The Awakening (29 page)

“So, Victor, what about Ursula? Are you going to tell me?” Carmen asked as they gathered in the kitchen for Victor to prepare dinner.

“You are ready to give yourself fully to me, to being who you are?” His face was as serious as she’d ever seen it. His eyes were steely blue and piercing through her, as if he was driving a rapier foil through her very soul. “Once you stay with me tonight there is no turning back. Never. You are irrevocably mine. You will be the Warrior Goddess.”

She nodded slowly. “I understand, Victor.”

He smiled softly. “I don’t think you do, my little bear. But you are here of your own free will and that is as it must be. Are you sure about Andrew?”

Carmen laughed at the absurdity of the question. “So completely, Victor. I wish I had listened to you earlier.”

He pointed the knife at her. “No, you should have listened to yourself sooner.”

“Indeed.” Carmen took a sip of white wine. “Is everything inside, Victor?”

“Yes,” he nodded. “But I think you will need me for a while to help you refine what’s there.”

“Good,” Carmen smiled. She was so happy to be here again, to be with Victor. She felt completely at home, in his house in the forest. Swimming together in their natural shape had been an act of exquisite freedom. She wondered how he managed to stay in his human form for so much of the year. She’d always enjoyed her body in the water, where her hands and feet had been an asset, not a feature of embarrassment. But being the bear was exhilarating. She’d never felt so strong, so invincible. She laughed to herself.

“What?” Victor smiled.

“Well, no wonder I could swim the way I could.”

“Exactly. The polar bear is of course, Ursus Maritimus: the great sea bear. It can swim further than any other land based creature. Of course you were going to be a champion.”

“Did you know that when you left me with David and Madeleine?”

Victor stopped chopping and took a sip of wine. “No. I didn’t know what would happen to you. We needed you to be safe. Ursula was weak – not strong enough to look after herself, let alone you. She gave you to me, as one of her most trusted subjects, and charged me with your safety and when the time was right your tutelage.”

“But it went wrong, didn’t it?”

Victor nodded. “Yes. I left you with David because I knew him to be a good man. He could have been one of us. But he was, alas, very much human. Still, he taught you much about the natural world, about the seasons, the animals and how to live with nature. He was our friend and I knew that he would love you and prepare you for the life you had to return to. I hoped Madeleine would too but her pain was too much and you were too different for her.”

“So, if things had gone according to plan, you’d have been back for me, when?”

“It is usual to return for foundlings such as you before you attract attention, because you cannot help it. Your skills and abilities do shine through from the very start. David knew that. That was why you spent so much time out with him, where your strength was not obvious and at school you were just another farm kid – too many chores, not quite civilised. No-one noticed you. And Madeleine’s disinterest while hurtful, was acceptable because David loved you so much.” Victor was quiet for a moment, remembering his friend and his fears when he realised he had lost control of Carmen. He had failed the girl and the Goddess, and consequently been shunned by his own for some years. His own pleasure at having Carmen returned to him was unbound. He knew she didn’t understand that.

“Okay then, so if we have the gift of healing and sight too – we have that, don’t we?”

“Well, not all of us and not to the same degree. I am not a healer. I am a carer, a watcher if you like. I see and know things but I cannot always do. I know what you are about to say. If you have all these powers, as does Ursula, why did we let David die?”

Carmen nodded slowly. “Yes.”

Victor lay down his knife and came around the kitchen bench to Carmen and took her hands in his. “If I could have saved your father I would have. He had saved me from attack many years ago and I owed him my life. He was my friend and I loved him. I trusted him like I have trusted no other full blood. But I am not a healer, Carmen and by the time I came back to see you again it was too late for David. I believed you would stay in the country and I left you protected. I just missed what was in Madeleine’s heart and that, my dearest cub, is what sent things out of control.”

“Alaska and Zanzibar were from you.”

“Yes. I’m sure you know by now, they are immortals, sent to protect and guide you. They will be by your side forever. They love you as your mother would. As I have.”

Carmen smiled. “Madeleine described you but I didn’t believe her. She said you brought the dogs, but it seemed too fanciful. You lost me because her heart was broken and you never saw that, did you?”

Victor shrugged. “I was so intent on ensuring you were with David that I ignored Madeleine’s grief. More to the point I didn’t understand it. I thought she would grow to love you, because I did and your mother and the rest of us in the Great Ice were so exhilarated by your birth that I was sure anyone who met you would love you. I was blinded by my own love. I missed her pain. And her desire to move as far away from the farm as she could. New York is not the place for me.”

“But you live there. You have a prosperous business there.”

Victor laughed. “Indeed I do. But I must have a way to be in the mortal world. Victor Bernhardt is a very plausible cover. I can make things happen, control my immediate environment, have access to powerful people, help my own kind. But my main purpose these last twenty seven years has been you. And my main shame these last fifteen has been losing you. You were not meant to come to the city. You were never meant to be a public figure. You should have been a private citizen, free to live in the Ice, unknown to full bloods, making your magic among the Halflings and the Ice Beasts. Saving the planet from impending doom.”

Carmen stood up and walked to the window, looking out on a tranquil late spring evening. The sunlight stretching long fingers across the blue diamond sparkle of the lake. The air was warm and still. She sensed the purity in the night, the serenity about to descend upon them all. She heard the animals settling down for the night, the birds quietening, the fish slowing in the stream. It was hard to see Victor’s impending doom on such an idyllic evening.

She turned back to the room, filled her glass and resumed her seat. “So, you lost me. Why did you not come and get me, take me back before I met Andrew and all that silliness?”

Victor rolled his eyes. “I was in disgrace. I was no longer trusted. You were our future and I had let you slip through my fingers. I took my eye off the ball, in your parlance. I missed Madeleine’s heart. Because I knew David was true I never worried about her. I knew he would train you well: add in the magic to the practical. When the time came he would do everything I asked. So I was casual, over-confident in my own cleverness and I missed his illness and then Madeleine’s heart was lost to me and you were lost as well.”

“Could you not have persuaded her? I mean, Victor, you are one of the most compelling and gorgeous men I’ve ever met. And I’ve hung with a lot of exceptionally good looking and charming men when I was swimming. Surely she would have fallen for your charms?”

“I was forbidden. As David died and you went to New York I was summonsed to the Great Ice Chamber and disgraced. I had failed to ensure proper safe guards for your future. I had to let you go. Your face was taken from my heart and I was sent from the Chamber in disgrace. The only way I could redeem myself was if you came back to me of your own accord. Only then could I return to the Chamber and resume your tutelage. There was great sorrow and the Ice has been under severe strain since we lost Ursula all those years ago and then when I let you slip through my fingers. My people are on the edge of the abyss, Carmen. Your people. And now that you are here we must ensure its renewal.”

“But you knew me that day in your office. As soon as our hands touched you knew me.”

Victor chuckled. “They couldn’t take it all from me. I am the bravest and best Halfling: that was why I was entrusted with your care. The Warrior Goddess’s child cannot be put into the care of just any old Ice Beast. It is hard to dis-empower me. But I wasn’t sure until we touched. I had an inkling as I watched your career. But as my heart was clouded it was difficult to be sure.”

“Your spirit was broken, wasn’t it? That’s why being with me has re-invigorated you, given you back your strength and power.”

“Indeed. I have needed your return more than most. I am grateful for your touch and your presence. I am honoured that you have come back to me. Now I can fulfil my promise to your mother and the Great Beasts and anoint you Carmen, Warrior Goddess of the Great Ice.”

Carmen laughed. “It all sounds perfectly normal.”

Victor smiled. “Good. We lost many years and your training was corrupted but your strength and powers are all there. You know that. You have a growing sense of what it is you can do. I can now help you refine and develop it all.”

Victor put the baking dish of meat and vegetables in the oven and took Carmen by the hand. “It’s time.”

As she lay on the bed with the lights falling from the sky Carmen realised she had been waiting for Victor all her life. The other men - that collection of performance driven swimmers, Andrew – all of them just aperitifs to the banquet that was Victor. They lay naked on his king size bed, big enough for bears, and lazily ran their hands along the length of each other’s bodies. Both long and lean, muscular and strong, they could have been mirrors of each other. Carmen loved it that his hands were so much bigger than hers. He could fold his hand around hers and cover it completely. In every part he was bigger and stronger, longer and heavier. It was a relief to finally be with a man who was physically better than her. She traced her fingers across the muscles of his chest and abdomen, marvelled at the ageless tone and smoothness of his skin. She moved her head to his chest, a covering of golden curls, and licked at his nipples. He growled softly as she moved her body over his, hovering above his quivering limbs. His hands found her breasts, small and fleshy, her nipples pink and ready to be sucked. She sat on his chest and leant her breasts into his face. He sucked at her as she moved her hips on his body, small trickles of moisture leaking from her pussy. His dick was standing up, hardening by the second, throbbing, waiting, anticipating.

Carmen slid her body down his torso, placing her groin on his, keeping his manhood outside her female need but only long enough to kiss him deeply, to move her tongue into his wet hot mouth, feel those sharp teeth, to let him push his tongue back into her. He grabbed her hips and lifted her onto his thick throbbing dick, impaling her on his need, his desperation for this moment of pure pleasure.

Victor moaned and Carmen sighed. “Oh, yes.”

She sat up and slowly ground herself into him, pulling his dick deeper and deeper into her own cavernous needs. He help her hips with his huge hands, caressing her ass, holding her close to him. He pushed up into her as she ground down on him. His breath came hot and thick as he pushed deep inside, feeling her open with every thrust. Deeper and deeper he went. She welcomed every thrust, opened herself to him, deeper, darker, wetter. She heard herself growling, moaning in her soul, her throat full of joy as Victor held her and moved so slowly and deliberately inside her. She felt him burrowing into her as if he was making a new home in her darkest deepest recesses. She bent her head to kiss him again. Lips meeting, wet, hot breath, open mouths, tasting the perfect love each offered.

Swiftly he moved her under him, kept her pussy impaled upon his long, thick, stabbing need of her. He smiled down at her, kissed her throat, inhaled the perfume of her hair: loved her. “I am yours,” he whispered. “Forever.”

“I know,” Carmen panted. “I know.”

Victor pushed into her, nuzzling her throat, again and again. “I love you, Carmen Whyte. I’ve loved you all your life.” Carmen felt the quivering start in her toes and move up her limbs. There was a buzzing in her head, noise and light, a throbbing at the heart of her, an explosion of heat and light in her pussy as Victor stilled within her for a moment. She felt the world stop as he did, she heard the silence, the quiet in her own heart, felt peace flood through her as Victor shot his life giving load into her. She opened her mouth to scream but instead filled the room with the shattering sound of a bear in orgasmic thrall. She opened her eyes to see the Great Bear upon her, his teeth at her throat. She smiled as she recognised Victor and saw the furry whiteness of her own being.

Outside the world had changed. The stillness Carmen had felt at the height of their love making had been transferred from them to the world. A soft sound of swirling surrounded the house. “Come,” Carmen said, taking Victor by the paw to stand in what little moonlight there was.

Outside the world was white. Great snow flakes fell in fury from the sky. Already the ground was covered in a blanket of the purest snow. The lake was shimmering with ice and would be frozen by morning. Carmen looked to the sky and could see nothing but white, a thick steady stream of snow falling to earth.

Victor laughed, clasped the naked Carmen to his heart. “It has begun. The Awakening is complete.” He kissed her mouth long and tender. “Your destiny awaits, my little bear.”