Page 8 of The Champion
For the next two summits, I debated Freya harder than anyone else at the summits just to show everyone that she wasn’t smarter than me.
And then the third summit, when we visited the Northlands for the first time, I was blown away by how she had blossomed from a girl to a woman.
My strong attraction to Freya had made me concoct a plan to distract the guards long enough for me to get inside her bedroom. What should have been a fun night of sexual exploration ended with another hard blow to my pride when she coldly rejected me.
After that I kept my distance for years, sticking to heated discussions between us at the summits and boring messages about the planning of those events.
It worked fine to keep my distance from her, until the summer of 2461 when we French hosted for the third time.
After eight years of arguing with her, I had a realization about Freya that summer that knocked my breath away.
No one asked me better questions than she did.
No one held my interest as long.
No one made me feel as special.
For the first time, I was left with a sense of strong longing after the summit ended. I fought my instinct to write her, but in the end, I did send her a message, which became the beginning of six years of correspondence between us.
Over the years, I had flirted with her, and we had debated politics, religion, world history, and everything in between. For a solid two years, we even had a chess game going between us.
Freya was as stubborn as she was bright. She stuck to her dream of marrying one person and spending the rest of her life with that man.
My fear was that one day she would write me that she had found him.
I groaned and ran my fingers through my hair. There was a chance that she wouldn’t tell me something that big in our correspondence. Maybe she would wait until she saw me in person. It was likely that this would be the year when Freya Aurelius announced her engagement or marriage at the summit.
Getting up from my chair, I took a step to the window in my office. I would hate for Freya to stop writing me. Her messages were witty, relevant, and required me to think about my replies.
Officially, we kept up a façade of disagreeing on everything, but in secret, Freya and I had discovered many things that we agreed on. One was that none of the three cultures represented at the summits were perfect.
Walking back to my computer, I pulled up some of my favorite messages between us.
December 31st, 2465
Happy New Year, Freya!
I hope you made it back safely from your last visit. In case you worry about your cousin and her protector, let me assure you that both Aubri and Indiana are fine.
I would ask you if Belle is happy with her choice to stay in the Northlands, but in a way your answer is irrelevant. It’s not as if Mason would let Belle go if she regretted her choice. The possessive nature of you Northlanders will have Belle trapped with him forever. I will try not to pity her.
Why did you offer to stay in exchange for Belle?
Your brother obviously feels I owe you an apology for rejecting you so harshly, but you and I both know that you were playing some kind of twisted game.
To say that you wanted to live with me and that I should be the father of your children was pure manipulation. In the moment I was confused, but the more I think about it, the clearer it is that you wanted me to talk Moreau out of keeping one of you women.
You knew I wouldn’t adapt to your culture of sleeping with the same woman every night.
Now, the others think I find you repulsive and that’s what made me say no to impregnating you.
Do you want me to tell them that’s not the case and that I’ve offered to sleep with you many times already?
I’m happy to tell them about our years of correspondence involving long conversations about sex and marriage. I stand by everything I’ve said. From how I would love to guide you on an exploration of your sexuality, to how firm I am that I’m not interested in moving to the Northlands.
The others may buy your offer to stay in France with me, but I know that you didn’t mean it. You were playing some game, Freya Aurelius. I know you were.
Victor
