Siren Slave

by Aurora Styles

  “I love you, too, but I think you already knew that,” she said the very moment his lips left hers.

  “How could I doubt it? You loved me before you met me. I’m only glad that I met your expectations. I have, haven’t I?”

  There was fear in those intense eyes of his. She laughed softly. “No, you didn’t meet them.”

  He pulled away. She tightened her grip on his cape and pulled him closer. She gave him a wicked smile. “You exceeded them.”

  “Evil wench.” He laughed and buried his face against her neck. His goatee tickled. Then he drew himself up, his gaze raking her again. “I want to love you, here, like this, slow. Tender. I want to savor every moment of your body around mine. I don’t want to hold you back this time. Oh, this will not be the norm. But I want you unrestrained, free. Let me ride the storm, my Freya, my Loreley.”

  “Then, don’t wait.” She spread her thighs further, tracing a finger above her sex. She placed her other hand over his heart.

  He parted her folds, sliding into her. She moaned with the lush fullness of him inside her. She looked up into those eyes of his. Hers, Siegfried was hers.

  “More tears?” he said.

  “Huh?” She dashed her hand across her eyes. “Oh. I’m happy, that’s all. I don’t want this afternoon to end.”

  “Believe me, I’d love to keep you here, too.” He gave her neck a gentle bite. “Forget about your worries. Do you think I’m going to let anyone take you from me?” He slid all the way into her, and her cares disappeared with the slow, deliberate thrusts of Siegfried her Fox.

  ****

  Hecate’s great hall had walls of blue crystal and a floor covered in shells, giving Siegfried the feeling that he was underwater. Freya marveled at the high windows, the colored glass depicting sea beasts. The ceiling itself was painted to look like the ocean’s surface with stars high above. There were more of those convenient fountains, as well. These depicted sea nymphs and more of the sea beasts. However, the fountains were not as convenient as the streams of drinks that wended their way through the hall about the tables.

  The great hall was packed with humans, sitting at the long benches. So many male eyes were on Freya. He could not blame them. Freya wore a thin purple cloth bound around her breasts. Beads of pearls dripped down her bare midriff, sparkling with diamonds. A skirt of the same material was wrapped around her thighs, rising almost to her crotch. A wide silver belt studded with diamonds rested low on her hips, a giant white pearl hung from the V of the belt right over her sex. Silver heels adorned on her feet, lacing up her slender calves. Over one shoulder hung a silver cape, clasped with a heavy brooch carved of purple pearl. In the center was a silver swan. It was, of course, a Hedwig creation.

  “You know, Siegfried,” she said in a low voice, “all I’m wearing underneath this is a little lace band with a single strand of purple pearls.”

  He growled and gave her ear a nibble as they approached the high table surrounded by a curtain of sea green studded with pearls. This dinner could not end soon enough. Freya didn’t seem to mind the dinner as she happily called out to people she knew from Folkvang.

  Siegfried did not mind any of the company, save for Woden, who took the chair across from Siegfried. He glared at Siegfried with his single eye.

  Hecate took a long sip of her wine. “Woden, why don’t you ask your daughter about her life? I’m certain there are lots of things you don’t know.”

  Woden looked away. He scratched his head and looked at Freya. “So what all did you do amongst the humans?”

  “There isn’t much to tell,” Freya said, and Woden looked relieved. “I spent most of my time in the soldiers’ barracks—”

  Woden slammed his fist on the table. “They made you a whore?” The entire great hall went silent. “Before you met the lecherous faun with the pea-sized weapon?”

  “Er, no,” Freya said. “I just drank and gambled with them.”

  “You’re jesting,” Woden said. “Ha, ha, ha.”

  ****

  Freya looked closely at Woden and felt very devious. “How about a game of hnefatafl. Every time one of us loses a piece, we have to drink.” She was still uncertain how to pretend she was pregnant without talking about those nasty conversation topics. Some pregnant women abstained from booze, but there was no way she was going to be able to bring that up while sober. Besides, she was only fake-pregnant.

  “You can’t expect to beat me at hnefatafl,” Woden said. “You’ll be passed out before we’re even done with the first game.”

  Freya turned her nose up. “Well, if you’re a coward…”

  “I’m not a coward.” And he called for a hnefatafl board.

  Freya insisted on playing offense first. This way, she could gauge Woden’s skills from an advantageous position. He was good. But not that good.

  “Lucky,” he said when he took the first drink. “Damned bad luck,” he said on the fifth. “I let you win,” he said on the last.

  “Let me win?” Freya said. “No, you were trying. I saw the way you were looking at the board. You lost. Lost. Ooh, who won? Freya. Who lost? Woden.” So, she’d been drinking a little much, even though she hadn’t lost many of her defending chips.

  “We play again,” Woden said darkly. “This time, I play offense.”

  “Fine.” She started setting up the board, Woden’s hands alongside hers, laying the pieces in their places. This time, it was tougher. She was actually having to drink more than she’d anticipated. Like her, Woden was better at offense.

  Eventually, Woden captured her king. “What was all that before? Who lost now? Ooh. Freya lost. Freya went down. Who has triumphed with glorious victory? Woden. Who leaves the battlefield shamed? Oh, wait. You’re not leaving the battlefield. You’ve been annihilated by Woden’s wholesale slaughter. Because Woden is the champion.”

  “I’m drunk. Not fair,” Freya said. “Oh, wait. That’s right. I’m a Valkyr. Let me bring my dead pieces back to life to fight again.”

  “You can’t do that,” Woden said.

  “My, my…” Hecate said. “It seems they are both such gracious winners and losers.”

  “I’ll play Woden,” Siegfried said. “He can play offense.”

  “Hah,” Woden said. “I’ll beat the faun in one move.”

  “That’s impossible,” Siegfried said.

  “Shut up and set the board, faun.” Woden leaned back in his chair.

  “Multitasking,” Freya said a bit later when she had an ale in each hand. She glanced about the room. When should she announce her fake pregnancy? Not now, not when Siegfried was beating Woden.

  “It is not right. There has to be something wrong. I can’t be beaten by a faun,” Woden said eventually, glaring at the game pieces on the board. “Ah, that’s it. It is because I’ve mixed different types of booze.”

  “Isn’t Siegfried amazing?” Freya said.

  “Not really,” Woden said. “He is a faun. A faun who fawns over you, but a faun all the same. Fauns will fawn over all forms of femininity. Do you see what I did there? Fawn. Faun.”

  “No, Siegfried stands solid at the side of his sweetheart. I see your four F’s and raise you five S’s.” Freya grinned at him.

  “Fine, then—”

  Freya licked her lips and stared right at Woden. “No, you won’t be able to beat it. You see, for all my fawning faun’s favorable feats, the most fortunate is his upcoming fatherhood.”

  Woden spit out his mouthful of mead that sent a deluge of spittle and booze across the game pieces. “What?”

  “All the time on Siegfried’s ship, I guess it couldn’t be helped. All that virility, that raw manliness… Or is it faunliness?” Freya gave her brows a waggle.

  “You’ve not been acting pregnant,” Woden said. “I thought you were in the grips of your women’s madness when you destroyed the Well.”

  “No, that was because Mimir asked for it,” Freya said.

  “The hunting, that made me suspect,” Hec
ate said. “She had a craving and mood swings.”

  “Gods,” Woden said. “What if the child has antlers, and the antlers puncture her stomach?”

  Freya squeaked, then remembered she wasn’t really pregnant. “I’m going to be a mother. Can you have a nursery put in Sessrumnir?”

  “We’re going to need to have the best medics available,” Woden said. “Oh, gods, oh, gods.”

  “Oh, of course,” Freya said. “There’s some other being inside me, taking over my body. I don’t want to die when it rips and tears its way from my body in sprays of blood and gore.”

  “It’s a child. Not some sort of animal,” Hecate said, giving Freya a bewildered look.

  “But that’s how the women in Folkvang described it,” she said. “A horrible, blood-soaked battle with lots of screaming and tearing of flesh.”

  “It’s my grandson. Of course, it will rip and tear its way into the world,” Woden said, deadly serious. “We can’t let our war hero be lost. No, there will be the best medics. We’ll keep Hecate on hand to reanimate you lest you die. Just in case. We’ll keep you away from everyone and unleash you to eat Jotuns if that does happen. Yes, Freya, I have planned for the case of every eventuality. Oh, and would you look at that alliteration?”

  Hecate shook her head.

  “I…I’m going to be a grandfather.” Woden sighed. “A huge nursery with an assortment of spears and maces and axes. That’s what the baby needs. He’ll be fed on mead from day one. He’ll have his first spear the moment he’s born. The child of the Hero of the Jotun War…and a faun. You two will have to be married at once.”

  “No. We need time to plan this.” Hecate shook her head. “At least a fortnight to send invitations and choose flowers. Balder, of course, will provide music.”

  Woden waved his fist—still clutching a horn of mead—in Hecate’s face. “They’ll have the formal ceremony and the celebration then, if you insist. It will be in Valhalla. There will be tourneys to mark the occasion. Wine and mead will flow in abundance. But for now, consider the two wed.”

  “What?” Siegfried and Freya said at the same time.

  Woden gave them an are-you-serious look. “I’m the King of Asgard. I can do that, too. If I say you’re wed, you’re wed. But for now, let us celebrate this wedding. More mead! Balder, play us a song.”

  ****

  Freya and Siegfied found Hecate and Woden looking tired on the patio. Hedwig had woken them early to meet with Freya’s parents.

  “Freya, Woden and I have been up all night starting on these wedding plans,” Hecate said. “Do you have any preferences? What colors? What flowers? What foods?”

  “Blueberry ale? Red wine?” Freya said. “Oh, and venison—rare—potatoes and goat cheese. And soup. That has to be vegetable. For flowers? Bright ones, I guess? Um, and I like purple. Siegfried likes green, so purple and green. And everything must be done in multiples of eight. That’s all.”

  “What in the hell is with the numbers?” Woden gave Siegfried a malicious wink. “I sent out six-hundred-sixy-six. Whatever. You’d best make her happy, faun.”

  “Siegfried, considering her delicate condition and the frustrations of wedding planning,” Hecate said, gesturing at Freya’s flat stomach, “why don’t you take her out on your boat for a fortnight? The two of you can take your time sailing to Asgard. We’ll take care of the details of the wedding. Hedwig and I will take charge of the attire.”

  “That actually sounds great,” Freya said. “Let me go ask Hedwig to borrow some sea beasts then. With my, er, delicate condition, I really wouldn’t mind the privacy.”

  Ostia. Siegfried wanted to go to Ostia, to bid farewell to his old life. The rest of his work would be done from a distance. He no longer needed a ship or a crew. His former crew could join the ranks of berserkers if they chose. Sea beasts and a mermaid wife would be all he needed at sea. His powers were more than adequate for intervening on land. If what Enbarr said about this Shadow Stalker was true, then there was a bigger task ahead, and his attention should be on the Otherworld.

  “Woden, I’ve been meaning to ask,” Siegfried said, sliding onto a triclinium couch, “why didn’t you involve yourself in the Great War?”

  Woden resumed his seat and folded his hands, becoming serious. “Freya, you should hear this, too. I had friends on both sides. You’ve heard of Balor. He was the best.” Woden looked away and sighed before looking at the couple again. “Many of the people wanted a high king. Others, many Beasts, especially, didn’t.

  “Balor even tried to convince me to try to become Ard Righ if that’s what the people wanted, then throw the crown away, along with the title after we won. That’s what it was, just a title. I had Asgard. I had the Aesir to look after. Was it worth their lives for a title? A title? Men don’t need titles. And what power does Lugh really have now? He just gets to wear a pretty gold thing on his head.” Woden’s snort revealed what he thought of that.

  “The last thing Lugh wants is another war like that one, as you’ve seen. Lugh is like a child who needs to be humored. The Otherworld does as it will, with or without Lugh Lamfada. That’s the truth. He wants to sit on the Sun Throne and call himself Ard Righ, that’s not something worth the blood of my people. I never demand my people go to war. You don’t make a man fight for a cause he doesn’t believe in. Ever.”

  Woden rose from the triclinium couch, Gungnir aimed at an unseen enemy. “People aren’t machines or tools to be used. You have a drink or a friendly game with them if you like them. You leave them alone if you don’t.

  “You know why we fight the Jotuns?” He waved his spear and Siegfried pulled Freya away, before her face was cut. “That’s a cause we all support. As a ruler, the Great War wasn’t worth it for Asgard. If I gave Balor my support—just mine, not my kingdom’s, Asgard would be safe. Otherwise, it would have been attacked. I did give Balor my support in secret. He’s the Power Thief. I gave him my freezing powers, my blizzard powers, everything I had that was mine to give.” His frosty eye stared down at Siegfried and Freya. Yet they could not muster a word of disagreement.

  “I went to Mimir to get some powers back when I took Balder. If I had my old powers, I would have come into the bloody mortal world and helped you, Freya. I would have killed Loki yesterday. If I get myself killed, I’ll be useless. There would be no Asgard without an heir, just a more insane power struggle. Or Loki would take it if you and Balder didn’t want it.”

  Siegfried found himself oddly in agreement with Woden. The man he loathed was…a man of his own heart? A fighter for freedom in his own way? And here was Asgard, a bastion of freedom, where Woden could change the few rules as he pleased. No. Siegfried could not say a word. Nor could Freya.

  “Why didn’t I do more about Loki?” Woden held his head high. “Should I take my men to Utgard in Jotunheim—Loki, lives amongst the Jotuns for a reason—and declare a war? But now I will. Freya’s actions have garnered enough support. Preparations are already underway.” He clenched his fist. “I’ve kept Loki close because I don’t trust him. Sometimes drink loosens his tongue, but he’s been quieter lately. He’s not part of the Aesir’s battle with Jotunheim. Obviously, because he lives there, but he is technically one of the Aesir.

  “I’ve been waiting for him to make a move, to have proof of what he’s been doing, direct proof. I have it, only the moves he’s made against Freya are too bold for him. Loki works in secret. He meddles with people’s lives and doesn’t leave a trace.”

  Woden slammed a fist into his palm. “If people are to give their lives for something, they deserve incontrovertible proof. I can’t demand they take up arms for Freya. This would pave the way for others to take advantage. Loyalty is earned through fairness, not demanded.”

  He looked right at Freya. “I love you, daughter. But I cannot hold you in higher esteem than any other man holds his daughter.”

  “I understand, Father,” Freya said after a long pause.

  “I let my people decide. I have f
ollowers. I have the Aesir. Loki does not. He doesn’t have many friends. I’m sure you can see why. Or so I thought. I think I might be wrong. That move he made against you, Freya, that makes me think he somehow acquired more friends than I’d thought, more friends than just mortals. I want to find out who they are before I do anything. I take out Loki, and that leaves us with nameless enemies. Those are the worst kind.

  “I speak of me, myself. Not Asgard.”

  “You can’t force them,” Freya said, squeezing Siegfried’s forearm.

  Woden’s spear clashed against the mosaic tile under their feet. “I thought Loki would talk in Utgard. It’s never easy to visit there, not with having to bust Jotun skulls just to get to his hall. I thought he’d let something slip on his own territory, but there was nothing, which makes me uneasy. I don’t have very good powers now, except changing temperatures and transforming into a snow leopard—not useful. I do still have my reputation and Asgard’s might. That is the real reason Lugh did not act against you, daughter. He will do a lot to placate his people, but a war with Asgard would be worse than a Beast.”

  “I understand,” Freya said. “But I thought, all this time, you just didn’t care.”

  “Come here.” Woden rose and gave Freya a tight embrace. “You go ahead with your faun. Put these worries out of your head. I’ll make this formal wedding nice for you. Flowers and music and mead and your blueberry ale. You’ll stay at Sessrumnir when you return. I’ll make sure it’s ready. We can fight Jotuns and rein unholy destruction upon more of Jotunheim’s landmarks.”

  “Thanks, Father,” Freya said, returning the hug. She rested her head against the burly man’s shoulder.

  “I will protect you, but Asgard’s reputation is the best way of doing that. It is a reputation I’ve worked hard for. But you have fought hard for Asgard on your own, something that cannot be ignored.”