A Midwinter Fantasy - Leanna Renee Hieber [82]
Shocked and angry, she punched him in the arm. “How are you doing this?”
A flash of remorse crossed his face. “I live in a different world from you, Sonja.”
“You’re telling me flying horses are normal in Iceland?”
“Not horses.”
Her gaze jerked back to the creature pulling the sleigh and her eyes bugged. A huge white cat the size of a tiger strained against the harness. A little squeal broke from her throat. In Norse mythology, the goddess Freya had a flying carriage pulled by giant cats. Like any sane person, she’d assumed that was fantasy.
“I’ll stay by your side at the Yule Fest. You’ve nothing to fear,” Vidar promised.
“The Yule Fest!” They were hanging in the air in a sleigh pulled by a giant cat and he thought she was worried about a party? “I don’t care about the stupid Yule Fest,” she shouted. “Take me back. Now.”
“Don’t you want to meet your father? We’re nearly there.”
Her breath rushed in and out, in counterpoint to the thudding of her pulse in her ears. She closed her eyes for a few seconds and tried to calm herself. “Where exactly is this Yule Fest?”
“My father’s place.”
His father lived in the freaking sky? “Who is your father?”
“Odin.”
“Odin—as in the Norse god?” Sonja wrinkled her cute little nose at Vidar, obviously wondering if he were mad.
Vidar nodded, wishing he could protect her from the horrors of his world—namely his father.
While she was here, he had decided to stay out of her mind unless he needed to calm her or soothe her fear, but he couldn’t resist slipping into her thoughts to test her reaction as the glittering icy turrets of the gods’ kingdom of Asgard came into view. Her wonder mingled with apprehension, but she didn’t panic. He was proud of how well she coped. But he shouldn’t have expected anything less. After all, she was the daughter of a man notorious for his emotional control.
Vidar steered his snow cat Gleda to the icy ledge and halted the sleigh among the parked vehicles. Gleda stretched, raking her claws across the ice. He jumped out and patted his cat’s flank. “Hey, girl, play nice. No fighting while I’m inside.”
“Surely that’s a dangerous animal.” Sonja pressed herself in the corner of the sleigh, starring wide-eyed at the cat.
“They can be, but I’ve had Gleda since she was a cub.” He held out a hand to Sonja, crushing down his pleasure when she trusted him enough to leave the safety of the sleigh. He mustn’t fall for his own ploy and start believing this was a date.
“This is your father’s palace?”
“Valhalla.”
She ran her hand over a wall of ice. “It must be damn cold living here.”
A startled laugh burst from him. “Too right. I hate it.”
She halted, hanging on to his arm so he had to stop with her. “If my father’s here . . .” She turned uncertain blue eyes on him and something inside him tightened to the point of pain. If she were hurt tonight, he would never forgive himself for dragging her into the conflict between Odin and Troy.
“Your father is of our world, Sonja.”
Her fingers tightened on his arm. “So, what does that make me?”
He didn’t want her to get upset and bolt. Odin must see her at the Yule Fest or there was no telling what the crazy old man would do. “Come and meet Troy. See for yourself.”
“My father’s name is Troy?” she asked, her voice breathy.
Vidar squeezed her hand as guilt pulsed through him. She trusted him, and he was setting her up.
He pushed down her blue hood and smoothed out the long golden strands of her hair with his fingers. Her soft pink beret was somehow innocently cute and damn sexy at the same time. And he shouldn’t think about her like this. He needed to get tonight over and send her home safely.
They approached the high arched entrance to the palace. The tiny gold fire imps and multicolored flower fairies decorating the tall Christmas trees on either side of the doorway swooped out of the branches and buzzed around their heads in a glittering cloud. Sonja