“You’ll be returned to your mate soon enough. We have prepared a late meal for you all and will eat together in the dining room shortly.”
“Is that safe?” Kingston stage whispered.
“Doubtful,” Moira said, linking her arm more tightly through Ash’s. “Stay close, sweet cheeks. I’d hate to burn this place down in a jealous rage.”
“I think that’s more my style,” Alek joked.
“You’ve never crossed paths with an angry witch before, have you?”
“Not that I recall.”
“Touch wood you never do, erm... I’m sorry. What was your name?” Rosie gave my Viking an appraising glance.
“Alek,” he supplied.
“Right. As capable as you look, I doubt you’d survive the encounter.”
“I like her,” Moira said.
“They all seem to,” Rosie murmured, tossing a look over her shoulder. “Until they get to know me.”
With that cryptic warning, we followed her up the grand staircase to the second floor. She led us down the hallway decorated with paintings of Blackthornes past and present. I stopped at one which was clearly a portrait of Cashel and Olivia, her seated in a chair and holding a raven-haired newborn while Cashel looked on from his place standing behind her.
“Is that Noah?”
“Oh, yes. Apple of our father’s eye. The most like him of all of us as well.”
I shuddered at the thought. Cashel seemed so cold and callous. “I don’t see it.”
“You will. If Noah has to fight for you, you will recognize it, I promise.”
“Let us hope it never comes to that,” I said, chuckling uncomfortably.
Caleb’s eyes met mine, and the promise shining in them shook me to the core.
It will.
She opened a door, and before I even stepped inside, I knew it was Noah’s room. It just... felt like him.
“This is where you and my brother will stay. It’s the easternmost point in the house, so it gets the most sunlight. He’s always been a fan of the sunshine.”
“So have I,” Kingston murmured.
I blushed and shook my head. “Behave,” I mouthed, charmed despite myself. Bastard.
“All right, then. That’s you sorted. The rest of you, follow me.”
“Wait, wait, hold on now, Vampirina. The boys and I stay where Sunday stays.” Kingston crossed his arms over his chest.
“No. You stay where I put you, or you can sleep in the dungeon.”
Something must’ve flashed in her eyes because Kingston blanched, Alek placed a palm on his shoulder, and Caleb let out a long-suffering sigh.
“My mistake. Those rooms sound great.”
Even my Alpha wolf recognized when he’d met his match, and slight though she was, Roslyn Blackthorne was a powerful woman. Definitely not someone any of us wanted to trifle with.
Alek grinned. “Give you a couple of hand axes, a few braids, you’d fit right in back home in Novasgard.”