by Gwen Rivers
Pharaildis’s expression falls. She’d been so pleased to discover she was with child. So happy. Never in her wildest imaginings would she have expected to see that look of revulsion on her lover’s face.
“Surely you must know.” She reaches out a trembling hand, needing to touch him. “There’s been no other.”
He catches her hand in his before she can make contact with his chest. “No, I don’t know. I sneak into and out of your rooms easily enough.”
“I was virgin,” she protests. Tears threaten, but her pride is great enough that she refuses to let them fall. “The night we first lay together.”
He shakes his head, denying her claim.
“Please, John. It’s not so awful. We can be married.”
“I have a destiny,” he insists. “You’re asking me to deny my calling.”
She pulls back, stung. “I would never,”
He grips her wrists, hard. “Get rid of it.”
She blinks, sure she had misunderstood. “What?”
“Find a wise woman and have it taken care of.”
That he would suggest such a thing… “John, please. This is your child. Our child.”
Pain explodes across her cheek and it takes her a moment to realize he’d backhanded her.
“If you name me, I will deny you.” He turns and strides from her room.
She sits numbly for a long time. No tears will fall. Not for her foolish heart, which has been broken into a thousand jagged little pieces. Not for the life growing in her womb, the life her lover ordered her to snuff out. She is too angry to cry. At John, but mostly at herself.
A knock sounds on the outer door to her chambers. “My lady? Your father wishes for you to perform at the gathering tonight. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” Pharaildis meets the serving girl’s dark eyes. “Tell him I will be there soon.”
She takes her time, dressing in her finest outfit. Covering the ugly red mark on her cheek. Her body is still her own, still capable of graceful movement, of enchanting men. There is nothing in her head, the rage blotting out all around her but her purpose. She takes no notice of her surroundings as she strides down the halls. Ignores the admiring glances that follow her, the envious stares of the women as she takes her place.
“There you are, my dear.” Her father smiles. “Would you delight us all with a dance.”
She nods and then waits. When the music starts, she turns and sways, bends and explodes into sensual movement. Power and grace fills her. The room disappears, the people disappear as she loses herself in the dance. It is a dance to enrapture, a dance to consume, a dance never to be forgotten.
When she falls into her final bow, her father is on his feet. “Name your price. Name it and so it shall be yours.”
She stands and stares out at the crowd, heart thundering.
“Deliver unto me the head of John the Baptist.”
Becoming Human
The hours grind into days and tumble into weeks. Winter turns to spring, to summer. My waistline disappears as Addison Sophia grows larger and larger inside me. I smile at her first kick. She’s a fighter, this one.
Like her father. The smile disappears.
No news comes from across the Veil. No sign of Nightweaver. No word from the Wild Hunt. Liam leaves us long enough to retrieve the rest of his pack from Germany and bring them to the farm.
“You don’t need to stay,” I tell the Alpha who has appointed himself as my surrogate big brother.
“You’re pack too,” he tells me. “We watch out for pack.”
Try as I might, I have no memory of him or any of the others. The mindwipe is flawless.
Night after night, dreaming about Pharaildis and the man she called John, I contemplate letting Chloe mindwipe me again, if only to expunge the memory of the two of them. Every dream I have is tied to her. To my mother. Underhill is—and will always be—a heinous bitch. But she was once a girl with dreams. A girl who thought herself in love with a much older man.
One who, if the dreams are accurate, took shameless advantage of her vulnerability and her loneliness.
I’d seen her imprisonment. The dreamer tethered to the fey lands by the Norns. After ordering John’s execution, she’d gone to sleep in her own bed and woken in the dark cavern in the Unseelie Catacombs. No trial, no chance to explain her actions, just imprisoned and abandoned.
She heard the fey voices, all of them, begging for magic, for power. Their voices stayed in her head, day and night, beseeching, demanding, raging when she didn’t help them. They didn’t know her name. Didn’t know she had once been a person.
The one from last night was the worst. I’d seen myself—or rather Nicneven—being born. She’d been imprisoned for months. The pains had come on her suddenly in the middle of the night, sharp enough to penetrate her depression. For hours she’d paced and cursed, the ground beneath her very feet quaking as it mirrored her pain. She’d cried out for her father, her dead lover, anyone to help her.
“I want her,” Pharaildis whispers to the dark. She hadn’t wanted the child at first, not the reminder of John and his betrayal. She’d drunk from the poisoned spring, hoping to end them both. But as the life inside her continued to thrive, she’d clung to the hope that the child would be her salvation.
“I need someone to help ease my suffering. Oh gods, please let my loneliness end. If she dies, let me die, too.”
No one had come. Not the fey who wanted everything she had to give. In the end, she had crouched over her bed and pushed until the baby had slid free of her trembling body. She laughed and held her daughter to her breast and let the babe suckle. Exhaustion had pulled her under.
At the direction of the goddess, Freya, the fey had come to take the child while Pharaildis slept. When she awoke in her prison, she was alone once more.
I shake off the dream that isn’t a dream. It had been her life.
Is it any wonder she’s insane?
“Nic?” There’s a knock on my door and Gretchen pushes it open. “I don’t suppose you’ll reconsider coming back with me?”
I roll onto one side so I can see her. “You mean school?” I gesture to my extended belly. “What’s the point? She’ll be here in a few weeks.”
Gretchen moves farther into the room. “It’s something for you to do all day other than worry.”
“I’m not worrying.” It’s true, I’m not worrying. I’m waiting. Waiting for the baby to be born. I’ve come up with a new plan, a deadly one. I have confided in no one because I doubt they’ll approve.
Once my daughter is born, I’m leaving. Crossing the Veil to save Aiden. When our lives are no longer tied together and she is no longer dependent on me, then we will part ways. She doesn’t need me. Look how decent Pharaildis had been before John had used and discarded her. Look how much her actions had condemned not just her but me as well.
Gretchen is still lingering in the doorway.
“What?” I snap, then regret it. The mortal girl is having a hard time coming to terms with what lurks inside her. She doesn’t have it any easier than I do. “Ignore me, Gretchen. I’m just….” I shrug, not knowing how to finish that sentence.
“Heartbroken?” Gretchen supplies.
“Yeah.” Funny, not so long ago, I didn’t think I even had a heart to break.
She moves farther into the room. “I know. But Nic, you can’t just sit around here. What about when the baby arrives?”
“I have a plan.” Permanent incarceration. Pharaildis must die and according to Angrboda, I am the only one who can kill her. It’s my duty to take her place.
When I don’t offer anything further, Gretchen rises and slings her backpack over her shoulder. “I’ll be back by dinner. I think I’m going to stop by and see my grandmother first.”
The only family member she’d bothered to contact. I wonder why she doesn’t just go live with the woman and am absurdly grateful that she’s stuck around. “See you.”
I lie back down and wait for her to
shut me back into my room.
“Hurry up, little one,” I whisper to the baby inside me. “The waiting is killing me.”
There’s a forceful kick as though my daughter wants out too. I wonder what she’ll look like. Will she have my fair hair and ice-blue eyes? Or will she take after Aiden’s line, with bright green eyes and dark hair? Will she be tall like him or petite like me and Sophie? Maybe some of Garret’s DNA will creep in.
There’s another knock on the door, this one more forceful.
“What?” Why can’t they all just leave me the hell alone?
Harmony slips inside and tosses a pair of sneakers at me. “We need to talk.”
I glare at the seer. Aiden’s sister. Funny how I don’t like her any more than I did before I found out about their relationship. “Go away.”
“No. Aiden would hate to see you like this.”
“Like what?”
“A borderline shut-in? A recluse? A hot mess minus the hot?”
“I hate your face,” I tell her without heat.
Her expression turns serious. “I know what you’re planning.”
“I have a destiny.” My tone is hollow.
“And it isn’t to wallow in your own filth and make a suicide run at Pharaildis.”
A tired breath escapes. “Freya said—,”
“Fuck Freya and whatever she said,” Harmony snaps.
My eyebrows lift at that.
“You are the Risen Queen of the Shadow Throne. You will be the mother of the One True Queen. You can’t throw your life away.”
I sit up, staring at her furious purple face. “You know something.”
“Maybe I do and maybe I don’t. But the only way you’ll find out is if you get up and brush your godsdamned teeth. Your breath smells like a cesspool. Meet me in the kitchen in five minutes or I will forcibly drag your pregnant ass out of here.” She storms off, letting the door bang shut in her wake.
I study the sneakers a moment. She might be bluffing. I wouldn’t put it past her to lure me out and tell me diddly freaking squat. But as I look around the dismal room, I know there’s an undeniable truth behind her tantrum. Aiden would hate to see me like this.
“Hey, Nic.” Chloe says when I emerge from the bathroom. “You hungry?”
I am busy pulling my greasy hair up into a ponytail. Blonde to my shoulders and then black below that. I really need to cut it. “Not right now.”
“I’m making veggie chili tonight.”
I stare at her. I wish I could give Chloe the reaction I know she wants. But it’s not in me to feign excitement. Nothing is in me except a huge sucking void of emptiness. And the One True Queen.
Harmony trots down the stairs from Chloe’s space, carrying my backpack. When she hands the tattered thing to me, I frown. “What’s this for?”
“You’ll see.” Without another word, she strides out the door.
“See you later,” Chloe says. I detect the worry in her tone.
“Yeah. Later.” I follow Harmony out into the August sunshine.
The cicadas buzz and the humidity is oppressive. My center of gravity has shifted and I’m feeling off-balance in more ways than one. The air is fresh though, much better than the stuffy interior of my bedroom.
Harmony heads down the hill to the lake. Not so long ago, the Wild Hunt had camped on its shores. Now, the surrounding area is still. Nothing livelier than the occasional croak of a frog or flit of a butterfly’s wing. The cattails bend gently in the breeze.
Harmony strips off her shirt dress to reveal a bathing suit. One of Chloe’s. It’s a red and white polka dot two-piece that looks bizarre next to her purple skin.
“I’m not swimming,” I say.
“No, but I am.” Braving snakes, the seer wades into the water and glides into an easy breaststroke.
I stare down at the pack in my hands. Curiosity drives me to slide the zipper and peek inside. I suck in a breath when I see the ratty sweats Aiden had clung to so stubbornly. The only thing I had given him to that point.
“Where did you find these?”
“They were in Addy’s trunk. I think your aunt knew that maybe you would need them.”
I hold them close and tears fill my eyes. Harmony concentrates on her laps and ignores my silent sobs.
The grief hurts so much worse than the night I decided not to cross the Veil. Isn’t time supposed to heal all wounds? Mine is festering. One of these days the infection will likely do me in.
“Underhill has him,” I say when Harmony comes to sit beside me. “Doesn’t she?”
She nods, water dripping from her midnight hair.
“Will he get free?”
“Not until she takes the thrones.” Harmony nods in the direction of my belly. “Freya has been good to her word. If you leave after she’s born, you and Aiden will both die. The Veil will fall and the worlds as we know them will end.”
I shake my head. “You’re asking too much of me.”
“He’s not dead, Nic. He’s not going to die, not unless you do something selfish.”
“Selfish?” I round on her. “How can you say that? Do you think I want to be a prisoner, tethered to the fey land for the rest of eternity?”
She holds my gaze. “I think you would rather be a prisoner beyond the Veil than a mother on this side of it.”
My lips part but I have no retort. No quip to show her how wrong she is.
Because every word is true.
“Our mother, mine and Aiden’s. You met her?” Harmony asks.
I nod. “And your father.”
“Then you’ve seen how devoted she is to him.” The seer looks out across the water. “A fantastic wife and a horrible mother. When she had to choose, she chose him again and again.”
I hear the pain in her voice.
“When I found out about Aiden and Freya…how she had seduced him…I felt sick. My entire life I thought that I was okay because even though my own mother hadn’t wanted me, the most beautiful goddess in Asgard had my back. Freya was looking out for me. But she was using me. The same way she used my brother.”
“Gods are selfish assholes,” I mutter.
Her lips turn up. “They are. And if you leave, who do you think will step in and whisk the One True Queen away?”
My lips part. “You’ve seen this?”
She nods once. “And nothing beyond Freya absconding with my niece. The gods will let the worlds burn in Ragnarök. You and me, your child, Aiden…we are all just pawns to them and their whims.”
I close my eyes. “How long must I wait?”
Harmony shakes her head. “Sixteen years, maybe more.”
Sixteen years without Aiden. “I’m the only one who can protect her?”
She nods. “Freya is afraid of you. She won’t try anything for fear of risking your retaliation.”
That makes no sense. “Why though? I don’t have fey powers anymore. I’m not an Unseelie queen. Why would an omnipotent goddess fear me?”
“Because you found a way in.” Harmony holds my gaze. “You can get to her.”
Freaking oracles and their doubletalk. “Into what? Stop talking in riddles.”
“Your dreams. You can go both ways. See the past or the future. And you can see ghosts.”
I shrug. “That and a few bucks will get me a cup of coffee.”
Harmony starts braiding her long dark hair. “Freya’s Valkyries walk the battlefields. They determine which soldiers will live and which ones will die. Which will be brought to Valhalla to live among the gods. Which others will go to the Veil. You captured one of hers and tethered the soul to the Wild Hunt. A Valkyrie belongs to you.”
“You mean to the Hunt.”
“No, Nic. You are the one who bound her. And through that creature, you have access to the goddess.”
I stare at her. “How?”
Harmony drums her fingers on her bare knee. “The spirits you see. Your regressions into the past. They are all connected to your blood. The souls you c
laimed are connected to your kiss. I’m no expert, not like Nahini, but I do know that if you find those strings and trace them, they will lead you to other strings. Your seer gifts are different from mine. They center not only in the future, but in the past as well. You can see those connected to you and those who are connected to them.”
“I still don’t understand why Freya would fear me because of this.”
“Don’t you get it? You have knowledge through that Valkyrie. And knowledge is power, Nic. Especially when it comes to the gods.”
I see the battered station wagon kicking up dirt on the road long before it comes to the house. After taking a much-needed shower I decided to fake being an active member of the household a little longer. I sit on our front porch, shelling peas that Laufey has grown in her massive garden. The garden is the one thing Aiden’s grandmother had thrown herself into to bide her own time until we could go after Aiden and Fern.
“Who is that?” I ask Chloe.
With Addy gone, the veterinarian clinic is closed. We never get unannounced visitors.
Chloe shrugs and tosses a pea pod into a bucket we’re using for compost. “No clue.”
I set my bowl of peas on a wicker side table as the wolves emerge from the trees. Liam and company are on constant patrol of the grounds. Forever seeking to keep me safe. Or perhaps it isn’t me. It could be Gretchen that they are guarding so fiercely. Fenrir, their progenitor.
The car pulls to a stop and a tiny blonde woman emerges from the passenger’s side door.
“Sophie?” My deadly lips part in shock.
She grins at me, rushing up the stairs with both hands extended for an embrace. “Nic, baby, just look at you.”
“She’s the size of the house,” Chloe snarks. “I hope you like peas.”
“Yuck,” Tate says as he scrambles from the car to join us on the porch.
“I’ve got brownies too. With chocolate chips.” Chloe takes his hand and after collecting the bowl of peas in her free hand, leads him inside.
“What are you doing here?” I ask Sophie. “Isn’t it dangerous?”
“If it’s safe enough for my daughter and grandchild, it’s safe enough for me,” Sophie declares. “Besides, I didn’t want you to go through it alone.”