Addictive Rimeshade

by Poppet

  Jotünheim is where we'll escape to once Ewan tracks us to the volcano in Iceland. I prefer Jotünheim; it has the mountain, the glacier, and the deepest fjord in Norway. Once we're in that hideaway he'll never locate her. I'm taking her to Hel. First she gets my fire, then she gets my ice, only after her initiation will I let her out to play 'catch the idiots' with harii and ulfhednar.

  Sköll is the schemer and he gives me his scandalous grin, “Don't let Ewan know she's willing. Let Ewan think we've kidnapped her. He gets reckless when he's angry, and I can't wait to break his pride with his mistakes. Humble pie is best served to Eagle in broken regurgitated crumbs covered in hellhound drool.”

  I nod, knowing I'm wasting precious time with my grandsons when I need to be wooing the lady of the homestead. “Devise a way. Leave your message in the tree on the left of the driveway. I demand privacy and you two are cramping my style. Send Fenrir in your stead, he at least listens to direct orders.”

  Mirroring each other they give me their 'we're so baked' laugh, the giggles of a hippy so deep inside his LSD stash he can smell colors and prism sound.

  Hati dips his head to mock me, “Yá friðr, but we are vigr.” (Yes father, but we are able to fight.) The source of a bloodline is always called father, even though their father is my son Fenrir, they call me it too.

  “I know you are able, but that isn't your role right now. You are to take the trackers far away while I gain the home court advantage. Go skiing, go hunting, just fuck off and take her scent with you. Let the idiots follow you all over the old lands. The snowstorms will infuriate their trackers and make them look like the incompetent fools that they are.”

  Fenrir will execute their plan and have my back. If there's one thing the damned have acquired, it is cunning. It's a badge we wear with honor.

  Turning away from my offspring I follow the scent of the lady of the lair. There is something in her smell that is deeply distracting.

  Glancing at my boys, they are back in wolf form, devouring their meals, forever trying to outdo each other. One day they'll eat that fast only to discover broken glass at the bottom of the feast. Their competitive playfulness will be their achilles heel.

  Why does my áss refuse to acknowledge the symbolism of the prophecy? If they devour the sun and moon it's because to them it is a game, not a malicious plot to overthrow Æsir. I'm fed up with his ás-móðr. The dude has anger issues. How I can be his relative is one of the sad ironies of life.

  Ready to show her the magic of a god I walk into the living room, realizing too late my kin and myself are still operating at immortal speed. She's just sat down, unaware we've had a conversation and the twins have bolted into the night to wreak havoc with the hunters.

  My vargynja (she-wolf) smells of secrets and wishes dipped in mead, slow smoked in the heat of Asgard. The urge to taste her becomes overwhelming and I catch her hand, smiling when it seems to stun her complacent.

  After I remake her with fire, I'm bonding our bodies. Ewan and his minions and his angry god can't undo what I've made. I am outside their rules and limitations. It's the loophole I love to exploit in the god contract. I am as much Æsir and ás-kunnigr (god kin) as they are. I am a god, and when they excommunicated me I tasted true freedom. I answer to no one, and they cannot undo me with their smiting and contracts because none of their contracts apply to me. I am a real god; I am the one who lives in a state of peace because I am forsaken, free of their petty ego clashes and skirmishes for power.

  Odin's grandson will find his fury will have no home when he faces me.

  I can't wait for that standoff. Impotent and Ewan are two words no one would foresee when describing the fiercest berserker living and breathing in this age.

  I will nullify his rage, beginning with this rite.

  Breathing across her hearth I watch as the kindling ignites. Catching my light, I offer it to her. Take my fire Lara... you will never be cold again, and no darkness will penetrate you when you are a living lamp.

  *

  Lara:

  His subterfuge so completely distracted me that I sit up abruptly, barely avoiding colliding noses with him.

  He withdraws, giving me a smoldering stare of scorching lust, “What is the matter, sváss?”

  I'm so angry that for half a second he derails my ire with his strange word. “What's sfuss?” I ask, yanking my cardigan closed and getting to my feet, glaring at him.

  “Beloved.”

  He says it with such soft reverence that I almost lose my rage. Almost.

  “You're about to find out,” I snap, stomping off to the kitchen to break that bastard's face.

  Marching to war, I halt in my kitchen to stare at the vacant room, the beers flattened, the food consumed, and the empty bowls left on the floor where I put them.

  “That's impossible.” Shocked, I can't understand how anyone could eat that fast. Twisting to yell back to the living room I almost have heart failure at the silent stranger loitering behind me. “Where did they go?” I ask him.

  He nudges his head at the back door, “Out.” Maneuvering to stare at me from the side, he gives me a sly smile, “You are enraged? What makes such a precious petal wilt with such anger?”

  Jeez, lay it on thick.

  Pointing at 'out', my voice shakes with emotion, “I was going to slap him into next week. How could you let a man stick his nose in my crotch like that? That was disgusting and completely unacceptable.”

  Leug's shoulders shake with silent laughter, his sexy smile softening broody features, “It is their way. You have become one of the pack, they must know your scent so they associate you as friend and not foe. It was done by the pack leader, he keeps the others in line. He had to do that so he can help keep you safe. It was not a deliberate affront, sváss. It was to respect you once you leave the safety of your lair.”

  “Well on my turf men who do that end up with broken noses. There are other less invasive methods to pass on a scent. I've seen bloodhounds with more sensitivity than that savage.”

  “You have yet to see savage,” he mutters with bitterness.

  My heart is pounding with this weird turn of events. I'm still turned on and it's wreaking havoc with my ability to stay angry and in control.

  I'm completely alone with him, and now that terrifies and excites me in equal measure.

  “Why are you here? I don't believe this is a coincidence.”

  He moves away, staring down at me with eyes darker than the cosmos, and just as mysterious. “Because I want to show you my home. I want to take you on an adventure.”

  What?

  “Why me?” I whisper, feeling stupidly awestruck by his proposal. If I hadn't seen those boys shift in my own kitchen I'd think he was a nutter having me on, but I have seen him shift too and know this is the real deal.

  Recapturing my hand, placing a soft kiss on my abused wrist, he purrs, “You are a lady I have searched many years to find. You are different.”

  Stiffening, I summon my glare, “Different?”

  Call me a freak, go on. I know I'm not Suzy Homemaker but that doesn't make me strange, it makes me an equal instead of an underling.

  And even as I consider this argument I know I've already bowed down to the stereotype by fussing over him, feeding him and wanting to tend to his comfort. I've already walked the plank and damned my equality.

  Leaning his shoulder against the kitchen door frame, he smiles, “I'm different too. This world needs different. We are the balance.”

  “I'm nothing like you,” I blurt, speaking my thoughts without censoring them first.

  “And that is a good thing.” Standing erect again, stepping his sternum up to my nose so I feel dwarfed in my own passage, he lowers his head to mumble in my ear, “I'm not attracted to myself, Lara. You are intoxicating.”

  Inhaling audibly, the way he did to the storm cursing the ground, the gesture makes me lightheaded.

  Can he smell me the way his dog did? What the hell?

  Cur
ling warm fingers around my nape, commanding my head closer to his lips, he exhales against my earlobe, “I have so many pleasures to show you.”

  Closing my eyes while my soul is sucked into his thrall, it's all I can do to breathe.

  Slowly, excruciatingly, he captures my bottom lip between his, sliding that warm tongue between my lips the way he did my fingers, sending my self-preservation back to kayaking down the river Haydes.

  When he breaks the bond I'm breathless, my heart pounding so hard it hurts, my legs locked in paralysis. I feel it deep inside me, on a primal level, I know he is greater than every man to walk this earth. I feel his immortal power infusing my aura, stroking the energy of my spirit, teasing it to transcend to a level where I have no fear... or control.

  “You see into me sváss, and I see into you. You are the reflection of my potential.”

  “Hmmm?” I whimper, unable to find words. I'm still lost in the allure of his attraction. My polarity is so screwed up that my logic is in my pants, my mind's already running up and down the street screaming 'I'm gonna get laid', and my heart is doing the mosh-pit thrash at the thought of a love so complicated I can lose myself in it. I am a sacrifice. It's only when you lose yourself in another that you know who you are. You have to discard all boundaries of self to find your-'self'.

  He's going to reveal to me what I am when the world is stripped away and all that's left is my quintessence.

  That's why I feel giddy, I'm already astral-planing with him.

  So much potency, just a touch, a caress, and I'm powerless because of my desire to soar to the heights only his freedom can provide.

  You set me free.

  It hits me, leaving a crater in my conscience. Leug is here to set me free.

  What does that mean?

  The heat roiling off his chest is burning my sinus with his hazy spiciness. It's like cardamom and marjoram stuck in an aromatherapy burner, diffusing summer and sand dunes into my environment while a lazy sirocco breath curls my veins into love-knots.

  Catching my chin, forcing me to look into his eyes, he murmurs across my lips, “You read me as if my fingerprints are your own. No one has done that. If you can see into me that easily then you are the one I can find intimacy with. Real intimacy.”

  It reminds me of something I once saw. A lady saying, into-me-see = intimacy.

  Leug you don't just into me see, you already have a campfire burning in my chest, igniting my dark secrets with a pyre incinerating all regrets and caution.

  This time I don't stop to question or second guess, I close the gap to meet his tempting mouth, standing on tiptoes to cradle his neck with my hand, tugging his head down to sample the taste of god.

  Chapter 5

  lick him up

  he's the tequila, I'm the lime

  ~The Gemini Journal

  Lara:

  In this lethargic filtered night, brewed with the heat of a simmering fire, my soul is granulated into useless particles. All arguments are vanquished when my logic commits suicide, the only room in this dim den is for sensation... and I am entirely at its mercy.

  The living ember he hid under my skin to escape out of my neck seems to have left a signature lava trail which begins to throb when he has lascivious intent. It's like having a slow burning fever blazing with every flick of a tongue's tip; pressure, raunchy stimulation... in a nutshell... ignited by Leug.

  He just has to look at me 'that way' and it starts to melt my veins into a useless tangle of carnage. Leug gives me Christmas tree-light syndrome. Just one look and good luck unknotting my nervous system.

  Splayed on the cushions, the vodka consumed and distilling my ability to reason, I wallow under the lazy graze of stubble on skin, his kneading fingers following the trail of kisses and licks.

  Hmmmm...

  This makes me as useless as jello in a mud pie. I'm just wallowing in my stupor waiting for high tide to crash in and finish me, sating my craving.

  *

  Leug:

  Pleasure ebbs through her synapses. I'm fascinated by the ecstatic spark of life under her skin wherever my touch traces. Her shivers of adulation cheer on my exploration to the soundtrack of her appreciative mumbles and moans.

  Closing my eyes I inhale again, following the map of her soul, hunting the source of that esoteric scent. I follow the tingle with my tongue, testing it with the pressure of my thumbs, making sure I am on the right course using three of my supra-senses.

  Concentrating, I find a celestial nodule at the base of her spine. Licking it harder to test the static fizzing from that point, she arches, exhaling a euphoric groan, infusing the air with a flood of sensual temptation.

  It may be savage and carnal but I've reached the end of my self-control.

  “God, you have amazing hands,” croons huskily, into the slow beat of music, endlessly looping every forty minutes to the symphony of flame's percussion.

  She flexes to adjust the tush I'm leaning on, billowing her lusty panacea right under my nose. Watching the muscles lining her spine crest and oscillate in the flickering light, I'm completely distracted.

  Real intimacy. What would that feel like?

  I wonder how much women have changed? Every age has new regulations and limitations. If my instinct is still acute, then I know how easily I can pillage her sacred passage in my bid to lock into the energy which diffuses her perfume into thirty flavors of perfect. Her skin is alive with the signature flecks of fröst. The fröst is mine, it infuses my colors and light across the world - and yet the rainbow lurks under her skin like a lure to catch the fisherman.

  Fascinating creature.

  Absolutely mesmerizing to touch... and taste. It's my inherent Ás ability that lets me see the aura dancing under her skin like the aurora borealis, but it means she has the same blood in her veins as I do. A match made in Asgard, long before it had a name.

  Testing her willingness to bond with me I slide my palm under her, across a taut torso, right into the obscenely low waistband of her jeans. It pleases me irrationally to brush my fingers across a moist warm haven. Sipping slippery sexiness onto my fingertips, I paint my fingerprints with silkiness so sublime it's succulent and addictive.

  Lara flops her head forward, cradling her face on her forearms, exhaling an audible hiss of submission through her teeth.

  Frowning at the soft hairless discovery, I delve deeper, wondering why women stopped wearing skirts. Ours wore trousers in battle, skirts at home. It made it easier to ransack and plunder, but then maybe this is karma. Karma does like to turn her wheel in sudden jolts of irony. It's not a graceful arc but an abrupt and painful jolt across the pinnacle of pain. She always plays the fairground with the hand of a sadist.

  Knees spreading, Lara wriggles to loosen the tension of the denim, encouraging the tactile penetration of my marauding fingertips. The invitation is too blatant not to acknowledge.

  That's the sign I was looking for. If a lady has no intention of bedding you, she won't let you anywhere near that seductive crevice. But if she's willing she allows it as foreplay, encouraging mating in the sublime language of squeaks and sighs. And of course, body language.

  Nothing says fuck me into a pile of ash like the body language of total acceptance and submission.

  Okay then, let's see what you're hiding in here little Lara.

  Flipping her, my hands poised either side of her torso, I smile when her head lolls back off the cushions, tilting her face to the fire the way a victim is held off a bed in the prone position of trust. Her cheeks are blushed with alcohol and firelight, lethargic and supple when I extract her body from cumbersome blue jeans.

  She maintains the poise, praising raw and dangerous flame, her worship subconscious, showing me a long pale neck and the silhouette of a perfect chin.

  Holding her thighs down I examine the palette of soft skin. It's ethereal, creamy as mother-of-pearl, and just as smooth. The only pearls on this oyster are pink and hard, puckering to pierce the darkness for a kiss;
or a hot suck to relax them, only to tease them tense again. I've never seen such a pale human before. She has the coloring of Hlaðguðr, pallid as alabaster, hair like spun chalk in shades of shaved ice, the pink bits on her body so diluted they barely edge onto the pastel end of the spectrum.

  She is gossamer... like an evanescing dream. Stone washed, wrung out, and dreamy as the one who wears the same colors. Skadi is this pale, this blond, this perfect. A walking snowflake with the temperament of a blizzard.

  Lara is a glorious canvas, the impression virginal.

  Pushing her ankles up, bending her knees, I inhale close, tracking that exquisite fragrance. Pressing my lips against the hairless delicacy, it's softer than mallow, clustering my nerves into a pinpoint of obliterating need.

  It's inside.

  You have a treasure buried within you? But it's one I must sample.

  Swirling my tongue across her entrance, she inhales with such sharp intensity that I'm tempted to laugh. Sinking my tongue into the succulent silk of her skin, reality tilts, the room magnifies in pulsing flares of magma, the fire becoming a frenzied sea of flame trying to spill out of the hearth in recognition of the chaos raging through my muscles. This astral aroma mingled with her lust is making me sweat in the neglected niches of my soul.

  My eyes glaze red with obsession and I can't withhold my desire to find the origin of this omniscient energy. To lock onto it and pick it apart, to understand why she carries the source of angels inside her. I want to suck on it until my tongue is coated with the psychedelic flavor. It induces psychosis so vivid my sac contracts in a flare of fervent fever.

  Nuzzling, delving into the ambrosian nectar, I can't reach it.

  Yearning flicks tremors of insane need right from my base to my head, blasting my vision with a jolt of transcendent heat.

  Becoming desperate, I maneuver my jeans off to slither up her body, relaxing onto plump cleavage, relishing the caress of her baby-soft belly agitating the hairs on mine, my pores saturated with her smell; the signature essence currently being strewn across the highlands and lowlands of every northern territory.