“Fenris,” Týr began. He stopped, ran his hand through his close-cropped hair, and began again. “Fenris Lokisen. I love you.”
Týr spread his arms wide, his right palm open, the stump of his left hand trembling in the lamplight. Not even when his father Óðinn caught us trying to escape across the Bifröst had I seen Týr the Brave look this frightened.
Fenris frowned, shook his head, and glanced at me. His eyes were wide and wild; I was reminded again of the night when Týr had first come to the two of us. When we’d eaten deer together, and laughed, and embraced beneath the full moon. How Fenris had turned to me with pleading eyes, almost as if he were asking me a question.
Another burst of laughter filtered through the hallway, this time ending on what was almost a low moan, and I remembered my first night in Thrym’s domus. Opening my eyes in the enclosed garden to see Loki, Sigyn, and Thrym in each other’s arms.
“I-I love you,” Fenris said, sounding almost stunned by the realization. “I love Sol too, but, stars! When I thought you were dead, Týr, I felt like I’d killed a part of myself.”
I reached for Fenris and closed my fingers around his arm. Týr closed his eyes; I pulled him into my arms. A moment later, Fenris embraced both of us.
Freyja had once told Loki that Týr loved Fenris, and I’d thought how odd it was to realize there was space inside a marriage for three. But, here we were. And, suddenly, it felt like the most natural thing in the Nine Realms to lean across the bulge of my stomach and kiss Týr’s soft, gentle lips.
Týr’s back stiffened in my embrace. I felt him pull a breath from the space between us before I kissed him again, pressing my lips to his, waiting for him.
Slowly, almost hesitantly, Týr’s mouth opened for me. He gave me a slow, sweet kiss that felt half shy, the kind of innocent kiss boys gave girls beneath the colored lights of the Harvest Festival. Fenris’s arms held the three of us together, and I kissed Týr as though we were still beneath the shadows of the Ironwood, and the entire forest was ours.
Týr pulled away from me slowly. Fenris leaned against Týr’s back, pressing his cheek to the exposed skin of Týr’s neck. Fenris’s eyes were closed, and his arms held me against Týr so strongly it almost hurt. Týr leaned back into Fenris’s embrace, then turned to brush his lips against Fenris’s thick, wild curls. They looked so beautiful together, so wild and strong and yet both so lonely and broken, that my heart burned inside my chest.
The click of sandals along the tiles of the corridor interrupted my thoughts. I flinched in Fenris’s arms. Týr stirred like a man coming out of a dream. Fenris opened his eyes and frowned.
“Let’s get out of the hallway,” I whispered.
Fenris released us from his fierce embrace, took a lamp from the wall, and turned down the hall, away from the garden. I took Týr’s hand and followed. My husband, I realized, walked through Thrym’s domus just like he’d walked through the Ironwood Forest, or the streets of Evenfel, or the halls of Asgard. He moved with the same quiet confidence, the same assurance of his place in the world. He moved as if the domus truly did belong to him. Fenris walked like a prince.
He stopped before the closed door to our bedroom and rocked backward on his heels. Fenris raised his hand to his lips, then dropped it. Was he nervous, I wondered, the great monster of the Ironwood? I released Týr’s hand and pushed open the door.
“Would you care to come in?” I asked, smiling at both of them.
Fenris and Týr exchanged a glance, then followed me into our little room. I placed the lamp in its alcove while Fenris latched the door behind us. We’d left our window open to the night breeze, and pale moonlight shone onto the floor, bathing the bed in silver. Týr turned toward the window with the ghost of a smile across his full lips.
“The moon isn’t quite full,” he said. “I’m sorry. I guess I couldn’t wait.”
Fenris spun away from the door and crashed into Týr, sinking his hands into Týr’s hair. I was close enough to hear Týr gasp as Fenris pressed their lips together, kissing Týr deep and hard as his hands grabbed at the thick fabric of Týr’s leather armor. The heat between my legs surged as I watched the two men pull at each other’s clothes and hair, kissing with a desperate ferocity. Fenris managed to undo both straps of Týr’s jerkin before stepping back to pull at his own robes.
“Stars, I missed you,” Fenris growled.
Fenris stepped out of his toga with practiced ease. Týr sighed in appreciation as the moon and the tiny dancing flame from the olive oil lamp cast Fenris’s naked, muscular body in shades of silver and gold.
“You look just as handsome as you did in the Ironwood,” Týr said, in that same low voice.
Týr shrugged out of his jerkin and pulled the dark, long-sleeved shirt beneath over his head. He stepped toward Fenris, his head tilted upward, but Fenris turned to me with a beaming, proud smile.
“Sol,” he said, “show Týr how beautiful you’ve become.”
I shook my head almost before I realized what I was doing. Beautiful? I was enormous right now, fatter than a pig being led to market, and the entire circumference of my belly was streaked with ugly red lines. I opened my hands against my stomach as if I could hide the swelling barrel of my pregnancy.
“I’m not beautiful,” I said, trying to force a laugh, as though I were making a joke.
Fenris and Týr stared at me with almost identical frowns.
“You’re always beautiful,” Fenris said.
Fenris turned away from Týr and crossed the room to stand behind me. He ran his hands lightly along my bare arms, then bent to kiss my neck. Pleasure rolled through me like waves. I rocked back against the solid warmth of his body and closed my eyes. Fenris’s mouth closed around my ear, then trailed down my neck. My back arched against him, already hot with anticipation.
I didn’t realize what his hands were doing until my stola slipped from my shoulders and fell in a heap on the floor. My tunic fell a moment later, the clasps flashing from Fenris’s hand.
“Fenris!” I gasped as I wrapped my arms around my shoulders.
“Oh, Sol,” Týr whispered.
I turned to see Týr staring at me with wide eyes.
“Stars, you’re so beautiful,” Týr said.
My cheeks warmed, and I turned back to Fenris. He shrugged almost apologetically.
“I-I’m so huge,” I stammered. “I’m nothing like the first time you met me.”
Týr lifted the mangled stump of his left hand, raised an eyebrow, and then gave me a strange little bow that reminded me of the day we’d first met, when I’d jumped from the river naked and yelled Surprise!
“My lady Sol,” Týr said with a twisted, wry grin, “I think you’ll find we’ve both changed.”
Fenris bent to my neck again, this time running the hard edge of his teeth along the sensitive skin beneath my ear. My breath caught in my throat. Fenris brought his arm across my chest and wrapped his fingers around my wrist, pulling my hand away from the swell of my breasts. A breeze gusted through the little window, making the lamp’s flame gutter.
“You truly are still beautiful,” Týr said. His voice sounded thick in the small room.
I raised my eyes and met Týr’s gaze.
“Sol, may I?” Týr asked.
My body trembled against Fenris’s chest, and I wondered that I could shiver when I felt like my entire body was about to burst into flame.
“Yes,” I whispered.
Týr stepped toward me and inhaled deeply. He leaned forward slowly, as if he had all night just to kiss me, and brushed his lips against mine so gently that I ached for more. His hand rose to trace the curve of my pregnancy, then to cup the fullness of my breast. I gasped against his lips as his fingers clasped my nipple, and Fenris’s teeth closed around my ear. Fenris shifted his body; his cock pressed between my thighs, as hard as iron. I tilted my hips backward, hungry for him. Týr broke our kiss as gently as it had begun.
“I missed your lips,” Týr sai
d.
Fenris’s chest shook in a deep, growling laugh. I blinked, trying to clear my head from the fog of desire and the aching, intense need swirling between my thighs.
“I-I missed you, too,” I said, realizing the truth of my words as they fell from my lips.
Gently, as he continued kissing my neck, Fenris led me to the edge of our bed. I lowered myself to the soft fabric and Fenris sat behind me, his legs around my waist, the heat of his cock pressed to my spine. Together, we watched Týr step out of his dark leather pants, revealing the curving length of his own stiff cock erupting from its nest of honey-colored curls. I bit my lip as the knot of need tightened in my abdomen.
“She still tastes amazing,” Fenris said, in a whisper loud enough to fill the room.
Týr turned back to me with a grin that was almost predatory. He dropped to his knees before me and bent over the swell of my belly to kiss me again. His lips were hungrier, more urgent than they’d been in the hallway. His fingers traced the inside of thighs and brushed the wet lips of my sex until I mewled with need. I tilted back on the bed, my head against Fenris’s chest, as Týr rocked backward, leaving me panting, my back arched, my legs spread open. Týr’s finger made a slow circle around the throbbing bud of my clit as he met Fenris’s eyes. Moonlight filled the room around him, turning his hair silver.
Týr the Brave dropped his head between my legs; pleasure rolled through me as vast and deep as the ocean. Fenris’s hands held my breasts, embracing my newly-sensitive nipples, as Týr kissed my sex, his lips and tongue moving inside me with agonizing slowness. He brought me, gasping and moaning, to the very edge of climax again and again, only to withdraw, come to his knees, lean over my shoulder, and trade deep, fierce kisses with Fenris while his fingers danced inside me, keeping me on the verge of falling.
I wrapped my arms around Fenris’s shoulders, clinging to him as my body rocked with waves of passion. Týr tasted everything, kissing me after he kissed Fenris, letting me savor the salt of my own sex that he’d just traded with my husband, then dropping to lick my neck, my breasts, my nipples. He kissed the curve of my stomach, following the angry red stripes I’d hated until Týr’s lips made me nearly incoherent with pleasure while his thumb hovered against my clit, delivering just enough pressure to keep me tremblingly close to release.
Týr rocked back on his heels, his fingers slipping inside me, and devoured my body with his eyes. The lamplight cast soft shadows across his lean, hard body. I noticed how much thinner he was, how much older he looked, and my heart ached for him. Stars, I wanted to hold him.
“You’re right,” Týr said softly, his eyes on Fenris. “She really is the most beautiful woman in the Nine Realms.”
“I know,” Fenris said.
I opened my mouth to disagree, but Týr dropped his head once more between my thighs, and any words I may have said drowned in the screams of my orgasm.
FENRIS LOWERED ME TO the bed, and I rolled back, lost in a world of bliss, my mind and body floating somewhere far above the spinning Nine Realms.
When I finally came back to myself, I turned to see Fenris and Týr pressed together in the lamplight, their arms and legs intertwined so tightly on the tile floor it was hard to know where one body ended and another began. Fenris was on top of Týr, and his long hair fell around both their faces, alternately obscuring and revealing their deep kiss as their hips thrust together. They were both moaning; the room smelled of olive oil and sweat and the sharp tang of sex.
Despite the warm glow of my last orgasm, another surge of arousal tightened inside me. By the Realms, watching Fenris and Týr together made me hot. I rolled over onto my side for a better view.
Something else tightened inside me. A sudden jolt of pain shot up my side. I inhaled sharply, running my fingers along my stomach. The cramps had been getting more frequent, but that one had been especially intense. I pushed myself up to sitting, and the pain came again, shooting up both sides now, as fast and hard as a bolt fired from a crossbow.
“Fenris!” Týr cried from the floor in front of me. “Ah, fuck!”
Fenris threw his head back and cried his own satisfaction. The sight of him gleaming with sweat, his eyes closed in ecstacy, his lips parted as he gasped for breath, was almost enough to drown out my sudden alarm at the new, strange pain in my abdomen.
Almost. The cramp returned, blindingly intense this time, and I clambered to my feet.
“Sol?” Fenris panted, untangling himself from Týr’s muscular frame.
“I’m fine,” I waved my hand at both of them. “I’m just going to get—”
The pain came again, rising from my hips until it swallowed me entirely. I gasped and doubled over against the wall. Heat burst from between my legs. I looked down to see a pool of liquid glistening on the tiles.
“The babies,” I said, numbly. “My water just broke. The babies are coming.”
Fenris took my hands in his. “I’m here,” he said. “I’m with you.”
Týr brushed his hand against my shoulder, soft and reassuring. “We’re both here.”
“Now, uh.” Fenris bit his lip as he rocked forward on the balls of his feet. “Where’s the midwife?”
THE MONSTER FREED: CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
I’d thought I knew pain.
I had imagined, after walking through the snow barefoot until my feet were numb and then blazed with pain, after being beaten by King Nøkkyn and imprisoned in his castle, that I’d experienced agony.
Childbirth showed me how wrong I’d been.
At first, the midwife tried to keep Fenris out of the birthing chamber. It wasn’t right, she’d said, for a man to see the act of birth. A woman had to keep some modesty. But, Liburnia told me afterward, when I’d started screaming, Fenris practically pushed the old woman over as he forced his way into the room. Týr had followed, and Liburnia had tried desperately to explain that this was the barbarian custom.
I was sitting on a birthing stool when Fenris came into the room, my world reduced to a red haze of sheer survival, pulling one breath after another as my body convulsed around me. Fenris wrapped me in his arms. I clung to his shoulders, sobbing, as the midwife clucked her disapproval.
“Godsdamned barbarians,” I heard her mutter, although her voice was not entirely without warmth.
“Are you all right?” Fenris asked. His voice held a tinge of panic. “What can I do?”
I shook my head. The last wracking pain had just subsided, leaving me exhausted. I let myself lean back into Fenris’s embrace, breathing deeply, filling my lungs with his scent. Like the forest personified.
“Go around the back of the chair,” the midwife snapped. “Hold her shoulders. Sol, do you feel the urge to bear down?”
I shook my head again; I wasn’t entirely certain what the urge to bear down even meant. Perhaps something had been lost in my dazed translation of her Latin. The door opened again, and a tall woman with long, auburn hair appeared in the warm glow of the fire the midwife had stoked. The midwife threw her hands in the air.
“Do all barbarians turn childbirth into a damned party?” she asked.
“Sigyn,” I gasped, blinking at Loki’s wife.
Sigyn smiled. “I’m here, if you need me.”
I’d seen Sigyn bring Loki back from the point of death with her incantation fetter magic; her presence loosened the knot of fear around my chest.
“I need you,” I gasped.
Another bolt of pain tightened and swelled in my abdomen. My muscles tensed and, suddenly, I felt something deep inside that I’d never felt before. I needed to bear down. To push.
“I feel it,” I cried.
The midwife leapt into action, ordering instructions. I pushed, and the world filled with a pain so blindingly intense I was convinced I wouldn’t survive. Fenris and Týr held my shoulders as time collapsed on itself.
“Breathe,” Sigyn’s voice rose above my own screams.
“Push again,” the midwife rasped.
Pai
n split my body apart.
“I see it!” the midwife cried. “Don’t stop now!”
I wanted to stop. I wanted to stop more than I’d ever wanted anything in my entire life. But my body was beyond me now, and I couldn’t even voice my pain. My words had been stolen by the howl of agony in my throat.
Cool fingers brushed my brow. The fog of pain lifted somewhat. I struggled to focus; the room was just a wash of colors, wavering in and out of a veil of tears.
“Breathe,” Sigyn said again. “I’ll help with the pain.”
I tried to gasp a thank you, but the next push took everything from me.
“OPEN YOUR EYES.”
That was Sigyn’s voice. I sucked a ragged breath into my lungs. Somewhere close by, someone was crying.
“Sol, open your eyes!”
I tried to force my eyelids to open. It seemed to take a tremendous amount of strength. Sunlight burned my vision with an intensity so fierce I was left blinking in pain and shock. Slowly, the splashes of color resolved themselves. There was the midwife, squatting between my legs, a triumphant smile on her wrinkled face.
And there, silhouetted against the bright light flooding through the windows, with the midwife’s arms wrapped around their squirming, naked abdomens, were two blood-streaked, squalling infants. I couldn’t believe how big they were. It seemed like they could never have shared the space inside me, that they must have been conjured through magic like Loki appearing in the middle of Thrym’s domus at night.
“Good, very good,” clucked the midwife. “Two strong, healthy boys. They came out one right after the other, the little one holding the big one’s ankle as if he didn’t want to be left behind!”
I turned and saw Fenris sitting next to me. Tears streamed down his cheeks, and he was smiling in a brilliant, victorious way I didn’t think I’d ever seen him smile before. Fenris and Týr helped me stagger to the bed, where I collapsed against the pillows.
Sigyn and the midwife settled the twins on my chest, one in the crook of each arm. Their little heads were swirled with dark hair, their hands squeezed into fists, their tiny faces red and frowning. The intense pain I’d just experienced vanished like the morning mist dissolving before the rising sun. I wondered if Sigyn’s magic was still at work, or if the feeling of deep joy welling within me was so immense that I no longer held any room for suffering.
The Complete Fenris Series Page 68