She wet her lips. “What will you yell?” Baba didn’t move away from him, even though his face was scant inches from hers. She’d never been one afraid to dance inside the fire.
“Fell-lay-she-oh.” He drew out the word, making it sound far more naughty than it already was.
Baba had come to recognize something lately: that strange queerness she’d assumed to be magick leeching onto her after her battle with Fable. She now knew it to be not only desire, but something even a little bit deeper.
Her lips curled into a slow smile.
His irises flared, a sure sign of desire. Maybe she wasn’t the only one feeling this discombobulation. One thing Baba was, was smart. She’d never been one to deny the obvious, even when she wanted to. She was learning Freyr, learning and studying him the way she would any enemy, except he wasn’t her enemy.
Try as she might, she found it was impossible to dislike him. He didn’t need to know it quite yet. His ego was the size of the cosmos, and she’d not be adding even a farthing to it.
He cleared his throat and pulled away from her, looking deeply into the fire as she had only moments before. His eyes took on a faraway look of concentration.
Baba knew something else too. Freyr didn’t like what was happening any more than she did. When he’d come to her, he’d been little more than a cocky, arrogant god who thought to woo, tussle, and leave her. Hers was another little heart to conquer and crush, another mark to add to his incredibly long list of conquests. Except that wasn’t what was happening.
For a god of fertility and lust, he’d hardly touched her. And the only kiss they’d shared had been the one she’d forced upon him. She smirked. She might not have lust magick at her disposal, but she was far from a regular mark either.
She was Baba Yaga.
Picking up the scrying bowl she’d set aside earlier, she stared into it, studying the fire goddess inside. Tomorrow, Baba would battle her. Every other time Baba had fought, she’d fought to protect Freyr, not because she’d really wanted to—although she did but not out of any true sense of love or devotion—so much as because it was a requirement of the games and her obsessive need to win at all costs.
But tomorrow would be different. Tomorrow, she wouldn’t only be doing it because she hated to lose but because the thought of losing him was a sacrifice she was now unwilling to make. Humming softly to herself, she pretended not to notice Freyr’s quiet look of curious restlessness.
From here on out, Baba was going to play a very different game.
~*~
Freyr
Baba had walked from their tent an hour ago, to bathe, as was her nightly ritual. Freyr munched on another apple as he stared at the dancing shadows moving across the dirt from the flame’s glow. She’d said very little to him tonight—not unheard of the night before a big battle. She was studious and quiet as a mouse, he’d learned, focused like a beam on her opponent, learning all the intricate nuances of how they fought, what made them tick.
She’s bested all of them easily and not by magick alone, though her magick was substantial. The shrew was sharp as a whip. Not only did the body fascinate him, so did that brain of hers. He’d never really been one to notice a woman’s intelligence. Freya was smart, but she was his sister and immune to his fertility charms. Therefore, she didn’t count. Every other woman would turn into a dithering airhead around him whenever he’d flash a smile or crook his finger. Baba did none of those things. She gave as good as she got, sometimes even better.
The light sound of her feet returning snared his attention, and he looked up only to have his stomach bottom out and his jaw to plop open. He’d seen naked bodies aplenty. Breasts were breasts, and vaginas were a dime a dozen, except there was something hypnotically arresting about her creamy skin beneath the pale light of the moon and the glow of their fire. Her wild brown hair haloed her elfin features, making him wonder if there was elfin blood in her. She glowed like the peoples of his own Alfheim.
“Oh, come on, Fellatio. Don’t tell me a bit of jiggly female flesh is enough to make you lose your tongue.” She chuckled, sidling in next to him, so close that he smelled the scent of her rose-hip shampoo. Leaning back on her hands, she stretched her long legs out before her, crossing them at the ankles. She looked like a goddess in repose awaiting a master painter to immortalize her likeness.
Every other night when she’d gone to the river to bathe, she’d stayed out there until she’d dried off and only returned when fully dressed. He swallowed hard, scrubbing his jaw with his hand. She had shell-pink nipples. And she must be a tad cold because they were little nubs that seemed to beckon to him.
Freyr cleared his throat as the blood that’d coursed so smoothly through his body suddenly raged like an out-of-control wildfire full of heat and want. Damn it all to the pits of Hel.
Her red lips stretched into a long smile as she peeked at him from the corner of her eyes. The wench knew exactly what she was about. “Time for bed, don’t you think, idiot?”
He was beginning to think that Baba called him an idiot not because she hated him, but as a term of endearment. What a very backward female she was. It simply boggled his mind that he didn’t dislike her. She was rude, sometimes crude, and made his heart beat like the thundering hooves of wild stallions.
Bloody hell. He shoved at his now very uncomfortable, hard cock. But she’d not caught it because she’d shoved him down onto the floor, tossed her leg around his hips, flung an arm across his chest, and very promptly passed out. Her snores followed soon after.
Freyr stared up at the skins, unblinking. This was going to be a very long night.
~*~
There was something different about her the next day. It’d been some hours since she’d first stirred, getting up to go do her morning necessaries. Baba had moved very little during the night, using his body as her pillow. Only once had she rolled over, and it was because he’d shoved a finger into her spine to her make her do it when her snoring had begun to sound like a wild boar rutting.
Not that he minded, to be honest. Though they’d lain close together the past two weeks—apart from that one disastrous night after she’d kissed him, and why hadn’t she kissed him since was what he really wanted to know—but last night had felt intimate in a way it hadn’t before.
Freyr scraped the recesses of his extended memory banks and couldn’t actually recall a time when he’d ever simply slept with a woman without at least getting to stick his cock in her first. He’d thought he’d wake up grumpy at the very least, but her moss-green eyes had sparkled when she’d stared down at him and a whispered, “Good morning, Fellatio,” had been all he’d needed to get over his discontent.
Scratching the back of his head, he found himself dumbfounded all over again by what all of this might mean. Shouldn’t he feel at least a little cranky or put out?
The lilt of her laughter was what finally brought him out of his own head. She stood beside him, speaking in quiet tones with Peabrain. Baba was dressed once more in those damnable scraps of fabric she called clothes. More and more, he was coming to resent the notion that as he got to enjoy the sight of her shapely flesh, so did the other males when she walked into battle.
He wanted to ask her to change. He knew she had no clothes in her bottomless bag of spells, but he could conjure something for her. Unfortunately, his powers were limited in this realm. The rules for all the males were the same: they could help only in the most direst of circumstances, but otherwise were unable to tap into their full store of powers.
But surely a dress wasn’t beyond him. He looked at her, ready to suggest it, but again her tinkling laughter clawed at his flesh, making him break out in a wash of prickles.
No, she’d woken up in good spirits, which for Baba, was saying something. His prickly little pear was up to no good. He could see it in the way her lips held a perpetual curve. The last thing he wanted was to awaken the shrew inside of her just yet. Save that for battle.
Peabrain’s lip cu
rled. “Haven’t died yet, I see.”
Baba’s eyes glowed as she glanced over at Freyr, as if to say, “what a silly thing, he is.”
His heart swelled in his chest, and he rubbed at it uncomfortably. For some days now, Freyr had been coming to a startling epiphany. He wanted more than just Baba’s sex. He wanted sex. Obviously. But he liked talking to her too. She didn’t bore him. For someone as long lived as he, that was a minor miracle in and of itself. Her wit was as sharp as a rapier, and he reveled in it. This clearly made him a bit of a masochist because not even he found himself exempt from her barbs.
Calling him Fellatio... Who did that? Well, she did. And he couldn’t stop laughing whenever she said it. Constantly being called a baboon, an idiot, dolt, moron...he should despise her. He did not. Not even a little.
Today, things felt even worse because seemingly overnight, this affliction had only tripled in size. There were a plethora of little things he found enchantingly disarming about her. And last night, she’d come to his bed nude, and he hadn’t bloody touched her!
He should be awarded a medal for his level of restraint. He’d wanted to touch her, all right—wanted to claim her, mate her violently, reverently, in any manner possible.
It was an act of torture to keep his hands to himself. Last night, when she’d begun to snore—and really, even that was disgustingly cute—he was forced to relieve the pressure of a raging hard-on that refused to go away so that he could manage a few hours of uninterrupted sleep.
Her movements were ethereal this morning. He was bewitched, even by something as minor as her tucking a wayward strand of her nut-brown hair behind her ear. Freyr had known of Kingdom, had heard tales of the dark witch, but all of it with passing fancy, too wrapped up in his own lusty thoughts to give some witch even a minute of his precious time.
Now Baba was all he could think about. Her peachy, creamy skin that really didn’t have a single mark upon it. Her shell-pink nipples that poked out like pretty little buds tempting him to taste. The fact that she had a trimmed little bush between her thighs.
He’d tried not to look, to act the gentleman, but come on. Any male—god or not—who enjoyed the sight of feminine flesh couldn’t not look. And then he’d woken up, only to feel her pressed tight into his side, and he’d had to squeeze his eyes shut, count to twenty, and imagine that his witch wasn’t in maiden form but crone. That hadn’t worked too well either because he couldn’t imagine her being anything other than a beautiful old hag with great tits. He sighed.
Baba frowned as she finished adjusting her vest, shoving a few more vials into the pockets hidden neatly out of sight.
“What?” she snapped.
Even annoyed, she aroused him. Shifting on the balls of his feet to try and ease the insufferable ache in his balls, he shrugged, but then blurted out the thought that’d dominated his other thoughts of her. “Come here, woman.”
She lifted a brow as though to say, “excuse me,” but rather than argue, she stepped toward him. And he wanted to crow like rooster at the tiny victory. She’d actually come. Would wonders never cease?
“Well, baboon, I’m here. What do you want with me?”
He clenched his fingers because what he wanted with her was definitely not appropriate behavior for the little demon imp to see. Squashing his lusty thoughts, he said, “You need more clothes.”
Her mouth thinned dangerously, and he shook his head.
“If it were up to me, I’d watch you prance around naked all day long, every day—”
“I’m hardly nude, you prude,” she interrupted him.
Holding up a finger, he pressed on. “You go to do battle with Fiera.”
A hiss followed that statement, and he realized Peabrain had made it. The little demon apparently was in a bad mood today.
Dropping a hand to the outside curve of her luscious thigh Freyr squeezed, fighting the urge to hang on tight, tear off her pathetic excuse for underthings, and shove straight up into her. She let out a little gasp of noise that caused his erection to bob in response. Realizing it’d been a mistake to tempt fate and touch her, he released her as though burned and grinned, though he hardly felt like laughing right now.
“Unlike the other three we’ve faced, she too is a goddess and very powerful. One touch of her fire to your delicate flesh, and you’ll be—”
“Rack of Baba?” she finished for him. Laughter threaded her words.
And his lips twitched in response. “Something like that.”
She patted his chest, and like an adolescent with hormones raging out of control, he leaned into her touch, greedy for more of it.
“Not to worry, Fellatio. I’ve chosen my spells accordingly.”
Green eyes sparkled like polished emeralds winking in the sunlight. Her pale, creamy skin, so perfectly unblemished, tempted him to touch. No longer able to resist the instinct, he did just that, feathering a finger along the graceful curve of her cheek.
She held absolutely still. Her bow-shaped lips parted just slightly, and her doe eyes widened. She wet her lips, and he almost lost it. As a god versed in the arts of seduction, he knew what all these signs meant, but Baba wasn’t like other women. Her body might chemically want what he offered, but she was a woman who demanded more than simply satisfying the lusts of the flesh. Freyr rather feared she was an all-or-nothing kind of woman.
Wishing he’d never started touching her in the first place, he dropped his hand and took a step back, determined to act less impulsively in the future. Her shift in composure was so subtle few might have caught it. But after spending days with only her for company, he saw the squaring of her shoulders and the notching of her chin as a clear sign that she was aware he’d pulled back and would no longer welcome his advances.
Stomach a riot of nerves, he pushed his confusing, muddled thoughts away and focused on the present problem.
“I’ve a little magick at my disposal. What I’d like to do is craft a dress for you made of flame-retardant properties.”
Crossing her arms, she tapped her booted foot. “And this has nothing to do with my almost nakedness, you say.” She snorted, but the words lacked bite. “Fine, Fellatio, I give my consent. Only leave my arms bare. I need complete flexibility of movement. The very last thing I want it to try and throw a spell only to be hindered by a ridiculous bell sleeve.”
“No sleeves.” He almost breathed a sigh of relief that she didn’t appear to be angry with him. Weaving his fingers together, he called to the winds of magick. There was a tree in his home called a fire oak. Its leaves were a deep shade of teal and immune to the touch of fire. In fact, the leaves themselves always seemed to be lit by a perpetual halo of soft blue flame. It was merely an illusion, as touching the leaves did not burn. It was with those leaves he crafted her gown.
She held out her arms as the gown suddenly encased her slender form, cinching tight at her waist and flaring out like a confectioner’s delight at the bottom. His heart banged like a drum in his chest at the sight of a very feminine Baba Yaga.
Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he almost regretted the dress. It shouldn’t be possible that she looked more tempting fully clothed than not, but before him stood a Queen, a goddess of wild magick.
“Hm. Nice,” she said, completely unaware of the turmoil raging through him. “Well, idiot, what do you think?”
What did he think? He thought that maybe this was a big, bloody, stupid mistake and that he should put her back in her ugly leathers. Clenching his jaw, he said, “You look fine. Are we ready?”
And for a moment, he could have sworn something like a flicker of hurt had shadowed her face, but that flicker came and went like the winking out of candlelight. He shook his head because surely, Baba Yaga did not care what he thought.
“You’re acting weird, Fellatio.” She narrowed her eyes.
It was all he could do to grin back at her as though unaffected. “Don’t I always?” He nodded toward Peabrain and extended his arm. “Lead the wa
y, little demon.”
“Whatever,” he sniped and hopped toward the silvery, shimmering curtain of light that’d appeared from thin air, ready to transport them to their next battleground.
As Freyr made to walk through the veil, Baba snatched him back by the elbow. Her green eyes narrowed, and her lips pursed.
“Head in the game, idiot. Fiera’s tough as hell. And the last thing I need is my sack of meat slowing me down.”
He cocked his head. “Don’t tell me you actually care about me, hell cat?”
She snorted and moseyed on through the veil.
He suddenly couldn’t stop smiling. She’d said my.
Chapter 8
Baba Yaga
Fiera’s battlegrounds weren’t at all what Baba had expected. With Fiera being an elemental of fire, Baba had expected perhaps a wilderness of sulfur, volcanic rocks, and ash, not a barren landscape of nothing but arctic blue ice, howling winds, and dark gray skies.
“Holy sheeeet, it’s colder than a witch’s tit in a brass bra.” She hugged her arms to her chest, grateful for Freyr’s forethought in crafting her a gown that actually trapped her body heat close to her shivering flesh.
Freyr chuckled. “I could test that theory out for you if you’d like.”
“Oh, shut up.” She grinned, relieved almost beyond imagining that whatever mood had struck him back in their realm, he’d seemed to move beyond it.
The dress. She loved it. Baba was not now and never had been a girly girl. Pragmatic to the core, she did not care about such trivial pursuits such as vying for a man’s attention. She knew she was beautiful in maiden form. It went without saying. It’d never been much of an issue for her before.
But suddenly, the thought of Freyr ever seeing her in crone form made her break out in beads of sweat. She was, in a word, ugly as a crone. She’d not need to worry about that for eight months yet, so why was she even thinking about it now?
Muttering beneath her breath, she reminded herself that the time to do battle was upon her. Like she’d told him earlier, it was time for her to get her head on right and focus.
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