by Loki Renard
“I don’t care how old you are,” Helios says. “You are my daughters, and no harm will come to you. You do not know the appetites of gods.”
I look away when he says that, in case the truth is written all over my face. I don’t even dare make eye contact with Lucy in case she somehow reads the truth from my mind and blurts it to everybody.
With that said, Helios and Ragnar withdraw. They know better than to stay and argue with us. Lucy especially can hardly be reasoned with when she sets her mind to something. My determination is quieter, but no less formidable.
“This is unfair,” Lucy complains when the door closes and disappears.
“It is,” I agree, though not for the same reason she’s saying it. “What happened to you? I saw you taken. I tried to follow you.”
“I saw such amazing things under the ocean, Raine,” Lucy exclaims, her eyes brightening. “There are castles down there, and endless life, and…”
“Triton?”
She blushes and looks away. I know that look. It's the look I just had. “Did he… did you…”
“Did he what?” She asks the question too quickly, and too defensively.
“Did he… sleep with you?”
“Raine! Really!” She gapes at me, as if the very suggestion was unthinkable. My heart sinks. I was hoping she might have lost her virginity too, and then I would be able to talk to her about it.
“I would never sleep with a god on first meeting him," she says, her voice full of righteousness. “That sort of behavior is for nymphs who don’t know any better.”
“Haha, yeah,” I agree.
“The dolphins can talk,” she says, carrying on with her story without thinking to turn the question around on me. “And they’ll let you ride on their backs, which I’m used to, of course, because of the horses.”
“Sounds fun,” I say. “Did Triton let you come back, then?”
“Ragnar and Helios showed up and demanded he let me go,” Lucy says, rolling her eyes. “Do you know how embarrassing that was? They treat us like we’re still infants, but we’re not. We’re women.”
That, I can agree with more vociferously. This enforced confinement does not please me at all. This room is far too small for the pair of us, and there was no mention of how long they planned to leave us here. Yesterday, I felt guilt for being away from home, for sleeping with a god, for failing my family. Today, I almost wish I hadn’t come back at all.
“They’ve got no right,” I say. “Tanuk didn’t hold me prisoner. And Triton didn’t hold you prisoner. We're more prisoners here than we were out there. And who stopped us from going out and meeting all these gods and knowing them? Who hid the whole of the world from us, and us from it?”
Lucy is nodding vigorously. “It’s like they don’t want us to have a life. They want us stuck here in this castle forever. And you know it’s made of Helios, so in a weird way, when we’re in here, it’s like we never actually got out of his body.”
“Well, that just made this so much grosser. But you're not wrong. Our mother would never allow this to happen to her. I bet she makes them let us out.”
“She doesn’t always get her way.”
“She doesn’t always not get her way either,” I point out. There is nothing Ragnar and Helios would not do for our mother. They worship her. They deny her nothing.
“Do you know what we could do?”
“What?”
“We could run away.”
“Where would we go?”
“Anywhere. This place is huge beyond huge. You could go to Triton.”
“Would you go to Tanuk?” Lucy throws that question back quicker than I expect.
“Uh, no. He’s an asshole.” I don't have to try to put feeling into that statement. I’m embarrassed. I lost control with him. I didn’t know myself with him. Now I find myself captive even though I’ve tried to do the right thing.
We look at one another, and realize at the same time that we have nowhere to go. Being grounded is a mere formality for young women like us.
“We don't know anybody,” Lucy complains. “They always said once we turned eighteen we’d be able to do whatever we wanted. But we don’t even know what we want. So far we’ve been kidnapped. That’s it.”
“Actually, you were kidnapped. Twice. I followed after you and got sent home by Tanuk.”
“Don’t feel bad about yourself,” Lucy says, sensing that I’m feeling left out. That’s usually a safe bet. It just isn’t right now. But I go with it, because it's better than telling Lucy the truth.
“Sure. Two guys take you in one day. No guys take me. I just floated around in a boat.”
“Can I tell you something?” Lucy sounds suddenly surreptitious.
“Always.”
“I wasn’t kidnapped by two guys in one day. Tanuk asked me if I wanted to see some dresses and I just went with him. I didn’t even notice we weren’t on this island anymore. Triton only grabbed me to take me back home. Ragnar and Helios came for me, but they didn’t need to. Triton was already taking me back. The reason it took him so long is I was trying to stay down there. At least it was different!”
What she’s confessing is astounding. She wasn't taken. She’s still pure. But I was. I was taken in a way that can never be taken back.
“That doesn’t make sense. Triton left me behind. I tried to follow you.”
“I. Uhm. I don’t think he noticed you?” Lucy’s squeak covers her embarrassment and mine.
“Of course he didn’t. Nobody does.” I have to inject the old note of self-deprecation and not let the storm of feelings inside me show.
“They do," she says. “I’m just always outshining you because I’m afraid nothing will ever happen to me. So I make sure everybody is looking. So maybe something will happen.”
“Well, it won’t if we stay sitting in this room. We need to go. Remember what Mom did when she found herself stuck in a pod without any outside stimulation. She escaped. She ran away and she found the loves of her life. We should do what she did.”
Lucy's eyes widen. “We should!”
“What are you two doing in here?” Helios appears suddenly, startling both of us.
What does he mean, what are we doing? What can we be doing, sitting in a room?
“Nothing. Just talking,” I lie quickly.
“It feels as though you’re throwing a storm inside my soul.”
Lucy and I look at one another. Lucy shrugs.
“Maybe we’re getting too big to keep inside,” I suggest.
“Maybe. Maybe there's something else at play.” He looks at me with a curious gaze and I panic at the notion he’s going to somehow work it out.
“We’re doing what you asked us to,” I say. “We’re sitting here, having no life whatsoever.”
Lucy’s not talking to him. She never does when she's in trouble. She’s been freezing Helios out when she is displeased with him since she was almost too small to know what she was doing. Helios hates it. Ragnar wouldn’t notice if I ignored him, and if he did notice it, he wouldn’t allow it.
“Keep it down, alright? You don’t want to put a crack in the palace.”
I’d love to put a crack in the palace. I’d love to burst the whole thing wide open and be free. But doing that would be admitting what happened to me, and why I can no longer be here. I’m not their perfect little virgin anymore. I’ve become something… I don’t want to say greater, but I’ve become more myself. I’ve changed, and the palace knows it, even if Helios doesn’t.
He leaves us alone again, blinking out of existence in that way he has which is always unsettling because you never know when he will be in your presence again. He claims not to listen in to our conversations, but I’ve never quite believed that.
“I wish he wouldn’t do that,” Lucy sighs.
“I know, right? There’s no privacy here. There never has been.”
I need privacy, some space of my own. I need to think about what happened.
“We will escape,” I say. “But we should get some rest first.”
“Agreed. I’m kind of tired.”
Neither one of us is tired. I just woke up and Lucy doesn’t need to sleep at all. The truth is, we are cowards. We want to be brave and strike out on our own, but we don’t know how. It’s embarrassing. Our mother did something extraordinary. She overcame much more impossible odds. All we have to do is leave the room and throw ourselves into the ocean. Well, Lucy could. I’d have to get back in the boat.
We go to sleep, or pretend to, each nursing the worst kind of broken heart. Not the one which comes from having lost in love. The one which comes from realizing you’ll never love at all.
6
Raine
Days pass and things are forgiven. Helios does not like to hold grudges, and Ragnar already seems to have dismissed the entire event. My mother acts as though nothing has changed, though absolutely everything has changed.
We are allowed to leave the palace, though Helios is not allowing Lucy out of his sight, and Ragnar is suddenly insisting that I spend every moment with him at Yggdrasil. The problem with guarding a tree, however, is that it is a tree. Trees are not known for their fascinating dramas. I inevitably find myself pacing around the trunk in ever larger circles, wearing a spiral path into the turf.
“What’s wrong with you, girl?” Ragnar grunts the question.
“What’s wrong with you?” I throw the question right back at him. “Why do I have to be here?”
“I’m keeping you safe," he says. “I’m not taking my eyes off you. Now that Lucy has become a target for kidnappers, you are too.”
“Remember when you said when we reached the age of majority, we’d be able to go all over Okeanus?”
“I remember absolutely never saying that,” Ragnar growls. “You are special, Raine. I will keep you safe.”
I want to tell him it is too late, but that would break his heart.
“There’s a dragon at the bottom of this tree," Ragnar tells me. He has been telling me that for as long as I can remember whenever he thinks I need to be distracted from something.
“It’s not going to work.”
“What's not going to work?”
“Telling me about the dragon at the bottom of the tree. You always say that when you want me to get distracted.”
“No,” he says. “I tell you that, because when you're upset, I hear it start to rumble more. When you laugh, it settles.”
I used to laugh when he said that, now I don’t think the joke is as funny as it used to be when I was small.
“You and I have a connection to this tree, and all that is connected to it. It is among the oldest of creations, and you do not take the time to learn about it,” he growls.
“I’ve been hanging around this tree forever. What do you want me to do?”
“The tree doesn’t give its secrets to those who aren’t interested.”
“I thought you just said we had a connection.”
Ragnar cuts his eyes at me. We have the same eyes, so I’m told, but I’m certain mine don’t get that icy stern.
He doesn't like it when I’m smart mouthed. He wants me to listen and learn and be a good little tree-keeper, just like he is. But I've never felt anything for Yggdrasil. It’s blasphemy to say it, so I don’t, but this tree is the same as all the others on Okeanus. It’s just bigger.
“I need to rest,” I lie. “I’m going back to the palace.”
He grunts. I know he is disappointed in me because I’m not interested in taking over guardianship of the tree. I’d suggest he and my mother try for another baby to bend to their will, maybe a boy who will be more like him, and less like me. But that is a discussion we’ll never have. There are so many words between my father and me, almost all of them unsaid. They’ll stay that way too.
I return to our room. Lucy isn’t there. I saw her flying around with Helios on my way back, so I’m not surprised. She gets to do something fun, at least. Charging through the sky on a chariot driven by winged horses is a lot more entertaining than confirming that yes, once again, Yggdrasil is still where we left it.
The wall closes behind me as I step into our room and flop down on my bed. I am bored, terminally so. If something does not happen soon, I do not know if I will be able to survive mentally or emotionally.
Tanuk awoke something inside me. He changed me, or maybe he just unlocked the thing which had been there all along, hiding, waiting to come out.
Do I want him back? Is it possible that I wish I’d never left his island? Is it regret that gnaws at my belly? Or is that just the lust I now feel my body filled with almost every day, a need for the animal god who showed me what my flesh was for.
“Hello, Raine.”
That voice is incredible. Deep, and resonant and filled with a kind of dark mischief which reaches out and wraps itself around the naughty core of my being.
“No way,” I whisper under my breath. “It’s not possible.”
“So many more things are possible than you think,” Tanuk purrs.
I turn, whirling swiftly off the bed to face my tormentor. I wish I had dressed better today. I am in a shapeless blue robe, and it has dirt on the hem from where it was dragging in the mud I created with my incessant pacing. My hair is all over the place, tumbling around my head in a messy mass.
“Tanuk.” I say his name because it feels almost essential to say it, like he won't really be here if I don’t acknowledge him.
“The very same.”
He’s even more handsome than I remember him being. Is that possible? He has the most incredible facial features I’ve ever seen. Sharp, but masculine, dark brows finely shaped but oh so expressive. High cheekbones and a broad smile, which never seems to leave his face.
Just looking at him does something to me. I feel my blood run hotter, my face flush with excitement. I can’t believe he is really here. In my room. The place I grew up. His mere presence seems a desecration of some kind, but I am pleased to see him.
That’s madness. How can I be pleased to see the tormentor who stole my sister and let me leave his den?
“How did you get in here? Nothing gets inside Helios’s palace without his knowledge. It shouldn’t be possible.”
“And yet, somehow it is,” he says, spreading his arms wide to draw further attention to the fact that he is indeed there. “I have done it more than once, you know.”
“I guess you have,” I admit. “But seriously. How?”
“That is my little secret.”
“You have lots of those, don’t you.”
“And I am not the only one. I’ve been expecting reprisals ever since our little island tryst. But it seems someone knows how to keep a secret,” Tanuk smiles, his eyes mocking. He’s not wearing a shirt, and I am certain that was not a sartorial decision. He wants me to look upon the muscular plane of his body and be impressed.
I am impressed. I am also caught in a sudden wave of lust.
“Me?” I am a bit slow to follow what he is saying because my body seems to be chemically reorganizing itself in his presence.
“I thought I would have been facing an invasion the moment you returned. But you didn’t tell them, did you? Neither you nor Lucy said a word about me.”
“I said a word about you in the very beginning, when she was first taken. Maybe Helios and Ragnar just don’t care about…”
“Your maidenhead? Oh, I think they care. I think they care very much.”
“Why are you here?” I change the subject before I blush so hard I faint.
“I missed you,” he says, simply.
“No, you didn’t, liar.”
“I came to ask you if you’d like to come with me.”
“Where? Back to your weird island?”
“We wouldn’t have to actually go anywhere. I could stay here.”
“You just asked me if I wanted to come with you.”
“Then you said my island was weird.”
“If they caught
you here, they would be very angry.” I don’t need to tell him who they are. This is a thrill for the both of us, and rather exciting. Tanuk came back for me. I’m sure he has some kind of ulterior motive, but I can’t help but be flattered and intrigued.
“They’re not going to catch me,” he smiles rakishly.
I know he’s not a good guy. I know he’s not even a nice guy. But at least he’s not boring. He’s the only interesting thing in this place, and he came back. For me.
He lifts his hand and crooks his finger.
“Come here, princess.”
He calls and I come.
I can’t help myself. Before I know what I’m doing, I’m embracing him like a long lost lover — because that is what he is. I have missed him every moment since I left his island. His kiss reignites the passion which has been forced to lie dormant inside me.
For the last few days, I have been forced into the mold of the good girl. In Tanuk’s arms, there is nothing good about me. He makes me wild, and rebellious. He gives me permission to want and need.
“You are stunning,” he murmurs against my ear, his lips caressing my lobe. Tanuk knows how to touch me to make my body sing. He knows how to tear at the protective shell I put up around myself. He knows how to break through to the passionate core inside me. I cannot resist him, and I have no intention of trying.
I find myself face down on the bedspread, balanced on my knees, my bare bottom high, my sex presented for the ravishing. I know Tanuk is getting off on fucking me right here in the golden palace. I don’t know if he knows that I am too.
His muscular arms are on either side of me, his back pressed against mine, his hips slapping my ass with every single stroke. Pain has always come with pleasure where Tanuk is concerned. The bed creaks in time with my ravaging, a sound which seems to me to be so impossibly loud that surely all of Okeanus can hear.
Every time Tanuk’s cock surges inside me I am filled with the pure pleasure of the flesh and the even greater thrill of rebellion.