The Helicon Muses Omnibus: Books 1-4

by V. J. Chambers

  “Sawyer…”

  “Whatever,” he said. “You don’t have to say anything. I got your message.” He got up and stalked past her, disappearing down the steps.

  * * *

  Nora waited for Sawyer at dinner, but he never showed up. Techne didn’t either. She and Maddie ate together.

  “Where’s Sawyer?” Maddie asked.

  “I think he’s mad at me,” said Nora.

  “Really? Well, it’s about time.”

  “About time?” said Nora. “Why would you say that?”

  Maddie sat down on a bench next to Nora. She set down her plate, which was laden down with a bunch of lettuce. “You’ve been ignoring him since May Day.”

  “Well, I had to. After what happened, I couldn’t handle talking to him.”

  Maddie raised her eyebrows. “Nora, you guys had sex, and it didn’t feel good. It’s not his fault.”

  “Of course it’s his fault. He was there.”

  “So were you.”

  “I don’t blame you for what Agler did to you,” said Nora.

  “Well, it’s not really the same thing,” said Maddie, “all things considered. Agler and I had a drunken encounter. You and Sawyer are in love. You need to talk to him.”

  Nora sighed.

  “Besides,” said Maddie, “I deserve some of the blame for what happened to me with Agler. It’s not like he forced himself on me. I asked him to do it.”

  “But you didn’t know it was going to be so terrible,” said Nora.

  Maddie shrugged. “I know. I’m only saying it’s not simple, and it’s not cut and dry. And you need to talk to Sawyer.”

  * * *

  Nora found Sawyer in his tent, lying on his hammock. She pushed aside the flap and peeked inside. She was holding Catling, her pet cat-duck in her arms. “Catling misses you,” she said. “She wanted to come say hi.”

  Sawyer sat up. “Nora?”

  “I miss you too,” she said.

  He got off the hammock.

  Nora handed him Catling.

  The cat-duck purred in Sawyer’s arms. He scratched her behind the ears. “Look, if you’re here because you’re feeling sorry for me, don’t worry about it. I should have known that whatever was between us was temporary. Maybe we’re better as friends anyway.”

  “Do you really think that?” Nora chewed on her lip.

  He shrugged.

  “I never wanted to break up with you, Sawyer. I was confused, that’s all.”

  “You haven’t talked to me in so long,” he said. “You don’t want to be near me.”

  “That’s the thing,” she said. “I miss being near you the most.” She wrapped her arms around him and Catling both.

  The cat-duck mewed loudly and jumped out of Sawyer’s arms.

  Sawyer reached up to touch her face. “Then why have you pulled away?”

  “Well…” She avoided his gaze. “When we had sex, it was…”

  “Really awful?” he said.

  She looked back at him. “You didn’t like it either?”

  He winced. “Well, no, I did, but I figured I was really bad at it.”

  “It just made me mad. I was the one who was pushing for us to do it, and then when it happened, it was just… it was boring and gross and I had to clean myself up, and I had to halt my aging so I wouldn’t get pregnant, and you—you didn’t have to do any of that. And you actually had fun. And that just isn’t fair. It isn’t fair at all.” She pulled away. “I gotta say, Sawyer, I have no idea why you would want to be a girl.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “So… I was really bad at it.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “I was worried that I was going to be. I didn’t want to do it, because I was afraid I’d mess it all up.”

  “I know,” she said. “And I guess I didn’t have the right to be mad at you, but… I was.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He bent down and scooped Catling back up. He tickled the little furry animal under her chin and settled down on the ground of the tent.

  Nora sat down too.

  “You don’t want to break up?” said Sawyer.

  “No,” she said. “I wish it was like it was before. When we were happy, and we were together, and we were just kissing.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Well, we can do that.”

  “Yeah?” She looked at him hopefully.

  He smiled at her. “I only want to make you happy.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Nora sat up, gasping. She was lying on Sawyer’s hammock with him, and her shirt was off, and it was late at night.

  Sawyer dragged a hand over his face. “You should go back to your tent.” He wasn’t wearing a shirt either.

  She struggled to get her breathing under control. “But I don’t have to anymore. There aren’t any rules. We can sleep together if we want.”

  “But we don’t want,” said Sawyer. “I mean you don’t want to do that, and I don’t want to do it if you don’t want to do it.”

  She noticed that Sawyer was talking her bare chest, and that he wasn’t looking at her face. “I meant we could sleep together literally. Not sleep together sleep together.”

  “Right,” said Sawyer.

  His lips were on her skin.

  She moaned, letting him pull her down with him. She surrendered herself to the movements of his fingers and tongue. It was bliss. She writhed under him, letting the pleasure sink into her.

  And then Sawyer wrenched himself away from her. He pulled her shirt out from beneath their bodies and thrust it at her. “You should go back to your tent.”

  “Why?” she said. She was whining a little bit, and she knew it. She hadn’t wanted Sawyer to stop doing what he was doing. “I liked that. As far as I’m concerned, we could just do that forever.”

  He groaned. “I can’t do that forever.”

  “You can’t?”

  “No, because the more I do that, the more I want to do… more.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  He wrapped his body around hers, grinding his hips against hers. His voice came out in a throaty whisper. “Nora, you are driving me crazy. I don’t want to do anything you don’t want to do, but… I want to do things you don’t want me to do. Like, really want to.”

  “Wait, you don’t want… what?”

  “I’m trying not to want to have sex with you.”

  “But you do want to?”

  He let go of her and flung himself back into the hammock. “You should leave.”

  “Well, maybe if we put our shirts back on,” she said.

  “We tried that, remember?”

  He was right. This was the third time their shirts had gone on. Only to come right back on when they started heavily making out again.

  She ran her fingers over his chest. “But I like being close to you,” she whispered.

  He looked up at her. “I like being close to you too.”

  She kissed him, long and slow and sweet. Then she lay down next to him, snuggling close, her lips at his ear. “You can do it if you want, I guess. I don’t mind if it means I don’t have to go back to my tent.”

  “What?” he said.

  “We can have sex if you really want to. I guess it wouldn’t be that big of a deal.”

  He pulled away, furrowing his brow. “No.”

  “No? But I thought you really wanted to.”

  “I do,” he said. “But I don’t want you to be like that about it. I don’t want you to not mind it. I want you to want it too.”

  She chewed on her lip.

  He kissed her forehead. “Hey, I’m being a jerk. I can control myself. You can stay. We don’t have to do anything other than kiss.”

  “You’re not being a jerk, Sawyer,” she said. “Maybe I’m being a tease.”

  He traced circles over her bare shoulder. “You’re allowed to be a tease. You can tease me as much as you want.”

  She smi
led a little. “But that’s not fair.”

  “I’d rather have you teasing me than the way things were, without you talking to me.”

  She kissed him. “I won’t do that again. I promise.”

  He closed his eyes. “All I want is you in my arms. That’s the only thing that’s important.”

  She closed her eyes too, and began to drift off to sleep, pressed close to him. It was perfect. She loved it.

  But then Sawyer shifted a little bit, and she was suddenly aware of him, stiff and insistent against her. And for some reason, she felt a little bit guilty, like it was her fault that she was leaving him unsatisfied.

  * * *

  “I can’t believe there’s nothing that you’d take for that necklace,” said the actress on stage.

  It was the Solstice, and Nora, Sawyer, and Maddie were sitting in the amphitheater, watching the play that was being performed for this year’s celebration. It was called Freya’s Necklace, and Nora thought it was one of the weirdest plays she’d ever seen.

  The story had started out with Freya and her husband Odur in bed, having a conversation about how great their sex life was. Seriously. The actors had been naked, and while the covers on the bed on stage had mostly covered everything, there had been several flashes of… body parts.

  Nora felt embarrassed, because there were kids in the audience, and she didn’t think that they should be seeing naked people on stage. But she didn’t say anything, or react in any way, because the muses saw things differently than people did in the mundane world. Her first night there, she’d been taken to the public baths and Owen had explained to her that the muses didn’t have hangups about nudity. So, maybe it was no big deal. But this wasn’t just nudity. It was all about sex, and it was really explicit.

  The play was making her embarrassed.

  Freya had gotten dressed right away but only in this really skimpy little dress thing that showed off plenty of her long legs and ample bosom.

  Nora knew that the May Day dance was pretty sensual, but it somehow seemed to be ancient and sacred. This only seemed… sordid.

  Freya had met four dwarves, portrayed by male actors on their knees. The dwarves were only wearing loincloths. Their bare chests were oiled and muscled. Nora had to admit they were nice to look at, but the niceness was also kind of making her uncomfortable. She was sort of… turned on by this play, and she didn’t think she wanted to be turned on in public.

  The dwarves had a necklace, and Freya really wanted the necklace, but the dwarves wouldn’t give it to her. The necklace was magic or something, and anyone who wore it was the most beautiful, most irresistible woman in all of Asgard. Which seemed weird to Nora, because, near as she could tell, Freya was already a goddess, and basically the most beautiful woman on earth anyway. Freya offered the dwarves all kinds of gold and jewels and money and other things for the necklace, but they said no.

  Freya bent down, pushing her breasts into the face of one of the dwarves. “There must be something that I could do to convince you to let me have that necklace.”

  “Why, my lady, we didn’t realize you’d be interested in doing something for us.”

  Freya’s voice got breathy. “But of course I would. I’d do anything for that necklace. I simply must have it.”

  “We might be able to come to an arrangement,” said one of the dwarves.

  “Oh, that’s good,” said Freya, breathlessly running her hands all over her body. “You know, just thinking about this necklace is making me feel so… hot.”

  “Really?” said one of the dwarves.

  “I think I’m wearing too many clothes,” said Freya.

  “Well, we can’t have that,” said a dwarf.

  Freya ripped open her skimpy dress, exposing her breasts.

  Nora gulped. This was not actually happening.

  “Now,” said Freya, “what was it that you wanted me to do for you?”

  There was a noise from behind Nora. “This isn’t a play,” someone was yelling. “This is pornography. I’m not sitting through this. This is absolutely unacceptable.”

  Nora felt relieved. At least someone else thought the play was bad. She turned around to see that it was Techne who was yelling.

  Techne looked furious. “Stop the play! Stop spewing that filth this instant.”

  The actors on stage all froze, looking confused.

  “I mean it,” said Techne. “Stop it.”

  Someone stood up at the front of the amphitheater. Nora recognized him as Julian Brook, the man who’d written the play about Merlin last year. His play had been censored by the council because it mentioned Nimue, and the muses thought a play that mentioned a woman who’d massacred them was in poor taste.

  Julian was laughing. “You wouldn’t let me do my play about Merlin the way I wanted last year, but when I said I wanted to do a play about the story of Freya and the golden necklace, no one batted an eyelash. Well, here’s the play you people didn’t censor.”

  “This is filth,” said Techne.

  “It’s art,” countered Julian.

  Phoebe stood up. She was in the middle of the amphitheater. She cleared her throat, and her voice rang out through the audience. “Julian, how graphic is this play going to get?”

  Julian smirked.

  “I see,” said Phoebe. “Are there actual sex acts on stage?”

  “Define sex act,” said Julian.

  “Everyone under sixteen out of the theater,” said Phoebe.

  “Sixteen?” said Techne, looking outraged. “Twenty at least.”

  Phoebe glared at her. “Fourteen.”

  Techne huffed. She turned on her heel and stalked up the aisle out of the amphitheater.

  Phoebe turned back to the actors. “All right, carry on.”

  Carry on? Phoebe was just going to let it go on? Nora thought it was inappropriate and embarrassing.

  Maddie nudged her. “Let’s go.”

  Oh, good. Nora got up.

  “Wait, why are we leaving?” whispered Sawyer, staring up at the stage with interest.

  Nora grabbed him by the arm and yanked him after her.

  “To question Techne of course,” said Maddie.

  Oh, right. That was why they were going. Not because the play was making anyone else feel uncomfortable. Nora wondered if she was actually a huge prude.

  But she scurried out after Maddie, dragging Sawyer along.

  They caught up to Techne in the field beyond the amphitheater. They hadn’t been the only people to leave the play. It looked as if approximately one fourth of the audience had walked out as well.

  “Give me the flask,” said Maddie.

  Sawyer handed it over. He craned his neck over the bodies that were leaving the theater, still trying to look at the stage.

  Nora shoved him. “Stop it.”

  “What?” he said.

  “You just want to see that naked actress,” said Nora, feeling a stab of jealousy.

  Sawyer shrugged. “She was okay, I guess. I thought the guys in loincloths were actually more interesting.”

  Nora was taken aback. It was so weird to be in a relationship with a guy who was also attracted to men. “Really? Do you check guys out a lot?”

  “No,” said Sawyer. He grinned at her. “Do you?”

  She rolled her eyes.

  Maddie was already away from them, holding out the flask to Techne. “You look like you need a drink. Who wouldn’t after that?”

  Techne took the flask and took a swig. “Thank you. That was… deeply unsettling.”

  “I agree,” said Maddie.

  Nora turned to Sawyer. “If Techne was really Owen, do you think she would have stopped the play like that? Is that something Owen would have done?”

  Sawyer made a face. “I don’t know. It doesn’t seem like it, does it?”

  Techne squinted. “What was that I just drank?”

  “Just something from the wine and spirits enclave.” Maddie tucked it away, smiling. “Um, are you feeling
truthful yet, Techne?”

  “What kind of question is that?” said Techne. She lowered her voice conspiratorially. “You know the truth is that I was really quite enjoying that play. But I worried about what people would think if I didn’t say something. How could I face everyone else after I sat through that? I don’t think I could.”

  “You liked it?” Maddie grinned.

  “I did.” Techne clapped her hands over her mouth. “Oh, why am I telling you this? You’re tweens. Truthfully, I hate tweens. Children too. Too boisterous and unpredictable. I can’t stand having you all run around underfoot. I certainly don’t want to talk to you.”

  “Well, this will be quick then,” said Nora. “Are you possessed by Owen?”

  “Possessed? No, I’m not.” Techne folded her arms over her chest. “Do you think Owen can possess people?”

  The three of them shrugged.

  “Oh, that’s horrible,” said Techne. “You know, if it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t even have to worry about him.” She pointed at Nora.

  Nora turned her back on Techne. Clearly they, weren’t getting anywhere with her. There was no reason to continue questioning her. She hadn’t done it, and they needed to accept defeat. So far, their batting average was not great.

  She shrugged at her friends, making a face. “The umpire said, ‘Strike Two.’”

  “Huh?” said Sawyer.

  “Baseball,” said Nora.

  “Base what?” said Maddie.

  “Never mind,” said Nora.

  * * *

  It was near dusk, and most of the Solstice stuff had closed down. Sawyer wandered through the main thoroughfare, holding Nora’s hand. Maddie was on the other side of him. During the Solstice, there was a big bazaar in the meadow near the fire pit. There were all kinds of things set up for trade—clothes, musical instruments, quilts, jewelry, decorations, knick knacks, the list went on and on.

  Most people did their trading earlier in the day, however, because the big attraction in the evening was the play. So most of the pavilions were closed down now in the growing darkness.

  Nora stopped to finger a dress that was hanging in one of the dark pavilions. “You guys are so trusting here.”

  “Trusting?” said Maddie.

  “Yeah,” said Nora. “In the mundane world, no one would leave things out like this. They’d be afraid it would get stolen.”