Chapter 5
By the time I reach Nordin’s pit house, my feet are stone-cold and my fur cloak is covered in a layer of fresh snow as thick as the thatch on his roof.
I lower my hood and kick the snow off the soles of my boots before descending the steps that lead to his door.
His dwelling is twice as large as mine, not because Nordin has more wealth and influence, but because he built it himself.
It isn’t the first time I visit, but it is the first time I enter without his permission or presence.
As I rub my gloved hands together to chase away the numbing chill, I absorb every detail, from the neatly strung laundry above the central hearth, to the wide beam carved with Fenrir’s likeness, to the copper tub at one end and the oversized cot swathed in thick furs at the other.
The chill of the wintry night recedes as I picture him sprawled atop the pelts, bared body gulping down the entirety of the straw mattress, long white hair fanned out on his pillow, cerulean eyes devouring me.
I slide a hand beneath my fur cloak and knead the fluttering flesh at my clavicle. Instead of easing my pulse, each breath I pull in heightens it. Possibly because it deepens the reach of his wild, familiar scent.
I unhook my satchel from my shoulder and walk it over to his bed, then pluck out the sheet on which I wrote Merry Júl, Nordin. With love, Zas and place it on top. For a long moment, I stand there contemplating my gift, which seems to thrum, as though bits of my heart were wedged within the pages.
Before I can snatch my gift back, I curl my fingers into my palms and lock them at my sides. And then I spin.
Bang.
Nordin cuffs my biceps between his long, strong fingers, effectively keeping me from stumbling. “Zas?”
My lips are parted, yet no oxygen swarms my throat.
He shapes more words that my pounding eardrums fail to catch.
He’s here.
Nordin is here.
And he’s holding me. Sure, it’s for the sake of my balance, but still…
In the snapping flames, his eyes gleam a darker sapphire than the lake at eventide.
I list closer.
Closer.
Like a moth to a flame.
Like a tide to the moon.
His hands slide down to my elbows. Settle there.
“Is everything all right?” This time, his words penetrate the fog of my mind.
I lick my lips. Swallow. “I thought you’d be at the longhouse with everyone else.”
“I was.” His timbre is low, rough, gorgeous. It brushes along my skin before turning liquid and sinking into my veins.
“Forget something?” The fire crackles softly in the hearth, its sound competing with the turbulent flutter of my pulse.
“Eira was worried.”
“About?”
“There’s a blizzard outside.”
“Not the first. Not the last.” When he stays quiet, I ask, “You came looking for me?”
“I did.”
Emboldened by his resolve to seek me out, I say, “I came by to drop off your present.”
His eyebrows dip as he peers past my shoulder at his bed.
I summon a smile laced with nerves. “To be opened after the festivities.”
He traces the lump concealed in the rucksack. “Yours won’t be ready until tomorrow.”
I wonder what he made for me this year. I so loved last year’s present—a Rafbo board, complete with pieces he sculpted himself, and an hourglass he purchased in the Glacier Valley from the most skilled glassblower of the five clans.
“Shall we put Mor out of her misery?” I ask, knowing my mother won’t begin to enjoy her evening until I walk into the longhouse, safe and sound from the rabid blizzard.
His lips kink. “Walk or ride?”
“What a question?” I grin. “Ride.”
He pivots, then strides up his stairs. I glance over my shoulder at the rucksack full of my most intimate confidences, debating whether to return them to my trunk for another year.
Knowing Nordin and his uprightness, he won’t allow himself to think of me in the way I’ve been thinking of him for a long while now.
Running my lip between my teeth, I twist toward the entrance of his home. The idling male might keep his lips off mine for another year, but once he learns of my feelings, he’ll hopefully keep his mouth off others and shun Myrknótt. Or perhaps he will allow himself to think of me as more?
He tilts his head, lupine eyes aglow. I might not be able to read his thoughts, but I can tell he’s wondering why I’m dithering. Resolve steals up my spine, and I lunge up the steps.
I close his heavy door, pop my hood back, then pluck up my long skirt and swing my leg over his broad back. Once centered on his spine that bears the glowing purple stripe of his pack, I lean forward, flattening my chest against his neck before circling it with my arms.
As he breaks into a slow run, I press my cheek to his shaggy fur. I’ve always felt safe in this valley, but never safer than with Nordin at my side.
The snowfall has thickened, blighting the glow of the pit houses we swerve past. The bitter air beats against my hood, trying to strip me of it.
It nips the tip of my nose and the edge of my cheekbones, which have considerably sharpened in the last year.
My body too has sharpened—my arms from smithing and archery, and my legs from my daily runs.
When Nordin slows, I straighten and then dismount, albeit reluctantly. A second later, the firm contours of his body shimmer and he regains his human shape.
As the wind howls and swirls the edges of my cloak, gliding underneath the fur and tiptoeing across my skin, I drink in the last moments of just him and me.
Nordin’s brow creases under my prolonged scrutiny. “Do I have something on my face?” He rubs his smooth jaw.
“No.”
“Reassuring.” He reaches for the heavy iron ring handle and draws the thick door open as though it weighed no more than the hide curtains beyond.
I finally look away from him and step over the threshold, then squeeze past the fur curtains meant to ward off the cruel bite of winter.
The first thing that hits me is the silence. The second thing is the presence of three Fjord females. And not just any females.
Opals gleam in the hollows of their slender throats. The necklaces’ familiarity should fill me with pride, but what swims through my veins is confusion.
“Ah, here’s my boy.” Ulf gestures his son over to where he stands, between the firepit and Gothi Dorson—Fenrir’s ordained representative on Midgard. “Come.”
I push my hood down then unbutton my cloak, scanning the crowd for my mother, whom I find standing between Saga and Sigrid.
Before heading her way, I glance up at Nordin. His jaw is tight, and his lids twitch with something akin to wariness. Not surprise, though, which leads me to think he was aware of this visit.
Does he know the reason they’d leave their clan during the highest shifter holiday? Especially given their rank in the pack. I suppose the journey to Meadowpoint and through the tunnel that leads into their valley isn’t overly long, but still…
“Nordin, approach!” Ulf calls for him again, bringing a stein up to his bearded jaw to take a swig.
A spot of pressure forms on the small of my back. Pressure and heat.
It takes me a second to comprehend it’s Nordin’s palm and not some physical reaction to having strangers in our midst.
Are they even strangers? I know their names after all. I’ve engraved them on the back of each bezel, along with their pack’s creed.
The mother’s name is Elka, and her two daughters are Vora and Nika. Nika is the eldest, and Vora the second-born. Their four brothers are all younger. One of them, according to Saga, is the handsomest wolf in Clan Fjord.
I wonder why only the females have come.
Although Nordin touches only the small of my back, pressure builds in my abdomen. The type that forms because of bad news. Then again, my aunt is smiling, so perhaps there is no bad news…
Once I reach Mor and Saga, Nordin lowers his palm and sidesteps me.
“What’s going on?” I hiss at Saga as Nordin gives the Fjord wolves a deferential nod.
She leans over to murmur, “Something about a proposal.”
My heart tilts off its axis. “Proposal for what?”
Saga shrugs. “Don’t know yet. They arrived mere minutes ago with the Gothi.”
Ulf taps his large gold signet ring against the lip of his metal stein to garner everyone’s attention. “Settle down, Vales. There’s no cause for alarm.” He turns toward Elka. “Lady Krosson of Clan Fjord has journeyed here to add to our reasons to celebrate. The floor is yours.”
My eyebrows knit as the older female wraps her fingers around the arm of her raven-haired and emerald-eyed daughter, Nika.
“Fenrir mistake—” she starts.
“Bless our maker’s soul…” The Gothi taps three fingers against his mouth as is custom when one wants to amplify words meant for the Shifter God’s broad ears.
“Bless his soul,” Elka repeats, her tone belying her devotion. “As I was saying, Fenrir mistakenly mated my Nika to the Jarl of Clan Ravine, Havrik Varganson.”
My lashes sweep high because the Ravines are notorious brutes, and their Alpha, Havrik, the very worst of shifterkind—a berserker, who challenged his Alpha and killed him neither fairly nor squarely.
How thrilled the rabid conqueror must be that our Wolf God mated him to someone of such status as Nika Krosson.
Elka squeezes Nika’s arm before letting go. “My brave daughter has rejected the mating link.”
Gasps echo around the longhouse. How many are born from astonishment and how many from horror?
“Holy shit, Zas,” Saga hums.
Holy shit is precisely what I’m thinking. I might not know Nika, but I can still feel sympathy for…
My mouth goes dry.
My chest empties of heartbeats as I replay Ulf’s earlier words, that the Fjord females brought additional reason for us, Vales, to celebrate tonight.
“Since Fenrir has yet to matchmake you, Son,” Ulf begins, “Nika has asked that you take her as your mate.”
After going quiet, my heart roars. Nordin crosses his arms over a chest that is granite and stares at his father through irises as cold and hard as chips of ice.
He doesn’t want this.
He doesn’t want Nika.
But does he have a choice? Wolves cannot go against their Alpha’s wishes.