Hands traced the inside of my thighs and ran along my stomach, my ribs, my breasts. I gasped for breath against Fenris’s mouth, my entire body trembling. Fenris groaned and stiffened beside me. I glanced down to see Freyja’s ebony body spread out against the brilliant blue bedcover. One arm cupped my breast, while the other crossed my thighs to caress Fenris. As I watched, Freyja trailed her fingers down Fenris’s hip and brushed the crimson head of his cock.
“Very nice,” Freyja purred.
Fenris gasped something incoherent as Freyja’s hand closed around his shaft. His fingers flexed between my thighs, pressing the heat of my sex. His hips pressed against my leg, rocking into me with the same urgent rhythm as his hand between my legs. The same rhythm, I realized with a gasp, as Freyja’s grip around his cock.
Fenris groaned again, his low, animal moan of pleasure, and his fingers curled inside me. Stars! I pressed my back to the bed, raising my hips against his touch, feeling the heat of Freyja’s body pressed to my chest and Fenris’s leg wrapped around mine, the insistent pulse of Freyja’s arm as she gripped Fenris’s cock, making his entire body rock back and forth, making him press his fingers harder and harder against my sex, against my clit, bringing me closer and closer to that velvet oblivion of orgasm—
I crested with a long, low cry, the pleasure obliterating my mind, erasing my body. I sank back into the bed as Fenris’s hand stiffened between my legs, and his rhythm faltered. A moment later, he cried out, the harsh, jagged groan I’d first heard on the banks of the Lucky river, while the trees of the Ironwood danced above us. The heat of his seed spread across my stomach; his legs tensed around mine, then fell still.
“Welcome to Asgard,” Freyja whispered.
I panted, trying to catch my breath, while Fenris laughed softly beside me.
“Freyja,” Fenris said slowly. His voice sounded almost disbelieving. “Thank you, Freyja of the Vanir.”
I rolled on my side and stared at Freyja. Her arms were stretched luxuriously above her head, and her hair spread out across the bedcover. The sun must have slipped behind the waves, because the light in the room had faded to a thick crimson.
“It was my absolute pleasure,” Freyja said, with a wide smile. “Now, shall I light a lamp? The night is still young.”
Freyja gave me a slow wink, and the heat of arousal re-kindled inside me.
“Please,” I said.
“Yes,” Fenris said, at the same time.
Fenris laughed again. The sound filled our room. His laugh was so beautifully unselfconscious, so open and free. It was as bright as summer sunlight dancing across the water.
Freyja sat up and stretched. I’d never been drawn to a woman’s chest before but, as Freyja arched her back in front of me, her pert, ebony nipples rising and falling with her breath, I suddenly wanted to bury my head between those dark breasts. I wanted to run my lips and tongue over them, to taste her skin, to press my hands against her warmth.
Freyja glanced back at me as if she could tell what I’d been thinking. Heat filled my cheeks as she bent over, displaying a very shapely ass. A flame flickered to life in the lamp she’d just lit.
“Now,” Freyja said, turning back to the bed. “Where were we?”
“Ah—” Fenris began.
Someone pounded on our door so hard it shook in its frame. I jumped, and Fenris’s arm tightened around my waist.
“Fenris!” a man shouted from the hallway. “You get ready like a woman! What the fuck is taking so long?”
Freyja sighed dramatically. “Thor,” she said, shaking her head. “Just a moment, Thunderer,” she called in a lilting, melodic voice. “Far be it from me to stand in the way of another night of glorious intoxication.”
Silence from the other side of the door. Freyja bent down to retrieve her dress, then pulled it over her generous curves. Fenris was still staring at the closed door with a dazed expression on his face.
“Freyja?” Thor asked, his voice somewhat distorted by the layer of wood between us. “Is that you?”
Freyja huffed in exasperation. She pulled open the wardrobe and tossed me a dress made with thick, red fabric.
“Who were you expecting?” Freyja called as she pulled out a pair of dark pants and a cobalt blue shirt. “Iðunn?”
More silence from the other side of the door. As I watched, Freyja finished lacing her own bodice.
“How do I look?” she whispered.
“Amazing,” I answered.
It was true; even with her hair rumpled and her cheeks still flushed from exertion, she was beautiful. Perhaps even more so, now, with the air of sex hanging around her. Freyja grinned and pulled me off the bed. She helped me into the red dress while Fenris slowly stumbled into the pants and pulled the blue shirt over his head.
“Ah, that’s more like it,” Freyja said, watching Fenris appreciatively. “Blue certainly is your color.”
Fenris made a face like he’d been forced to swallow something bitter. I giggled.
“She’s right, though,” I said.
The dark blue shirt Freyja had picked for Fenris made him look amazing, even if he’d neglected to fasten the laces at the top and hadn’t pulled it straight across his shoulders. That deep, rich color brought out the blue of his eyes and the richness of his auburn hair. Looking at Fenris in a shirt like that, I could believe he’d once been a prince.
“I thought it would,” Freyja said, sounding quite self-satisfied. “That color suits his father, too.”
Fenris growled, turned, and ripped the door open. Before I had time to wonder what had gone wrong, Thor stomped into the room.
“That took long enough,” Thor grumbled.
His eyes widened at the sight of Freyja, and Thor rather obviously struggled to keep his gaze from lingering on the tight laces across her chest.
“Freyja,” Thor said. “What brings you here?”
She smiled mysteriously as she walked past him into the hallway. “Oh, just spreading a bit of Asgardian hospitality.”
Thor leaned out after her. “Are you, uh, still busy tomorrow night?” he asked in what was probably intended to be a whisper.
Freyja shook out her long, thick hair. “Quite. I’m so sorry, my dear. Another time.”
With a wink, Freyja turned and disappeared down the hall, her long skirts swishing behind her. Thor watched her go for longer than was strictly necessary.
THE MONSTER CHAINED: CHAPTER TWELVE
We were almost to the feast hall before I realized my mistake.
Fenris hadn’t spoken since Freyja left, and Thor was carrying on an entire conversation by himself, mostly regaling us with very colorful recollections of his drinking exploits. Fenris walked with his head down and his lips set in a frown. I wanted to pull him away, to see what had gone wrong between the time Freyja lit the lamp in our room and the time she left. But it was impossible to squeeze past Thor’s muscular bulk. And, given the expression on his face, I wasn’t at all certain Fenris would actually want to speak with me.
So, it was only when we stood on the threshold of the feast hall that I realized I was barefoot.
“Shit,” I whispered.
Thor, who was deep in a story about drinking with dwarves on a hunting expedition, or possibly hunting with dwarves on a drinking expedition, didn’t respond. Fenris turned to me with a look of grim determination etched across his pale face.
“I forgot my shoes,” I whispered.
Fenris frowned, then glanced down. His own bare feet stood out against the dark and dusty floorboards.
“So?” he asked.
I sighed. Attempting to explain to Fenris why I wanted to wear shoes, like every single other person on this Realm except him, suddenly seemed exhausting.
“Just go,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”
His frown deepened. For a moment, I had the strange sense that Fenris didn’t want me to leave. Or that he didn’t want to enter the feast hall at all.
“Come on!” Thor cried, grabbing
Fenris around the shoulders. “Let’s see what you’re made of, wolf boy!”
Laughing at his own joke, Thor pulled Fenris into the great, open hall. Voices raised in cheers as they entered. Slowly, a strange, unfamiliar warmth blossomed in my chest. Fenris had told me once he was a friend of the Æsir.
Perhaps it was true.
THE LAMP FREYJA HAD lit was still flickering brightly when I returned to our room. One of my shoes lay on its side in the middle of the floor. The second shoe, however, had apparently completely vanished from this Realm.
“Damn,” I muttered, balling my hands into fists. How hard could it be to keep track of one fucking shoe?
I picked up Fenris’s wet towel and the filthy pants he’d taken off before he sank into the tub. No shoe. It wasn’t beneath my rumpled dress either, or behind the enormous wardrobe. Grumbling in frustration, I dropped to my knees to examine the floor. There! The damned thing was under the bed, huddled against the wall. I reached for it; my arms didn’t even come close. With a huff, I narrowed my eyes at the shoe and debated whether or not retrieving it was worth the effort.
Then I remembered Freyja and the way her hips swayed as she walked down the hall. The way Thor’s eyes had lingered on her backside. And the click of her polished heels against the wooden floorboards.
I sighed, pressed my stomach to the floor, and slid under the bed. My fingers brushed the shoe. And pushed it even further away.
“Shit,” I spat.
Abandoning all pretense of dignity, I pulled my legs under the bed and inched forward like a worm. My fingers finally closed around the shoe’s stiff leather. I snorted in satisfaction.
The door to our room slammed open.
Fenris, of course. It had to be Fenris; Freyja had said our door would only open for me and my husband. He’d come back for me. I smiled at the thought, turned away from the wall. And saw a pair of glossy, black boots.
I froze. My entire body felt cold, although I tried to tell myself this had to be normal. Or it was some sort of innocent mistake, the kind of thing that must happen all the time in Val-hall.
“Fenris!” a man’s strong voice filled our room.
His black boots stepped away from the door, crossed the room, and stood before the open windows. From my cramped position under the bed, I could now see his entire body. The man stood before the windows, staring into the darkness, with his hands crossed behind his neck. He was lean, tall, and clad entirely in black. His flaming red hair flowed past his shoulders.
“Fenris?” he called again.
I realized my hands were trembling against that thrice-damned shoe. This is ridiculous, I thought. I’ll just tell him I’m here, explain what I’m doing under the bed—
The door slammed open again with a hollow thud. The man at the window spun, and I saw the pale oval of his face contort with anger.
“Óðinn,” the man by the window growled. “What are you doing here?”
Panic spiked in my chest, and I clamped my hand over my mouth to keep from crying out. Óðinn was here? What in the Nine Realms brought Óðinn the All-father to our room?
“Lie-smith,” a cold, smooth voice replied. “I could ask you the same question.”
Silence stretched across the room. I tried to press myself flush against the wooden wall.
“I followed you, of course,” Óðinn said. “I figured it was only a matter of time before you tried to intervene.”
“What are you doing with him?” the red-haired man asked.
That must be the Lie-smith, I thought. Loki the Lie-smith. Fenris’s father. I shivered despite the warmth of the room.
“Loki, I have information—”
“Fuck your information!” Loki snapped. “Bard Sturlinsen is a liar, and you damn well know it!”
“Now, now. Isn’t that hypocritical?”
“You stars-damned motherfucker,” Loki said. His red hair rose and flew out over his shoulders. “This isn’t about me.”
“Indeed,” Óðinn replied. “Then why are you here?”
“He’s my son,” Loki growled.
Óðinn laughed. “Your son? Really? Since when?”
“Go fuck yourself.”
“You have two lovely sons,” Óðinn said. His voice had softened; now he sounded almost pleading. “Vali and Nari are both delightful young men. They are your rightful, legitimate children. You don’t need to defend this monster, Loki.”
“And you don’t need to torture him, Oath-brother.”
The way Loki said Oath-brother made it sound like an insult.
Óðinn snorted. “I’m assessing a threat to Asgard, and I’m devising a way to contain it. I don’t expect you to understand.”
Loki’s fingers flexed. A low, crackling hum surged through the room.
“He’s not a threat,” Loki said. “All he wants is his freedom.”
“No,” Óðinn snapped. “He murdered a king. He planted his heir in a woman. He’s Angrboða’s son, stars damn it. And, just like his conniving bitch of a mother, he’s building a fucking empire.”
My vision swam with sudden tears. Stars above, Óðinn was wrong; he was so hopelessly wrong. But what could I do? Announce my presence in order to disagree with them and admit to eavesdropping on Óðinn and Loki of the Æsir? If the stories were true, I might have to beg for mercy so they’d kill me without a lengthy torture session.
Loki sighed, and the urge to scream rose inside my throat. Was he giving up? Could he possibly agree with Óðinn? Dear stars above, if Fenris’s own father sided with Óðinn, what hope did we have?
The crackling hum subsided, and Loki’s black boots shifted on the floor. He leaned against the window, casually, as if this were his room and Óðinn had stopped by for a friendly visit.
“Have you talked to him?” Loki asked.
“What?”
“Have you actually taken the time to talk to Fenris? To ask him why he committed regicide, or why he chose to marry?”
Silence, then a scratching noise as Óðinn shifted against the stone floor.
“What about the girl?” Loki continued. “Fenris’s pregnant wife. Have you spoken to her?”
“I met them both,” Óðinn said. His voice sounded deeper, rougher.
“And you...what? Talked about your feelings? Had a lovely little heart to heart?”
“We spoke,” Óðinn snapped. “I told them of the glories of Asgard.”
Loki snorted a dismissive laugh. “Oh, yes. The glories of Asgard. I remember that conversation. Such a pity most of those glories turned out to be lies.”
“The messes you made when you got here are your own damn fault, Lie-smith,” Óðinn responded.
“Let me hazard a guess as to how that particular conversation went. You’ve set Týr to babysitting duty, so you would have brought Týr with you, for credibility. And Baldr, of course. And probably enough of the other Æsir and Vanir to be intimidating, but not quite enough to scare him. Then, what? You got him drunk, didn’t you? Got him drunk and offered him a home?”
Scorn dripped from Loki’s voice. I balled my hands into fists, clutching the leather of the shoe so tightly I half expected it to turn to dust. Those words opened a vast chasm in my chest, and I wondered if I’d ever feel truly safe again.
“I welcomed him to Asgard,” Óðinn said slowly.
“But you didn’t offer him shelter, did you?”
Silence. It felt as cold and heavy as iron.
“Did you?” Loki pressed. “You stars-damned slippery motherfucker! Did you offer him shelter or not?” Loki’s voice dropped, and I had to strain to hear his next words.
“Let Fenris go,” Loki pleaded. “You’re wrong about him, Oath-brother.”
“No,” Óðinn snapped. “You’re the one who’s wrong. You’re blinded by your own misplaced sentiment. That wolf monster is nothing more to you than a night spent buried in Angrboða’s cunt.”
“He’s not a monster!” Loki cried. “You judge the entire world by your own exam
ple. Fenris is a man with one magical gift, damn it! Only one stars-damned, fucking trick! He’s not a threat to you, to Val-hall, to Asgard, to anyone!”
“Shut up. Focus on your real children, you thrice-damned idiot.”
The door creaked slightly; someone had opened it.
“I won’t let you hurt him,” Loki said. His voice sounded weak, even to me.
The door slammed. Air squeezed out of my lungs. My eyes stung, and my heart raced as though I’d just run the length of the Ironwood.
We had to get out of here.
I waited until I heard the door creak open and slam shut again. Then I counted to one thousand, just for good measure, before squeezing out from beneath the bed and coming to my feet. In the flickering lamplight, our room was empty and perfectly calm. The thick, blue bedspread was still slightly wrinkled in the place where Freyja, Fenris, and I had made love. Could that possibly have been just hours ago?
I stumbled backward, and my arms trembled as they wrapped around my chest. I hadn’t told Fenris about the prophecy, the deadly message King Nøkkyn gave Bard Sturlinsen. I hadn’t wanted to trouble him with dark words I assumed had died in the courtyard the night Fenris rescued me from Nøkkyn’s fortress.
But I’d been wrong.
Bard Sturlinsen is a liar, Loki had told Óðinn. So they must have heard what Bard Sturlinsen came to Asgard to say, the prophecy King Nøkkyn created to set an even stronger enemy against Fenris.
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from screaming. Even dead, King Nøkkyn’s shadow haunted our lives. But how could we possibly fight a prophecy? It would be like fighting the winter wind. I’d been there when Bard Sturlinsen first rehearsed his message, and his words had raised the hairs on the back of my neck. Even in the shelter of Nøkkyn’s library, the message carried a terrible weight. It felt like the truth, although I’d seen the lie woven before my very eyes. I’d heard Nøkkyn threaten Sturlinsen’s family; I provided the lies about Fenris’s home in a cave in the Iron Mountains.
The Complete Fenris Series Page 40
