Gressa snorted at that.
“You heard her. I can’t count on being so lucky a second time.”
“If not her, then Tyra.”
Gressa looked at him as though he were a simpleton.
“You expect to see Tyra any time soon? She will be holed up with Bjorn as they celebrate their honeymoon.”
“Are you making these excuses because you don’t agree with my offer?”
“I’m not making excuses, Strian,” her frustration clear in her tone. “I’m pointing out reality. You didn’t think very far ahead of bedding me again when you forced me to return to a village where no one ever wanted me.”
Strian opened his mouth to counter her, but he would only be lying if he tried to placate her. Her Sami heritage and her father’s rejection had made her a cast off for most of her life. It had only been Freya and Tyra’s friendship then his pursuit that made others accept her. He had not thought of any of this when he found Gressa at the Ross keep in Scotland. When he recognized the eyes he had spent hours gazing into, and then pressed his body against the one he would recognize anywhere, he had only thought of how he had pined for her. When she refused to return, his pride had reared its ugly head and insisted he not give in. When Freya leveraged her position as the jarl’s representative on their mission, he assumed it was only her protectiveness of a lifelong friend. While they were sailing, he had only planned for making her feel welcome in their home. He had failed miserably to consider reality.
“You’re right that I didn’t think clearly, or truly didn’t think at all about how others would respond. I could only think of the life we were supposed to have. The life I have envied all of my friends for having now. They moved on while I continue to cling to the past. I focused on the relief that you were alive. Thoughts of a future with you as my wife filled my mind while conflicting unending love and hurt that you rejected me filled my heart. Pride and need won out, Gressa, and for that I realize I have wronged you. But I can’t bring myself to apologize even if I should. I’m not sorry to have you near me again. It’s all I’ve dreamed of for ten years.”
Gressa tilted her head back and gazed at the twinkling stars. They had spent many nights lying on a blanket looking into the night sky when they were courting. They slept with the window covering open because they would fall asleep in one another’s arms as they watched the stars shine into their chamber. Gressa inhaled, stretching her lungs before looking back at Strian. She knew she was the only person he had ever shared his feelings with. He was confessing emotions he would deny to anyone else. He deserved her honesty, even if she could not tell her entire tale.
“Strian, I dreamed of you every night for the last ten years. The only time I did not was when I exhausted myself training, trying to avoid those dreams. They were a mixture of memories, things we had planned, and what our life might have been.” She swallowed the lump forming in her throat. “I’m trying to bear the guilt of making you think I no longer want you, want to be your wife, but I can’t. The burden is too heavy.”
Gressa’s head was still tilted back, unable to face Strian as she made her own confessions.
“Life has been unkind to us, cheating us of what we deserved, but while time has not made me love you any less, it has changed everything around us. We can’t go back to when we were younger. We can’t pick up where we left off, regardless of whether we both wish we could. Ten years in Wales is nearly as long as I lived here. It changed me. I may live in your house, and I may train with our tribe, but my home is in Wales. That is where I belong now. That is where my heart remains.” She finally looked at Strian and wished she had not. His crushed expression was one she would never forget.
“Why?” he croaked.
“Because I can’t make a life somewhere where only one person accepts me. I can’t depend on you for everything. I will only become a burden to you, and I will be miserable facing each day knowing that everyone in my life hates me and resents my return.”
Strian recognized the truth in her argument even if his heart railed against it.
“Gressa, stay in our home, er, my house for now. I will arrange for us to travel to Wales.”
Gressa was sure she had not heard Strian.
“You’ll let me return?”
“If that is the only place where you’re happy, then that is where we shall be?”
Gressa tilted her head and looked at him sideways as she worked through what he said.
“We?”
“If being here instead of Wales is what keeps you from accepting me, then what’s keeping me here? I have no family left. Ivar has plenty of other warriors to fight for him.” Strian shrugged.
“But your life is here.”
“My life was meant to be with you.”
“You would give up everything you know to live in a land where you don’t speak the language and don’t know a soul besides me?”
“Weren’t you forced to do the exact same thing? Besides, I don’t believe you are any safer there than you are here.”
Gressa’s brow furrowed, but she could not deny this truth either.
“Dafydd sent me to fight for Grímr, and I was the only woman. I suspected the same thing that you did: Dafydd offered me to Grímr for more than my archery skills. I just hadn’t considered Enfys would betray me the way she did. We did not start out as friends, but I thought she had become my closest ally and confidant.”
Gressa’s heart pinched as she once more had to accept that her best friend was aware, may have even suggested that, her husband give her to Grímr more as a bed slave than as a warrior.
