It looked good there. A touch of glitter, a touch of beauty. Perfect.
The crown I set smack in the middle of the mantel of the biggest fireplace, the one the furniture faced.
It looked good where it was too. But it would look good anywhere.
All that I couldn’t use or needed to be stored, I carefully packed back up and then lined the trunks where they would look nice against the walls. Any empty trunks, I carted to the front door so I could drag them to the stables tomorrow.
I had just loaded all the fires with more logs, lit the candles and lamps and found some folded screens on the back porch that were meant to sit in front of the fires to catch sparks so I set them up and I was currently flat out on the couch, exhausted, hungry again and trying to count how many times I boiled water in that big, iron kettle on the stove when I realized there I was.
Alone, in the middle of nowhere and far away from my parents who I had spent a million dollars to see and who, after seeing, didn’t like me.
“Fuck,” I muttered, staring into the fire.
Well, at least that dickhead didn’t beat me, which, dumping a princess in this hellhole without even seeing to her animals, I knew he meant to do.
My horses were sheltered and fed. The house was cleaned. I was hungry again but I was not eating not because I couldn’t feed myself but because I was too freaking exhausted to get up and go to the kitchen. I’d taken stock and I was sitting pretty (ish). The house was warm, the fires, lanterns and candles glowed and the couch was seriously freaking comfy.
So I grabbed a soft, woolen throw I’d unearthed from one of my trunks and tossed on the couch and I pulled it over my body. Then I held my feet out in front of me and used my toes on the heel of my boot, pushing down, down, down until the thing slid off. Ditto the other boot.
Then I curled up and stared into the fire.
Then I pulled in a deep breath.
Then I grinned.
“Welp,” I whispered, “one could say this is an adventure. Definitely.”
Then I fell into a dead sleep smiling.
* * * * *
The two dark figures shifted soundlessly through the snow toward the cabin. Once there, they stopped at a window and looked inside.
At what he saw, Frey Drakkar did a slow blink and just stopped himself from muttering an expletive.
In eight short hours, the Winter Princess had transformed his cabin. The bloody thing even had a crystal vase filled with her wedding bundle on a table. The fires were burning strong, every inch looked clean, there was a warm rug tossed over one of the chairs and… he shifted to another window for a different view, Thaddeus following him… she was sleeping peacefully with an appealing grin on her unduly beautiful face, her abundance of white-blonde hair scattered over the arm of the couch, her delectable body covered in another warm throw.
He shifted his gaze from her to the vase on the table and something about that made his neck get tight as it had done several times since her small hand wrapped around his fist in the Dwelling of the Gods.
Princess Sjofn was not known to enjoy pretty things. Princess Sjofn would throw such a bundle out. Definitely her wedding bundle of adela tree twigs, regardless of how precious they were. Princess Sjofn would not stuff them in a sparkling, crystal vase and put them on display.
And Princess Sjofn had not once on the three unpleasant occasions he’d spent time with her smiled at him. Or joked with him. Or shown her ample and unfortunately spectacular cleavage. He didn’t know she had that in her or that she could even wear a dress without looking like her garments were boiled tar poured on her skin.
At the very least not wear them without looking like she was sucking lemons but wear them with grace and float down the aisle toward him with the bearing of her mother, a woman renowned throughout Lunwyn, hell, all of the Northlands, for her refined manner.
He’s so into it, we could probably go sit down or even go out, get a beer and come back and he’d still be at it.
He heard her teasing words and saw her smiling face and he suspected the Winter Princess was up to something.
Something was not right.
He just had no idea what. What he did know was that whatever that woman was up to, he had no intention of falling prey to it.
Her father was king, regardless of the fact that his blood didn’t merit the throne. And King Atticus had offered an immensely handsome dowry. The pull of both, Frey refused for three years.
But King Atticus was anxious for a son so the kingdom would be secure, going to Sjofn’s boy rather than King Atticus’s brother, Baldur, who ruled Middleland, the country to the south. Baldur was a known tyrant and a twat, even Atticus detested him, everyone did.
This last, more than the trunks of Sjofn ice diamonds, gold and the land Atticus had settled on him for strapping him with his man-woman daughter was the reason why Frey had finally agreed.
There was not anything Frey would not do for Lunwyn, including marrying a guenipe even though he was urged strongly not to do so by powers he should likely not ignore.
It was that and the fact that the blood of Drakkar would sit the throne.
His son would be king. And Frey wouldn’t have to wage war to dethrone Baldur or Baldur’s own woman-man son should one of them succeed Atticus. Not to mention, Frey wouldn’t have to settle his own seat on Lunwyn’s throne after he defeated Baldur.
That would be a pain in the arse. Absolutely.
Thaddeus whistled his surprise through his teeth at the sights he beheld taking Frey out of his thoughts.
Frey ground his.
Then he moved away from the cabin, soundless through the wood to where they had left their horses and Thaddeus followed.
Without a word, they swung into their saddles but Frey didn’t ride. He sat on his mount, Tyr, staring at his cabin, smoke serenely drifting from four chimneys, a golden, cheerful glow shining from the windows, his bloody wife asleep and dreaming of gods knew what.
Frey glared at the house feeling something unsettling then he looked at the windows.
They were opened, the curtains not closed to shut out the cold.
His brows drew together.
The woman had it in her to clean and build fires; this was a surprise and an annoying one. But Sjofn, Winter Princess, who had every whim catered to but who clearly demonstrated she had the wherewithal to fend for herself, would therefore definitely draw the curtains to ward off the cold. Even if she had been reclining, defeated, in his filthy hunting cabin, being Lunwynian, she would know to close the curtains to shut out the cold.
Thaddeus spoke, taking Frey from these thoughts.
“I must say, Frey, I wouldn’t give a gods damn that one preferred tart. That was my new bride, she’d be tasting my cock either straight through her mouth or because I was thrusting it so deep, she’d savor it in her throat,” Thaddeus remarked quietly at his side.
“Mm,” Frey murmured.
Frey felt his friend’s eyes. “You don’t agree?”
“I’ve no idea where that mouth has been. Or that cunt,” Frey replied.
“Must say, speaking true, I wouldn’t care about that either,” Thaddeus returned.
Frey thought of her hair all over the armrest, her smile, her cleavage.
Then he thought of her fervent return of his kiss after they were wed, a return that made his blood heat and his cock begin to get hard as her tongue played hungrily with his and her arms glided around his neck, holding him tight. It wasn’t a passable kiss. It wasn’t even good.