Free Web NovelChapter 118: Chapter 118
His eyes fluttered shut, as though he were savoring the warmth of her touch, the gentle drag of her fingertips on his skin, the tender pressure of her palm against his cheek.
Circe’s breath caught in her throat.
His words still lingered in the air between them, soft, yet somehow heavy, like a thick layer of smoke that refused to fade.
I missed you.
It wasn’t the kind of thing Ragnar said lightly. He wasn’t a man that was used to giving out sentiment or idle confessions, and perhaps that was what made the words so disarming and so utterly impossible to brush aside.
Her hand was still on his cheek, her thumb resting on the sharp line of his jaw. Beneath her touch, she could feel the steady thrum of his pulse and the subtle shift of his jaw as he watched her, waiting for something, for any kind of response to his declaration.
A sign to show him that she felt even a fraction of what he did during his absence.
He found nothing.
Circe, on the other hand, could hardly think, much less speak.
She swallowed, watching his Adam’s apple bob as he mirrored the motion, and a fleeting thought whispered that she should stop touching him like this. This was not like her at all. Such casual affection had never once been a part of their many interactions before so why would she let it start now?
The warmth between them pressed close until she finally remembered to breathe.
Slowly, almost reluctantly, Circe withdrew her hand. Her fingertips grazed his beard before slipping away. Ragnar’s eyes opened at the loss of her touch, lashes lifting as he watched her draw back.
"You shouldn’t say things like that to me," she said at last, though her voice sounded weaker than she liked. freewebnøvel.coɱ
The words itself came out softer than intended, fragile in a way that irritated her.
He shouldn’t be saying such things to her, especially when he stood this close, close enough that his smoky sandalwood scent slipped into her senses and tangled there.
There had to be a law about this somewhere. An unspoken rule stating what a man who was both her friend and sworn nemesis should never say. And the words "I missed you", spoken with that kind of quiet sincerity and tenderness, should have been at the very top of that list.
Ragnar tilted his head slightly, a faint gleam of amusement flickering in his eyes. "Why not?"
Circe opened her mouth, but no words came. Her mind buzzed with a thousand half-formed thoughts, restless like a swarm of angry wasps, and yet none would settle into something she could speak aloud.
Instead, she turned away, crossing to the table where Nieah had left her meal. The rich aroma of her favorite spiced broth seeped through her senses now that she had managed to put some distance between them. The smell was comforting and familiar.
"Because words like that don’t mean much," she said finally, her tone cooler now, though not entirely steady. "They’re what people say to sound polite. Just a string of meaningless words, and coming from you, that makes them even worse."
She could feel his gaze on her back, pressing against her like a physical weight.
"I didn’t say it to sound polite," Ragnar said evenly. His voice was calm but carried a depth she couldn’t ignore. He was not the type to say things he didn’t mean, and she of all people should have known that.
She hesitated, fingers curling around the edge of the table. "Then why did you say it?"
When she finally turned her head to glance back, she found that he had moved closer again, like there was an invisible string pulling him to her.
"Because it’s true," he said simply.
Circe’s lips parted, but no words came. The steadiness in his tone stripped her of her defenses and made her next words turn to ash on her tongue.
Ragnar studied her for a few more seconds, then took a step back, as though sensing she needed space. His expression softened, though the bruises on his face stood out sharply.
"You should rest," he said, his voice low. "You look pale."
"I’m fine," she insisted, though she wasn’t sure she was doing a good job at convincing him about it.
He gave a soft sound in response, something between a hum and a sigh, the corner of his mouth twitching like he wanted to smile but decided against it.
Her gaze drifted over him again, tracing the dark smudges beneath his eyes, the faint cut along his cheekbone. "Aren’t you even going to tell me what really happened?" she asked quietly.
She knew he didn’t owe her an explanation, and she couldn’t force one from him even if she tried. But by now, Ragnar must have realized that her curiosity was insatiable.
If he didn’t want her asking questions, he shouldn’t have come back looking like he toppled off a cliff headfirst.
A small pang of worry had struck her the instant she saw his face after the hood came off.
Her mind had immediately conjured the memory of him in that arena, the memory of him lying motionless in a pool of his own blood while the palace guards attended to everyone else but him. The image still haunted her, and the thought that something similar might have happened again filled her chest with a dull, aching fear.
"Do you really want to know, or are you just asking to be polite?" Ragnar said, tossing her own words back at her.
"I wouldn’t be asking if I didn’t want to know," she shot back, meeting his gaze squarely. "And you know I’ve never done anything just to be polite to you."
That much was true.
Ragnar exhaled slowly, unclipping his cloak and setting it down on the bed. The movement was unhurried and deliberate.
"I got into a fight with Hairan at the ball I was supposed to attend." He said finally, as if commenting on something as mundane as the weather. He was just glad that she was there to witness it.
For a moment, Circe could only gape at him. freewёbn૦νeɭ.com
Ragnar noticed her stunned expression and the faintest smirk tugged at his lips. "If you think this is bad," he said, gesturing lazily to his bruised face, "then you’ll be glad to know Hairan looks far worse."
Circe blinked, still struggling to process. "He attacked you? At a ball?"
"On the contrary, Princess," Ragnar said dryly. "It’s the other way around."
Now that hours had passed since the altercation, Ragnar could clearly see the errors in the way he reacted to Hairan but it wasn’t enough to make him regret what he had done.
Recalling that night only made him feel as stubborn and petulant as Circe had accused him of being on multiple occasions.
Her mouth fell open in disbelief. "You attacked him? Why?"
He didn’t answer right away.
Ragnar didn’t tell her that he would have gone further than that, or that he had actually pulled out a knife and might have done something far worse if Falein hadn’t stopped him.
He wasn’t usually that reckless. The rage that had driven him to lunge at Hairan that night wasn’t like him at all. Lately, the only thing that could strip him of his composure was the woman standing in front of him.
Come to think of it, Hairan had been making remarks about Circe when the fight broke out. That alone said enough about just how deeply she had gotten under his skin.
"He deserved it," was all Ragnar said.
