Ain't Myth-Behaving

by Katie MacAlister

  “But I thought you wanted to play,” he said, teasing me with yet another short thrust.

  I reached down and found his balls, raking my nails along them. He stiffened above me for a second, his eyes wide, then he thrust forward until he was fully enveloped.

  “A gentleman always makes sure his partner finishes before him,” I groaned in gasps as he pounded into me, my body moving with his to make the most amazing sensations I’d ever felt. “Oh dear God, do that thing to the left again…holy moly! Oh, yes!”

  He started groaning in Swedish, murmuring what I assumed were sweet nothings into my neck as his hips pistoned, driving me higher and higher.

  “Käresta, I cannot last much longer,” he said, his voice hoarse.

  “You don’t have to—” My world shattered into a billion little pieces of rapture, his shout of completion harsh in my ear.

  A litle bit later, I said, “Normally I’d kill for a smoke after making love, but you’ve actually worn me out to the point where I don’t care.” I was curled up next to Alrik, his arm heavy around me.

  His hand spread across my butt, pulling me tighter against him as he threw a leg over mine. “You will not smoke anymore. Whenever you get the urge to do so, I will simply bed you until you forget.”

  I smiled into his neck, and pressed a little kiss against his pulse point. I had a feeling I was going to be craving a cigarette at every possible moment.

  Seven

  S o. Here we are. Naked. All of us.” I tried to rally a bright smile at the women inside the small wooden room that sat off the kitchen.

  Aunt Agda jerked my towel off and shook a bundle of birch twigs at me. “No towel. It is not healthy.”

  I pointed to where Momo Hildi was huddled on a wooden bench, half-hidden by the steam pouring into the sauna. “She gets one!”

  “Be quiet. This is a ritual.”

  “Uh-huh. Okay, here’s another question—why did all of you guys accept the fact that Momo Hildi is Brynnhilde, and Alrik and his guys are Viking ghosts, and I’m a Valkyrie with training wheels, without even batting an eyelash?”

  Aunt Agda tied up another bundle of sticks. “No one batted an eyelash, as you so colloquially put it, because no one was surprised.”

  Well, I sure as hell was. “You weren’t taken aback by the appearance of five authentic Viking ghosts?”

  All of the women shook their heads.

  I turned to Aunt Pia. “What’s going on here?”

  She sighed. “Your mother was supposed to have told you this when the time was appropriate, but she’s so busy with the clinic and her charity work— all the women in the family know of Momo Hildi, Brynna. Every generation has done its best to take care of her, and every few hundred years, one of her female descendants is born a Valkyrie. Moster Agda was the last one until you.”

  I snapped shut my mouth, which I’m embarrassed to say was hanging open. “You’re a Valkyrie, too?” I asked Aunt Agda.

  “I was born one. But Valkyries do not come into their power unless they’re recognized by one of the Aesir, such as Hildi. I have not yet been graced by such recognition, but I have faith that my selfless actions will be rewarded.”

  “Aesir is…uh…”

  “The gods and goddesses who reside in Asgard. Your ignorance shames the family.”

  Agda suddenly whacked me on the butt with the birch twigs. I yelped in surprise and tried to get away.

  “Yeah, well, it would be nice if someone had told me all this before.” I turned to Aunt Pia. “You said the women all know—what about the men? Paul didn’t seem to be as surprised as I thought he would be when he met Alrik and the other Vikings.”

  She sighed. “We’ve found they’re generally happier if they are ignorant of such things. However, Paul has done significant research on our family history, and he ran across pictures of Momo from a hundred years before, so we had to tell him the truth.”

  That explained why Paul thought nothing of my marrying a Viking I hardly knew. “He could have clued me in.”

  “Stop being so foolish, and sit still! You are being purified for the ceremony.” Agda applied the birch twigs across my back a few more times. It didn’t hurt, but made me feel very itchy.

  “Right. Um…does someone want to fill me in on why we’re doing this the old-fashioned way, rather than zipping down to the local love chapel and having a quickie ceremony?”

  “My daughter will be married in proper style,” Momo Hildi croaked, pinning me back with those uncanny eyes. “We hold to the old ways here.”

  Aunt Agda poured another beaker of water on the rocks, picking up her bundle of twigs with a threatening look. I hurriedly sat down between Aunt Pia and Maja, Paul’s wife. Two older female cousins whose English wasn’t the best sat across from me. They smiled my way sympathetically before going back to a whispered conversation.

  “Old ways. So, what exactly does this entail?”

  “You should be ashamed to know so little of your own people,” Aunt Agda said, sitting down with a huff.

  “History was never my best subject, I’m afraid.”

  “It is not mine, either, but I have learned some things from Paul,” Maja told me with a little touch on my arm. “The ritual cleaning you know about. The bride is washed clean of her status as a maiden. The groom will do the same. At the ceremony, the bride price is paid to her family, and her dowry is likewise exchanged before witnesses. A sacrifice is made, then swords are exchanged, and finally rings. After that is the feast.”

  “Sacrifice?” I asked, horrified. “I am a vegetarian! I’m not going to stand for any animal to be sacrificed!”

  “Paul said he will take care of that,” Aunt Pia said with a complacency I couldn’t even begin to muster. In a way, it was wildly romantic that I was having a historic version of a wedding, but I had an unpleasant feeling that it was going to be a whole lot more trouble than a simple civil ceremony.

  “There’s another problem,” I said an hour later, as Pia and the cousins were helping me get dressed. Momo Hildi sat overseeing everything, her milky eyes seemingly able to see all. I held my arms up for my best dress, a long copper colored gown that almost identically matched my hair. “You said there is a sword exchange. I don’t have one.”

  “You will be given one,” Aunt Agda said as she bustled around the room. From a closet, she pulled out a small metal lockbox, which she opened from a key that hung on a chain around her neck. From the box she took a small green bundle, handing it reverently to Momo Hildi. “The crown.”

  I craned to see the item Momo was slowly uncovering. “A crown? Jewelry? I get to wear cool jewelry?”

  Momo Hildi held up a gold circlet. It had evidently just been polished, because it glittered brightly, its points alternating in flowers and clover. Along the bottom of it, precious gems had been set.

  “Holy cow! That’s gorgeous! It has to be worth a fortune!”

  “The value is in its age,” Aunt Agda replied with an acid look.

  “I wore this crown to my wedding to that fool Gunnar,” Momo Hildi said, turning the crown around in her hands. She didn’t look too happy to see it. “So shall my daughter wear it to wed Sigurd’s son.”

  “It’ll go wonderfully with your dress,” Maja said as Aunt Pia pushed me down into a chair, wielding a hairbrush and several flowers. “Now, let’s see what we can do…”

  I have to admit, as I emerged from the room, clad in my best dress, and an ancient gold crown on my head, I felt pretty darned special, almost tingling with excitement.

  “What’s going on with Alrik? I haven’t seen him all morning,” I asked Paul as he came whipping into the house.

  He paused to eye me. “You look very nice. Although that crown looks uncomfortable.”

  “It is. Alrik?”

  “We just got back from shopping,” he answered, donning an extremely martyred expression. “Four hours of running around after five deranged Vikings intent on purchasing everything that catches their eye…and me
footing the bills. I had to threaten to leave them behind to get them to finally leave. Maja! We’re back.” His wife nodded and hurried after Pia on some errand or other.

  “Shopping? What did they need to shop for?”

  “Proper clothing, although what they ended up with…you can’t hold it against me, Brynna. I tried to get them into a men’s shop, but…well, you’ll see. Then Alrik decided he must have a morning gift for you. I think you’ll find it…interesting.”

  “We’re supposed to give gifts?” I wrung my hands, careful not to move lest I disturb the crown and flower-bedecked elaborate upswept hairdo my aunts had managed to create from my normally tangled mop of curls. “I don’t have a morning gift!”

  He patted my hands. “Don’t worry, you don’t give the groom anything but a sword and a ring. Oh Lord, the rings—I managed to rein Alrik in, but it wasn’t easy. I hope you don’t mind a simple band. Damn. I’d better go see if Njal has them safe…”

  He was off and running, assumedly to hunt down yet another cousin, this one a lanky teen who spent most of his time hunched over his Game Boy.

  People were running all over the house, calling to one another as they got ready for the wedding ceremony, speaking so quickly in Swedish I didn’t stand a chance of understanding what was being said.

  “Is everything good with you?” Aunt Pia asked at one point, a distracted glint to her eye.

  “With me? Absolutely.”

  “Good.” She hesitated a moment, then added quietly, “I have been concerned that perhaps we rushed you into this marriage without giving you a chance to think it through.”

  “I’ll admit it wasn’t my first choice, but after thinking about it…meh. It’s not like it’s a real mar—”

  Little Rolf ran up and said something in a rushed voice to Aunt Pia. She moaned and hurried after him, calling over her shoulder, “I’m glad everything is all right. Excuse me for running, but Uncle Tobias has taken off all his clothes again and is wandering around the neighborhood. I must find him before the neighbors call the police. Rolf, dear, would you please tell Moster Agda that it looks like her dogs are into the wedding cake…”

  She hustled off, yelling for another cousin to remove the dogs from the house. I slumped back in my chair, smiling politely fifteen minutes later when crazy old Uncle Tobias tottered into the room wearing nothing but a tablecloth wrapped around his waist, quickly falling asleep on the couch.

  I was just wondering if I could slip away and zip down to the local store and buy some smokes when Paul stuck his head in the door and yelled something. Everyone in the room turned to look.

  He smiled at me. “We’re ready.”

  “Oh. Uh, okay.” I stood up carefully, suddenly filled with a nervous energy that made me feel twitchy all over. Paul held out his arm for me. I gathered he was designated to walk me down the aisle…or out to the orchard, where the actual ceremony was taking place, Vikings being big on outdoor celebrations. I took his arm and followed at the end of a train of my relatives, Momo Hildi in the lead. “What’s this business about a sacrifice?”

  “Hmm? Oh, don’t worry about that. Alrik wanted to sacrifice a goat or a sheep, but I convinced him mead would do instead. Of course, now his men are all drunk since they insisted on testing the mead for quality control purposes, but I figured you’d prefer drunken Vikings to an animal sacrifice.”

  “You got that right. Now, about these swords…”

  As the family in front of me parted to make way, Alrik stepped into view. The words dried in my mouth as I stared in astonishment at the man who was waiting to marry me. Alrik in wool pants and a linen shirt, with long, wild hair and a scruffy beard, was sexy. The blond man in black pants, a flowing amethyst silk shirt unbuttoned enough to make any red-blooded woman drool, with a sword strapped to his hip, was absolutely devastating.

  “Holy cow,” I breathed, stumbling to a stop as I clutched Paul’s arm. “I never imagined…holy cow! Did he get a haircut?”

  “No, just tied it back. I did persuade him to get a beard trimmer, which he seemed to like. So did the others, but I don’t expect you have eyes for them. I would like to say once again that I am not responsible for their choice of garments. I tried to get them into decent clothing, but…well, you can see for yourself.”

  I blinked a couple of times just to make sure the vision of hunky Alrikness wasn’t going to go away, then managed to drag my eyes to the rest of the Vikings, standing in a line behind him. They all had been spruced up, some having cut their hair and beards, but that wasn’t what caught and held my attention.

  Baldi, a giant of a man, had evidently fallen victim to a sporting equipment shop. He was clad in garish electric blue, lime green, and white spandex biking shorts that left little—if anything—to the imagination. A salmon-colored tank top, swimming goggles, and a bilious yellow headband finished him off.

  “Good God.”

  Grim was at least relatively subdued, wearing khaki cargo shorts, a mossy green mesh shirt, and bright blue sunglasses. Jon had opted for a pair of blue and red satin sleeping pants, and a T-shirt of a topless woman.

  “I see Torsten stopped by the Davy Crocket shop. Where on earth did he find fringed buckskin in Sweden?”

  “You don’t want to know. You truly don’t want to know.”

  I moved forward when Paul gently pulled me, still too dazzled by the Vikings to do much but blink. “At least you kept Alrik from running amok. Although, hoo boy, I’d like to run amok on him. You get bonus points for getting him into that shirt and those tight pants.”

  Paul laughed and gave my hand a squeeze. “I can’t take any credit for him; he picked the things out himself. Brynna—these last few days have been so strange, what with the Vikings and Momo Hildi, and now you becoming involved. But I want you to know that Maja and I truly wish you a lifetime of happiness.”

  That reminder of my nonexistent future with Alrik sobered me. The realization that my time with him was limited made it too painful to look at him, so I stared at my hands instead. “Thank you. Things don’t look very bright for a lifetime of happiness, but I’ve decided to live in the here and now. Worrying about something beyond my control won’t make anyone happy, least of all me.”

  Paul slowed down. “But it is in your control. You don’t have to take the Vikings to Valhalla, you know. You could…well, to be blunt, you could just fail at that.”

  “I thought of that, but I couldn’t do that to Alrik and the others. They’ve earned their reward, and I’m not going to be the one who withholds it from them.”

  “You’re a better woman than I am,” Paul muttered.

  I giggled at that, the smile on my lips freezing as Alrik hove into view. Most of the actual ceremony was a blur, my attention being solely focused on the gorgeous man at my side. He grinned when I stopped before him, giving me a thorough once-over that had a light of desire burning in his changeable eyes. They were a golden gray now, bright with emotion.

  “You look very beautiful,” he said, his hand on his chest as he bowed formally.

  “You’re not so bad yourself,” I said, trying hard not to drool. I turned my smile on the Vikings standing behind him. “All of you look…very colorful.”

  “We wanted something special for the wedding,” Baldi answered, beaming at me.

  “Well, you’ve certainly outdone yourselves,” I said politely.

  “We will be the best-dressed warriors in all of Valhöll,” Torsten boasted, twirling the fringe on the arm of his buckskin jacket. “There will be no one to rival us in our fine clothes.”

  “My wife will not recognize me,” Bardi added, a wistful look to his face. “It has been so long, I couldn’t blame her if she didn’t.”

  “She loved you as much as you loved her,” Grim said, punching his cousin in the shoulder. “She will recognize you. She will sing the praises of Brynna for returning you to her arms.”

  My eyes went to Alrik. It was clear that he was looking forward to his reward as much
as the rest of the Vikings. I was just a diversion, a pleasant interlude…a means to an end.

  I suddenly wanted to cry.

  “We will start now.” Momo Hildi interrupted my pity party, settling into a chair placed before Alrik and myself. She waved a gnarled hand at him. “First, the business. You have the bride price?”

  “I do.” Alrik accepted a small leather pouch from Bardi, handing it to Momo. She opened it eagerly, gold coins spilling out over her lap. “Five hundred marks.”

  “Good Lord!” I said, staring at what must be a fortune in authentic gold coins. Momo swept them back into the bag, and handed it to Agda. I turned to Alrik. “You didn’t have to give Momo money for me!”

  “It is the bride price,” he answered.

  “But—”

  “It is fitting,” Momo interrupted, then gestured to Agda, who gave her a file folder. Momo handed it to Alrik. I peeked over his shoulder to look inside it. There appeared to be some sort of legal documents, stamped with old-fashioned sealing wax and bits of red ribbon. “The dowry. Five hides of land in Jutland.”

  I wondered what the heck a hide was, and why Momo was willing to dower me with some of her land. I leaned to Paul and whispered, “Is that like five acres?”

  “More like five hundred,” he answered, looking surprised. “I knew she had some land in Norrland, but I had no idea it was that much.”

  I was stunned, uncomfortable with the thought that Momo was giving up a huge chunk of land—albeit in a very remote area of Sweden. But then, Alrik had handed over a fortune in gold coins, so perhaps it was an even trade.

  Momo started talking, her voice creaky as she went through a formal summary of the terms of the marriage, then reiterated what we must do to lift the curse. She called upon the gods to witness this marriage, and splashed everyone with a bundle of fir twigs dipped in mead—part of the sacrifice, according to Paul.

  “I just hope there’s a good dry cleaner in town,” I muttered as I brushed splattered mead off my bodice. “I’m going to be really pissed if this dress is ruined.”