Page 101 of Edge of the Wild

“Lady Revna.” Tessa scrambled to her feet.

Rune let out a hiss, and Tessa immediately looked back to him, hands fluttering toward his midsection. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean–”

“It wasn’t my side that time,” he said, managing a grimacing smile.

“Oh, I –oh.” Her eyes got somehow wider, that innocent blue bright with alarm, and her cheeks turned crimson as she understood.

Revna said, “Hilda, please help Tessa back to her chamber.”

Awkward silence reigned a moment. Then Hilda said, “Yes! Right away, my lady.”

She took hold of a still-stunned, still red-in-the-face Tessa’s hand and towed her from the room. Revna listened to their footfalls fade, along with Hilda’s furious, inaudible whispers.

Bjorn said, “Shall I stay?”

“No.”

The door closed with a solid thump.

“Mum,” Rune began.

She held up a single finger, silencing him, then paced across the width of the room, stopping before the window. Beyond the diamond panes, night had fallen, that early, dusky purple that still spoke of a pink sunset. The moon wasn’t out yet, but the torches in the yard below cast warm puddles of light across snow churned up by countless sets of feet and hooves.

“Mum,” he said again, more urgently. “I can explain.”

“All right.” She turned, and leaned back against the window ledge. “Do so.”

His brows jumped, and she could read him too well, because all his tells were her own tells, Erik’s tells, from years ago, before they’d become their jaded, older selves capable of hiding their every emotion. He’d expected her to lay into him, rather than hand him the floor.

He wasn’t prepared for this.

But he cleared his throat, and hitched his shoulders up higher, and bulled ahead, because the line of Halfdan Half-Blood was nothing if not stupidly stubborn.

“It was all my fault,” he said, to start with.

“I assumed it was.”

“Mum. Listen – Tessa didn’t want any part of it. I made her–”

“Youmadeher?” She hadn’t been angry, finding them, but anger began to coil now in her belly. Anger that he would implicate himself in such an ugly fashion, just to save the girl a bit of pride.

“Oh, well, I mean–”

“Rune,” she snapped. “Are you suggesting you grabbed her, and hauled her to you, and forced her to kiss you? That you forced herself upon her?”

“No, I–”

“Because from where I was standing, she looked more than eager.”

His jaw clenched, chin tilting to that angle that made him look so like Erik. “Tessa’s a nice girl – a respectable girl. Alady.”

“A lady with her hands all over you.”

His eyes flashed, and she had a glimpse of the warrior he would become – and of how deeply he was invested in this. Tessa wasn’t a dalliance or a plaything. No, he was too much like his uncle: when he cared, he cared deeply, ready to defend his intended’s honor – even from his own mother.

Before he could respond, and say something they both might regret, she held up a hand. “Peace.”

He huffed out a sigh. “I don’t like what you’re implying about her.”

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