Frey’s body turned with mine and he followed me as I backed through the snow. “My love –” he started but I shook my head hard.
“I’m not that,” I told him, tears making my voice hoarse as they shone in my eyes. “I’m not that to you. I’m not your love and I never have been. You don’t treat someone you love like this. You don’t. Not ever. Not ever.”
At my words, I watched the expression on his face shift to ravaged and he whispered, “My wee Fin –”
But he didn’t finish the name I loved him to call me.
This was because I heard a whistle fill the air, a whistle I knew very well.
And then I stood still and horrified as I saw Frey’s powerful body wrench forward at the same time I saw the bloody point of an arrow come out his shoulder.
And at this same time I heard Bess, Esther and Alyssa scream and their screams mingled with my own.
And then it happened, everywhere, all around me, all around Frey, all around the men, Valentine and my girls. Whistling arrows flying everywhere, landing in the snow, landing in flesh, men’s grunts of pain, women’s screams, people rushing and horses suddenly galloping through the snow all around, so many of them, it felt like an army had descended on Frey’s lodge.
I stood frozen and watched as, injured, Frey started to race toward me but then I watched in stony shock, horror and with a pain so immense it scored through my insides as two more arrows penetrated my husband’s big, beautiful body and then I watched the powerful Drakkar go down to a knee.
“No!” I shrieked, my body belatedly unlocking, moving to run to him but I didn’t get a step before I was pulled up and planted in front of a man on a horse.
“Get the witch!” I heard my captor order, then he bent into me, drove his heels into his mount’s flanks and we galloped into the surrounding forest.
I struggled, pushing and grunting, my vision filled with nothing but Frey’s powerful body penetrated by three arrows, the blood soaking his wool and down on a knee and my system knew nothing but the driving need to get back to my husband.
“Spell!” my captor shouted, struggling to contain my thrashing. “Now!”
I bucked back at the same time pushing at his arm at my waist, I felt the back of my head collide with his chin, the piercing pain that caused reverberated through my skull, I heard his grunt and I felt a tickle hit my chest.
Then I felt nothing at all because I was asleep.
Chapter Thirty
Until the Day I Died
Four days later…
“My Winter Princess, wake, please wake,” I heard a woman call and my eyes slowly opened then fluttered closed again. “Please, my princess, wake.”
With effort I opened my eyes and focused on a blonde woman, blue eyes, not young, not old, maybe late forties, early fifties. She had great hair and a lot of it and she was very pretty.
“Hey,” I whispered, feeling funny, not myself, strangely out of body.
“She needs food, water, immediately, it’s been days,” I heard from behind her and I blinked because I knew that voice.
My eyes moved from the blonde to the redhead who was now wearing a disheveled, dusty, torn in places, jade green wool, wraparound dress and scuffed, dirty, charcoal gray suede boots.
And it all came back to me.
I pushed up to sitting, my head swam alarmingly and my hand went immediately to it but even so, I didn’t stop trying to push up from wherever I was reclining but two sets of hands held me down and I didn’t have a lot of strength.
And since I didn’t, since my head was woozy and there was an emptiness in my stomach that had not one thing to do with hunger and a scary feeling around my heart that I didn’t want to think about, I gave in.
But I gave in as I whispered, “Frey.”
The blonde looked at Valentine and I didn’t like the look on her face so I grabbed her arm and I did it tight. I also shook it when I had hold and I did this hard.
She looked back at me with sad eyes. Sad eyes that spoke words she really didn’t want to say and words I never, never, never wanted to hear.
“No,” I whispered, bile filling my throat, she grabbed my hand as Valentine dropped to her knees on the floor beside the blonde.
“I am sorry, my princess,” she whispered, squeezing my hand. “He has gone from this world.”
He has gone from this world.
Frey has gone from this world.
My sweet, gentle Frey was gone from this world.
Emotion surged through me, so much, none of it good, that I suddenly felt like I was going to explode.
“No!” I shrieked, pushing her away, I gained my feet, rushed several paces across the room and stopped dead when I saw we were in a room made of stone and there was nothing in it but high, barred windows at least two stories up, three dirty pallets on the floor with thin, rough, tattered wool blankets and a wooden table that looked like its legs held it up by a miracle.