On the third day of Christmas your bestest writer gave to thee…
And Then There Was Light: The Rebirth of Bonnie Bennett
Bonnie stepped onto Kattegat's harbor amidst a torrent of memories. The first moment she arrived in the Norwegian city rushed her. "What you're feeling now is the same feelings I have each time I return. Bonnie, swear your allegiance to me. Remain always at my side and I vow to protect you for as long as we both remain on Midgard."
"Why offer me this? You hardly know me," she whispered the summers old reply back to the wind as the present entwined with the past.
Torvi's heart crippling golden eyes filtered through her third sight, along with Ubbe and Hvitserk. They each appeared younger than she knew them to be. As she move down the planked dock Queen Aslaug interrupted her path. The consistency of her seemed to be nothing more than wispy remembrance of days gone by. Blurriness crept into Bonnie's field of vision.
"My Queen, I do believe it has been an honor and privilege to have known you," she uttered to the apparition.
Tears flooded Aslaug's enchanting eyes as a somber smile made a home upon her lips. "The honor and privilege has been mine, Most High." She reached out a ghostly hand to her. "Until we meet again."
Bonnie strode through the once queen as if she were no more than a cloud of smoke, while muttering in return, "Until we meet again."
From the cut of her eye she saw Lord Hvitserk shading her with a look of disdaining indifference.
"Hvits, help me…please," the plea slipped from her lips as broken as the memory they were derived from. Her essence would never forget the way her Sentinel turned and walked away. Disregarding her as if she'd never mattered.
Soon the pathway led her through the city. People moving about halted in their rising to watch her pass. They, however, became nothing more than a back drop to the onslaught yester risings swirling all around her. Her sorcery whipped about inside of her like a lightening storm. Familiar potent mystical energy devoured her. It welcomed her…it celebrated her. A few paces ahead of her Ragnar appeared, looking more soul startling than she remembered. His eyes blazed brighter than the foot prints he'd left behind. Almost as if the Goddess of All's ether's kindled the flames which sparked his gaze.
"I've discovered new lands searching for you," he whispered. "Where have you been?"
"Looking for you, My King." The grievous ache for him swelled within her so until the liquid pain blurring her sight trickled over her bottom lids. "In everyone…every thing…and in every place."
When she reached him she paused before him. Her eyes drifted closed. She wanted nothing more than to breath him. To feel his warmth. To revel under the weight of his hand upon her body. Yet Fate had something else in mind for their path. Her eyes opened and locked with his. Regret thickened the air between them. He lifted a wispy hand to her face and allowed the palm to hover near her cheek without making contact. Then his form disintegrated like steam billowing on the wind. She exhaled, and then continued her trek.
Soon after a cloaked figure shadowed her steps. A figure she hadn't seen since Ivar gutted him before her sight. "You've become more divine than supernatural, Most High. I can no longer see you."
"And you can no longer be seen. So all of this is needless." She waved a hand from his cloaked head to his sandaled feet.
The Markos she knew from another time and a Mystic Place emerged from the decaying seer. Too stunned to continue he stumbled to a stop. She, however, continued towards her destination with more memories leading the way. A pain ripped through her mid-section. More tears coursed down her face.
"The baby's…coming," she murmured. Ayanna crossed her path, her eyes large and expression somber. "What's wrong? Why is she not crying, Ayanna? Is something wrong with her?"
"Bennett…" Silas' distressed torn face appeared before her, then faded back into Ayanna who clutched a bundle to her breasts.
"The babe is still," her foremother uttered.
"Still…" She parroted.
"The babe was born without life in her b-body."
More tears saturated her cheeks as she shook her head. "Give me my baby." The lifeless weight of her baby girl's body settled in her arms. "No, no, no…please, no…this can't be…Goddess, please! You can't let this stand! Not my baby…not my baby!"
She approached the cove with them memory of her daughter's precious body clutched to her breasts. Before she was ready she towered over an open grave. A floating tiny casket lowered itself into the ground. The slight burden of her daughter's lifeless frame faded from her arms as the coffin descended into the earth. She fell to her knees. Faith's crystallized grave shimmered into existence in front of her. A sob shook her. Oh Goddess. She was broken without even a shred of hope of surviving the death of her daughter.
She threw her head back to look to the heavens. "Goddess, how do you expect me to help them when my resting state is pieces?" Watery sobs wrenched themselves from her. "Mother of All, pull me out…save me from this pain…it's bleeding me dry and I want survive…not without-,"
A twig broke. On the over pass above a beautiful sight collided with her vision. With grace that rivaled the wind and sea, a dark haired warrior battle trained on the edge of the cliff. Bonnie's gaze tracked the bare chested man move for move. She couldn't tear her eyes away. Was he a literal angel sent from above? After an eternity or maybe several minutes more of training, he stooped down. A familiar large eagle landed next to him. The warrior took a moment to dote on the bird, and then stood to wiggle out of his pants. The unobstructed sight of him damn near forced her tongue down her throat and collapsed her lungs. The good Goddess had blessed him in so many ways…and inches. Something stirred in her that hadn't stirred within her since her husband traveled beyond the veil.
The warrior dove into the water below. Bonnie stood and walked to the edge of the shore. She had to know this man. For the Goddess sent him to deliver her from a sea of suffering. Moments later the warrior emerged. They locked eyes. Her heart stopped. Guthrum? A vision dominated her third sight…
A fire blazed in a marble fireplace a few paces away from them. They lay before the flaming view on their sides. Oh so achingly slow he moved in and out of her from behind. The sounds their mouths and bodies made wrenched her tongue dry.
Instantly, shame snatched her to the bottom of her guilt. Guthrum's bulging blues bore into hers. She could tell by his stunned beyond the shits expression he too witnessed the premonition. She stumbled backwards, and nearly bust her ass in her attempts to make a moon walking escape. Half staggering and falling, she finally managed to flee the scene of her premeditated predacious crime.
"Hvitserk, why are you set upon becoming this addled mess of a man?" Amma forced from the split of her stiff lips as she dragged him from the keep of the mushroom peddler. "You are a son of Ragnar! Oh how you must shame him."
"Hmph, you know nothing of Ragnar! For if you did-," The sight of his former reason racing pass him severed the remaining words from his tongue.
His eyes flapped open and closed. Did the influence of the mushrooms and ale still linger…or had Bonnie returned to Kattegat? Follow her…claim her! A sinister bellow rebounded off the walls of his mind. He snatched himself from Amma's grasp, and then staggered to the pathway to glare at the retreating back of his former mate. She was no drunkard's delusion. Bonnie was real. She'd returned…to everyone but him. Lies! She thrives where her heart survives! The mocking part of himself had the right of it! There was nothing he needed more than her. He moved to go after her, and Amma caught hold of his arm.
"Was that our Supreme who just happened by?" She demanded.
The All Father crossed his sight line and Amma went all but forgotten. Before Odin faded from his view he turned to give him a pointed look. Without thought Hvitserk wrenched his arm from Amma's hold. He then shadowed the All Father's steps to the old keep he'd once shared with Thora. Laughter greeted him upon entering the now mockery of a home. He spun in a circle to locate the sound. Odin stepped from a dark corner a few paces to his right. A sneer burdened his mouth, while his sockets birth forth a wealth of resentment and animosity.
"You're a mess," he uttered. Pleasure nigh dripped from each of his words. "The great Divine One who was birthed into existence by the universe itself to serve as the other half to the Mother of All Creation."
Confusion blended with Hvitserk's fading drunken stupor as he attempted to make sense of the senseless. The All Father loathed him. Yet he was unsure what he'd done to earn his ire. Perhaps, he condemned him for his treatment of their Supreme. The feral potent force in him shifted. Though mild irritation fizzled through him, the forceful energy within him refused to be provoked. Odin must've sensed this because disgust twisted his face.
"Whatever, brother. You refuse to speak with me, that's fine," he seethed as he stepped halfway from existence. "Long as you stay on code and play your part we don't ever have to talk again."
As the All Father faded, so did Hvitserk's awareness in Midgard…
Foreboding stalked Ambrose as he approached the entrance of the solarium. Yet haste urged each of his foot falls forward. Change flirted with the consistency of his eternity. Even now he sensed the loosening threads of his divined destiny. An attempted alteration to his eternal path outraged him. Inside the solarium the other half of his essence stood before the Birth of Being, wet faced and bare of her silken scarves. For the love of her, he did not understand the happenings within that moment! Did she mean to give herself over to the great mystery of life?
"My Heart, what is it you think to do with yourself?" He called out to her slowly closing the distance between them.
She tore her regard from his brother to glare at him. "Did you believe I wouldn't discover what you, Hidi, and the others plotted for my children?" Confusion stalled his steps. What was she on about? "The sadistic lengths you're willing to go! All for what you perceive to be an ideal world? Just looking at you turns my essence."
"I know not of what you speak!" He growled, flicking a desperate stare to his brother. "Oberon, what nonsense is this which sprouts from her tongue?"
Oberon's gaze rolled. "Cease your deceptions, brother! She knows everything. How could she not?"
"You call them abominations…unnaturals, but you're all wrong," his heart railed at him as she took more steps backwards. She pointed a finger at him. "Your way is the abomination, Ambrose! That thing you've created with…her will be the end to not just my children but to us all if it's not stopped."
"Heart, please! I've created nothing…I've done nothing!" He pleaded with her.
"You have," she whispered as tears pooled in her beautiful jewel like eyes. "You've concluded us and now we have nothing." With that said she threw herself backwards into the ethers.
"Zuri!" He tore across the marble tile and made it to the birthing ethers in time to see her disintegrate.
Enraged, he turned about to interrogate his brother only to be met with an essence waster to the chest. The resentful gleam in Oberon's eyes stunned him more than the saber to his mystical energy. In that moment he knew his brother had directed whatever scene he now found himself enacting. So as he fell backwards into the ethers, he reached out and grabbed Oberon. Together they both tumbled to their oblivion.
Bonnie burst through the doors of Mikaelson House with her anxieties on ten. The vision of she and Guthrum together slammed the panic button inside of her. Guthrum had her shook along with her reaction to him. She knew certain emotions between them had shifted, but those urges coursing through her no longer felt like the manifestation of his need. No what beat at her was a deep seated want of her own.
As she rested the knuckles of her fists against the closed door to brace herself, a set of familiar arms embraced her from behind. A familiar rock solid frame pressed into her back. She allowed herself to be pulled away from the door and guided from the foyer. As they went, powerful hands began to fondle, massage, and tweak the front of her. The sureness of her mystery man's touch strengthened the thrumming pulse of lust which damn near snatched the clothes from her body at the cove. Not wanting to add gasoline to those flames of hell no, she tore herself from the strangers hold and spun on him. Ubbe's sky blue stare bore into hers.
"Valkyrie," he murmured with all the devoutness of a praise.
Their eyes devoured the other. Drinking the other's sight in as if they'd just happened upon an oceanic mirage after a sea of dust.
Take him, you are in need of him. Her sorcery whispered.
Facts with no opinionated chasers! Yet she'd promised Torvi she'd not intrude upon her marriage. Ubbe who wasn't there for the indecisive foolery snatched his dagger from his waist and dragged the tip of the blade across his wrist. The dark ruby goodness which gushed from his open wound provoked her mouth to water and her clit to throb. She wanted to taste him so bad her fucking hands shook. In a few steps he slaughtered the distance between them. He pressed his wrist to her already parted lips. The first taste of him snatched her brain, leaving her and him willing victims to her baser instincts.
Nearly sparking a blaze, Ubbe backed her into the sitting room just off from the foyer. He eased them onto the first sofa that bumped into them. Without much prompting she straddled him, while still giving a super head suck game to his wrist. His hips bucked upwards and exquisite mouthwatering sensations had her eyes crossing. In turnabout foreplay, she began to match each of his surging thrusts with slow motion circular grinds. His answering groans made a slippery mess of the crotch of her undies. Somehow Ubbe managed to work his free hand into her pants. When his finger grazed her juiced up pearl tongue reality went live and turned the hell up on their fuckery. Reluctantly, she tore her mouth from his wrist. Her sorcery seeped from the tips of her fingers to close his wound.
Confusion snatched his brows together. "Why did you stop before we both gained what we needed?"
"Ubbe, you're married," she said climbing from his lap to sit next to him on the sofa. "There are boundaries in the physical realm we can no longer cross."
"That is ridiculous. My marriage matters not," he argued, turning to regard her with a scrunched face. "My sworn oath to you surpasses any vow I made to Torvi. This is something of which she's aware."
Bonnie only stared at him without a word to the first in dispute or agreement. She'd already given her word to Torvi and she refused to go back on her promise no matter how much she needed Ubbe in that moment. He continued to hold her stare. Perplexity heightened in his sky blues with each passing second until clarity resonated throughout their depths.
"Torvi," he murmured as he continued to study her face. "When she came to you last Spring, she didn't ask you to enter into matrimony with us."
Bonnie remained silent refusing to sling her friend under the wagon. Yet her not answering must've been all the confirmation he needed. For he shot to his feet and stormed out as if he were still Asgard bound and the gates of Valhalla refused to wait.
"Shit!" She forced from the slits of her teeth. Not even two hours back in Kattegat and she'd already fucked up.
Torvi only half listened to the talks between her former husband and his current wife Gunnhild. The topic of their discussions seemed less than mild in nature though. So even if she were fully engaged she'd without a doubt still discover the task of actively listening burdensome. Yet, a majority of her thoughts remained centered upon her husband. He'd left there bed earlier that morn which wasn't unusual for him, but he hadn't been waiting to join her for first meal which did stray from his usual habit. In verity, his absence bothered her more than she dared to admit.
The door to the halls opened and closed, effectively tearing her from her thoughts. For a moment, she prayed to the gods for it to be Ubbe. Instead, Guthrum entered and crossed the hall to join her at the great table. Before he seated himself next to her, his stare darted about the faces there almost as if he searched for one in particular. His inspections must've fell short of his expectations because indifference dimmed his stare once more.
"I hope thy morn is fare, Guthrum," she said, before lifting her chalice to her mouth and taking a sip of her mead.
"Guthrum," Bjorn muttered without interest.
"Greetings, Guthrum," Gunnhild added.
Hali and Asa also followed suit. He murmured a distracted blanketed reply to them all in return.
She leaned into him. "Guthrum, what is troubling-,"
The doors to the hall burst open once more and in charged her husband. Red faced, spitting fury, and raring to cross blades with the dung beetle unfortunate enough to have provoked his wrath. When he stopped before her she contemplated climbing under her chair.
"What did you say to Bonnie?" He demanded as every vein in his neck pressed at his skin for freedom.
For a moment his question took her unawares, and then her gaze fell to Guthrum. So this was where his troubles lay. She'd returned.
"Why are you questioning your wife about Bonnie?" Bjorn interrupted waving a discounting hand at her.
Guthrum cleared his throat. "Bonnie has returned to Kattegat."
"She should've stayed away!" Hali seethed under his breath as he tossed his eating dagger back into his platter.
Asa slapped her hands together as she bounced in her seat. "I want to sight Bonnie! Take me to sight her…please, Guthrum!"
Unwilling to have that discussion in the midst of such chaos, she rose and strode towards the personal quarters of the long house. Without looking, she knew Ubbe followed. As soon as they gained their privacy Ubbe spun her about to face him.
"Why did you mislead me into believing Bonnie didn't favor entering into matrimony with you and I?" He questioned in a lower but more feral tone. She inhaled but held her tongue attempting to gather her words. His glare further slitted. "We were in agreement you and I! Truth be professed it was our shared love for Bonnie that brought us together. You wanted her just as much as me." Her continued silence incited him further. His eyes flared as he shook his head. As if realization had took him firmly in hand. "You're no better than Margrethe! Leading me into marriage under false-,"
Before she knew her own mind she misplaced her hand across his face. "I asked Bonnie to keep her distance for my son. Guthrum is in love with her and has been since his twelfth summer." Ubbe clutched his cheek as he stared back at her with wide gaping eyes. "What kind of mother would I be to ignore this…to deny my child happiness for the sake of my own?"
Bonnie trudged through the forest to see Ayanna. She'd missed her foremother and she wanted to coerce her and Ingrid into coming to live with her. Soon Ayanna would be sailing for the Icelandic settlement. Once she did only the Goddess knew when she'd see them again. So she wanted to spend as much time with the beginner of the Bennett name as time allowed. Yet how would she lure Ayanna from her clearing in the forest? As she tossed ideas back and forth in her mind a half naked wolf who bore a strong resemblance to her former fiancé stepped into her path.
"Ansel, I thought you returned to your people's land after the civil wars," she said, wrapping him in an embrace when he thought to bow to her.
Ansel laughed as he wrestled his arms free of her awkward hold to pull her closer. "I remain about to keep sight of Ayanna…and for other purposes."
"Hmm, and will these other purposes allow you to depart from these lands if one rising I ask it of you?" She questioned, pulling back to gaze up into his eyes.
Ansel's stare became concerned and searching. His face folded itself into an array of furrows and creases. "Have I done something to displease you, Most High?"
"Never, Ansel!" She shook her head to legitimize her denial. "You've always been someone on whom I can count. Yet there will come a time when I'll require this of you. It's pertinent to the concluding battle ahead."
He took her hand in his, and then dipped his to kiss the back of the appendage. "Then it shall gladden me to have leave of these lands when the time is upon me."
"I'll be in touch," she said, before freeing herself from his hold.
After leaving her would be father in law, Bonnie continued to Ayanna's. She arrived in the clearing of her foremother's land soon after. As she approached the one room keep, warmth spread through her limbs while her sorcery pirouetted throughout her veins and arteries. The comforting familial feel of home encompassed her. Drawing near, Ayanna's and Ingrid's voices drifted to her from the covered entrance. Tension and strife drenched their tones and colored their discussion.
"Unless you're willing to enter into matrimony with the Iron king and his queen then you have no place in their marital bed!" Ayanna hissed. "Your place…your path is at our Supreme's side, as her one! You'd do well to remember as such."
"Yet, I love-,"
Not there to hear Ingrid profess her love for Bjorn, Bonnie rapped her knuckles against the house. She then slipped though the curtained doorway. "Knock…knock!"
"Supreme!" Ingrid cried as she swept into a formal bow.
Ayanna's gaze crash landed on her and narrowed. Her head tilted a bit. "Odd, I didn't sense your arrival."
"Hmm, imagine that," Bonnie mocked as she jabbed her thumb back at the door. "Should I go and reenter, then?"
Ayanna pressed her lips together in an attempt to suppress the grin twitching at the corners of her lips. "Your tongue wags without the benefit of wits to guide it through. Come sit, I'll prepare you those roots you favor so and you can speak to me of how your travels fared."
Bonnie settled herself on the stone bench. "The Cradle of Life has been cleansed along with many cities along the Mediterranean."
"Will your triumph there help to turn the impending battle in our favor?" Ingrid asked moving to perch on the edge of the stone table next to her.
Ayanna hung an iron pot over the hearth. "Every small triumph shall aid in the cause."
"Ayanna's right, but there's still much to be done," Bonnie added. The next twelve hundred years would bring trials, hardships, and more losses than she cared to consider.
"I wish I could've been at your side during your time in the Mediterranean," Ingrid longing tone tore her thoughts from the times to come.
She cut her eye up at the blond and suffered an acute case of pettiness. "I'm sure the side you held down in my absence didn't give you time to wish for anything. Least of all me."
"Supreme-,"
"Perhaps you should begin your journey back to the long house, Ingrid," Ayanna interrupted. "It's been half a rising since your mistress made use of you. I've no doubt she's anticipating your return."
"Yes, Ayanna," Ingrid reluctantly dipped her head to Bonnie. "Supreme." She then took her leave of the keep.
After Ingrid departed Ayanna handed her a wooden cup of tea, before sitting across from her in an iron chair. Bonnie took a sip of the brew, and then continued the conversation. "How have things been here in my absence?"
"From what's been spoken," her foremother raised and dropped a shoulder. "Ironside has made Kattegat an adequate enough king. I'm sure his efforts are indeed an improvement over the Boneless one. Ubbe advises him and his counsel has wrought prosperity upon the land. Lord Hvitserk, however, is another matter. The man's become a drunkard, the lowest of degenerates. Not unlike his father once-,"
"I'd rather not discuss, Hvits," she said, placing her cup on the table. "I'd rather talk about your turning path and you coming to spend your remaining days in this land with me."
Ayanna settled back in her seat as she held her gaze. "I'm well aware of the twists and turns of my path, Descended daughter of my line. The Spirits have already foretold me of my place in the impending procession." She leaned forward in her seat to stare Bonnie directly in the pupils. "They also bid me to warn you to remain true to your path. It matters not how undesirable the trek may become. For this is the only way we shall all prevail."
Bonnie entered the gates leading up the drive to Mikaelson House. The conversation she'd had with Ayanna consumed her mind so she almost missed Guthrum and Asa who waited at the front doors. Yet when awareness struck, the visceral reaction she had to Guthrum damn near snatched her to her knees. His scent did nefarious things to her best intentions. The way he stared compromised her ability to execute sound decisions and his overall presence provoked her to consider side stepping her morals. Why him, Goddess? Why did he have to affect her so?
She forced a smile and stooped so she was eye level to Asa. "Princess Leia, I'm honored you've taken time from safeguarding the universe to visit my lowly galaxy."
"I've missed you," she said grabbing a hold of Guthrum's leg. "It saddens me and Hali when you seek your leave of us."
Bonnie's gaze rose to meet Guthrum's empty stare. "Where is Hali?"
"He didn't want to come," Asa answered.
She recentered her attention back on the little girl. "I'm sorry, Asa. It was not my intent to sadden you or Hali with my absence. There are other responsibilities which will take me from you from time to time, but you and your brothers are never far from my thoughts. I carry you all with me when we're not together. And no matter how many times I leave you must know my return to you shall always be inevitable." She held up her pinky to the little girl. "This is my vow to you, Princess."
Instead of taking hold of her finger, Asa threw herself in Bonnie's arms. She wasted no time lifting the little darling into a snug embrace. Guthrum remained silent as she led them into the house. In fact, he maintained his silence for the rest of the rising. While she doted on Asa, her Inquisitor remained a soundless observer. Watching over them as they baked cookies, played dress up, and told countless stories. By the time eve fell, Asa slept sounder than the dead in front of the fire place in the yellow tea room. After Bonnie cushioned her little body on feathered pillows and tucked her in with furs, she turned her attention to Guthrum.
"Guthrum, why didn't Hali wanna come here?" She questioned though she had an idea of his answer.
He tore his gaze from hers to regard the flames in the fireplace. "Hali is hurt, and he's attempting to settle those emotions so he may consider placing his trust in you once more."
"He's hurt?" She shook her head trying to wrap her mind around the harm he claimed she wrought upon a child she loved as her own. "But I don't understand. What'd I do to provoke his distrust?"
"You left!" Guthrum bellowed in a voice she never believed him capable of using on her.
The pain which rippled through his tone resonated throughout every thread of her essence. Liquid heat singed her eyes. In that moment, she understood he no longer championed Hali's cause. The raw ache and animosity manipulating his features, casting shadows in his glare, weighed on his shoulders and his alone. She'd fled Kattegat after he'd moved mountains to come for her. She'd curved them all like a ball player ducking a paternity suit. Disregarding those she'd always regarded as family.
"Guthrum," she uttered, hating the distance between them despite him being only inches away.
Without another word he rose and hurried from the tea room. Bonnie bounded to her feet and followed. She didn't want to leave things in such a mess between them. By the time she caught up to him, he was storming out of the front door. As she moved to stalk his steps, the sight on her welcome mat halted her progress.
"Bjorn," she said, stunned. After giving Guthrum's retreating back one more longing look, she forced her gaze back on her former protector. "Please, come inside."
He nodded, and then entered. Before she could close the doors, he whirled on her. He remained just as demanding as she remembered, while still exuding more significance than time itself. "Why would you seek out your leave after I face down Fate and Hel to return to you?"
Ingrid's and Ayanna's earlier conversation came hurtling back to her. How dare he think to make her feel beholden to him? He didn't give a shit about her leaving Kattegat. Not really! For him women were like ships, miss one and he'll just jump on the next thing smoking and willing. He was married for Goddess sake!
"Although I'm grateful I remained a thought in your mind long enough for you to come for me, the only thing you're entitled to is a thank you, King Bjorn," she hissed from the clench of her teeth. "Anything else would be unkind to your mistress and disrespectful to your wife!"
"Never mind my wife and I haven't kept a mistress since I kept you," he spat back at her.
She backhanded him without the benefit of a should I or shouldn't I thought tip-toeing across her mind. "Say it again and next time you'll be swallowing your damn teeth."
Rage ripped through her like a thousand maniacs dropped in a landfill of hot buttons and trigger warnings. Air burst from her mouth. Gasping pants forced her chest to rise and fall in rapid cycles. Heat swelled between them. Shit, he had her so hot her field of vision blazed hell fire red. His rapacious stare left hers, and then drifted to her mouth, before falling to her breasts. He stepped forward, and then stopped. Squeezing his eyes closed, he shook his head.
"This is madness," he near whispered, before flaring open his stare to glare at her. "I'm done seeking you out…especially when you don't want to be sought," he glanced at the door, and then looked back at herk, "or at least sought by me. From this moment on I shall no longer indulge my affections for you."
A heart she believed to be no more than a pile of debris surprised her and cracked. Shook, she raised her chin and cloaked her battered emotions in pride. "Good, it's about damn time."
Disgust prompted him to shake his head once more. "I'll honor you as my Supreme and nothing more."
"As you should!" she hurled back managing to look down her nose at him.
Without another word Bjorn Ironside stalked out of the still open doors. Bonnie didn't bother to close them. Why would she? She was too broken to care. Instead, she sunk to her knees and gave the flood brewing inside of her the outlet it so desired.