Early Monday morning, Sigrid woke with Will wrapped around her. She lay there for a moment, still half asleep, reveling in the warmth of his body against hers.

Today they confronted his mother.

She burrowed her head into the pillow and shoved the worry aside. There was plenty of time for that later, just not now in the remnants of a weekend spent with the man she loved.

Will sighed into her hair and his hips shifted against hers. He grunted and buried his face in her nape, and the hard length of his arousal pressed against her ass. “Mmm. I love waking up next to you.”

A small smile played around the corners of her mouth. “You want sex.”

“Damn skippy. C’mere, woman.”

But she didn’t have to. His hands tugged her panties down and pushed her onto her belly, and he slid into her slick heat, loving her until they both panted their releases out into the bedroom’s early morning chill.

Later, after breakfast and a shower, Sigrid chose her clothes carefully, oddly numb around the lump growing in her stomach. Will slumped on the edge of her bed, buttoning a crisp, white dress shirt over an equally white t-shirt, his expression calm.

She placed a hand over her stomach and closed her eyes. Where was her own calm, so readily at hand through battles and matings and the odd politics inherent to any gathering among the People?

Lost, she feared, under the stress of the past few weeks.

Her fingers clenched into a knot against the raw silk dress she wore, and the lump in her stomach leapt into her throat, lodging there.

What was she going to do, now that she’d discovered her heart?

Warm hands cupped her shoulders and drew her back against Will’s solid length. “I love that dress.”

She half turned toward him, her head bowed. “Thank you.”

“You look stunning in red.” His hands slid down her arms and landed on her hips, and he pressed a kiss to the side of her throat. “You look stunning in anything.”

She laughed lightly, tried to. It came out wrong, choked and stunted, not the fearless humor of a warrior well honed.

“Hey, now,” he said, and his arms wrapped around her, holding her tight, safe. “It’s going to be ok. Trust me.”

“I do,” she murmured.

“Yeah?”

Always, she thought, but the single affirmation stuck in her throat, unable to escape the fear clogging her voice.

“Mom will back down,” Will said. “You’ll see.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

His shrug shifted his shirt against her bare arms. “We’ll deal with it, one day at a time.”

She closed her eyes and relaxed against him. One day at a time. Such simple ease over the nightmare awaiting them.

Not long after, they bundled up and headed toward Anya’s house, the site of the mediation Will had negotiated on Sigrid’s behalf, without her being aware of his intent. She’d said not a single, chastising word to him when he’d told her on Saturday night, merely placed her hand over his and quietly asked what she could do.

Anything. That was the least of what she’d do for him.

Wilhelmina and Troy were already there when Will parked Sigrid’s car along the curb in front of Anya’s house. They exited the vehicle in unison, strode up the sidewalk, her gloved hand in his, their breaths frosting in the icy air.

Snow later, a fitting harbinger to the day’s duty.

Anya’s little mouse of an assistant greeted them at the door and took their outerwear, then led them to Anya’s library. Four chairs were arrayed in front of Anya’s Mission Style desk, in groupings of two centered at each front corner of the desk.

Wilhelmina stood facing the fire on the opposite side of the room, Troy at her side. He looked up when Will and Sigrid entered. Wilhelmina did not.

The lump that had been gathering inside Sigrid all morning withered into a tight knot in her chest.

Anya stepped out from behind the desk, a warm smile on her face. “Good morning Will, Sigrid.”

Will bent and hugged his grandmother. “Hey, Amma. How’s the temperature?”

“Frigid,” Anya said, her serious tone a sharp contrast to the soft smile she wore. “Tea, coffee?”

Will glanced at Sigrid and brushed a finger over the end of his nose. “None for us, thanks.”

Anya arched a single eyebrow at Sigrid, no doubt over the impropriety of Will answering for them both. Such was a Daughter’s duty and right, but Sigrid held her tongue, afraid her own voice would choke before it left her throat.

“Well, then.” Anya slipped away from Will and rounded her desk. “Shall we begin?”

“There’s nothing to say.” Wilhelmina’s voice cracked through the room, sharp thunder after the boldest strike of lightning. “He made his choice.”

“Yet here we are,” Anya said evenly.

“Because you threatened to disown me.”

Will crossed his arms over his chest and coughed into his fist, hiding a dimpled smile.

Troy murmured something too low for Sigrid to hear. Wilhelmina huffed out a breath and flounced across the room, her heels as sharp against the ancient rugs lining the library’s floor as her anger.

Once they were all settled into chairs, Sigrid and Wilhelmina bracketing the men sitting in the inner chairs, Anya relaxed in her chair and eyed them steadily. “My grandson asked me to mediate the dispute between him and my daughter. I have agreed on the condition that I mediate only. Will, you may begin.”

Will turned and looked at his mother, his gaze steady against her icy hot glare. “I love Sigrid more than my own life.”

Wilhelmina sucked in a breath and paled, her lips a thin, red slash against her ashen skin.

“She accepted me when she didn’t have to, fought for me,” Will continued. “Won. By law, I’m hers. There is no choice.”

Sigrid’s hands tightened painfully on the arms of her chair. She opened her mouth, fully intending to dispute his words. Will was free to leave her, free to live his life as he pleased. She couldn’t hold him, wouldn’t if it meant hurting him.

Anya lifted a single hand, silencing Sigrid’s protest before it began, but it was too late. The knot in Sigrid’s stomach shoved upward into her throat and burst inside her, filling her head with the oddest pressure. She placed a hand to the buzzing in her ears, scarcely aware of the conversation eddying around her.

“Even if there were a choice, I would stay with her,” Will said. “I love her, but I love you, too, Mom.”

“If you loved me,” Wilhelmina said stiffly, “you would never have defied me in the first place.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Will muttered. “It’s not like we can control who we love.”

“You could’ve tried. You could’ve had some respect, some consideration, for your mother’s opinion, if not your own welfare.”

A slow fire sparked in Sigrid’s chest, burning under the weight of Wilhelmina’s words. She inhaled tentatively, seeking to ease it, and just managed to control the cough tickling her throat before it could interrupt the proceedings.

“Willie,” Troy said, and Anya shushed him with a gentle reminder of the People’s rules. Women talked. Men obeyed. That’s the way it had always been, hadn’t it? From the first day of the curse until now, when hope had finally come upon them. The curse could be broken, would be if the stars aligned correctly.

“I love her,” Will said, his voice as implacably recalcitrant as his mother’s. “Why are you punishing me for finding love? Why can’t you be happy for me?”

Wilhelmina stood abruptly, her eyes flashing a fire burning as brightly as the one consuming Sigrid. “She’ll be the ruination of you. As soon as she’s had her fill, she’ll discard you, leaving you an empty husk. How long before she uses you up? I’ll not have that for my son.”

Sigrid shook her head, a mute denial. She should say something, defend herself, and would if only this blasted buzzing would cease. Will would never be discarded. She could never betray him, never lose him. He was her life, her love, discovered after so long on her own. Why had she ever resisted the idea in the first place?

But she had, and now here he was, her destiny. Surely they could all see that.

“I can take care of myself,” Will said hotly.

Wilhelmina slashed a hand through the air, hurt fury radiating out of her stiff posture and fixed expression. “Then take care of yourself, and don’t come crawling back to me when she’s through with you.”

Troy stood, his expression tight with anger. “Don’t say something you’ll regret, Willie.”

“No,” Sigrid said, the single word a counterpoint to his. “I love him.”

Will jerked around, his eyes wide. “You what?”

Anya threaded her fingers together over her stomach, a satisfied expression on her face. “I think she said that she loves you.”

“When?” Will said. “How?”

Wilhelmina stepped toward them, unmindful of Troy moving to block her path. “She’s lying. That cold hearted bitch has never loved anything in her life except her own hide.”

Sigrid lifted her head through the thick morass clinging to her and met Wilhelmina’s gaze with her own. “I love him, but I won’t separate him from his family.”

“Fuck that,” Will spat out.

Sigrid reached a hand toward him as a tear slipped down her face. Wilhelmina was right, in her own narrow-minded way. Outside of her family and a few close friends, Sigrid had never really loved anyone. She’d never loved a man before, never given her heart. How did she know now that what she felt for Will was real, true, as eternally strong as love should be? How could she wrest him from his family, knowing her own love might falter at some point, leaving him in exactly the situation Wilhelmina so feared?

Better for him not to face that. Far better for him that she not be a part of his life.

“I renounce my claim,” she whispered through the noise filling her to the brim. “I renounce—”

The noise ceased, leaving a dread silence behind, and in its wake, a great weight pressed down on Sigrid. She gasped under the pressure, struggling to breathe. Will slid out of his chair and knelt beside her, his forehead creased into a frown. “Sig, honey, what’s wrong?”

His words were thin, distant. She clutched a hand around his forearm and said, “Love you,” then the weight lifted suddenly, carrying her up with it until she could go no higher, and she separated from it and fell down alone, lost in a world without her Will.

 

 

Will scrambled out of his chair and knelt beside Sigrid, ignoring his mother’s squawking, his father’s attempts to calm her, and his grandmother’s satisfied smirk. That last especially. The old biddy had played them all, though to what end he had no clue.

He shoved the thought aside and gently patted Sigrid’s cheek. She’d been acting strange all morning, since the end of the exhibition, truth be told, but today more so. And now she slumped in her chair, her hands like ice and her pulse rapid under his fingertips.

Damn it, what was wrong? Daughters didn’t get sick. Their immortality protected them from almost everything. Her body had nearly healed after the fight, so what could it be? There was nothing else to explain this sudden collapse.

“Leave her be, dear.” Anya knelt beside him and gently pried his fingers away from Sigrid’s wrist. “She’ll come around in a minute. They always do.”

“Come around?” he asked.

Behind him, something thumped heavily into one of the chairs. “I don’t believe it,” Wilhelmina whispered. “She was telling the truth.”

Will clenched his teeth together. “Would somebody please clue me in?”

“She submitted.” Anya threaded her arm through Will’s and leaned her head against his shoulder. “Her curse is no more, thanks to you.”

Will sat back on his heels and stared at Sigrid, at a loss. She loved him, so much she’d somehow submitted to him and broken her curse?

She loved him?

“Holy shit,” he finally managed, and his grandmother laughed and said, “Yes, that about sums it up.”

He shook his head, disentangled himself from his grandmother, and, still ignoring his mother, now deep in a muttered conversation with his father, Will picked Sigrid up, cradling her against his chest, and carried her upstairs to the bedroom he’d used as a child. The room was exactly as he remembered it. Twin beds stood on either side of the room’s only window, overlooking the back yard. Matching cedar lined trunks hulked at their feet. Blue and red plaid bedspreads covered the mattresses, an exact match for the curtains tied away from the light spilling into the room through the solitary window.

Will stepped inside the room, skirting a rocking chair and the lone chest of drawers, and placed Sigrid gently on top of one bed. He dug a crocheted afghan out of one of the trunks and draped it over her, then shut the door and pulled the rocking chair up to the side of her bed.

And waited.

Anya’s assistant came by offering him a drink. Will waved her away and thought seriously about locking the door, and regretted not doing so when his mother slipped into the room half an hour later and perched on the edge of the other bed.

Will kept right on doing what he was doing, watching Sigrid while rubbing slow circles over her stockinged ankle under the afghan.

Wilhelmina cupped her hands together on her lap, her posture rigid. “How is she?”

“The same,” Will said.

“She’ll wake in a while.”

Will grunted.

Wilhelmina pressed her lips together, shook her head once. After a while, she said, “I’m sorry.”

Will glanced at her, sharply. “Why?”

She shrugged, lifted her hands in a helpless gesture, let them fall onto her thighs. “I was wrong about her.”

“Yeah, well.” Will bit his tongue, staunching the bitter flow of words crowding into his mouth. “You could’ve believed in me.”

“I do, Will.”

“Really.” The word fell flatly between them, and Wilhelmina flinched. Will soldiered on, determined to get out what he should’ve said years ago. “I’m a grown man, have been for a long time. You made sure of that, you and Dad.”

She turned her face away from him, toward the sunlight softening under the clouds darkening the sky. “It’s our way.”

“Yeah, that’s my point. It’s the People’s way to breed strong Sons, but you, you left me here to run The Omega and raise Casey, and I did. I did everything you asked. I did it without complaining, without once mentioning that maybe I had something different in mind for my life.”

“Will,” she said softly, and he rushed on, afraid if he stopped, he’d never speak again.

“I did that because you asked it of me. I did it because I loved you so much, I would’ve done anything for you. Anything, Mom. And in return, when I finally found somebody I loved as much as I loved you, you tried to come between us. Threatened to disown me. Turned your back on me.” He fixed his gaze on the even rise and fall of Sigrid’s chest, and swallowed down the bitterness coating his throat. “You were the one who abandoned me.”

“Will.” The word trembled and broke. Wilhelmina touched her fingers to her mouth and two tears streaked down her cheeks. “I’m sorry, baby, so sorry. I didn’t realize you felt that way, that you wanted something different. Why didn’t you say anything?”

He shrugged, uncomfortable now that the words were out. He could’ve been kinder, maybe should’ve been, but how? How could he have cushioned his mother from the truth, when it was so hard and harsh inside him?

Wilhelmina slid off the bed and knelt beside the one Sigrid lay on. She rested a hand over his, on top of the afghan, stilling his movement. “I always thought we could tell each other anything. When did we stop doing that?”

“I don’t know.”

He shook his head, trying to pinpoint the moment they’d stopped talking. Had it been when he’d taken over The Omega at sixteen, or later, when his parents had embarked on their world tour, leaving him and Casey here to depend on each other?

What did it matter now? The past was gone, over and done. There was nothing he could do about it now.

He sighed and dropped his hand, and looked straight at his mother for the first time in a long while. Fine lines were etched around her eyes, laugh lines, he hoped, and a few strands of silver shot through her hair. She was no longer a proud immortal Daughter of the line of Abragni, but a mortal wife and mother, his mother.

And he loved her.

He stood and leaned across Sigrid, and pressed a kiss to his mother’s forehead. “We’ll work on that.”

Her fingers tightened on his hand and she laughed, low and soft. “Yes, we will. I’ll leave you to your duties now. We’ll have a feast tonight, to celebrate. A Daughter has found her heart, and my son has found his.”

And those were always cause for rejoicing.

Will sat back down and watched his mother leave the room. As soon as the door shut behind her, he resumed his watch over the woman who had stolen his heart and claimed him as no other could.

 

 

Sigrid slowly rose through the thick fog clogging her head and woke to a brightly lit, unfamiliar room. Will was sitting beside her, his forearms propped on his thighs, staring at her with the same inscrutable look he’d worn since the end of the challenge.

His eyes met hers, and he slowly leaned back, trailing his palms over his thighs. “You ok?”

She mentally probed the corners of her mind, then ran through a subtle check of her body. “I’m fine. What happened?”

“You passed out.” One corner of his mouth quirked into a smile. “Amma said you submitted your will to me.”

The statement rose on a question, as if he weren’t quite sure his grandmother had the right of it. Sigrid sat up slowly, careful of the muzziness filling her head. Had Will somehow broken her curse, by dint of her submission? But when had that—?

She bit the thought off. When she’d decided to exchange her own happiness for his, of course. What else could explain her fainting when she was largely healed and otherwise hale and whole?

Will touched her knee, let his hand fall away. “You scared me.”

“Oh, Will. No. I’m fine.” She sighed and slipped off the bed into his lap, and curled up there like a kitten at naptime. “We’re fine. Aren’t we?”

His arms came around her and he tucked her head under his chin. “Yeah. Mom quit bitching when you passed out.”

“Every cloud has a silver lining,” Sigrid murmured.

He huffed out a short laugh. “If you say so.”

“What happened? My memory is a little fuzzy.”

“The usual. Blustering and fussing, a lot of accusations. Then you scared the ever loving hell out of me.” He pressed a lingering kiss to her forehead. “Don’t ever do that to me again.”

“I think that’s a one time thing.”

“For any reason,” he amended firmly. “I carried you up here. Mom followed a little later, probably after Dad calmed her down and the shock of seeing a Daughter as strong as you faint had passed. We hashed it out. She’s backing down.”

The finality of his words worried her. There was more there, she was sure, but wheedling it out of him could wait for another day, when things were running a little more smoothly.

And they would run smoothly. Of that she was certain. Now if she could only get him to tell her he loved her, here in this quiet room with no one watching.

Trust was a two way street, one it was past time they trod together.

She closed her eyes, gathered her courage, and finally said, “I love you, Will.”

His arms tightened around her and his breath whooshed out, warming her skin. “Yeah, I figured.”

She waited for him to continue, for him to reciprocate, for something. After a long moment, he laughed softly, lifted her chin, and kissed her, slowly, tenderly. Her hands curled into his shirt and held him close as her heart tripped into a jog and she silently begged him to say it, to just tell her how he felt.

At last, he drew back and met her gaze evenly. “I love you, Sigrid, maybe since the first time I saw you, maybe since that day you and Moira got into an argument for the hundredth time and I lost my temper.”

“And you kissed me. I remember.”

“It’s a helluva cute meet.”

Giddiness rose in her and laughter followed, spilling out of her in a mad rush to share this rare jubilation with the world. Will loved her, and she loved him. Wasn’t that something?

He jiggled her in his arms, a grin slowly growing on his face. “This isn’t a laughing matter, woman.”

“Oh, Will. If you only knew.” Her laughter petered out and she cupped his hand against her cheek. “Where do we go from here?”

“Well, now that you’ve despoiled me—”

She choked on another laugh and her eyes widened. “Will!”

“I figure the least you can do is make an honest man of me.” He leaned down and touched his nose to hers. “What do you say? Do you think we have it in us to master the whole husband and wife gig?”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” she whispered, and kissed him until he had no doubt whatsoever how much she believed in that very outcome.