Page 68 of The Seducer
“He didn’t really say that,” Tristan pointed out. “He said you were tall as a grown man when you were twelve, and that even adults were afraid of you.”
“Finn has a bad memory. I was a sweet kid with cute dimples like yourself.”
Finn grinned and raised an eyebrow. “If you were, no one ever saw those dimples. ’Cause you were always scowling, my friend.”
“Hey, Tristan,” Magni said. “We have a school up here for Motlander kids and you should come. I train the children whenever I can and you would learn more types of fighting than just martial arts.”
“I would love that, but my mom wouldn’t let me.”
“Your mom? How old are you?” Magni asked.
“I just turned fifteen,” Tristan said and stood a bit straighter.
“Aren’t you a little old to be controlled by a woman then? A real man doesn’t ask for a female’s permission to do anything.”
“Maybe we should say goodbye to Magni now,” I interjected, with a reprimanding glance at Finn.
“See, Tristan.” Magni pointed in my direction. “There’s another example for you. Women are fucking controlling, but we Nmen are the last free men and we don’t allow females to boss us around.”
“Okay, well, maybe I could talk to my mom about it,” Tristan said.
“The trick is to not ask. Just inform her that you’ve been invited by the best fucking warrior in the world to come train with him, and that you’re going.”
This time, I stepped forward. “Magni, you will stop manipulating the boy at once. And you’ll mind your language when you’re in my house and in front of impressionable children.”
Magni pinned me with his eyes and crossed his arms. “Or what? Are you going to cast a curse on me too?”
“She’s going to send you outside,” Finn tone was dry as sand. “Every time I use the F word, Athena kicks me out of her house.”
Magni shook his head. “I swear, five days in the Motherlands and you’ve already grown soft. You’d better hurry back here, or you’ll start saying please, and shit like that.”
“Have a nice day, Magni. I’m afraid we have to say goodbye now,” I said and wished I hadn’t allowed the children to meet him. Their parents would be horrified when they learned about the improper communication that had been used between Finn and Magni. Insults and cuss words were unacceptable in an enlightened society like ours.
“I hope to see you soon, Tristan,” Magni said, “and just for kicks we’ll do a paternity test on you when you get here, because I seriously think they messed up on the fertility clinic and used Finn’s sperm to create you.”
The way Tristan’s face lit up made my skin tingle with a foreboding that this conversation would be life-altering for the boy. He had been fascinated with the Northlands even before Finn showed up at his school, and now he wanted to be an Nman himself.
CHAPTER 21
Last Night Together
Finn
The atmosphere between me and Athena had been tense all day. Her words from last night, that she had opened her heart to me, had freaked me out. Like a warrior raising his shield for protection, I had reminded her not to fall in love with me, and refused to examine my own feelings for her.
I did have feelings for her. It was getting harder to crack jokes and make it seem like I didn’t care.
“Do you think there’s a chance that Tristan could be your biological son?” she asked me as we went to bed that last night.
“No, I’ve never donated sperm, so it’s not possible,” I replied and got comfortable on the bed next to her. “It would’ve been amazing though, you know, to have a son.”
“How would Tristan’s life have been different if he had grown up in the Northlands?” Athena asked, with a hand between the pillow and her chin.
“You’ve spent nine days with me, which makes you something close to an expert on Nmen, doesn’t it? I think you know the answer to that question by now.”
“Can I ask you something different then?” she breathed.
“Yeah.”
