Freya Snow Pup Trilogy

by L. C. Mawson

  “I thought someone else had stepped in! That was just before the rumours about the Angel started to crop up, so I just assumed that it was her.”

  “Well, it was,” Evelyn said simply. She turned back to Freya. “As for you, well, you knew that they had given you a protection charm.”

  Gregor butt in before Freya could answer. “I could never sense any magic from her! How did you?”

  Evelyn shrugged. “I didn’t. But then, I never did from you or the kid, either. There are spells capable of hiding even the most potent magics.”

  Gregor nodded, seemingly finally accepting what he was being told.

  He turned to Freya, who was carefully nibbling away at her slice of pizza like an anxious rabbit.

  “You’re still an orphan, right? You didn’t make that up?”

  “As far as I know. I mean, my mother died at the end of the War and I’ve never been able to track down my father.”

  “Tell him about the Shadow Realm,” Damon urged her. “I mean, it’s important, right? What’s happening there affects all of us.”

  Gregor raised an eyebrow. “The Shadow Realm?”

  Freya nodded. “Yeah, it’s a whole thing...” she muttered quietly into her pizza.

  Gregor sighed, running his hand through his hair. “Freya, I get that learning that Damon and I are Demons probably wasn’t easy on you. Especially not when Uther regularly sends his lackeys to torment you. I had no idea why he was so fixated on hunting down the Angel, but now I have little doubt that he knows your identity, and that you’re close to Damon.”

  “He wants to use me to hurt Damon?”

  “More likely, he wants you captured. He could use you as a bargaining tool to get Damon to go back to him. There wouldn’t really be much Seph and I could do if Damon chose to go back willingly. Using children as unwilling ‘wards’ to keep their parents in line was a tactic often used by the nobility generations ago. They didn’t often do their duty in caring for the kids, though, so it was decided that the children themselves would get the choice, so that they wouldn’t end up as pawns in their parents’ political manoeuvring.”

  Freya’s immediate response was to clutch Damon’s hand.

  “Promise me you wouldn’t.”

  “I won’t promise that.”

  She glared at him. “You have to. I don’t care what he does to me, just as long as you’re safe.”

  He glared right back. “And you think that I don’t feel the same way? Of course I would trade myself for you. Especially when I would be the reason you were in danger in the first place!”

  His uncle cut in at that. “She’s held off your father’s men so far,” he pointed out. “And now that she knows, it will be easy enough for Evelyn and I to extend her the same protection we provide you. She’s in no real danger, Damon.”

  Damon nodded, though he didn’t seem convinced.

  “So, what’s this about the Shadow Realm? From the top.”

  Freya sighed, before finally deciding where to start.

  “My mother was powerful,” she told them, keeping her eyes on the glass of pop in front of her. She decided not to go into the Angel Twilight thing. She might trust Gregor, but he still worked for the Demon King. “The problem was that she wasn’t in complete control of her powers. The Council of Light, fearing her abilities, sent her into the Shadow Realm in the hopes that she would stabilise while there.”

  Gregor frowned. “To get the Council of Light involved... How did they keep it under wraps?”

  Freya shrugged.

  “Edric should have known about this,” he muttered, seemingly to himself, before waving his hand for Freya to continue. “Carry on.”

  “Well, I don’t really know much about what went on there. I just know that she came back pregnant with me.”

  “From the Shadow Realm?!”

  “That’s what I was told.”

  Gregor’s frown deepened. “And this would have been just before the war ended?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he told her, but he exchanged a meaningful look with Evelyn, whose frown matched his. “What does this have to do with the present day?”

  “Well... It looks as if being conceived in the Shadow Realm has left me with the ability to travel to the Shadow Realm when I sleep. I don’t usually remember it, but I do when the sleep has been magically aided. Damon gave me a sleeping potion to help with my insomnia and I’ve started to remember.”

  “I’m guessing things aren’t all sunshine and rainbows over there?”

  “There’s a war. Damon and I seem to be leading one side, while another is led by his father.”

  Gregor started swearing under his breath, though Freya only recognised some of the languages.

  “Do you know anything else about the war?”

  Freya shrugged. “Just, last night, I - I mean, the other me - said something that made me think that it might have something to do with my parents. But that doesn’t exactly narrow it down. Like you said, no one knew about my mother. She died when she was a teenager and she had been in the Shadow Realm for years before that. I don’t know how she could have started a war with Damon’s father.”

  “What about your father? You always said that you didn’t know who he was...”

  “And I was telling the truth. My mother didn’t want me to know, and so everyone who might have even slightly had an inkling keeps quiet about it.”

  “But he presumably had to have been actually in the Shadow Realm at the same time as your mother.”

  “I mean, I guess. I’m not exactly sure how that works...”

  “Well, it’s a starting point.”

  Freya couldn’t help but squirm in her seat as Gregor looked her over, his eyes seemingly searching for something.

  “Before, when I came in, you didn’t just have Light energy...”

  Freya shrugged. “I have a little bit of Demon blood way back in the family tree.”

  Gregor raised an eyebrow. “Would you mind letting me see your Energy? It might help me to narrow it down.”

  Freya practically started bouncing up and down in her stool with a mix of excitement and nerves. Finding her father had always been something she had filed away under “silly childish daydreams”. After what had happened when she had first broached the subject with Amber, she had always been reluctant to do it again. They each knew where the other stood and that they weren’t likely to change their minds. An eternal stalemate. One that Freya possibly could have been able to break, if she had actively tried, but Amber was always lurking, and the thought of disappointing her mentor made her insides go cold.

  Or, at least, it had before. At this point, Freya couldn’t care less about Amber’s opinion of her.

  She held out her hand, closed her eyes, and focused her Energy, creating an orb of it in her palm. It was draining, but it was the truest reflection of her soul she could manage.

  As she let the orb dissipate, she opened her eyes once more.

  “So?” Evelyn asked.

  “That’s not a ‘bit of Demon blood’. Not by a long shot.”

  Freya’s insides churned at that. She had always known that it was a possibility. Why else would her mother have insisted on keeping her from her father? But hearing it aloud was something else altogether.

  “Is it... Is she...?” Evelyn asked, looking at Freya in a way that made her uncomfortable. Like she was looking at the arc of the covenant.

  Gregor nodded.

  “After all this time... I thought Seph was being indulgent...”

  “Okay, what are you talking about?” Freya asked them.

  “I have a hunch,” Gregor told her. “I’ll follow it up for you tonight, if you want.”

  “Really?” Freya asked, momentarily wondering if her hearing was working. “You honestly think you can find my father?”

  Gregor smiled at her, his frown finally breaking. “Yeah, I’ve got a pretty good idea of where to look now.”

  “I...
Thank you.”

  “It’s really no problem,” Gregor assured her. “Though, it may take me a while to track down the leads, and I would be more comfortable if you stayed here while I did so. The last thing we need is Uther catching up to you now.”

  Freya nodded. She wasn’t exactly thrilled with the prospect of being an easy target.

  “My foster parents should be distracted enough for me to get away with staying here tonight. I’ll figure out some way to explain, or just magic an explanation, tomorrow.”

  “Thankfully Charlie’s out of town, so you two can use magic freely in the house.”

  Freya frowned. “Wait, he doesn’t know you’re a Demon?”

  “He’s Human,” Gregor told her simply. “I would risk execution by telling him. For both of us. I love him too much to put his life in danger like that.”

  FREYA STAYED IN THE kitchen with Evelyn, still picking at her pizza, as Gregor went to pack his things. Damon followed him out.

  “You still mad at me for not telling you?” Evelyn asked her.

  Freya shrugged. “You weren’t the only one, and you had no stake in this.”

  “I suppose you’re right. I just... I didn’t want to be the one to bring this to a head. You and Damon care about each other, that much is obvious, but tensions between Light and Dark creatures are as bad as I can ever remember them being.”

  “How long is your frame of reference?”

  Evelyn smirked. “It’s not polite to ask someone’s age, Freya,” she chided gently before relenting. “Hang on, let me work this out... Two hundred and seventeen.”

  “And you’re a pure-blooded Witch?”

  She nodded. “I’ve still got eight centuries ahead of me if I play my cards right.”

  “So how come you’re a Dark Witch? I mean, it’s a choice, right? Witches get to choose which kind of magic they use.”

  Evelyn sighed. “Because Gregor’s mother saved my life when we were young. I had been part of a Light coven until that point, but Prudence proved what I had always suspected; Demons are not inherently evil. Dark magic is not more inherently evil than Light. In fact, I’ve seen far worse atrocities committed by the latter, especially during the War.”

  Freya raised an eyebrow. “Really? Wouldn’t that weaken their power? I mean, they feed off of positive emotions.”

  “The most potent source of power comes from inside, first and foremost,” Evelyn told her. “Most had lost friends and family to the Humans and their power waned as their pain intensified. And even getting power from Humans... The best way for Demons to get Dark energy is to cause pain. But the Light creatures? They have to keep the Humans happy and sated. That’s easier to do when you take away their freedom. They might do it with a smile, but I figure it’s better to hurt and be free.”

  Freya nodded as she mulled over that thought. She had always known that Amber distrusted all magical beings, but Freya had just thought that she was slightly paranoid.

  “I need to call my sister and tell her I’ll be heading back to the Underworld,” Evelyn told her. “Could you ask Gregor how long it’ll be before we head out?”

  Freya nodded, though she didn’t move. “So, who is the contact Gregor is going to talk to about my father?”

  Evelyn snorted, shaking her head. “Freya, trust me when I say that you don’t want any answers about this until we know the truth.”

  Freya found that she did trust Evelyn. She had always been nice to her when they interacted at the bounty office, and she had had her reasons for lying. But then, trust had always been one of Freya’s problem areas. She trusted too fast and too much. She had tried not to, after what Gwen had done to her at her first high school, but she found that it was all or nothing. Either she trusted too much, or she trusted no one. And there was only so long someone could distrust everyone around them before they broke.

  “I’ll go ask Gregor when you’re leaving,” Freya said as Evelyn focused on her phone.

  She found herself hesitating, however, as she approached the study, where Gregor and Damon were, their voices travelling to the corridor.

  “So, you’re really okay with Freya being the hunter?” Damon asked.

  His uncle laughed, though it was a little flat. “Ask me again when I get back.”

  “I... Okay.”

  “Why? Does it bother you? It’s your father’s men she’s been killing.”

  “Yeah, I know. It’s not the ‘who’...”

  “It’s the killing that’s bothering you?” Gregor asked softly.

  Damon sighed. “Yeah, I guess. A little. She just... It doesn’t bother her. She doesn’t even blink at the thought of killing someone.”

  “Probably because she’s spent the last couple of years fighting for her life. Fighting like that doesn’t give you an option. It’s kill or be killed. The girl’s a survivor.”

  “I know, I just...”

  “You’re soft as clarts is what you are. It’s one of the things I love about you, kid, but I can’t help but fear that it’s going to be the thing that gets you killed. Maybe with Freya watching your back, I won’t have to worry so much about it. Unless my hunch plays out, in which case I don’t know where we’ll be...”

  “So you’re telling me to get over it?”

  “If you care about her, yes. She’s not going to shed her survival skills because they make you twitchy. You can’t expect her to.”

  “I... I suppose you’re right.”

  “I’m always right.”

  Freya waited a few moments before finally entering the room.

  “Evelyn wants to know how long it will be before you leave.”

  “Ten minutes.”

  DAMON AND FREYA FINISHED up the pizza with Netflix on in the background, though neither of them were paying particularly close attention. Freya didn’t know what was up with Damon, but she was lost in thought.

  Could Gregor really find her father? If he did, would he be a Demon?

  Amber had assured her that her Demonic powers couldn’t be from her father, that they weren’t that powerful. But Freya had always suspected, deep down, that Amber had been lying to her.

  And, after all, hadn’t she lied about almost everything else as well?

  Freya yawned as it hit nine, the stress taking its toll.

  “Ready for bed?” Damon asked her.

  She nodded silently before getting up and trailing towards his room.

  “I... I was going to offer the spare room,” Damon said sheepishly. “Not because I don’t want you in mine, I just didn’t want to assume...”

  She sighed, raising an eyebrow. She was too tired for anxious dancing around.

  “What do you want?” she asked him simply.

  “I... My room.”

  She nodded, following him inside. His room was immaculate, which had always unnerved her. What kind of teenage boy kept his room that clean? But then, she supposed that it made sense that a boy who had grown up with nothing would treasure the things he had now.

  “Can I borrow a t-shirt?” she asked, before remembering that her wings would be in the way. “Actually, I don’t suppose you have anything without a back?”

  Damon nodded, making his way over to his chest of drawers. He pulled out a plain black t-shirt before finding a pair of scissors and cutting down from the neck to give her enough room for her wings.

  “There you go,” he said.

  “You didn’t have to do that.”

  He shrugged. “Unless you wanted to sleep in the top you’ll probably have to wear tomorrow, it was either that or sleeping topless. Now, I don’t really mind the second option, but you would probably get cold.”

  She smirked as she stripped off her jeans and shirt before pulling on the torn-up t-shirt. She pulled her bra out from underneath it before turning around to see that Damon was now in pyjama bottoms, his torso completely bare. Her breath caught in her throat at the sight.

  “I’m going to use the bathroom,” Damon told her. “If you want another vi
al of the sleeping potion, I keep some in the top drawer of my bedside table.”

  “Actually...” she started as she thought about using the potion again. “I was going to say that I didn’t want to take it tonight, but I actually think that maybe I should. It couldn’t hurt to learn more, right? I just...”

  “What if you didn’t have to do it alone?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Damon shrugged. “I don’t know how this whole Shadow Realm thing works, but, I don’t know, do you think it would be possible to take me with you?”

  She hummed in thought. She didn’t know what exactly having Damon there would accomplish, but she couldn’t deny that the prospect made her feel better.

  “I don’t even know how I do it,” Freya told him. “I have no idea how to extend it to you.”

  “It wouldn’t hurt to try.”

  She nodded. “Okay, we’ll give it a go.”

  THEY BOTH TOOK TURNS using the bathroom before returning to his room.

  Freya opened his drawer to find the sleeping potion next to a bunch of condoms. She couldn’t help but wonder how many other girls had been where she was right now. It didn’t really bother her that he had been with other people before her, but she wasn’t too keen on the reminder that they had spent so long being so completely oblivious to each other. That they had wasted so much time.

  She passed him a vial before taking one for herself.

  “I don’t know how this might work, but we probably both need to be in magically-aided sleep.”

  Damon nodded, downing the contents of his vial as Freya did the same. They put the empty vials back on the bedside table before settling down under the covers. Freya curled up into a ball, as she usually did when she slept - though now it was also a necessity since any other position threatened to crush either her wings or her boobs - only this time she was resting up against Damon’s torso, appreciating his warmth.

  “Are you okay?” Damon asked, knowing that they had a little while before the potion kicked in. “You seemed a little... upset.”

  “Why would I be upset? I just learnt that Amber has probably been lying to me about my father this whole time and, despite the fact that I knew that she lied when she thought it was to protect me, I still didn’t say anything. I wanted to believe her, and she took advantage of that. So, no, I’m not upset.”