My Viking Son’s Two Fathers

Chapter 18

Word travels between brothers, it seems.

Within days of my kiss with Leif on the battlements, a summons arrives—carried not by a servant but by Solveig herself, her weathered face carefully neutral as she delivers the message.

"Both konungs wish to speak with you privately," she says. "Tonight. In Ragnar's chambers."

"Both of them." I repeat the words as though they might mean something different the second time.

"Both." Her eyes search my face. "Do you wish me to accompany you?"

"No." Whatever awaits me in that room, I will face it alone. "But stay with the boys until I return."

The hours until evening stretch like taffy, each moment weighted with anticipation my body cannot contain. I pace my chambers. I sharpen blades that need no sharpening.

I stare at my reflection in the polished bronze mirror and see a woman I barely recognize—flushed, uncertain, terrified in ways that have nothing to do with danger.

Confrontation? Jealousy? Some arrangement I cannot yet fathom?

I dress simply, refusing to primp like a maiden awaiting suitors. A plain gray gown. My hair braided tight against my skull. No jewelry, no artifice, nothing but the woman beneath.

My hands tremble as I work the braids. I pretend not to notice.

Ragnar's private study is warm with firelight, intimate in ways the throne room could never be.

Maps and books line the walls—military treatises, I note, and histories of campaigns long concluded.

Furs soften the stone floor, and the hearth crackles with well-tended flames. The space speaks of the man who inhabits it: ordered, purposeful, revealing nothing by accident.

Both brothers wait for me.

Ragnar sits in a carved chair by the hearth, one ankle crossed over his knee, his ice-blue eyes tracking my entrance with predatory stillness.

Leif stands by the window, copper hair catching the firelight, his usual restless energy contained into something watchful.

Their combined presence fills the space until I can barely breathe.

"Please." Ragnar gestures to a chair between them. "Sit."

I sit because my knees feel uncertain, not because he commands it. Wine is poured by Leif, but I barely touch my cup. Neither do they.

Finally, Ragnar speaks.

"My brother tells me you suggested an unconventional arrangement." His voice is measured, revealing nothing. "I would hear it from your own mouth."

Heat floods my cheeks, but I hold his gaze. "I suggested that perhaps no one needs to lose. I did not map out the details."

"An interesting proposition," he says slowly. "Particularly from a woman who has spent weeks insisting she cannot afford to want either of us."

"Wanting and affording are different things. I have learned that wanting does not care what I can afford."

Leif laughs softly, moving closer. The sound eases something in my chest—the familiar warmth beneath his careful distance. "Then let us map the details together. That is why we asked you here."

I look between them, my heart hammering against my ribs. "You have discussed this. Between yourselves."

"We have."

Ragnar rises from his chair, moving to stand before the fire. The flames paint shadows across his features, softening the sharp angles into something almost human.

"And there are things that must be said before we proceed."

"What things?"

He turns to face me, and for the first time since I have known him, I see something like uncertainty in his expression.

"That night, ten years ago. You came to us drugged, confused, unable to truly consent to what followed. We did not know, could not have known, but ignorance does not erase consequence."

His jaw tightens. "I am not a man who apologizes easily. But I acknowledge what was taken from you. The choice you never had."

The words crack something open in my chest—a wound I had not realized still festered. I did not expect acknowledgment. I did not know I needed it.

"Thank you," I whisper. "For saying that."

Leif moves to stand beside his brother, their shoulders nearly touching. "We want you, Hild. Both of us. Not as a possession to be divided, not as a prize to be won in some competition between brothers."

"Then what?"

"A partner." Ragnar's voice drops lower. "Someone who stands beside us rather than behind. We have shared everything since birth—power, war, women who meant nothing beyond the moment."

"But we have never wanted to share a woman who mattered," Leif finishes. His green eyes burn into mine. "Until you."

The words settle into my bones like heat from the fire. I want to believe them. I am terrified to believe them.

"And if I refuse?" My voice comes out steadier than I feel. "What then?"

"Your place here remains unchanged," Ragnar says quietly. "The boys' status remains unchanged. We are asking, Hild. Not commanding."

"What you want," I repeat slowly, "is both of you. Together. With me."

The brothers exchange a glance over my head—that silent communication, that wordless agreement. When they look back at me, the hunger in their combined gaze makes my thighs press together.

"Together," Ragnar confirms.

Then his mouth is on mine.

The kiss is not gentle. He claims me with devastating precision, his hand fisting in my braid, pulling my head back to deepen the angle. I moan against his lips before I can stop myself.

Leif presses against my back, his hands sliding around my waist, his mouth finding the curve of my throat. He bites down gently where my pulse races, then soothes the sting with his tongue.

I gasp into Ragnar's kiss, overwhelmed by sensation—ice before me, fire behind, both of them surrounding me until I cannot tell where one ends and the other begins.

Ragnar releases my mouth and I sway, but Leif is there, turning my face toward his. His kiss is different—hungrier, more desperate, his tongue demanding entry.

I give it willingly, my fingers gripping his tunic as Ragnar's hands slide down my sides, tracing the curve of my waist, my hips, pulling me back against the hard length of him.

"Do you feel what you do to us?"

Ragnar murmurs against my ear, his voice rough as gravel. His hips press forward, and I feel the evidence of his words against my lower back—hard, thick, unmistakable.

"Ten years I have remembered the sounds you made. The way you shattered between us."

Leif breaks our kiss, breathing hard, his green eyes wild. "I have dreamed of this. Of you. Of having you again, this time knowing your name, seeing your face."

His hand cups my breast, thumb circling my nipple until it peaks against his palm. I arch into his touch, a whimper escaping my throat.

Between them, surrounded by ice and fire, I feel something inside me finally surrender. Not my strength. Not my will. But the loneliness I have carried for ten years, crumbling like a wall that no longer needs to stand.

They could take me here, now, on the furs before the fire. I would let them. I would beg them.

But something in me knows that if I surrender tonight, I will never know if it was choice or simply drowning.

"I need time," I gasp, and it costs me everything to speak the words. "To think. To be certain I am choosing."

They still against me, their bodies rigid with restraint. For a moment I fear they will not release me—that the hunger I have stoked will not be so easily banked.

Then Ragnar steps back, his chest heaving, his ice-blue eyes nearly black with want. Leif follows, though his hands linger on my hips before falling away.

"Take what time you need," Ragnar says, his voice strained.

"We have waited ten years." Leif's laugh is rough, pained. "We can wait longer."

But the hunger in their eyes promises this conversation is far from over. And the ache between my thighs promises that my own hunger will not let me wait long.

I leave with my lips bruised and my body throbbing, the taste of them both lingering on my tongue, the ghost of their hands burning against my skin.

But for the first time in a decade, it is desire rather than fear that keeps me awake at night.