Page 24 of Valkyrie Restored

“That’s Darius. He’s a long-term client. Even his daughter has come on a few trips.”

“Yes, Darius. He purchased some of my lotions and I just happened to be at the store when he asked Daisy some questions about them. He seemed like a really nice guy.”

“He is. And he’s booked in for another trip. He’ll be here in a couple of weeks. Maybe this time he’ll bring his daughter. I think we have a picture of her somewhere in here. And if not, I know there’s one at the lodge.” He flipped through the album. “She’s nice. I think you’d like her. Ahh, here she is.”

I glanced down to the picture. Red hair filled my vision before a piercing pain shot across my brain. “Ow. Shit. Fuck.” I slammed my eyes shut as they watered. My stomach rolled with the onset of the migraine.

“What do you need?” I felt Arran’s hands help me to lie down. “A cool cloth? Your meds? Darkness?”

“Please,” I said through clenched teeth.

Within minutes, I was cocooned on the couch, the room darkened to almost blackness, a cool cloth on my head, and my medications starting to work their way into my system. Arran’s hand slid over my arm. “Rest. We’ll look after you. You’re no longer alone.”

And with those words floating through my brain, I let myself drift off in a medication induced haze. I was no longer alone. It should have scared me, but instead, I felt comforted. No longer alone. I could live with that.

16

Hurrit

I paced the deck,anxious to get back home, as Arran steered the charter back down the lake towards home. The bachelor group were in good spirits, relaxing and drinking beer while talking about their catches and upcoming wedding. It had been weeks since I’d spent much time alone with Elin and my body was going crazy. We’d managed to keep her at our place for four days after her injury, trading off days at home with her, but the moment she’d been able to hobble from our bedroom to the kitchen, she demanded that she be allowed to go home, claiming she needed to get back to work, harvesting her various plants and herbs for the products she made. And, really, we had no recourse. Our own schedule was heading into a long period where we were both needed.

But it still hadn’t made her leaving us any easier.

There were a few evenings where we all managed to eat supper together, but they’d been far and few between. And even fewer where I was able to have her all to myself. Even my time with Arran had been limited although I managed to creep into our shared bed late at night for some nights and on occasions like today where he picked up the group I was with and brought us home after days spent out in the wilderness. While most of my trips had been overnight adventures, exploring the wilderness so that the clients could experience what it was like, some of the trips had been three-to-five-day portage trips where we carried our own canoes with us. Those ones had been the worst. Each one left me feeling antsy. Like there were bugs crawling under my skin.

Like I felt now.

It took everything not to rub my arms, trying to dissipate the feeling, even though I knew it wouldn’t work. The only thing that ever got rid of it was her. Being in her presence, smelling her soft scent, touching her silky skin, or even just seeing her at a distance, knowing that she wasn’t harmed. Only then would my skin—and my brain and soul—settle down. But the moment I left her, that anxiety started to build.

“Hurrit. Sit the fuck down or go clean some equipment. Just stop pacing. You’re driving me nuts.” Arran glared at me when my travails took me too close to him.

I rolled my eyes. I didn’t know how he wasn’t climbing out of his skin unless… I stared at him, examining the looseness of his muscles, the sated look in his eyes. While I hadn’t had the alone time I craved with Elin or him, it was obvious that he hadn’t been deprived. Whereas I’d been subsisting almost exclusively on shower quickies, late night rendezvous while Arran was half asleep, and the very infrequent long night of lovemaking with Elin, it didn’t seem like Arran suffered the same fate.

Was Arran spending more time with Elin than I knew about? He did have an easier schedule than I did, running more fishing charters that tended to be only four to eight hours long instead of the overnights like I did. It meant that he was home in time for a late supper and to sleep in our bed more often than not. But had he been sleeping in our bed? Or was he only home on the nights he knew I was coming home?

Not that I could really complain if he was. We hadn’t set up any rules like we usually did. But then it hadn’t seemed necessary because the relationship we had with Elin seemed different from all the others. For me, it seemed closer to what I shared with Arran which, in itself, should have told me that we needed some sort of discussion and possibly rules until we were all on the same page.

A sliver of something green worked its way inside me. Something I hadn’t felt since the beginning of our friendship with Elin when I was worried that Arran had found someone who meant more than me. But once Elin and I slept together, I’d known that she was mine—well I knew that part before we’d had sex, but after that I’d been absolutely sure. I could feel the soft bond between us, something akin to what I shared with Arran, but different enough that I still hesitated to look deeper at it. And that was the reason behind my anxious behaviour. I was tied to her, but not at a level where I could always feel her, know if she was in danger. And danger was something that seemed to find her.

I’d tried to do a little research about Elin, reaching out to some of the contacts in the mythological world that I garnered over the years, but so far, I’d hadn’t been able to discover what gods seemed to be after her or why. No one knew of her, confirming her human status. Without answers or a way to protect her, I worried. A. Lot. But knowing Arran was home, able to keep an eye on her kept me calm enough to make those longer trips survivable. I just never thought too hard about what could be happening between them when I wasn’t around.

“Why are you staring at me like that?” Arran stuck his tongue out at me, but I couldn’t find it I me to laugh. The smile fell off his face. “What are you thinking? Are you mad at me because really, if you need to pace, then go pace? I don’t mind.”

I sucked in a breath. I wanted to ask him, to know if he was screwing my Elin—I mean, I knew they were together when she was at our place, I’d been in the bed with them when he ate her pussy—when I wasn’t around? In general, we could seek outside female partners for a one-night stand, but this was different. This was Elin and she meant more to me than that. Fuck. We should have talked about this like we did when we first set up our rules for sleeping with women outside our married relationship. Women only because we’d discussed men and decided that sleeping with other men would possibly interfere with our relationship. He was the only man I wanted, and I didn’t want to share him with another male. He’d felt the same.

And now I felt the same way towards Elin. I didn’t want another woman. Nor did I want her taking another man. Arran excluded. But I wanted our relationship defined between all three of us. Without that, I worried that my husband and Elin were growing closer in my absence, leaving me behind. Me. The one who was bonded to her, the one that the Fates had given to her. I may not have wanted to admit that fact because I worried what it would do to the relationship between Arran and I, but I couldn’t deny it now. She was mine… I just didn’t want to lose Arran by acknowledging it.

Not that I could tell him all that. Not here on a small vessel with clients aboard. It wasn’t the time to get into that type of discussion. Nor could I just jump overboard and shift to get away, to think about things he might say. At least I couldn’t if I wanted to keep our existence a secret from the mortal world.

“It’s nothing,” I finally said. “I just worry about what sort of trouble could befall Elin when we’re both away like this. And it’s been some time since I’ve seen her.”

He nodded. “I understand. But I’m sure she’s fine. She was going to be out delivering some more of her products today to some new stores in Gimli, Winnipeg Beach, and even a couple in Winnipeg. Besides”—he rubbed his chest—“I’d know if something was wrong. I’d feel it. I always feel her.”

My heart sank to the bottom of the lake. Had I been fooling myself, thinking she was my mine? I thought we had a soft bond, feeling the odd time that something was wrong with her, but maybe I’d made the whole thing up. Maybe someone was just using my overprotective instincts to keep her safe from whatever god was toying with her. Feeling her in my chest like Arran stated was something that I’d always been told was part of my horse heritage—I assumed it was the same for him—as a way for us to care for, protect, and just keep track of the female carrying our young since we tended to roam across vast tracks of land and water. Although it might have been a little different for kelpies since they tended to only use their horse form in water unlike us who used them in both. But that sense of ourfated mateonly occurred after a full bond. It was why I hadn’t been expecting to feel it. We hadn’t completed the rituals yet. But if she was already that bonded to Arran, then what chance did I have? And why hadn’t he told me that he felt that way about Eline? We didn’t do secrets. And yes, I realized how messed up that was considering I hadn’t told him about my feelings, but he knew about them. He recognized them for what they were before I did. He was the one that pushed us together when I’d been content to just stay on the sidelines, to watch from a distance. Everything was so messed up, so confused and I didn’t know what to feel.

I needed to get away, to spend some time licking my wounds. All my fears had come true. The man I thought of as mine had found his true fated mate with the only woman I’d ever connected with on a deeper level. I couldn’t deal with him, with this right now. The water called to me. My horse called. It would all be so easy to jump over the side, to slip into the water and change, allowing the wildness inside me to take over, but I could hear the guys—our clients—laughing and drinking. They’d wonder where I went and there wasn’t any place on board this ship where I could conceivably hide without them coming across me so slipping into the water was out.

Instead I chose the coward’s way. I gave him a tight-lipped smile, and a little head nod. “I’ll go get all the equipment cleaned and organized so we don’t have to do it after we dock.”

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