Immortal Need (21 page)

Now, though, things were changing. She had made a mistake. She never should have sent Sevani to reclaim Nila’s soul. Nila had truly loved Sevani in her lifetime. The way she had died imprinted on her soul to the point that she could not rest until they were reconciled. She was the only soul that was not enraptured by Folkvangr. Only Sevani had mattered. Every time she died in her many lives, she came to Freya only to escape once more. Freya had gotten tired of the ordeal. She decided to take matters into her own hands. Sending Sevani after Ayah had been the result.

But she should have sent someone else, or, at the very least, sent the soul to Helheim for punishment until it learned its place. But Freya had done none of those things. Now she held Ayah in her dungeon, and Sevani streaked ever closer. Freya watched as he murdered her precious Vardr, bypassed her illusion of Nila, and made it to her temple. She could feel his rage seething against her skin. It didn’t matter. She had already laid the groundwork with Ayah. If she had struck true, then the woman Sevani rescued would not be the same woman she had taken. It was just as well. Sevani didn’t deserve happiness after he’d gone against her. Sevani didn’t deserve to have love, to have a future. No man who could not love his wife, support her, or take vengeance for her deserved to live. No human, god, or goddess who had failed to save Baldur, or to ravage Loki, deserved to live. When Ragnarok ended, and the dust settled, Freya would be all that remained. She would be supreme in her power. She would bring her son back to life. This she had promised herself ages ago, and she would not fail. Sevani would kill Ayah, and his soul would once again be Freya’s. He had no other option.

But his display of power was bothering her. She spun, her white robe banding around her, in her inner chamber. This was her sanctuary. All over the walls were relics of her fallen son, artwork of his life from birth through death. Each line of his face was etched in loving memory. She had done them all by hand, pouring her love into every stroke. In the center of the room was her large bed covered in a multitude of pillows. Any way that she turned in her bedroom, she could see her son’s face. And a brazier flamed in the corner of the room, warming the space. She thought that she would be terrified of fire after feeling its caress, but instead she respected it. Its destructive powers had rebuilt her. Fire, as much as her Vardr and gold, was her trademark.

“Calliphi,” Freya called, knowing the giant would hear her wherever he was. He had been given to her by the Jotnar after Padir tried to force her to wed him, before she’d become Odin’s. Padir had taken Thor’s hammer and hidden it deep within the earth after a night of merrymaking. Padir said, when Thor awoke to find his hammer missing, that he would return it only if Freya became his wife. Loki and Thor had come to her to convince her to marry the giant and get Thor his hammer back. Without his hammer, Thor would not be able to fight the giants if they decided to storm the sky and take Freya by force.

Freya had not agreed, not seeing any way she could allow herself to be tied to the hideous Padir. He was a man twice her size, with clawed hands, sharp teeth, and a misshapen humanlike body. She’d imagined his cock was as big as a club, and she hadn’t thought she’d fare well. Instead she’d convinced Thor to dress up as her and trick Padir. Thor, surprisingly, had done it, and when he had seen his hammer, taken it by force. The calamity had brought great shame to Padir, because he hadn’t been able to tell the difference. His followers wondered if he was soft. Later, Padir had spread some nonsense about it all being a game to test Thor, and Calliphi had been sent to her to keep silent. Freya, at the time, had been entertained by it. Now, Calliphi was a great asset to her. He did whatever she wanted without speaking a word.

Calliphi came through her door after bending down, his scarred face and unholy eyes terrifying to most, she was sure. He was silent, though, for a man so large. His steps should have rumbled over the earth, but instead, if you weren’t looking for him, you wouldn’t see him. Freya appreciated his care. She would not have her home trampled by the brute. He watched her with a questioning gaze as he knelt slowly to the floor.

“I need you to meet Sevani at the dungeons. Let him get inside, get to her, and release her. Make sure he finds the way to go. When he has her, I want you to kill her,” Freya said. She may not get the soul in Folkvangr, but it would take time before she would be reborn, and Sevani’s connection to her would be severed. Freya knew that watching Ayah die would break Sevani. She hoped that would be enough for her to once again claim him. Something had changed in him with his bond to Ayah. It had made him stronger. She knew that he was vicious, but the way he had killed her Vardr, a crime she would punish him for greatly, had been above even what she knew of his skill. If by bonding with Ayah he had become stronger, then Freya wanted him even more.

Calliphi nodded and stood slowly. He was just as quiet leaving as he had been entering. But Freya barely noticed. She wanted to know why Sevani was different. She’d kept his soul for thousands of years, and he’d never produced such skill. He’d fought like the god of war, Tyr, the first god. The devastation he’d wreaked had even excited her to have him as her consort. Perhaps she had been too hasty to take Lei from Valerie. Sevani would have been the better choice. But there was no use crying over spilled milk now. Sevani was a conundrum she wanted to understand. Bonding with a human should not have made him stronger. If he had become her consort, and she shared some of her blood with him, then Sevani would have been more than just an immortal mercenary. But he hadn’t tied with a goddess. Ayah’s soul may be ancient, but it was still human. It was almost as if he’d absorbed strength from another god. The thought stopped Freya short.

“Egill,” Freya called out then.

Egill was her servant, given to her by Hel. The elderly woman was blind in death, as she was in life. She had been slated to live in Helheim for running from battle. The punishments that were set upon her in that realm even Freya could not imagine. When she had been given the chance to leave such a dark afterlife, she’d been eager for the chance. Her heavily lined and ragged face had a core of steel determination. Long gray hair hung down around her narrow face. Her milky-white eyes, so like Hod’s, had oddly soothed Freya. As a servant, she was dressed in a drab gray cloth wrapped around her body, but Egill carried herself with a grace that belied her station.

“Sevani is not acting as I had figured,” Freya said. “He is showing signs of a god’s powers.”

Freya watched Egill’s face pale. When she had first taken the souls from the Watchers, she had commanded Egill to place the souls in urns that Freya had specifically made to contain them. When the old gods had begun to disappear, Hel had received their souls into her afterlife. Still seething over Freya’s treatment, Hel had given souls to Freya in the hopes that they could, one day, be used as warriors for her. Using some of Helheim’s rock, she created urns that could house immortal souls. And the souls of the gods were to be separate from the souls of the Watchers. Freya had wanted there to be no chance for the old gods to find a way to live again. But Freya had been unable to house the Watchers’ souls within herself. Because they had at one time been human, she could not risk taking some of their humanity. Just as she couldn’t take the other gods and goddesses’ souls within herself, because their power was not made to be completely absorbed by another. It would have blown her apart to try.

Each god was made to house his specific powers and skills. It was like a stamp in the bones. Odin could only be Odin, Loki only Loki, and so on. There was no way she could be both Freya and, say, Hel. It was why the gods and goddesses produced children. The children they bore would hold facets of both parents and something new that was all their own. Thor, son of Odin and Frigga, was the god of thunder, lightning, storms, the protection of mankind, and fertility. He was such because Odin was the All-father, king of kings, god of death, and the god of the protection of mankind.  Frigga was the goddess of fertility and prophecy. Their son, then, held a combination of their powers and his own. That was the only way for a god or goddess to mix powers. If there was any other way, she would have found it. To absorb the old gods and goddesses would have been a coup for Freya. Loki would never have challenged her then, and she would have had no need for the Watchers. She would have been supremely powerful in her own right. But she hadn’t found a way, she did need the Watchers, and she was still not ready to challenge Loki. This was why it was so important for Sevani to come to heel. If Egill had failed her in some way, then Freya would make sure she paid dearly for it.

“I did as you said, oh great goddess,” Egill said quietly.

“But, where did you place them?” Freya asked.

“In the Hall of Souls, my goddess. I have kept them all safe there. To please you, I also clean them daily,” Egill said with a soft smile. The servants’ one desire was to please their masters. In this, though, Egill had failed.

Faster than Egill could follow, Freya was on her. Freya gripped her by the throat, squeezing, and lifted her into the air. Egill’s eyes bulged, but she didn’t fight. Servants could not stop anything their masters wanted to do to them, and it angered Freya more. She would have liked for her to fight, for some sense of survival instinct to take over. It would have made Egill’s failure taste sweeter.

“Insignificant fool,” Freya raged. “Every touch, every wipe of your cloth, deteriorated the rock.”

Freya tossed her, and she slammed into the wall with a sickening
thud.
Egill stood slowly, unable to truly die now that she was in the afterlife. But it didn’t mean that Freya could not make her feel pain. She ignored Egill’s tears and begging as she covered her with spiders. The woman had been terrified of the creatures ever since she had nearly died from a bite in her childhood. Egill screamed hysterically as Freya watched, her blood pumping in her veins with excitement. The fear felt delicious against her skin. It permeated the air like an aura. Freya moaned as she added larger spiders, such pleasure, her body swaying with it. Each scream sent shots of heat waving through her. The tortures the gods had sent her through before the war had taught her to love pain, whether she gave it or received it. Each time she punished one of her servants, she was consumed by it, caressed by it. Freya could look into the greatest fear of every soul she controlled, a power she greatly enjoyed.

Egill may have made it possible for Sevani to get some transference of power from one of the old gods, but Freya would deal with it. For now, she had much better things to deal with. She unhooked her robe and let it slither to the floor, sucking in a breath at the sensation. The cloth rasped against her hardened nipples. She fingered them, biting her lip. Odin had not touched her since the death of their son. How she had missed the hands of another. No god would touch a woman who belonged to Odin, and so Freya had been so empty. Her servants, humans in the afterlife, weren’t powerful enough for her. She wanted strength between her legs, anger, so she could ride the cusp between pleasure and pain. Only her Watchers had sparked desire in her in the last few centuries, save Valerie.

The men had grown into deadly weapons who could kill in the blink of an eye. What it would feel like to have their hands upon her, to feel their fingers dig into her flesh. She cried out, lost in her own imaginings. The sounds of Egill’s screams drove her desire higher to a feverish pitch. She climbed onto her bed and lay down, spreading her legs. Lei would grip her with calloused hands, his face contorted with rage at having to pleasure her. Sevani would fight, cursing her name and trying to cut her with his blades. Alexander would follow her movements with watchful eyes, silent, waiting for the chance to strangle her with his bare hands. She arched her back, fingers finding and then sinking into her moist folds. This was pain. This was pleasure. She may be broken by what Loki had done, but she was not shattered. She was made from a core of steel, forged by fire. She would win. She would kill the gods and goddesses, she would have her Watchers, and she would take Lei to her bed. She could take her pleasure now, as she waited for Calliphi to kill Ayah and return Sevani to her. Oh, how good it was to be a goddess.

Chapter Fifteen

Alexander and Sevani moved through Freya’s temple. It was quiet, much quieter than Sevani would’ve guessed. It made him uneasy. They’d gone through so much opposition to get inside, and now there seemed to be no one around. They went around one corner, and the sudden stomping of feet had them stopping and pressing against the wall.

“I guess someone is here,” Sevani whispered then.

Alexander nodded, and they slipped forward slowly. When they reached another corner, Sevani looked around carefully. At the end of the hall was a giant of a man.

“We can’t go this way,” Sevani said to Alexander. “Go back the way we came.”

Alexander led them back up the corridor and to the right. When they met a cross section again, Alexander took a careful look.

“This road is clear. We took a right at this point last time. Let’s go the opposite direction,” Alexander said. They went that way quickly. With each step, the corridor turned darker and darker, until it was nothing but gray stone heavily marked with cracks.

“Looks like a dungeon to me,” Sevani said, his heart pounding. He needed to get Ayah. It had been too long since he last saw her. He wondered if she was okay. He knew that being in Freya’s control was not easy. The goddess may not be able to kill her, but she still could hurt her. He didn’t want to imagine Ayah hurt in any way. She may be strong and determined mentally, but physically she was not used to pain. He’d failed to keep her safe. That failure, he knew, would haunt him to the end of his days. Whatever Freya had to done to hurt her would be his fault. The quicker he got out of there, the better. There was so much that he had to tell her, so much that he had to explain.