Taken Hostage

by Hutchins, Hollie

  Mt Vordr gave an odd, high-pitched wheeze of a laugh. Sigurd appeared not to have heard her and said, “What will you drink, Emma?”

  “Fino.” She sat and Sigurd poured her a glass of sherry. As he handed it to her she asked him, “Tell me, Professor, do you give all your acquaintances ancient Norse sobriquets?”

  He smiled mildly but did not answer so she went on, “Vordr is ‘guard’, Trell, ‘slave’. What, I wonder, shall you call me?”

  She was astonished to see a great tenderness come over his face as he gazed on her.

  “You are,” he said, “My Lady Gørsimi, my Meidmar.”

  “Don’t be absurd!” she snapped. “I am neither your treasure, nor your treasures!”

  “On the contrary!” he replied, “for you are the key that will bring me freedom. Tell her, Vordr.”

  Vordr did not look amused. He growled, “I choose not to, Sigurd. You are being absurd. She will have to go.”

  Emma stared at him aghast, but before she could answer the door opened and Trell said, as though announcing a particularly untimely death, “Dinner is served.”

  The first plate was a delicate salmon mousse accompanied by a light, crisp Riesling. When Trell had withdrawn she said, in the most amiable, reasonable voice she could muster, “Professor, you must realize that by now Smythe is already considering informing the police. When he does so, the first thing he is going to tell them is that you sent a carriage for me. The Home Secretary was at school with my father…need I go on? I suggest we enjoy this meal, you let me go home and we shall speak no more of it.”

  Vorder said, “Do it!”

  “I am afraid that will not be possible.” Sigurd smiled again. “You are my Gørsimi. What man, what hero, what Viking, ever gave up his treasure without a fight?”

  She had barely touched her salmon. She noticed absently that Vordr had finished his in barely two mouthfuls. She laid down her knife, fighting the growing irritation inside her.

  “I am not a thing, Professor…” She took a deep breath. “Sigurd… I am not a thing. I am a person. I am an especially independent, free-spirited person. You may not, you cannot own me.”

  Vord said, “She is right. Let her go, Sigurd, before it is tool late.”

  “Thank you,” she said, inclining her head to him. But he was watching Sigurd who was shaking his head.

  “You shall learn to love me. You know that the love is there. I have seen it in your eyes. And when you learn to love me we shall both be the key to each other’s treasure. We shall both be free.”

  Emma expostulated, “Oh, for goodness sake! Get a grip, Sigurd!”

  And with shocking violence Mr Vordr slammed his huge fist down on the table, making the cutlery jump and the glasses ring.

  “Enough, Sigurd! This talk of freedom and love! These are not for you! You are committed! You belong to…”

  “No!” Sigurd roared and the power of his voice silenced Vordr. “Do not say it! I belong to no one yet! I have my choice to make!”

  He looked as though he going to continue speaking, and Emma was fascinated to hear what he would say next, but the door opened and Trell entered carrying a large, silver tray, followed by two young maids who cleared away their plates.

  Trell served them with sirloin steak, very rare, and poured claret from a crystal decanter. Sigurd dismissed him, then raised his glass to Emma and smiled.

  “To love!” he said.

  Emma sighed and looked down at her steak. It looked exquisite, but she had no desire to eat it. She did not return the toast. Vordr made a dismissive noise and she glanced at him. To her horror, he picked up the meat on his plate in his right hand and devoured it in three, large gulps, then licked his fingers. He watched her as he did it and grinned. Then he drained his glass and belched.

  Sigurd scowled at him and to Emma it seemed the room turned dark. He snarled, “You will treat my woman with her due respect, Vordr…”

  Vorder did not look at him, but wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and leered at Emma. His voice was husky and his eyes smouldered with an icy lust.

  “I grant you she is tasty. Keep her as a trell, Sigurd, then we can both enjoy her…”

  “Enough!”

  Sigurd got to his feet. His face was like thunder. His chair fell back to the floor. Vordr seemed not to notice. He was still grinning at Emma. He raised an eyebrow.

  “What do you say, wench? Would you take your pleasure with two Vikings? I’ll warrant you have never had men like Sigurd and me. We can make your pussycat purr and meow.”

  Emma was too astonished to answer, not by the man’s boorish behaviour, which she had fully expected, but by the thrill which she felt on seeing the bold insolence in his eyes, and the depth of lust and vitality which he radiated. She felt her breath quiver and her heart race.

  Sigurd roared like a lion and she turned to look at him with her breast on fire and her eyes sparkling.

  “You will respect her, Vordr!”

  Vordr did not even look at him. His eyes flicked across her face and she knew he was reading her like a signpost.

  “Respect?” He said. “But you do not want to be respected, do you, wench? You want to be taken and ravaged, chewed, licked, eaten, disrespected and left whimpering on the straw.” He leaned forward and whispered in a voice like gravel, “Will you tell me I lie?”

  Sigurd’s voice had become dangerous. He snarled, “I warn you for the last time, Vordr…”

  Vorder stood. He moved so that he was standing half by her side and half behind her. He leaned down and growled in her left ear. “What do you say, girl? Shall I whip this whelp into submission, and then take my pleasure with you? I think it will please me to hear you scream.” He drew closer, so that she felt his lips move on the skin of her neck. She trembled and fought to control the hunger that was rising in her belly and in her loins. He rasped, “And I warrant you would like to scream with me chewing on your meat, wench!”

  Sigurd seemed to levitate. He landed on the table and ran, scattering plates, glasses and decanters, roaring like a demented tiger. Emma screamed, but even as she screamed she did not know if it was with pleasure and excitement or sheer terror. Sigurd leapt and he and Vordr crashed to the floor in a heap, with Sigurd pummelling Vordr’s face and body with his fists.

  Next thing Vordr had hurled Sigurd off him. He crashed against the heavy table, sending chairs flying. Emma scrambled to her feet. Vodr and Sigurd leapt up. Sigurd roared, “I am going to kill you, Vordr! I am going eat your heart!”

  Vordr spat at his feet. “First you will have to become a Dreki!”

  Then all hell broke loose and Emma thought she was descending into total madness at last. Vordr’s face twisted into a horrible snarl. His hair stood on end as though he had received a terrible electric shock. His neck swelled and his chest seemed to expand until his suit ripped at the seems. Emma stepped back in horror and gasped as he opened his mouth in a horrible howl and revealed hideous, three inch long canine teeth. His skin, she saw, had turned a revolting yellow.

  But even as Vordr was transformed into that odious troll, so Sigurd was transformed also, but even more so. For Sigurd metamorphosed before her eyes into what was both the most beautiful and the most terrifying thing she had ever seen.

  His clothes were rent asunder. He threw back his head and a terrible sound issued from his throat. His skin glistened like a million precious stones, so bright that they blinded her as she looked upon them. He seemed to weave and swirl and sway, almost as though he were made of brilliant, coloured mist; and suddenly she was looking not upon a man but a serpent. A serpent that was at least fifteen or twenty feet in length. His body was muscular and covered in what looked like jewelled mail. His head was almost that of a horse, but from his neck a great crest rose, and where a serpent has no legs or arms, this dragon stood on powerful, muscular legs, and powerful arms with massive talons now reached out to grasp Vordr.

  The battle that ensued was brutal. Vordr’s strength,
though he was smaller than Sigurd, was hideous. His fists were like stone hammers. Sigurd gripped him in his talons, as though he would rip him to pieces, or bite him in two, but Vordr pounded his head and body with his fists, sending Sigurd crashing through the great, mahogany table, smashing chairs and the sideboard as he went.

  Sigurd joined battle again, thundering at Vordr, lashing at him with his great tail, ripping at him with his talons, drawing blood from his wounds; but still Vordr seemed indestructible, his power inexhaustible, and he came back, driving his massive fists again and again into Sigurd’s body and head, until both stood eyeing each other, bloodied and panting at opposite ends of the great dining room.

  Emma flattened herself against the wall in the corner, trembling with a strange excitement. There was no room any longer, among her awe and fascination, for fear. She had, in some wyrd way, fallen in love with both of these bizarre creatures. But each was different, and if she hoped that Vordr would not be killed, she prayed in her heart that Sigurd would triumph.

  But it was Vordr who spoke first.

  “You know the destiny the Norn have woven for you, Sigurd. You cannot escape it. There can be no freedom or love for the likes of us. We belong to the people of the mist.”

  “Never! I choose to learn! I chose to learn to love, and to be free. I know this human can teach me!”

  “You are a dragon, Sigurd!”

  “But once I was a man! I can be a man again!”

  “You cannot! She must go! She must die! And you must kill her and eat her heart!”

  Emma gasped! Vordr took two strides toward Sigurd and pointed a massive finger at Emma. “She is your test, Sigurd! Conquer your weakness! Kill her!”

  Sigurd’s crest rustled. His eyes glowed red and a deep growl made the room vibrate.

  “I will not. And if you touch her, Vordr, there will be no pit deep enough in Hel for you to hide in.”

  Vordr shook his head. “If you choose this wench, you know the penalty. Are you prepared to make this sacrifice?”

  Sigurd let out a prolonged, deep groan.

  “I know the penalty.”

  Vordr’s voice became conciliatory. “You have been foolish, Sigurd. It is your age. That is the reason for the test, to make us mature. But now it is time to face the destiny the Norn have woven for you.”

  “Do not vex me, Vordr.”

  “Sleep then. Let us sleep. And in the morning we shall see things with more clarity, and make the right decision.”

  Sigurd stared at Vordr a long while, then said, “Leave us.”

  Vordr turned and gazed on Emma with contempt. He said, “You shall not have him. He is Fafnir. It is in the skein of his destiny.”

  So saying, he left the room.

  Six

  The door closed and she turned back to look at Sigurd. He stood among the wreckage of the dining room, a man. Naked, bruised and bloodied, his great mane of hair hanging about how powerful shoulders. He was watching her.

  “Emma, how can I ever, possibly apologise enough?”

  She moved towards him with faltering steps, still in the grip of her deep fascination, still stunned by the revelation that she desired so desperately for him to triumph and live.

  She reached out and touched his bare chest, took a trickle of his blood on her fingertip. She looked up into his eyes, not insolent now, but troubled at the thought of losing her.

  She said, “Who…what…are you?”

  “Who I am,” he said, “I can barely remember. What I am, I am a plaything of the gods.”

  She took his hand. “Come.”

  She led him up the stairs to her room. There she prepared him a bath with salts and oils that he had had his maids purchase for her. She made him climb in and gently she sponged him and cleaned his wounds.

  As she bathed him, he said, “I am Sigurd Olaffsen. I was once a great adventurer. I have travelled the whole world, Emma, from the Arctic to the Antarctic, from Norway to China and Russia, from Chile to the Congo. Always, I have been searching for the great treasure that would allow me to create my own kingdom, and be free.

  “My arrogance angered the gods, I think, and Odin, who is deceitful and wily as a fox, led me one night to a tavern in my own homeland of Norway. There, there were three men drinking at a table. They were laughing and singing and they seemed like good men, so I joined them, and they told me a story of a great treasure hidden in a cave up in the Jotunheimen mountains. Legend had it, the treasure was in a cave in the Nibeland Valley.

  “So, I took a horse and some supplies and I rode out towards that valley. It was spring and the ice and the snow were melting, but still it was cold as I climbed up into the mountains, through those dense pine forests.

  “Finally, after a week of climbing and searching, I found the valley, where a cold, crystal river tumbles down from old Galdhøpiggen, the tallest mountain in the North. This valley is called Nibeland, because it is the land of the mists, and here, the people of the mists live.”

  Emma froze and stared at him. She half-whispered, “The Nibelung…”

  He nodded, and while I was letting my horse rest and drink, and eat the grass, we were enfolded by a thick cloud of fog. My horse ran in a panic, with all of my supplies and my sword. Wandering through this cloud, calling for my horse, I came upon a cave, where I sought refuge for the night. But as I explored the cave, I found that it was the very cave I had been searching for. In it there was a great cavern full of gold and diamonds and rubies – more than you could possibly imagine.

  “But it was also guarded, by one dragon such as I am now. The guardian of the Nibelung’s treasure.”

  “Fafnir!”

  He nodded and she burst out laughing. He said, “You don’t believe me? After everything you have seen?”

  “Yes!” she cried. “I do! That’s just it! It is a wonder to me to discover that these legends…”

  “Most people live in the mist, Emma, without ever seeing the world as it truly is. I went on my quest, in search of my treasure, and I found it. But in finding it, I became a prisoner.”

  “How?”

  “Because it was woven in the skein of my destiny that I must do battle with Fafnir. And so I did, with a great jewelled sword that was there among the treasures. I fought him and, after a terrible struggle, I slew him, and, as is the custom, I ate his heart and his flesh.

  “This gave me great magical powers, but what I did not realise was that Fafnir is not his name but his title, and he who slays Fafnir, must then become Fafnir.”

  “So you are now Fafnir, tasked with the obligation of protecting the treasure of the Nibelung.”

  “But, because I was tricked by Odin, I am given a choice. I may choose to be free if I can find true love. That is, a woman whom I truly love, and a woman truly loves me back. And once, every thousand years, am I released to travel the world for seven years and seek that love.”

  “And your guardian accompanies you.”

  “That is so.”

  She stroked his face, aware that knowing his secret, knowing who he was inside, stirred a new and extraordinary feeling in her. Yet still she shied away from the word, fearful of what it might mean for her.

  He spoke, and his voice was tragic, she felt the ache of loneliness within it.

  “I wish to kiss you, Emma. I wish to make love to you, to caress your body, but not as the daemon I have become, as the man I am in truth.”

  She reached out and held his face.

  “Kiss me, Sigurd.”

  He leaned forward and caressed her lips with his. She slipped her hand down his neck to his powerful chest. She thought to herself that this man, this monster, was holding her prisoner, willing to sacrifice her to achieve his own freedom. Yet she could not deny the feelings that were growing inside her. She pulled his head towards her and bit his lips.

  He stood, cascading water from the bath onto the floor. He stepped out and picked her up in his arms as though she weighed no more than a spring lamb. Soaking and trail
ing water he carried her to the bed. There he laid her down and leaned over her, gently rubbing his face against hers, kissing the corner of her mouth. They nipped each other’s lips with their teeth, smiling and giving each other small kisses. She felt a burning excitement begin to stir inside her as he began to unbutton her dress and strip off her clothes.

  The task was laborious and they laughed and kissed, with every kiss growing deeper as more and more of her clothes were discarded. Soon she lay naked on the bed, gazing up at him. He lay on top of her. She ran her hands over his skin. They kissed again, deep and searching. She sucked on his tongue and as he bit into her neck she whispered, “It is so good to feel your skin.”

  She felt his breath, hot on her ear, “I am not changing. Is this…”

  She held his head in her hands. Her kisses were urgent. She hungered for him, for his animality, for his bestial secret. She said, “Do not ask. Do not question. Take me. I hunger for you.”

  His hips pushed into hers. She felt his member hard, sliding up and down her inside thigh. His breathing was tremulous, growing faster. She spread her legs, opening for him. Their kisses were deep and hungry. His hands cupped her breasts, playing with her pink, tender nipples. Then they moved down her, caressing the small, delicate curve of her waist. Then he gripped her hips and thrust against her. She cried out as he slid inside. His breathing was heavy and hot. He grunted like an animal in her ear, then growled. She felt his hands, huge and powerful gripping her buttocks and she that he was changing. If he was changing it meant their love was not real, but in that moment she didn’t care. In that moment she wanted the beast.

  She clawed his back, feeling the supple rippling of his muscles and the strange scales of his skin. She felt him swell under her hands, and she felt him swell inside her. She screamed a scream that was half roar. He rose above her, a horrific daemon, his wings outstretched, his skin glittering a million colours, his eyes burning a infernal red. He leaned forward on his great, powerful arms. Their eyes locked in diabolical lust and he began his slow, thrusting rhythm. She felt him, impossibly thick and deep, swelling , growing bigger and harder with every thrust. She felt the exquisite friction and sucked in the pain, felt it turn to a pleasure that was beyond understanding. She cried out and groaned, “I want you, oh, God, I want you…!”