Ever After (8 page)

Eira should have been ecstatic surrounded by paradise. But for all that she’d never gone hungry, thirsty, or sleep-deprived in Asgard, she’d also never gotten a rise out of Freya’s favored guards either. No joy from Hall or Avarr in five long decades. Damn. She was better than that.

Lowe, her friend and battle companion, nudged her. “Leave them alone. They’re probably tired from pulling that big cart all over the sky.”

They snickered. Freya’s chariot was no mere cart, but to be strapped to such a thing to haul their goddess’s ass around… Embarrassing. Yet who else could pull it? Not Freya’s battle boar. He didn’t have the temperament, or the strength, despite his size. The goddess’s warriors? The shapeshifting falcons and eagles wouldn’t sully their precious talons, and no valkyrie worth her spear would ever consider such a lowly task. Eira sure the hell wouldn’t. Besides, Freya’s battle-maidens had better things to do, like hauling worthy souls from the battlefield. Drinking, swearing, fighting…fucking.

She eyed Hall and Avarr again. They certainly seemed built for war. They didn’t talk much, but they looked fierce. Too bad their appearances didn’t reflect their true characters. They might be strong, sexy, and more than appealing with all that muscle, but they bored her. No fights? No inexplicable rages? No passion?

Such a waste. Both men towered over her, and she was no slight female. They had dark hair and eyes, with square jaws and massive shoulders. Dark trousers outlined their thick muscular legs, and she’d had dreams about those broad chests covered in sleeveless tunics. By Hel’s breath, the golden bands around their arms would nearly fit around
both
of her thighs. Their hands looked large enough to span her entire head. Yet they’d never held a sword, bow, or axe.

She felt sorry for them.

“Do you two ever do anything other than breathe, hunt mice, and pull that chariot around?” An unfair question, as they lived to serve and protect their goddess. But Freya never used them as more than intimidating bookends who constantly escorted her immortal tush all over the place.

Hall raised a brow. Oh gods, a reaction. She felt positively giddy.

Like Avarr next to him, he possessed a feline soul—a giant battle-cat the size of two grizzlies. Not a falcon or a boar, but still an impressive animal when shifted. Too bad she’d never seen him fight anything but a harness.

Avarr stared at her, his eyes so dark they looked black. “Little Snow, is there something you wanted?”

“Eira, I’m hungry. Are you coming or not?” Lowe griped. The elfin valkyrie was just visiting before she returned to Midgard, where she normally lived with her mother’s people among the humans. The girl’s blood sugar had been a popular topic of conversation of late. When Lowe grew hungry, she turned bitchy. Then heads rolled, bodies crumpled, and wars started.

As much as Eira loved her warmongering buddy, Avarr’s tone warranted further discussion. She scowled and ignored Lowe’s urging to join the others in the feast hall.

“Fine. I’m going without you.” Lowe left Eira alone with the brutes.

Finally.

“
What
did you call me?” Eira asked and stomped to within arm’s reach of them. This close, they made her feel small, an odd feeling for a valkyrie to have. She’d been bred of Odin’s lightning and Freya’s will but born to mortal parents. The heart of gods, the flesh of humans. And now in her prime, she was a warrior strong and true with the muscle and battle sense to take on even these beasts. Her heart raced at the thought, wondering if—
how
—she’d defeat them if they chose to fully engage.

“I called you by your name,” Avarr rumbled.
Eira
meant snow in Old Norse. “And you’re little. Little. Snow.” Avarr leaned closer, and she swore he inhaled her and purred.

No. Avarr didn’t do things like that. He had to be teasing her. Another first. Except she found it annoying. She wasn’t little, by any stretch of the imagination.

Hall sighed and crossed his arms over his broad chest, bringing attention to his thick forearms.

“What? Nothing to say, Hall?” she snapped. Her stupid white hair had been responsible for
Eira
. She’d loved her human parents, but really? Snow? Thank the gods she hadn’t been born with buckteeth. They might have called her
Bucky
for an eternity.

“What is there for him to say?” Avarr asked. “It’s your name, is it not?”

“Have we caused offense? It wasn’t our intention,” Hall apologized.

As usual, the mere scent of a fight was enough to pull them back from a confrontation. So disappointing.

“Ech. I’ve better things to do than waste my time on beasts of burden.” She sneered then turned on her heel and left, wishing they’d stop her. Yell at her. Fight her.
Something.

As usual, they did nothing of the kind.

She joined her friends in the feast hall, no longer pleased over their earlier victory on the battlefield, and wondered if any of the falcons would object to her using them as target practice for entertainment later. Probably. Birds could be such pussies about losing a limb.

Avarr clenched his fists. “I can’t continue like this anymore. I’m through.”

Hall caught his shoulder and stopped him when Avarr would have followed Eira inside. “Not yet.”

“Always not yet. It’s been fifty years already. I’m not getting any younger.”

Hall snorted. “You’re not getting any older either.”

Though not brothers, they shared a common beast. Freya’s children all possessed god-like abilities, and she’d gifted them with the eternal ability to shift form. While many boars, falcons, and eagles filled her halls, few battle-cats roamed the lands. Used as guides to pull her chariot and entrusted with Freya’s safety, he and Avarr had a special place of honor among all in the Norse pantheon. Try telling that to the sexy hothead who had the incessant need to wield an actual weapon. Like her friends, she disdained his lack of a sword. Apparently the ability to crush an opponent’s skull between his teeth meant little to her and the other braggart warriors needing axes and bows to do damage.

“This is intolerable. Her insults, her scathing looks.” Avarr’s eyes lit with battle lust. Not a good thing with so many provocative shifters in residence for the afternoon meal. “We end this. Right the fuck now.” He gave Hall a mean smile. “And I do mean
the fuck
now.”

“We’re close. Bear with it just a bit more.”

Avarr seethed, and Hall couldn’t blame him. Ever since they’d laid eyes on Eira, they’d been in a constant state of lust and frustration. While both men had often shared women before, Eira was different than the tame females they’d pleasured. Mighty, full of life, gorgeous. She possessed a silken fall of long white hair, violet eyes framed by a forest of dark lashes, and a full, provocative mouth. Her attitude got him hard every time. It was a constant exercise in restraint not to take her over his shoulder and carry her away to his den. To be his and Avarr’s forever. 

Freya demanded they wait until they’d fulfilled their duty. Until they were “ready.” She’d promised them eternal riches and rewarded them constantly with overeager maids and the occasional male intent on pleasing them. Yet Eira the goddess held in the distance, their prize…when the time was right.

“Yes, Avarr. Just a bit longer,” Freya said as she materialized behind them.

“Damn it. I
hate
when you do that,” Avarr snarled.

Hall elbowed him in the gut. “Your apologies, Freya. You caught us unaware.”

Avarr bowed his head. “Goddess,” he muttered, no doubt choking on his rage. How he went day after day muting his emotions still baffled Hall, because the moment they had any privacy, Avarr exploded.

Freya laughed at them. “You’re both so very cute.” No one but Freya ever called them such. Ferocious. Brutal. Monstrous.
Cute?
Not so much. “So close, yet still the answer eludes you,” she mused.

“Answer?” Hall frowned. “You said we had to be ready. Nothing about questions needing answers.”

“And that’s part of your problem. You aren’t open. But you will be.”

She kept him in a state of hope. Hall was constantly trying to find the answer to getting Eira into his arms. For good. “Yes, Freya.”

“Don’t be glum, sweetness. You’re in luck. I’m feeling particularly joyful this day. We’re about to play the games again!”

“The games?”

“It’s been five hundred years. Ah, but it seems like just yesterday.”

“Uh, Freya, we’re only three hundred and eleven years old.” Yet he knew what she meant.
Ludos Deorum
—Games of the Gods. He’d heard about them for years, and now they’d play them again. He wondered if the stories the falcons and valkyries liked to tell were true…

In her excited enthusiasm, Freya glowed. Literally. Beaming with a soft blue nimbus that highlighted her golden hair, bountiful breasts, and lush hips, their goddess of fertility, war, and sex aroused passions like no other—with the exception of Eira. The only woman to ever turn Hall’s attention from his goddess. That had to mean something.

“Three hundred, three thousand. It all runs together without something meaty to sink our teeth into, eh?”

Avarr grunted.

“Yes. Avarr knows too well, hmm?” She winked at him, her blue eyes fathomless and frothing with power. “Now come with me, my lovely pets. I have need of you in Sessrumnir.” Her grand hall, set apart in Folkvang.

They followed her through a labyrinth of splendor. Vines and plant life in bold splashes of color edged into every aspect of Freya’s legendary palace. As the goddess of fertility, her reach extended beyond people and animals into crops and land. Mistress of procreation, of the earth itself.

As she passed, the vegetation grew thicker. Flowers bloomed, in grace and thanks to Freya’s love.

All in all, Hall was glad to worship this particular goddess. He’d heard Thor could be an asshole, and Frigg was too temperamental. No doubt dealing with Odin’s many infidelities took its toll on poor Frigg. A god could do worse than cheat though. Hall didn’t even want to think about what life with the trickster Loki must be like. His goddess, a creature entrusted with the nine worlds’ fertility, took it upon herself to heal with a carnal touch.

So why couldn’t she see how much he needed Eira?

She reached behind her and patted his arm. “My advice was not just for Avarr, dear.”

He flushed and worked harder to shield his thoughts.

They arrived in her special meeting room soon enough, but to his surprise, several gods and goddesses already filled it. Deities from multiple pantheons sat drinking, eating, and talking with good cheer around the raised dais. A cornucopia of meat, cheeses, fruits, and mead sat along the banquet, a feast fit for the most powerful of the divine.

He and Avarr exchanged a wary glance. When gods and goddesses from alternate realms put aside their differences to laugh together, an apocalypse had been known to follow. There was nothing more the gods loved to share than the fun to be had with the total annihilation of one human tribe or another.

Freya sat with a flourish in her throne made of rose petals infused with gold. Then Avarr and Hall took positions on either side of her. Their presence let the others know that to fuck with their goddess would bring serious wrath down on their heads. In Folkvang, Freya’s immense power extended to her guardians as well.

She smiled with beneficence. “Oh good. You’re all here.”

“Of course we’re here.” Mercury grinned back. “It’s time for the games to begin.”

Hall groaned to himself as he noted the deities in attendance. Athena and Mercury weren’t too bad until they started harping on which of their worshippers were better, Greeks or Romans. Even in the present day, when most humans worshipped money, Hall would have told them neither. The Norse still ruled, but he didn’t think they’d appreciate his feedback.

Horus he liked, even though the Egyptian god’s insistence on keeping the head of a falcon and body of a man kind of freaked Hall out.

Lugh annoyed him as only Celts could with their ceaseless love of fighting.

Mithra made his eyes hurt. The Persian sun god shone too brightly, all the time.

Sedna was a particular favorite, since the Inuit goddess loved animals, though she favored marine life. She gifted Hall and Avarr with a large smile before turning her attention back to Izanagi, a Japanese deity with manic-depressive issues. Deserved, in Hall’s opinion, since Izanagi had abandoned his wife in hell to rot with demons.

Cagn and Raven, both trickster gods, he trusted as much as he trusted Loki. Not at all. But Quetzalcoatl… The big bastard loved a blood sacrifice as if the Aztecs still ruled their section of Midgard—or Mesoamerica, as the humans referred to it. If not for that, Hall would have pegged Q as his favorite. The guy loved sports and played a killer game of lacrosse.

Freya clapped once, and a loud boom settled everyone into their seats and into silence.

“I know we’re missing a few of you, but we have the major players, so we’ll get started. I’m so excited to be emceeing this year,” Freya gushed.

The others showed their appreciation with fireworks and sweet-song from birds that appeared and disappeared in seconds.

“Thank you. As you know, we don’t get to play often, so we need to take advantage of this decade’s games. Otherwise, it might be half a millennium before our next opportunity. There’s been much speculation as to where we’ll be playing. As you know, we played in Rome last time. And before that, Atlantis.”

“And we all know how that turned out.” Sedna shook her head.

“Yes, well. We’ll have to be more careful that we don’t sink any islands if we lose, now won’t we?” The look she directed at Athena had her flushing.

“Hey, that was my uncle. I know Poseidon can be a little hotheaded.”

“A little.” Mercury snorted.

Hall silently agreed.

“In any case,” Freya interrupted before an argument could start, “we’ve come to a consensus among your primaries. We’re going to be holding the next
Ludos Deorum
in Midgard.”