Page 51 of Victoria's Embrace

Vi’kail gave a tight chuckle and repeated, “What’s up. You and your sayings.”

Thegan just smirked, looking the most at ease of the three, but he didn’t answer, either.

Suspicious, she started to question them further, but paused when they came to a stop at the edge of someone’s yard. Looking up at the house in front of them, she gaped.

“Oh my gosh! It’s beautiful!”

It looked like a cross between a cottage, pictures she’d seen of old Viking dwellings, and an alien house suited to a desert landscape. It was a tall, white, one story with a wrap-around porch, huge, crisscrossing beams framing the front, and a layered roof, like the scaled armor of an armadillo.

To anyone else, it was probably an odd mishmash of architecture, but to her, it was beautiful. Oddly, it looked like the perfect mix of her, Vi’kail, and her giants.

Realizing that, she whipped around to give the three of them wide eyes.

“Is this- did y’all—”

Thorn cleared his throat and nodded. “This is our home,mín værling. If you accept it.”

Too stunned to speak, if she’d even be able to make words around the knot in her throat, she just stared at them through the tears welling in her eyes.

Dots began to connect in her mind: them moving out, their tiredness, the scratches on Thorn’s hands and arms, them repeatedly evading when she asked where they’d been.

Seeing that she was a hard look away from bursting into sobs, all three men paled and rushed toward her.

“Gods’ wrath, Vee! Do not weep!” Thegan pleaded.

“Crik me, she hates it,” Vi’kail croaked.

Thorn looked distraught. “I will burn it to the ground!”

Laughing thickly, she reached out and stopped Thorn from rushing off and setting the beautiful house ablaze.

“No, no! I love it. I just- no one’s ever done something so incredible for me. This means y’all didn’t move out because you didn’t like me, and you weren’t out kissing other women! You were building us a home and I just- I’m just so happy! And relieved!” She paused and gave them all a searching look. “Thisiswhy y’all moved out, right? And were evasive every time I asked where y’all had been?”

Vi’kail’s face screwed up like that was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. “Kissing other… What the crik are you talking about?”

Thorn looked appalled. “Kiss other females? Gods, no. Never!”

Thegan’s shoulders slumped in clear relief. Shaking his head, he huffed, “I would sooner kiss…Vi’kail!”

Vi’kail sent him an offended look.

Laughing with delight, she threw herself at them, startling Snitch into flying off her shoulder with a disgruntled warble. After thoroughly peppering their faces with kisses, she dropped back to her feet and grinned.

“Take me on the tour?”

The house was just as beautiful inside as it was out, and that mix of influences carried into the interior, combined with the advanced technology this world offered.

They made their way through the living room, into the kitchen with a connecting nook bathed in sunlight from the massive bay window, and down a wide hallway.

Nervousness began to flutter in her stomach. What was the bedroom situation like? Had they built separate ones for each of them? Surprising herself, she realized she’d rather they all sleep together, but she didn’t know if that was something they’d be comfortable with. Maybe they weren’t interested in…sharingher quite that much.

Hell, that they wanted to share her at all was still something that boggled her mind any time she stopped to think about it.

They led her past three doors in the hall, not pausing to show her what hid behind them, only stopping when they reached the door at the end. Trying to brace herself for anything, she held her breath as Thegan reached around her and opened it.

It swung open to reveal a huge bedroom dominated by a bed big enough to fit a small army… or two giants, a hot, green guy, and a small, redheaded human.

Tears welled for the second time, but she tried to sniff them back, not wanting the guys to freak out again.

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