Addictive Rimeshade

by Poppet

  She doesn't scream, she gives short bursts of serrated breath, aching gasps with a hint of voice when she squirts into my mouth, coating my tongue with the velvet of primordial purification, burning my taste-buds with the potency of her godlight imbued in her orgasm. She glows deep within, I can see it from this angle.

  She is so curious, so unique, so extremely rare.

  Lara whimpers, groaning, “Let go.”

  Suddenly remembering the wrists clamped in my hand, I instantly release them, contrite.

  The union of my assault is successful, her now free hands reaching down to stroke my scalp in masseuse caresses.

  Kneeing me in the eye, she flops forward, into my lap, straddling me, sliding back onto me, vacuuming me back into that slick haven where muscles writhe against my erection, enticing it back to granite rigidity.

  This time she hooks fingers in my hair, and belatedly I realize I must have reverted to my original hair and eyes when I climbed into bed. My blonde hair is longer than when I withhold my true form, maintaining the image of it brown. My hair is as fair as hers, both of us being Rime gods. The venom in Odin's pen. We wear the cloak of Ymir's poison.

  Biting my lip, sucking my tongue into her mouth, she rides me, chaffing hard nipples against my chest.

  There are times in a man's life when he has to admit he's conquered by a lady. I have no desire to fight her, to hurt her. All I want is to lay her down and make the sweetest slowest excruciating love to her, feeling her glorified magma burn my heart out, charring my soul so my ashes can be powdered to dress her skin when she feels naked and vulnerable.

  I'd die for you, you're the only one I've ever wanted to be able to die, for. I would strip off my skin to make you a carpet so you never have to get your feet dirty, I want to wash your eyes with the light of forever, so you are never lost, so you can see and experience everything your heart desires, I would barter my bones to build you a bridge back to your father's realm, I would catch the constellations and fashion a new bifröst bridge for my sváss, so you can catch the wishes of the free and grant them their destiny.

  I need to give you my love so you can keep it safe. I'll be your wolf another day, but this is not that day. Lifting her off me, I force her onto the bed, pointing a warning finger in her face, “This time you wait.”

  Putting sufficient distance between us, I gut the candles so we're plunged into darkness, freeing a handful of fireflies to light the room in barely visible illumination.

  *

  Lara:

  The softly lit room flares when he opens his palms and colorful beams roll off his fingers to scroll across the floor, to my feet. It's like looking down on the aurora borealis from space, seeing lanes and reasons in the laser-like scatterings, where rays of iridescence splash and roll, mingling and twining, creating spills of luminescent tones, the patterns becoming a polka dot mind fuck.

  They glitter and pop, swirling in a dizzy array of ecstasy, pouring melted dreams in the language of angels, floating up and engulfing me in his psychedelic aura, giving me a celestial warp because the vivid colors have scent, warmth, physicality.

  Stroking, touching, humming across flesh, sizzling my nerves, tipping me inside out as if hooking me out of myself and through my senses, glazing my spirit to diaphanous and elated, the mysteries flirt me to the holy home of the perfect.

  Flaunting mood and magic, the alchemy coalesces, cloying and blinding, luxurious rapture, infiltrating my skin, seeping in, washing me alive with the seraphic breath of theurgy.

  I'm hanging off the bough of melting wind, the tree a wish blurred through the sea, throwing copper instead of throwing clay, leaving the world of sand to fall through the hourglass, decomposing ad-am, setting the little owl free to soar through the deathless acre.

  Giddy and disoriented, floating inside a bauble of charm, I close my eyes, trusting when his essence falls through me, soldering our seams in a cloud of dreams, effulgence condensing, our radiance twirling into a long fine singular thread of fiery silver, streaming out like a jester's scare, the ribbon our promise, unravelling the fizz, resting care in a shell of shining cherish, spinning around us, cocooning me inside him, him inside me, on opposite ends of the room our spirits drift to become one light, one night, a lantern sepulcher, a refuge where in this hour the seconds are just snowflakes melting for eternity's kiss, running clear, rising to the roof to fall back down as pellets of icy hope.

  Resting flat out on the bed, I close my eyes against the slowly descending snowflakes, gently whispering from the ether to touch and brand, bursting spiritual spikes through my body wherever they land, my vision morphing the brilliance of aurora and spirit to a misty illusion of opaque yearning.

  My emotions crest and shake, detonating with the rime of time, the fairy touch intense enough to freeze my darkness. Acidic and sharp, the pain is welcome, a resource I often milk to fill the quill, the burrs nesting in my skin, netting me with the map of the silken era.

  Curious, I struggle to sit up, to touch the strings of this human harp, the celestial tinkles shattering the mirror of my mind, forcing me to look down to see up, seeing the hand holding out to me Lucifer's cup.

  Laughing at this supernatural harmony, I reach behind, knowing my world is in reverse and my perception is trying to trick me, taking hold of the cup, hanging upside down off the bed to drink it, so I can't spill a drop, the reverse of physics now my reality.

  It's sweet and velvet, greener than spring, filling my sins and plugging my doubts with pearlpins. Leug leans over me, icicles hanging off his lashes, frost encrusted in his stubble, his eyes so perfectly tequila, bleached of color, shining like crystal balls holding galaxies, kissing me so long and hard that I fear our tongues are dry-ice frozen together.

  Exhaling when he breaks the kiss, I laugh, becoming a fine drizzle, coming apart, fracturing into fog, my limbs lost to the shifting motion of an expanding heart, the blizzard of cosmic breath washing me in an eddy of weightless power.

  No longer human, I hang as a cloud, moving incrementally closer to the lover who stands in a lake of crystal ice, my movement slow as continental drift, free, my cares forgotten when the walls disappear, becoming an endless vista of glacial quilts, the sun sprinkling blessings to glitter the fey drifts of hoar, burning the new dawn into my brume, calling me back to myself, too soon.

  Sagging into the opulent linen, a warm breath courses my neck, mapping my pulse, soft lips trailing the elysian breeze.

  Staring up at the recognizable ceiling of his bedroom cavern, I ask the overlord of the underworld, “What was that?”

  “Love.”

  My blink sticks, pulling my eyelids apart takes effort, and I sigh, exhausted, incomprehension my monocle. “How is that love?” I slur, wondering what was in the green liquid because I am sapped.

  “My light, yours, I'm god, you're a goddess, I am air, you are mist, I am wind, you are snow, I am inside and outside of you, you are outside and inside of me, we flew to eternity and returned, through the primordial dawn to the kiss of Ymir, we drank the first ice and fell through the firmament with its potency. Love Lara, this is celestial love. It's all encompassing. We are everywhere and nowhere when we are untethered to the physical, you are the mistress and master, of fire and ice, of snow and vice, we are spun as one, I needed you to know all of me, to take my Nfil as well as my Muspel, my home is yours, for you now there are no doors. You are my equal, my superior, my inferior, you are my everything, the one I look up to, the one I will protect when I am forced to look down, and the one I grip tight by my side should a storm come to blow us home.”

  He missed his calling as the king's skald. But the fact that he's so moved he speaks to me as a living Edda, in the manner of old, it bursts tears, the emotions so intense, my joy has no words.

  Love, my god, I've been doing it wrong.

  He whispers close, kissing under my earlobe with his voice, “You too are skald. Your thoughts were mine for a time, and I could reside in your guardian heart fo
r the rest of my existence if it is always so beautiful inside your inner realm. The essence, it's so strong in you, it humbles me.”

  The ice has melted, the rivers running free, the dams within demolished, and I know his words ring true. I am becoming who I am.

  Free.

  Hesper's vespers. I am.

  Chapter 14

  An eleventh I know, if haply I lead

  my old comrades out to war,

  I sing 'neath the shields, and they fare forth mightily;

  safe into battle,

  safe out of battle,

  and safe return from the strife.

  ~ Poetic Edda

  Deliah:

  Love comes back. Why am I sitting around, panicking, overwhelmed with dread, when if I'm totally honest with myself I'd know love doesn't come back. Love never abandons, period.

  If I love him I would not let him go off alone, I'd go too.

  But he doesn't want me there, I'll be a distraction, I'll get in the way, I'm inexperienced and a liability, the list is endless.

  I can't tell any of the guys because they have allegiance to their chief, and Ewan will never forgive me for getting them involved when he expressly didn't want them to know.

  And that leaves me just one choice for an ally. Her.

  I saw her fell that mountain like it was no more than a pillar of sugar and she the evil east wind.

  Making a decision, I spill the beans, “I'm distraught because Loki has my sister. He's kidnapped her, threatened to rape and batter her if Ewan allows this war to happen. So he's gone off alone to fight the wolf Leug, stalling the war, but I can't just sit here. I'm not allowed to tell Gunn or Alweada or Adam or Macala, or any of you, but I desperately want to run into the night, turn on my phone tracker because I have Lara's phone listed as my own, that way we can find her location, and run to rescue her with him.”

  She nods, folding her arms, her jaw ticking, her left eye glowing like a jewel in a crow's nest. “Do you know how to fly, or be mist?”

  I shake my head, knowing I'm useless. All I know is how to fight, what Gunn taught me, that's it. I have a nine-mil too, if that would help. But somehow I think we need bullets stuffed with devil gunpowder to end Leug.

  She sits on the bed with me, patting my leg, saying softly, “We go alone. We'll sneak in, find her, and sneak out. If things go sour I'll just drop the mountain on them.”

  “Can you do that?” I wheedle, playing to her empathy. “Can you lead him off so he's isolated and bury him under half a mountain of rubble? He was imprisoned in a mountain before, it won't bother him at all, and the bastard totally deserves it. Then we'll be free to find Lara.”

  She nods, “Get your phone. Is there a secret way out of here?”

  “Yes, up there behind the bathroom.”

  Standing, fidgeting with a restless leg, she looks determined, “Hurry. Mac will come looking for me any time now. We need to vanish before the men realize we're missing.”

  I don't need further encouragement, I pounce off the bed, running for my own bedroom. Once I have the geo-tag tracking switched on we'll know exactly where to go. Emma's a thur, she's the most powerful woman on earth, I'm sure she can let me fly on her back the way I did with Gunn.

  We're coming Lara! Hold on sis, we're coming!

  *

  Macala:

  Arghin muscles through the beer hall swarming with all manner of warrior, seasoned and novice, large and mediocre rifling for pitchers, striding forcefully toward me, a look of concern marring his congenial face.

  I know something is amiss, leaving my corner to meet him halfway.

  “What happened?” I demand, knowing something is very badly wrong by the vibe he's exuding.

  “The Book of Shadows is missing. Leug's ambush boys must have stolen it when they blew up the entrance to our heim.”

  A wave of dread washes through me. Without Odin's book, the one thing he left us to safeguard, will he not withdraw his blessings?

  What the hell would Leug want with it?

  Slapping my forehead, it occurs so plainly. With that book in which every one of us, every clan, every person, recorded, their thoughts, their plans, their actions, it's like owning a crystal ball without the guesswork. Leug now knows everything we had planned and can circumvent us. He'll know our strengths and weaknesses, he now has the upper hand. We are doomed!

  Patting my friend's shoulder in thanks, I turn, looking for Adam. Spotting the pampas haired gangly giant, I shout over the noise, “Adam! Tell Emma I'll be back soon as I can! I just have an errand to run!”

  He nods, raising his beer, shouting cheers, “Skal!”

  Urgency snares me and I grip Arghin, rushing him toward the outer tunnel, hissing quietly, “Fuck Ewan's plan. We must go, we must retrieve that book. We are the shadow warriors, he'll never see us coming.”

  *

  Gunn:

  Concerned for Deliah, still loving her, I stroll, as casual as possible, into Ewan's room where I left her.

  If I can't have her, at least I'll have the next best thing. I'm itching to fly to the fray, to battle that beast to the never.

  “Liah?” I call, wondering if she's in the bathroom.

  Silence ensues, the vibration of his chamber feeling a thousand shades of shifty.

  She's gone. He's gone! Where the hell have they gone?

  I'm his best tracker, I found her even when she was invisible. Rushing back out to get my sword, I make haste. They can't be far. How dare they leave me behind when I have everything to lose to Leug?

  Strapping my swords to my back, glancing once at my room of preparation, I hold my vacant palm, now stripped of the handfasting mark of when I vowed my forever to Deliah.

  If Ewan falls, I get the girl!

  Hamasking, I fly out the bachelor's tunnel, into the night of razors, knowing they are all proving they can hold their liquor, no witnesses to see me leave, to track the woman I love.

  Chapter 15

  The famed rain bow's defender,

  Ready in wisdom, striveth

  At Singasteinn with Loki,

  Fárbauti's sin-sly offspring;

  The son of mothers eight and one,

  Mighty in wrath, possesses

  The Stone ere Loki cometh.

  ~ Skáldskaparmal

  Lara:

  He wakes me early, caressing my cheek to rouse me.

  Staring drowsily at the man who does not sleep, I grumble, “If you don't have coffee, go away.”

  “I have coffee, and porridge. Rise and shine sváss, it's time to meet the family. The enemy flies.”

  There's no saying no to this man. He wanted his enemy to come calling, and now he sounds worried. There's a saying about disrupting a hornet's nest, someone is bound to get stung. I don't look for shit so I don't get stung. Hasn't made a sod of difference though, life has a way of victimizing me regardless.

  Shifting up to lean against the headboard, I accept the coffee, sipping it. I feel weird, like I'm still dreaming, like I'm not all here, half of me ghosting off through the walls, investigating spiritually, taking my neurons with it.

  Forty minutes later I'm shaking the hand of a woman so tall she is a pillar of pretty. She's the one carved on the door to the receptacle.

  She's beautiful, absolutely stunning. I always imagined this is what Helen of Troy looked like. She's got hair which is long and voluminous, wavy and left to curl down to her backside like strands of honeycomb. Her locks are so golden that they defy description, the closest being a cross between yellow diamonds and tiger's eye.

  Kind eyes the shade of tropical aqua stare into my own, and she clasps my hand as if I am so fragile she'd break me, saying, “Welcome home.”

  I smile back, liking her immediately, feeling as if I'm with a mother figure, a very tall one. I never had a mother to hold me or hug me, so this feeling is overwhelming.

  As if knowing my heart, she reaches out, stroking my hair, giving me a little cuddle, “All who come here are going
through change. They are confused, sometimes angry, mostly they're sad. We have enough love here to vanquish the sorrow and hardship, we heal the ravaged soul. You are safe, this is your sanctuary.”

  She releases me, letting Leug lead me another step to a gnarled crone lady, her eyes alert even though she is clearly very old. “This is Carmen, the one who keeps me humble,” he says, introducing the lady.

  I give her a curtsy for some unknown reason, as if touching her is intuitively known to be off limits.

  She laughs at me, patting my shoulder with knobbly fingers, “We've been expecting you.”

  As if that tells me the world and everything between.

  I recognize the twins, tall and blond surfer types, buff and young, and annoying. Still angry at their indiscretion, I don't know who is who, I just know one is Sköll and the other Hati, I slap the one closest, snapping at them, “You know what that's for. Disgusting pervert!”

  Carmen cackles to Hel, “She'll fit right in.”

  The twins laugh, as if finding my annoyance hilarious, sounding to me like they finished their stash of pot recently.

  Bloody idiots. I'm British, show a gentleman's respect, we have standards.

  Then Leug stops, seriousness settling on his glorious visage, saying with so much pride it reminds me of everything I never had, the love of a father, “This is my son, Fenrir.”

  I'm surprised that Fenrir has skin blacker than the abyss, his eyes a startling yellow. They're more hazel around the edges, but still, a shock nonetheless.