Ragnar could not hide his initial surprise that Julooke found the lack of romance in the story unexpected since he had assumed that Thistle had shared the story with Julooke. Either Thistle hadn’t told it right or this was the first time Julooke was hearing it. “That’s right,” Ragnar responded to her question. The woman’s voice had held no judgments but Ragnar understood that the normal mate-ship was based upon ‘love’ and not for convenience, attraction, ‘fondness’ or whatever had initially inspired Ragnar to ask Thistle to be his wife. He wasn’t sure what it had been underlining the jealousy of imagining Thistle with another man and while self interested jealousy had certainly played a big part that day it had not been the only force of power at work. It just so happened that for some far stretched reason Thistle had decided to accept his offer of mate-ship though at the time neither had loved the other. In fact, Ragnar was confident that she had still feared him a bit at that point. “I think some of it was responsibility,” He mused suddenly and then explained, “I was not the first to have Thistle in her heat season but there was a possibility that the children were of my seed and since her first lover had …taken advantage of her and left she deserved for someone to step up and claim the children.” It hadn’t been …nearly as heroic as he was probably making it sound. It had still been selfish of him and the fact that he had mated with her behind Pump’s back when she was in her heat cycle was apparently a ‘bad thing’.
Regardless of how rocky, or unorthodox the founding of their mate-ship had been no one could claim that the Loðbrók couple was not in love with one another, now.
The reason for Julooke’s question became abruptly apparent to the Viking with her following words: that she was in love with Verrine and that she did not know how to tell him. He waited until she was finished speaking, voicing her fears of losing his friendship on the chance that he didn’t feel the same way but that thought had not, and did not cross Ragnar’s mind. “When I came across the two of you on the borders I thought you were mates,” Ragnar confessed to her, fixing her in his piercing stare. “I think you are worrying about nothing. If I had to guess, from how he acts around you, that he feels the same way about you, Julooke.” Women tended to worry about silly things that men …didn’t. “Someone has to make the first move and confess their feelings outright. Sometimes there is no room for subtly. Sometimes you have to be brave and take the leap.” Then again, Ragnar was a very blunt creature who did not adhere to ‘beating around the bush’ very often. “You’ll never know unless you tell him how you feel.” Unless of course she came across the ability to mind read but since Ragnar did not see that happening any time soon he gave her the best advice he could: to be honest and open about her feelings.
