The Magic Queen (8 page)

Looking back up, he took the time to study her. She was such a small, delectable thing, barely coming up to his chin. But there her presence was larger than life.

She stared at the bowl with the concentration of a woman trying to divine the mysteries of the universe. Perhaps she already had. Baba Yaga was no middling witch. She was powerful and legendary for a reason. Her delicate brows were furrowed, and she’d bitten down on her bottom lip, showing off her straight white teeth.

He’d heard all the legends about Baba Yaga, the baby eater who worked as one with the darkness, tampering in the media of death, necromancy, and divination. Even the giants of his realm, mostly immune to the effects of magick, would have trembled in her presence.

But she was nothing at all like her stories. She was sexy and had the wit of a fork-tongued adder—logic all rolled up with deadly, beguiling intent. He smirked, taking one last sip of the water before looking around the vast wasteland of their home for the next few weeks.

She’d solved the problem of water. But shelter and food still seemed impossible. As far as his eye could see, there was nothing. He’d not even heard the squeak of a rodent nor seen the tracks of insects in the dirt.

The witch muttered something beneath her breath, and he wondered idly if she were crafting a curse for him. Seemed in keeping with her character. He chuckled and shook his head softly. But then he noted glowing yellow lights off in the distance that distracted him from his thoughts. Frowning, he watched as the lights drew closer to within range of their flame.

He realized the glow was actually eyes attached to a shadowy form.

“Love,” he whispered, trying to snag her attention.

She continued her incantations. And judging by the set of her shoulders and her refusal to even shift an inch, it was obvious she was ignoring him.

“
Pst.
Witch.” He said it a little louder. This was no time for her silly games.

Finally, she looked up at him, curling her lip. “What?”

He sighed then pointed. The shape had begun to take on form. It belonged to a deer. If he could just find a rock large enough to bash its head in with, he could kill it, and they’d have dinner. But his dreams of roasted venison were dashed when she hopped to her knees and smiled enchantingly at the shadowy deer.

“Come here, you little darling,” she crooned to it. “Come to Baba.” She crooked her finger, and against his will, Freyr was mesmerized. He’d had no idea she was such an animal lover. Her entire face had transformed. She sparkled with verve and joy, and he wanted to grump at her that the very last thing she needed was a pet when the very real need for food should have been priority number one.

But how could he deny her? She seemed so happy.

The deer, which had been headed in the direction of the brook, changed course and came toward her instead. It had big, wide eyes and a regal face. It was what most women might term adorable with its fluffier-than-normal brown fur and velveteen nose and... He frowned.

The deer walked straight into Baba’s arms. Skittish animals like deer never did such a thing. One of her arms banded tight around the buck’s neck, and the other... A bit of winking silver caught his eye. A second later, the deer gave a strangled bleating sound and dropped to its knees like a sack of stone.

Turning back to look at him, Baba snorted. “What?” she asked innocently. “Did you really think I’d let a source of food pass us by?”

And once again, he laughed. “You’re insane.”

She nodded as though his words were a compliment. And maybe, just maybe, they were.

Chapter 4

Calypso

She didn’t want to be, but Calypso was impressed. Glancing away from the water orb they’d been watching each couple through, she smirked at a beaming Aphrodite. “I’ll be damned. I don’t know how you did it, Dite, but I think Freyr might actually be a far stronger contender than Bird Beak would have been.”

Aphrodite shook a skull-shaped rattle in Phlegm’s chubby little face. The goblin baby cooed as he reached up for it. “It’s a curse. What can I say?” She snickered, clearly enjoying her moment in the limelight.

Calypso wasn’t exactly a friend of Baba, but she’d used the witch’s services now and again through the ages and including her in the games, mostly for her skills as a sorceress, had been an obvious choice. But just because she’d been a last minute addition to the line up didn’t mean that she’d not wanted to provide the witch a true shot at happiness.

Thanks to her own fairytale ending with Hades, Caly had wanted nothing more than to see all the bad women of Kingdom find their own happily ever afters. Only problem was, each and every last one of the women in the games was as stubborn as a dried, old mule. Getting them to let go of the tough outer shell they wrapped themselves up in wasn’t going to be an easy task.

But she liked what she was seeing so far. Caly only hoped that they figured out their riddles in time. Everything she and Dite did now was intentional. Telling the women they’d kill them, threatening them with bodily harm, giving them only a month to commit... All of it was like a game of chess, thinking three, ten, even twenty moves ahead.

Because Caly was them. She’d been just as dark, wild, and unpredictable as the lot of them. She knew how the dark queens thought because she was one. She might have softened a tad bit under Hades’ tutelage, but beneath it all, Calypso was still that fierce, fiery elemental who took great delight in being occasionally bad. Deep down, Calypso knew that this was what she needed to be to strip these proud, powerful women down to their basic cores and get them to be vulnerable enough to admit that love wasn’t a weakness.

Her stomach clenched. But deep, deep down in the darkest, furthest recess of her mind, a tiny fissure of fear bloomed because what if she was wrong? What if the steps she was sure they’d take they did not? What if all of this blew back in her face? She clenched her jaw, staring uneasily at the sea orb. If the women didn’t react and act the way she’d planned, the outcome could be disastrous to each of them.

Aphrodite laughed, tickling Phlegm as he cooed back at her. And Caly swallowed her fears, pushing them down into the abyss. If she faltered and let Dite see her fear, Dite would suffer too. No sense in that. Things would turn out right. They had to. They’d planned for everything.

Hadn’t they?

Needing to change the subject quickly, she applied an airy lightness to her voice. “I was so sure when you took me to Freyr, this would turn out to be a disaster to beat all.”

Aphrodite’s smug smile slipped just an inch, and a serious look passed over her face. “Promise not to tell?”

Caly crossed her heart.

Dite shrugged the little green bean up on her shoulder, patting his back gently as she looked deeply into the orb. “So did I. But you know what’s weird, Cal?”

Without even asking, Calypso knew exactly what she was going to say. “Yeah. I know. Me too. I kind of want the big, bad witch to find her mate too, Dites.”

Themis, who’d been making them a bowl of popcorn, padded into Caly’s bedroom a second later. She’d not been within hearing distance of their conversation, but Justice was attuned to the games for any signs of foul play and jumped right in.

“It’s called having a heart, ladies. Now, let’s see who yields first, shall we?”

Caly patted the spot on the mattress beside her. Themis sat t a second later, passing the bowl of popcorn as a deep and intense silence filled the room, all eyes back on the orbs as the anticipation grew.

~*~

Baba Yaga

The next night, Baba and Freyr sat around their campfire again, eating more of last night’s kill. Baba had used the bones to build a lean to. It wasn’t huge, but it at least kept the sun off them during the day. She’d stretched out the skins, adding a quick-drying agent to it so that rather than days, it’d only taken hours for them to have a serviceable covering for their shelter. Now they had water, food, and a roof over their heads.

All things considered, things were going rather swimmingly, apart from the fact that Fellatio insisted on prattling on and asking her a million questions, none of which were important as she had no intention of actually claiming any mate by the end of this ridiculous competition. Nor did she plan to take part in whatever circus the goddesses had planned for the last one standing.

Though, she had to admit, if only to herself, that he wasn’t the worst thing she could have been stuck with. He made her laugh.

“Favorite food?” Freyr asked.

She never glanced up from her scrying bowl. Peabrain had given her the tool to bring her enemy to her knees. For the past two nights, she’d had unfettered access to the Dark Queen’s demesne.

The only thing she’d learned so far was that Fable’s eyes dilated every time she looked at the mate chosen for her. He looked familiar to Baba with his razor sharp cheekbones, long face, soulful brown eyes, and caramel colored skin. She knew she’d seen that male before. There was something sad, something haunted about his past, something Baba could possibly use against her royal darkness if she could only remember... The name was just there, flitting on the tip of her tongue when Freyr butted in again.

“You know, love, it’s easier to simply answer my questions. Ignoring me will get you nowhere. I have the patience of a saint.”

Growling, she flicked her gaze toward his laughing eyes. Always laughing. Everything about him was so bloody jolly. What was so funny anyway?

Unrepentant as ever, he flicked the bone he’d been gnawing on over his shoulder then quick as lightning, snatched the bowl of water from her hands and sat it down. “There now. Where were we?” He plopped his chin on his fist. This wouldn’t have been quite so silly looking if he’d been leaning on anything other than air.

It was impossible to stay irritated with a buffoon. “Good gods,” she hissed, “do you never give up?”

“Not really. No. Favorite food. Go.” A large grin cut a swath across his handsome face, and her traitorous heart beat a tad harder at the sight of it.

Tossing up her hands, she muttered the first food that came to mind. “I dunno, haggis?”

His nose wrinkled, and he gave a violent shake of his head. “Of all the foods in all the worlds, my woman loves haggis. Well, it fits, I suppose.”

Ignoring the strange little curl of heat that’d simmered through her belly at his use of “my woman,” she narrowed her eyes. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

Lifting a knee, he casually draped his strong, long arm over it, and she hated that she suddenly felt compelled to count just how many veins he had on his hands. She had a thing for veins—on a man’s hands anyway. Separated from ones body, veins were pretty ghastly things, but when covered by the flesh of a strong, virile male... Well, even she was prone to noticing such things. She sniffed, not liking where her thoughts were headed.

“Only that haggis is the least romantic thing in all the worlds, and so are—”

“Watch your tongue, male.” She flicked her knife upward and had to suppress a grin when his clear blue eyes filled with humor.

He wet his lips, showing her said tongue as if to taunt her with it. “You know you want it.”

“No, I don’t.”

“
Mm
.” He nodded. “Between your thighs, lapping up that honey. It’ll get there, love. Don’t you worry.”

“Gods.” She snorted but wiggled on her bum at the thought. “You’re an idiot.”

He shrugged. “Don’t deny that. You still want me though. And to answer your question, I like apples. Nice, fleshy, meaty apples.” As he said it, his palms wiggled as though he were imagining holding not apples, but a nice, rounded pair of breasts.

She swallowed hard. That stupid male kept giving her carnal ideas. She might be the most powerful witch in all the worlds, but even she wasn’t immune to fertility magick. And he knew it too. He tossed his head back and laughed to the winds.

She glowered. “I hate you, male.”

“Sure you do. I want an apple.” He winked.

Jerking on the pendant around her neck, she called forth an apple. Yes, she’d packed a few in case there was no food to be had where the goddesses took her and without missing a beat, she tossed it at his head.

He hadn’t been expecting the tiny missile. It
thunked
off his skull and landed with a
plop
onto his lap. It was his turn to glower and her turn to laugh. The sound came from deep inside her belly, spilling up her throat and off her tongue.

When she glanced back at him, it was only to discover him looking at her with the kind of look no male who knew who she really was had ever given her before. A slow-as-molasses smile curved along his lips. Snatching up the apple, he took a large, man-bite-sized chunk out of it, moaning as he munched. Those intense eyes of his never left her face, causing whatever humor she’d had left to die a swift death.

Clearing her throat, feeling as though she’d swallowed a raging fire the way her stomach suddenly burned, she retrieved the bowl and called back the image of the Dark Queen. But she might as well have been staring at a blank wall for all the good it did her. She could hardly focus on anything other than the sounds of his chewing, the way his Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed, and how big and all-consuming he suddenly seemed to her.

Needing to break the tension, she said, “I think the goddesses hate me.”

He said nothing for the longest time, and she was forced to look up and see whether he’d heard her at all. He had. That stupid, gorgeous smile was fixed right back on his face.

“This is a momentous occasion. I do believe we should mark our calendars.”

She should not ask. She so shouldn’t ask. She asked, “What the bloody hell are you blathering on about now?”

He shrugged and flicked the apple over his shoulder to join the bones of their discarded meal from earlier.

“You talked to me first. I’m wearing you down.”

“Fellatio—”

He lifted a brow in question.

“—shut up.”

That deep, rich laughter she was coming to associate solely with him filled the space between them. Freyr was unlike anyone she’d ever been around before. He didn’t quake, Didn’t grovel and beg for mercy. At this point in the game, she’d usually cut out a male’s tongue, so as not to be forced to have to listen to them chatter on. But she liked the sound of his whiskey-rich voice, though she’d kill someone before admitting that.