Hela Takes a Holiday

by Rebekah Lewis

  "What are you saying?" Björn asked. Hela couldn't tell if the waver to his voice was from fear or hope.

  She stepped forward and kissed him. As she closed her eyes, she tapped into her magic. After a moment, he returned her kiss and she knew she had achieved what she wanted. Hela opened her eyes and looked into the face of the man she'd fallen in love with, restored to the age he was at the time she met him. He blinked at her and then looked down at his hands, then patted his chest where his well-defined muscles were hidden under his woolen tunic that was worn over leather trousers and boots.

  "Am I alive?"

  She sighed. "Sadly, nay. But I have confined your soul to Helheim." She glanced at Loki when she called her fortress by the name she'd despised for so long. His jaw fell agape. "And whenever you are in Helheim, which you can now never leave, you will have physical form and appear as you did in your prime." Smug pride coursed through her.

  She grinned as Björn struggled to speak, and saved him the trouble by adding, "I am immortal, and so is a soul. Nothing will come between us now, not even death."

  Björn pulled her to him and kissed her again, this time without holding himself back. If her children came to her and didn't wind up in Valhalla or anywhere else, she'd do the same for them. Her family, and her children's family, could live eternally in her fortress. Since Birger had died of old age rather than battle, she could bring both him and Björn's mother to live with them too.

  A slow, measured clapping broke them apart. She'd forgotten about her father's presence. She faced him and jumped slightly when Björn slipped his hand into hers, squeezing it in reassurance.

  "I think that is the first time you have ever managed to trick me," Loki said, admiration in his tone. Hela had to admit she was pleased with herself for finding the perfect solution.

  "Try not to take it personally."

  "I am so proud of you, my daughter." He smiled. "It is time I leave you two. Björn must have many questions." Loki nodded at her husband, who returned the nod respectfully.

  When Loki left a second time, Hela pulled Björn into her arms and laid her head upon her chest. He didn't have a heartbeat, and air didn't enter and leave his lungs, but it was him. His very essence. And she didn't have to let him go. She'd experienced life, love, and even in the wake of death, that love endured.

  For the first time ever, she was proud to be a goddess.

  Author's Note

  When I set out to write this story, I thought it would be a straightforward historical venture with the only paranormal aspects being in the prologue and epilogue, aside from the snow building around Iskygge due to Loki's meddling. The theme consisted of these three elements: Christmas magic, a wish, and the Viking age. And then I began a five-month task of researching Yule—or Jul—and kept hitting delay after delay in writing the book because the information I found changed from source to source.

  It would seem that when the Vikings converted from paganism to Christianity, the celebration of Yule changed from being around three weeks long (according to some sources) to only twelve days (according to most). I couldn't pass up the opportunity to seize onto the twelve days of Christmas theme, which meant the historical setting was much later in the timeline than I originally planned. My heroine was a Norse goddess, and I was setting her into Midgard at a time where the people there were being forced to convert to Christianity if they didn't choose to have done so already. It was…challenging to figure out the right angle for the plot to fall into place.

  In the end, I chose a setting that incorporated a lot of the Christian-influenced elements, but chose to make several artistic liberties in order to weave a lot of the pagan myth and legend into a fictional village in Norway that took place in a nonfictional time in history. For instance, there really was a Wild Hunt legend attached to Yule, and Oskoreia was often said to be led by Odin himself. Yet one of the names of this phenomena was Julareia, which translates roughly to "Christmas Riders" and proves to be influenced by the Christian holidays as a bedtime story to make kids think that those who do not celebrate the holiday may be punished.

  How could I not feature this in some way, shape or form when I am writing about Norse gods and the goddess of the dead specifically? The last thing a person ever thinks they'd find associated to the holiday season is an army of the dead riding through the night skies, sweeping up any mortals who mistakenly step into their path. I had a lot of fun writing this book, though I think when it came to research, this was the most difficult and exhausting story I have had to craft yet. I appreciated the challenge, and hope you, dear reader, enjoyed the story despite the fact that it ended up more paranormal than it was originally intended to be in a historical series of novels.

  Please keep reading to find an excerpt of the second book in the Christmas Wishes series: A Christmas Reunion, by Rebecca Lovell.

  An Excerpt From: A Christmas Reunion

  By Rebecca Lovell

  Chapter 1

  The heat of the fire burning in the hearth had made Carys’ room quite cozy in comparison to the cold wind blowing outside the house’s walls, and she’d started drowsing soon after she opened her book. It hung precariously between her fingers as she dozed but somehow managed to stay in place until the door to her room flew open with a bang, waking Carys with a start. The book fell from her fingers and hit the floor as she was pulled from her dream of swordfights and tried to remember where she was.

  “Do you live to madden me, girl?” Leyson ap Ieuan’s face was red with anger as he looked at his daughter and even in her still-groggy state she knew exactly why he was upset.

  “He was twice my age and a bore,” she said, folding her arms over her chest and turning away from him. “I’ll not marry a man simply because he shows a hint of interest. Besides that, he was hardly literate.”

  “I never should have listened to your mamm and let her school you,” Leyson said. “You’ve become more trouble than you’re worth.” His eye fell on the cover of the book Carys had dropped. “What’s this?”

  “Scholars call them books, I believe.” Before he could start shouting, she cut her eyes toward him. “Mamm would be proud of me.”

  “Aye, she would. All the more reason for a headache.” He looked at the cover of the book, on which the title Women Warriors of the Sea was stamped in gold. Carys reached for it but her father’s arms were longer and he snatched it from the ground before she could. “Where did you get this?”

  “Just a shop in town,” Carys said evasively. “I can’t say I remember which, but it’s not such an unusual thing.”

  “This is the sort of nonsense that fills your head with these wild ideas about what it is to be a woman!” He thumbed through the book and Carys could see the illustrations of women in breeches and boots from where she stood, caught in the act of swinging a sword to defend their ship. “Women aren’t meant to do battle, you’re meant to raise a family.”

  “Perhaps I should want to raise a family if I found a man worthy of my affections,” Carys said petulantly, standing from her chair. “There’s no one of the like in the men I’ve met.”

  “You’ll not have to worry about that for much longer,” Leyson replied. “Since you’ve rejected to a man all the suitors who’ll have you, I’ve taken things into my own hands. I found someone willing to marry a woman possessed of your lack of charms. He’ll be along in a few days and I expect you to be welcoming to him.”

  “Absolutely not! I shan’t marry a man I don’t love!” Carys took a step toward her father and he shook his head.

  “You’ll do as you’re told, daughter, or you’ll be out on your backside. As you don’t have any skills to speak of, you’re ill-suited to make your own way in the world.” He held up the book and shook it at his daughter. “No more of this, not in my home.” As Carys watched in horror, her father threw her book into the fire. The flames rose eagerly around the leather and paper and began to devour them at once.

  “Tad, no!” Carys fell to her knees in front
of the hearth and grabbed the poker from its rack. Her father stormed out of the room, slamming the heavy door behind him as Carys tried her best to fish her book out of the fire. She pulled it within reach and picked it out of the fire with her fingertips, then put her burned fingers in her mouth while she held the edge of the book with the least damage in her other hand so she could beat it against the floor.

  Once the fire was extinguished, she sat back on her heels and tried to thumb through the book to see if there was any hope of saving it. The pages that weren’t wholly burnt were stuck together with the melted glue from the binding and Carys’ eyes filled with tears, not just for the loss of her book but her freedom as well. Tears ran down her face and dripped onto the thick brocade skirt of her winter gown, looking for all the world like little raindrops on the fabric.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t want to get married, she’d had more than her share of daydreams of a wedding. Even though it had seemed unlikely, she’d held out hope that she’d find a man who shared her love of excitement and valued her intelligence as her mother had. She’d never been able to see his face, not even in dreams, but she knew he was out there somewhere. Fresh tears spilled over onto her cheeks as she mourned the loss of him before she’d even gotten the chance to meet him.

  A small scratching sound at the door made her look up and she went to open it, brushing at them with one flowing sleeve as she did. She clutched her ruined book to her chest, unwilling to let it go just yet as she opened the latch. A dark brown and white dog with short legs and big ears trotted into the room, its fox-brush tail wagging happily. It seemed completely unaware that its mistress was distressed, and Carys couldn’t help smiling through her tears.

  “Ah Brock,” she said, kneeling to stroke his head. “How do you always know when I need your counsel?” The corgi licked her hand, finally making her smile. He was growing older, as small animals were prone to doing, and with each year that died her connection to the mother who had passed away some ten years prior grew thinner. It wouldn’t be long before all she’d have left was her mother’s golden hair and memories of the way she’d laughed.

  The thought made Carys’ heart ache and she stood up quickly before more tears could fall. Not ready for her to stop paying attention to him, Brock stood on his hind legs and planted his feet on her knees. Carys rubbed his head, almost absently. She couldn’t bear to let her father see how upset he had made her, but if she didn’t get out of the house she wouldn’t be able to hold back the tears. She leaned down quickly to kiss Brock’s head, then pulled off her oversleeves with little care toward the buttons that held them to her gown, took down her woolen cloak and put it around her shoulders as she walked out of her room. Her father was downstairs in the hall when she stalked toward the front door, and the sight of him replaced her sadness with anger.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  Rather than replying, Carys pulled the hood of her cloak over her head to block him out. She flung open the door amidst more shouting and dire proclamations from her father and hurried across the yard with her gown and cloak balled in her fist to keep them from trailing the ground. There was a quality stable near their house and the stable hand was just getting ready to take her father’s horse to it to be unsaddled when she walked in. Carys supposed that he had come from talking to whomever he’d found to marry her, though she hadn’t seen his coat when he’d barged into her room.

  “You shan’t bother,” she said, pushing past him. Her father’s horse was quite a bit taller than the elderly one she had inherited from her mother, but her anger pushed her off the ground and into the saddle quite effectively. Riding astride was the very height of unladylike behavior but she didn’t care. The only thing she cared about at that moment was getting as far away from her father as possible, and she knew he wouldn’t stoop to riding her horse to follow her.

  Carys was rarely content to stay at home, preferring to walk around Conwy and visit the shops or talk to friends whenever possible, so as she rode briskly toward the gates of the town a number of people bid her good day. She returned their greetings only perfunctorily and didn’t fully relax until she was well away from Conwy’s protective walls. Stopping to talk with someone she knew would only be a waste of her energy, and cost her precious minutes that would give Leyson time to come after her.

  It took some time for her to get far enough from the town to feel comfortable slowing her horse’s pace, but it occurred to her that she had no idea where she was going. She sighed heavily, and her breath sent threads of steam curling into the cold. Her hand found the pocket of her cloak and she was relieved to find that she still had her money purse. She remembered putting it there after her last trip to the shops and weighed it with her hand, trying to determine how much there was.

  The horse plodded on as she considered her options. It was rare that she ventured more than a few miles from Conwy but she couldn’t go back home yet, it would be as good as agreeing to her father’s marriage plans. Tucking the purse back into her cloak, Carys snapped the reins of the horse so that it went faster. She resolved to keep riding until she came to a town, then decide what she was going to do from there.

  Since she was a girl, she’d loved the sort of stories of adventure and bravery that seemed tailor-made for men. At times she’d fancied herself an archer who saved the King, other times a sailor on a ship to undiscovered lands. Her mother had encouraged her wild stories and fantasies in spite of her father’s disapproval and she’d enjoyed the safety of dreaming under her protection. Now that was all gone, and Carys was left to watch her childhood dreams wither in the sunlight of reality.

  The day stretched out before her and the sun moved steadily toward midday. Carys continued to ride until she saw the buildings of a small town flanking the road that split it in two. She paused for a moment before kicking her father’s horse to speed it along. It was quite a bit stouter than her own horse and didn’t seem to be tiring in spite of the journey, and she saw no reason to stop if it wasn’t yet tiring.

  Just a bit further, she thought as she nodded to the people who watched her pass. I’ll stop in the next town.

  Order A Christmas Reunion, by Rebecca Lovell now!

  About the Author

  Rebekah Lewis has always been captivated by fictional worlds. An avid reader and lover of cinema, it was only a matter of time before she started writing her own stories and immersing herself in her imagination. Rebekah's most popular series, The Cursed Satyroi, is paranormal romance based on Greek mythology. She also writes Fantasy and Time Travel. When satyrs, white rabbits, and stubborn heroes aren't keeping her busy, she may be found putting her creativity to use as an award-winning cover artist. Rebekah holds a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and lives in Savannah, GA with her cat, Bagheera.

  For more information and to follow Rebekah’s releases join her newsletter. Click here to sign up.

  * * *

  www.Rebekah-Lewis.com

  Books by Rebekah Lewis

  -The Cursed Satyroi Series-

  Wicked Satyr Nights

  Midnight at the Satyr Inn

  Under the Satyr Moon

  Mercury Rising

  Satyr from the Shadows

  The Satyr Prince

  Pride Before the Fall

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  -London Mythos-

  Rescued by a Sea Nymph

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  -Wonderland-

  The Vanishing

  The Unraveling

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  -Monsters in the Dark-

  The Monster Under the Bed

  The Monster in the Closet

  The Monster in the Cellar

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  -Other Books-

  Through the Maelstrom

 

 

 
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