He said nothing as I began to cry softly, tears wetting my face and shimmering hands. I could see the young man in Foss who had been raised in stables, working for a hard master until he finally broke free. He served me without being asked, and without asking for permission. His love for me was much the same.
When I was clean, he brought a small bottle of perfumed oil from the table, pouring a few drops into his hands and rubbing them into my feet.
It had been so long since anyone had been kind to my feet, least of all me.
Foss rubbed softness into the soles, gently massaging oil into each toe. It was heavenly, and I didn’t deserve it. “You d-don’t have to,” I hiccupped, having lost my hold on keeping myself together completely.
His answer was a light kiss delivered to my knee as his hands moved to massage my calves. The pressure was a professional level of incredible, which only made me cry harder. I leaned forward, and Foss rose a few inches, offering his shoulder for my tears to fall on.
Like slow-moving honey, he pulled me toward him until I melted over his body. My arms and legs wrapped around him as I wept for the girl I used to be, and the woman of duty I now was.
He rocked back to sit on his butt, his hands pressing me tight to him as he attempted to hold me together. The best day of his life was a terrible one for me. I felt bad for ruining his high, but I was too turned around to suck it up behind closed doors.
“Do you want me to get Jens or Linus?” he asked quietly. It was a true testament to how much we’d grown that he would even offer that courtesy.
I snorted into his shoulder. “No. Thanks, but no. I’m a mess. I don’t want them to see this. Got to get my game face together so it doesn’t all fall apart.” I buried my nose in his neck. “I’m sorry I’m ruining your moment.”
“You’re my moment,” he said as he ran his hand down my spine. Then quietly, as if only to himself, he admitted, “But I want you to be my lifetime, not just my moment.” His fingers dragged through my curls, relaxing me in his embrace until my shoulders dissolved into his. He said nothing more, but there was a certain comfort about that. He waited in silence, holding me together until I could pick myself back up again. He gathered me yet closer to him, like I was the blanket he needed. He molded my curves to his body and rested his lips on the juncture between my neck and my shoulder, dragging back and forth as he inhaled the scent of my skin.
I closed my eyes so they didn’t roll back at the sensual tease of it all. His hand traced down my backside and snaked up the bottom of my dress. Foss squeezed my calf that was slick with oil, rubbing the tension away as my spine and brain turned to mush.
14
Viggo’s Mistake
The knock on the door was well-timed. Foss placed a kiss to my neck and set me back on the bed, rising to put away the basin and oil before opening the door to Jens and Linus.
Jens took in the beauty of the room with a grave expression at the obvious honeymoon opulence. “If you two are settled in, I’m taking Linus on a tour of the island for a bit. We’ll be back before the feast starts.” He took in my splotchy face and softened. “Not loving your place at the top, eh? I knew that shirt thing would upset you.”
I nodded, but didn’t have it in me to speak.
Linus pointed a foolhardy finger at Foss. “Don’t kiss my sister like that. It’s controlling, and I don’t like the look of it. She’s not your toy.”
I chuckled at the similarities in our brains. “That’s exactly what I said.” I waved my hand. “It’s fine, Linus. It’s the culture, and Foss is my husband.”
“It’s not fine. How can you possibly think this is fine? I die for a little bit, and this is how far off the trail you go? No!” Linus snapped at me, and then turned back to Foss with his eyebrows pushed together in anger. “I’ll make sure you regret the day you helped bring me back to life if you pull something like that again. I’m having a hard enough time wrapping my mind around the whole you two being married thing. Don’t piss me off on top of it. You wouldn’t be the first guy I set straight for being all wrong up on my sister.”
Foss narrowed his eyes at Linus, knowing he couldn’t hit him without incurring my wrath. “Run along, kid.”
Linus grumbled as Jens shook Foss’s hand with a warning. “I’ll be back.” He pointed to me. “Not out of your sight.”
Foss nodded, his face sour at being told what to do. “I know how to look after my own property. Send in Viggo on your way out.”
After all this time, I was still his property – the toy he owned. I don’t know how I let myself get fooled into thinking there was any other way with him.
The two exited, leaving Foss and I with awkward tension building until I spoke. “Brenda said the servants of yours who ended up with Olaf haven’t been treated well. She said three’ve been hanged.”
Foss stiffened. “I’ll confirm that with Viggo. Thanks.”
“Something’s wrong with Viggo.” I swallowed. “It’s good you’re back. Your people need you.”
He held my gaze. “It’s good you’re my wife. We make a good team.”
I said nothing. Neither of us did. We stood staring at each other with too many things to say building up like a Jenga tower between us – one wrong word could send us both into a downward tumble we would never recover from.
Thankfully, another knock interrupted us.
Viggo’s face was downturned and too humble for old friends who’d once joked about buying Foss pink underwear. Foss noticed the difference and addressed the problem head-on. “Tell me how my house has been divided since I left.”
Viggo rattled off the names of the various servants who landed with the chief, and then Tomas of the Hills. When he switched to Olaf, he gave a grave account of the doomed names. The last one he spoke was with a reverence that choked him. “Erika. He took Erika for his bedslave.”
I gasped, my heart immediately torn into bits. She was my homegirl here. The one who got me enough to joke around with me. She’d been my friend when I couldn’t find my voice, and when I finally did start talking, she loved me even more. She was a treasure, and Olaf up and broke my pot of gold.
Foss nodded with a stiffness in his set jaw. “We’ll get them all back. Your torture ends tonight, old friend.”
Viggo was a wrecked man. He fell to his knees before Foss, his hands palming the floorboards as if he wished to be buried beneath them with his grief. “For all your power, not even you can restore her to me.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “She’s pregnant with his child. She belongs to him now, as does the abomination growing inside her. You know no woman has ever given him an heir. As soon as the creature is born, Olaf will claim Erika as his wife to secure his legacy. She confessed this all to Margit, who brought the message of death to me.”
Foss was very still, and I could see the gears in his mind turning like cogs in an ancient clock. Finally he knelt down and placed his hand on Viggo’s shoulder, drawing the man’s eyes up to meet his that were lit with resolve. “I won’t rest until everyone who was taken from my house has been brought back to me. I’ll do all I can to bring Erika home.”
Viggo had tears in his eyes, and the sorrow choked me. There was something awful and precious about seeing a strong man cry. I dropped to my knees next to Foss and wrapped my arms around Viggo, who, beneath his crushing grief was shocked at the open affection. “We’ll get her back, Viggo. Foss can do anything. I’ve seen it.”
Foss’s hand pressed to my back. “I’ll speak to Olaf tonight at the feast. See how much gold he’ll take to part with her. Everything can be bought.”
Viggo shook his head, finally returning my hug as his tears fell into my curls. “Erika’s damaged now. She’s not the same. Even if you got her back, his creature grows inside of her. When I see her in the market, I can’t bear to look at her face.”
I stiffened and stood, disgusted in a breath. “Foss, could you get me something from the kitchen?”
“What do you want?”
&nbs
p; I pointed to the door. “Whatever takes the longest to bring back. A flamingo. A hippopotamus. I don’t really care. I need a minute with Viggo.”
Foss shook his head. “No. Say what you need to. I won’t stop you.”
I was so angry at the man on his knees before me, I suddenly felt something I’d never experienced in Undraland. I felt tall.
My mouth barely opened as I spoke, lest I unhinge my jaw and bring the wrath of Vin Diesel down on the lost man. “Olaf took Erika against her will, made her do things I can’t even say, raped her, knocked her up, and you can’t look at her?” My voice thundered and my fists clenched. “Who are you?! Who are you to look down on her? Who are you to look away from her pain? What man are you to abandon her when she’s lost everything?” I seethed, more furious than I’d been in a while. “I thought I knew who you were! I thought you deserved her!” I turned and growled to Foss, “You’ll bring her back to you, but you won’t waste her on Viggo. She is precious to me, was good to me when no one else was! I’ll keep her as my lady’s maid or whatever. I’ll help her raise the baby, or I’ll find someone who’s good at that sort of thing to help her.” I turned back to Viggo, ready to kick his teeth in. “She’s not carrying a creature or an abomination. She’s carrying a baby who’s done nothing to deserve your cruelty! Nothing!”
Foss bowed his head, and I remembered that his own mother had been taken by her master, which was how Foss made his way into the world without a good man to guide him.
I was vicious now, protective in a way I knew I couldn’t turn back from. I would somehow have to get Erika back. I saw a little Foss growing inside her – however warped that logic might be – and I would not allow either of them to be thrown to the wolves.
“Erika’s lived through things you can’t even begin to imagine. Do you know what Olaf’s hands feel like? They’re rough, like they’ve been dipped in acid. He smells, and you’d rather peel your skin off than let him lay a filthy finger on it! Do you want Olaf’s hands grabbing at your breasts?”
Viggo’s distraught face mutated with streaks of anger as my word pictures of Olaf’s assaults played in his mind. I knew I was hurting him by putting him in the moment no one should have to live through.
Good.
“Do you want Olaf in your bed?” Whatever control I thought I had snapped in two as my voice climbed past a healthy shout. The Nøkkendalig, Olaf and everything that had ever taken me down rose up in front of me, and I flipped. I wound up and punched Viggo across the face, stunning both of us at my descent into madness.
Viggo’s head snapped to the side, and for all the talk about me being this big, bad Domslut, his look of shock told me they’d all thought me the trophy I’d been marketed as. His mouth popped open as his hand touched the spot where I’d made contact. He kept his eyes on the floor, and I saw the same fear in him the villagers had of Tomas of the Hills’s wife. I looked down at my fist, horrified I’d become someone who solved their problems with violence.
When Viggo finally spoke, his voice was small. “I’m sorry, Mistress. That was… I wasn’t…” He drew in a cleansing breath through his nose. “If you can bring Erika home, I’ll be sure I behave better.”
It wasn’t enough. My anger wasn’t satiated with his mere shock, and Erika wasn’t avenged. I cocked my fist again, but Foss caught it mid-strike. “Viggo, go see to helping the men set up for the feast.” When Viggo rose, Foss gripped his shoulder hard and warned, “You’ll do well to remember the words my wife said to you today.”
Viggo left us, and I threw my sandal at the door as it closed. I whirled on Foss. “I won’t apologize! I’m not sorry for punching him, and I’d do it again! You were not a ‘creature’ growing in your mother! You were not an ‘abomination’! Who even talks like that? Insufferable jackfish!” I was shaking with rage, glaring up at Foss with too much bottled up fury that threatened to unleash itself onto anyone in the vicinity.
Foss didn’t say a word; he simply closed the distance between us and kissed me. He caught me up in his whirlwind of humble gratitude that sparked with passion we could never quite get a hold on. He wasn’t gentle – I didn’t expect him to be. He bit my lip and came back for more, clutching the back of my thigh through my dress. His grip slipped upward, cupping the swell he knew didn’t belong to him, but he caressed it like it did. “I love you,” he pledged, kissing me in that way he had about him that made me pant like an animal with no limits. Foss was all hands, and I was up for grabs. He was rough and clumsy as we toppled onto the bed, which thankfully, jerked me out of my stupid decision.
“We can’t,” I warned, pulling away and running to the other side of the room. When he made like he was going to come after me, I shouted, “Stop! We can’t keep doing this to each other!”
Before he could respond, I snatched up my sandals and left, closing the door with a bang.
15
When Powers are Powerless
I didn’t know a ton about the chief, but one thing I understood that night was that he didn’t do things halfway. I’d thought the party Foss threw when we were trying to tear down the portal was grand, but it was nothing to the bash the chief snapped together in a day like it was nothing.
Of course, he had double the help, thanks to Foss’s servants. There was a huge bonfire pit that had a skewered boar on it, and was currently the third one being roasted to feed the entire island. There were low tables for the villagers and servants to sit on the ground, and a head table for the super cool party people. They’d even put a cushion on my chair so I could sit down and not look like a child next to Foss. Olaf and his wife had not arrived yet, though their household had. The two chairs at the end of the table remained empty throughout the opening greeting from the chief’s herald.
Foss kept one hand affixed to me as we greeted each and every one of the guests. After I’d fled from the temptation he presented in the bedroom, I’d made myself useful with Brenda, punching my anger at the world into the bread dough. She’d thrown a fit that I was in the kitchen at all like a servant, so I’d had to resort to ordering her to let me help. Not my finest moment, but it was either the bread dough or Viggo’s face.
Really, it was convenient I was there. No one even noticed when I slipped into the cellars and dribbled a few drops of the cure for the curse into the vats of Gar that would be served at the feast.
Everyone was drinking as the fire crackled in the night, blaming their lightness and hugging on the fiddle music that was joyous with an undercurrent of mischief to it. Only Foss and I knew the truth: the curse was lifting. There would be no more depraved men, except those who chose to be after tonight. I wondered at the fate of the Fossegrimens, and the mourning that might occur when the men had to face the decades of what they’d done.
My arm was laced through Foss’s as the chief announced to the entire island that Foss had returned. Cheers and fists in the air lifted up, and I wished I was hiding behind Foss to escape the thousands of eyes that watched us.
The chief’s strong arm swept toward us. “Foss and his wife survived an attack, escaping to the Other Side where they killed Pesta without a single thought for their own safety. Lucy has been named Queen of the Other Side, but she is your Domslut, ruling her land and standing by the power of the East as he rules his.”
As one, every single person in the vast field bowed, stealing my breath and freezing me where I stood. I hadn’t been a queen to them before. I was the lucky girl who caught Foss’s eye in the slave trade. Now that my actual (but still fake) title was announced, Olaf’s household seemed to bury themselves in horror as they shrank yet lower to the grass.
Two women I didn’t know from the chief’s house had washed and braided my hair earlier while the chief’s young daughter, Aren, watched each curl with rapture. She had insisted they braid her hair in the exact same manner, and kept waving at me and smiling throughout the evening. The last time I’d been in Fossegrim, I’d given her a few strands of my hair as a gift. She had braided them toget
her and wound them inside a gold locket that she wore around her neck. She was only like, the cutest ten-year-old girl I’d ever met. Foss examined my loose curls that mixed in with the braids, and I was glad I couldn’t hear what he was thinking.
Foss lifted his hand, and everyone rose. I didn’t speak as I stood at Foss’s side, feeling like I was five years old and being forced to compete in a college level science fair – totally out of my element.
Foss patted the hand that was wrapped around his arm, and we nodded politely as, one by one, every single person on the island came to us and bowed – with the exception of Olaf, who still hadn’t arrived, even though his household had. It was just as well. I didn’t imagine me kicking his teeth in would be very effective in these flimsy gold sandals.
Then something happened I hadn’t seen coming. When the women came by to pay their respects to the Power of the East, one by one they laid their head coverings at my feet. Some took off the ones they wore, while others had brought an extra for the occasion. I hoped this was some kind of ritual, but I knew it was tied to me telling that woman on the pathway that I liked her covering, and that she should keep it.
“What’s happening?” I asked the woman with the cream and purple-swirled covering I recognized.
She didn’t meet my eyes, but she did smile at me. “Word spread of your kindness to the other women. Because you won’t take from our hands, we wanted to give you something to show our gratitude.” She produced a cream head covering with red swirls to match my dress, and laid it at my feet atop the growing pile.
I was speechless, and torn between touched and scared that such a simple thing as not stealing from the women was worthy of such a gesture.
The chief was taken aback at the grandness of the growing pile, commenting only once that his wife seemed to be without any gifts. That brought the next few women to grudgingly lay their coverings at the chief’s wife’s feet.
Linus at Large: An Undraland Blood Novel Page 10