Page 21 of The Artist
“Yes, Freya and Aubri told me theirs, but what about you and Indiana? You’re both twenty-seven and have been talking about family for as long as I remember. What’s stopping you?”
I pressed my lips together before I pushed out the words. “It’s not as easy as it used to be. My father fought in a tournament and won my mother. I could winanytournament, but modern women think of bridal tournaments as a thing of the past. I can never tell if the ones that show an interest in me do it because of my status, which is a major turn-off. The rest expect me to seduce them, which I have no clue how to do.” My hands tore through my hair. “I’m a warrior with a brutal sense of humor. I can’t dance for shit and whenever there’s a beautiful woman I say the wrong thing and make an ass of myself.”
“Did you tell others that you might split them during sex?”
I answered on a heavy exhalation. “Nooo.”
“Hmm, you’ve danced with me.”
“That’s different. We did it for laughs. I never had to impress you, Belle. You weren’t…” I trailed off before I said something that would hurt her again.
“Someone you would ever want to marry,” she said.
“You’re not someone Icouldever marry, so I didn’t see you as a potential bride.” I narrowed my eyebrows. “But before you call me rude let’s be clear; it went both ways. It’s not like you ever thought of me as a potential husband.”
Belle’s gaze fell to the floor and we stood together in awkward silence for a moment before she muttered low, “I can find my room from here.”
“You sure?”
She was already walking away and threw her last words over her shoulder. “Believe it or not, Mason, I’ll survive without your help.”
CHAPTER 7
Sketching
Belle
The day after the welcome reception, we visited Pearl Pilotti’s school of inclusion and had an epic snowball fight with the children.
Jones was there and just to spite Mason, I was extra friendly to him until Jones ruined everything by pulling me aside and asking if I would consider marrying him.
Seeing his disappointment when I explained that we Europeans weren’t allowed to move away from Old Europe made me sad. Jones was my age, and less intimidating than most of the men here. I had never experienced a man making me feel as special as he did when he told that he couldn’t let me go home and not see me again for the next three years without asking me to be his wife.
When we parted, I hugged Jones tight and kissed his cheek, telling him that I would be forever grateful for his kind words and affection.
Mason scowled at me when I got into the drone that would take us back to the Gray Mansion. “Told you that you’d break his heart.”
Mason’s harsh words made me toss and turn that night. Not because I regretted telling Jones I couldn’t marry him, but because I suddenly resented that it wasn’t my choice. Northlanders always talked about freedom, and Jones had made me see that I was as free as a domesticated indoor cat.
The realization put a damper on my mood and made me quiet the next day. Still, when we flew North to a place called Old Alaska, my nose was pressed against the window in the drone, taking in the glorious scenic view. I’d seen snow before but never like this.
Everything looked untouched and clean with the sun reflecting on the snow like it was a mirror bouncing back rays of light.
Once we were close to our destination, Thor, who was flying the drone I was in, flew low enough that we could see animals on the ground. A pack of wolves crossing a frozen lake stopped to look up at us when Thor let the drone hover above them.
“They look so small,” Celeste said next to me. “Like little dogs.”
Aubri turned her head and raised an eyebrow in her direction. “The wolves up here are no joke. They’re big when you face them up close.”
“You’ve met wolves?” I asked.
“Sure. About three years ago a group of us went hunting up here and we ran into a group like that one.” She tapped her foot on the floor next to the long narrow window that ran from one end of the drone to the other.
“Were you there as well?” I asked Freya.
“You know me better than that. I don’t condone violence against animals. If I could have it my way, I would ban all hunting.”
Aubri rolled her eyes. “Don’t listen to her, she doesn’t understand how it can be necessary to limit the population of one species to save another.”
