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The truth was he had never considered that Kara might be pregnant. Not then. Not later. It had been easier not to think about such things as his past life when he had been in the dungeon or later serving as a mercenary for the Vikens. Kara had belonged to a part of his life that he hadn’t dared think about when he’d had nothing. And he knew it was one more failing to add to his list.
The past was impossible to change. He could change the future and he had a son, the very talisman of a future, a son whose face he’d never seen. He wanted to see his boy’s face.
‘What would you have done if you had known?’ she asked softly.
‘I would have come back sooner,’ he said, when he trusted his voice.
Scorn poured into her eyes. ‘And the possibility never occurred to you in the long years you were away?’
‘I tried to focus on the task at hand, rather than speculating about home. Home was closed to me until I could erase the shame.’ He held out his hands and hoped for a softening of her heart. ‘How was I to know?’
Kara gave a queer smile. ‘You did make sure you did your duty before you left, Ash.’
He watched the heartbeat in the hollow of her throat. His duty? Maybe he hadn’t been ready to wed and his father had pushed him into it, but he clearly remembered the sweetness of Kara’s body and the way she had willingly given herself to him. He had liked her and looked forward to returning to her. He’d never met another woman whom he would have married. ‘I remember our time together with great fondness.’
‘Fondness? I always have found that a very weak word.’
Ash winced. ‘My tongue has never been eloquent, Kara, You know that.’
She crossed her arms, which only served to highlight the curve in her breasts. ‘You do yourself few favours trying to claim that. What I want to know is will you recognise Rurik as your son? Will you be a father to him?’
‘He is my son. Has he been accepted into the family?’
Her eyes slid away from him. ‘Yes...yes, he has.’
It came to him like a clap of Thor’s thunder—how he could win her back. He could protect her and their son.
He’d no rights to her, no matter what the law said, after what she had gone through. But it didn’t stop him from desiring the woman she’d become and wanting to protect her and their son.
He needed to do something for her, something to atone for his neglect. His mind raced. He had to hope that she had only chosen Valdar because of the threat his uncle posed. He could protect her and show her that he was in truth the hero she longed him to be all those years ago.
Maybe, he would become a better man for doing it, the sort of man Kara deserved—steady, dependable and there in a crisis. And if she saw through his act, saw who he truly was and hated him for it, he’d go once she was safe. And she wouldn’t have to marry simply to save his son’s life. She would have freedom, something she had not had before. He felt better now that he had a plan.
‘Who accepted him into the family?’ he asked in a voice he barely recognised. ‘Who played my part in front of the tuntreet?’
Chapter Five
‘Your father accepted him.’ Kara hated the way the words stuck in her throat.
It wasn’t a lie, but not precisely the truth either. Hring the Bold had eventually accepted Rurik. And she was not going to explain about Hring’s threat to expose Rurik when he was born too soon and was as weak as a kitten. Some day. After Ash had met Rurik. Or maybe after Rurik had grown to honourable manhood. She glanced up at Ash’s fire-lit face, trying to see the gentle youth she’d once worshipped.
‘He made the appropriate sacrifices in front of the tuntreet, pouring the water on the tree’s roots in the correct manner,’ she said into the silence. ‘You would have been proud.’
He bowed his head. ‘I’m pleased my father played the part well.’
There was no need to tell Ash how long after Rurik’s birth the sacrifice had happened. Or how Hring had tried to starve her into submission. All he needed to know was that Rurik was accepted into the family. It was the best way.
Kara picked up a disused spinning whorl, tightening her fist around it until her knuckles shone white. She hated how guilt welled up in her throat, as if she were doing something wrong.
Saving Rurik’s life had become paramount ever since he’d been born in the ice storm, ever since she’d woken on the floor of the stable with the stallion standing over her, pawing the ground and the blood staining the straw. She should never have gone there. It had been her fault and she could never undo the sense of guilt, but she had ensured that Rurik lived despite her mistake.
