“Fuck,” I breathe, smiling like a lunatic. “This is better than foreplay.”

Bjorn’s hand fists in my hair, tugging my head back so I have no choice but to look up at him. His eyes burn with something ancient, something brutal.

“Let them scream,” he growls. “Let the gods feast. And let them see me take you covered in their sacrifice.”

My breath catches in my throat, and something deep in me twists and howls with need.

“Then what the hell are you waiting for, my beast?” I whisper. “Make them watch.”

chapter two

bjorn

Fehu – Wardruna

She tells me to make them watch.

And I do.

Oh, how I do.

Lux gave me the night. The tent. The altar. The blood. Told me to lead, and I will not fail.

This isn’t just Disting, it’s a fucking reckoning.

The gods demand blood—and tonight, I am their voice. Their hands, their blade.

And Giselle?

She’s the fire in their bellies. the chaos in their veins. She is the flame I carry into the dark.

I drag her onto the altar like I’m laying a crown on a pyre. She clings to me, laughing against my throat, blonde hair wild and tangled with ash, her body already trembling with want.

Petite. Powerful. Covered in runes and war paint. A goddess with a taste for pain.

My fucking goddess.

She stretches back across the altar like she was made for it. Like the bloodied stone beneath her spine was carved with her name long before I ever spoke it.

“You gonna worship, or just stare?” she murmurs, voice low and wicked, hips rolling just enough to make me grit my teeth.

I chuckle. Slow. Twisted.

“You think I’d put you on this altar and do nothing, ma petite mort?” I ask, tilting my head as I let my hand trail up her thigh. “You think I’d let the gods look down and see me hesitate when such a sacrifice was laid out before me?”

She shudders, grinning wide.

“Then stop wasting precious time, my love. Show the gods who I belong to.”

“Oh, they already know,” I whisper, lowering myself between her legs. “But they’ll fucking watch anyway.”

I tear her leathers aside, baring her completely to the flames, the blood, and the gods. Her thighs part for me like she’s opening the gates to Hel itself.

She’s soaked. Warm.

Her scent hits me like a war drum.

“Look at you,” I murmur, brushing two fingers through her slick. “Dripping onto the altar like a gift.”

“I am a gift,” she whispers, eyes fever-bright. “One you better unwrap with your mouth.”

“Gladly.”

I drop to my knees and press my mouth to her, tongue sliding between her folds. She arches immediately, one hand flying to my hair, gripping tightly.

Her taste? Like the breath of the gods before a storm. Wild. Sacred. Untamed.