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“That’s a fine beast,” a Northern-accented voice said.

Amelia gave another quick press of her fingers on the outside rein, and then turned her head as well.

Ragnar strode beside them, easily having caught up with and now keeping pace with Shadow’s long strides. He’d donned his sleeveless tunic once more, the leather hiding the scar on his shoulder, but not his muscled chest, exposed nearly down to his navel by the half-laced clasps. His hair was fluffed over the fur collar, fresh braids along his temples pulling it back from his face, and exposing a pink-and-silver, obviously healing, but very clearlynewbite mark on the side of his throat.

The sight of that mark – which he could have hidden with collar and hair, but had chosen to reveal instead – halted her thoughts a moment. It could have come from any of his wolf brothers, but she knew it hadn’t. Leif had done that, and perhaps it had been a punishment, a chastisement…or perhaps it had been something else entirely, and the vivid picture that filled her mind sent a hot flush through her, head to toe. Part secondhand embarrassment, part shock, part hunger, the sort that left you a little sick to your stomach, heart pounding and palms clammy. She was no blushing virgin, but the two of them, their flagrant, though angry intimacy, their wolfish ways, and the intensity of their gazes – both very different in humor, but similar in intent – made her feel like one all over again.

It was rather infuriating.

He grinned, a lazy, slow-dawning smile that flashed his too-sharp canines, and which made her realize she’d been staring stupidly at him, without answering.

Shadow jigged, and she checked him with a firm hand and said, “I wouldn’t walk too closely, if I were you. He’s not keen on strangers.”

“I can tell. I suspect I’ll win him over in time. I tend to have that effect.” The cheeky buggerwinkedat her, and then folded his hands behind his back and faced forward, tone conversational when he said, “I always thought nice Southern ladies rode mares or traveled in pony carts.”

He was baiting her, and she knew it – but sometimes bait was too irresistible not to take. She snorted. “And I didn’t think you had one book to share amongst all of you in the North. How else could you form such useless prejudices about Southern ladies?”

He chuckled, and she could tell he was pleased with her answer. His gaze returned – but to Shadow, rather than her, an appraising look that traveled from plate-sized hooves to the stallion’s deep, broad chest. “We could use horses like him up North. We’ve all these big men, and all these shaggy little things. I bet he could make good time through the snow drifts.”

“The king rides a pony?”

His lip curled in distaste, and he faced forward again. “No. Not the king. He and his have the valuable beasts. But we in the clans have old stock. Nothing nearly so fine as what Erik rides out on.”

A wealth of history, of bitterness, of something nearly like longing was loaded in that one name. They’d not grown up together full-time, Erik and Ragnar, she knew, but Oliver had written that they’d been boys together at the Midwinter Festival each year. That there had been palace visits; that the starkness between the cousins had been driven home at every point: the bone-braided clansman in a hide tent, and the prince dripping gems, wrapped in fine velvets, with all the best weapons, and horses, and hunting hawks.

She kept her tone light when she said, “Do wolves ride horses, then? I thought perhaps you had no use for them – or the horses for you, come to that.”

His gaze cut over sideways, a snatch of blue brighter than the pale sky overhead. Curl at the corner of his mouth, little smirk of the sort that seemed to saylook at me. “We seem to have lots of assumptions about one another, don’t we?”

“Yes.” Including the assumption she’d held that a Northern clansman would be one step up from a wild bear, all grunting and gesturing, with filed teeth and blue war paint. She wasn’t proud of that assumption, but her nurse growing up had possessed a vivid, fearful imagination, and no practical experience with anyone north of the Cask River.

She attempted to soothe her jangling nerves with a deep breath, and said, “Are you feeling better today? Your shoulder isn’t troubling you?”

He flexed his arm – wasn’t that a lovely sight? – and rolled both shoulders, face clear of pain. “Right as rain,” he said, and then patted his biceps, shooting her another sideways glance to see if she was watching.

She felt her own smile threaten. “You’re a bit of a peacock, aren’t you?”

“A what?”

“A peacock. It’s a bird. Great, colorful tail that fans out to impress the females.” She lifted an arm to demonstrate.

His grin deepened, and his head turned toward her another fraction, so she could see the dancing of his gaze. “Sorry. All I heard was ‘cock,’ darling.”

Amelia couldn’t help but chuckle, though she knew she shouldn’t encourage him. She’d pegged him as dangerous straight off, and perhaps he was even more dangerous than she’d thought.

Charming, though. Unlike his cousin.

“I’ve been warned about you, you know.”

“Aye?” He shrugged. “Your sister?”

“And my cousin. Oliver writes quite often.”

“Ah, yes, the lovely Oliver. I still can’t believe Erik made a move on him, you know,” he said, with a practiced air of confession. “What’s a stuffy, uptight ice king going to do with that bit of fire anyway?”

“Warm his hands, for starters,” she said, and his laugh was a bright, startled punch of sound.

“Ha! I like it. The fire runs in the family.”