WRATH OF THE NORTH [BJÖRN IRONSIDE]

CHAPTER FIVE

A shaky inhale slipped past her lips when she got into the wet icy hole in the ocean. After quickly washing her body she pushed herself up on the ice again, next to her clothes. She turned her head when she heard the sound of a branch snapping followed by a whistle. Vál rolled her eyes when she saw Björn standing there with a brow raised and his arms folded over his chest. His orbs followed her every move after roaming her naked body repeatedly.

"Enjoying the view Björn?" She asked as she got dressed again. The crackling fire on the frozen ground was heard faintly in the back ground. She had made a fire so she could get warm after the bath. When she was fully dressed again she wrapped her large cloak around her body with her furs. The heavy thick cloak gave her warmth as well as the furs.

"I was just going to fish," Björn tired to neglect the fact that he was checking out her body. It had been a while since he had seen other humans, especially women and the naked woman in front of him made the blood rush to the bottom of his stomach. The water made her body all wet and his eyes had followed some of the drops of water run down her body.

He had seen scars covering her body. A large one on her shoulder blade, four sharp and healed cuts from what seemed to be a larger animal. He had seen the long cut from the beginning of her brow and down over her eye and to her cheekbone and he knew she probably got some more due to her living in the wilderness yet his eyes got filled with curiosity when he found new ones on her pale skin. One cut he had quickly got a glimpse of were a slight fresh one on her thigh.

"Stop staring," Vál snapped and Björn moved his eyes up to meet hers. She didn't mind her scars, she though they were showing how much of a fighter she actually was. She was a survivor and had no problem with seeing the memories on her skin. Some people probably would see her scars as disgusting, unladylike and inexperienced mistakes from her side. Yet they were reminders of a time when she learned about the wilderness opponent and survived.

"You got quite some scars there," Björn said and followed her when she walked over to the fire. Vál only hummed when she made sure all her knifes and daggers were still there. "Was that a bear?" Björn asked for a while and Vál frowned when she looked at him. The fire made his features glow even if it wasn't dark outside. "The scar on your back?" He continued and nodded in her direction.

"Yes," She said courtly before taking a seat in front of the fire. A sigh left her lips when she felt the radiating warmth. When she realized he wasn't planning on walking away anytime soon she looked at him and raised her brow. "Do you want anything?" She asked in a harsh tone but she didn't care, and neither did he.

"That scar on you thigh looks quite irritated," He said and she rolled her eyes.

"Maybe to you," She said and focused on the fire. She knew the cut on her thigh was irritated. She had been fighting a man similar to the one that wanted to kill the man in front of her a month before she had seen Björn for the first time. It hadn't faded, it was still red which wasn't usually the outcome of her healing.