A Midwinter Fantasy

by Leanna Renee Hieber; L. J. McDonald; Helen Scott Taylor

  He didn’t deserve her. Yet he couldn’t stop. He moved up the bed, sprawling half across her body to claim her mouth in a searing kiss. Her seeking hands went to his belt. She pressed her palm over his erection, stroked him through the fabric.

  His breath hissed out. Fire blazed in every cell of his body. If he didn’t find release soon, he would combust. He reared back, bracing his upper body on his arms. “Yes. Go on.”

  She held his gaze for a second before her eager fingers worked his belt loose and unfastened his trousers. Her hand enclosed him. The tentative touch sent an explosion of desire racing through his body. He jumped back off the bed and stepped out of his trousers.

  She watched him from beneath her lashes, the tip of her tongue playing at the corner of her mouth. Did she do that on purpose to drive him wild? He leaned down and pressed his lips to her belly, breathing in her female fragrance. A moan of desire escaped her, and she flexed beneath him, parting her legs.

  “Sacred elf-fire, Sonja.”

  Vidar gripped her feet, pushed her knees back against her belly, and positioned himself between her thighs. With one hard thrust, he entered her. Her eyes widened at the suddenness of his move, and her surprise flashed along their mental link.

  What was he doing? Trying to shock her, make her push him away?

  “Sorry.” He withdrew, sat back on his heels, and screwed closed his eyes, trying to understand why he was sabotaging his chance for happiness.

  The bed shifted as she moved. “Vidar . . .” Fingers trailed along his jaw, over his lips. He opened his eyes. The deep, almost luminous blue of her gaze trapped him, her breath a sweet whisper across his face. She gave him a naughty grin. “If you stop now, I’ll have to tie you to the bed and take you by force.”

  She lay back, arranged herself sensually on the bed, and beckoned him. His doubts burned away in a rush of electrifying eroticism. He followed her down, catching his weight on his elbows. He curled a lock of golden hair around his finger and stroked it across her lips.

  Sonja smiled, and a place inside him that had been hollow was suddenly filled with warmth. He might not deserve to love her, but he did.

  She looped her arms around his neck and pulled his head down. The feverish intensity of her kisses wiped all thought from his mind. Her legs wrapped around him. This time he entered her slowly. Instinct took over. He opened himself to her completely, flowed into her mind, tasted the essence of her spirit. A frisson of unbearable pleasure expanded between them, joining them in the ecstasy of mind, body, and spirit.

  “Sonja, ástin mín.” She was his, so perfectly his.

  Her breath came in fractured little gasps. She dug her fingernails into his back, clutched him tight, and he never wanted her to let him go. Her pleasure rose, swirling around him, and he sensed her air elemental nature more clearly than ever before. His fire responded: flared in a scorching burst of sensation that seared along his nerves with almost painful intensity. When it was over, he sagged against her, his face pressed into the sweet curve of her neck.

  In the wake of the pleasure, painful realization hit him so hard it brought tears to his eyes. He’d confined Sonja to the Crystal Crib without any idea what he’d given up to appease his father’s anger. He’d lost years of loving her to satisfy one cantankerous old man’s need for revenge. Never again would he ignore his conscience.

  Sonja’s fingertips traced circles on his back while his awareness of the room returned. He eased his weight up onto his elbows so he didn’t crush her and touched her cheek. “I want to give you my Magic Knot. Bond completely,” he said.

  “Yes.” She smiled, so sweet and full of love.

  But would she still look at him like that when she knew about the Crystal Crib?

  Sonja curled against Vidar and dozed for a little while, but she was so conscious of the hard muscular length of his body pressed against her that she couldn’t settle. She wanted more of him.

  Opening her eyes, she watched him sleep. His sooty lashes lay in dark crescents against his lean bronzed cheeks. Her throat tightened with love to see him looking so peaceful, even while her body quivered at the prospect of making love with him again. She slid down the bed and rained tiny kisses across his chest, gradually working her way over the taut muscles of his abdomen and lower.

  He woke with a gasp and pushed up on an elbow. “Sonja, love . . .” He blinked at her as she dropped a kiss on his hip. “We need to talk.”

  “Not more talk.” She wrinkled her nose. She was well aware they had issues to discuss, like where she would live and how she’d earn a living, but that could wait until later. She ran a teasing finger over his belly and thighs. Already things were starting to perk up down there. She grinned at him, excitement tingling through her. For the first time in her life she could do what she wanted without her aunt watching her every move. How ironic that Odin’s ring had confined her, yet set her free to be with Vidar.

  She straddled his thighs and smoothed her palms up his body until she lay on top of him. Then she wiggled her hips and his breath shuddered out. His hands settled at her waist and she rubbed her lips across his, teasing him with the tip of her tongue. Although he kissed her back, she sensed reluctance. A tiny chill took the edge off the heat in her belly.

  Breaking the kiss, she rested her head on his shoulder, suddenly uncertain. The first time they’d made love had been wonderful for her, but perhaps she’d overestimated his enthusiasm. She kissed his neck and stroked tiny circles on his chest. Perhaps he was just tired.

  “Sonja.” Vidar rolled over, depositing her on the bed beside him. He propped his head on a hand. “We need to discuss the past and how it affects us.”

  Goose bumps rushed across her skin, so she pulled the quilt over herself. He must mean about the disagreement between their families. “I’m sorry my grandfather killed your brother, but that doesn’t have to be a problem for us, does it?”

  Vidar rubbed a hand over his face and wouldn’t meet her gaze. The tiny chill inside her hardened to a ball of ice.

  “Vidar, you’re scaring me.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t want you to worry . . . but you have to know something. You weren’t born twenty-six years ago, Sonja. You were born a lot earlier than that.”

  “What?” She squinted at him in the firelight. “You’re not making any sense.”

  “Two thousand years earlier, to be precise.”

  “Yeah, right.” The tension in her gut released. She laughed, expecting him to smile. He didn’t.

  Silence stretched between them until her ears hummed. He was freaking serious.

  “That’s crazy! There were cars and planes and stuff when I was little.”

  Yet, why was she trying to counter such a ridiculous claim?

  Vidar sighed as if what he was about to say ripped at his soul. He climbed off the bed and pulled on his pants before joining her again. Resting his back against the headboard, he leaned his forearms on his raised knees and said, “There’s no easy way to explain this, so I’m just going to say it. Everything I told you about the past was true, but I left out a couple of things. Troy’s father killed my brother two thousand years ago. That was before Troy developed his power. Odin wanted to kill you and your mother along with Troy as part of his revenge. I managed to persuade him not to kill you. Instead, I had you frozen in a Crystal Crib by a frost fairy.”

  Sonja’s gaze riveted to Vidar’s face. How could the man she’d made love with be so old? She’d thought he was maybe thirty-five. That would have made him nine when she was born and explain how he’d been old enough to take her Magic Knot to keep tabs on her. But . . . two thousand? She couldn’t even comprehend living that long.

  “Did you hear me, Sonja?”

  “I don’t believe you’re two thousand years old.”

  He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “We’re talking about what happened to you.” He reached for her hand and squeezed it while he repeated what he’d said. This time the words hit
home.

  “I was frozen. Like cryogenics?”

  “I suppose the crib must have worked in a similar way.”

  She heard his words. But that’s all his explanation was: just words. “I don’t remember anything before I went to kindergarten . . .” She curled her fingers into the quilt. “What happened to my mother?”

  “She ran away and we never found her. But she was human, Sonja.” Vidar’s grip tightened on her fingers. “She must be long dead.”

  Sonja’s gaze lost focus. She tried to imagine her mother living out her life without her husband and daughter. “Didn’t my father try to find her?”

  “I’m certain he did. Troy had little power then, but he’s always been determined.”

  “And you had me frozen?” She glanced up at him, and he held her gaze, his golden eyes anguished.

  “I’m sorry, Sonja.”

  She pulled the quilt off the bed, wrapped it around her shoulders, then stood staring at nothing.

  “Are you all right, elskan mín?”

  “Stop calling me that,” she snapped. “What does it even mean?”

  “Sweetheart,” he whispered, gruffly.

  Her anger vanished as quickly as it had flared. She wanted to make sense of everything, but her brain refused to work. She wandered around the end of the bed and plopped down on the sofa in front of the fire. She was two thousand years old, and Vidar had frozen her in a Crystal Crib.

  He crouched beside her. “I grabbed your Magic Knot when Odin would have crushed it and killed you by breaking the link between your body, mind, and spirit. That’s why I touched it.”

  So, he hadn’t even intended to bond himself to her.

  “If you hadn’t frozen me, I’d have lived and died centuries ago like my mother . . .”

  “Perhaps,” he allowed.

  Her gaze left the flames and sought his face. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Your father’s known as Troy the Deathless. If you’ve taken after him, there’s a strong possibility you can’t die.”

  Chapter Eight

  Vidar persuaded Sonja to return to bed with him and try to sleep, claiming she would feel better in the morning. He fell asleep quickly. But even snuggled in his arms she couldn’t settle. She wriggled out from under his arm, then pressed a kiss to his shoulder before climbing out of bed.

  Her restless mind turned over what Vidar had told her. She rationalized that as she’d been in stasis during the years she’d spent in the crib, she was really only twenty-six. But she couldn’t get her head around the fact that Vidar had lived in Iceland, trapped by Odin’s ring, for two thousand years. And then there was Vidar’s comment about her never dying.

  Sonja pulled on her clothes and went to the small kitchen to fix herself some hot milk. She was pouring it into a mug when a subtle shift in the atmosphere sent prickles racing up her spine. Now that she had her Magic Knot, she sensed the air around her like water, and it had just been disturbed. She gripped the handle of the milk pan tightly to use as a weapon, sucked in a breath, and turned.

  She’d expected to see one of Odin’s sneaky henchmen. Air rushed out of her lungs in relief to find her father standing at the entrance to the galley kitchen. His skin glowed pearly white in the semidarkness. His black jacket accentuated the pristine white lace at his throat and his golden hair. The only spot of color in his black and white ensemble was a huge rainbow-hued gem on the gold spike holding up his hair.

  “Sonja, my child.” His words whispered around her, quieting her surge of fear.

  “I didn’t think you wanted to see me again,” she said.

  “I harbored the futile hope that my disinterest would keep you safe.” He stepped forward and his strong fingers brushed the slave ring on her hand. “I was wrong. If we’re to fight back, you have much to learn.”

  Vidar stirred in the bed on the far side of the room. Troy’s head turned at the noise. “I need time with you alone,” he said, walking across the room. He threw a bubble of light over the bed, obscuring Vidar.

  “Don’t hurt him!” Sonja hurried across to Vidar, a knot of anxiety tightening in her chest.

  “My light shield simply gives us privacy. No harm will come to him.”

  Troy gestured her closer. She hesitated before moving toward him. Her father took her hand and stepped behind her, holding her close to his body.

  “What’re you doing?”

  “Relax,” he said, his silky tone draining her tension. “Time for your first lesson in survival.”

  The room disappeared, and a startled gasp burst from Sonja’s lips. For an instant she was in limbo; then her feet touched the floor and the room reappeared—except they were now by the door facing the sofa.

  “Flipping heck. What just happened?”

  He smiled sadly, stroking wisps of hair behind her ear with gentle fingers. “I should have been there to teach you this when you were young. I persuaded Odin to release you from the Crystal Crib twenty-six years ago, but I thought you’d be safer from the dangers of my world if I stayed out of your life and you were raised as human. I was wrong.”

  Sudden overwhelming sadness flooded Sonja at the thought of what her lonely younger self had missed. Her father pulled her into his embrace. She closed her eyes and pressed her face against his chest. With his heart beating beneath her ear, and his firm, comforting hands on her back, she could almost ignore the lace tickling her forehead and imagine he was a normal father.

  “How did we transport across the room,” she asked softly.

  “We call it walking unseen. Only air elementals like us have the power. I’ll help you master the skill.”

  She looked up into the intense blue of his eyes. “Do I take after you in other ways?”

  He kissed her forehead. “One step at a time. First we must solve your immediate problem.” He raised her left hand so Odin’s ring caught the light. “Have you suffered any ill effects from this abomination?”

  Briefly she explained her unsuccessful attempt to fly out of Iceland, watched her father’s face tighten into a mask of fury. “Odin has pushed me too far this time. Dress warmly. We’re going to persuade Odin to take back his ring.” The repressed violence in his tone made her tremble.

  Returning to Valhalla was right at the bottom of her to-do list, but if her father could persuade Odin to remove her ring, perhaps he could help Vidar as well. Sonja pulled out of her father’s arms and turned to wake him.

  “No.” Her father’s hand landed on her shoulder.

  “Can’t you help him get rid of his ring?”

  “If Vidar stands with us, Odin will probably kill him.”

  A crash and a blast of frigid air dragged Vidar from sleep. He opened his eyes to see Gleda standing in the doorway of his cabin, nose in the air. His snow cat only ever burst inside when she sensed trouble.

  Warily pulling back the bedcovers, Vidar glanced over his shoulder to check on Sonja. She was gone.

  “Sonja!”

  He leaped out of bed and scanned the room. Her bag gaped open. The pantsuit and boots she’d been wearing were nowhere to be seen, and his fur coat had disappeared.

  He strode into the kitchen and wrapped a hand around the mug of milk he found there. Still warm; she hadn’t been gone long. Vidar grabbed his spare fur out of the chest at the foot of his bed, shrugged it on, and followed Gleda to the icy ledge outside his retreat.

  Wind whipped up the ravine, nearly blinding him. The pearly gray sky indicated that it was morning. Squinting, he scanned the steep white hill that angled up above the building. Only Gleda’s paw marks disturbed the pristine snow. Someone must have taken Sonja away, because she couldn’t have left on her own.

  Gleda raised her nose to the air in the direction of Valhalla and roared, the sound echoing along the valley. The chill seeped into Vidar’s bones. Only Troy or Odin would take Sonja from his cabin. Either way, she was likely in danger.

  Entering his cabin, Vidar dressed, strapped on his sword, jammed his f
eet into boots, and donned his fur. Then he returned to Gleda, who’d kept vigil outside, her golden gaze fixed on some distant point.

  Vidar climbed on her back and leaned forward to speak into her ear. “Good girl, Gleda. Find Sonja.”

  The snow cat tensed her muscles and leaped off the ledge. Gripping her mane, Vidar silently prayed that Sonja was anywhere but Valhalla. When the glittering icy peaks of the palace appeared out of the murky sky, his heart plunged.

  He had saved Sonja’s life once before, but at a terrible cost to her. This time he would not compromise. He would not allow any harm to come to her. The day had come for him to stand against his father. Unfortunately, he doubted he would survive.

  Sonja and Troy materialized in the entrance hall outside Odin’s throne room after walking unseen from Vidar’s retreat. Troy wriggled his fingers out of the death grip Sonja had on his hand. “Breathe, my child.”

  She gasped in a breath, her lungs aching. It would take her a long time to get used to the strange nothingness as her body faded into the air. During their journey, she’d smelled the cold clean scent of ice but didn’t know how her father had navigated to Valhalla.

  Two of Odin’s female Valkyrie guards stepped forward to intercept them. “We’re here at Odin’s invitation,” Troy said in his silky musical voice. “Step aside.”

  The two guards resumed their positions, allowing them to pass. Troy pulled Sonja’s hand through the crook of his elbow and led her into the throne room.

  She leaned in to him and whispered, “How come they believed you without question?”

  “I have an honest face.” When she laughed in disbelief, her father smiled. “The skill is called silver tongue.”

  Sonja squeezed Troy’s arm, the first traces of affection blossoming. “I want to know everything about you.”