Chapter 7
Freya
"Just turn your head slightly to the left," I say, adjusting the focus on my camera. "And let the antlers expand a bit more."
Vidar stands by the window, early evening light filtering through the frost-covered glass behind him. He looks uncomfortable being photographed, but he's indulging me anyway—another small miracle in a day full of them.
"This is unnecessary," he says, even as the delicate crown on his head grows larger, crystalline branches extending upward and outward.
"It's completely necessary," I counter, framing the shot. "When a photographer meets a mythical winter guardian, documentation is basically required."
I've been coaxing him into this impromptu photo session for the past hour, fascinated by how his form shifts between human and other.
It started as professional curiosity—what photographer wouldn't want to capture something no one else has seen?
—but has quickly evolved into something more intimate.
Each photograph feels like unlocking another piece of him, preserving moments of vulnerability most humans will never witness.
Click. The shutter captures him in partial transformation, the skull mask transparent but visible beneath his features, those unearthly eyes glowing faintly in the dim light.
"Beautiful," I murmur, checking the image on my screen.
"I still don't understand your fascination with my true form," he says, the multiple tones in his voice more pronounced as his glamour thins.
I lower the camera and meet his gaze directly. "Then you've never truly looked at yourself."
Something flickers across his face—surprise, perhaps curiosity. "I avoid reflections."
"Well, now you don't have to." I cross to him, showing him the image on my camera's display. "Look."
He stares at the screen, a complex emotion passing over his features. In the photograph, he looks powerful, ancient, but also strangely vulnerable—caught in the moment of revealing himself.
"Is that how you see me?" he asks quietly.
"That's how you are," I reply. "Magnificent."
Frost forms in the air between us, tiny crystals suspended and glittering in the fading light. I've come to recognize this as a sign of his emotional state—control slipping when feelings run strong.
"More," I say, stepping back and raising my camera again. "Show me more."
The request hangs between us, charged with meaning beyond photography.
He understands. With deliberate slowness, he lets the glamour thin further, the antlers expanding to nearly brush the ceiling.
The skull mask solidifies, those luminous eyes growing brighter.
His hands transform, fingers elongating, claws extending.
Click.
"The light is perfect," I breathe, circling him slowly. "Can you make the frost patterns more visible?"
He raises one transformed hand, and frost spirals up his arm in elaborate designs, catching the light and breaking it into prismatic fragments across the walls.
Click. Click.
"Your direction is... detailed," he observes, a hint of amusement in his otherworldly voice.
"I know what I want," I reply, surprising myself with the sultry edge in my tone. This stopped being just a photo session several minutes ago, and we both know it.
"And what is that?" He moves toward me, temperature dropping with each step, frost trailing in his wake across the wooden floor.
I lower the camera, pulse quickening. "Right now? You."
The directness of my own desire startles me. Twenty-four hours ago, I was lost in a blizzard, certain of death. Now I'm propositioning a winter entity in his cabin, documenting his transformation between shots. Life takes unexpected turns.
He stops just short of touching me, cold radiating from him in palpable waves. "The camera," he says, voice deepening further.
I set it carefully on the table, never breaking eye contact. "It'll be safe there."
"I don't want to damage it," he explains, raising one clawed hand. "It seems... important to you."
The consideration in this small gesture touches me unexpectedly. Even now, with desire clearly building between us, he's thinking of what matters to me.
"Not as important as this," I say, closing the distance between us.
The cold hits me first—that initial shock of winter against my human warmth—but it's already familiar, welcome even. His arms encircle me, claws careful against my clothing. The contrast between his monstrous appearance and gentle touch is intoxicating.
Our lips meet, and the now-familiar sensation of cold burning into heat sends shivers across my skin.
Frost forms where he touches, delicate patterns that tingle rather than freeze.
I'm learning the language of his body, how to read the intensity of cold, the specific patterns that form when desire rather than anger drives his power.
"You're sure?" he asks against my mouth, always giving me the chance to retreat despite the obvious hunger in his glowing eyes.
"Completely," I breathe, hands finding the base of his antlers again. They're larger this time, more substantial, the transformation more complete than our first encounter. I trace the crystalline branches, watching as his eyes close in pleasure, a rumbling sound building in his chest.
Clothing becomes an unwelcome barrier. My fingers work at his, while his claws make short work of mine—careful slices that part fabric without touching skin.
When we're finally bare to each other, the visual contrast is striking—my flushed human skin against his pale blue-white form, frost patterns embedded in his flesh like living tattoos.
He lifts me effortlessly, carrying me not to the bed but to the large fur rug before the fire. The flames have died down at his unconscious command, the heat reduced to a gentle warmth that doesn't pain him as much. Another small consideration that speaks volumes.
The fur is soft beneath my back, his larger form looming above me, antlers creating intricate shadows across the ceiling and walls. In the dim light, with his transformation nearly complete, he looks like something from ancient mythology—a primal winter god come to claim a mortal woman.
"I wish I could photograph you like this," I whisper, reaching up to trace the edge where skull mask meets flesh.
A rumbling laugh vibrates through him. "Your camera would freeze."
"Worth it," I grin, pulling him down to me.
This time is different from the first—less frantic, more deliberate.
He explores my body with greater confidence, learning what makes me gasp and arch against him.
The cold of his touch creates unique sensations—frost blooming across my breasts as his mouth closes over them, the contrast of ice and heat drawing sounds from me I've never made before.
I explore him in turn, discovering places where the frost patterns are more sensitive.
The swirls along his collarbone make him shudder when I trace them with my fingertips.
The elaborate designs at his hips deepen in color when I press my lips against them.
There's a vulnerable spot where neck meets shoulder that makes him emit a deep, resonant sound—not quite a growl, more like the creaking of glacier ice shifting—when my warm breath ghosts across it.
I map his body methodically, as if documenting a new territory, memorizing the topography of something never before explored.
His skin is cool but not painfully cold, with varying temperatures that form microclimates across his form.
The frost patterns aren't just decorative—they're sensory networks, responding to touch and temperature with subtle shifts in color and intensity.
"Your heat," he murmurs as I straddle his thighs, my palms pressed flat against his chest, "it travels through me like lightning through ice."
I can see it happening—trails of barely perceptible blue light following the path of my touch, frost patterns melting and reforming in my wake. My ordinary human warmth is extraordinary to him, a power I never knew I possessed.
When his hands begin their own exploration, the difference is profound.
Where our first encounter was urgent, primal claiming, this is deliberate artistry.
His claws retract partially, allowing him greater precision as he traces paths along my skin.
Frost blooms in delicate spirals, each one unique and intentional.
He's creating patterns on me, I realize—not random formations but deliberate designs.
"You're drawing on me," I whisper, watching as elaborate frost mandalas form and fade across my breasts, stomach, thighs.
"Winter's calligraphy," he confirms, eyes intent with concentration. "Your skin holds the patterns longer than any canvas I've known."
There's reverence in his touch, an ancient being creating ephemeral art that lives and dies in moments.
I've become his masterpiece, decorated in translucent frost that tingles pleasantly rather than burns.
Each pattern tells a story I can't read but somehow understand—tales of winter, solitude, and newfound connection written in a language older than words.
His mouth follows his hands, cold lips and tongue creating new sensations as he tastes me. The contrast between the cool of his mouth and the heat building inside me is exquisite torture. Frost forms and melts with each kiss, each caress, my body becoming a canvas of constantly shifting designs.
When he finally enters me, the shock of cold meeting heat is expected but no less extraordinary.
I arch beneath him, watching in fascination as frost patterns race from where our bodies join, spreading across my stomach and chest in elaborate fractals.
The designs are more intricate this time, more controlled—conscious artistry rather than instinctive reaction.
"You're like fire in ice," he murmurs, voice filled with wonder as he watches my skin flush beneath his frost. "Impossible but undeniable."