Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 112500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 563(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 563(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
In a knowing tone, Dagny said, “I hope that the princess is changing, because your cousin certainly is.”
Arctos’s hand lingered a heartbeat too long before he snatched it away. He tipped his face toward the bright sky above, as though it might absolve him.
Torben said quietly, “If there’s any…softening between them, it’ll vanish when the nymphs arrive later.”
Dagny’s brows drew together. “If Emilia feels anything for him, that will gut her.”
Torben shrugged. “Males have needs.”
Dagny gave a derisive snort. “Only males? Pity. I was going to invite you to bed to assuage my own, but apparently I don’t have them.”
He fought a grin. “Perhaps I misspoke.”
***
Torben
“My relaxation is not shared with you.”
“Huh?” He blinked, dragging himself from thought. After making love, he and Dagny lay entwined in bed, staring at the fire in their room. He rested his hand over her belly, waiting for the distinct flutter that always humbled him. “I’m relaxed,” he lied. He hated deceiving her, but he wouldn’t burden her with his worries.
Not when she was carrying their child. He wanted to cocoon them within his arms forever, protecting them from any harm.
She turned her face toward him, cheeks pinkened, sky-blue eyes luminous. My whole heart, he thought. He’d once believed himself incapable of love after the slaughter of his family. Then Dagny had come, prying open his emotions with her laugh, her confidence, her strength.
Love had grown defiantly like a sapling between rocks.
“Do you worry about my due date?” she asked.
“No,” he said softly. “You’ll meet it like every battle, fierce and victorious.” In her village, his warrioress had slain so many strigoi that she’d begun teaching others her tricks and traps.
And her Berserkerage was a thing of beauty—slow to catch flame but then burning like a Ravinelun forge to smite all her enemies.
“Then what troubles your mind tonight, love?”
He hesitated. He could never tell her the truth: Yrsa. The queen’s behavior had grown erratic, her judgment suspect.
Arctos’s vampire wife had claimed that Bloodreach was undefended. So why hadn’t Yrsa struck? Why leave Arctos and others teetering on the edge of ohalla? None of it made sense.
He’d sought answers quietly—from nymphs, Fey, and a few demons—but all he found was silence. Fear. None dared speak against the Berserkers’ first channeler. Age had only empowered her Berserkerage until it verged on monstrous.
At last, he said, “I think about Arctos and his wife.” Not quite a lie. Those two were caught in Yrsa’s machinations. To what end? Why couldn’t Arctos see? “You’ve got a kinder view of Emilia than I do.”
“Yes,” Dagny said. “Because his view of her is changing. Do you not trust his judgment?”
No. Not of late. Fealty had blinded him. Or else I’m the crazy one, nursing suspicions. “Maybe I’m seeing ghosts where there are none,” he murmured. But he had another’s future to think of now.
Dagny rose up and the cover dipped, revealing her swollen breasts and belly. All her pregnancy changes—from the darkened pink of her areolas to her brow-raising cravings—fascinated him. “Then let me meet her myself.”
He sighed. “We’ve discussed this. It’s out of the question.”
Her raised brows said, Try to stop me. “I want to see how she acts with him in their home,” she pressed. “I’ll be able to tell you much.”
He knew that tone, would only be able to stall her for a time. “Let’s concentrate on this babe for now. After that? Have at it. Agreed?”
She hesitated, then nodded. “Very well.”
Under his palm, the babe kicked with a small, insistent foot. “Our little son or daughter respects no bedtime.”
In a quieter voice, she said, “Hulda predicted a boy.”
The mention of the clan’s “seeress” further soured his mood. She was no soothsayer or Sorceri, yet the woman had slinked up to Dagny, whispering about what she’d read when she’d cast her bones: that Dagny would never bear another child, not in all her immortal years.
Why would she say that? Dagny was now nigh invincible, couldn’t die in labor. But the babe…
If they lost their child, would Dagny’s grief ensure she never had another?
He forced the thought away. “Many of Hulda’s predictions have failed to come to pass.”
Dagny said, “And many have come true.”
“She’s no seer. Just a snoop who uses her bones for cover.” He’d seen her skulking in shadows, eavesdropping. She probably knew more of Yrsa’s secrets than any living soul. But he couldn’t trust her enough to risk his life by asking.
“The midwife declared you and our child in perfect health,” he said instead. Yet she too had told them signs pointed to a boy. If so, Dagny had chosen Koda for his name. “And I trust that midwife more than a bones caster.”
He told himself this often. Still, in dark hours, he dreaded loss, imagining Dagny’s grief like a wound that could never close.
She studied his expression. “You’re hiding things from me. Don’t. I’m not fragile. I can still give you a challenge in the sword pit.”