“You know Loki’s wife?” she demanded. “You’ve been to their house?”
The neat little cottage on the beach flickered in my mind, with its rose bushes and warm, inviting kitchen. I nodded, unsure if I should respond. Angrboða’s words hadn’t exactly sounded like a question.
“Sigyn,” Angrboða growled, making the name sound like a curse. “She’s an incantation-fetter. Maybe the best there’s ever been. Shit! Fuck me up and down the Nine Realms!”
Fenris groaned again, and the beast behind us growled. The stones beneath our feet trembled. My legs ached to move, to close the distance between myself and my husband’s beautiful, vulnerable body, but Angrboða’s grip on my wrist was like an iron manacle.
Angrboða took a deep breath. The air between us rippled like the surface of the Lucky River. I shivered as her magic pulsed over me, making my skin crawl. She exhaled, and I gasped, yanking my arm from her grip.
She was beautiful again. Angrboða of the Black Isles sat before me, her lips full and red, her skin as flawless as a field of freshly fallen snow. Her dress was still mangled almost beyond recognition, but the generous swell of her breasts filled the fabric, pressing tightly against the strained laces. Illusions, I realized numbly. Fenris’s magic is the wolf. His mother’s magic is illusions.
“Picture it,” the suddenly-beautiful Angrboða said, in a breathless, throaty voice. “Grab Fenris, take my hand, and picture that bitch Sigyn’s home.”
I nodded. My throat was too dry to respond. I stood and managed to stagger over Loki’s body without kicking him, then sank to my knees before Fenris. His chest was streaked with brilliant red scratches where my nails had sunk into his skin, clinging to him and marking him as we came together over and over in the dream forest. Despite everything—the frozen stones, the nearly dead body sprawled before Angrboða, the monstrous wolf in chains growling behind me—heat rose to my cheeks when I realized Fenris’s mother must have seen those marks, the unmistakable evidence of the ferocity of our lovemaking.
I wrapped my fingers around Fenris’s ankle. His skin was cool, and he whimpered as the heat of my body met his. Angrboða’s fingers clamped on my wrist once again.
“Close your eyes,” she said. “Picture it.”
I did as she said. As another dull growl shook the frozen ground, I closed my eyes and tried to picture the little cottage as it had looked when Freyja dragged me across the beach. A small, white-washed cottage with a thatched roof, surrounded by rose bushes, and open to the sea. When the front door stood ajar, I could just see the warm, bright kitchen, with its long wooden table—
“Good,” Angrboða growled.
A gust of wind howled around us. Angrboða’s grip grew even tighter. Fenris cried out, something sharp and violent, and I opened my eyes to see that a swirling gray cloud had descended upon us.
“No!” Angrboða barked. “The house!”
I squeezed my eyes shut. Images spun through my mind. The monster wolf straining against Gleipnir. Fenris’s naked body wrapped around mine. A fire, hovering in mid-air, which consumed no fuel and would never be extinguished.
Angrboða yanked my wrist. A heartbeat later, my cheek exploded with pain and the air rang with the sound of the slap she’d just given me.
“Sigyn’s house!” Angrboða yelled.
Through the dull throb of pain in my cheek, I pictured Sigyn’s house. The kitchen. The table spread with bread and jam. The hearthfire flickering low and golden.
Something slammed into my legs. I gasped for air as my eyes adjusted to the darkness surrounding me. No, not total darkness. Lights flickered before me. Small, orange squares of light.
Windows. Two windows, with firelight behind them. I blinked as the dark contours of Sigyn’s cottage resolved themselves against the indigo sky and smattering of stars. Angrboða released my wrist, and I reached for Fenris, reassuring myself that he was still next to me. And still breathing.
“Sigyn!” Angrboða bellowed.
The cottage’s door slammed open with a bang, flooding the night with light. A tall man with long hair bounded over the steps toward us, his sword already drawn. He looked so much like Fenris that my chest ached. Some distant part of my mind remembered him running across the beach when Freyja first brought me here. Vali. Loki’s son Vali. Sigyn ran out the door after him, her dress billowing behind her as she flew over the grass.
She fell to her knees before Loki’s body, ignoring the rest of us. Angrboða took a measured step away. Vali eyed Angrboða carefully; I noticed his gaze kept returning to the taut laces of her torn bodice.
Sigyn spread her arms wide over her husband’s body and murmured something soft and low. The air began to hum, almost imperceptibly at first, and then louder and louder, as though all the cicadas in Asgard had begun to cry at once. Sigyn’s hands started to glow with a delicate white light, like starlight. She dropped her palms to Loki’s face and cupped his blood-streaked cheeks between her palms. Hesitantly, almost reluctantly, Loki’s lips parted. His first breath sounded like a sigh.
Sigyn’s hands moved to his forehead, then his ears. Loki remained motionless and as pale as the snow, but his chest rose and fell as she worked, and his breath whistled hollowly through his lips. Finally, Sigyn rocked back on her heels and wiped her hand across her brow.
“I’ve stopped the worst of the bleeding,” Sigyn said, almost to herself. “And I tied his breath to his lungs.”
She glanced up at Vali, who sheathed his sword. “Can you carry him inside?”
“Of course,” Vali nodded.
Vali grunted as he lifted his father’s motionless body and carried it through the open door. Sigyn rose slowly, swaying somewhat as she found her feet.
“Angrboða,” she said.
Angrboða shrugged elegantly. “Well, I’m done with him. For now.”
The two women stared at each other in the flickering light flowing from the cottage’s open door.
“I am... grateful,” Sigyn said. “I owe you a debt.”
Angrboða turned to examine her own nails as if Sigyn hadn’t spoken. But the corner of her lips twitched up.
“Best of luck with him,” Angrboða replied casually. She raised her arms in front of her. “If he doesn’t have brain damage from that idiotic stunt, I’ll be amazed.”
Angrboða’s gaze flickered down, toward me, and then past me to Fenris’s silent body. A strange look crossed over her visage, and I was strangely reminded of the odd, ordinary face she’d worn when I’d first awoken on the island in Lake Amsvartnir.
The air ignited around her, creating a pillar of flame so bright I brought my hand to my eyes to shield my face. The rush of heat passed, and I dropped my hands. Angrboða was gone.
“Stars,” Sigyn spat. “Might as well rip the Nine Realms open.” She turned to me. “Sol. How is Fenris?”
“Alive,” I stammered. “At least, I think so.”
Sigyn sank back to her knees beside Fenris’s body. This close, I could see the dark circles that had suddenly pooled beneath her bright eyes. She raised her hands and ran them over Fenris’s head and chest, barely touching his skin. He flinched at her touch, his face tensing into a frown.
“Fenris,” Sigyn whispered. “Will you wake?”
He groaned again. His arms twitched. A myriad of expressions ran across his face; fear, anger, confusion, pain.
“Fenris?” I asked.
His pale eyes snapped open. He turned to me, and his brow furrowed.
“It’s me,” I said. “It’s Sol.”
Fenris shook his head. His fists punched against the ground. His mouth opened. And he screamed.
I almost clapped my hands over my ears to drown out the sound. It was a scream of utter hopelessness, the scream of a broken, dying man. The horrible sound seemed to echo from every nightmare I’d ever had, as though it had risen from the inky depths of Lake Amsvartnir. I reached for his hand, but he slapped me away. His fists beat against the ground, smashing into the grass unt
il flecks of mud splattered the front of my dress.
“Fenris!” I cried. “Fenris, it’s me!”
Sigyn’s hands shot out. Her fingers brushed Fenris’s temples. His eyes closed suddenly, and his scream cut off. His head sank back the the muck. The stunned silence that washed over us felt almost tangible.
“What happened?” I said. My voice felt feeble and weak after the strength of Fenris’s screams.
“Sorry,” Sigyn panted. “I bound him to sleep. It’ll wear off.”
“Holy fucking Realms, what was that?” Vali asked from behind me.
I looked up to see he’d re-emerged from the cottage, the length of his sword once again gleaming in his right hand.
“We need to get him inside,” Sigyn said, gesturing at Fenris. “That scream will have done it, even if Angrboða’s transport didn’t.”
“Done what?” I asked as Vali bent to lift Fenris.
Sigyn came to her feet and pressed her lips together into a tight line. “That much power will draw Óðinn down on us.”
“Shit,” I whispered.
Sigyn offered me her hand, and I took it, rising unsteadily to my feet. My feet throbbed from the cold and broken stones of the island. I limped after Vali into the cottage. Loki’s form lay sprawled on a bench near the fire, still immobile. Still breathing.
Numbly, I let Sigyn lead me deeper into the house. She opened the door to a small, strange room with a narrow bed. The far wall was entirely black, although the top sparkled with a few brilliant, cold lights. Stars. Even in my dazed and battered state, I marveled at the existence of a window the size of a wall.
“We’ll find you somewhere better in the morning,” Sigyn promised as Vali lay Fenris down on the narrow bed.
I tried to say that wouldn’t be necessary, that Thrym’s entire domus was waiting for us on Midgard, but a deep, black exhaustion swelled up inside me, swallowing my words. By the time I managed to stammer my thanks, Sigyn had already pulled the door closed.
By the light of a single candle tucked into a wall sconce, I pulled off the dress Liburnia had wrapped around me what seemed like a thousand years ago. My hands were black with dirt and streaked with dried blood. I found a small wash basin beneath the candle and did the best I could to clean my hands and face, my feet and arms.
Only then did I dare to approach the bed. Fenris lay sprawled across the mattress, his features peacefully framed by the spreading fan of his hair. His chest rose and fell slowly. I stared at him for a long time, until the candle began to gutter behind me.
He was paler than he’d looked in our shared erotic dream, and the contours of his face seemed sharper. When he inhaled, the stark outline of his ribs pressed against his skin like mountain ridges beneath snow. His chest and shoulders were marked with red lines from my nails, but they were also covered with older, yellowing bruises. And, when I leaned closer, I saw the creeping tendrils of scar tissue across his arms and neck. Gleipnir had left its mark.
The candle flickered wildly, then went out, drowned by its own spreading pool of wax. In the pale starlight that filtered through the enormous window at the end of the room, Fenris’s body and face looked like they’d been carved from ice. I bent down to pull the blanket over his battered chest. When he didn’t stir, I kissed his cheek. His skin felt cool against my lips, but his scent swelled around me, like the forest brought to life. Memories threatened to drown me.
Fenris’s lean, pale body was bloody and scarred, but he still smelled like himself, stars damn it. He still looked like himself. My vision wavered as tears flooded my eyes, and I turned away from his sleeping form.
Why was I so certain that something deep inside of him was broken?
THE MONSTER FREED: CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I woke to the low murmur of voices.
For a moment I blinked at the ceiling, trying to figure out how my room at Thrym’s domus had grown so large. Then Fenris sighed in his sleep, and realization crashed over me like an icy wave, pulling me beneath the surface of my sweet, fragmented dreams. I sucked air into my lungs as my heart crashed against my ribcage, half afraid I was about to wake and discover Fenris’s rescue had all been a dream.
Slowly, I turned my head. Fenris lay next to me, his eyes closed, his full lips half parted in sleep. Sometime in the night, he’d turned toward me, and his arm now wrapped around my body with a warm familiarity that made my chest ache. The enormous window at the far end of the room showed a gray sky with a ribbon of golden light along the horizon. The light in the room was thin and pale, but it was bright enough for me to make out faint bruises along my husband’s neck and shoulders.
I turned toward the edge of the bed, and Fenris mumbled something in his sleep. His arm tightened around my waist. My heart jumped. Stars, if he woke now, what would he do? Would he kiss me and pull me beneath the covers as if we were still safe in our cave in the Ironwood? Or would he scream loudly enough to bring all the warriors of Asgard into the room with their swords drawn?
I froze. Fenris’s arm relaxed, and his breath stretched once more into the slow rasp of sleep. I slipped from his embrace as slowly as I could, trying not to wake him. He didn’t stir again. Hesitating for just a moment, I watched the early morning light filter across his now gaunt face one more time, then padded across the room to the door. It swung open on silent hinges.
“Angrboða was here?”
My heart stopped. I knew that rough, male growl.
Óðinn. Óðinn was in this house, steps away from the door I’d just opened.
“She was,” Sigyn answered calmly. “No one else uses magic quite that...flashy.”
I glanced back at the bed. Fenris’s leg kicked out of the covers, and his breath caught. Stars, no! If he started screaming now—
“What in the Nine Realms was your damned husband doing with Angrboða?” Óðinn demanded.
I stared at the gaping, open door. Firelight flickered across the wooden floor from the hearth in the kitchen. To pull this door closed, I’d need to step into the hallway. And I’d be in full sight of the kitchen.
“I’m sure that’s none of our business,” Sigyn sighed. “But I think this time she almost killed him.”
Óðinn snorted. I leaned toward the doorway, trying to determine where they were.
“He doesn’t look dead to me,” Óðinn said.
“How perceptive of you.”
They both fell silent. I heard a scrape as someone moved across a stone floor.
“I shouldn’t have burdened you with him,” Óðinn said. His voice had turned oddly soft, almost gentle. “It’s too much. For anyone.”
“I asked for him,” Sigyn replied.
Both voices seemed thin, as though they were echoing off stone. No, it didn’t sound like they were in the warm little kitchen. I’d be able to reach into the hallway and pull the door closed.
“Still—” Óðinn said.
I lunged forward, looking into the kitchen as I moved.
They were both standing directly in front of me. Sigyn wore a high-necked white dress, and her cheeks were flushed with color. Óðinn stood almost directly in front of her, his back to the hallway. Sigyn’s eyes met mine for a moment. They widened in surprise. Óðinn’s broad shoulders shifted, and time seemed to slow. He was about to turn around, I realized with sickening certainty. He was going to turn around and see me, standing in full view, just steps from Fenris.
And Óðinn knew damned well who I was. He’d know what my presence in Loki’s house meant, or at least he’d know enough to be curious. To force his way past Sigyn and into the hallway. To look through the open doorway beside me, and see the unconscious figure huddled beneath the blankets.
Fear rose in my throat, bitter and metallic. This was the end. We’d rescued Fenris for nothing.
Sigyn fell forward, wrapped her arms around Óðinn’s shoulders, and kissed him. The wet smack of their lips filled the hallway. Óðinn’s back stiffen in surprise. Before I could recover from my shock and revulsion,
Sigyn pulled away from Óðinn with a soft smile.
“Don’t pity me,” she said. “For the sake of what we once were to each other. Please, don’t.”
Óðinn grunted. “I didn’t think you remembered what we once were to each other.”
“Oath-brother,” said a thin, scratchy voice. “Stop harassing my wife.”
Óðinn spun, and I ducked back into the bedroom, open door be damned. Óðinn’s growl rose in the air.
“Not dead. Just as I suspected.”
A hacking cough interrupted him. “Sorry to disappoint you,” Loki wheezed.
“What the fuck were you thinking, bringing Angrboða to Asgard?” Óðinn demanded.
“I invited her for tea,” Loki said, in a voice that was scarcely more than a whisper.
“You lying bastard,” Óðinn spat. “If this has something to do with that cur you whelped, you’re both going to—”
A sharp knock echoed through the house, cutting off Óðinn’s threat. There was another rustle, then the creak of a door opening. Fenris moaned softly in his sleep. I sank to the bed next to him and reached for his hand. His fingers closed around mine, and his breath evened once again.
A strange, harsh croak echoed down the hallway. I frowned toward the open door. The firelight cast long, undulating shadows across the wooden floor. They were so distorted I couldn’t be sure what was actually happening in the kitchen; for a moment, it looked like great wings had unfurled before the light.
That noise came again, a thick, grating clack that made me think of winter, of black feathers against a pale sky. And of a voice that had once called my husband’s name, pulling us from the safety of our cave for the last time. I bit my teeth together to keep from trembling. It was Óðinn’s raven.
“He’s still there,” the voice said in a harsh croak. “Still chained on the island. His eyes are closed, but he’s breathing.”
“Thank you, Hugin,” Óðinn said.
The Complete Fenris Series Page 62