A Midwinter Fantasy

by Leanna Renee Hieber; L. J. McDonald; Helen Scott Taylor

  “Hmm.” His gaze moved back to her and he puffed out a blast of stinking breath.

  “Can you use her against Troy?” Huginn asked.

  “The runes say she’s the catalyst for great change.”

  Muninn shuffled closer and stared down at the wooden pieces with a frown. “Is that good?”

  Odin cuffed him around the head. “Change is never good, you imbecile.” Odin’s face scrunched into deeper creases so his good eye nearly disappeared beneath his bushy gray eyebrow. “She might discover her power and become a threat like her father.”

  Was it possible she had inherited power from Troy? The idea of flying or being super strong like Superman appealed to her. She imagined the shock on Odin’s face if she broke free of her bonds and zoomed off into the night.

  Just another stupid dream. The vision faded, and she sank back into her chilled misery. She didn’t have any power. The only way she would escape was if Vidar or her father rescued her.

  Vidar’s warm, reassuring presence hummed more strongly in her mind, easing her fear. The sound of raised voices behind her made her crane her head around. Her heart jumped as Vidar paced in and bore down on them, his face a mask of anger.

  “What in the Furies are you doing?” He swept past her, kicked the scattered wooden runes aside, and crouched between her and Odin. “Are you all right, Sonja?”

  “Leave her be, Vidar,” Odin boomed in a voice that made the floor vibrate.

  “She’s no threat to you,” Vidar snapped without turning. He loosened the gag and pulled it away from her mouth. She dragged in her first decent breath in hours, filling her lungs with cold air flavored with the hot spicy tang of Vidar’s scent.

  The tension inside her eased as Vidar untied her and helped her to her feet. His presence in her mind felt so familiar and natural she yearned to stay with him even while her common sense demanded that she get out of Iceland and never return.

  Vidar pulled off his fur coat and helped her into it, fastening the front to keep her warm.

  “You’ll get cold without your coat, son,” Odin said sulkily.

  “I’ll get cold!” Vidar shook his head in disbelief. His father was losing his mind. “Are you trying to incite Troy to violence? He’ll bring Valhalla down around your ears if he discovers you’ve kidnapped his daughter and left her to die of exposure.”

  “I want to keep her as insurance—freeze her again.”

  “She’s too big for her Crystal Crib now,” Huginn piped up.

  Sonja stiffened beneath his arm. “What’s that?” she asked, through chattering teeth.

  “Nothing important.” Vidar hoped the others didn’t elaborate. “Let me take her back to her cabin at the resort. If she goes home tomorrow Troy will stay away and you can relax for another few decades.”

  Odin peered up from beneath the brim of his hat, his mouth a flat sulky line. “No.” The word echoed around the room with finality. “She’s my insurance.”

  Vidar sucked in a breath, released it slowly. He could reason with his father on many subjects but not on Troy; the old enmity had poisoned his father’s mind. He glanced at Sonja, wishing he was able to send thoughts into her mind to explain that he didn’t mean what he was about to say: “I’ll keep the woman tucked away so she’s at hand if Troy returns to cause trouble.”

  Odin grunted. “Only if she wears my ring.”

  Vidar stilled, acutely aware of the slave ring on his little finger—a more effective jail than any cell.

  Odin pulled the enchanted gold ring Draupnir from his finger and laid it on his palm. The metal jumped and flexed. A second gold band grew out of the original before separating with a pop. Odin tossed the new ring to Vidar, who snatched the cursed thing from the air and clenched it in his fist.

  “You don’t want to press a human into your service, my lord.” He would not allow Odin to ruin Sonja’s life as his own had been ruined.

  Odin bent to pet one of his wolves. “She’s only half human. No one could accuse Troy of having humanity.”

  Despite Troy’s fearsome reputation, he had more humanity than Odin. Vidar’s grip tightened on the ring.

  “Give Draupnir’s progeny to Troy’s daughter,” Odin commanded.

  Vidar’s breath grated in and out of his lungs. Once Sonja slid his father’s ring on her finger, she would never escape the old man’s control. “Consult the runes first.” He crouched to gather up the wooden pieces he’d kicked aside. He dropped them back into the bag on his father’s lap.

  “Let me put it on. I can take it off again later,” Sonja whispered.

  Vidar cast her a look of dissent that he hoped would keep her quiet.

  Odin stirred the runes in his bag, grabbed a handful, and scattered them on the ground. He bent forward to examine them; his face screwed into a frown.

  With Huginn and Muninn also engrossed in the runes, Vidar backed up, taking Sonja with him. All he had to do was get her out of Iceland and she’d be safe from Odin.

  “Have you got the sleigh here?” she whispered as the distance between them and the throne widened.

  Vidar put his finger to his lips.

  Odin’s attention lifted from the runes. Familiar agonizing pain shot up Vidar’s arm from the slave ring, slicing through bone, spearing along muscle. He slammed down the shutters on his link with Sonja as his legs buckled and he collapsed to his knees with a cry of pain.

  When the torture ceased, his bones throbbed and his muscles ached. Sonja was on her knees before him clutching his shoulders. “Vidar, what’s the matter?”

  Troy had been right to cut her off from this world. If only Vidar had stood up to his father and refused to invite her to Iceland, she would not be in danger. “Go,” he grated between clenched teeth. “Ride Gleda back to the resort.”

  She framed his face in her hands. “I won’t leave you like this.”

  “Get away from me. I don’t need a human’s help.” He infused his voice with savage contempt to make her leave.

  Her hands dropped away from his face, her expression uncertain. But she’d missed her chance. Huginn scampered up and pinned her wrists behind her back.

  “Flipping heck, not you again.” She struggled but was no match for the wiry strength of the raven-men. Vidar longed to reach out to help her, but his abused muscles wouldn’t obey.

  Muninn snatched up the ring intended for Sonja that Vidar had dropped and pushed it onto her finger. Vidar closed his eyes, and his head fell forward. Now Sonja would be trapped in Iceland forever.

  Chapter Five

  Once the gold ring was on her finger, Odin beckoned his two creepy henchmen back to him and left through a door in the wall behind his throne. The two massive wolves trotted out at his heels, leaving Sonja and Vidar alone in the huge echoing ice chamber.

  Vidar remained on his knees, head bowed, breath ragged. His naturally tanned skin had lost its usual golden hue. He looked pale, defeated.

  Tugging the fur coat tighter around her body, Sonja crouched before him, trying to control her chattering teeth long enough to speak. “Can you get up?”

  His gaze rose to her face. “Why didn’t you escape?”

  All her life Vidar’s loving presence in her mind had given her the strength to cope when times were tough. How could he believe she would run away and leave him now that he was in trouble?

  She reached for his limp hand and pressed it against her cheek. “We can both go now.”

  With her support, Vidar scrambled to his feet and they headed to the door. The two female warriors standing guard eyed them as they passed through the entrance hall, but made no move to stop them leaving.

  Sonja clutched Vidar’s arm, her feet frozen in nothing but the pink fluffy socks she’d worn to bed. “Will you take me back to the resort? I can still make my flight if I hurry.” She didn’t want to be parted from Vidar if he really was her guardian angel. She had always loved her angel so that meant she loved Vidar, but this whole situation was too weird. She needed time t
o get her head around it.

  Vidar stopped at the door. His breath heaved in and out on a sigh. “Now you wear Odin’s ring. You’re trapped here.”

  She stared at the ring on the third finger of her left hand and frowned. The band had been loose when Odin’s lackeys put it on her. She tugged but it wouldn’t budge. “Don’t tell me this is supposed to be a wedding ring.” The sting of bile burned the back of her throat.

  Vidar laughed, bitterly. “More like a manacle. It ties you to Iceland.”

  “How? It’s a ring.” But even as the words left her mouth, she conceded it was no ordinary ring. She’d watched in disbelief while Odin’s ring spawned the band that now hugged her finger like a leech.

  “We’ll talk when we get back to the resort.”

  They exited into the swirling snowstorm. “Gleda,” Vidar called. His huge snow cat approached out of the whiteness.

  Vidar swept Sonja into his arms, deposited her on the cat’s back, and then climbed up behind her. “Hang on tight.” He reached an arm on either side of her to grasp handfuls of the cat’s mane; then he shouted a command against the wind.

  The cat trotted to the edge of the ice platform and jumped into the abyss. Sonja hung on to the beast’s fur for dear life as her stomach somersaulted. She clamped her thighs against the creature’s sides until her muscles ached. The bite of the wind stole her breath, so she closed her eyes and buried her face in the cat’s fur, praying they reached the ground in one piece.

  Wind whistled past her ears, whipping at her hair. Just as she wondered if they would ever stop falling, the cat jolted beneath her. Powerful muscles flexed as the creature bounded along a trail between the pine trees surrounding the resort. Lights sparkled in the distance, and she heard the reassuring sound of corny Christmas tunes.

  The creature halted just inside the tree line, its sides heaving. Vidar jumped off and pulled her into his arms. Sonja rested her head against his shoulder, suddenly exhausted, her body ready to shut down after the traumatic night. The security guard opened the small gate for Vidar with a friendly greeting as if it were normal for him to arrive out of the forest in the early hours of the morning carrying a woman in her pajamas.

  Once they were inside her cabin, Sonja went to the bathroom to clean up, then changed into dry clothes and wrapped herself in the bed quilt. Now that the ordeal was over, she had started to wonder if she’d been confused about Vidar and her guardian angel being one and the same. If he’d had a mental link with her all her life, surely he’d have mentioned it by now. The whole idea sounded crazy when she tried to put it into words.

  Vidar put on his coat and turned up the heat to its maximum. “I hate the damn cold,” he said, rubbing his hands together.

  “Then why run a theme park in Iceland?”

  Leaning back in his chair, he gave her a weary smile. “My father’s such a sweet old guy; I can’t bear to leave him.”

  She snorted and pressed the quilt over her mouth. He held up a hand and flashed the ring on his little finger.

  A chill swept through her that had nothing to do with temperature. “You said something about it being a manacle, but a ring can’t stop you leaving.”

  Even as her comment fell into the silence, she realized how foolish her incredulity sounded when she’d just been rescued from an ice palace in the sky and ridden a flying cat. She fingered the ring on her own hand and nervously said, “Okay, explain.”

  “My father’s ring’s called Draupnir, a magical artifact forged by dwarves thousands of years ago. You saw how the ring multiplies. Through the parent ring he controls anyone who wears one of the others.”

  “Why did he make you wear one? Surely he trusts his own son.”

  “He trusted me just fine until I defied him and did something to help Troy.”

  “But to make you stay here against your will is primitive!”

  “Primitive’s his middle name, Sonja. Words like freedom and democracy aren’t in his vocabulary.”

  “Have you tried to leave?”

  He cast her a what-do-you-think glance.

  “Don’t you have any power to fight back?”

  “Only what I inherited from my mother. She was queen of the Folletti—they’re a type of Italian fairy.” Vidar spread his hand, and a small golden flame flared from his palm.

  Sonja’s heart rate shot from calm to manic in a second. “How . . . ? Is that real fire?”

  “I’m a fire elemental, but my power’s pathetic. Did you see Ciar, the Irish fairy queen who was with your father?” He whistled through his teeth. “She’s a walking furnace. Even Odin gives her a wide berth. She’s the reason your father escaped . . .” His words trailed away and he stared down at his hands.

  “The reason my father escaped what?”

  “That was a long time ago, Sonja. No need to rake up the past.”

  She wanted to know more about the feud between their families, but not as much as she wanted to get out of Iceland and leave all the madness behind. She checked her watch before rising to her feet. Her cab was due any minute. She packed the last few things in her overnight bag, slipped on her coat, and zipped up her boots.

  Vidar frowned. “What’re you doing?”

  “Leaving.”

  “Didn’t you understand what I said about the ring?”

  Sonja glanced at the gold band gleaming on her finger. She’d soaped her hand and tried to pull the ring off when they arrived, but all she’d done was aggravate her chapped skin.

  Tears gathered in her eyes, and she blinked them away. She felt raw and vulnerable at the thought of leaving Vidar and losing any chance of seeing her father again. But her father had already made it clear he didn’t want to see her, and Vidar had wanted her to leave before this last incident. How could she stay here? “What am I supposed to do, spend the rest of my life in a cabin at a theme park?” Living with her aunt wasn’t much fun, but everything she knew was in London.

  Vidar stood and rested a hand on her shoulder. “Odin won’t let you leave, Sonja.”

  “He doesn’t want you to leave because you’re his son. That doesn’t mean he’ll stop me from leaving.” She tried to blank out what Odin had said about keeping her as insurance.

  “He’ll hurt you if you try to leave.”

  She clutched her hairbrush to her chest. The scary things that had happened over the last few hours felt surreal now. A stupid ring couldn’t possibly stop her from leaving Iceland.

  A knock on the door banished her doubts. She jammed her hairbrush in her bag before zipping it up.

  “Sonja . . .” Vidar pulled her into his arms and pressed his lips to her temple. He leaned back and stroked the long strands of hair away from her face. “If I hadn’t written to Una, you’d still be safe in London. But then I would never have met you.”

  A terrible thought hit her. “What does my aunt have to do with this?”

  His hands dropped from her face, and he turned away. “Don’t go there, Sonja.”

  Fine. Una’s obsession with fitness and martial arts started to make sense if she was muddled up with Vidar’s world. She’d get answers from Una when she arrived home. A shuttle cart collected them from the cabin and took them to meet the cab waiting at the main building. Vidar opened the door for her, then circled the car and joined her in the back.

  “You don’t have to come—”

  “Yes. I do.”

  On the drive to Keflavik Airport, she stared out the side window, unsuccessfully trying to ignore the gold ring pinching her finger. “Vidar . . . what does it feel like . . . when the ring constrains you?”

  He stared at her, his jaw clenched, his golden eyes gleaming as if lit from within. She wondered if that was his fiery nature showing. “It feels as if your joints are ripping apart and your muscles stretching to tearing point. It’s said the old dwarves captured the screams of prisoners tortured on the rack and added that to the gold.”

  Nausea burned her throat and she pressed a hand over her mouth. She refu
sed to believe a ring could do such a horrible thing, especially to her. She would leave.

  “I’ll stay with you until you board the plane. If you feel even a hint of pain, come straight back.”

  “You don’t think I’ll get away, do you?”

  He gripped her hand so tightly it hurt. “Don’t go. Come back to my place, elskan mín.”

  Her guardian angel’s presence caressed her mind, loving and persuasive. She closed her eyes, sinking into the feeling. She had loved the angel in her head for as long as she could remember. Now the sensation had subtly changed to include a zing of sexual awareness, and she was finally certain the feeling came from Vidar. But why hadn’t he spoken to her about the connection? Didn’t he want her to know? She had so many questions. She didn’t want to leave him, but she wouldn’t confine herself to Iceland like an animal pacing an imaginary fence too frightened to step outside. “I know you’ve got the resort to think about and that’s obviously a huge consideration, but if I get out, will you try to follow? I’ve only just found you. I don’t want to lose you.”

  Vidar flopped back against the seat and shook his head. “Believe me, I’d leave the resort in a heartbeat if I thought I could be free of my father. I’d have no trouble selling the place. But I told you, I’ve tried to leave and I can’t. There’s no hope for me.”

  The international airport was busy with tourists arriving for Christmas, many of them with red and white stickers on their bags proclaiming LIVE YOUR DREAMS THIS CHRISTMAS. Sonja saw one of the resort buttons on the ground with the same slogan. She kicked it out of her way, but Vidar bent to retrieve it and dropped it in his pocket. Vidar accompanied her in silence as she checked in and headed to security. She expected him to say good-bye at the security point, but he breezed through with nothing more than a few words to one of the officers.

  “How did you do that?” she whispered when she caught up with him by a cafe.

  “Glamour. I made them think that I’m dressed in a security uniform.”

  “You’re wearing your fur.”

  “You see through my glamour. We have an . . . an affinity.”