Chapter 31
7
Three months later
* * *
“You’re not doing this alone. I’m here with you and this day had to come eventually. You couldn’t delay it forever,” Royden said, keeping hold of his wife’s hand and feeling her anxiousness.
“I know, but how do I accept them as my parents when all I’ve known are the parents who raised me?” Oria asked, looking in the distance at the approach of several riders.
“You don’t.”
Her brow wrinkled in question.
“You don’t need to accept these people unless you want to. What matters is that you give them a chance. Give yourself a chance,” Royden said.
Oria smiled at him. “I do believe I will keep you now.”
Royden laughed. “So you changed your mind about getting rid of me after I told you that your parents were arriving today?”
“Actually, after I finished arguing with you and stomped out of the Great Hall like a petulant child, your da explained to me it was you who made certain my parents didn’t come to visit until today. That you argued endlessly with Trevor over it and the Beast himself. He told me it wasn’t until you were satisfied that I was completely healed, even though Wren had claimed me sufficiently healed to receive visitors weeks ago, that you would allow this meeting to take place. So forgive me for arguing with you when it was you who allowed me time before having to face this moment.”
“There’s nothing to forgive, Oria. I only did what I knew you would want, even if you’re too stubborn to admit it at times,” he said with a grin.
“Stubborn, you say?” she said with a playful jab to his chest, reminded of how good his hard chest had felt waking up on this morning.
“Aye, you insisted on making love when you still hadn’t fully healed.”
She laughed softly. “You expected me to wait until I was fully healed?”
He laughed as well. “Actually, I was counting on it that you wouldn’t.”
Oria gave her husband a quick kiss. “I do so love you.”
“And I you,” he was quick to say.
They stood side by side as the horses approached. Oria was glad the Beast wouldn’t be among them, having been called away on an important matter. She wasn’t ready to meet him and didn’t know if she ever would be, no matter how many times her husband reminded her that he had helped save her life.
Oria gripped her husband’s hand tighter as he guided her down the stairs to greet the group that came to a stop there. She was shocked to see just how much she resembled her mother, their blonde hair and green eyes the same color, their faces almost identical if it wasn’t for the scar she carried. Her father was a tall and broad man with shocking white hair that fell past his shoulders and a white beard and moustache. His eyes were dark, far too dark to Oria’s liking. Her da had dark eyes, but there was a pleasantness in them that she didn’t see in this man.
Demelza was all smiles and hurried to Oria as soon as Trevor helped her off the horse and took their sleeping son, Aric, from her. She waited until her parents dismounted, then quickly introduced them.
“Oria, our mother and father,” Demelza said, nodding to each.
“Your proper name is Astra,” the large Norseman said.
“Thorald,” the woman admonished. “There is time for her to learn her true name.”
“We’ve wasted enough time, Freya. She is our daughter and needs to know that,” Thorald chided.
“My name is Oria, and I am pleased to meet you, Freya, and, Thorald,” Oria said, letting them both know she wasn’t ready to call them mother or father.
Anger rose on Thorald’s face and he went to step forward.
Royden quickly stepped in front of his wife. “I gave you the courtesy of inviting you to our home to meet your daughter. If you intend to make demands of her in any way, then take your leave and don’t return here.”
“Astra was taken from us,” Thorald said, his voice bold and loud. “We were robbed of her all these years.”
“And you will be robbed of her forever if you think to command her like a daughter you have raised all these years,” Royden said, his voice just as bold and more strong than loud. “And while she is your daughter, take care to remember that she is my wife.”
Freya placed her hand on her husband’s arm. “We are pleased that our daughter has such a strong husband to protect her.”
“We’ll still see about that with him having only one hand,” Thorald argued.
Oria almost rushed around her husband to remind Thorald that it was his son who had done that to her husband, but stopped when Demelza spoke.
“We should go inside and talk,” Demelza suggested with a cautious smile.
“You will hold your tongue, daughter,” Thorald ordered with a shake of his finger at her.