Siren Slave (44 page)

“He’s in pain because he needs to be?” She threw back her head and roared again, her voice joining the storm.

****

Siegfried and Balder were fighting giants. They really had no time to waste, but the giants were especially furious about something, according to Balder. Siegfried guessed it had something to do with their condition. Some of them were vomiting. Others had boils. Some were scratching at their crotches. More were unconscious. One man was in tears, wailing, “Why is goat cheese coming out of my dingy?”

This could only be the work of the Sea Witch. As if to confirm that assessment, a group with skin rashes and missing clumps of hair approached, grumbling about the Sea Bitch.

“Now would be a good time to start using your powers,” Balder said as he took a fist to the stomach. He flew through the air, landing in a market stall of fruit. Somehow, he managed to cling to his lyre, folding his body around it to protect it from the fall.

Siegfried wondered what powers he could possibly use. He nimbly ducked a fist and leapt over a battle axe. His panpipes fell. He barely caught them before a giant’s foot landed where they had been. He slid across the earth, knocking giants aside with his antlers. At least, the pipes didn’t break.

In the distance, the sea raged. Siegfried could see the great white crests rising high above the surface to smash upon the rocky shore. Rain fell, quickly gathering in intensity. This was Freya’s doing. She was losing her temper.

He hoped he had enough time before the giants were on him. He placed the panpipes to his lips and began to play. Using pipes to win a battle?

But it wasn’t all bad. Vines began to grow from the earth, pushing aside giants to wrap around the ankles of others. He played faster, thinking of carnivorous plants he’d seen on his travels. The ones that he summoned were huge. They enclosed the giants in their leafy maws. So, the panpipes were not as awful as he had thought they’d be.

A songbird landed beside him, then transformed to Balder. They had tried entering as animals, but somehow, the giants had grown suspicious of a gold stag with a bird in his antlers. His invisibility had not worked, and Balder had said there were magic wards, probably Loki’s doing.

Some of the giants were beginning to snap the vines and come at them again. Siegfried played faster. He whipped his cape above his head, resting it on his antlers, protecting Balder, in songbird form, from the hail along with himself.

A roar resounded from the clouds above, the lightning growing stronger.

“He’s in pain because he needs to be?” Freya’s voice. Yes, he definitely trusted her, except for not having a care for herself.

“On the bright side, Otherworld laws don’t apply in Jotunheim,” Balder said grimly. “She can be as Fomori as she likes.”

The giants had stopped now, scratching their heads and looking into the distance toward the giant tree. The clouds above were black and swirling, a miniature hurricane.

“Those women,” one giant said. “Let’s have us a pretty Beast.”

****

Freya let herself scream as she glared from Mimir to the Well. Hedwig was plastered to the earth as the storm raged around them. Tears stung Freya’s eyes. Mimir drew closer to the Sea Witch. Freya’s wings had become heavy with water.

“Do something, Frey,” Hedwig cried as she fell into the shadow of Mimir’s huge stone hand.

“Freya the Beast. Freya Giant Slayer.” With a shrill cry, she called upon the water that had seeped into Mimir’s stone body, just as she did with the Blood Call. A loud scream rent the air, louder than the sudden rushing of water. Fissures opened along the rocky body. The big fingers shattered, along with the rest of the Jotun, water and boulders exploding outwards. She surged upwards as she urged the water from her wings. Lightning surrounded her trident, and she aimed it at Yggdrassil. “Goodbye, Well. I, Freya, River Queen, claim your Wisdom as my spoils of the booty. Wow. Did I just pirate something again? Yes, yes I did.”

A loud crack shook the entire land. The tree was ablaze with lightning. White light wrapped around its trunk, its branches cracking and falling to burn.

“Ho-lee fuck, Freya.” Hedwig was crouched below, a hand above her head to redirect the stream of boulder-laden water that would have otherwise crushed her. “You’re destroying the great tree, Yggdrassil.”

Freya dove to grab the Sea Witch, pulling her away from the blaze, up into the angry sky.

“Not just Yggdrassil, but the whole freaking Well,” Hedwig shouted, pointing down. Indeed, where the roots of the tree had ripped up, there was naught but rock.

“I didn’t mean to destroy the Well, initially at least,” Freya said, finding she didn’t really care about the destruction she’d wrought. Mimir had brought this all upon himself. “Didn’t really want to destroy Mimir, until he decided to be an ass.”

“Put out the fire,” Hedwig said. “And don’t apologize for the Well. Mimir had it coming for what he did. You just saved me. You can’t feel sorry about Mimir either. It was him or me, and it was a good thing you picked me. My ghost would have come back and haunted you.”

Freya concentrated, trying to control the chaos around her, to bring the clouds together to rain on the burning tree and all it destroyed. The storm was abating, but now she was afraid. Had she caused more danger for herself and Siegfried? She couldn’t think about this now. “What would you have taken with you if you died?”

Hedwig cackled. “White wine and my coral heels. That’s all. And you’re trying to distract yourself again. Look at it this way. The Jotuns have been trying to kill the Aesir for years, sailing in those shitty boats to Asgard and destroying their walls—”

“Why?” Freya asked. “Why don’t the Jotuns like the Aesir?” Freya flew down, landing atop the rubble that had once been Mimir. She set Hedwig beside her.

The Sea Witch pursed her lips, gaze on the rocks beneath them. “Loki kinda rules Jotunheim. So, Loki probably has something to do with the Jotuns hating the Aesir, other than just living here. That, and the Jotun men want some of the Aesir women, even though the logistics usually end up killing the women. Well, not usually. All the time, because it is just impossible to have something that size… Well, you understand what I’m saying.” Hedwig made a gagging sound. “But, you, as an Aesir, had every right to retaliate, especially after a bunch of the Jotuns destroyed Asgard’s walls a few centuries ago. They almost destroyed Bifrost—that’s the rainbow-y bridge thing that leads into Asgard. Somehow they tried to destroy that before some of them got into Asgard, because they’re still seriously dumb.

“You just did everyone a huge favor, except the Jotuns. That includes Siegfried. Did I mention that spending time with you is officially far better than spending time with your mother?”

Freya thrust her fist in the air and fell into her awkward happy dance. She could be happy about this. “Who saved Siegfried? Freya saved Siegfried! Wooh! Wooh! Who just successfully pirated something again? Freya did!”

“Who made the boots that did the ass kicking?” Hedwig chanted, shaking her hips. “The Sea Bitch. Er, wait, actually Siegfried did. Shit. We should probably get back to sea. The Jotuns might have actually seen the tree fall.”

“Ship. Not boat.” They both looked to see Siegfried with Balder, clutching his lyre, at his back. They seemed out of breath. Siegfried whisked a leafy lock of hair from his face.

Freya spread her wings and flew into his arms. “You have your human form back when you want it, No more—”

“You destroyed the entire Well?” He surveyed the destruction around them. “Mimir?”

“Those stone pieces are Mimir, er,
were
Mimir,” Freya said. She gave his nose a smacking kiss. “Haha. Yes, Freya modified the Blood Call. I was only going to hold him on the verge of explosion, but it didn’t work too well with him being all rocky. So, he went poof.”

She was surprised when he lifted her up by her shoulders and shook her. “Don’t you ever run off like that again. Do you realize you could have been killed? Crushed? Forced to sell your hair to Mimir for whatever you wanted. Made to face Loki? Freya. About the Well—”

Freya gasped. “There is some sort of Vast Hair Conspiracy, isn’t there? But Siegfried, aren’t you happy? We succeeded.”

“Don’t ever risk yourself for me like that,” he growled in her ear. “I will deal with you later. Rest assured of that. But right now, there are angry giants on their way.”

Freya called upon the mists to surround them. “We should shift and make a run for the boat.”

“Ship,” Siegfried said.

“Uh, you can all shift, but my fish tail is pretty useless here,” Hedwig said.

“I can carry you,” Balder said, giving his cape a flourish. “My bird form is fairly strong.”

“I can’t fly either,” Siegfried said with a frown. He sounded ashamed.

“Mighty Freya can save you again.” She struck at her armored chest. She thrust her trident at him, then wrapped her arms around his waist and spread her wings. She got a running start and lifted into the air, flying toward the dispersing dark clouds. She tried not to think how far below the earth was or how far up the sky went.

She needed to get far enough away that she could avoid any of the Jotuns’ range weapons—much higher than she had flown with Hedwig. The heights made her head whirl, and it was worse when she broke through the top of the clouds, seeing Jotunheim through the wispy gaps. The endless sky was above. It was daytime, far different than doing this at night when things weren’t so clear.

When her flight bobbled a little, Siegfried said, “Freya, you look a little ill. You’ve done this before. You can do it again.”

“Look up, Siegfried. I’m not going to, but look up and imagine what would happen if somehow something went horribly wrong and we all got sucked up into the sky instead of being planted on the earth. We’d just keep going up and up and up. Falling forever and ever. Now that we’re fey, it really could be forever and ever. Who knows if we’d have enough concentration to fade? How else would you end it, being sucked into some kind of endless journey? Haven’t you ever thought of that?”

“Er, no,” Siegfried said, casting her a confused look. “But don’t think about it now. Please. If something like that happens, I’ll have to grow vines to grab us and secure us.”

“This is true,” she said. “I feel better now.”

Chapter Twelve

“I’m in trouble, aren’t I?” Freya looked up at him with wide eyes. He could sense her excitement, but it was mingled with nervousness.

Siegfried looked down at his naked little slave, skin pale against the green coverlet. Oh, how he was going to punish her. “I won’t relent on everything you don’t want. That isn’t how this works.”

“I wouldn’t want that,” she said. “I’m prepared for what comes next.” She paused. “Why…why do you like to do things like this? The chains, the control?”

“I’ve thought about it a lot.” He would let her delay while he decided on the finer points of his plans for her. “I’ve thought about it more when I read about Bow and Swan.” He turned his gaze from her, looking across the eternal blue sea through the wide expanse of window. “After being a slave at someone’s whim, part of me wants some control over someone else, as sorry as that sounds. I want someone to put their complete trust in me, someone I can trust. Does it make me less of a man if I say that I feel safer having control?”

“No. It makes you honest for saying it.” Freya was sometimes so simple, but he liked that.

He turned back to her and took a seat on the bed beside her. “I’m glad you think so. Then there’s the pleasure I get from it.” He gave her thigh a light spank. She immediately knelt, knees apart, exposing the pink folds of her pussy. “How many ways to be innovative with someone who trusts you to take the lead.” He grazed a fingertip over her clit, savoring her shudder. “So let me ask you the same. What is it for you?”

“Oh, for me?” She looked from his finger to his face. “I’ve always been uncontrollable. Sometimes, it’s comforting to be told ‘no.’ Normally, when people tell me ‘no,’ I do what I want anyways. I said before, I don’t respect the people telling me ‘no,’ and usually they’re saying ‘no’ without good reason. I’ve never respected anyone as a leader before I heard of you. I adopted you as my leader in my head. It’s all difficult to explain, really, but soon after, the fantasies started.”

“Good enough,” Siegfried said. He gave her sex a pat, inducing another shudder. “Some things you can’t fully explain.”

Her brows knit as she tried to focus on their conversation. “You said there were other reasons you thought I ran. I definitely heard an S at the end of reason.”

“Aye. Tell me, Loreley, the truth. What do you think of my appearance, in my other form?” There. He’d said it.

“Master, you’re beautiful. No one could take that away from you. Those antlers make you look virile. The height, more powerful. If you’d come to Folkvang like that and told me who you were, my reaction wouldn’t have been any different. Well, that last’s a lie. There would have been a, ‘Ho-lee shit, the man’s got antlers. How the hell didn’t anyone tell me about that?’ That leads me to wonder how people wouldn’t recognize you then, because, even with the mask, people would have recognized you by your big, beautiful rack.”

He shared another laugh with her and kissed her nose. “I understand, Freya.” All those worries had really been for nothing? “I have two things for you. Although you already received one of them. The boots for your armor. I made those.”

She remembered Hedwig mentioning as much, but she hadn’t thought about it then. “I…thank you. I lost my old ones somehow.”

“I threw them away,” he admitted. “These won’t get stained with blood.” He remembered the significance she’d ascribed to the gift of shoes, of the gift being representative of another helping with one’s burdens.

He smiled slow and reached into his cape. “I had this made for you when I was aboard Balder’s floating island. It’s called Brisingamen, after the three dwarves who crafted it.”

He held it up to show her, and she gasped in pleasure. The necklace was a choker, a collar made of solidified flame in an intricate winding pattern. It glowed, looking almost alive. In the center was a heavy fire opal.