Royal Weddings. Joan Elliott Pickart

      Hauk couldn’t believe it. The woman was too wily by half. She’d led him in circles until she had him right where she wanted him—with his head spinning. And then she’d made the one demand he wasn’t sure he could refuse.

      It was removing the gag that had done it. He never should have made such a fool’s move. But his lord had tied his hands—as surely as Hauk had tied hers.

      Bring her, but do it gently. Coax her, but use force if you must.

      The instructions were a tangle of foggy contradictions. And that put Hauk in the position of abducting her—and also having to listen to whatever she had to say.

      The cursed woman was still talking. “Hauk, come on. I know you have to have a way to get in touch with him—a beeper? A phone number? A hotline to Isenhalla? It’s so simple, don’t you see? I want you to call the number, or whatever it is, and let me speak with my father.”

      Hauk didn’t know what to do, so he did nothing. He sat still in the chair and said not a word.

      Silence and stillness didn’t save him. Princess Elli rattled on. “My father wants me to come to him, period. But first and foremost, he hopes I’ll come to him voluntarily. And that’s perfectly understandable that he would want that—any father would, after all. And if a phone call will do that, will make me agree to go, then wouldn’t it be my father’s will that you call him and let me speak with him?”

      Why wouldn’t the infernal woman shut up? Though Hauk had never before questioned the actions of his king, how, by the ravens of Odin, could he help but question them now?

      The king’s orders echoed in his head. First ask the woman to come—and then force her if she refuses. And don’t forget—be gentle about it.

      The king must have believed that she would refuse, or else why send his warrior to get her? Perhaps if she’d had need of a bodyguard…

      But there had been no mention of an outside threat. Therefore, if His Majesty had truly believed the girl might come willingly, he would have chosen someone other than a fighting man to fetch her, someone with a honeyed tongue, someone who knew how to coax and cajole, someone who could outtalk the woman sitting opposite him now.

      “First and foremost,” the irritating princess repeated for at least the tenth time, “he wanted me to want to come. So what could it cost you to call? Nothing. But if you don’t call, and later my father learns that all I wanted to come voluntarily was a chance to—”

      “All right.”

      Elli couldn’t believe her ears. Was he saying what she thought he was saying? Had she actually gotten through to him? She gaped at him. “Uh. You mean, you will? You’ll call him?”

      He had that black bag right beside him. He reached into it and pulled out a small electronic device—it looked like some kind of beeper. He punched some buttons on the face of the thing, stared at it for maybe fifteen seconds and tucked it back in the bag.

      And then he straightened in the chair and stared straight ahead.

      Elli couldn’t stand it. “What did you just do? What is happening?”

      He waited a nerve-shattering count of five before he answered, “I have contacted your father. Unless something unexpected keeps him from it, he will be calling here within the hour.”

      Forty-three minutes later, the phone rang. Elli leaped to her feet at the sound, jostling the cats, who shot from the couch and streaked off down the hall.

      “Wait,” the Viking commanded.

      “But I—”

      “Stay where you are.”

      Every nerve in her body thrumming with excruciating anticipation, Elli stayed put. The Viking went to the phone. He checked the call waiting display and then picked it up. “FitzWyborn here…yes, my lord. She is here. She has agreed to come with me, on the condition that she might speak to you first. Yes, my lord. As you will.” Hauk held out the phone to her. “Your father will speak with you, Princess Elli.”

      Elli could not move.

      That bizarre feeling of unreality had returned, freezing her where she stood. Surely this was all a dream. The father she had never known couldn’t actually be on the other end of that line. And, now that she thought about it, how could she possibly be certain that the man waiting to speak with her wasn’t an imposter? Hauk said the caller was her father, but his saying it didn’t necessarily make it so.

      The Viking strode toward her. When he reached her, he opened his hand. On top of the blue-and-gold lightning bolt lay her phone. She took it, put it to her ear.

      “Hello?” It came out sounding awful, whispery and weak.

      “Elli.” The voice on the other end was gentle and deep. “Little Old Giant,” the voice said, so tenderly.

      Little Old Giant. Nobody called her that. Nobody.

      Except her mother, when she was a child…

      “You’re my Little Old Giant, Elli, that’s what you are.”

      “No, Mommy. I’m not a giant. I’m way too small.”

      “But your name is a myth name. A name from the old, old stories that are told in the land where you were born.”

      “In Gullandria, Mommy?”

      “That’s right. In Gullandria. And in Gullandria, they tell the story of Elli, the giantess. Elli was a very old giantess—so old, she was old age itself. The Thunder god, Thor, was tricked into fighting her, though everyone knows…”

      “You can’t fight old age,” Elli said softly into the phone.

      Her father—and she knew it was her father now—laughed. He had a good, strong laugh. A kind laugh, warm and sure. He said, “Ah. Your mother has taught you something, at least, of who you are.”

      Elli felt the tears. They burned behind her eyes, pushed at the back of her throat. Hauk had returned to his chair, but his ice-blue gaze was on her.

      She looked away, dashed at her damp eyes and asked her father, “If you wanted to see me, why did you have to do it this way?”

      “I need you to come, Elli. Please. Come with Hauk. Trust Hauk. He will never harm you and he will keep you safe. Let him bring you to me.”

      “Father.” So strange. To be speaking to him, at last, after all these years. “You haven’t answered my question.”

      There was a silence from the other end of the line. Elli heard static, in the background, thought of the thousands of miles of distance between her life, here, at home in Sacramento and her father, on the island of her birth in the Norwegian Sea. What time was it there? Late at night, she thought. Was he in bed as he talked to her, or fully dressed in some high-ceilinged study or huge palace drawing room?

      He spoke again. “I have lost two sons. Is it so very strange that I would yearn to meet at last a daughter of my blood?”

      “But why didn’t you just call me, ask me?”

      “Would you have said yes?”

      It was a question she couldn’t have answered five minutes ago—but that was before she heard his sad, kind voice calling her by the special name only he and her mother knew.

      “I would have,” she said firmly. “In a heartbeat, I would have said yes.”

      Hearing his voice did not, by any means, make everything all right. There remained great hurt in her heart, and bitterness, too. He had, after all, treated her and her sisters as disposable children. She knew something terrible had happened, all those years ago, between him and her mother, to make them carve their family in two, to send her mother fleeing back home to America with