Chapter 19 Helayna
HELAYNA
In the moments where Dorr had lain injured and lifeless, I only had one thought. Save him. No matter the cost.
But now he was healed, and exhilaration returned with a vengeance. Blood magic coursed through my veins and spun through the night sky like glowing red ribbons.
My home was secure. My Blood were safe. A piece of Yggdrasil grew both outside the house in the new seed but also inside from the Ironheart throne.
I knew more about my heritage. The legacy. Even if I didn’t understand everything, I at least had access to it now. Tomorrow, we were going to visit the place my mother had grown up. Where my grandmother had ruled our House for hundreds of years.
Establishing my own nest and blood circle was only the beginning of my legacy. I, too, could have hundreds of years on the Ironheart throne…
With my Blood by my side.
I could have this. Surrounded by my beloveds.
Their hands stroked me. Dorr’s legs were beneath me, his chest against my back.
Myrk locked his mouth to mine, inhaling me with the same burning hunger.
Stretching out both arms, I silently offered my blood.
Tongues licked my fingers clean, gliding up to the still-bleeding bites I’d torn open.
“Yes,” I gasped against Myrk’s lips. “Feed. All of you. I need you. I need—” Words crisped in the fire raging through me.
With a low growl of hunger, Myrk pulled me onto his knees and thrust up inside me.
My head fell back on a ragged cry of release.
Pleasure bubbled up like the wellspring at the base of Yggdrasil, a cascading tumult tossing me high into the stars.
Chips of ice. Black velvet. The burning cold of Lokken’s lips on my wrist, slowly gliding up to the crook of my elbow.
Svar gripped my other wrist in his mouth.
I felt the shards of his teeth delicately teasing my skin.
The rasp of his tongue probing the bite.
Fangs in my shoulder. Obsidian shards on my other shoulder.
Connected. All of us. My pleasure spilled through the bonds. Myrk roared with release, his wings arching above us like black shadows. His cock exploded with barbs and spikes, pushing deeper, expanding, until I screamed with release and sank my fangs into his chest.
A bottomless river of black essence swept into me, mixing with the pure, clear pool that watered Yggdrasil. I sucked him down, reveling in the charred edge of his essence. Darkest chocolate and roasted coffee mixed with the deep, endless cold of eternal darkness.
When he slumped to the side, Svar took his place. Offering his throat but not his cock. As if he still feared he might be too dangerous for me to love him.
“I want them both.” I didn’t recognize the growl in my voice. The hunger. My fangs ached so much I bit him again and again, hard, messy bites tearing his alfar hide. “I want it all.”
Dorr tightened one arm around me and seized Svar’s nape to drag him closer. “Then you shall have him.”
“Bind me, my queen,” Svar rasped. “Only then will I trust myself.”
His bond rippled like a still, silent oil slick disturbed by a single small pebble, pulling me under its surface into pure Darkness. I pressed my mouth to one of my bites and pulled hard on his essence. :I trust you, and that is enough.:
Dorr wrapped his arms around my other Blood, reassuring and steadying him, while also pressing us all together. “I trust you, brother. You may be the Deadliest, but you love us both too much to ever harm her.”
Svar flowed into me like an avalanche of darkness loaded with sharp edges and poisoned blades.
The tip of his barbed cock sank into me, hesitantly at first, then deeper as he felt my pleasure.
My complete lack of fear. He was dangerous, yes, but unable to harm me through the ebb and flow of my own power.
I didn’t dull his edges or dilute his poison.
I intensified it. My Deadliest. Reveling in his danger.
He filled me, impossibly wide. His spikes lay like ridges along his shaft, increasing sensation without hurting me.
So good I couldn’t even focus enough to feed.
My head fell back against Dorr’s chest, my entire body quivering.
I fought to open my eyes so I could see his face.
Buried to the hilt inside me, he stared down at me, his pink eyes shining like a full moon colored by a gorgeous sunset sky. “I would fall back to the Endless Slough to touch you one last time.”
I reached up to cup his cheek in one hand. “You never have to fall, my Deadliest. But if you do, we will always fly to catch you, the same as you came to catch us.”
GUNNARR
I watched her take the dark alfar one by one. Then the ice man. Afraid to interrupt or distract her, I kept my mouth shut. My thoughts as silent as possible.
For decades, I roamed the world wherever my nose and stomach led.
Being alone had never bothered me. In fact, I would have said I preferred the endless dark winters on the ice, fishing and sleeping, sleeping and fishing.
Thinking my thoughts to the aurora borealis.
Perhaps that’s why the others heard my thoughts so easily.
I’d never learned to dampen the ideas sparking through my mind, bleeding from one color to the next against the velvet sky.
Best I learn how to pull the winter dark down inside me and mute the constant chatter. I did not want to be sent away for being an annoyance.
She lifted her head from Lokken’s throat and turned to pin me with gleaming eyes. Gulp. She must have heard my thoughts despite my attempt at staying quiet.
Licking her lips, she sat up fully, shifting around on her alpha’s body to face me. Though Lokken still held her opposite arm, his mouth pressed to her wrist.
“Surely my Hungriest hasn’t already finished feeding.” Voice gentle and light with teasing, she held her other hand out to me. “I’m certainly not finished feeding on you.”
On my hands and knees, I scrambled closer, weaving between limbs and wings so I could offer her my throat. I didn’t wish to anger Dorr by delaying when she hungered.
But instead of immediately sinking her glorious fangs into me, she cupped my cheek in her palm and tipped my face back to hers. “I will never send you away, Gunnarr.”
“Forgive me, my queen.” Nerves made my tongue flap faster. “I meant no disrespect. I don’t know much of anything about proper Aima courts and queens. On Svìn, there were no formalities. People came and went all the time, trappers, fishermen, traders…”
I’m babbling again. Eyes wide, I clenched my jaws shut.
“I don’t know anything about proper Aima courts either.
I grew up in a tiny, secluded cabin on a private island in the middle of a lake in rural Minnesota.
I may have seen more court life in Norway, but I don’t remember it.
Even if I did, I want my court, my House, to be a place of love and warmth and laughter, not proper etiquette. ”
“I know Norway well, my queen. I’ve likely traversed nearly every square kilometer and certainly all the coasts, which is significant because of all the fjords sliced by glaciers. Probably walked my fat ass around the equator a dozen times or more.”
Her lips quirked. “I quite like your ass. Especially in those little white shorts.”
The tips of my ears crisped with heat, and it was all I could do not to wriggle around like an eager puppy and show her said ass again.
Which absolutely would not help my case whatsoever.
She didn’t need a fool in her court who ate everything in sight and couldn’t shut off his mouth or his thoughts for five seconds.
“You don’t have to prove your worth to me, Gunnarr. You’re mine. You’re not going anywhere.”
“But why?” I blurted before I could stop myself.
“I’m fucking useless. I can’t fly or fight or pull freaky ice waves up out of the ocean to catch you.
I don’t know beans about court or politics.
I can barely control the shift, especially when you feed on me.
I can’t control anything. Even my own damned tongue.
I’m good for a laugh, I suppose. Or to make sure your food isn’t ever poisoned.
Though I eat so much, you’ll never know what killed me if there is some kind of poison that works on Aima.
Is there? I don’t even know. So maybe that’s not—”
Her hand slipped to my nape and she pulled me closer, stilling my frantic words. “The goddess sent me exactly the Blood I want and need.”
I squeezed my eyes shut as her mouth ghosted over my throat in light kisses. Hold as long as possible. I won’t shift this time.
Her thighs opened, sliding around my hips. Her fingers danced down my spine to my buttock so she could squeeze the meaty muscle. Harder, her nails pricking my skin, as she lay back against her other Blood and pulled me toward the cradle of her body.
My heart ached, swollen and tender as if her ice giant stomped me into a bloody smear on the ice. I fought the urge to fall on her like a ravenous beast. The others—
Leaning up, she sank her fangs into my throat with surprising force, drawing a heavy groan from my throat. The polar bear nearly clawed my spine in half. :Stop comparing yourself to anyone else and ravage me. Because you’re my ravenous beast.:
Her words drew a roar out of my throat, the bear on the verge of slipping free. Chill, I whispered fiercely to the beast. She won’t want to fuck a bear.
The bear snapped and thrashed inside of me, huge paws swiping and tearing toward freedom.
So I’d best hurry. Not that I had much stamina in that regard, either.
I sank into her, rocking her back against her alpha. Again. I pulled her hip up higher, tipping her pelvis so I could get deeper. My spine burned, my skin prickling with the shift. Desperate, I gripped her shoulder in my jaws, fighting the bear for control of my own damned body.
Her blood cascaded like effervescent joy through me.
Black swallowtails swooped and danced through my mind, distracting the bear momentarily.
Letting me revel in the feel of her body beneath mine.
Her hand squeezed my ass, pulling me in harder.
Encouraging me to grind on her. Thrust harder, like I meant to drive her through her Blood and the earth into the molten lava beneath the ice.
She pulled hard on my blood, sucking on my throat. Each swallow of my blood drove me mad. Stirring the beast inside me to a fevered pitch.
I squeezed her shoulder harder in my jaws, keeping my fangs buried in her flesh, even though that slowed the flow of blood. I’d never last if I had the full fountain flowing through me. Feel her. Climax. Wait. Please.
Though she’d already climaxed with her other Blood. Bigger Blood. Endowed with unique equipment I couldn’t—
Her nails dug deeper into my butt cheek, sharp enough to rattle the thoughts out of my head.
She released my throat—and bit me again.
My chest. Again. Bites burning. Sweet agony.
So good. Licking through me like hot flames, color and light rippling across the northern sky. Calling me home to the arctic ice.
She cried out, first moaning against my skin but then tipping her head back.
Her body bowed toward me like the graceful curve of the longship.
My blood glistened on her mouth. Chin. Splattering her chest. So fucking beautiful.
More beautiful than anything I ever saw in my life.
But it couldn’t compare to the sound of my name on her lips as she came.
“Gunnarr.”
White blasted through me, wiping away the flowing aurora borealis in my mind. Blowing snow. Fur. Wet with blood. My queen’s blood hot on my tongue.
For a moment, I feared I’d ripped her shoulder off. Panting, I tried to get up. Pull my teeth out of her at least. Not fangs. Full-on polar bear teeth.
Fuck. I’d shifted again. The full weight of a massive polar bear crushed her. But my fucking paws wouldn’t cooperate. My legs were disconnected from my teeny tiny brain.
She laughed, her hands stroking through my fur. “I’m fine, Gunnarr. I quite like your weight and your fur. It’s so soft and warm.”
Something moved beneath me. It took an embarrassing long time for me to realize I trapped not just my queen but also her alpha’s legs beneath my weight. I tried to apologize but it came out like grumbly growls.
“I tried to keep you off the frozen earth, my queen,” Dorr said. “If you were cold, we should have moved inside.”
“I’m not cold, exactly.” She buried her face against the thick fur of my chest. “You just feel so good, Gunnarr. I think I’m going to need to cuddle with you like this, if you wouldn’t mind.”
:Mind? I would fucking love to cuddle with you. I could carry you on my back if you’d like…: Though I tried not to sound too hopeful or excited by the thought. Dorr always carried her, and rightfully so. He was the alpha. :Once I remember how to walk.:
She laughed. “I’d fucking love that, my bear.”
And so I found myself shambling along the beach and winding up the steep cliffside trail with my queen draped on my back.
Of course, Dorr walked on one side and Lokken the other, while the two dark alfar flew overhead.
For the first time in my life, I didn’t mind company.
I’d never mind anything again, even if I had no purpose in her court other than giving her thick fur to touch.
How could I, when I got to feel my queen’s hands in my fur and her bare pussy pressed against my back?