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He started undressing and lay next to her. She could feel the heat radiating from him, and she tried hard not to move.

“I saw ye training.”

She didn’t know why she said that. Her cheeks were burning, but the words still escaped past her lips. She shouldn’t be admitting the reason why she had been distracted the day Archer fell.

But it had been Evander’s fault. She had been distracted by the sight of him standing there, swinging his sword at the dummy over and over. The way his muscles moved. The sweat⁠—

She bit back a whimper. She was losing control at the worst time.

“What?”

“Ye distracted me.”

“Oh, blaming me, are ye nae?” Evander asked, a smirk curving his lips.

“Nay, I meant that ye fight well.”

He chuckled. “Say what ye want to say, wife.”

“I cannae sleep, ye cannae sleep. We should do something about that.”

Evander’s eyes darkened. Her breath caught in her throat. She had seen him look at her like this before, but now they were in bed, practically on top of each other. It was almost like that night when⁠—

No. She wasn’t going to allow herself to go there.

He climbed on top of her. “I thought we agreed we couldnae do that.”

She pushed him back. “I meant for ye to teach me how to train.”

“Did ye, now?” His smirk widened into a full, wicked smile.

Abruptly, he pulls her up, until they were both standing in the middle of the chamber in the dim candlelight, her in her shift and him in nothing but his trews.

“If a man grabs ye here,” he murmured, curling his big hand around her forearm, “ye daenae pull away. Ye turn into him. Like this.”

He guided her through it slowly, his chest warm against her back, his breath stirring the loose hair at her temple.

Freya told herself she was paying attention.

She was not paying attention. Not to the instructions. She was noticing the rough calluses on his palms, the low rumble of his voice against her shoulder blade, the way his hand lingered on her hip a heartbeat longer than any lesson required. She leaned back into the solid warmth of him before she could stop herself.

The first time, she moved through the pattern like a dance she was learning. The second time, she twisted too hard, caught her heel on the rug, and took them both down.

They landed on the bed in a tangle of linen and limbs, and before she could laugh, he had rolled her beneath him. One hand closed around both of her wrists and drew them up above her head, slow and deliberate, pinning them to the pillow.

His weight settled over her, solid and warm, and every argument she’d ever made about leading separate lives or leaving after the three weeks ended went quiet in her head.

He lowered his head until his mouth hovered a breath from hers, close enough that she felt the words before she heard them.

“Do ye yield?” he whispered.

“Never.”

26

He kissed her slowly at first, almost testing, his grip on her wrists loosening just enough that she could have pulled free.

She didn’t. She rose to meet him instead, and something in him gave way.