I didn’t cry long because I thought of something, pulled myself together, lifted up on a forearm in his chest and looked down at him.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.
“You did not know?” Frey asked back and I blinked.
“What?”
His brows drew together and he studied me. “Wee one, how could you not know?”
“I –” I started.
“It was clear as day,” he declared and I had to admit, that was true. Mostly.
“You still could have told me,” I informed him.
“Indeed,” he stated and his arm gave me a squeeze, “as you could have done. Why didn’t you tell me you cared so deeply for me?”
Shit. He knew I’d been holding back.
“Well,” I began, “it was clear as day.”
He grinned and muttered, “Right.”
“Well it was!” I snapped because, truthfully, it was and his grin turned to body rocking laughter as he rolled me again so I was on my back and he was pressed to my side looking down at me.
When he controlled his hilarity, he remarked, “Well, it is said now, thank the gods.”
“Yes,” I bit my lip and stared up at his handsome face. “It is,” I continued on a whisper. “And it’s funny because the first moment I saw you, you terrified me.” I watched a shadow pass over his face and instantly I lifted my hand to rest against his cheek and went on, “But looking at you now I cannot for the life of me understand why.” I slid my thumb along his cheekbone, pulled in a light breath and said it again, “I love you, Frey Drakkar.”
His eyes closed and his forehead dropped to rest against mine before he opened his eyes again, stared into mine and replied, “And I you, Finnie Drakkar.
I circled him with my arms and rolled into him so we were on our sides, face to face. Then I held him tight as he returned the favor.
“So much,” he murmured belatedly, “I’ll never stop loving you, my winter bride. Not ever. You, everything about you is beyond my wildest dreams.”
I closed my eyes hard as those words settled around my heart and I shoved my face in his throat and pressed my body deep, held on tighter and my strong husband absorbed my fierce embrace.
Then I smiled against his skin because at that moment, I rocketed straight up and hit the bell with a loud clang at the bliss end of the happiness scale, embedding myself in a way I knew would be forever.
* * * * *
Valentine Rousseau’s eyes opened and she stared at the dark ceiling.
Then she slid out of bed, leaving the young, slumbering, firm, naked, male form in it.
Bending gracefully, her red-tipped fingers tagged the slip of green silk and lace off the floor. She pulled it over her head and the soft material slithered down her body.
Then she moved out of her bedroom, down the hall and to the room with the salmon-colored walls. She did not bother herself with turning on a light but glided across the room and stood at the small, round table on which the large, clear, smooth, round crystal sat on top of a bed of jade green silk.
The tips of her fingers skimmed the ball and instantly a wisp of jade smoke curled inside the crystal.
She stared at its glow through the dark and felt her mouth grow tight.
Just as she thought.
What she didn’t understand was why she cared. Cared so much it woke her.
“Annoying,” she murmured as the smoke twisted, coiled and curved. “Why are lovers so… very… obtuse?” she asked the ball, it had no answer so she went on, “Especially men.”
Valentine took in a delicate, displeased breath.
Always misunderstandings, never enough communication, expectation, pride, blind faith.
Not to mention, making life-altering decisions without even considering whose life it would be altering.
It was ridiculous.
Valentine studied the smoke, sighed and thought of Seoafin, her goddess of love.
Really, she should simply let it play out, wash her hands of it; there was nothing she could do. The magic binding Seoafin there was so strong, even Valentine couldn’t break it and, unusually, she expended some effort to find an answer to this dilemma, though, admittedly, not much. Valentine Rousseau rarely expended effort on anything someone didn’t compensate her for, except, of course, one of her toys.
She definitely expended effort on her toys.
And anyway, Seoafin Wilde meant nothing to her.
She meant nothing to her.
And yet, not once but too many times these past nearly five months, Seoafin Wilde’s adventures reached across the worlds and tugged Valentine from her slumber.
She stared at the smoke and while doing so it came to her that it had been quite some time since she herself had an adventure.
And even longer since she’d delighted in the pleasurable pastime of meddling.
And truthfully, this Raider, Valentine thought, had it coming.
Though she had to admit, she did wish such a specimen would be open to her penchants. A toy such as him would be… she drew in a wistful breath… delicious.
Alas, such as him, she had found, didn’t tend to like the way Valentine played.
She stared at her crystal ball deliberating.
Then she decided she’d give him time, not much but perhaps enough to rectify his mistakes and she did this having little doubt that gorgeous creature could do it.
If he didn’t…
Well, Valentine would.
Every girl deserved true bliss.
No, this was not true. Many of today’s tedious girls did not. The mere existence of boy bands proved this fact irrefutably.
But girls like Seoafin Wilde did.
Valentine sighed as she shook off her uncharacteristically soft, romantic thoughts.
She was losing her touch.
She needed to find it again.
Her thoughts moved to the young, naked, firm, male form asleep in her bed and, in the dark, Valentine smiled her cat’s smile.
Then her fingertips skimmed the cold crystal again and the smoke vanished.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The Measure of a Princess
Three weeks later…
With our usual posse of Frey’s men, Tyr galloped through Snowdon as I sat on the steed held tight to my husband’s front, watched the city go by and realized I was wrong.
Bellebryn was not the most beautiful place I’d ever seen.
Snowdon was.
Snowdon, the capital of Lunwyn and where my mother and father lived, was a city like Sudvic, huge and sprawling. But it was not skirting a bay and nestled in hills, it spread across a valley and up the sides of white, snowy mountains. Its tall, densely built buildings were made of white stone capped with snow covered roofs dripping sparkling icicles, their doors painted in dove grays, creams or the lightest blues or lilacs. Its winding roads were cobbled in creamy stones that, like Sudvic, had been cleared of snow. As we rode through the city, we passed many snow-blanketed parks from large and rambling, to small and square in which there were twinkling fountains, white monuments, grand cream-colored statues of the gods, dragons or past kings, queens, Drakkars or Freys and in one I saw an iced over pond where people were skating.
Frey told me (and I noted he was right as we rode over four bridges) there were three rivers snaking through the city. And as we rode over them or beside them I saw their water was glistening and clear, their banks shimmering with ice, their rock beds glittering as if covered in fairy dust. Over these rivers were arched, ornate, cream-colored bridges with tall white-painted streetlamps rising from the balustrades. One river was much larger than the other two and flowed from a valley between two mountains fed from, Frey also told me, the Winter Sea.