Free Edge of Control: (Viking Dystopian Romance) by Megan Crane

his particular talents—accompanying that question forced Riordan to flip off every single one of them. Every one of them except Eiryn, that was, who was doing an impression of stone statue over on her tree trunk.
    Not that he was noticing her in particular, of course. For fuck’s sake.
    “A winter marriage is a good idea,” Helena said after the laughter died down. “Single people roaming around at this time of year are always considered suspicious. Winters are long and are for doing your duty in the dark months, not wandering all over the place, risking death and making trouble.”
    Riordan knew what a winter marriage was, of course. But the idea of him participating in one was . . . impossible. Ridiculous, even. The looks on the brothers’ faces told him they all felt much the same.
    “Can you imagine some poor, naïve mainland girl shacking up with a raider for the winter?” Bast asked, laughing. “It might kill her.”
    “It shouldn’t be a mainland girl at all.”
    Eiryn’s voice was cool and sharp, cutting through the night, the fire, even the laughter. If she was aware of all the heads that swiveled around to stare at her, she gave no sign, sitting there cool and haughty on her tree trunk as if she was the one on a throne instead of the lazy-looking man sprawled out at her feet.
    “That would be far too risky. If it’s going to work it needs to be someone who’s an asset to the mission, not an impediment.” Eiryn glanced at Wulf beside her, but then slid that unreadable gaze of hers across the small ring, hitting Riordan like a punch. A hard and fast uppercut, straight to the gut. No mercy. “It should be me.”

3
    Eiryn didn’t know what she’d expected in the wake of her announcement. The world to end—again? An outcry of some sort?
    But there was nothing. Just the snap and shudder of the logs in the fire, the rushing sound of the sea against the sand, and the faint song of the summer wind through the forest that huddled around them.
    Riordan sat on the other side of the fire, kicked back against a rock as if it was some kind of cozy fur-draped couch instead of an exposed boulder on a chilly beach in the middle of the night. His dark gaze was hard on hers. Too hard, like the kiss of a blade, and the firelight didn’t help, making him look bronzed and edged in shadow at the same time. Mysterious and perfect all at once, and she told herself there was no lump in her throat, no tightness in her chest at the sight of him. None at all. She was immune.
    She watched his jaw clench, the telltale sign of his temper or any other deep emotion in him that she didn’t want to know about. She saw the way his dark eyes glittered and braced herself, but he didn’t say a word.
    Somehow, that felt like a reprimand. She hated that it stung.
    Gunnar let out a bark of what could as easily have been surprise as laughter, breaking the silence, but that was all. Asshole. Eiryn didn’t know why she’d expected anything else from the man who had, until recently, lived like some kind of vagrant in his junkyard of a basement. When he wasn’t off arm wrestling wolf packs like a suicidal idiot and then swanning around with their fangs on cords around his neck like a complete jackhole. Or collecting nuns, for that matter.
    Wulf, meanwhile, shifted from his lazy position lounging on the grass. Slowly. Very slowly. Eiryn realized that, as usual, everyone was waiting—frozen and quiet—for his exalted reaction to his personal bodyguard’s declaration. She’d be lying if she pretended she wasn’t doing the same. He looked over his shoulder at her, and even with his face cast in shadow there was no getting away from the punch of his blue gaze.
    “I was unaware I released you from your position,” he said. Mildly.
    So mildly. Yet no one within the sound of his voice thought he was anything but leashed danger and too much power just waiting to explode, and maybe this would be the thing that ignited his famous and