Until I stepped through the portal to the future once more, and for the first time in so long, I couldfeelthe bond connecting us, warm as summer sun bursting through the clouds in my heart.
I thought I’d died the day I’d lost him, that the pain of losing himandmy father was the lowest I could fall.
I’d been wrong.
When Soren looked at me without a trace of recognition in his eyes, I died a second time.
The days pass. I don’t leave my house. I hunger for nothing. Exhaustion weighs on every bone in my body, but I can find no rest. Draugr have more life in them than I do.
The life we built together, the dreams we had, the love we shared… it’s gone. All of it. It’s not enough to have lost him once before, to have spent years mourning him. No, the gods decreed that I must mourn him a second time. This time will be my last. The heartache will be the end of me.
A sob racks my body, and I curl in on myself, shivering despite the blankets I’ve tucked myself away in.
Noises beyond my front door make me open my eyes. Familiar grumbling and mumbling tell me it’s my brothers.Great. I pull the blankets over my head just as someone kicks the door in. If they broke anything, they had better fix it.
I yelp when the blankets are wrenched off me, forcing me to glower up at my brothers. Wulfric’s eyes are full of worry. Gunnar’s jaw is set tight with anger. Anders, the bastard, is smirking.
“Get him!” Anders shouts.
Both Gunnar and Wulfric seize me by an arm and haul me out of bed. I kick and thrash, but not eating for days has left me feeling weak, so I settle for cursing them out as they drag me through the village and toward the hot springs. I bellow for help from the villagers, but they only laugh at our antics.
Panic flares within me as the hot springs come into view.
Anders grabs the back of my trousers, lifting my feet off the ground. They start swinging me.
“If you do this, I will kill all of you!” I snarl.
They don’t care.
My shout echoes as they hurl me toward the water. Bastards didn’t even bother to undress me. I sink like a stone to the bottom of the pool, too stunned to move. My lungs throb, and I kick and claw my way to the surface. They laugh as I come up for air. Sweeping my hair out of my face to glare at them properly, I snap, “May your balls fester and your pricks rot!”
Anders only howls louder, bent over from mirth.
“It was for your own good!” Wulfric insists, arms folded over his chest. “You haven’t left your house in a week, brother. We had to do something. Hate us if you like, but you’d have done the same.”
Aye, that’s true, but fury still burns in my gut. “I would have at least let you undress before throwing you in the spring!”
“We did you a favor. Those clothes need to be burned,” Anders says, turning up his nose.
“You lads are horrible!” Aunt Helga huffs as she approaches, carrying a tray laden with food. “Look what you’ve done to him!”
“It was necessary,” Gunnar says. His voice is hoarse, as if he hasn’t spoken in a while. The fool’s probably been spending more time in that cabin of his up in the mountains. He’ll only go berserk faster if he’s isolated.
My aunt sets the tray down by the water. “Poor dear.” Helga kneels, reaching out to cup my cheek. “I’ll bring you some clean clothes and here, use this.” She hands me a soap stone. She gives my brothers a look that makes them avert their gazes, then walks back toward the village.
I feel like a fool bathing with my clothes on, so I strip and toss my sodden clothing onto the shore, then lather up the soap stone so I can wash myself. Wulfric and Anders undress and wade out into the spring to join me. Gunnar remains on the shore, leaning against a tree and glowering off into the distance.
Wulfric disappears beneath the water, then surfaces, sweeping his golden hair back from his face with a boyish grin I haven’t seen in a while. He’s been quicker to smile since he and Kieran mated. Anders motions for the soap, and I fight the urge to throw it at his head.
“Are Jamie and the lad well?” I ask.
Anders nods. “Aye. Jamie tells me there’s this special day called Christmas coming up at the end of the month. He wants us to celebrate.”
I’ve never heard of such a thing, so it must be an invention from the future.
“What’s happened?” Wulfric asks, turning to me with his arms crossed.
I can’t tell him I met Soren. He would view that as a betrayal. Anders is the only one who knows the truth about what really happened on that fateful day. As far as Wulfric and Gunnar are concerned, Soren is still the man who got our father and Gunnar’s family killed.
