Chapter seven
Eisa
I woke to the dim morning light of the sun muffled by both coastal fog and the heavy curtains of the bedroom.
All was still and silent, and I blinked slowly awake as the feeling of something warm stroked up my bare sternum.
“It’s still early.” Arik’s voice was rough with sleep, but his eyes when I found them were clear and contemplative. He gently traced the scar left behind by Sigrid’s necklace with his index finger. “Go back to sleep.”
My frown was interrupted by a yawn, and he chuckled as he pressed his bearded face to his favorite spot beneath my ear.
“You’re up. I can be up too.”
“Stubborn as always.” He pressed a trail of bristly kisses down my neck. But when his eyes met mine again, they were serious. “Thank you. For last night.”
I wound my arms around his neck, still heavy with exhaustion, and pulled his lips to mine. A shiver skated down my spine as his free hand trailed down my bare side and rested on my outer thigh. You don’t have to thank me for anything.
He pressed another kiss to my lips, I assumed as a continuation of his passion from the night before. At the very least, I expected that he wanted to talk about it.
To my consternation, the kiss ended chastely. He sat up and began fumbling around in the semi-dark.
“What are you—“
“I need to see my mother.” He finally found his trousers and pulled them on.
Not what a mate wants to hear, Idunn yawned as I sat up and clutched the sheet.
“Your mother?”
Arik turned abruptly, cupped the back of my neck, and pulled me in for another kiss. “Do you want to come with me?”
I blinked. This frenetic energy was unlike him, and I wondered if perhaps he wasn’t quite as reassured by our lovemaking last night as I had hoped. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine.” He turned from me again, his muscles rippling as he pulled on a tunic and gathered his discarded leather armor from the floor. “She’ll expect a visit, and she might know something about this Althing my father has planned.”
I sighed as I wrested myself from the warm comfort of the bed and hunted for my own clothes. I shifted the tattered remnants of the ruffled nightgown, which Arik had destroyed after he lost patience trying to remove it in one piece late in the night, with my foot.
Arik was clearly not fine. His side of our mental bridge was closed off to me, as if he had put an additional wall up in his mind since arriving in the castle. But I didn’t want to push if he wasn’t ready to talk about it, especially after what I learned last night.
So we’d go see his mother.
“This is not how I pictured meeting the queen,” I grumbled as I pulled on fur lined leggings and a plain tunic, aware that I was exceedingly underdressed.
He moved to my side and pressed a kiss beneath my ear as I struggled to comb through my disheveled hair. It had come loose from its braid after the passion of our activities and seemed hopelessly tangled. Arik deftly plucked the comb from my hand. “Leave it. You look radiant.”
I whirled on him and attempted to snatch the comb back. “I am not meeting a queen, let alone your mother,“ I emphasized these words with a wag of my finger, “with my hair resembling,” I gestured wildly, “whatever this is!”
His lips twitched in their almost smile. “Which worries you more? The queen or the mother?”
“Both.” I grabbed again for the comb, and he caught my wrist, his eyes flashing silver.
Turn around then, Kjaere. His voice in my head had that purring quality that had made my skin prickle. I narrowed my eyes at him, but obeyed, and he chuckled as he ran his fingers over my scalp in a firm caress that forced me to stifle a moan of pleasure.
I could remember both my mother and Sigrid fussing over my hair during my childhood—Sigrid far into my adulthood—but it had been a long time since someone had so patiently and reverently combed my hair.
The act was strangely intimate. Arik’s breath grazed the shell of my ear as his strong hands patiently worked through the tangled strands. The gentle tug on my scalp made goosebumps shiver down my arms.
Better, Kjaere? He pressed another kiss to my neck as he turned me to face the mirror, his large, warm body behind mine. I felt my nipples peak beneath my tunic at the prolonged attention, and his eyes slitted to silver.
Idunn growled appreciatively, her brilliant gaze joining my own, and I felt Baldur pushing at the barrier between our minds, eager to reach his mate.
Beautiful. Arik’s hands squeezed my arms, and my breath caught a little as he pulled me flush against him. I seriously considered turning in his arms and undoing all of his hard work, but he released me with a sigh before I had the chance. “Ready?”
“No, but I suppose this will have to do.” I banished Idunn, my eyes returning to their usual shade as I reached for his hand. Some of the anxious energy I sensed in him had calmed, as if the simple act of taking care of me had reassured him that I was not going anywhere. That I was safe.
“She will love you, Kjaere.” He pressed a kiss to my palm and twined his fingers in mine as he led me out to the sitting room. “Just be yourself.”
The room was quiet, so I assumed Branka and Jorgen were still asleep. The door creaked ominously as Arik pulled it open and led us into the hallway.
The guard on duty—barely more than a boy, by the look of his somewhat pock-marked face—was fast asleep with his head hanging at an awkward angle against the wall. He lolled to the side as the door opened, letting out a loud snore against the stone floor.
“Incompetence,” Arik muttered as we stepped over the boy and continued toward the narrow stone stairs that led to the main level of the keep.
The Great Hall was quiet and sullen in the early morning.
The room was freezing cold, and I pulled closer to him in a vain attempt to steal some of his warmth.
What was it like growing up here? I shivered as we passed the huge, severed head of the great wolf that rested on the wall above his father’s throne. The beast was snarling in death, as if furious at its killers, and I half imagined it could jump right off the wall.
Lonely. Arik guided me through a door on the opposite side of the chamber. I mostly tried to stay out of my father’s way.
Your mother though. She was—is—kind?
Arik nodded. Always. She taught me a great deal about how not to become my father. And Arne—my uncle, her brother—taught me to defend myself against him.
Is he here? We were ascending another spiraling stone staircase, the only light coming from slits in the tower that also let in the frigid wind.
I was a touch short of breath as we came out into a landing, and I was glad we were speaking mind to mind so Arik wouldn’t hear me panting.
Your uncle. Was he in the hall yesterday?
No. Arik squeezed my hand and pulled me to a stop in front of an intricately carved wooden door and rapped on it twice. More fucking wolves.
The door was opened by a middle-aged woman, her hair neatly tucked under a veil and a look of severe disapproval on her face.
A face that turned white as a sheet as she beheld my mate, his stony mask firmly in place, looking down at her with cold, gray eyes.
“Y-your Highness.” Her voice was shaky as she performed a little curtsy, then glanced at me as if not sure what honorific, if any, to use. “Her M-Majesty was not expecting you so early.”
“Morning, Magda.” Arik’s voice was gentle, but commanding, and Magda seemed to shrink a little more. “Is she up?”
Magda made an odd sort of movement, as if shaking her head, then changing her mind halfway through the motion. Arik raised a brow at her uncertainty, and she bobbed another curtsy.
“I’ll g-go check, your Highness.” She left the door ajar as I heard her calling out for the queen.
Are all of the servants scared of you? I nudged Arik’s shoulder with mine trying to puzzle out his emotion behind the mask. He was far better at hiding his feelings from the bond between our minds, and I hadn’t yet known him long enough to parse out any emotional tell other than amusement.
His lip twitched, giving me my answer. Probably. Magda has only been in my mother’s service for a few years, so she didn’t know me as a boy. And my father likes to foster fear of the drage. It’s no wonder if I make them nervous.
How lonely. I frowned, imagining how my life would have been with only Henrik for company, no Sigrid scolding or fussing over me, and no Anders teasing me.
Arik squeezed my hand and lifted my knuckles to his lips. Not anymore, Kjaere.
Magda shuffled back to the door and opened it wide.
“Please come in.” Her curtsy was so low, I wondered if she would need assistance in rising, but if she struggled, she said nothing as Arik strode past her into the queen’s chambers.
It was a great deal like our guest chambers.
The main room seemed to be a private sitting room, the stone walls decorated with intermittent wood paneling and a series of intricate tapestries which mostly featured the family’s ancestral animal.
Doors from the main room led, I suspected, to a bed chamber and a bathing room.
The queen was sitting by the blazing hearth, fully dressed and holding a teacup to her lips.
“You’re early,” she scolded, placing the teacup in its saucer on the low wooden table in front of her.
She was younger than I had originally thought, the strands of gray flecking her dark hair fewer than they had seemed from a distance.
Her face was kind despite her slight frown, and her eyes, green as the fields we had flown over on our way to Stormhold, moved to study me.
“You should stay abed far longer with such a bedmate, Arik.”
“Gods above, Mother.” Arik’s face remained stony, but the tips of his ears had turned slightly pink. Another tell. “Is that truly the first thing you wish to say to my mate?”
She tilted her head and smiled, her eyes meeting mine with a conspiratorial glint. “It is.”
I decided I liked her immensely.