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“We weren’t going to live in it, you and I,” Odin said. “And if I spread our forces too thin there’s a greater risk Isa will risk an attack. If he strikes the mansion and reclaims it, I’m back at square one. I’d rather ensure Club Cherry remains a fortress.”
“Snow…” He wanted to ask if he’d done it for him, but the words got stuck in his throat and no matter how he tried, he failed to dislodge them. Hunter didn’t want to come off like that was something he expected. They may be mated now, and things between them may be a lot better than either of them could have ever predicted, but that didn’t change the fact that this had started sour.
The reason for that was so tightly entangled with both Isa and the mansion. Odin may have forgiven Hunter for the part he’d played in his losing it all back then, but that didn’t mean he would throw something as meaningful as his childhood home aside all for the sake of Hunter.
It would be ridiculous of him to assume he should.
“I’m sorry,” Hunter ended up saying instead, swallowing down the rest of those thoughts.
“It is what it is.” Odin gave him a tired smile. “Honestly, a part of me is glad it’s gone. Now there’s one less thing to worry about. It made the news too.”
“There’s an all-out Brumal war happening in the streets,” Hunter drawled. “Pretty sure a lot about you has been in the news as of late.”
“We’ve tried to keep the bloodshed to a minimum,” he said, “but yes.”
“Weren’t you trying to avoid this outcome?” That was the reason Odin had been sneaking around all these years, buying up property in Isa’s territory. He’d planned on taking control back in a different way, one that prevented too much carnage from resulting on either side.
Many of Isa’s people once stood under the Snow name in the beginning, before Isabel had turned on Ander and her son had turned on her. Some of them had tried to return and were prevented, others had settled too comfortably into their new lifestyle with Frost to bother. They may have forgotten Odin, but he hadn’t forgotten them. He wanted what was his back, but he didn’t want to have to kill everyone while he did it.
As a leader of the Brumal, people automatically assumed Odin was a monster—even Hunter had been guilty of that. But the truth was, even though he couldn’t ever be considered an angel, he wasn’t nearly as heartless as he seemed.
“Isa forced my hand the second he decided to kidnap you,” he stated matter-of-factly. “It couldn’t have gone any other way after that.”
“And…we’re winning?”
“We took the mansion and several other locations that were once considered under Isa’s rule. We’re ahead, but I wouldn’t say we’ve won, not yet.”
“Not until Frost is dead,” Hunter caught on. Neither of them would be able to sleep comfortably at night until that was the case, even if it was for different reasons. Even now, a part of him was actually frightened at the idea of having to confront Isa again, of being anywhere near him.
That was something he was going to have to get over, because he refused to stand on the sidelines.
“I’m awake now,” he said. “No more keeping me in the dark. You promised when I agreed to mate you that we’d stop Isa together. You’ve already accepted that the bracelet is pointless. You should realize that trying to keep me under lock and key is as well.”
“Remember how I warned you to be careful before, Little Whisper?”
“I’m not asking you to loosen the reigns entirely.” He understood too well Odin would never do that. It just wasn’t in his nature or the way he was raised.
As the heir to the Snow throne, he’d been brought up to conquer and control. That instinct must have only worsened after Isa’s betrayal. The things he cared about he held with an iron fist, and even though Hunter had been the only one to say it thus far, he knew how Odin felt about him.
How could he not, after what he’d just learned?
That earlier thought he’d had but been unable to voice returned, and this time he shoved his trepidation down and forced himself to just say it.
“You burned down your home because keeping me safe was more important,” he acknowledged, “but there’s a difference between keeping me protected and suffocating me.”
“That wasn’t my home,” Odin argued. “This is.”
“And it’s my home, too,” he said stubbornly. “Meaning I also have every right to want to protect it. You aren’t the only one who hates Isa Frost, and you aren’t the only one who knows what it feels like to worry.”
Hell, the only reason Hunter had been able to accept that he was, in fact, in love with Odin was thanks to the shit Isa had pulled. His concern for Odin and how he would go on without him was the knock in the head he’d needed to stop being so obstinate. If he was able and willing to change for him, Snow should do the same.
“Do you want to know the best part about those fantasies I used to have?” Odin held his gaze.
He was talking about the alcove again. The one that apparently no longer existed. “What?”
“They’d end like this. With you snuggled up in my arms, basking in the afterglow.”
“Things can’t always be perfect and pretty,” Hunter said, knowing that’s what he was getting at, that he was trying to say they could be like this and only this. “I can’t be your escape from the darkness outside, not all the time.”
