Roth's hands slid up her thighs and around to her backside, his fingers digging fervently into her flesh as he tightened his grip and fused their bodies closer. The iron flesh that lay between them pushed almost painfully at her belly — an enticing promise of what was to come.

Heat pooled in her core. Despite the insistent press of steel she began to move against him, becoming frustrated by all the clothes that barred his skin from her.

"Wait," he murmured against her lips. "There is one thing to be seen to before I make you mine." He sat up to face her so that she was still straddling his lap. "The Blood Bond."

"The Blood Bond?" It took a moment for her to understand him, she was that distracted by the hooded look in his eyes and the lambency pulsing there like blue flame.

"Few have been the times I have encountered, much less spoken to, Loki; but the first time I met him — or rather, when he told us he was our father — he was very emphatic about the Blood Bond." Roth removed his seax from where it was sheathed at his belt and nicked his thumb at the razor edge to test its bite. "He said that when I found the woman I chose as my life mate, I was to forge a bond of blood.

"To that end, there has to be a bond already in place." He brushed the crook of his index finger gently along her jaw. "There has to be a foundation, he said."

"Have you done this before?" She wondered if he had forged this bond with Frida.

"No. I scorned Loki's advice the first time ... and it was to Frida's detriment. Whether or not it might have worked, I shall never know, for I resented her. But I owed her a chance at least and in that I failed. I will not risk your life by disregarding the Blood Bond again. My father did not specify if it had to be done the first time we joined, but I must take no chances."

"What will this mean for us?"

"Loki said it will protect you."

Heida watched on, appalled, as he therewith sliced the blade across his right hand without another word, as though the very mainspring of his existence was her protection.

"Not so deep!" she cried. Blood sacrifices were no mystery to her, but surely he had no need to make the cut so deep.

"It has to be," said he, "or the wound will heal before you have had a chance to open your own flesh."

"My blood sacrifice is required too?!" But she already knew the answer.

"Quickly now," he said, giving the blade to her, "your left hand."

Even as he sat waiting, she could see his wound knitting itself together and she was utterly enthralled by it, so much so that she hardly felt the seax's keen edge glide through her palm as she applied steel to flesh. Once the blood began to seep from her hand in earnest, Roth pressed their palms together and met her eyes.

"I take you as my life mate, Heida," he said, gravely, almost seeming to inhale of her scent. "I bind myself to you with a kiss." And he pressed his mouth to hers, his tongue soon joining the ardent play of his lips. At length he pulled back. "Your blood is now my blood." He then released her hand and she saw that her wound was healing as quickly as his own was doing.

"Oh!" she stared curiously at the residual blood already drying over the pink mark.

"And now ... the third and last link."

Heida had no need to ask what the third 'link' of the rite entailed, for his meaning flared keenly in his pale, blue eyes, the scar at his lips making his grin even more wayward than it ordinarily would have been.

There was no doubt in her mind that he had joined his life to hers this day, and in an even more profound way than any mortal ceremony could have done. What was more, she felt married. Blood had been spent and a god's blessing bestowed — if that was not marriage then she knew of nothing else as potent.

"Proceed, husband." Her voice was, surprisingly, far steadier than her fluttering heart.

"With the greatest pleasure, wife." Roth ran the fingers of his right hand, now perfectly healed, over her collar bone and down to the brooch that fastened the straps of her overdress. As his other hand released the brooch over her right breast, he kissed his way down her throat, ghosting his impassioned lips over her puckering flesh.

Once her overdress had been removed and tossed aside, he hooked his hands behind her knees and pushed her underdress up over her thighs until the hem was bunched at her waist, her core finally revealed to him.

But his eyes dwelled there only momentarily, the heat of them practically searing her where they touched. And then he continued to roll the shift upwards; over her belly; over her breasts; and then over her head. She was now completely bared to him.

She swallowed audibly, gasping when his calloused fingers skimmed her taut nipples. "Your turn," she urged, reaching a trembling hand to his tunic.

"But you've seen me naked before."

"I hardly remember..."

"Ahh but I think you do." But he stood all the same and began pulling at the ties of his waistband. "You looked your fill that day; and I wanted nothing more than to devour you then ... as I plan to do now. And evermore."

His tunic soon joined her shift and overdress, a haphazard pile on the floor, his weapons and boots following therewith. The only thing standing between them now was his pants; and that too he removed.

Heida felt no shame in following the contours of his magnificent body with her avid regard, for he was now hers; his body belonged as much to her as her own did to him. Finally.

The part of him, naturally, that most attracted her gaze was his manhood, and she brought her eyes full circle to settle there with all the force of her curiosity and admiration. It boldly thickened under her careful regard.

"The first time will not be with finesse, Heida," he warned her, coming to join her on the hearth rug. "I have waited too long to be tender."

"I do not care for you to be gentle, Roth. I too have waited full as long as you — perhaps it is you who will not keep pace with me." She arched a brow in challenge.

"Are we still in competition?" But he chuckled at her comment, clearly satisfied by her brazenness.

For a moment it was as if they were children again, goading one another to a race or some such test of speed or strength. Perhaps he was stronger now, but she still thought herself capable of outpacing him in the field. Perhaps here as well ... where she meant to give herself to him. And just like that, they were no longer children, but a man and a woman who had long denied themselves.

Without warning, he pulled her onto his lap, her thighs sliding over his hips. His mouth descended hotly over hers. His fingers played across her stiffened peaks as their tongues and lips parried with thirstful fury — a kiss to ignite and consume.

Roth was not gentle as he gripped the backside of her thighs and nipped at her underlip, pulling at it as he dragged his teeth across the tender flesh. The woodland spice of his scent imbued the very air condensing around them, saturating her flesh with the power of his need and hers.

Coiling her braid firmly around his fist and tilting her head back was only the work of a second, and then he was at her throat, his canines merciless where they grazed their way towards her shoulder.

He was not tender as he pushed her firmly to the furs by the hearth, securing her hands above her head; and he did not treat her as a fragile maid as he dragged more fiery kisses over her ribs, her flanks, and down her trembling abdomen. Yet it was not fear that rippled along her muscles but violent yearning.

"Let me touch you," she said, her voice hoarse as she made to disconnect her hand.

"Not yet!" His own voice had become guttural, a sudden, grim reminder of how it had sounded right before he'd changed: primal and unchecked.

The blue in his eyes were torrid and otherworldly as he fixed them to hers, pinning her more effectively where she lay. When she relaxed her arm his movements slowed, becoming far more purposeful and controlled. Unyielding fingers held fast her hands the while his other hand drifted down her body, her flesh erupting into rippling crests in the wake of his touch. And then he was parting the waiting, aching flesh at her apex.

She could do nothing but writhe and moan as he strummed heated fingers along her cleft. When he at last release her wrists, her hands flew instantly to his hair to find that his wicked head was, even now, descending whence his fingers had just been. He took her into his scorching mouth.

Heida arched her back more fully against his hungry, circling tongue, her fingers digging ruthlessly into his soft hair, alternately pulling and fisting in response to his laving kisses. There was a deep coiling that was dilating even as her eyes began to roll back. It was a delicious pressure that was growing ever more unbearable, and raw, such that she almost wept with the loss of his mouth when he moved back up ... just before that stunning tension had reached its pinnacle.

Positioning the tip of his shaft at her center, his arms almost trembling, he paused to watch her, and all that he was feeling and all that he wanted to do was there in his regard. It thrilled and terrified her to know that this man, this being, was hers alone. So completely Heida's.

She had never felt such need, had never known such passionate tautness, and she was sure the appetence brooding in the depths of his gaze was an exact reflection of her own craving. And love.

Such was his keen appraisal, as of a wolf poised before the strike, that she felt herself become all the more steeped with arousal. His nose flared momentarily and his lips crooked with a knowing glint. There was no dissimulation there, and he hid nothing from her.

Clamping her knees at his hips, she urged him to begin, lest she explode here and now under that feverous gaze. There was no question that it would hurt the first time, she knew that, and therefore tensed expectantly.

Lowering himself onto his elbows, he slanted his lips gently over hers, now salty with passion. It was a worshipful touch, almost tender, and that had not been expected, insomuch as he had been stormy and fierce up till then. By degrees she relaxed further, her bones loosening as she lost herself in his kiss. So consumed was she by what was happening above, that when he did finally sheath himself, with a swift thrust, it was so unexpected that her sharp intake of breath was more a result of the suddenness of the breech than from actual pain. But pain there was aplenty.

His mouth, meanwhile, had stilled and so had his body. After a moment he lifted his head, a furrow creasing his brow as he beheld her quietly, but only briefly. Soon he lowered his head again and his tongue was once more slipping past her parted lips.

Her nails were partly sheathed in the muscles shifting steadily at his back and the more he stroked and explored her mouth with his, the more her flesh relaxed.

Impossibly, and by degrees, he was rooted deeper with each knot that unraveled in her tensioned body. Still more kisses followed, but they were once again becoming as fervent as the first had been. And then all of him began to move as his tongue was doing. And with such abandon that she reeled at the change in him. He was as two men in one — first wild, then deliberate and careful, and now fierce again.

That sweet, gathering tension, however, began to intensify more violently than it had before, despite the small spike of fear he educed. He moved relentlessly against her, the beautiful friction forging a perfect equipoise to the dull sting of that innermost throbbing.

Her back arched as the rushing, coalescing heat became unbearable. Eventually, the pleasure subsumed the pain and that burgeoning pressure became one white hot, chaotic implosion.

Her climactic moans he took hungrily for himself, his limbs and torso steely against her and his fingers rigid where they bruised worshipfully at her hips and thighs. At the very last moment, his kissing became rampant with the strain of his own incipient release. And his deep cries commixed with hers.

If a woman could die of acute happiness, Heida would have died then and there ... in his arms. And done so gladly.

For a long while thereafter they lay silently watching the flames, her back pressed to his chest. Roth was trailing his fingers and his lips along her shoulders and her neck. There was naught for her to do but enjoy his touch, her flesh sighing wherever he lay his hands as she listened to the gentle hiss of the flames over snapping logs and the gale buffeting the eaves with its melancholy moans.

The rest of the family had long since gone to bed and only Aila had been awake when Roth had carried her into the hall earlier. No wonder he had been furious, for the wind and the falling snow had hidden her tracks, and it had taken him an excruciating while to find her despite his keen senses.

Just before she thought to close her eyes and succumb to sleep, Roth rolled her onto her back and leaned over her. "Will I ever have my fill of you?"

His eyes were lambent again, but solemn with promise as his hand drifted down from her breasts to her navel and then towards her parting thighs.

"I hope not," she said, gasping as he eased himself inside her again.

This time the dance was far slower than the first.

🌟Merry Christmas (or whatever you celebrate today)! 🎄 Bonus chapter for all you supportive readers that have come this far with me!🌟