Wildest Dreams

by Kristen Ashley

  It was then I finally blinked again.

  Then I whispered, “What?”

  “This powder you took?” she asked, I nodded slowly and she went on. “It is quite powerful and nearly foolproof. However, you have not been taking it now for some time. He discovered it and switched it with a placebo with the intent to sire a child on you in order to safely deliver an heir to the throne of this nation.”

  I felt every inch of my body lock.

  No.

  God. No.

  Why would he do that?

  “Why would he do that?” I breathed.

  “He is a man,” Valentine answered gently, studied my face that I could actually feel was pale and then she continued. “Therefore, my goddess of love, your husband has been very busy. Your parents of this world have known of all of this since your return to them after the time you spent in the country. The three of them have known you are bound to this world everlasting and Princess Sjofn would never return. But it is only your husband, and one of his men who procured the placebo for you, that knows he has schemed behind your back to get you with child.”

  I couldn’t believe this.

  This was unbelievable.

  Why would Frey do this? Any of it.

  Why?

  Memories clashed in my head. Atticus seeming so despondent when I couldn’t hit the target I knew now was not because he was disappointed in his Sjofn but because he was mourning the loss of his daughter. Both his and Aurora’s easy acceptance of me, acceptance they had no choice but to have for their Frey, their Drakkar had commanded the elves. All of them, including Frey’s quick and unreserved happiness I was pregnant without me having to say a word about remaining in this world, switching places with Sjofn and providing an heir to the throne.

  God, I was so stupid, so blind, so involved in falling in love I didn’t even notice, didn’t think, didn’t piece it together – but this was because they all knew I was never leaving way before I did and way before I even knew I wanted to.

  I felt my jaw clench and a red film descended over my eyes.

  “That said…” Valentine’s voice came to me but I had stopped hearing her, nothing was penetrating the injured, infuriated fog filling my head.

  I slowly stood and turned to round the bed.

  “Seoafin,” she called but I ignored her and moved, my gait slow, my head feeling fuzzy, my eyes still seeing red.

  “Seoafin,” I heard again and then I heard an angry mew from Penelope which could only mean that Valentine had stood but I kept going, my pace quickening. “Seoafin, my goddess of love, I’m not quite –”

  But she didn’t finish because I was running to the door, out the door, down the hall, down the stairs, down the next flight, out the door and into the snow.

  And as I blindly ran, I ran right into Ruben who caught me in his arms.

  “Finnie, what are you doing outside without a cloak?” he asked and my head shot back, my gaze locked with his and his head jerked at what he saw.

  “Where’s Frey?” I demanded to know.

  “Finnie –” Ruben started, his eyes turning guarded as they took in my face, his hands coming to my upper arms, fingers curling around carefully.

  “Ben, where… is… Frey?” I ended my question on a shriek and Ruben’s head jerked again as his fingers tightened.

  Then he said gently, “Go inside, my princess, I’ll get him.”

  “Fuck that,” I snapped, yanking free of his hold and ignoring his wince at my words. “Tell me where he is.”

  “Fin –” he started, something caught his attention, he looked beyond me, his big body went tight and his eyes narrowed.

  “Ben!” I yelled and his eyes snapped back to me. “Where the fuck is Frey?”

  “Right here, wee one, what on earth is amiss?” I heard Frey ask and the minute I heard his voice, I turned on him.

  Then I took him in as he moved toward me, his boots crunching in the snow and my heart squeezed, hard and tight, staying frozen like it was never going to pump again.

  My beautiful husband. My sweet and gentle Frey. The man I loved. The man whose child I was carrying. The man who had lied to me and irrevocably changed the course of my life… twice… without bothering to discuss it with me.

  “Frey, there’s a wo –” Ruben started to say in a low tone but I cut him off.

  “You unbelievable asshole!” I shrieked, Frey’s brows shot together over narrowed eyes as he stopped walking about four feet from me and his body went still.

  “Finnie, what –?” he started.

  “Fuck you!” I spat, leaning forward to do it. “Fuck you, Frey! I cannot fucking believe you!”

  “Frey –” Ruben said quietly, Frey’s eyes unlocked with mine, he looked around me, he focused on something in the distance, I saw his face go hard but I ignored all of this and kept at it.

  “You told the elves to bind me to this world,” I accused hotly and his eyes shot back to my face. “You did it a long time ago. You did it without asking me. You did it before you even knew you liked me much less loved me. And you did it so you wouldn’t have to be bound to Sjofn for the rest of your days. You did it for completely selfish reasons. You did it without once thinking of me. You did it only thinking of you.” I watched as he flinched, I knew that proved Valentine’s words true and my heart started pumping so fast, in an instant my blood felt like it was going to boil through my skin and it pushed me to keep right on going. “Who could do that and how?” I shouted. “How?” I screamed. “How could you do that?” I shrieked, arms straight down at my sides, hands in fists, torso leaning toward him.

  “Finnie, love, let’s go inside,” he said gently, moving to me, hand coming toward me but I took two quick steps back and lifted my hand, palm out to him and he stopped but only at my next words.

  “Don’t you dare touch me, Frey, don’t you fucking touch me because that was just the worst of it but not all of it. I know… I fucking know you switched my powders without talking to me about that either.”

  I heard Ruben pull in a breath but it was Frey’s face that had my attention because it changed, his eyes flashed and his voice got low when he ordered, “Finnie, we’re going inside.”

  “Fuck that and fuck you!” I leaned forward to screech. “Who does that? Who does any of this shit?” I yelled, throwing my hands out. “It’s my body, Frey! I get to decide or at the very least we talk about when we create a baby but oh no…” I drew this out sarcastically, shaking my head and taking another step back. “Not The Drakkar. Not The Frey. My life isn’t mine. My body isn’t mine. Both are clearly yours to do with whatever you wish without once consulting me.”

  “Wife,” Frey cut in, “you’re distressed and there’s a woman I do not know standing behind you. Let us go inside and –”

  “Unh-unh,” I shook my head. “No way. No fucking, fucking way. I’m not going anywhere with you. The only thing I know, because Valentine told me, is that wherever I go has to be here!” I shouted, pointing to the ground realizing belatedly we had an audience of all my girls (save, probably, Jocelyn though I was in no state to check) and a number of Frey’s men but I didn’t care.

  Not even a little bit.

  And that was why I kept yelling. “I had friends back home, Frey, people I love. And I’ll never see them again not even to say good-bye. I didn’t have family but I had a family of friends and without thinking of me once you swept them all away. You swept my whole world away. How could you do that? How could my sweet, generous husband do that to me?” I ended on a screech, Frey’s face shifted to concern at my rising hysteria, he took two swift steps to me but I scuttled quickly away, hand back up, palm out, rounding Ruben and retreating while still speaking. “Don’t come near me.” I shook my head. “Don’t you dare come near me.” This I whispered as the despair began to overwhelm me. “You’ve… you… I can’t believe I’m not safe with you. I can’t believe I can’t trust you and I can’t believe I now know I never fucking could.”

  F
rey’s body turned with mine and he followed me as I backed through the snow. “My love –” he started but I shook my head hard.

  “I’m not that,” I told him, tears making my voice hoarse as they shone in my eyes. “I’m not that to you. I’m not your love and I never have been. You don’t treat someone you love like this. You don’t. Not ever. Not ever.”

  At my words, I watched the expression on his face shift to ravaged and he whispered, “My wee Fin –”

  But he didn’t finish the name I loved him to call me.

  This was because I heard a whistle fill the air, a whistle I knew very well.

  And then I stood still and horrified as I saw Frey’s powerful body wrench forward at the same time I saw the bloody point of an arrow come out his shoulder.

  And at this same time I heard Bess, Esther and Alyssa scream and their screams mingled with my own.

  And then it happened, everywhere, all around me, all around Frey, all around the men, Valentine and my girls. Whistling arrows flying everywhere, landing in the snow, landing in flesh, men’s grunts of pain, women’s screams, people rushing and horses suddenly galloping through the snow all around, so many of them, it felt like an army had descended on Frey’s lodge.

  I stood frozen and watched as, injured, Frey started to race toward me but then I watched in stony shock, horror and with a pain so immense it scored through my insides as two more arrows penetrated my husband’s big, beautiful body and then I watched the powerful Drakkar go down to a knee.

  “No!” I shrieked, my body belatedly unlocking, moving to run to him but I didn’t get a step before I was pulled up and planted in front of a man on a horse.

  “Get the witch!” I heard my captor order, then he bent into me, drove his heels into his mount’s flanks and we galloped into the surrounding forest.

  I struggled, pushing and grunting, my vision filled with nothing but Frey’s powerful body penetrated by three arrows, the blood soaking his wool and down on a knee and my system knew nothing but the driving need to get back to my husband.

  “Spell!” my captor shouted, struggling to contain my thrashing. “Now!”

  I bucked back at the same time pushing at his arm at my waist, I felt the back of my head collide with his chin, the piercing pain that caused reverberated through my skull, I heard his grunt and I felt a tickle hit my chest.

  Then I felt nothing at all because I was asleep.

  Chapter Thirty

  Until the Day I Died

  Four days later…

  “My Winter Princess, wake, please wake,” I heard a woman call and my eyes slowly opened then fluttered closed again. “Please, my princess, wake.”

  With effort I opened my eyes and focused on a blonde woman, blue eyes, not young, not old, maybe late forties, early fifties. She had great hair and a lot of it and she was very pretty.

  “Hey,” I whispered, feeling funny, not myself, strangely out of body.

  “She needs food, water, immediately, it’s been days,” I heard from behind her and I blinked because I knew that voice.

  My eyes moved from the blonde to the redhead who was now wearing a disheveled, dusty, torn in places, jade green wool, wraparound dress and scuffed, dirty, charcoal gray suede boots.

  And it all came back to me.

  I pushed up to sitting, my head swam alarmingly and my hand went immediately to it but even so, I didn’t stop trying to push up from wherever I was reclining but two sets of hands held me down and I didn’t have a lot of strength.

  And since I didn’t, since my head was woozy and there was an emptiness in my stomach that had not one thing to do with hunger and a scary feeling around my heart that I didn’t want to think about, I gave in.

  But I gave in as I whispered, “Frey.”

  The blonde looked at Valentine and I didn’t like the look on her face so I grabbed her arm and I did it tight. I also shook it when I had hold and I did this hard.

  She looked back at me with sad eyes. Sad eyes that spoke words she really didn’t want to say and words I never, never, never wanted to hear.

  “No,” I whispered, bile filling my throat, she grabbed my hand as Valentine dropped to her knees on the floor beside the blonde.

  “I am sorry, my princess,” she whispered, squeezing my hand. “He has gone from this world.”

  He has gone from this world.

  Frey has gone from this world.

  My sweet, gentle Frey was gone from this world.

  Emotion surged through me, so much, none of it good, that I suddenly felt like I was going to explode.

  “No!” I shrieked, pushing her away, I gained my feet, rushed several paces across the room and stopped dead when I saw we were in a room made of stone and there was nothing in it but high, barred windows at least two stories up, three dirty pallets on the floor with thin, rough, tattered wool blankets and a wooden table that looked like its legs held it up by a miracle.

  We were in a prison cell.

  And I didn’t care.

  No, I didn’t care.

  “He isn’t dead,” I told Valentine and the blonde as both slowly stood and turned to face me.

  “I’m sorry, my princess,” the blonde murmured.

  I leaned forward and shrieked, “He isn’t dead!”

  Valentine moved toward me, whispering, “My goddess of love –”

  “He isn’t dead! He isn’t dead! He isn’t dead!” I screeched then saw even the cool, composed Valentine’s face filled with sorrow and my legs collapsed under me as my body started shuddering with sobs. “He isn’t dead,” I whispered through my tears as both women made it to me, pulled me to my feet and supported me as they moved me back to the pallet. “He isn’t dead,” I repeated, my entire body quaking with the force of my grief as they gently pressed me back down to the dirty mattress. “He isn’t dead,” I whispered as I curled into a ball, arms around my calves, rocking my body back and forth while one of them, I didn’t know who, stroked my hair. “He isn’t dead,” these words were hoarse, rough, ugly, my stomach empty, my heart actually felt broken and that hurt, a lot, too much, so much I couldn’t bear it. It was unbearable. “Please, God, make him not dead.” I whispered then I turned my head, pressed my face into the filthy pallet and I sobbed.

  * * * * *

  I cried myself out while Valentine stroked my hair and cooed to me. When I was done and turned my face to stare at the stone wall, she gently forced me to sitting on the pallet so my back was to the wall as the blonde went to the table and came back with a plate on which were some slices of ham and a battered copper cup filled with water that was luckily clear and clean.

  “Eat, pour votre bébé,” Valentine urged, I looked at her vaguely, nodded just as vaguely, took the plate, set it on my thighs, took the glass, started eating slowly and chased the salty ham with water.

  Pour votre bébé.

  Our baby.

  Would I live to give Frey that?

  I looked around the room and doubted it.

  Then my eyes fell on the blonde. “Who are you?” I asked.

  “I am Lavinia of Lunwyn, servant of Alabasta,” she replied softly and I nodded because I knew who that was. Frey told me stories of Lunwyn’s most powerful witch and the goddess Alabasta’s servant on this earth.

  And Frey told them to me while we were eating dinner in his chateau in Hawkvale.

  I felt my throat close, my eyes sting and I looked away, shoving another piece of ham in my mouth and having no clue how I’d get it down.

  “Do you think…” Lavinia of Lunwyn started, my eyes moved to her and I swallowed the ham with effort before she finished, “that you can hear what is happening?”

  To this, I replied, “Considering my husband is dead and that hits the one to ten scale of bad news you could give me at around five hundred and seventy-two, how bad is the rest of the news?”

  “It is bad, not as bad as that,” Lavinia replied.

  Nope. Not as bad as that. Outside of the world coming to an end, ther
e was no news worse than that or even close.

  I sucked in breath through my nose and nodded, saying, “Well then, hit me with it.”

  She nodded back then she and Valentine exchanged a glance and both settled on the pallet on either side of me.

  “You have been under a sleeping spell for four days,” Lavinia stated, I nodded, she took in breath and continued. “I was captured and imprisoned here a week ago. You and Valentine arrived yesterday and when you did, Valentine was bound but awake.”

  I finished the last piece of ham, set the plate aside, took another drink of water and said, “Okay.”

  “We are…” she hesitated, looked to Valentine then back at me, “we are both bound still, though we bear no straps. Wherever we are has a powerful spell over it. Neither of us have command of our magic. It is not gone, we both still feel it, we just cannot command it.”

  My eyes slid away and I whispered, “Great.”

  “This is why, I am certain, they have brought me here for I would not stand for what is happening to my Lunwyn,” Lavinia told me and I nodded.

  Valentine took it from there. “We both can, however, sense things. This is how we know…” she trailed off and I jerked my chin up so she wouldn’t continue.

  I didn’t want to hear the words again. I got her. This was how they knew Frey was gone.

  Lavinia spoke next. “We also know more, or I do. Valentine senses things but as she is not of this world most of what she senses, she doesn’t understand.”

  “And what more do you know?” I asked but I didn’t really care. I wanted to know about my girls and Frey’s men. I wanted to know about Aurora and Atticus. I wanted to know about Skylar. And I wanted to have some time to lick my wounds and then figure out how to get the fuck out of there, out of this world and home, home, home.