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  “From the way that Celyn is touching you, I can tell that,” Cathal said wryly. “As I was the same way, I understand your feelings. But what is this job that you talk of?”

  “He hunts money,” Celyn announced with a laugh, hugging me tighter.

  I shrugged. “Basically, that’s it. And I like doing that. I don’t know anything about fighting or how to swing a sword, but I can balance your books.”

  Cathal and Idris looked at each other again. “This is something that can be talked about in the morning,” Idris said. He paused for a second. “And in private.”

  I realized that most everyone in this hall had heard what should have been a private conversation. I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me.

  “Then if I may escort Gunnar to my room?” Celyn asked with a smile.

  Idris and Cathal nodded, and I wasn’t surprised to be swept out of the hall and back into Celyn’s room another confusing walk later.

  “Celyn,” I started when we got to his room and he shut the door behind us. I didn’t get to say anything more. He kissed me.

  “Just don’t say anything,” he begged. “Just let us have tonight.”

  I kissed him, and we lost each other in our passion.

  I WOKE up the next morning with Celyn curled around me. “You would leave?” he asked softly.

  “This is wonderful,” I said sincerely, “but this isn’t home.”

  That was becoming less and less true. Last night had felt so right and better than anything I could have believed to be true.

  “It could be,” he said.

  And I could learn to love him, love this place, and make a life for myself here. If Cathal was right, I wasn’t cutting myself off from my family altogether. But did I want to do this?

  “Do you want it to be home for me?” I asked, shifting so that we weren’t so close. “Physically, we seem to be a match, but I don’t know if we can live together.”

  “You are borrowing trouble,” Celyn scolded, sitting up and hugging me. “Only the Norns can see the future.”

  “And they aren’t here, are they?” I pointed out.

  He laughed and shook his head, stealing a kiss from me. He sobered up fast after that kiss, though, his eyes sad and dark. “Stay, please.”

  It wasn’t a command of a prince, but the plea of a man in love. My heart clenched. I couldn’t deny him that simple request. It was insane. It was arrogant, and it should have been the last thing I would do, but his plea touched me more deeply than I could have ever imagined.

  “I need to tell my mother,” I finally said. “I’m willing to try.” It wasn’t a yes or a no, but his eyes lit up, and he kissed me again, pinning me down on the bed.

  “That is all that we need,” he said.

  I FOUND myself stumbling into the statues of the ducklings in the Public Garden. It was still snowing, and I couldn’t even figure out what day it was, never mind what year. But the snow wasn’t more than an inch or so deep, heavy wet flakes that would melt when they could. This wasn’t the frozen beauty of Sút, but a normal winter’s snowfall.

  I managed to get home, begging a taxi ride from a cabbie who was willing to pick me up even dressed as I was, carrying my suit over one arm. When I was home and changed into something less outlandish, I figured out that only a day had gone by.

  I had to do some very serious thinking about what I wanted for my life. And that included calling my mother to ask her to tell me what really happened. I dialed quickly before I changed my mind, since Sút was already beginning to seem very unreal to me.

  “Mom?” I said as soon as she answered the phone. “I have to talk to you.”

  “You know,” she said calmly.

  “I sort of found out,” I agreed. “But I understand that you couldn’t tell me anything.”

  She was silent on the other end of the line.

  “Was I the reason that we moved all the time?” I asked.

  “That really was because of your father’s job,” she ventured after several breaths of silence.

  “How did you really find me?” I asked. “You always told me that story about finding me lost. How much of it was true?”

  “We were in northern Russia, your father and I, working,” my mother said slowly. “And there you were, out on the tundra, in a place that didn’t have anyone living for miles. We had gone out to see it just because it was there. I knew immediately that you were special. And I didn’t want to lose you, so I made sure that we were never anyplace with snow in the winter. Can you forgive me for that?”

  “I can,” I said gently. “You did it because you loved me.”

  “You’re leaving, aren’t you?” she asked. “Going to wherever you were supposed to be.”

  “Not forever,” I promised. “I actually met someone. He’s nice.”

  “He could be someone special for you?” she asked. I sensed that she wanted to ask me something else but didn’t know how. “And your family?”

  “You are my family,” I told her fiercely. “You, Dad, and my sisters are my family, and I will never say anything different.” I sighed, though. “But I met my biological father. He seems nice. He wasn’t happy about what happened.”

  “I wouldn’t think that he would be,” she agreed.

  “I want to get to know him, but it’s not because I don’t love you,” I explained.

  “I know that you can love more than two parents at a time,” my mother said with a sad laugh. “And I did have you for thirty years. It isn’t like you’re going to forget me.”

  “I won’t,” I said. “I can still see you, and I do want you to meet Celyn.”

  “That would be nice,” she said. “He must be special.”

  What wasn’t being said by either of us was that I might be throwing my career away for this. A career I had worked very hard for. But I didn’t care. I was even going to be so wild as to not give my two weeks’ notice, because if I thought about this, I would lose my nerve.

  “Don’t worry,” my mother said, as if she could read my mind. “I will take care of everything after you leave. It will be… better that way.”

  “I love you,” I said.

  “I love you too,” she replied, with a catch in her voice. “It’s not as bad as when you left to go there,” she said, meaning the US. “And you will visit?”

  “When there is snow,” I said.

  “And I will see you then,” she offered. “And do bring that young man.”

  I laughed and hung up. I didn’t know how I was going to get back, but I would return to the world of Man. I thought of Celyn, how he sounded, how he felt when we were together. The passion had been amazing.

  And just as amazing now was the rough purr I heard abruptly, the sudden hot breath I felt on the back of my neck before Math seized it and somehow maneuvered me onto her back. I grabbed the scruff of her neck and leaned over to whisper in her ear, “Take me home, girl.”

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  About the Author

  FELICITAS IVEY is the pen name of a very frazzled helpdesk drone at a Boston-area university. She's an eternal student even with a BA in anthropology and history, since free classes are part of the benefits. She's taken courses on gothic architecture, premodern Japanese literature, and witchcraft, just because they sounded like fun. She has traveled to Japan and Europe and hopes to return to both in the future.

  She knits and cross-stitches avidly, much to the disgust of her cat, Smaugu, who wants her undivided attention. He's also peeved that she spends so much time writing instead of petting him. She writes urban fantasy and horror of a Lovecraftian nature, monsters beyond space and time that think that humans are the tastiest things in the multiverse.

  Felicitas lives in Boston with her beloved husband, known to all as The Husband, and the aforementioned cat, whom the husband swears is a demon, even though it's his faul
t that they have the cat. The husband also is worried about Felicitas’s anime habit, her love for J-Pop music, and her extensive collection of Yaoi manga and Gundam Wing doujinshi, which has turned her library into a Very Scary Place for him.

  Visit her blogs at http://Iveys_Tales.livejournal.com

  and http://felicitasivey.dreamwidth.org

  and her web site at http://felicitasivey.com

  You can e-mail her at [email protected]

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  Copyright

  Published by

  Dreamspinner Press

  5032 Capital Circle SW

  Suite 2, PMB# 279

  Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886

  USA

  http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  A Solstice Journey

  © 2013 Felicitas Ivey.

  Cover Art

  © 2013 Catt Ford.

  Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.

  All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press at: 5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/.

  Digital ISBN: 978-1-62798-599-4

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Edition

  December 2013