Siren Slave (28 page)

The great head, still Marked, swiveled to look at him. She looked as if she were smiling. She gave her white-blonde mane a toss. Beautiful, terrible, and deadly.

Julia fainted. Merrick didn’t even bother to catch her. A wet spot stained the front of his breeches. Some fools decided to step in her way. The huge, purple claws swiped them from her path, rending the bodies.

If that’s what was inside her, no wonder she was having difficulty controlling it. Siegfried hoped he’d done the right thing. Seeing illustrations and experiencing something like this were so different.

“Archers,” Vercingetorix shouted just as the earth shook. Arrows were aimed at Freya, but lightning surrounded her body, incinerating the projectiles.

She stalked closer to Merrick, who backed away. More men dared step in front of her. A snap of the jaws and they were gone. She shook one of the bodies in her mouth before tossing it aside.

“Let her take him,” Vercingetorix shouted at Merrick. “Stand aside. Let the…dragon have Siegfried. Maybe she’ll leave.”

“No, no,” Merrick yelled as some of the men tried to hold him back. “No, I was promised…I was promised…”

Siegfried was no longer restrained by anything but chains, the Druids having fled. The dragon walked forward, long body flowing over the rocky earth. Fangs hovered inches from his face, gleaming in the lightning. The mouth closed, and the nose nuzzled his ribs. He relaxed, hoping she recognized him.

Then the head snapped forward, and Merrick’s ribs crunched in the great maw. Hot blood dribbled from her mouth onto Siegfried. The blade in Merrick’s hand dropped in the mud beside Siegfried. Merrick was tossed aside.

Then Freya was naked before him, swan wings growing from her back. She gathered Siegfried in her arms. She was stronger now, it seemed.

“Who won that battle?” she taunted the men around them, men who had backed up considerably or were fleeing. “Freya. Say it with me. Freya. Anyone else want to step into the arena? Oh, didn’t think so. That’s right. You run and piss yourselves, because I’m scary!” She frowned and lifted her chin. “Fine, Enbarr.” She then turned back to the crowd. “One last thing. I’m not a goddess. Just a little magical. No human sacrifices, please.” Her arms tightened, and they left the ground, flying higher and higher.

“Are we out of arrow range yet? I have my eyes closed.”

“You
what?”
He’d been looking at the ground, far below. He turned his attention to her face. Yes, she had her eyes closed.

“I don’t like heights. If I look, I’ll…” She looked. They started to drop. When she closed her eyes, they steadied. “Ooh, that’s scary.”

He remembered her trying to use her wings in the great hall and how often they’d disappeared. He began to count to eight repeatedly. “Fly to your right and keep going straight.” Right was always a good direction to take. He didn’t much like left. They didn’t need more problems. No, left would send them plummeting, he was sure of it.

“Going right, going right…” She kept repeating that, as if trying to distract herself. “Enbarr’s going to wait for us. One of Hedwig’s sea beasts is taking the boat and your crew to Morrigan to be healed. Wonder why she didn’t heal me? Um, the shoes are wonderful. Thank you.”

He was going to tell her that this was not the time to worry about shoes, but they were steady now, even though her thoughts were rambling. “Glad you like them?” He had to keep her talking until they were well away from the army camp. If Vercingetorix’s men managed to get any of the horses under control and pursue them, he and Freya needed to out of range. “You do realize that you were a dragon, do you not?”

“I do. I…I’m one of them. I had no idea. Thought I was just a little like Hecate. I was…I’ve been angry for a long time if you want to know the truth. I’ll tell you more about that one day. I hid that anger as best I could. But it was like someone had put all those years of anger into a bottle, then opened that bottle and I became a dragon. I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“No,” he said. “I thought for a moment—”

“You can control my powers. I was calm when I was near you. I forced myself to turn back. I think a wounded body in a jaw filled with sword-like fangs is a sure sign of something ending badly. Well, unless that body’s Merrick. But what I really want to know is what happened between you and Merrick. How do you know each other?”

He’d give her a little information. It wasn’t as if it could be used against him. If he didn’t, she might go back to thinking how high they were. He didn’t want to think about that either.

“Merrick was a gladiator with me. He was another tribesman, a Cimbri, like me. We were friends as children.”

“How did you come to be a gladiator?”

“The Romans offered gold and trade to my tribe. Etainen’s father was no better a chieftain than he. But it was a given than Etainen would rule. The people voted for him. Complacent bastards.” It was true that some of the non-Romanized tribes elected their leaders. “A lot of the young men were sold, anyone from a family who might try to challenge Etainen’s family for leadership.

“I had an easier time than Merrick. I was always skilled with the bow. Merrick was not skilled with any weapon. He spent more time with the
medici
—the medic—than he did in the arena.” He sighed, remembering the past. He’d felt better having Merrick with him in the ludus, training, even as terrible as Merrick had been.

“If Merrick was that terrible, how did he become the Pirate King?” Freya asked. The rain had slowed to a drizzle.

“The medici and most of the other men began to tease Merrick that he should learn to patch himself up, because he took up so much of the
medici’s
time. He did. He stitched many of my wounds as well. The
lanista,
our owner, made him an apprentice to the
medici
, who was getting old and losing his vision.”

“I can’t imagine you ever having an owner,” she said.

He thought of Freya, illuminated by lightning, wings and hair spattered with blood, her “war paint,” like some battle goddess. He couldn’t imagine her having an owner either. Yet, that man was him and the thought excited him far too much. Even if she could turn into a dragon.

“I fought my last battle to earn my freedom. Merrick had no hope of earning his. I almost died, but he was the one who kept me from dying. As soon as I was free, I stole a ship from Etainen, found enough people disgusted with him to join the crew, and freed Merrick when he was traveling to a gladiator match. He wasn’t the Merrick I knew. I didn’t realize this at first. I should have.

“He had learned much about the human body, where to hit to kill, what types of poison to use on blades. The poison made up for lack of skill. He invented a few concoctions. Those poisons brought on a very slow, very bloody death. Much slower than your Blood Call. I could have knocked that blade from his hand aboard the
River Queen,
but if it had grazed me, there was a good chance I would’ve died.”

“I’m glad you didn’t, that you let me take care of all this.”

He sighed. “I spoke to Merrick about his methods, even took the lives of his victims to spare them the slow death from the poison. But he refused my requests to stop. Some of the men in my crew, many men I’d freed, thought I was being foolish. He slowly began to turn them against me, wanted me to attack the ships of those I had no grudge against. He had support. Half of my crew mutinied. We split, Merrick taking one of my ships. Since then, we’ve been enemies.”

“You must have felt the way I felt about my friends not showing up to help me in the catacombs. No, that’s not true. They weren’t in the catacombs actively trying to kill me. I’m sorry Merrick did that to you. You didn’t deserve that, not after what you did for him.”

“What is this?” he asked. “You’ve defended me. You’re sympathizing with me. You’re fighting for me.”

“You were there when I needed you, when no one else was. Thank you for that.”

“But I have done almost nothing to protect you,” he said.

“Really, Master, I don’t think you’d have gone into Vercingetorix’s camp without any sort of ability to get out of there. I think you knew I’d fight to get us out of there.”

“Freya, I humiliated you in so many ways.”

“You did that for your enjoyment. Oh, and Enbarr says we can land now.”

She smiled and he realized then that she retained the fangs of the dragon. Little white canines. Just like her mother’s. It seemed all Fomori had them.

Siegfried was glad when his feet touched land. Freya looked relieved, too. But, for the first time, he wondered if he hadn’t taken on too much. He considered Freya’s powers, what he’d witnessed. She had been the one to save him from a situation where he was hopelessly outnumbered. She’d saved herself, too. There was a woman who could hold her own.

The problem was that he did not have any kind of similar ability to protect her. What kinds of powers would her enemies have?

****

It had been, no matter the dark circumstances, the most idyllic five days Freya could remember. Enbarr had taken them at a slow pace toward their companions. They’d stopped often with Balder’s occasional visit. Siegfried hunted in the vicinity while Enbarr helped Freya work with her powers. But the unicorn also made a point to give them time alone.

The nights were always interesting, in their tents woven of mist. Siegfried teasing her to madness while she brought him to completion. Yet he never took it further than foreplay. He was more tender with her, also more uncertain. But he laughed more, too, even jested. Yet, he hadn’t punished her. She’d made mistakes on purpose several times to see what he would do. He held back. His jaw would tighten, but he’d not say a word.

These were the thoughts that plagued Freya as she sat on the bank of the river. Siegfried was hunting, and she’d been told to remain at camp. It wasn’t as if he would care that she hadn’t heeded his orders.

Enbarr said that tomorrow they would reach their destination. The unicorn was nowhere about, when she could certainly use some advice.

She wanted to swim, but the metal collar was locked about her throat once again, the chain removed shortly after she had rescued him.

A splash drew Freya’s attention. Hedwig sat atop a mossy rock, long hair dripping onto the shining scales. “The horse said you needed me. This had better be good. I had to leave a ship full of drunk men.”

“Why didn’t Siegfried and I just ride on the ship if it’s that easy to get to?”

Hedwig rolled her eyes. “So you two could be alone. Now why are you pouting?”

“Siegfried has hardly touched me.” Freya went on to explain the problems to Hedwig, thinking the Sea Witch wouldn’t balk at any of the details.

“So, he’s got you ready and willing and he’s…doing nothing?” Hedwig made a disgusted sound.

“Do you think he’s upset that I’m Fomori?”

“You
ate
his enemies. Why the hell would that upset him? No, it’s probably his stupid trust issues or some shit.”

“They’re not stupid. He has a reason to feel the way he does.”

“They’re stupid.” Hedwig held up a hand to halt any protest before it happened. “People say you can’t fix stupid, but that’s because they’re not the Sea Bitch.” She gave her mane a toss. “Now, I have just the thing to fix this particular kind of stupid.”

Freya watched closely as Hedwig rooted through her scaled satchel. “What can fix something like this?”

“Some fey like to bed mortals. Mortals age. Some older mortals are damned nice looking.” Hedwig was definitely talking about herself. The Sea Witch withdrew a shimmering blue vial with an erect cock etched into the glass. She held it before Freya’s face. “This is Long Hard Night. Give this to Siegfried and the stupid will stop.”

Freya snatched the bottle from Hedwig’s hand and started to rise, but the Sea Witch grabbed her arm. “No. You’re not ready to go yet. You need a bottle of Hedwig’s Happy to go along with that. But this one is for you.”

“I’m not being stupid, Hedwig.”

“You’re not being smart if you’re not using Hedwig’s Happy.” Hedwig removed a pink vial with a smile carved into the glass. “Take one drop a day and you will not have to worry about having babies. I’m doubting you want some screaming brat while you’re figuring out who is trying to kill you.”

Freya hadn’t even thought of that. “Definitely not.”

When Freya reached the camp, she was pleased to see Siegfried hadn’t returned. She sat cross-legged in the middle of the pillows on the floor of their tent. She and Balder had woven the pillows from sunlight, which provided a subtle luminosity during the night.

She took one drop of Hedwig’s Happy, then frowned at the Long Hard Night vial. How much was she to use of that? Siegfried was being particularly stubborn, wasn’t he? She wasn’t going to have a chance to add more to his wine after he returned. It was their last night alone. She had one chance.

After several swallows of the dry Trier red, she poured the entire vial into the bottle of wine.

****

Siegfried found Freya on her side, propped up on her elbow, the dim light from the pillows illuminating her pale skin. Her hair was pushed behind her shoulders, her breasts laid bare. All of her was bare. Why was she tempting him like this?

It had taken every drop of self-control not to have his way with her, at least not the way he wanted to have her. He admired the Fomori. Freya, despite his initial opinion of her as a vapid, Rome-loving twit, was very much Hecate’s daughter. She had done right, had not hesitated when she could have just left him to his fate.

“Hello, Master.” She gave him a sultry grin.

His body responded, and he bit the inside of his mouth. “Rabbit is cooking over the fire. Come. Eat.”

Freya sighed, disappointment plain in her eyes. But she nodded and rose. A brief smile crossed her features. She grabbed one of the bottles of Trier red and scampered behind him, into the night air.

Siegfried apportioned two cuts of meat and stuck them on the end of both of his daggers. He spread out his cape before taking a seat atop a boulder. As was now customary, Freya knelt between his knees on the cape. How he wished this could be otherwise, that this could go on for so much longer. He wanted to bend her over his knee, switch her ass, bind her… So many things. Some he’d done, but there were so many he hadn’t had the chance to explore with her.