Wregen
Chapter three
I Do Not Laugh
Jormungandr flings me to the shore like a jilted lover might toss the slut he once adored to the death she’d earned.
He doesn’t kill me—Hel wouldn’t tolerate that—but for a moment, I wish he had.
My chest is throbbing after a long gods-damned time underwater, traveling from Helheim’s depths to the shores of Vanaheim.
Even my fucking eyeballs hurt, like a thousand knives the size of Hel’s puny heart were thrust into them at once.
It’s been years since they felt the sun’s rays.
Except for a rare trip to álfheimr, Hel’s errands always kept me underground, meeting her allies in one of the caverns that links the worlds.
The eyes I thought were burning because of a long trip underwater are simply coming back to life.
Morning light—at least I think it’s morning—sears into them to trigger connections rarely used.
I dip my head to let the bastards work through their trauma and kneel to run my fingers through the sand. The grains slide along my skin, nearly as soft as the flesh along Finaan’s thighs. “Holy Helheim,” I moan.
It feels very fucking good to be here. Some long-buried part of me missed this shit.
As I slowly inhale and exhale, little fires erupting in my desperate lungs while they spark back to life too, I watch the massive serpent drop below the waves. I wish to all the gods he’d disappear for good.
He won’t, though. That bastard will carry me and the elves back to Hel when I figure out a way to capture them. And then they all can share my misery.
She can share my misery.
My balls tighten just thinking about her, and I lift a hand to rub the bulge that’s swelling in my pants.
The wet, rough material chafes my sensitive skin, drawing an even deeper groan from my gut.
As I loosen my leash on Wrath, my mind pulls up a memory of her lying beneath me as I come all over her face, dragging my fingers through my seed coating her lips and then shoving them into her warm, wet mouth.
I don’t know when I’ll be able to take Finaan again.
And I have no fucking idea what I’ll do when we return.
How I’ll hide our pairing, or convince Finaan to conceal what we will become.
It’s why I couldn’t even let Finaan know of my obsession with her.
Hel would have learned about it eventually, dooming the female I couldn’t risk.
So whenever I visited her, I ended anyone who might have seen me.
And then I made sure Finaan slept. For her own good.
That’s about as noble as it gets.
Well, as noble as I can get.
She won’t sleep for me like she did in Helheim.
My Hel-gifted powers exist only in that realm, the gods’ hold on my mistress trapping every part of her, even her magic, in her accursed world.
I can’t wield the skills I was able to borrow from one of the elves.
And while that little weasel is probably here with the others, he’s too weak to keep my secret.
He knows what I’ll do if he betrays my trust, but he’s become too accustomed to my rough touch to be swayed by those threats.
And I’ve realized I no longer want her like that.
She’s dominated my thoughts—my dreams—since someone stole her from Helheim, and I need more.
It’s time for her to know what I am to her.
That she belongs to me. I want her to take me willingly.
Even without Hel’s powers, I’m still half-elf, and more powerful than most. My abilities will serve me well as I make her mine in this world, as she was in Helheim.
Wrath won’t tolerate anything less. She’s within our grasp and she’ll be ours again soon.
Whether Hel lets me keep her in Helheim is tomorrow’s problem.
Standing, my body adjusted at last to this new existence, I spin to look inland.
Our connection throbbed in my gut when we emerged in this world’s waters, drawing me to her like a god to his devoted thrall.
I bid Jormungandr to carry me to the closest shore.
I don’t know how far she is, but I know I’ll find her.
The others will be by her side. She’s their leader and they won’t abandon her.
Holy Helheim. The beauty of this world—so different from the dark that dominates my home—twists within me like a blade, cutting into the core I believed was buried when I abandoned the sun.
It rankles, a thousand bugs crawling through my veins as I feel something akin to awe at the sight.
I thought Hel had destroyed the part of me that could appreciate the majesty of the worlds that thrive in the sun.
I’m shocked and more than a little pissed to find it still alive.
I have one purpose here, and I sure as fuck can’t let myself be distracted by some pretty views.
But fuck me if I don’t look anyway. I was born in Midgard and had never ventured to another world when I gave myself to Hel.
My liege hasn’t sent me here, so I had no idea what to expect.
It’s familiar, though. Vanaheim holds hints of Midgard in the colors that surround me, although it’s warmer and brighter than the place I called home in my youth.
Mountains rise to my left, the jade and emerald of trees and bushes vying for my attention as wraiths do when they suck up to Hel.
Spread out between us, like my female bared for her master, lies a field the shape of a triangle, trees on two sides leading to a dark, mysterious center.
The green between those long limbs is as deep and layered as a chameleon, dotted with spots of red nearly as dazzling as my blood, the purple bruising that some ghouls display in Helheim, and yellow as vibrant as the eyes of those who drank whiskey like water when they lived.
I’m half tempted to accept the invitation and explore whatever I discover where those lines would draw me.
But I won’t find Finaan there, and Wrath wouldn’t tolerate the delay.
He might finally break Hel’s hold on him—unleashing the monster she buried within me when I bound myself to her—if I waste time chasing illusions instead of the female he demands.
So, I turn away from the field that wants me to believe it could lead to a pot of gold, following the invisible line connecting me to my naughty elf.
And I start walking. The day isn’t as warm as Helheim, but I came prepared for the cold I remembered from my childhood in Midgard.
Before long, I’m shedding the layers that pull sweat from my pores, creating a sticky film between me and the fabric.
By the time I’ve traveled my first viku, my chest is bare, pants and boots alone protecting my skin.
And I walk.
The aches start small—the tiniest rock in my gut, cramps forming in my calves as I stride, or stalk, or sometimes crawl, over the fields and hills and stones that stand between Finaan and me.
My mind searches for answers, images I might be able to dig out from my early days to explain what my body is doing, and how I can fix it.
But Hel and her world have pushed out everything except them.
My memories of my time in Midgard are scarce, offering nothing.
Still, I walk.
Hours after I began, the sun high overhead, I begin to miss Helheim.
It’s hot there, but unless you’re in the pit, it’s not sun-roasting-every-gods-damned-unholy-piece-of-skin hot.
A few places might paint my pale skin pink, but never the red that’s appearing all the fuck over me.
And I have never—not a single time—felt the scratching and burning that’s currently tormenting my throat, the desolate nothingness in my mouth, or the exhaustion that’s starting to overwhelm me.
But I keep walking.
I don’t know what in Helheim is wrong with me, yet I know in every broken part of my soul that it will be fixed when I reach her. Or it won’t matter, because she’ll be mine again, and the discomfort of this weak body will be the last thing on my mind.
Nothing is as bad as the gaping hole in my gut that’s been expanding since she left.
Hours after I started inland—if I even remember what an hour is in this place—I have no choice but to stop.
Every muscle in my body burns. Even worse, I don’t have the energy it takes to keep moving my feet forward.
I feel like the specters who lost limbs as they died, or who took too long to reach Helheim, dragging themselves through Hel’s gates with the last smidgen of energy they possessed.
My decrepit body needs more than I have to offer. And I don’t know how to fix this.
Trudging toward the closest line of trees, because I may have forgotten how to survive in the sun but I’m not stupid, I collapse in a spot of shade.
My body curls in on itself as it tries to figure out what the fuck it’s missing.
Now that I’m out of the sun’s path, my mind starts to spool through the reaction my flesh had to this world all those centuries ago.
And I realize I’m a gods-damned fool. I may not remember much from those days, but I recall being fallible. Destructible. Weak.
It’s part of the reason I gave myself to Hel.
Wrath would take over and days later, I’d find myself broken and beaten in some gutter or alley, spewing up the blood he’d sucked down in his desperation to feed himself.
His appetites never sated me, though. I needed food then, and it’s what I need now.
I wish I knew what the fuck to eat around here.
Sitting up, I spin around, only to find myself face-to-face with an enormous blue dragon. Flames hover between his teeth.
“What the fuck?” I bark, wondering if he needs food too as I push myself backwards, dragging my ass along the ground until a tree stops my escape. I’m relieved to see a rider, even if my hands clench when a smirk twists the asshole’s lips. At least the beast likely isn’t looking for a meal.