A Midwinter Fantasy (30 page)

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.”

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 feet 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.”

He cast her a startled glance. “Everything? What a horrifying prospect.”

Their voices echoed around the empty chamber. The dirty throne sat at the far end of the room like a malignant growth on the shiny white ice. She had expected to be scared, but her father’s presence gave her strength. She was even looking forward to seeing Vidar’s father get his comeuppance.

“How will we find Odin?” she asked.

“He knows we’re here,” Troy said, setting a leisurely pace down the room while his gaze flicked between the various entries and exits. “By the time we reach the throne, he will have arrived.”

When they had twenty feet left to walk, the door on the back wall opened. Huginn and Muninn emerged before standing aside to flank the door. Odin stepped out. He glared at Troy and Sonja, then scurried toward his throne, his uneven gait revealing a limp as his staff clacked on the ice.

He dropped onto the throne and heaved himself back with a grunt. His single golden eye gleamed malevolently beneath a bushy gray eyebrow. He rapped his staff on the ground. Huginn and Muninn dashed forward to take up positions on either side of the dais.

Both henchmen wore gold rings. Did Odin control everyone who served him with magic?

Vidar’s brother Thor lumbered through the door, clutching a gleaming blue crystal pod beneath his meaty arm. He deposited it on the ground at Odin’s feet and stepped back. Sonja squinted at it, trying to make out what the blue crystal thing was. Realization hit and she froze. A baby’s crib.

Her fingers dug into the silky fabric of her father’s sleeve. “Is that what I think it is?”

Troy covered her tense hand with his own. “Don’t let him play on your fears.” Halting ten feet in front of the throne, he gently disengaged Sonja’s hand from his arm. She expected her father to explain why they’d come and make demands. Instead, he became inhumanly still, an aura of menace filling the silence.

Odin pulled a leather bag from inside his coat. He dug in a hand and scattered wooden pieces across the ice beside the crib. Leaning forward, he scanned the runes. “Threaten me all you will, Troy. I have you trumped,” he announced.

A searing spike of pain shot up Sonja’s arm from the ring. She yelped. Her father curled his fingers around her hand, enclosing the ring. The pain ceased abruptly, and heat flowed up her arm, washing away the ache and easing her fear.

“Hurt my daughter again, and I will destroy Valhalla and all within.”

“Even you can’t remove the ring from her hand,” Odin crowed. With a defiant glance, he rested one dirt-encrusted bare foot on the Crystal Crib. He was taunting them, trying to goad her father into losing his cool.

“I puzzled over your motive for drawing me here in anger,” Troy said. “Now I understand. You forced a slave ring on my daughter’s finger simply to lord it over me. You’ve become foolish old man. Isolated at the top of the world, you’ve lost touch with where the real power lies.”

“Power does not lie with you,” Odin spat.

“You feared my father’s power, so you killed your own son and set Loki up to take the blame.”

“Enough!” Odin scrambled to his feet and banged the bottom of his staff on the ice. A crack of thunder split the air. Sonja’s ears rang.

“ ‘Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing,’ ” Troy murmured.

He released Sonja’s hand before drawing a short black sword from the scabbard across his back and raising it. Lightning burst from the blade’s tip, arcing across the room to hit the side of Odin’s throne. The dirty ice exploded, showering those nearby with slush. Huginn and Muninn jumped aside, brushing the muck off their clothes. After a few moments Huginn slunk back to his master’s side, but Muninn had obviously had enough. He sidled toward the door.

Odin glanced at him, and the raven-man fell to the ground, writhing in pain.

“Rats leaving a sinking ship,” Troy said under his breath. Then louder: “Remove Draupnir’s child from Sonja’s hand and I shall leave you in peace.”