it to break. With harsh words, I fortified my façade. “I didn’t ask for your fucking advice.”
My hostility worked. Linea stepped back a little, her expression guarded. “Consider it a free service.”
When I didn’t respond, she continued, “You’re not that different from when you were fifteen.”
“Huh?”
She backed away from me, the dogs following her. “I hope you find yourself and that you pick up some Motlander kindness while you’re here.”
“Tsk.”
“And you know, Thor, if we’re lucky, we’ll never meet again.” As she said it, Linea turned, and kept on walking away from me. My dogs followed her until I whistled for them to come back.
“Just remember what I said,” I called after her. “Keep your mouth shut about where I am and don’t come back here. I wasn’t kidding. I’ll make your butt as red as your hair if you come to bother me again.”
CHAPTER 2
Khan’s Ultimatum
The Northlands – June 2467
Linea
From the time Thor humiliated me as a child, my long-time infatuation with him turned into a strong resentment that made me stay away from the Northlands. It wasn’t that I didn’t like most of the people here, but I associated the Northlands with Thor and refused to visit.
It had taken ten years and a tragedy to make me return. Six months ago, my friend Sparrow was kidnapped by a madman. Burned and bruised, she had needed my help to heal and that’s what had brought me back to my father’s birth country after all these years.
The mind can be deceptive. Mine managed to convince me that despite staying at the Gray Mansion where Thor lived, there was a good chance that I wouldn’t run into him during my stay.
It took less than ten minutes from the time we arrived until I was face to face with Thor Aurelius. With my heart racing way too fast, I had told myself it wasn’t a problem. After all, ten years had passed since he humiliated me, and I wasn’t the kind to carry a grudge.
My close companion, pride, had laughed at that notion because the moment Thor talked, I felt the old resentment flare up like a burning nettle rash that I felt compelled to scratch.
I wanted badly to be a bigger person and not be judgmental toward him, but unfortunately my ego was too strong. It was the same reason my dream to become a priestess like my mother had burst. Despite the daily meditations and breathing exercises that allowed me to practice energy work, my Northlander blood wouldn’t allow me to turn the other cheek.
Two days after I arrived to heal Sparrow, Thor and I had clashed in a loud argument when I helped vet candidates for the Explorer Academy that Sparrow was running with Aubri, another family friend.
It was my assessment of Bjorn, a candidate with a sadistic sexuality, that had infuriated Thor. Where I trusted Bjorn to play out his urges with consensual partners, Thor wanted Bjorn banned from being part of the Explorer program. That day, I had concluded that Thor was as unpleasant at twenty-five as he had been at fifteen.
A few days after our intense fighting, he had vanished. Seeing his family and friends in pain from not knowing where he was or why he left, my kind heart made me volunteer to track him down.
I had found him on a beach in the Motherlands, but instead of thanking me for flying half a day to check up on him, the giant idiot had threatened to spank me if I ever came back or told others where to find him.
Now it was late June, and my entire family was back in the Northlands to celebrate Sparrow’s and Banni’s wedding.
I wasn’t surprised when Khan and Pearl asked my mother and me to sit down with them before the festivities began. It was my first time inside Khan’s office and while my mother talked with them, I sat looking at the large room, taking in the antique books with the worn spines that contrasted with the modern screen with family photos changing every thirty seconds. The room was masculine, and the energy was heavy and serious.
Khan’s face was marred by deep frown lines and he looked to have aged five years in the five months since I last saw him. “This is much bigger than Thor. We wouldn’t be in this situation if he understood that. True leadership is about sacrificing oneself. Pearl did it when she volunteered to take your place, Athena, remember? Back when Magni