“Seela. It is clear she hates me.”
“Because she told the giants you were with child and saved your life?”
Ailsa shut her mouth. Vali explained their trouble with the lord and how Seela had thought of the idea in the spur of the moment. An idea that ultimately grabbed his wife’s attention and spared them all a lot of grief in the end.
“She does not hate you, Ailsa. She is just protective of me.”
“Are you…together? Because if you are, then you are definitely spending the night with the rug.”
The elfin threw his head back and laughed, falling into the seat across from hers in the process. “Me and Seela? Absolutely not. She’s myHjartablód.”
Ailsa thought for a moment, deciphering the combination of ancient words. “Heart’s blood?”
“Yes. The fae have two kinds of mates, bonds that binds us for life. One is aFraendi, a life mate. But when elfin go into battle or missions like ours, we usually have aHjartablód, a blood bonded, to keep us safe. We can sense each other for miles, feel each other’s pain and take it away, heal each other with our blood even if the other is on the brink of death. It is an ancient, sacred practice for the fae.”
She suddenly felt very juvenile. “Oh.”
Vali’s gaze fell to the fire, his posture one of complete ease. Strange since he was so rigid against her last night. “Seela has been with me since I was a child. She knows everything about me, and I know her. She knows the dark parts of my past and only wishes to not see specific history repeat itself.”
Ailsa was about to ask why any of that would matter at a time like this, but he interrupted her with a shake of his head. “Look,” he sighed. “I’m sorry for how things transpired with the giants. But they were our best option to save your life. We are leaving in the morning, and this will all be null as soon as we depart Jotunheim.”
Ailsa took a long sip of her tea, remembering the stories she heard as a child of the Frost Giant’s realm. The winters were harsh, sometimes locking dwellers inside for months. “And what if something happens and we’re stuck here? What will we tell them when my stomach doesn’t grow?”
Vali’s face scrunched. “Liars are punished most severely in Jotunheim. It won’t come to that, but I suppose if by a miracle it does, I will just have to get you pregnant.”
Ailsa spat her tea before she choked on it. His words triggered something deeply rooted in a bad place. Memories flashed in her hindsight—a bundle beneath a tree, how the wolves howled when she bled into the forest, Erik leaving on the boat—and the mug in her hands slipped to the floor as they consumed her. Wells formed behind her eyes and leaked hot trails across her cheekbones.
“Ailsa?” he asked, his voice softer. He leapt off the bed. “Gods below, I’m sorry. I’m an ass. I wouldn’t really force you to go through with such a thing. It was a horrible, tasteless joke.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” she said, wiping her cheeks. “It wasn’t what you said, it’s just…”
He knelt in front of her chair, his sunset eyes searching hers. “It’s what?”
The words spilled out of her before she could catch them. “I was pregnant once.”
She had never told another soul this, not even Erik, the father of her unborn child. She stared into the fire unblinking, letting it sear her eyes and dry her tears. Vali sighed and took her empty hands in his. “Come.” His voice was quiet yet commanding.
Hollow of fight, she let him lead her to the large bed, barely feeling his fingers delicately pull the robe from her shoulders. He didn’t say a word as she slipped beneath the sanctity of the heavy quilts. Wordless as he laid on top of the covers next to her. Vali only waited, testing her boundaries with him. He was close but made no move to seize the fragile fortress of her heart she protected with guarded words and thick skin.
“I was only nineteen,” she said. “When I was growing up, the older women used to warn me about taking my contraceptives religiously, that I would be selfish to have a child and pass down my condition to them. They said I would ruin a man’s family line should I mate with anyone, and if I truly cared about their sons, I would stay away from them.” A long breath streamed through her lips. “And then I met Erik.”
“Lionheart?”
She rolled her eyes, but a smirk plagued her mouth. “Aye, the man you nearly killed on the beach. We grew up together but one day he kissed me on a dare, and we were inseparable ever since. I thought we were in love, and I gave myself to him. The very next day his father decided to leave Drakame, and he took his sons and traveled half a world away. He wrote me a letter saying he couldn’t stay with me. He had chosen to follow his family and wished me the best. I found out I was pregnant two months later, and he was long gone.”
Vali was quiet for a breath before he said, “I think I’m going to travel back to Midgard one day and finish boiling that man alive.”
Ailsa laughed despite the pain in her chest. “It’s not his fault. We were young, and I was foolish to think a man like him would stay with someone like me.”
“Someone like you?”
She shrugged beneath the blankets. “Sick. Worth, among my people, is based on strength and following and influence. The only worth I offer is my dowry.”
“But your mother was ill, was she not? And your father still chose to be with her.”
“My father was a shieldmage. He could quite literally do whatever he wanted because he had magic. And magic only exaggerates strength, following, and therefore influence. He cared for my mother with a love that was pure and true, and nothing would have stood in his way to have her.”
Vali propped himself on his side to look at her better. She turned her face on her pillow to meet his gaze. “What happened to your baby?” he asked.