by C. R. Jane
Jerrik and Svend watched us, their breaths gone ragged with their own arousal. My awareness of their hungry gazes stoked the flames of desire inside me. I climbed onto the bench, straddling Gunnar, twining my tongue with his as we fell into another kiss. Yes. Every shiver, every tingle—they all belonged to me. This body that contained them was part of who I was now.
I’d be damned if I ever let anyone take it away from me.
Gunnar raised his hands to fondle my breasts. Each caress of his fingers sent deeper waves of pleasure coursing through my chest. I rocked on his lap, against the hard bulge of his erection straining at his pants. His kisses turned wilder, though no less tender.
I knew what I wanted. I wanted to be filled in a way I never had been before. To feel how this body could take in another’s in a way that could bring us even more bliss than I’d already found.
At my light shove, Gunnar lay back on the bench, propping himself up with his good shoulder. I yanked down his pants and underclothes. His cock sprang free, gloriously hard and erect. I leaned over him, letting my sex slide against the length of it. The giant groaned and tugged my mouth to his for another kiss, even wilder than before.
My wetness slicked over his hard length. This body was more than ready. Gripping him for a moment, I eased myself down. A whimper broke from my throat as I took him deeper and deeper. Pleasure trembled all through my nerves. Oh, dear gods, how had I lived for so long without ever knowing bliss like this was possible?
I pushed myself upright again, squeezing my hips, riding him with each pulse up and down. Gunnar clutched my thigh. His other hand skimmed up me to tweak my nipples again, his face flushed with need. I ran my fingers over his solid chest, soaking up the feel of him. Giving myself over to the frantic burn of ecstasy.
I sank deeper onto him, and he hit a spot inside me no one had ever touched before. My limbs shuddered, and then I was coming, coming so hard a gasp wrenched out of me and my head seemed to float up toward the ceiling on the cresting of pleasure.
“Muninn,” Gunnar said hoarsely. His grip on my thigh tightened, and he filled me even more with a gush of liquid heat.
I rocked to a stop over him, my chest heaving. I felt so good, but it still wasn’t enough. I needed more.
I kissed Gunnar softly and eased off of him. Watching me, he must have guessed what I intended. He stroked his hand over my hair and stood up from the bench.
My gaze found Svend next. Lust and longing danced in his bright brown eyes. I held out my hand to him. “Take me.”
He didn’t need me to make the request twice. In an instant, he was leaning over me, tipping me back on the bench. The hard stone braced me. I teased my fingers down his front and cupped his groin, finding him just as hard.
The dark elf’s breath stuttered. “Lovely lady,” he murmured, and dipped his head for a searing kiss. It went on and on as I fumbled with his trousers and his hand slid down my body to caress the little nub between my legs. It was so sensitive now that I cried out into his mouth the second his thumb flicked over it, shot through with a bolt of pleasure.
Svend paused just long enough to haul off his shirt. The sight of those sculpted muscles made my mouth water. I splayed my thighs around him, urging him onward, and he plunged inside me.
“Oh gods,” he said with a choked sound. “You can’t imagine how good you feel.”
A giggle tumbled out of me. “I can. I’m feeling it.” The giggle turned into a moan as he swiveled his hips, stretching me in heady new ways. This was my body, soaring on pleasure. This was my body, welcoming him, singing with sensation at every thrust.
Svend slipped his hand between us to rub that blissful spot just above my core as he bucked into me even faster, and I spiraled off into ecstasy again. My eyes rolled back with a flash of sparks.
“So good. So damned good,” Svend was murmuring, and it was. It was. Even more so when I felt him join me, spilling himself with a groan.
Every bit of me was quivering with fulfilled need, but I wasn’t done yet. As Svend sat up, I pushed myself upright with him. My eyes locked with Jerrik’s. He wet his lips, and his mouth curved into a wry grin.
“Shall we take each other, Miss Raven?” he said.
“Please,” I said. I stood up as he stepped forward, and our mouths collided.
His tongue slicked across my lips. He grasped me by the waist and swung us around to brace me against the wall. The heat of his body soaked into me from head to toe. I ground myself against his erection, and he let out a stuttered chuckle. Then he was kissing me again, deeply and desperately, as we yanked at his pants together.
He grazed the tip of his cock over my sex, so teasingly I whimpered. I clutched his shoulders, but he dipped his head and lifted my breast to catch it in his mouth. A full moan rippled out of me as he worked his tongue over the nipple, rocking against me but not quite penetrating me at the same time.
I tangled my fingers in his hair, strands spilling from his ponytail, and tugged his lips back to mine. My other hand covered his around his erection. We guided his cock into me together.
Another release was building inside me, swift and shimmering. I bucked against Jerrik, and he met me with each thrust. As one hand held onto my hip to steady me, his other traveled over the tender skin of my neck, my breasts, my ass. I pressed into his touch. My body, that they all took such pleasure in. My body, that responded with such pleasure in turn. A different kind of flying.
With that thought, I came once more, with a gasp and a crash of pleasure that lifted me off the wall. Jerrik plunged even deeper into me and reached his release at the same time. He leaned in, tilting his head to claim another kiss.
Every inch of my body was humming with satisfaction now. Satisfaction and a sense of presence I hadn’t felt before. Mine, all mine—these arms, these legs, the naked skin that covered them.
I tipped back my face as Jerrik eased away from me. My eyes slid closed, and a new fluttering emerged in my belly, rising through my chest. I was this human, this woman three men had just adored. And I was a raven too.
I contracted into my feathered form in a snap, with a triumphant cry. My wings flapped automatically. I soared up to the cave room’s ceiling, my avian senses tasting the currents of the air, finding a crevice my human eyes hadn’t even noticed. I flung myself up through it.
Up, up, and out into the red glow of the fiery realm. My wings unfurled completely. The feel of that tepid wind buffeting my feathered body was everything I’d been longing for. I let it pull me up toward the gray sky and whirled in a loop. I was myself again. I was where I belonged.
And yet not. Before I’d even finished my first loop, my heart was tugging me back downward.
Part of me belonged on my feet on the ground now. Part of me felt just as much longing for the men down below as I’d once longed for my wings.
I folded them close to my body and dove. The air warbled past me as I shot down through the dark crevice, into the room where I’d lost myself to pleasure and found myself in it too.
I shifted purposefully this time, my human legs springing out in time to catch me firmly on the stone floor. My dress drifted back into place against my skin as if I’d never shed it. Well, that was convenient.
The three guys were staring at me. Perhaps hearing a person was a raven was a little different from seeing that person actually transform into one.
“I’m back,” I said tentatively.
The sound of my voice stirred them from their daze. “You’re lovely in every form, Muninn,” Svend said, blinking.
Gunnar nodded, his expression awed.
Jerrik grasped my hand and pulled me to him. “I wasn’t quite done with you yet,” he said in his familiar wry tone, and kissed me again, so thoroughly I tingled right through to the tips of my fingers.
When he stepped back, I looked around at all of them. Excitement and nervousness jittered through me. It was still going to be a difficult, dangerous task, making it to the gates. But I was ready.<
br />
“What are we waiting for?” I said. “Let’s storm that fortress.”
Chapter 10
The heat from the magma moat wafted over my feathers as I wheeled over the fortress wall. I just needed to be close enough to catch a taste of Surt’s memories. To conjure a sight that would draw him and his guards out and away from the gates so my lovers could slip in.
Plenty of wisps drifted from within the fortress walls. The blazing giant wasn’t the only one inside. I tasted blood, smelled fear. Lashes of whips, the press of searing blades. The wrench of a pike through some hapless soul’s gut, the wielder both horrified and relieved to be the one delivering rather than receiving the blow.
Finally, I caught a glimpse that felt familiar. The shining halls of Asgard cast in shadows and lashed by flames. The sweep of a sword tinged with fire before it slammed into Freyr’s gut. A hollow laugh as the god collapsed.
I focused on the burnt iron flavor of that recollection, reaching for more from the same source. Images flitted past me: the thundering charge of giants, the final rush of flames. Then, earlier, Surt’s voice ringing out as he called thousands of his fellow giants to storm Asgard, pride glowing through him at the sight of them all marching to his call.
Hmm. I might be able to make use of that.
The dragon was sleeping on the fortress roof again. I took care not to circle close enough to disturb it. I swooped back over the wall and landed on the jagged heap of stones my three companions were taking shelter behind, just a few paces from the moat.
“Did you get what you need?” Gunnar murmured.
I nodded with a bob of my raven head. I didn’t want to risk shifting back into human form to talk with them properly. They trusted I’d get this job done. And I needed to do it quick, before any of Surt’s minions caught a whiff of my Asgardian nature.
Hopping around on the stone, I fixed my gaze on the rocky plain beyond the moat in front of the wall’s looming door. As my body clenched with effort, one and then another and then another figure shimmered into being: an army of giants nearly as vast as the one Surt had summoned all that time ago.
Except this army had a god leading the charge. Freyr, god of prosperity in all its forms, raised his shining golden head and pointed a sword toward the fortress. His light tenor, conjured from both my own memories and Surt’s, pealed out across the plain.
“Oh, giant! I have come to pay back to you the blow you dealt to me. Even your people are eager to see you fall now.”
The dragon stirred on the rooftop. Movement darted along the fortress walls. Guards, I assumed, running to inform their master what was happening. Below me, Jerrik’s jaw had gone slack, staring at my creation. Svend chuckled roughly under his breath.
“That’s some power, my lovely feathered one.”
I ruffled my wings. I didn’t need their compliments—I needed them ready to run. Jerrik caught my eye and tipped his head. The three of them waited, muscles tensed.
Surt couldn’t resist this draw. I’d suspected he’d have to confirm with his own eyes that the reports were true. The great door yawned open into a bridge across the moat.
A giant who really was gigantic in form and presence strode into the doorway, flanked by a troop of figures of varying heights and shapes—his army drawn from the outcasts banished to this realm. Surt’s beard whipped in a gust of wind, gray as steel now. His narrowed eyes were equally hard. He held the immense sword I remembered from all those centuries ago, a gleam of flame already dancing along its length.
“You dare challenge me on my own ground?” he bellowed. “Brethren, you can’t really be helping this pale shade of a god.”
The rows of giants I’d summoned stayed still and silent. I cocked my head, and Freyr smirked.
Surt bristled. “You’ll regret your arrogance.”
He waved his arm, and a horde of creatures swept forward at his call. The dragon swooped down from the rooftop with a roar. Black spidery creatures as tall as my human shoulders scrambled down the stone walls, pincers gleaming sharp. Vast lizards ten times the size of the salamanders that had leapt at me in the tunnels came squirming out of the moat. Even under my feathers, my skin started to crawl.
What I’d done might not be enough. And if this mob caught hold of us…
The dragon’s flames rippled over my creations. The other beasts hurtled into their midst. I let the figures stir with the flickers of memory still lingering in the air, raising fists, swinging hammers and spears. But dozens burst into dust, shaking too hard for my concentration to hold them. Only Freyr stood steady, completely unwavering. He was the key.
Surt frowned at the sight before him. He gestured to his guards and marched forward, sword held at the ready. “What mischief are you making here?” he snapped. “If you want to fight, fight. I won’t stand for being taunted with illusions.”
Their boots clanged over the bridge—and off it. As they strode across the plain to meet the supposed Freyr, I let out a faint caw to the three men below me. This was our chance.
I pushed off, and the guys leapt from behind the heap of rocks at the same time. We raced on wings and feet along the edge of the moat to the bridge. Surt was still yelling at Freyr, but I couldn’t hear the words over the wind hissing past me. As long as my Freyr held long enough, kept him distracted long enough…
I dove through the doorway into the fortress’s courtyard. Jerrik, Gunnar, and Svend dashed after me. “Inside,” Svend said, waving to the looming building. “I think the gates are inside.”
He wrenched open the nearest door in that mountainous structure—and someone shouted from a window. Damn. I cawed at my lovers to hurry and flew into the fortress with all the speed my wings could give me.
We threw ourselves down a hall and spilled out into a domed room where the air reverberated with a faint hum. The power I could sense radiated from the far end. Another door, locked, stood between us and our goal.
Gunnar gritted his teeth and took a run at it. It shook with the slam of his shoulder. Svend held up his hand, and they charged together. The lock snapped. We burst through.
The room on the other side was long and narrow with a ceiling far above our heads. Patches of darkness shimmered against the smooth stone of the far wall. I could taste them now—the gates. Alfheim lay right in front of us, Asgard to the left of it, Midgard farther to the right.
I shifted into human form in a blink, the change coming over me as naturally as breathing now. “That one leads to Midgard,” I said, pointing. “The second one—”
The door slammed open behind us. One of those spidery creatures tackled me to the ground. My still-healing shoulder smacked the ground so hard I couldn’t bite back a groan.
No, no, no. More of them fell on the men, pinning each of my lovers to the ground.
Guards circled us, weapons drawn. I thrashed against the beast’s hold, but I couldn’t move my limbs more than an inch beneath its arched legs. Spittle dribbled down its pincers. My chest clenched.
This was it. I’d failed. My lovers were going to die because of that failure.
The ground trembled with Surt’s heavy footsteps. He emerged through the doorway, his gaze so fierce his eyes seemed to hold the same fire as his sword. The sword he was still clutching. He pointed it at Gunnar, the nearest of the guys.
“What in Hel’s name is the meaning of this treacherous magic? You’ll answer me now or die.”
“It was me!” I burst out in a voice little more than a squawk. “My magic. My plan. You want answers, you deal with me.”
I was probably only sparing the others pain for a moment. But the blazing giant swiveled toward me. He took in my wiry form with a look of obvious disbelief.
“You?” Then his lips curled into a grimace. “You’re of Asgard.”
He raised his sword, and in a blink I saw he didn’t care about answers now. He’d slay me first, and then my lovers, rather than let us speak.
But I also saw, roiling around him like a storm cloud,
a memory I hadn’t gleaned before from that greater distance.
A face I knew nearly as well as my own feathers glowered at a different Surt, longer ago, when that beard was still brown and that face less grizzled. You like your flames so well, Odin boomed, I know just the place for you to find a new home. You served your purpose, blazing one.
A wallop of hot air and a splitting pain down Surt’s spine as the Allfather had hurled the giant down into Muspelheim. A stab of vengeful fury all through the giant’s chest.
In that instant, that remembered fury lit an angry flame in my own heart. This was all Odin’s fault. The torment Surt had inflicted on this horrid realm’s survivors. The wounds and battering I’d taken since I’d arrived here. This moment, right now, when I might lose my life and my men theirs for a desire so simple as to find a proper home.
What did the Allfather care, if it all served his purpose? I’d been loyal to him for so long, never lived for myself until this past day, and this was the wretched gift he’d given me in return.
People can be anything when they’re happy, he’d said. It’s when they’re frightened or in pain that their deepest essence rises to the surface. So right he’d been.
And my deepest essence did not belong to him.
Surt’s arms tensed to deliver the fatal blow.
“You don’t want to do that,” I spat out. “I can give you Odin.”
The giant paused. He stared at me with his smoldering eyes. “What are you talking about? Speak fast, or you’ll lose my patience.”
The words tumbled out of me as swiftly as I could gather them. “He’s the one you really want, isn’t he? You played the role he needed you for, and he repaid you by banishing you to this stinking realm. You can pay him back in kind. I can help you. Don’t you know me, Surt? Don’t you know how I called forth the people of your memories? Should I put my black feathers back on?”
