Finaan #2
Ruxi rumbles their feelings about the bastard, a confusing mix of fear and dislike giving the low growl an incongruity I understand.
But there’s no room in this decision for compassion or the fucking mating bond.
He’s a soulless bastard, and we need to be too.
Maybe we’ll save him, maybe we won’t, but we’ll get some concessions before we pull him out.
“We have to help him,” Svend squeaks, his words more forceful this time.
“If he tries to get down from you,” I tell Ruxi, still staring at my asshole mate, “fly around for a bit. This is between Wregen and me.”
Ruxi grumbles, this one a complaint I’d understand even without our loose connection. I spin my head, letting my eyes soften. “I understand,” I tell them. “Trust me.”
They watch me for a moment, their expression flat. But then they give their chin a sharp bob, and I turn back toward the dick that’s somehow made himself the center of all of our lives.
He’s not happy. The brows that were drawn together when I first turned the corner now are a single gash across his forehead, wrinkles above them and also spreading out in waves from his downturned lips.
His shoulders are tight, and not merely from the pressure of whatever’s pulling him deeper into the earth.
It’s the eyes, though, that catch my attention.
They’re full of fire, but not the flames of anger.
Desire billows out. He may hate this, but the fates paired him with the female he needs. He’d hate a weak mate more.
I don’t move at first, wondering what he’d have been like before Helheim.
He’s so fucking beautiful, dark in every place I crave something a little sordid in my life, with signs of light where I’d need them.
Our paths never would have crossed—we were raised in two different worlds, literally—so maybe we both were destined to go to Helheim.
But the fates couldn’t have intended what he became.
There’s no pulling him back, even if some depraved part of me wants to try.
I’d be a fool to save him.
I’m going to give him a chance to bargain for his life anyway.
I pick my way forward, watching for the start of whatever trapped him, in case he managed to move after he stepped into it.
It begins where I’d expect, and I can see why Wrath’s sharp eyes missed it.
The surface is nearly identical, the smallest shift in color the only sign that something isn’t right.
“I’m going to punish you for this, my stubborn skjaldmaer,” he rasps, his expression shifting into a hungry smirk.
“But I think you may want my hand on your ass, or maybe my cock in it.” He’s dropped a little, but not much.
The ground has covered most of his stomach and is slowly rising toward the lower rise of his chest muscles.
It’s sexy in the most frustrating way, and I can’t stop the flame that lights in my core as I watch him flex and clench his pectorals.
If his conflicted emotions are any indication, he’s fighting to suppress the instinct to try to escape before it’s too late.
“What I want,” I scoff, “is to see a little bit of humanity from you.”
His eyes narrow, lips drawing into a thin line.
“How many times must I tell you,” he demands, his voice barely loud enough to reach me, “that I have none? Hel wrung it from me long ago.” He leans his head forward a touch, holding my gaze.
“Make no mistake, my wary mate. I am the most evil creature you will ever encounter, save my mistress herself. I won’t change. ”
“I don’t need you to change,” I tell him, because I’m not stupid. I won’t demand the impossible. “I need you to act like you’re a decent elf, even if it’s an act.”
“You want me to pretend? Shall I lie to you too?” he asks with a quirk of his eyebrow.
“No,” I declare, “because I’m going to need your promise on something, and you can’t break this oath.”
“If you think I’m giving up our bargain,” he growls, “you don’t know me at all. I’ll soon fix that, though.”
“You don’t have much leverage,” I point out with a smirk. “Why shouldn’t I demand that?”
“You want your dragon,” he points out with the barest hint of a shrug. “I’m your only hope for freeing her. Which is why I don’t know why in the fuck we’re playing this game right now,” he adds in a voice that bounces around us, the walls even responding to his anger. “Get. Me. Out.”
“Ruxi came from there. They can return. I don’t need you for that.” My tone is blasé. He can’t know how worried I am that Ruxi won’t be able to find their way back, or something else could stop us from freeing Panta.
“Do you actually believe it would be so simple?” he asks, barking out a laugh with the last word. “I’ve told you before, you need me to release her. Don’t be daft, my skjaldmaer.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” I ignore the bugs starting to crawl through my gut. I’ve missed something, and I don’t like it when I don’t have the information I need to make good decisions.
“Don’t you think your dragon would have followed if she could?” he asks, the smirk that sparks all kinds of conflicting emotions in me appearing again—this time to reveal a dimple in one cheek I’ve never noticed before. As if Wregen needed another weapon to make me want him.
“Ruxi left to find a way out,” I posit. I’ve wondered why they came alone, but without a way to speak with them while we’re out of Panta’s reach, there’s no way to know. “Once we have our escape route, we’ll go back for the others.”
He spits out another laugh, and I’m ready to turn around and walk away right now. I really despise the condescending asshole who is somehow staring down at me, even with most of his body trapped in the ground.
“I barely know the beasts, but I have no doubt they wouldn’t separate if they had any choice.”
“What then?” I demand, throwing my arms out to the side as a ripple of frustration rolls down my spine.
“I am connected to Hel,” he rumbles, “and Ruxi is connected to me. That dragon found a way to slither through the magic that holds the beasts in place because of the bond they’re trying to trick me into accepting.
But Hel’s power has no other breach. If your dragon could escape, she’d be here too.
When you find your dragon, you’ll only be able to stare at her across the divide that separates those beasts from everything else in any of the worlds. Unless I’m with you.”
“What could you possibly do?” I snap, ready to get to the end of this story Wregen is determined to spell out for me. I know where he’s going—and I know I’ll soon have no choice but to save his sorry ass—but I need him to say it.
“Oh, my foolish skjaldmaer,” he murmurs as the earth swallows his nipples, nearly reaching the area under his arms. His breathing is growing more shallow, the pressure squeezing him as the ground continues to suck him in.
“I’m Hel’s, and I wield her magic. I can free Panta and the other dragons.
I alone can give you what you most desire. ”
Fuck. Me.
I guess we’re going to pull him out.