He would reward her for her efforts. His Freya pleased him well, never disappointed him. The truth was, he had wanted her to challenge him. He had wanted to dominate her fully, because he knew it wouldn’t be the same for her if he simply let her walk away from this. The vine withdrew from her pussy. The ones on her wrists and neck drew her to a standing position, yet supported her. He knew she’d not be able to support herself.
He went to her then, wrapping his arm around her sweaty hips. “Enjoying this, Freya?” He gave her a kiss on her heated brow.
“I always enjoy what you do to me,” she said in a breathy voice. “Even though it is overwhelming.”
“I want you to thank me now.”
“Thank you,” she said.
He chuckled. “Not like that.” He pressed his panpipes against her little foxhole, as he preferred to think of it. He moved behind her to support her back with his chest, watching over her shoulder as she pressed and gyrated against his panpipes. He rubbed them vigorously against her clit.
“I want you to cream, Freya. Hard. And I want you to scream and moan when you do.” He gave her ear a sharp nip.
And she did, giving voice to the orgasm that shook her heated body, coming all over his hand and the panpipes.
“Beautiful, beautiful, Freya,” he said in her ear.
“Well, you know what I think of fauns and panpipes,” she said, a little giggle in her voice.
He laughed and moved to stand in front of her so she could watch him lave the juices from his panpipes. Her fluids had a floral flavor from the vine that had penetrated her.
Siegfried steadied her as he withdrew the vines and roots. She sagged against him, lightheaded from her release. He laid her down upon the Ixora and shifted to human form. He left his green cape over his shoulders and gazed down at his woman, her pale hair spread about the bright flowers, white flesh dappled with sunlight. Her lips parted, and her eyes filled with adoration. Something different. He wanted something different.
He knelt between her legs, moving those long thighs farther apart. He trailed slow, worshipful kisses along the inside of her thighs, pausing to nuzzle that sweet pussy. She smelled of her desire for him. Her fingers stroked slowly through his hair, then grazed his shoulder. She was his goddess, his mermaid. Despite the chains, her desire for him could not be restrained.
He palmed her breasts, kissing those dark nipples, enjoying her sharp intake of breath. Then he placed kisses on her throat, around Brisingamen. His fingers entered her, and he felt her begin to quicken again. She licked her parted lips, and he traced his lips across her brow, then across her nose.
He’d not let Loki or anyone take her from him. She’d accepted all of him, hadn’t wanted to change him. He cared for her so, her laughter, her silliness, her passion. It hit him then, hard. He bowed his head over her body, letting the realization take hold within his chest.
“Siegfried, what’s wrong?” she asked, worry and fear tinging her voice with panic.
He laughed a little, brushed his fingers across her shimmering Marks. “I’ve just realized how very much I’ve come love you, my Freya.”
She gasped, and he kissed her again.
****
Siegfried was so beautiful as he leaned over Freya, taking her lips, soft and firm all at the same time. His head was bowed, that sun-kissed hair tickling her cheeks and brow. His voice had been tight with such emotion when he’d spoken. She clutched his cape in her fists, as if she might make this moment last forever. But they had eternity, did they not?
“I love you, too, but I think you already knew that,” she said the very moment his lips left hers.
“How could I doubt it? You loved me before you met me. I’m only glad that I met your expectations. I have, haven’t I?”
There was fear in those intense eyes of his. She laughed softly. “No, you didn’t meet them.”
He pulled away. She tightened her grip on his cape and pulled him closer. She gave him a wicked smile. “You exceeded them.”
“Evil wench.” He laughed and buried his face against her neck. His goatee tickled. Then he drew himself up, his gaze raking her again. “I want to love you, here, like this, slow. Tender. I want to savor every moment of your body around mine. I don’t want to hold you back this time. Oh, this will not be the norm. But I want you unrestrained, free. Let me ride the storm, my Freya, my Loreley.”
“Then, don’t wait.” She spread her thighs further, tracing a finger above her sex. She placed her other hand over his heart.
He parted her folds, sliding into her. She moaned with the lush fullness of him inside her. She looked up into those eyes of his. Hers, Siegfried was hers.
“More tears?” he said.
“Huh?” She dashed her hand across her eyes. “Oh. I’m happy, that’s all. I don’t want this afternoon to end.”
“Believe me, I’d love to keep you here, too.” He gave her neck a gentle bite. “Forget about your worries. Do you think I’m going to let anyone take you from me?” He slid all the way into her, and her cares disappeared with the slow, deliberate thrusts of Siegfried
her
Fox.
****
Hecate’s great hall had walls of blue crystal and a floor covered in shells, giving Siegfried the feeling that he was underwater. Freya marveled at the high windows, the colored glass depicting sea beasts. The ceiling itself was painted to look like the ocean’s surface with stars high above. There were more of those convenient fountains, as well. These depicted sea nymphs and more of the sea beasts. However, the fountains were not as convenient as the streams of drinks that wended their way through the hall about the tables.
The great hall was packed with humans, sitting at the long benches. So many male eyes were on Freya. He could not blame them. Freya wore a thin purple cloth bound around her breasts. Beads of pearls dripped down her bare midriff, sparkling with diamonds. A skirt of the same material was wrapped around her thighs, rising almost to her crotch. A wide silver belt studded with diamonds rested low on her hips, a giant white pearl hung from the V of the belt right over her sex. Silver heels adorned on her feet, lacing up her slender calves. Over one shoulder hung a silver cape, clasped with a heavy brooch carved of purple pearl. In the center was a silver swan. It was, of course, a Hedwig creation.
“You know, Siegfried,” she said in a low voice, “all I’m wearing underneath this is a little lace band with a single strand of purple pearls.”
He growled and gave her ear a nibble as they approached the high table surrounded by a curtain of sea green studded with pearls. This dinner could not end soon enough. Freya didn’t seem to mind the dinner as she happily called out to people she knew from Folkvang.
Siegfried did not mind any of the company, save for Woden, who took the chair across from Siegfried. He glared at Siegfried with his single eye.
Hecate took a long sip of her wine. “Woden, why don’t you ask your daughter about her life? I’m certain there are lots of things you don’t know.”
Woden looked away. He scratched his head and looked at Freya. “So what all did you do amongst the humans?”
“There isn’t much to tell,” Freya said, and Woden looked relieved. “I spent most of my time in the soldiers’ barracks—”
Woden slammed his fist on the table. “They made you a whore?” The entire great hall went silent. “Before you met the lecherous faun with the pea-sized weapon?”
“Er, no,” Freya said. “I just drank and gambled with them.”
“You’re jesting,” Woden said. “Ha, ha, ha.”
****
Freya looked closely at Woden and felt very devious. “How about a game of
hnefatafl.
Every time one of us loses a piece, we have to drink.” She was still uncertain how to pretend she was pregnant without talking about those nasty conversation topics. Some pregnant women abstained from booze, but there was no way she was going to be able to bring that up while sober. Besides, she was only fake-pregnant.
“You can’t expect to beat me at
hnefatafl,”
Woden said. “You’ll be passed out before we’re even done with the first game.”
Freya turned her nose up. “Well, if you’re a coward…”
“I’m not a coward.” And he called for a
hnefatafl
board.
Freya insisted on playing offense first. This way, she could gauge Woden’s skills from an advantageous position. He was good. But not
that
good.
“Lucky,” he said when he took the first drink. “Damned bad luck,” he said on the fifth. “I let you win,” he said on the last.
“Let
me win?” Freya said. “No, you were trying. I saw the way you were looking at the board. You lost.
Lost
. Ooh, who won? Freya. Who lost? Woden.” So, she’d been drinking a little much, even though she hadn’t lost many of her defending chips.
“We play again,” Woden said darkly. “This time, I play offense.”
“Fine.” She started setting up the board, Woden’s hands alongside hers, laying the pieces in their places. This time, it was tougher. She was actually having to drink more than she’d anticipated. Like her, Woden was better at offense.
Eventually, Woden captured her king. “What was all that before? Who lost now? Ooh. Freya lost. Freya went down. Who has triumphed with glorious victory? Woden. Who leaves the battlefield shamed? Oh, wait. You’re not leaving the battlefield. You’ve been annihilated by Woden’s wholesale slaughter. Because Woden is the champion.”
“I’m drunk. Not fair,” Freya said. “Oh, wait. That’s right. I’m a Valkyr. Let me bring my dead pieces back to life to fight again.”
“You can’t do that,” Woden said.
“My, my…” Hecate said. “It seems they are both such gracious winners and losers.”
“I’ll play Woden,” Siegfried said. “He can play offense.”
“Hah,” Woden said. “I’ll beat the faun in one move.”
“That’s impossible,” Siegfried said.
“Shut up and set the board, faun.” Woden leaned back in his chair.
“Multitasking,” Freya said a bit later when she had an ale in each hand. She glanced about the room. When should she announce her fake pregnancy? Not now, not when Siegfried was beating Woden.
“It is not right. There has to be something wrong. I can’t be beaten by a faun,” Woden said eventually, glaring at the game pieces on the board. “Ah, that’s it. It is because I’ve mixed different types of booze.”
“Isn’t Siegfried amazing?” Freya said.
“Not really,” Woden said. “He is a faun. A faun who fawns over you, but a faun all the same. Fauns will fawn over all forms of femininity. Do you see what I did there? Fawn. Faun.”
“No, Siegfried stands solid at the side of his sweetheart. I see your four F’s and raise you five S’s.” Freya grinned at him.
“Fine, then—”
Freya licked her lips and stared right at Woden. “No, you won’t be able to beat it. You see, for all my fawning faun’s favorable feats, the most fortunate is his upcoming fatherhood.”
Woden spit out his mouthful of mead that sent a deluge of spittle and booze across the game pieces. “What?”
“All the time on Siegfried’s ship, I guess it couldn’t be helped. All that virility, that raw manliness… Or is it faunliness?” Freya gave her brows a waggle.
“You’ve not been acting pregnant,” Woden said. “I thought you were in the grips of your women’s madness when you destroyed the Well.”
“No, that was because Mimir asked for it,” Freya said.
“The hunting, that made me suspect,” Hecate said. “She had a craving and mood swings.”
“Gods,” Woden said. “What if the child has antlers, and the antlers puncture her stomach?”
Freya squeaked, then remembered she wasn’t really pregnant. “I’m going to be a mother. Can you have a nursery put in Sessrumnir?”
“We’re going to need to have the best medics available,” Woden said. “Oh, gods, oh, gods.”
“Oh, of course,” Freya said. “There’s some other being inside me, taking over my body. I don’t want to die when it rips and tears its way from my body in sprays of blood and gore.”
“It’s a child. Not some sort of animal,” Hecate said, giving Freya a bewildered look.
“But that’s how the women in Folkvang described it,” she said. “A horrible, blood-soaked battle with lots of screaming and tearing of flesh.”
“It’s my grandson. Of course, it will rip and tear its way into the world,” Woden said, deadly serious. “We can’t let our war hero be lost. No, there will be the best medics. We’ll keep Hecate on hand to reanimate you lest you die. Just in case. We’ll keep you away from everyone and unleash you to eat Jotuns if that does happen. Yes, Freya, I have planned for the case of every eventuality. Oh, and would you look at that alliteration?”
Hecate shook her head.
“I…I’m going to be a grandfather.” Woden sighed. “A huge nursery with an assortment of spears and maces and axes. That’s what the baby needs. He’ll be fed on mead from day one. He’ll have his first spear the moment he’s born. The child of the Hero of the Jotun War…and a faun. You two will have to be married at once.”
“No. We need time to plan this.” Hecate shook her head. “At least a fortnight to send invitations and choose flowers. Balder, of course, will provide music.”
Woden waved his fist—still clutching a horn of mead—in Hecate’s face. “They’ll have the formal ceremony and the celebration then, if you insist. It will be in Valhalla. There will be tourneys to mark the occasion. Wine and mead will flow in abundance. But for now, consider the two wed.”
“What?”
Siegfried and Freya said at the same time.
Woden gave them an
are-you-serious
look. “I’m the King of Asgard. I can do that, too. If I say you’re wed, you’re wed. But for now, let us celebrate this wedding. More mead! Balder, play us a song.”
****
Freya and Siegfied found Hecate and Woden looking tired on the patio. Hedwig had woken them early to meet with Freya’s parents.
“Freya, Woden and I have been up all night starting on these wedding plans,” Hecate said. “Do you have any preferences? What colors? What flowers? What foods?”
“Blueberry ale? Red wine?” Freya said. “Oh, and venison—rare—potatoes and goat cheese. And soup. That has to be vegetable. For flowers? Bright ones, I guess? Um, and I like purple. Siegfried likes green, so purple and green. And everything must be done in multiples of eight. That’s all.”