Dream of Me/Believe in Me

broad, bare shoulders. “That Irish girl, Brita, told me. She overheard you by the stable, telling Cymbra you wouldn't believe anything she said until you were sure she wasn't under duress. Brita tried to intervene later when everything happened, but some of the women dragged her off, thinking they were doing it for her own good. You can imagine how she felt since she was more or less certain Cymbra was with child.”
    Wolf sat down abruptly. He stared at his brother in disbelief. “You knew she was pregnant?”
    “I knew there was a damn good chance, but Brita swore Cymbra didn't know. She thought that was really funny, Cymbra being a healer and all.”
    “Funny,” Wolf repeated, stunned by what his brotherhad kept from him. Yet in all fairness, Dragon had the right of it. As it was, he had scarcely been able to wait for the first thaw. Had he known Cymbra was with child, he might have been pushed into an act of madness that would have risked his own life and those of any who followed him. Dragon had spared him that, for which he would be grateful—someday.
    “She thought that
until
everything happened, then she was worried sick.”
    “So she confided in
you?”
    Dragon smiled modestly. “Women like me. It's a curse, to be sure, but I bear it.”
    Hawk laughed but stopped abruptly when he caught sight of the Wolf's expression. Hastily, he said, “It all worked out for the best.”
    Wolf surveyed the pair. Slowly, his scowl gave way to a broad smile. He sat back on the bench, folded his powerful arms behind his head, and contemplated the future. “True enough it has—for me. We'll have to see what happens with the two of you.”
    Despite the heat of the sauna, Hawk and Dragon exchanged looks of frozen horror. That amused the Wolf even further. He was in high good humor when he returned to his wife.
    H E FOUND CYMBRA SITTING UP IN THE BED, FRESHLY bathed and gowned, her hair in ribbons and her child in her arms. She looked up from her contemplation of the little one, bestowing on her husband a smile that would have stolen his heart had it not already been hers.
    Her eyes widened as she beheld him. Gone was the fierce Viking warrior of the day before. He had bathed and shaved and was garbed not in armor but in a tunic of deep purple trimmed with bands of gold. His thick, ebony hair was secured at the nape of his neck, revealing more clearlythan ever the harshly beautiful planes and angles of his face. Arm rings of gold glinted around his powerful biceps and the wolf's-head torque shone at his throat.
    At the sight of it, her hand flew to her own bare neck. He saw the gesture and smiled. Drawing a small wooden chest from behind his back, he held it out to her. “Looking for this?”
    She opened it to find her jewels, including the torque he had given her on their wedding day. With trembling hands, she drew it out. Wolf stepped closer to the bed. Gently, he took the torque from her and with great care placed it around her throat. The wolf's diamond eyes gleamed in the morning sun.
    The baby woke then, opening eyes the same deep blue as his mother's yet surrounded by rims of silver. He looked up at his father solemnly. Wolf reached out to touch a hand so tiny it would have disappeared into his own palm. To his surprised delight, his son grasped his finger and held on firmly.
    “Strong little cuss,” Wolf murmured with a grin.
    “And in need of rather a different name than that,” his wife chided. Smiling tenderly at the two males she adored, she said, “What think you of calling him Hakon?”
    Deeply touched that she would think to name their son for his grandfather, Wolf nodded. But a moment later he was grinning again as his son made his own opinion known.
    “We may name him Hakon but I suspect he's more likely to be known as Lion. Surely that roar is worthy of the king of the beasts.”
    Cymbra laughed but didn't disagree. With just a little nervousness for a task still so new, she set him to her breast. He rooted around for a moment before finding what he sought. Silence descended, to the great relief of the besotted parents.
    A MAZING, HAWK MUTTERED A FEW DAYS LATER AS he stood in the chapel listening to his nephew's response as the holy water of baptism was placed on his brow. The baby's bellow of outrage reverberated off the stone walls, causing Brother Joseph to speed up his prayers noticeably. To the intense relief of all assembled, Norse and Saxon alike, the good monk finished quickly and