“Ah, my Frey,” Valeria said softly, “always so prickly, especially when it came to his belongings.” She leaned into me and wagged a finger in my direction. “Never shared with his brothers, our Frey. Always so possessive.”

I will note at this point that she still hadn’t greeted her son.

“It’s repulsive, with your words, that you’d insinuate that I should share my wife with my father, Valeria,” Frey remarked, still in his low, unhappy voice.

“All in the family,” she replied, smiling a smile that not only didn’t reach her eyes but was cold as Christmas.

Uh… ick again.

Already, I did not like these people more than I suspected I wouldn’t like them knowing that Frey didn’t and the not insignificant fact that they’d never given him any presents.

Eirik, unfortunately, butted in, indicating he had a one track mind and it wasn’t a nice track. “My boy, in dragging her out of the Dwelling, you robbed me of every father-in-law’s right to his dance with his new daughter-in-law at the celebration which, I might add, includes a kiss at the end. This,” he leered at me, “I’ll be taking tonight at my earliest opportunity.”

Okay, it was safe to say I was not looking forward to that.

“You’ll not dance with my princess and you’ve already touched your mouth to her two more times than I find comfortable,” Frey stated, staring down his nose at a father.

I leaned into Frey, pleased beyond reason that he helped me dodge that bullet.

“Killjoy,” Eirik muttered then he focused again on me in order to comment. “I was surprised you weren’t with us today, Sjofn. In the past, you’ve more than enjoyed participating in the royal hunts.”

“Well –” I started but Mother got there before me.

“Sjofn and I had an important errand to run in town and she and Frey are travelling so she was busy preparing to take her leave on the morrow,” Aurora neatly entered the conversation to explain.

“Hmm,” Valeria murmured, her familiar but nowhere near as warm eyes on me, “rumor has it she’s lost her touch with her bow.” At these words, my body got tight, Frey’s got tight against me and I felt Aurora and Atticus get tense too. “I thought that might be it,” she finished, watching me so closely, kid you not, I started to squirm.

Then Eirik bizarrely and unbelievably coarsely put in, “It’s the talk of the Gales so everyone knows he’s been doing naught much else but thrusting between her legs for days, wife, and this undoubtedly means my son has been going at her for weeks. Drakkar seed, always powerful, stuffed full of it, it causes even our princess, a skilled huntress, to lose her touch with her bow.”

At these words, words which should not be spoken at an elegant ball, or, perhaps, ever, I gasped. And I knew my guess was accurate for Mother also gasped, Father, jaw clenched and eyes hard, moved forward but Frey had had enough.

I knew this when his hand shot up, fisted tightly in his father’s cravat and then he yanked his father toward him and up to his toes, bending his neck only slightly, he got nose to nose with him.

Then he growled, “Thus ends the family reunion.”

Then he let his now red-faced father loose with a rough push and Eirik stumbled back two steps, running into a young woman in a lovely kelly green gown before he righted himself.

But I had little opportunity to watch. Frey had his hand on my elbow and he was moving me away.

And he did so while muttering acerbically to his mother, “As ever, a unique pleasure.”

Then without a backward glance at his father but a tip of his head to Aurora and Atticus, he led me firmly to the ballroom then equally firmly off to the side where there was a small patch of free space. There he stopped us, drew me close and looked down at me.

I looked up at him and saw on the scale of how angry Frey could be he looked to be at around twelve.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

Shaken by what had just happened, I replied honestly if not helpfully, “Your Dad’s kind of a dick.”

“And a ‘dick’ would be?” Frey queried tersely.

“An ass**le. A f**kwad. A douchebag. A screaming jerk,” I explained and Frey scowled a ferocious scowl I could take because it wasn’t directed at me.

Then he stated, “You do know I don’t know what any of those are either except, possibly, the first.”

“None of them are good,” I clarified then stressed, “at all.”

Frey kept scowling at me and that was when I tardily realized I should do something to make him feel better instead of what I was doing, fueling the fire. So I moved in close and circled his middle with my arms. I leaned back as his arms curved around me and looked up at him.

“That said, I’m fine,” I whispered.

I saw his anger ratchet down to about a five before he whispered back, “Good.”

“Though,” I said, cautiously sharing, “your Mom kind of scares me.”

Frey’s eyes didn’t leave mine when he replied, “She should. Where your mother acts first for her husband, then her family then her realm, my mother acts first for herself. Then she acts on every opportunity presented to behave with malice or cruelty. Next, if it serves her purpose, for the House of Drakkar. But never does she act for the good of her sons, her husband or Lunwyn.”

Yep, I didn’t like either of them and especially not Valeria Drakkar.

“Malice and cruelty?” I prompted, still treading cautiously.

He sighed, looked over my head then looked back down at me.

“Malice and cruelty,” he affirmed.

I got up on my toes, Frey dipped closer and when he did, I whispered, “She knows about my archery practice.”

He nodded. “This is not a surprise. She has spies and this is what she wants you to know. This, my wee Finnie, is what she does. It’s doubtful she’s generous enough with any of them to pay for anything she could use, for she’s as stingy as she is heartless, unless, of course, it’s coin used for another gown or necklace for herself. However, she wanted you to know this in hopes you’d worry about the information she held, planting it in your mind so it could fester as you wondered at her intent and the extent of her knowledge.”

Wow.

Wow.

I hated this, like, a lot. So much, it felt like acid at the back of my throat.

And I didn’t hate it for me. I hated it for Frey.

And I hated it so much I couldn’t stop myself from pressing closer, lifting a hand to wrap around the side of his neck and asking softly, “Where on earth did you come from, baby?”