcoal and hope.

I hold the parchment with trembling hands and allow myself to feel. To want without shame. To imagine a future I never dared believe possible.

But in the shadows of the castle, stripped of power but not yet defeated, Astrid watches.

Her golden hair has lost its luster, unwashed and poorly tended. Her silk gowns have been replaced by plainer fare, her retinue of admirers scattered to safer allegiances.

The queen who once ruled this court through poison and beauty has been reduced to a specter haunting her own halls.

Yet her eyes burn with patient malice as she observes the courtship unfolding.

She has sent ravens to distant shores, I later learn.

She has whispered promises to men who nurse grudges against the twin konungs—jarls passed over for honors, warriors denied advancement, rivals who remember defeats.

She has planted seeds that will bloom into destruction.

The cage may have become a courtship.

But Astrid intends to ensure it becomes a grave.