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This was everything she had ever dreamed about and more. More, because it was real. It was raw at times. Gut-emptying hard.

But so, so good.

MELANTHA STARTED awaketo a heavy hand over her mouth and Rharreth’s voice harsh against her ear. “Melantha, grab your knife.”

She clawed her way awake, fumbling for the troll dagger Rharreth had given her at their wedding, which she had left on the table near her side of the bed. “What is going—”

The clash of metal against metal sounded from outside their door. Shouting. A cry of pain.

Their door burst open. Melantha only caught a glimpse of Zavni’s back and crowding trolls swinging swords and axes at him before Rharreth gripped her elbow and physically tossed her off the far side of the bed.

She shrieked as she fell, but she landed on her stomach, the fur rug breaking her fall. Her elbow and wrists ached from the impact. She lay there a moment, trying to catch her breath and her bearings. What was happening? Who was attacking? Why?

It did not matter. Right now it was time for action.

Melantha pushed to her feet, grabbed the knife from the table, and whirled to face the clashing of weapons as she drew the knife from its sheath.

Rharreth had joined Zavni and parried a sword thrust with only the elven knife and his magic for protection. He was not dressed for battle. The muscles in his back strained beneath the loose shirt pulled taut across his shoulders while his bare feet scuffed across the fur rugs as he and Zavni were pushed back from the sheer weight of bodies pouring through the doorway.

Rharreth’s sword and belt hung from a peg next to their closet, a sign of how secure Rharreth felt in his own home.

With a deep breath, Melantha darted across the room, bashing her hip against the bedpost in her haste. She was not dressed for battle either, not in her loose, gray nightgown. At least it was flannel and not some flimsy thing.

Her fingers closed around the leather of Rharreth’s sword sheath, and she fumbled to draw the sword. He would be too busy fighting to draw it himself.

A cry of pain came from behind her. Melantha whirled, Rharreth’s sword in one hand, her dagger in the other.

One of the trolls attacking Zavni stumbled back as Zavni withdrew his sword from the attacking troll’s stomach. Rharreth yanked Zavni back, then blasted a wall of ice, blocking off the door and the attacking trolls.

“Nirveeth?” Rharreth asked, not taking his gaze away from the wall of ice, even as he added more ice to reinforce it.

“Dead.” Zavni’s mouth pressed into a tight line. Only then did Melantha notice the red soaking the side of his tunic and down his right leg.

In the near darkness of a room lit only by the light of the torches in the passageway filtering through the ice wall, Melantha hurried across the room and held out Rharreth’s sword. When he sheathed his dagger and took the sword, she called on her magic and touched her hand to Zavni’s side. She did not have time to think about Nirveeth, Zavni’s tall, almost silent shadow, lying dead outside that wall of ice.

“Put on something warm.” Rharreth did not look at her either as he kept guard over his temporary wall. From the other side came the sounds of their attackers chipping away at the ice with their swords and axes. Sections shuddered under assault of magic, but none were able to overpower Rharreth’s magic. Yet.