me guess, they didn’t believe you.”
Linea met my gaze. “Can you blame them for needing assurance? As I recall it, you never trusted my abilities either.”
“Then tell them I’m in the Motherlands and I want to be left alone. I’ll come back when I’m ready. Not when they tell me to.”
Squatting down, Linea petted Huginn and Muninn, who followed her like mesmerized minions. It annoyed me that she had such an impact on my dogs and that she made me feel like I could never hide from her. Not only had she pointed to the location of my friend Sparrow when she was kidnapped recently, Linea had also managed to find me when it should have been impossible. The worst part was that it felt like Linea didn’t just know how to track me down physically, but that I couldn’t hide my thoughts from her either.
My mind was a mess, and I didn’t need her to see through my shield and feel sorry for me. My pride made me hiss out loud, “I’m warning you, woman; if you tell anyone where I am, I’ll find you and make your bottom as red as your hair.”
Linea jerked her head back and stared up at me. “What did you say?”
My chest rose and fell with stress pumping in my chest. “You heard me.”
Raising to her full height, she still had to tilt her head back to lock eyes with me. “Is that a threat, Thor?”
The way she studied my face and said my name like I was a naughty schoolboy made me double down. “You’re damn right it’s a threat. You need to keep your mouth shut and stay out of my business.”
Tucking her hands into the pockets of her sundress, she challenged me. “Come on, Thor, you wouldn’t actually spank me if I tell anyone where you are, would you?”
My jaws tightened as confusion made me even angrier. I didn’t want or need mental images of my hands on her behind to arouse me right now. “Try me and you’ll find out.”
“Have you ever given a woman a spanking in your life?”
I didn’t answer but asked a question of my own. “Have you ever received one?”
“No, of course not. Physical discipline isn’t used in the Motherlands. We talk about things as civilized people.”
“Good, then you’ll listen when I tell you never to disclose my location to anyone. I like it here.”
Linea watched me like I was speaking an unintelligible language and then she shook her head.
“What?”
“You wouldn’t lay a hand on me. You’re Pearl Pilotti’s son.”
I grunted low. “If you knew how many times Motlanders have reminded me of that. As if my mother had the power to radically change an Nman.”
“She changed your father.”
My chuckle was dry and humorless. “That’s what you Motlanders would like to think, but the truth is that he changed her.”
“They probably changed each other.”
My chuckle grew to a hollow laugh. “Linea, you think you know people, but you’re just as blinded as the others.”
She pushed windblown hair from her face and fixed her clear silver-gray eyes on me. “What do you mean?”
“Everyone is so blinded by my parents. Their incredible love story, their strong bond, and the way they overcame their mutual resentment and now respect one another. What people miss is how many arguments there are between them, and how Freya and I got pulled back and forth. Making one of them proud means disappointing the other. We can never win. I can never win.”
Linea placed her hand on my upper arm with an expression saying that she was willing to listen, but I wouldn’t share anything more with her. Jerking my arm away, I barked out:
“You shouldn’t have come. Why didn’t you pretend that you couldn’t find me and save yourself the trouble?”
“I didn’t come here for your sake. I came because all the people who love you are worried. If you had left a letter to explain yourself, you could have saved me the long journey. Why not just be honest and tell them that you need a break from it all?”
Picking up a stone of my own, I threw it in the water. “Who says it’s a break? Maybe I’ll never go back.”
“You would rather live in the Motherlands than the Northlands?”
“No. But if I have to live here to be left in peace then so be it.”
“Take some time, Thor. Maybe you’ll feel different when you wake up tomorrow.”
Her kindness was pressing at my armor, and I couldn’t afford for