Death breaks all bonds, Ada said when I first arrived. But we’re already dead. What could we possible do to—
My eyes fell to the steep slopes of the dark, jagged mountains.
“My Queen,” I said. “If we fail, I would be delighted to accompany you to the darkness.”
Hel jolted upright, her eyes widening. “But—”
“If death breaks all bonds, surely the darkness does the same?”
She frowned. “Perhaps. Baldr, I don’t know. No one knows what happens when you join the darkness.”
“So? Does it really matter? We know what will happen if we don’t.”
A subtle flash of golden light shimmered across her collarbone. We hadn’t spoken of it, but yes, we both knew what we had to lose.
“And what if we just fall apart?” Hel said. “What if we’re pulled to nothingness, like smoke?”
I smiled. “Then at least we would be pulled to nothingness together, my love.”
“We may be born again, with no memories of who we once were.”
“My love, if that happens, I will search the Nine Realms until I find you.”
Hel snorted. “That’s absurd, and you know it. With no memories how would we ever find each other?”
“I will find you.”
“Oh, really? And if you’re born a Light-elf and I’m the lowliest dwarf in Svartálfaheimr?”
I laughed. “Then it will be one hell of an epic romance. Just think of the songs Bragi could write about us.”
Her lip twitched in the barest suggestion of a smile.
“The physical complications alone would probably be worth twenty stanzas,” I said, watching her. “I mean, Light-elves are at least twice the size of dwarfs...”
Hel finally laughed and, for a heartbeat, the world stopped pressing in on top of us.
There was a sharp rap on the door. We both jumped.
“Hel?” Eriksen’s muffled voice carried through the heavy door. “I apologize, but there is news you should hear. You should both hear it.”
My heart plunged, and my body turned cold. Hel took my hand as our eyes met. Hers glinted like steel in the flickering torchlight.
“Yes,” she whispered.
I shivered as I nodded in agreement. It was done, then. One way or another, I would not be returning to Asgard and the Æsir.
Hel rose, shivering with golden light as she re-wove her illusion after our sleepless night. I stood and pulled on my pants, feeling clumsy in comparison. Two weeks. That must have been enough time to finish the sweep of Jötunheimr, to knock on every hidden, forsaken hamlet and crofter’s cottage and cave in the icy realm.
I felt numb. Frigg actually pulled it off. She’d make all the living realms cry for someone who never even existed; her mythical, perfect, beautiful son.
I had to die to lay some claim to my own life. And now I was about to lose that too.
Hel slid the bar off her door and nodded to Eriksen. The torch he held shivered slightly as she straightened her back and offered me her living arm. “Would you care to accompany me to the meeting with my advisors, my dear consort?” she asked.
I swallowed my desperation. “It would be my pleasure,” I said, taking her arm in mine.
As usual, Hel’s advisors came to their feet when we entered the room, and they waited until we sat to take their places around the table. I saw a few smiles, which struck me as horribly inappropriate. Perhaps I’d misread their earlier acceptance? My stomach clenched. Well, if they’d only been tolerating me or humoring Hel, at least they wouldn’t have to put up with me much longer.
I idly wondered which darkness Hel would choose. She’d told me most people prefer to cross the river and climb into the mountains, but I thought she might want to return to the asphodel fields. We could walk under those graceful birch trees together, arm in arm into the darkness.
No. First we’d make love, and then we would walk into oblivion. I wanted to see the rapture of orgasm play across her gorgeous face one more time. I turned to smile at Hel. She looked even paler than usual.
Hel cleared her throat as she faced her advisors. “You may begin,” she said.
Ganglati stood, her eyes shining. “The sweep of Jötunheimr is almost complete. Yesterday they’d done all but the furthest Northern reaches, which would have been completed by this evening.”
“Would have been?” Hel interrupted.
Ganglati nodded. “My Queen. Baldr. We’ve just gotten the latest report.”
She paused. The room was so silent I could hear the distant murmur of early morning conversation in the feast hall.
“Someone refused to cry,” Ganglati said.
I let out the breath I’d been holding since Frigg left Niflhel.
“Who?” Hel asked.
“An old woman named Tokk. She’s a hermit, living in a remote valley. Frigg approached her alone yesterday at sunset. It sounds like she was there all night, but Tokk never cried. Apparently she told Frigg, ‘Let Hel hold what she has.’”
Hel closed her eyes. Color rushed back into the living side of her face.
Ganglati cleared her throat. “There’s more.”
“Please,” Hel said, waving her hand.
Ganglati and Eriksen exchanged a glance.
“Well, there are several among the Æsir who speculate that Tokk was actually, um, Loki the Lie-smith.”
I saw the corner of Hel’s mouth twitch as she crossed her hands on the table.
“Of course, we all know Loki couldn’t openly defy Frigg and Óðinn,” Ganglati continued.
Hel cleared her throat, cutting off Ganglati. “I don’t really care what the Æsir speculate, or who Tokk may have been. We just won. The Æsir can think whatever they like.”
She turned to Eriksen. “Would you be kind enough to deliver a message to Asgard? Please tell them we are aware of the Jötunn Tokk, and her refusal to cry for Baldr.” She paused. “You can tell the Æsir that Hel will hold what she has.”
“It would be my pleasure, my Queen.” Eriksen beamed as he bowed low before Hel. Then he stood and turned to me. “And Baldr, please allow me be the first to say I’m glad you will remain in Niflhel.”
I swallowed around the growing lump in my throat. “Thanks,” I stammered.
The room filled with cheers and I turned to see Hel beaming, her eyes sparkling above her half smile. Even her skeletal side seemed radiant. My heart surged. I stood and pulled her to her feet, wrapping my arms around her and kissing her deeply. Hel’s advisors clapped as our lips and tongues danced. Some distant part of my brain realized we’d have to think of new ways to shock them.
Hel pulled away gasping, a delicate golden shiver running down her neck and shoulders. I tightened my grip around her waist, not wanting to let her go. Not just yet. She tucked her hair behind her ear and turned back to her advisors.
“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you all.”
I followed her gaze, watching the smiles around the table. They truly liked Hel, I realized, and it was not a loyalty born of fear or hope for reward. No, it was more akin to love. She’d given me a new life, this fascinating, beautiful woman. She’d given us all a new life.
“If you’ll excuse us,” I said, grinning at the advisors, “I would appreciate a moment alone with the Queen.”
I didn’t wait to see their reactions. I pulled Hel to my chest, kissing her as I ran my fingers through her hair and down her back. Then I spun, pressing her against the smooth black table as the room emptied.
“Baldr,” she gasped. “What are you doing?”
I grinned against her neck. “I’ve just received the best news of my entire afterlife. And if you think I’m going to wait one more second before fucking you senseless, my love, you are mistaken.”
She moaned as the door slammed shut, giving us the room to ourselves. I bit her earlobe as I spread her legs, pushing the folds of her dress up along her thighs.
“This is the meeting room,” she whispered, her voice already thick
with arousal.
“Oh, I know. I don’t even think that door locks. Someone could walk in at any moment.”
A wave of heat poured off her, and the heady scent of her arousal filled the space between us. My cock pulsed, straining against the seam of my pants. I’d hoped taking her in this room would turn her on, and damn, I was glad to be proven right.
I wrapped one hand around her waist, pulling her to the edge of the table. Her body surged with light as I worked my pants down my thighs and ran my stiff cock along the wet slit of her sex.
“Concentrate,” I said. “Hold your illusion.”
She whimpered as I entered her, her back stiffening. She sank her fingers into my hair and her ankles crossed around my hips. For a heartbeat we held still, our bodies embracing, intertwined. The shimmers of light faded away, and her illusion held.
“Hel, you’re amazing,” I gasped.
I pulled back and reached between us, my fingers finding the hot swell of her clit, just above the place where our bodies came together. I watched her eyes roll back as I brushed it.
“Concentrate,” I said as she moaned in my arms.
“Baldr!” she cried. Light filled the room, surging from her body in the same rhythm as my thrusts. “I can’t!”
I squeezed her clit, rolling it between my fingers. “Yes, you can,” I said.
Her body clenched around mine, tightening as it rolled with light. Still her illusion held; I was fucking Hel the fearsome, Hel the skeleton.
Damn, she was hot!
I slammed inside her, pressing her clit fast and hard. Her body felt so good in my arms, so damn good, I thought I might never let her go. She moaned my name over and over, her breath hot on my neck, her legs tight around my waist.
Hel screamed when she came, heat surging as her entire body closed around me. I watched her head rock back, her cheek and neck flushed crimson. A single drop of sweat trickled down the living side of her face.
Her illusion held.
She opened her eyes slowly, looking dazed. “I did it,” she whispered.
I smiled as I started moving inside her again, slowly and deliberately. My fingers brushed her clit in a slow circle.
“Very nice,” I panted. “But you didn’t think we were done, did you?”
Hel’s illusion shattered entirely after her third orgasm. I hadn’t expected her to hold the spell nearly that long. Honestly, I hadn’t expected her to have that many orgasms in a row.
Once again, the Queen of Niflhel surprised me.
When she came a fourth time, I lost it. I’d tried so hard to hold out, to save myself and just keep pleasuring her, but the sight of that amazing woman lying across the black meeting table, the table where I’d heard so much terrible news over the past months, was just too much for me. I came hard inside her glorious body. It was like coming home, like surrender. Like dying.
I collapsed next to her, my head spinning. All I wanted was wrap her in my arms and hold her until the end of time. My mind started to unspool, drifting toward sleep.
But that damn door really didn’t lock.
“Come on,” I said, shaking myself awake.
Hel didn’t resist as I pulled her to sitting, then to her feet. But she didn’t let go of my arm once she stood, and it occurred to me she might not have anything left to spin her illusion.
“You think you can, uh, you know?” I stammered, waving my hand in the world’s most pathetic attempt to describe magical illusions. “So we can go back to your bedchamber?”
She blinked, then smiled slowly at me. “Oh! Sure. Right.”
Hel took a step forward and fell against my chest. When she started to giggle I worried she’d really lost it. I had a moment of panic when I considered wrapping her head in my shirt and carrying her through the halls. Then her body stiffened in my arms and familiar, warm light flooded the room. When I looked down, I was again holding Hel’s half-dead form.
And she was still giggling.
“What’s so damn funny?” I asked.
“Oh, Baldr,” she sighed, rubbing her face against my neck. “I really think it’s time for you to start calling it our bedchamber.”
I kissed the top of her head and swept her into my arms, carrying her from the room. The few people we passed in the hallways of her castle were demure enough to turn away, and I doubt anyone noticed that the hair flowing over the shoulder of Hel’s living side was a fiery golden-red.
CHAPTER 12
I introduced Hel to mead to celebrate our victory, and the days just after Loki defeated Frigg and saved us from permanent separation were a bit of a blur. A glorious, sensual, exhausting blur. It was just me and the woman I loved, and I could damn well get used to it.
I smiled, feeling better than I’d felt in, well, ever. We were eating dinner outside, on a high porch in Hel’s castle. The setting sun had taken on its strange blue glow, making Hel’s face look even more ethereal. We were in a public part of the castle, where we could be overseen, so she wore her illusion. But even that, it seemed, had softened somewhat. The living side of her face was different, fuller and gentler, more like the face she wore beneath the illusion.
Motherhood might suit her. The thought surprised me, but only for a heartbeat. I’d been toying with the idea of marriage, if I could only find the right way to phrase it so no one would think I wanted her kingdom. Why not children, sometime after that?
The children of Baldr and Hel would be glorious, after all.
“You’re smiling,” she said, putting down her goblet.
“You make me smile.”
She raised an eyebrow and opened her mouth.
“Hel! Baldr!” Vigdis crashed through the door, making me jump in my seat. “I’m so sorry,” she panted, “but we have a visitor. A living visitor.”
“Vigdis, it can wait,” Hel said, her voice sharp as the knives on our table.
“He’s—I’m sorry, my Queen, he’s quite insistent.”
A dark figure loomed in the doorway behind Vigdis. I was on my feet before my brain could process what was happening, one of the dinner knives clenched in my fist. If this was a threat, I’d go down fighting to protect Hel.
My brother, Thor Óðinnsen, stepped through the door.
Vigdis cowered as he walked toward us, his unbeatable hammer Mjölnir glinting in the thick evening light. Hel’s chair scraped the floor as she came to her feet.
“What are you doing here?” I yelled.
“Brother!” Thor boomed. “I’ve traveled far so we may drink together!”
He spread his arms wide, showing he held no weapons, and my shoulders relaxed. I stood, slipping the knife back onto the table.
“You traveled to Niflhel to say hi?” I asked.
Thor wrapped his arms around my chest and thumped me on the back. “Little brother, it would take more than death to stop me!”
“You’re crazy as usual,” I said, trying to stop grinning like a maniac.
Thor rumpled my hair and turned to Hel. He didn’t flinch, of course; nothing scared Thor the Thunderer. “You must be Queen Hel?” he said, offering a dramatic bow.
Hel frowned. “Thor? Son of Óðinn?”
Thor grinned and took her living hand in his, pressing it to his lips. “The one and only, m’Lady.”
Hel’s living cheek flushed pink, and a little pang of jealousy tugged at my chest. She couldn’t possibly be attracted to my idiot brother, could she?
“What in the Nine Realms are you doing here?” I asked.
Thor grabbed my flagon of mead and downed it. Then he grabbed Hel’s and downed it too. “Can’t wait to tell you,” he said. “Let’s eat! Where’s the rest of the meal?”
Hel nodded at Vignis, who hurried through the door.
“It’s on the way,” she said. “Please. State your business.”
Thor wiped his mouth on his sleeve and turned to me. “First, Baldr, tell me why you stayed. Frigg says one thing. But Hermod was here too, and his story’s different. So what’
s the deal?”
I leaned back and crossed my hands behind my head, smiling as Thor polished off the entire poached salmon Hel and I were going to share. “And what, pray tell, are they saying?”
Thor ripped a chunk of bread off our loaf and bit into it, looking thoughtful. “Well, Frigg says you’ve been chained to a bed and forced to be a sex slave for the insane nymphomaniac Queen running this realm.”
Hel raised her eyebrow.
Thor smiled at her. “No offense, of course,” he said.
“None taken,” she muttered.
“And Hermod?” I asked. Hermod was our youngest brother. I could scarcely believe he’d found the spine to openly contradict Frigg.
Thor belched. “Yeah, I had to get him pretty drunk. But, right before he blacked out, he said you actually wanted to stay here. Said you had a thing going with the queen here.”
Vignis staggered through the doorway under an enormous plate of steaks, potatoes, and barrels of mead. I jumped up and took the platter from her, setting it in front of Thor. He drank the first barrel of mead without taking a single breath, then stared at me with all the subtlety of his infamous hammer.
“So? Which is it?” Thor asked.
“Which do you think?” I said, raising my arms and showing him my wrists. “Do you see any chains?”
Thor roared with laugher and smacked me across the back. “Damn! Hey, good for you, Baldr!”
Then he leaned across the table and smacked Hel’s shoulder too. “And good for you, Queenie! Seducing Baldr the Beauty, huh? You must be more impressive under that dress than you look!”
Hel blinked, opened her mouth, and then closed it again. Thor didn’t seem to notice. He downed another barrel of mead, tossed it off the balcony, and stared at the shimmering blue sky until we heard the sharp crack of wooden staves splitting against the stones of the courtyard. I winced. Hel crossed her arms over her chest and looked bored, as if having my brother blunder into her castle and start breaking shit was an everyday occurrence.
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