I’d learned all this because Christophe often rode by our sleigh and chatted. He also would take his lunch and dinner with his sister and me. Part of this, I thought, was that he was intrigued with me and not because I looked like his mom. Instead because I stabbed a man and hit another one with a branch and a woman doing those things in this world was intriguing, especially to a boy. But most of it was because his father took his meals with us and nearly always rode by our sleigh and Chris did what Apollo did.

And I’d learned all I’d learned about Élan because she rode with me in my sleigh, was extremely talkative and got excited at every snowflake, stand of trees or bunny who hopped across our path, and she felt I needed to share in her excitement.

I didn’t care if she talked my ear off.

I would listen even if doing it lasted an eternity.

Needless to say, our days in the sleigh were little snatches of heaven for me. I loved getting to know the kids, especially since they were bright, funny, open and interesting.

The nights were the same.

Little snatches of heaven.

This was because, without me asking him to do so, the first inn we stopped in for the night, Apollo ordered a room for each of us and kept doing this throughout the journey. This meant, if the opportunity arose, the children saw him going to his room and me to mine.

But once they were tucked away, he came and slept with me in mine.

Before he slept though, he made sure I came, repeatedly.

Suffice it to say, Apollo missed me too. The first night we were back together, he’d communicated this by holding me in his arms all night (seeing as I was still on my period). He communicated this the first night my cycle was done by not delaying in giving it to me fast and heated (though the second time that night had been slow, gentle and sweet, as had the third).

Since that night, he just gave me the slow, gentle and sweet.

And every night, in his arms, I gave him not-so-fun bedtime stories (though, he’d asked for them) of my life growing up, my mom, my dad, my (kind of) friends and school. Anything and everything he asked, I’d whisper to him as he held me, stroked me and I talked myself to sleep.

He had not yet coaxed me to talk about Pol.

But I knew that was coming.

He had also not shared much about himself.

But I’d see to that once I knew I’d given him what he needed from me.

In other words, although that long cold journey should have been tedious, it was anything but. I loved every second and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

So I was disappointed we were there.

Brunskar, Frey Drakkar’s family seat.

Their annual gale was tomorrow evening.

We’d made it in time.

I looked from Apollo to Élan and gave her a gentle squeeze.

“Wake up, honey bunch, it’s time for bath and bed.”

She snuggled closer and my heart turned over. I wanted to let her snooze the night away, holding her close, keeping her warm. But I knew I couldn’t do that (as much as I wanted it) so I gave her another squeeze.

“Come on, Élan, time to get clean and then get warm.”

“I’m warm,” she mumbled into my cloak.

“You’ll be warmer in bed,” her father butted in, entering the sleigh.

He pulled the furs off her and put his hands under her arms, lifting her up.

When he had her close, she tucked her face in his neck, wrapped her arms around his shoulders and her legs around his waist.

He looked down to me but I was already staring up at him.

Every time I saw him with his kids, holding sleepy Élan close, smiling as Chris chattered at him, I thought he’d never looked more beautiful.

Including now.

“I’ll take her in. Stay close to Draven, poppy, until you get in your room,” he ordered quietly.

I nodded.

He walked his daughter to the front door of the inn and I saw Christophe and Hans standing there, Chris holding the door open for Bella to precede him and keeping hold on the door so his father could do the same.

I looked away and aimed my eyes forward and up.

I’d seen it from a distance and when I did, I was glad that Élan had already fallen asleep.

This was because Brunskar was not like Apollo’s home or any of the finer homes we’d slid by on our way.

Brunskar was creepy as all get out and scary as hell.

Of course, it was dark but the front of it was lit up by what seemed like hundreds of torches, even some on its face up four stories and more on the roof.

Its stone looked black against the gloomy firelight and its white backdrop of snow. Its lines were straight and aggressive with five towers spiking into the air. Many of the windows were lit, likely because they had guests for the gale, and those windows, too, seemed aggressive. Whereas the windows at Apollo’s house were rounded in attractive trefoil arches, the windows of Brunskar were cut into spiked ogee ones.

And the castle (it had to be a castle, no other building had that shape) was set high into what appeared from the dark peaks that stood black against the starry midnight blue of the sky, to be a rather impressive mountain range. And in this world that didn’t have motorized cranes or excavators, it was set surprisingly high into the face of those mountains in a way that it seemed to watch over the village below (also named Brunskar), and that way was not a good one.

It must be said I did not get a happy feel from the place. This was weird since I wasn’t superstitious and I’d never felt that way about anywhere I’d been before except, say, when I was walking into a room Pol was in. But that was learned behavior. This wasn’t the same.

I just didn’t like it there.

And worse, I didn’t have a good feeling about how things were going to go down there.

One thing Apollo did share during pillow talk was the fact that Frey was not Head of the Drakkar House, although he should have been, even if his father still lived. He just didn’t want to be and I could understand that.

He had his hands full. He commanded elves and dragons, was a raider on the high seas (in other words, kind of like a pirate…well, actually a lot like a pirate, it was just that Apollo told me Frey’s kind was the “good” kind, however that would go) and was married to a princess.

Alas, Apollo also shared that after the war that reunited Lunwyn and Middleland, Eirik, Frey’s father, had been relieved by Frey of his responsibilities as Head of the House. Frey had then given these to his brother, Calder.

This had not made Eirik or Frey’s mother, Valeria happy.

And intelligence had come to Apollo that one, the other, both or another member of the Drakkar family were in cahoots with the evil Minerva, her malevolent witch sidekicks, Edith and Helda, and the dastardly Baldur.