In the warm glow of the olive oil lamp, Liburnia’s cheeks darkened. “Sleep well,” she mumbled, as if she were suddenly in a rush to leave.
I tried to respond, but no words forced their way through my suddenly tight throat. I nodded as Liburnia pulled the door closed behind her. Yes, I thought. Fenris is still a prisoner.
FENRIS ENTERED THE room very late. I’d been sleeping fitfully, tossing from one side to another, trying to find a comfortable position around the swelling bulge of my stomach. When the soft creak of the door hinges echoed through the small room, I opened my eyes. Fenris entered, wearing a toga much like Thrym’s, only wrinkled and disheveled. I’d left the lamp burning, and I watched as he pulled the robes off with clumsy hands. He moved gingerly, as if his left arm bothered him.
Instead of climbing into bed with me, Fenris walked naked across the small room and stood before the window. I’d opened the wooden shutters to let the cool evening air fill the room, and now I watched my husband stand before the window, his tall, lean body silhouetted against the night sky. He sighed deeply, then buried his face in his hands. His shoulders curved forward.
“Fenris?” I said.
He shook his head and turned away from the window. Without speaking, he pulled back the cover and sank into the bed. He smelled of wine and smoke. His arms wrapped around my shoulders, pulling me close, and his lips pressed to mine. His kisses were hungry, fierce, and distant. His body curved around me, the heat of his manhood already pressing into my thigh.
“Fenris? Are you—” I tried to speak, but he stopped me with another kiss, this time so deep and hard my lips sang with pain.
His hands sank into my hair, pulling my head back, and his mouth dropped to my ears, my neck. I gasped as his teeth trailed down my skin, his breath hot against my body, his hand already pulling my thighs apart. He bit a path across my breastbone, pinching my skin between his teeth.
Fenris’s fingers found the hot bud of my clit, and his lips closed around my nipple. I moaned as my hips rose to meet his hand, crying out for him, wishing I could tell him how desperately I’d missed him, how lonely and empty the days had been without him.
But, before I could even attempt to form words, he pulled my legs open and entered me, hard. I cried out, gasping his name, as a sudden rush of shock and pleasure filled my body. Above me, Fenris growled in the lamplight.
He dropped a hand between my legs, making my back stiffen and my legs kick out. His fingers played over my clit again, teasing and pressing, matching the rhythm of his deep thrusts. I watched the lamplight play over his handsome face, over the sweat gleaming on his chest and the hair pressed against his neck, and I wished he would smile. I wished I could make him smile.
My heart ached to reach for him, to pull his lips to mine and kiss him for hours. But my pregnant belly swelled between us; I couldn’t reach him no matter how hard I tried. And the waves of velvet pleasure swelling from between my legs were beginning to obliterate my control over my own body. Already I was rocking against him, moaning and gasping, my body begging him to keep going, keep going, don’t stop—
I screamed as the orgasm crashed over me. My legs tightened around his chest. Fenris pulled his hand away and threw his head back. His hips slammed into me, hitting the sensitive spot deep inside, making the ecstacy of my orgasm echo and intensify. Then his cock throbbed inside me, and he barked his own pleasure into the night.
He collapsed beside me, his chest heaving as he panted for breath.
“My love?” I whispered.
Fenris rolled over to press his chest against my back and cup my breasts. “Shhhhhh,” he hissed against my neck.
He pulled me close and clung to me as if he were drowning and I were the only thing keeping him afloat. Only when his breathing had slowed and deepened in sleep did his grip around my chest relax.
I DREAMED OF FIGHTING. The long, green hills of Asgard stretched through my dreams, filled with warriors who fell together, again and again, their gleaming swords black with blood. And, above the carnage, I heard the harsh bark of ravens laughing. Or crying.
The cacophony of barks became harsher, more human. Now they were crying. The birds above the battlefield; the soldiers killing each other over and over again. Or was I the one who was crying?
With a jolt, I opened my eyes. The familiar contours of my little room in Thrym’s domus swam into view. The lamp had gone out, and the moon had risen. Cold, silver light fell across the ceiling. I turned to the side of the bed where Fenris had fallen asleep, his arms clenched around my ribcage. It was empty.
A deep, bitter sob echoed through the room, so similar to the sounds in my dreams that for a moment I thought I was still asleep. It cut off abruptly, followed by a muffled gasp. I sat up in bed. Fenris leaned against the window, nearly doubled over, his pale body bathed in moonlight, his shoulders heaving.
“Stars! Fenris!”
I kicked off the blanket and clambered to my feet. He shook his head as I approached, but I ignored him, and he didn’t resist as I pulled him into my arms.
“My love,” I whispered. “I’m here. I’m here. It’s okay.”
His head shook against my neck. He laughed the same rusty, painful laugh I’d heard in Loki and Sigyn’s cottage.
“No. No, it’s not fucking okay.”
He pulled out of my arms and staggered back against the wall.
“I can still taste Týr’s blood,” Fenris said, wiping his hand across his mouth.
He barked another harsh laugh, a laugh that was almost indistinguishable from a sob. My hands clenched in front of the swell of my stomach. Fenris turned to me, his eyes narrow and his gaze sharp.
“What kind of a man am I?” he demanded. “I’ve failed at everything I’ve ever tried. My own mother put me in the dungeons. I killed my best friend. The only thing I ever had was the wolf, and now that’s gone. I can’t even protect my own wife.” He sank his hands into his hair and turned away. “What kind of a father could I possibly be?”
I swallowed hard and took a step toward him. He backed away from me until his shoulders hit the pale, frescoed wall behind him.
“You’re the kind of man—” My voice pinched. I took a deep breath. “You’re the kind of man who noticed a snowdrop blooming in the fall.”
Fenris dropped his hands from his face and stared at my incredulously.
“You’re the kind of man who gave all his money to rescue me,” I continued. “You put yourself at risk, and you got hurt, just to save the daughter of slaves from a king’s fortress.”
“Sol, that—”
“You’re the man who carved a heart into a loaf of bread and left it for me to find,” I said. I took another step closer. “You hit me with a snowball and called me Sol the Fearsome.”
The corner of his lip twitched and, for just a second, the ghost of a smile played across his handsome face.
“And, stars, I am so sorry!” I cried. “I know how much the wolf means to you. I wanted to find another way, but I-I couldn’t. I couldn’t think of anything.” My own voice broke. Fenris sighed again.
“No. Please, if anyone should be sorry, it’s me. I was warned. Loki tried to give me a way out, but I didn’t want to listen.” He turned to the window. The moonlight fell across the gleaming trails his tears had left down his cheeks. “I didn’t think there was another way. I couldn’t imagine how else I’d provide for you, and for the baby. Breaking chains for the Æsir seemed like a fair trade for your safety.”
I laughed at that, my own harsh and bitter protest. “Safe is the last word I’d use to describe Asgard.”
Silence fell between us, as dark as night outside the shutters.
“I’m not sure I can do what Thrym wants,” Fenris finally said, as the pale moonlight dappled his face. “He wants me to take it over. The wine making, the horses. It’s all so damned complicated. And the language they speak here! It’s like, I don’t know. Snakes hissing at each other.”
I actually laughed at th
at. The hint of another smile flickered across Fenris’s lips.
“You don’t have to do it alone,” I said.
Without speaking, I opened my arms to him. He stepped forward, rocking slowly into my embrace, even as he stared out the window as though the silver-laced landscape outside held the answers to his questions. I pulled him closer; the twins wiggled in protest.
“Oh!” Fenris gasped. “What was that?”
I giggled, stepped back, and pressed his hands against my stomach. One of the twins kicked again, hitting against Fenris’s palm as if sending out a message.
“Is—is that the baby?” Fenris asked, his eyes wide.
“Babies,” I corrected.
He blinked slowly and tilted his head to the side. “H-how many?”
I grabbed his hand and moved it higher, following the little body squirming inside. “The midwife heard two heartbeats,” I said. “Sometimes I think I can even tell which one is—oh! Did you feel it?”
“By the stars,” Fenris whispered. He shook his head. “I don’t even know how to be a father to one baby.”
Fenris pulled away, and a series of strange emotions chased each other across his face in the half light of our bedroom. He swayed forward on his toes, turned to the wall, and plunged his hands into his hair.
I couldn’t watch this any longer. I’d been apart from him for too long to say nothing. I crossed the cool tiles of our floor and wrapped my arms around his broad shoulders.
“Fenris,” I said. “I don’t know how to be a mother.”
Fenris pulled in a long breath and stood very still.
“We’ll learn,” I continued, trying to make my voice calm despite the way my heart thudded inside my chest like one of Thrym’s stallions pounding the hot dirt beneath his hooves. “We’ll learn together.”
Fenris blew his breath out through his lips. It sounded almost like a sigh. He turned to face me with a solemn expression on his face, the kind of look that brought back a distant memory of his glamorous mother Angrboða entering Nøkkyn’s throne room. A strange, cold coil of fear tightened in my chest.
Fenris dropped to his knees on the stone floor and pressed his cheek against the thin fabric of my tunic. His tears felt cold as they soaked through the fabric.
“I’m going to be a good father to them,” Fenris said. His voice was as low and solemn as if he were swearing an oath.
He stood. His face contorted into a frown; shadows lay heavy across the hollow of his neck and beneath his eyes.
“And I’m going to be a good husband to you,” he said.
“You already are!” I protested as I pulled him as close as I could with the heavy swell of my stomach between us.
He fell silent. Even after I pulled him back to the bed, kissed him, and made love to him slowly and sweetly, he did not speak again. And I couldn’t help feeling like the Fenris I’d married, the man who had almost smiled at me in the moonlight streaming through the shutters, had sunk back into his own private prison, leaving just the shell of his body for me.
THE MONSTER FREED: CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
“So, this is what we’ll do,” Thrym said.
The three of us were in the atrium, on dining couches, sharing breakfast as the rising sun gilded the leaves above us. It was still cool from the night before, and I felt as though I could almost taste the dew sublimating from the grass beneath us, rising like invisible smoke before the dawn.
Thrym opened his mouth again, closed it, and frowned at Fenris. I didn’t blame him; Fenris looked like a ghost. The dark circles under his eyes were even more pronounced in the diffuse morning light than they’d been in the soft glow of the oil lamp last night. Every time I’d woken in the night, shifting in my futile attempts to find a comfortable position for my body, I’d seen Fenris awake at the window. I’d wondered what he was thinking as he stood there, watching the moonlit shadows cross the fields of Midgard. But I’d been too afraid to ask.
“I’d like to present you formally, as my heirs, during the Saturnalia festival. That gives us about six months for you to learn the ropes.”
I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry. Six months didn’t seem like much time for Fenris to learn the maze of Thrym’s domus, let alone to stand up to public scrutiny during some sort of formal presentation.
“Fenris,” Thrym said. “Let’s start with you. Tell me about your strengths, so I’ll know where to begin.”
Thrym fell silent. The air around us filled with the soft chattering of birds in the trees. Fenris shifted uncomfortably beside me.
“My what?” Fenris asked.
“Strengths,” Thrym repeated. “What do you like to do? What are you good at?”
Fenris’s lips twisted into a grimace that looked almost like a snarl. He sank his hands into his hair and tugged at his tangled curls.
“You mean now?” Fenris asked. “In this body?”
Thrym huffed and grumbled something under his breath. It sounded like a curse.
“Let’s try this again,” Thrym said. “Fenris, tell me what you liked about life in Angrboða’s keep.”
Fenris cast his eyes into the interlacing branches above us. The wind sighed through the treetops, sounding almost like the whisper of distant voices. I’d hardly ever heard Fenris speak of his childhood and, when he had, it was only to tell me how much he’d hated it.
“The horses?” Thrym ventured. “The fighting? The travel? The succulent serving ladies?”
The corner of Thrym’s mouth twitched, and I guessed he was making a joke. Fenris didn’t seem to notice.
Thrym snorted. “Are you sure you’re Loki’s son?” he asked, narrowing his eyes.
Fenris gave a defeated shrug. “I’m certainly not Thiassi’s son.”
He sounded so dejected that I reached for his hand. But one of the twins gave me a sharp kick to the lungs, and I pulled back with a gasp before I could touch my husband.
“Sol?” Fenris turned to me, his familiar frown etched across his features.
I tried to smile as I rubbed the taut skin of my belly. “I’m fine.”
Fenris turned toward the ground and frowned at his bare feet. They were damp and streaked with dirt. If all I’d seen of Fenris were his feet, I could almost pretend we were still living together in the Ironwood. Until the wrinkled hem of his purple-lined toga caught my eye. Liburnia had dressed Fenris this morning while I’d watched, hoping to learn the delicate art of folding a length of linen cloth into a piece of men’s clothing. Fenris had stood with his head high, wearing the sort of expression I’d associated with torture. It was hardly an hour later, now, and already the cloth was sliding off his shoulder. Loki’s strange words about having to explain Fenris for the rest of my life echoed in my mind. I tried to push them away.
“The kitchens,” Fenris finally said. He looked up to meet Thrym’s gaze. “I found the castle’s kitchens...interesting.”
“Why?” Thrym asked.
Fenris frowned again. He was silent so long I almost wanted to nudge him to make sure he hadn’t fallen asleep.
“They were complex,” Fenris finally said. “Lots of different systems, all working together. And all more complicated than you’d think. The eggs came from one farm, the flour from another, and all the different meats and cheeses had to be purchased, stored, and tracked separately.” He took a deep breath, plunged his hands into his hair, and continued.
“Angrboða said I was too highborn to be in the kitchens,” Fenris finished, “but I liked them. I liked understanding how they worked.”
I stared at Fenris. In that moment, as the sunlight spread across the tops of the trees and filled the little atrium with light, I could almost picture the boy he’d once been, sitting in the bustling kitchens of Angrboða’s castle, listening to the servants talk about where they bought the flour and how to store the meat.
Another memory came on the heels of that thought. Evenfel’s gleaming red-tiled roofs and white walls, its narrow cobblestone paths and tremendous glass windo
ws. I remembered holding Fenris’s arm as we walked through the streets, and he stopped to point things out to me. To explain how the city worked.
“Like the tiles in Evenfel,” I said.
Fenris frowned at me.
“Remember? You told me where the roof tiles came from,” I said.
Fenris ran his hand across his lips. “Oh, yeah. There was a huge quarry just outside the city walls, along the Körmt river. I used to wonder what in the Nine Realms they were making. So, I watched until I figured it out. Red clay tiles. For the roofs.”
Thrym’s eyes narrowed and he leaned forward, cupping his chin in his palm. It made him look like a merchant eyeing a market stall. Critically, perhaps.
“So. Good. Fenris, we’ll start with the systems of this domus. In the mornings, you’ll come with me. I’ll explain everything, starting with the kitchens. Can you ride a horse?”
Fenris nodded.
“Good. We’ll tour the holdings in the mornings as well. I’ll show you all the grapevines, the olive groves, and the pastures. And my holdings along the ocean. In the afternoons, when the worst of the heat is over, we’ll train. You still want to know how to fight?”
“I do.” Fenris’s voice sounded like the scrape of iron against iron.
Thrym grunted approvingly. “So, that’s what we’ll do.”
I cleared my throat. “And where do I fit in those plans?” I asked.
Thrym’s face broke into a wide grin. “You, dear niece, will be with a tutor. I want you to learn how to read and write.”
I was too stunned by his pronouncement to even respond.
I WOKE IN THE NIGHT, my aching body stiff and uncomfortable. The oil lamp had burned out, leaving the room in darkness. I shifted onto my side and reached for Fenris’s side of the bed. It was empty, the pillow cold. With a sigh, I pulled myself out of the bed and felt for the lamp.
The Complete Fenris Series Page 65