Wregen
Chapter twenty-five
Holy Fuck
Holy fuck.
My skin is burning, flames flickering across every inch, every little speck, even the cock that’s shriveled as small as it can possibly go—not nearly small enough—and the balls that will probably never produce seed again.
I am pain personified, the purest, most perfect embodiment of agony I could ever imagine.
It fucking sucks.
I’d open my eyes and figure out if this is real or some horrific nightmare my mistress created for me, but I don’t think I have the strength to peel my lids back and look.
Not that I’d want to see anything. I’m in Helheim, vikus and caves and stone separating me from my skjaldmaer, and I’ll never have her in my arms again.
She’ll free her dragon, take the one that tried to claim me, and move into the sun. And who the fuck could blame her? I offered her nothing but misery in this place, bound to a cruel god.
No heart to give her; I have none.
No soul to offer; mine belongs to Hel.
No escape from Helheim; she’d have been trapped with me here forever.
Maybe she’ll find happiness where she belongs.
And I’ll find the perpetual torment I deserve, here with Hel.
“Look at me.” My mistress’s voice is cold, flat, and I bite back the groan that might convince her to put me out of my misery. I have no gods-damned idea why, but I’m not ready to die yet.
Still, my eyes refuse to open and confirm I’m truly back in Helheim, not trapped in some nightmare. Grasping to that drip of hope that I’ll awaken in a cave and look to the other side to see my skjaldmaer, I store it along with my other memories of her.
“Don’t test me,” Hel whispers, every word dripping with malice. “I’m your queen, and I’ve given you a command.”
I drag my lids up, doing my best to keep the flames from my eyes. My heart slows for a moment, as if it’s unwilling to return to this reality, anxious for some escape, but there is none. If I’m to continue to exist, I’ll do it here alone.
“I told you the price you’d pay if you failed,” she reminds me, as if I need it. “Enjoy the pit. You’ll be here for a very, very long time.”
“My liege,” I call out, desperate to speak with her. Every word sends a tremble through my system as lungs that are probably pitch black struggle to find the breath I need. But I’ve talked my way out of her anger before. I need to try.
My lips blister when I don’t close my mouth quickly enough, allowing a speck of spit to trickle out, burning before I can lick it back.
Not that I’d dare run my parched tongue over lips that can’t possibly have a single drop of moisture after so long above the pit.
The thought sends a cringe along my spine, imagining the agony of the brittle flesh there ripping apart.
“I have nothing to say to you,” she declares, spinning on her heel to start stalking away.
“I need only retrieve the female and male I brought,” I cough, hacking up what I’m sure are parts of my throat. “They’re the key to retrieving the others.”
Her steps pause, and I hold back the prayer to her that’s a rote recitation from my lips. She’s who she’s always been. I’m not, and I’m finally awake to who and what she is. She deserves none of my prayers.
“How much of a fool do you take me for?” Hel demands, lashing out with her power to raise flames and pierce my gut.
I stagger out an exhale, astounded in that second that I could experience a new sensation. My body feels overwhelmed, as if it couldn’t possibly take anything else. But I’m a gods-damned idiot, about everything and everyone. Hel always has a way to increase my pain.
“You are the most perfect and sage of the gods,” I declare with every ounce of conviction I can muster. “I’ve always known that to be true. That will never change.” My throat is a furnace, red-hot pokers scraping its surface with every word.
“Did you think I didn’t know?” she yells, returning to me, her eyes blazing into mine.
“Your emotions belong to me, and I would never give up that window into your soul. You were a fool to believe I had. I knew the moment you recognized your mate. I watched you every time you visited her, saw the things you did to her while she slept.”
My mind goes blank, then fills with Finaan. Every encounter, each touch, barrels through my thoughts, a dream come to life.
Hel watched us. She knew.
“But … why would you allow me to keep her?” I rasp, another round of coughing forcing its way up from my battered lungs. “Why isn’t she decorating your halls?”
“Watching you with her was entertaining,” she murmurs, her breath coasting across my raw skin.
“Something new to amuse me. Perhaps I’d have grown bored by now and she would be where she belongs, but she escaped before I fully claimed her.
” She straightens her spine, staring down her nose at me.
“And then you failed to bring her back,” she adds in a tone so full of contempt, I wonder how I’m still suspended here, instead of burning in the pit.
She needs me, though. She lost the elves, but she won’t lose the dragons. It’s enough to keep my life—barely—until she decides to kill them all and be done with the lot of us.
“You let me chase her,” I croak, “trusted me enough to send me to Vanatia.”
“You think that was trust?” Hel responds, the eyebrow on the unmarred side of her face lifting along with a corner of her lip on the black side. “I needed to know who you would choose, if it’s time to find another to serve me in this place. I tested you, and you failed.”
“We were nearly here,” I scrape out. “She’d have been yours again.”
“And yours?” Hel asks, her voice deceptively low. “Did you hope to fuck your little elf after you returned her to me?” She pauses, watching me through narrowed eyes. “I told you to bring them all. Instead, you chose two of them—your mate and the sniveling oaf whose magic you borrowed to use her.”
“She’s destined for me,” I groan, gasping for air at the end, despite the bursts of pain it shoots into my chest. “I could not fight the fates’ commands.”
“Could not, or would not?” Hel barks. “You lied to me, indulged in your own wants and tried to hide it.”
I’m silent for a moment, my sluggish brain struggling to catch up and grasp onto something … anything … that might save me from this agony. “I did your bidding, my mistress,” is all I can find in my desperate thoughts. “I had a plan to use her to get the others. It would have worked.”
“You were bringing her back for you,” she croons, leaning down to look directly into my eyes. “You hid her from me for years. Why would I possibly believe that would change?”
“Because everything has changed,” I cry, dropping my head to stare into the pit instead of her face. “I couldn’t keep it from you any longer,” I add as my gaze finds hers again. “Send me back to the caves. I’ll bring her here, and she’ll tell you.”
“Where another elf can try to take your life? I think not. You’re mine, and I want you to burn.” Standing to her full height, she pivots and starts to stride away again, each step an angry peal at me.
“I’d have survived,” I call. “It was but one arrow.”
“You’d be dead if I hadn’t saved you,” she says without turning around.
“You know it, and you’re lying to me again.
” Pausing, she spins her head. “You’re blessed beyond measure that I look after you, that I have the foresight and care enough to protect you when you can’t protect yourself.
I felt the wound and sent Jormungandr to retrieve you.
You’re whole, your body responding to my ire, because I willed it.
And you’ve yet to thank me. Ungrateful serpent. ”
I was paralyzed, and fuck, does that sound like the true blessing right now. But those thoughts won’t get me anywhere.
“I am indeed blessed beyond measure. I thank you, my liege. I will never fail you again.”
“No, you won’t,” she agrees. And then she turns her head and stalks out, never looking back again.
Fuck me. I’m gonna be here a long time.
Time is a concept, a construction of mortal minds so they can find order in the chaos of their lives, a way to structure existence into a belief system their mentality can grasp.
I know that. But when you’re living it, time feels very, very long. And very real.
I’ve no idea how long I’ve been here, nothing by which to measure the passage of time.
I’m back in Helheim, so I need neither food nor drink.
I don’t piss or shit. My body is in stasis, the flames and Hel’s occasional resurrection when my exhausted body gives up the only constants.
I don’t sleep, not with my skin peeling off bit by agonizing bit.
I pass out, for hours or days or weeks. I doubt I’ll ever know.
I tried counting, but Hel learned of my attempt to occupy my thoughts and sent Pudge.
He’s as angry with me as I’d expect. I was a bastard to him.
My former peon appeared when I’d counted to 601,722, the second time I tried to stay awake long enough to reach a million. He carried a spear taller than him. And sharp. Painfully, gut-wrenchingly sharp.
Which is exactly what it did. The chains brought me close enough to the vengeful male to grant him free access to my stomach and everything nearby. His laughs as he explained my sin and tugged out my guts, in bits or gushes, drove away the sleep that tried to lull me in.
I haven’t counted or done anything else to measure time since then.
This is my existence, and I know it won’t change. So I build a wall between my body and mind, and live in my thoughts. Mostly of Finaan, those luscious tits. The ass I’ve yet to fuck. The mouth I’d hoped would suck me dry as soon as I took her to the dragons.