Selena stayed near him as they ventured into his fortress.

It was a thrill the harbinger had never experienced before and honestly never expected to. His plan for his fated had been to find her, keep her safe and make the best of whatever befell them.

Now Ragnar found himself glancing at her whenever he had the chance. Selena looked positively gorgeous in her matching suit, the silver of his colors bringing out the color of her dark red hair. His fated looked around with wonder, like all females did.

Nayanor fortresses were a true miracle, after all. They were vast, gigantic and thoroughly out of proportion.

Even the oldest records their species had couldn't figure out whether the fortresses were built by a species who was considerably larger than they were – or if they had been built like that on purpose. The throne room of the fortress, for example, was fitted with a throne that housed the harbinger's entire quarters and his armory.

Long walkways of stone and metal stretched as far as the eye could see, eerily empty for now.

When the long night came, they would be bustling with life as the people of his domain would come to seek shelter. Most Nayanors lived outside the fortresses most of the year, in cities not far to make sure the journey wasn't too long. The long night was treacherous and sometimes it hit so fast they barely had a warning.

Ragnar quite liked his fortress. The large empty spaces that bothered most warriors – and Terrans too – had a calming effect on him. The harbinger enjoyed the massive scale of his home. It served him well, as he had walked through every part of it. That meant Ragnar knew the fortress better than anyone.

"It's completely unbelievable," Selena breathed, looking around so intensely she hardly blinked.

"It's a good fortress," Ragnar agreed. "It has kept my people safe during many storms. Bigger ones have fallen, but this has stood."

Selena gave him a quick look and there was a softness in her eyes that the harbinger hadn't seen there before. It looked beautiful.

He wanted to see it again, no matter what.

"You sound so different when you speak about this place," Selena said.

Ragnar hadn't considered that. Perhaps he did. The fortress had been his home since birth, after all.

Neither said much as they boarded a hovercarrier near the gate. Walking was fine, but the fortress was simply too big to cover on foot. Ragnar entered the code for the throne room and sat next to Selena.

The female almost winced when his big body touched her, but she settled quickly, pretending like it hadn't happened. There was a soft blush on her cheeks again as she tried to keep as far away from him as possible. It was a hard task in the small carrier, with Ragnar in his full battle armor.

The harbinger thought of the incident between them.

It had been a hard task for him to figure out what to do with Selena, as he'd never expected to care. Mjorn saw females as breeding stock and lately, there were a lot of warriors who agreed with him. The fated bonds were being reduced to compatibility and practicality. Nayanors were slowly shifting toward viewing the females as nothing more than a necessity they had to deal with.

Up until meeting Selena, Ragnar had thought the same. After what had happened to his brother, the harbinger couldn't picture himself trusting a female.

It was hard not to trust Selena. The female was so open with her emotions, so genuinely herself that Ragnar couldn't see another layer beneath all that.

His fated wanted to hide some of her thoughts from him, that was certain, but Ragnar saw through most of them.

When the hovercarrier stopped in the middle of the throne room, Selena jumped out first, looking around like her eyes were going to pop out of her head.

"Gods," she breathed. "This place is amazing."

The throne room was the jewel of the fortress. The hard white-gray rock that made up most of the cliff it was built in was almost pure white in the throne room. Grand pillars rose up to the ceiling far above them, reaching for the skies. There were carvings and statues all around the gigantic throne rested against the wall opposite the door.

Selena was smiling.

It set something alight in Ragnar to see that. His fated was truly made happy by something on Luminos. He had to be grateful for that, even if it wasn't him.

He wondered how he'd missed the moment when it had begun mattering to him what Selena thought of him and their bond.

"Come," he ordered, unable to break the habit of years of dealing with only warriors. "I'll show you our quarters."

Selena's smile faltered a little when he said "our", but she recovered fast and followed him more willingly than before.

Her mouth dropped open when Ragnar keyed open the door of his rooms. Most of the fortress had been automated a long time ago. The rock walls were a facade Nayanors generally liked. It hid the secrets of the fortress from the enemies – the other Nayanors, that was – and as much as they cared about aesthetics, it looked nice.

Inside, the fortress was all metal under the layer of rock, except for the insides of the living quarters, which were made to suit Nayanors.

The inside of the harbinger's quarters was wood, reminiscent of the forest outside the gates. Even some of the bioluminescence had been kept. Part of the walls actually grew and lived, therefore maintaining the qualities of the wood it had been made of.

Selena ran her hand along the wall, the wide smile back on her lips now.

"It's beautiful," she said quietly. "I didn't think Nayanors appreciated beauty like this."

She bit her lip the second the words had left her mouth, glancing his way to see if the harbinger was offended by that.

"I meant I didn't know whether Nayanors had an eye for things such as this," Selena explained, pointing to the walls. "It's stunning."

"I know," Ragnar said, looking at her. "The quarters belonged to my brother before me. He had this made for his fated."

"What happened to him?" Selena asked carefully. "That warrior Mjorn mentioned him too, but not in a nice way. I thought that was really mean of him –"

Ragnar held out a hand to stop her.

"My brother died," he said simply. "It was not a warrior's death and doesn't deserve remembrance. Mjorn was correct. I'm nothing like him."

Selena looked at him with a piercing look that told Ragnar she saw right through him.

"I don't believe you're telling me the truth," his fated said quietly.

"It's a version of the truth," Ragnar replied dismissively. "There are others and all of them are true. I told you the pure facts. That should be enough."

"I would like to know the actual story," Selena argued, her blue eyes not leaving him. "It seems there's much more. I think he's more important to you than you're letting on and I want to know what happened to the man who built these rooms."

She regarded the white marble floors and the softly glimmering walls again.

"This place speaks of love," Selena said, the word rolling off her tongue like a hymn.

It was a dagger to Ragnar.

"It does," he said, the sharp edge of his voice making Selena turn back to him. "It is all I will say about this. I don't want you to see his ghost here. These are our quarters now. Your new home."

The harbinger gave that a bit of thought.

"I want you to feel free to make any changes you wish," he continued when Selena didn't answer. "It doesn't matter to me if you rip all the walls down."

"It's my choice?" Selena asked carefully, a glint of mischief burning in her eyes. "You're leaving this up to me?"

"Yes," Ragnar said. "It's good for a female to have something to do in her quarters."

Selena's eyes narrowed like he'd just insulted her.

"I'm not some homemaker," she said before shaking her head. "Never mind. If you leave it up to me, then I'm keeping all of it."

Now it was Ragnar's turn to glare at her. That was not the answer he'd predicted. From what he'd heard in bits and pieces from other warriors, Terran females usually liked to decorate the quarters to their own taste.

Their fateds naturally kept control of the armory, the trophy rooms and any training areas, but as for the rest, it didn't matter to Nayanors in what corner of the room the bed was. It was the simplest way they'd found to make the females more... at ease with their new life.

Nayanors had found that by letting their fateds move things around, they won on three accounts. One was that the females took it for a kindness, being grateful for some freedom.

For the second part, they were able to make themselves more at home and ease the grief they felt for Terra. And third, the finished product was a reflection of them, giving their mate a chance to find out more about them without saying a word.

The fact that Selena was refusing that didn't sit well with Ragnar.

"Why?" he asked, unable to keep the displeasure from his voice.

Selena obviously heard that, because he could see the tension settle in at once. The harbinger was already mentally preparing for another outburst, but Selena kept herself calm this time. She didn't turn her eyes away from him either, staring the harbinger down.

"Because I like it the way it is," she answered. "I'm not saying I won't change anything, but I'm definitely keeping the walls. I think they're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life. The soft light reflects so amazingly. I really like it."

Ragnar groaned. There was no argument he could bring to that. If Selena liked the way the quarters looked, it seemed to counterproductive to force her to tear it all down.

Then his fated continued.

"And besides," Selena added more quietly. "I'm keeping it as a memory. I don't think you want to forget your brother that easily, but for some reason you pretend you do. I can't make you tell me the story, but I am patient."

The harbinger took a step closer, but Selena wasn't backing away.

"I don't think you picked the right issue to fight over," he told his fated, but to his surprise Selena was smiling, just barely.

"The way you're overreacting tells me it is," she replied, taking a step toward him as well so they were standing mere inches from each other.

The female was more than a head shorter than he was, so she had to crane her neck to stare at him. It would have been amusing if it hadn't turned Ragnar on in a weird way to see Selena stand up to him.

"Why do you care?" he asked, genuinely interested.

Selena had already made it pretty clear to him that she didn't care for him nor for any Nayanor. The sudden protectiveness she showed toward his brother was odd.

"I care for a lot of things," Selena said, avoiding the question. "This seems important to me. Time can prove me right and wrong, we'll see."

Ragnar growled, but the victorious smile on Selena's lips that the female desperately tried to hide by pursing her lips was too hot for him to continue the argument.

It was nice to have his fated feel comfortable enough around him to smile. That was the way he wanted it to be.

"So you're not going to tell me?" Selena asked.

"No," Ragnar said, moving on deeper into the quarters. "Come with me. I will show you the rest of these rooms. Some of these are off-bounds to you until I've taught you the safety protocols. There are weapons here that are poisoned and trophies you shouldn't go near."

Selena followed, listening intently to everything he was telling her. And Ragnar found himself wishing that he didn't have any other duties to attend to, no one to wait for his judgment.

With every second he spent with Selena, the harbinger wanted more.

Ragnar felt like everything in their lives was decided already. There was no turning back now. She'd lit a fire within him that only grew stronger, never to fade now that he'd found her.