Into the Fire (The Unseelie Court Book 4) Gwen Rivers (sneezy the snowman read aloud .TXT) 📖

wearing a sheer white gown that reveals more of her flesh than it conceals. She skims her hand along her side. “Do you not find me…irresistible?”

He glowers at her. “Somehow, I’ll manage.”

She falls back, her touches growing bolder. “Why must you make this so hard on yourself?”

He catches her hands. “Don’t try me, Freya.”

She lets out a breath. “So, this is to be our fate? You denying us any sort of pleasure? Do you not remember how good it was between us?”

His gaze narrows. “What I remember is that you abandoned me to Midgard, you let my brother die and didn’t bother to say a word against the gods. And you’ve all but abandoned your children to Underhill.”

She sucks in a breath. “Oh, here we go. Váli, you are centuries old. Don’t you think it’s time you learn to let things go? These grudges aren’t becoming.”

“Tell me what I need to do, Freya.” Aiden paces the room. “Tell me what it is you really want. You know you can’t keep me here forever.”

“Fine, you insist on leaving and dooming us all….” She rises from the bed, hips swaying as she prowls closer to him. “I want to carry your child.”

He stares at her, uncomprehending.

“It’s the only way your father will spare me. He’s always had a soft spot for his progeny. If I am the mother of his grandchild, he will let me live in peace instead of destroying me with all the rest.”

“I will never have a child.” He closes in on her, wrapping his hands around her arms. Barely refraining himself from shaking her. “Do you understand me? My entire line is tainted, filthy. I will not spawn, especially not with the likes of you.”

Her face grows mottled in her fury as he speaks and she vanishes out of his grip.

He sinks down onto the bed. What a mess Loki made. Why couldn’t his father have been content with his mother? Why couldn’t they have spent eternity together as a family? It had been idyllic to be a child of the Trickster.

Right up until the moment that it wasn’t.

Angrboda had been right. He must accept his past and all it had taught him. He’d been trying. Now that madness no longer threatens, he can think clearly for the first time in centuries.

Fact one. He loves Nic. His wolf accepts her as his mate.

Fact two, she, for whatever reason, loves him as well. The last night they’d been together was all mixed up with the pain from the past and the thin thread of hope for the future. And then they’d been separated again. The cycle repeating as it had since he had first met her.

Why can’t they be together? In Midgard or Underhill, the Vanir lands or the deepest corner of Hel. He doesn’t care where as long as it is her and him.

Fact three, it might be all his fault.

Freya is an idiot if she believes having a child with him will protect her. His father had been jaded and tortured for thousands of years. And now, with the end of the world at hand, he will be even more vicious. And there is the ever-present worry that any child of his would side with Loki, Fenrir and all the rest come the last battle. The odds are already stacked against the world. Aiden refuses to do anything else to aid its downfall.

His gaze takes in the room around him. Freya’s white motif abounds but on a shelf in the corner sits a ruby red dragon’s egg in a small glass case. It had been there the first time she’d brought him here. He recalls the first time he’d been in this room after he’d seen his father and Angrboda together. Freya had found him in her garden. He hadn’t been paying attention to where he was, his mind trying to reconcile what he’d seen.

“Why was he with her?” Aiden shook his head.

“They were making love.” The goddess handed him a drink.

“That wasn’t love.” It couldn’t be, not with a woman who wasn’t his mother. “She must have bespelled him.”

“Sweet boy, love comes as it comes.” Freya’s cat eyes had glittered. “Let me show you.”

Aiden squeezes his eyes shut.

Deep in his chest, his wolf stirs. He’s oddly relieved to know the beast is with him.

He rubs his thighs as though they itch. The creature within him detests being caged almost as much as he detests being separated from his mate. So how to escape?

Harmony. The seer is his way out. So what if she foresaw his death? The future isn’t set. He must convince her that the world will best be served if he gets out of this place as soon as possible.

With that thought in mind, he follows his nose, tracking the seer’s wisteria scent. Her room is down a long open-air gravel path. Moonlight illuminates the white cobbled walkway. A fountain burbles merrily. Everything perfectly austere. Not a pebble out of place. Perfect and cold, like the bitch who lives here.

He knocks softly, not wanting to wake the seer if she is resting.

Harmony opens the door. She is wearing a blue silk bathrobe and her jet hair is pulled up in a high ponytail.

She smiles softly when she sees him. “How’s your head?”

Though he had told himself he needed to make nice with her, her question enrages him. “Why the concern, Harmony? You delivered me into the hands of my enemy.”

“We’re friends, Aiden. And she’s not your enemy. In case you missed it, we are trying to save your life. And Freya isn’t all bad. She petitioned the other gods to allow the fey to evacuate to the Vanir lands.”

“And?”

“They’re discussing it.” She stands aside and gestures for him to enter her space.

He does and then frowns at the room. Fluffy white bed covered in purple and pink pillows and a white lace canopy. Stuffed animals cover a chaise lounge by a picture window that overlooks a glittering silver stream.

It’s a child’s room.

He studies the