Chapter Seven #2
Gazing at him, I struggled to breathe. All I could manage were whispered words. “And did it?”
“Ja.” He wrapped his hand around the pendant again as if cherishing it.
“Moments later, you gasped your first breath in minutes and your eyes fluttered open to mine.” He shook his head in disbelief.
“’Twas as if the gods brought you back. As though you had been searching for me wherever you went and came back when you felt this pendant.
When you heard my pleas. Mayhap even my heart. ”
“Or mayhap your soul,” I murmured, unsure why I said it, only that it felt right, yet again like the whisper of a dream or memory.
As if an echo across the great halls of our gods, calling me back to Midgard…
calling me home. I didn’t realize I spoke my thoughts aloud until I finished it with, “And I thank you for that, Soren.”
“You need never thank me,” he said softly, his gaze still on my face, his heart in his eyes. “’Twas not your time and the gods agreed.”
“And what of your mother?” I asked, my voice hoarse with emotion. “What happened after that? I know nothing of her death other than it came too early, ja? Too early when hers was only ever a caring, healing soul.”
I could tell by the sadness and concern that flashed in his eyes that he would rather not say.
“Please,” I insisted gently. “What happened to her?”
Though he hesitated a moment longer, he finally relented. “My mother passed shortly thereafter from the same illness that nearly took you, but not before she insisted your blade be forged.”
My vision blurred with tears at what he implied. “Surely ’twas not because of me…because she cared for me?” I swallowed hard, long convinced that certain illnesses could be spread by close proximity to the ill. “Surely she didn’t catch it from me.”
Yet even as I said it, I knew she had.
“She knew the risks in caring for you, Freya,” he said, trying to comfort me.
“Yet she insisted because she thought you were special, and she was right. More than that, she felt we were destined to be together, uniting two of Norway’s most powerful tribes, and strengthening our kingdom.
” He took my hand again and shook his head.
“She wouldn’t want you to feel guilty or mourn her passing.
’Twas her choice to care for you because she was the best at what she did.
Rather, she would prefer you care for her people now that you have returned. ”
“And care for you,” I said softly, sad yet honored by his mother’s kind heart and courage in tending to me when she knew it could risk her own life. “Just as you cared for me that day so long ago.”
“Ja, I believe that would make her happy,” he confessed, looking at me quite seriously again. “Yet she would not want you caring for me to repay a debt but because you feel as genuinely for me as I do for you.”
I felt caught in his steady gaze, unable to look away, suspecting I was already well on my way to caring for him. Instead of saying what was in my heart, I merely nodded and said what would keep me out of his bed for now. “As I’m sure you understand, ’twill take time.”
“Of course,” he said easily enough. A soft, knowing smile hovered on his lips as if he knew full well I wasn’t saying what I felt. He squeezed my hand gently in reassurance before going to a trunk in the corner, pulling something out, and returning.
Threading a thin leather cord through my wolf pendant, he crouched in front of me and looked at me in a way that habitually made my breath catch. “Might I put this on you, wife, as ’twas always meant to be with you? Always to protect you.”
“Ja,” I managed, lifting my hair and leaning forward enough that I could see the little flecks of silvery-gray in his deep-set eyes.
See how close his lips were to mine as he tied the cord.
Rather than pull away, his fingers lingered on the pendant, and his gaze rose to my face in a moment that seemed to somehow transcend time.
As if all the years that had separated us fell away and we’d circled back to where we were always meant to be.
“I look forward to many years of gazing into your eyes like this, Freya.” He dusted his weapon-roughened fingers along my jawline until he swiped the pad of his thumb across my lower lip as if eager to taste it again. “Of touching you…of knowing you are by my side.”
Where I thought he might lean in and kiss me, his attention returned to my neck as if drawn there, and he readjusted the cord holding my talisman so that it rested just above the pendant.
“’Tis as if they belong together,” he murmured. “As though…” His gaze narrowed. “Mayhap really, truly meant to be together.”
Intrigued, I craned my neck down to peer at them where they hung just above my breasts, realizing what he meant, surprised I hadn’t seen the possible connection sooner.
“It cannot be.” After removing the stone from my neck, I angled it just right and slid it into a pocket above the wolf’s eyes, shocked when it clicked into place.
Remarkably, it was situated in a spot I’d always felt helped me see things others could not.
A location of great divination. Even more interesting?
The stone, combined with the metal, made it appear the same stormy blue gray as Soren’s.
“’Tis of the gods,” Soren exclaimed in awe.
“And of a wolf,” I said softly, reminding him that the gray wolf had delivered the stone to me as a child. Then, the origins of the pendant. “Not to mention a fellow seer.” My gaze rose to his face. “Yet ’twas you who knew to give it to me. You who brought me back from the land of the dead.”
When his gaze met mine once more, what passed between us was impossible to describe. Almost as if Thor invoked a bolt of lightning one could feel but not see. A tangible jolt that made our pupils flare and energy fluctuate between us.
Where I thought once again he would close the distance and kiss me, he instead closed his eyes for a moment before he opened them to me, shook his head, and returned to his chair.
“’Twill not be easy, if not the greatest challenge of my life, but I’m determined to honor your wishes not to lie together until you’re ready.” He refreshed our ales. “So let us talk more of everything we missed of one another’s lives and get to know each other again, ja?”
Understanding how close he had come to kissing me and wanting far more, I was grateful for his inner strength to step away. Or so I kept telling myself.
“I would like that.” Doing my best to temper my own desire, I sipped my ale. “Where should we begin?”
Little did I expect where he thought that should be, but then it soon became clear there might be even more to what hung around my neck now.
Better still, what it meant for the wolf and the bear to come together.