Finaan #2
At last, the fog starts to dissipate from my brain, and I come to my senses. Shoving away from the bastard who stole away my freedom, I spin around and glare at him while my legs struggle to keep me afloat. I don’t know where we are, but it’s not Helheim. I’m not trapped yet.
“I did what I must,” he barks, swimming toward me as I propel myself backwards. “We belong here. Together.”
“The fuck we do,” I spit, twisting toward the closest shore and starting to swim.
I glance back once—disappointed to see Svend following Wregen, who’s closer than I’d like—but otherwise ignore those assholes.
I need to reach the shore before them. This cave must branch out a zillion ways.
I’ll lose them and find my way back to the sun.
I am tired, though. I was barely catching my breath when I broke away from Wregen, and my lungs don’t want to work this hard after being empty for so long. My muscles already are starting to protest, and I’ve got two dragon’s-lengths or more until I reach the shore.
But I’ll be gods-damned if I’m going to let that bastard catch me.
Drawing up the strength that carried me through centuries in Helheim, I push out thoughts of everything except the swim.
The feel of my legs kicking as my arms lift from the water and dig in to propel me forward.
The inhale and exhale, timed with my strokes to go as far and fast as I can. The cool water rushing past me.
“Finaan,” Wregen yells from behind me, his voice harsh, as if he’s angry at me. “If you make me give chase, I’ll punish you.”
I ignore him, my energy too low to waste on bickering over nothing. Even if I had something to fear, it wouldn’t matter. I’d risk my life, my health, every moment of happiness to stay away from Hel and her minions.
He’s quiet after that, but I can sense him closing the distance between us. I started more quickly than him, gaining ground, but I’ve been slowing. My lungs are heaving, even as I try to force them into a steady rhythm, and the muscles that started to ache when I was treading water are burning now.
Still, I make it to shore before he does. Every part of me wants to lie down—or at least lean over—and catch my breath. I don’t because I can’t. Instead, I spare a glance behind me, finding Wregen two man’s-heights away, at the most. Svend is far behind, so at least I won’t have to worry about him.
And I run. I don’t have any idea where I’m going. It doesn’t matter, though. As long as he can’t find me, I’ve won.
My chest pounds as if a sledgehammer is trying to break out from the inside.
I need to stop, but as soon as I do, he’ll be there.
I may have swum faster than him, but he’ll win in a foot race every time.
Even as starved as he’s been, his long legs will carry him toward me faster than I can get away. My only hope is to hide.
Dodging to the right down the first cavern I see, I pray to capricious and neglectful gods that they get their shit together and help me get away.
They hate Hel. They can’t want her to have me back.
But they probably don’t give a shit. They sure as fuck haven’t done anything in my lifetime to suggest they care about the elves they abandoned long ago.
I might be in luck, though. The cavern splits and the chances of him finding me cut in half.
It’s rock here, so I won’t have to worry about my feet leaving visible prints.
Darting to the left—the bigger cavern, that I don’t think he’ll expect me to take—I push myself to go faster.
I need to turn a corner before he can see me, and get far enough away that my footsteps don’t echo back.
Twice, I stumble, the light that somehow found its way to the large cavern dissipating the farther away I get. And I realize it’s time to slow down. I can’t see a man’s-height in front of me, so he’ll hear me before he can see me.
Finaan? My heart pauses and then starts to sprint, as if its life hangs in the balance, when a whisper of a voice erupts in my mind.
It’s barely there. If I wasn’t trying to be quiet and still, I wouldn’t have heard it.
But I did. After centuries thinking her dead, my dragon is sharing my mind with me.
Panta? Is that really you? My voice sounds raspy, even to me, and I’m suddenly desperately afraid that I’m imagining this. Speak to me.
“Finaan!” Wregen’s bellow bounces around the cavern, breaking the tenuous connection between me and my beast. “You’re testing my patience,” he spits out as one hand grasps the back of my neck.
The other wraps around my arm and yanks me back toward the water.
“If you do that again,” he barks, “I’ll bind you.
Maybe I’ll carry you over my shoulder the whole way, so I can spank that defiant ass whenever you piss me off. ”
“Let me go,” I yell, trying to rip myself away from him.
But he won’t be foolish enough to release me this time.
I surprised him once. It won’t happen again.
Instead, I drag myself to a stop, forcing him to pause with me.
“I won’t go back there,” I whisper, throwing every bit of anger and hatred and disgust I feel into my words.
“You’ll never have me. Let me go. Please. ”
“You haven’t accepted it yet,” he growls as he jerks me toward him, resting his forehead against mine.
“You will, though,” he tells me in a voice that sends a shiver down my spine.
My stomach gurgles, appalled at how close he is to me and how right it feels.
“We’ll never be apart again.” He pauses, lifting his other hand to fully surround my neck as he squeezes hard enough to still my breath.
“I will never let you get away from me.”
“Do you think I’ll accept you? That you’ll break down my will and I’ll grow to love you?”
“Love,” he scoffs. His thumbs press my chin up, lifting my gaze to his.
“I can’t give love and I sure as fuck don’t want it,” he rumbles.
“What I need from you, my fierce skjaldmaer—what I will have—is more enduring than that weak emotion. I want your fight. I hope to my mistress Hel and every other god who will listen that you never accept me. I want you to hate me every day of every millennia we’ll spend together.
I crave the dark, angry emotions you’ll give me. ”
“You think you’ll have those?” I demand, glaring into his dark eyes. “If you take me back there, you’ll kill that fire you claim to want. Apathy alone will keep you company.”
“We’ll see,” he responds with a smirk. “First, though, we have to get there. And you’ve slowed us down enough already.”
He returns one of his hands to my arm, tugging me in the direction we came, and my stomach sinks as I realize I have no choice. I won’t be able to break away from him until he lets down his guard. But I can’t leave without trying again to reach my dragon.
“Wait,” I bark, digging my heels into the rock below us. “I can’t go yet. Give me a minute.”
“I don’t know what game you’re playing, Finaan, but it won’t work.” His words are short, clipped.
“It’s no game,” I blurt, not trying to hide the frustration in my tone. I hate sharing anything with him—nothing good can come from letting this bastard know how important Panta is to me—but I’ll never forgive myself if I let him drag me away before I try to reach her again.
“It’s my dragon,” I explain after a moment, a catch in my voice exposing the depth of my desperation.
“I thought she was dead, but I sensed her while I was in Vanatia. Then, I heard her voice just now, before you caught me. I need you to be quiet for one gods-damned minute so I can see if she’s really here, or if my mind is fucking with me. ”
“I wondered if we’d get close enough,” he murmurs, his grip softening a touch. “Nobody’s found them, but nobody’s ever gone where they went.”
My thoughts splinter, the world I’ve come to accept shifting on its axis. I turn toward Wregen and his smug grin tells me everything I need to know. Panta really is alive. For some reason, this fucker knows where she is.
But now he realizes how much leverage he has over me. And what I might be willing to do to ride her again.