Chapter 8: Possession Proved
The silence in Bjorn’s quarters was thicker than the peat smoke. Ragnar moved before Kenji could blink, a wall of muscle and fury pinning him against the rough-hewn hull. The impact drove the air from Kenji’s lungs. Ragnar’s bearded face was inches from his, eyes black with an emotion that looked like betrayal.
His hands came up between them, the signs sharp and brutal. Mine. The gesture was a slashing cut. Then, finger thrust like a knife: Kill for you. His expression twisted with disgust. Not. Whore. You. Each sign was a hammer blow.
“I chose this,” Kenji hissed, struggling against the immovable pressure. “You don’t get to decide what I am.”
Ragnar’s hand snapped to Kenji’s throat, not squeezing, just holding. A warning. His other hand repeated, slower, Mine.
“It’s my choice,” Kenji repeated, voice steadier than he felt. “My risk to take.”
Something shifted in the giant’s gaze. The fury banked, replaced by a darker, more possessive heat. The hand on Kenji’s throat loosened, calloused thumb brushing the frantic pulse there. It was a different kind of claim.
From the table, Bjorn watched, sipping his mead. “He’s not a child, Ragnar. He has the eyes of a wolf and now its teeth.” He nodded at the katana. “We use the tools we have.”
Ragnar glanced at Bjorn, then back at Kenji. He leaned in, his forehead pressing against Kenji’s, a gesture of terrifying intimacy. His breath was warm. He made one last sign, close enough for only Kenji to see. Then I am your shadow.
The next night, the tavern was a low-ceilinged roar of smoke and sour ale. Kenji sat at a corner table, the unfamiliar weight of a drinking horn in his hand, feeling every stare like a physical touch. Captain Jorund slid onto the bench opposite him, his smile not reaching his cold, appraising eyes.
“A red-eyed spirit with a curved sword,” Jorund said, his voice a greasy murmur that cut through the tavern din. He pushed a better cup of mead toward Kenji. “Such singular company improves a man’s prospects, don’t you think?”
Kenji’s skin crawled. “I’m just passing through.”
“A man like you shouldn’t pass through anything,” Jorund countered, leaning in. The smell of him was salt and spoiled leather. “You should be at the center of things. My cabin is quiet. We could discuss your future without all this… noise.”
Across the room, Ragnar stood like a carved pillar beside a barrel, his gaze a constant, heavy pressure. He watched Kenji’s face, not Jorund’s, searching for the flicker behind the eyes. Kenji kept his expression neutral, the way he’d learned in school hallways a thousand years from here.
“Discuss what, exactly?” Kenji asked, his voice flat.
“Development,” Jorund said, the word slithering out. “Opportunity. The comfort of a dedicated patron.” His boot tapped Kenji’s under the table. “Join me. The night is long fa, and business is best conducted in private.”
Kenji’s fingers tightened on the cup. In the shadows, Ragnar’s hand drifted to the seax at his belt. The move was casual, effortless. A promise.
“My current arrangement suits me,” Kenji said, meeting Jorund’s gaze directly, letting his unusual eyes hold the man’s. He took a slow drink, buying a heartbeat of time. The mead was bitter, but it steadied him.
Jorund’s smile faded, replaced by a calculating thinness. “Arrangements change.” He stood up, his presence looming over the table. “The offer stands until dawn. Think on where you’d rather wake up.” He turned and vanished into the crowd.Kenji exhaled, his shoulders dropping. Ragnar was already moving toward him, a dark tide through the press of bodies.
Ragnar’s hand clamped onto his shoulder, steering him through the reeking crowd and out into the damp, quiet night. “He wants me alone in his cabin,” Kenji said, his voice low and steady against the distant roar of the sea. They stopped in the lee of a storehouse, the only light from a guttering torch across the muddy lane.
Ragnar’s face was carved stone, waiting. Kenji met his gaze, the words tasting of ash. “To make him vulnerable, to get him isolated from his crew… I have to go to bed with him.” He forced the next part out. “I have to let it happen.”
The giant’s stillness was more terrifying than any movement. The air between them turned brittle. Ragnar’s eyes tracked over Kenji’s face as if searching for a lie, a joke, any escape from this blunt fact. He made a sharp, cutting sign towards the tavern, then pointed two fingers at his own eyes and dragged them slowly down his cheeks—a mime of shame, of despair.
“It’s just a body,” Kenji whispered, the modern phrase sounding hollow and foolish here. “It’s the quickest way.” Ragnar’s fist slammed into the wooden wall beside Kenji’s head, a dull thunder that made Kenji flinch. Splinters peppered the air.
He didn’t pull his hand back. He left it there, knuckles bleeding, his arm caging Kenji in. His breath hitched, a ragged sound in the dark. The anger was gone, burned away, leaving something raw and exposed in his expression. He leaned his forehead against his own bruised fist, eyes shut.
When he looked up, his gaze was clear and terrible. He nodded once, a bare dip of his chin. It wasn’t approval. It was acceptance of a battle plan. Then he touched the center of Kenji’s chest, over his heart, with a single, bloodied finger. The meaning was unmistakable. Mine. Even in this.
Kenji felt the word burn where Ragnar’s finger had touched. He stepped forward, closing the distance, and wrapped his arms around the warrior’s solid torso. It was a brief, fierce press of his forehead against Ragnar’s chest, a silent translation of a thousand tangled words, before he turned and walked back toward the tavern’s bleeding light.
He found Jorund by the docks, examining a line of shackles on his ship’s rail. “I’ve thought on it,” Kenji said, his voice devoid of everything. “Your cabin. Now.”
Jorund’s smile was a predator’s grin. They hadn’t taken ten steps into a darkened alley between storehouses when Jorund shoved him against the wall. The man’s mouth was on his, demanding and sour with mead, his hands grasping. Kenji made his own hands lie still at his sides, his body wooden, his mind far away in the dojo light of 2020.
A meaty thud cut through the wet night air. Jorund’s weight vanished from him. Kenji blinked, wiping his mouth, to see Bjorn standing over the prone slaver, a heavy oak cudgel in his hand. “Enough,” Bjorn said, his voice flat. He looked at Kenji, not at the man groaning at his feet.
“You do not use your body that way for this crew.” Bjorn tossed the cudgel down. “I needed to see the line you would cross for us. I needed to know your loyalty was not just convenient, but absolute.” He nodded once, a gesture of grim finality. “You found it, and then you walked across it. Good.”
Bjorn bent, hooked his hands under Jorund’s arms, and began dragging the unconscious man backwards through the mud. “The test is over. Ragnar is waiting.” He disappeared into the gloom, the ragged sound of Jorund’s dragging body fading behind him.
The taste of Jorund’s mouth was still a sour ghost on his lips. Kenji turned and ran. The night air, cold and sharp, cut into his lungs as his boots slapped the slick cobblestones, each step putting distance between himself and the alley’s lingering violation.
He found their longship, a dark silhouette against the star-flecked water. Ragnar was there, a still and waiting shadow by the gangplank, his broad hand gripping the rail so tightly the wood groaned. Kenji staggered to a halt before him, chest heaving.
“Bjorn stopped it,” he gasped, the words tumbling out. “He was watching the whole time.” He wiped his mouth again with a shaking hand. “It was a test. He said he needed to see the line I’d cross.”
Ragnar’s expression didn’t change, but his eyes tracked the frantic motion of Kenji’s hand. The silent warrior reached out, his thumb rough against Kenji’s cheekbone, wiping away a place Jorund’s lips had touched. The gesture was deliberate, erasing.
Then Ragnar’s other hand came up. He signed, his movements slow and fraught with meaning. You are not a tool. The giant’s gaze held his, fierce and unblinking. The next sign was simpler, a fist over his own heart. Mine.
He pulled Kenji against him, not gently. Kenji’s face pressed into the coarse wool and salt-smell of Ragnar’s tunic, and the solid heat of the man finally unmade him. A shudder ran through his frame, then another, a silent tremor that had been building since the tavern door closed. Ragnar held him through it, one massive hand cradling the back of his head, his own breath a steady rhythm in the dark.