WRATH OF WAR [BJÖRN IRONSIDE]

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Vál entered the cabin she had been living in for the short amount of time the heathen army had been gathered in Ecbert's kingdom. A lot of things had happened and somethings her mind didn't want her to fully accept that it had happened. Sigurds death, Helga's death and the very confusing Ecbert that had left them a piece of land in exchange for his own death. It didn't make her feel confident in anything. Everything was confusing and it even started her mind to tempt her with the easy living in the mountains. When she hadn't met Björn and she ran around in the deep snow and hunted animals, her own company through thick and thin. The only one she had to believe in, rely on and listen to was herself.

A knock on the door interrupted her thoughts and made her quickly turn around. She spotted Björn standing there with his arms crossed over his chest and his shoulder resting on the doorframe. A faint smile was visible on his lips which made her frown.

Björn Ironside. Her own bear slayer. The man who had given her more than she could've imagined. He had made her feel emotions she never thought were possible for her. He had made her feel loved, seen and enough. She remembered seeing him for the first time in the mountains when he was fighting the bear and the berserker. She remembered judging him, laughing at his lack of skills for surviving in the mountains yet he did anyway. She remembered their first encounter, how he chased her, their fight and how she had threatened him to not enter the forest again due to the wolves which he ignored. It made her smile. Björn Ironside, her own curious explorer. She remembered how she though he was rather handsome, and his failed attempt to blame their first intimate moment on keeping the warmth in his first storm. She might not have been experienced with men back then yet she wasn't oblivious to the world around her. She wasn't a timid little girl up there, she knew about sex, heartbrokenness, life and death. However she had only lived through a few of those things yet she was smart enough to understand the other.

Björn was easy going, adventurous and a physical human being. They had lived through their disagreements. Her sleeping with his father, her betrayal and her breaking his heart. His neglect of his child which hade made her hesitating to tell him about her pregnancy. Her miscarriage he was yet unknown about. He had terrified her when he expressed his feelings towards her after the loss of her child she at the time wasn't sure if she wanted to keep since she didn't know who the father was. When he had confessed those feeling's she had been a coward, she ran away from it since she was afraid of the deep meaning and promises behind it. It was all to much of her. She was terrified when he confessed and she knew that her confessing her miscarriage was almost revealed and she left so she didn't had to tell him. She didn't want to tell him since she was ashamed. She had gotten pregnant but she refused to believe it and lost it. She was afraid that if she had confessed her true feelings towards him back then that Björn wanted to start a family and she would've gotten another miscarriage. Björn was someone she didn't want to disappoint yet she had only made it worse because avoiding one disappointment had lead to another disappointment. Vál felt ashamed of that too.