She sighed. “Love, in the beginning of our tumultuous courtship, there was one question you would constantly ask me. Do you remember it?”
He frowned, sifting through the memories that were as clear today as if it’d only happened yesterday. Only problem was, he’d asked her many things.
“Baba...” He traced the bottom swell of her breast, loving how soft and pliant she still was for him. “I asked you too many questions. Which one do you mean?”
A graceful, gentle smile tipped the corners of her luscious lips. “You would always ask me, ‘have you forgotten who I am’?”
His movements paused, and a frown touched his brows. “I don’t under—”
Rolling them over so that he now lay beneath her and she was straddling him, she looked down upon him, and his heart swelled in his chest.
This fiery, powerful, and amazing woman was all his. Sometimes, it was hard to believe it was so, even after all this time. Freyr had simply been looking for a way to pass the time, to seek an escape from the boredom of his life. Never could he have imagined how much she would bring into his world simply by being.
“I too have my names and one I use rarely but that exists all the same. I’ve thought this matter through, Freyr. Ragnorak and what it means for us. That I will lose you. But witch that I am, I refuse to accept prophecy as fate. I too deal in fate and prophetic wisdom, and I know, better than anyone, that fate is simply what you make it. If you believe it to be so, then it is, but if you look...you can find.”
Her cryptic words had his heart beating a melody in his chest. He was terrified to hope, to believe that there could be an alternative to this.
“I must face my fate as a man and a warrior, Baba.”
On that he could not budge. The mettle of a man wasn’t made by running away from pain but from accepting it, embracing it, and understanding that it was only through pain that growth could flourish.
“I will not run from this fight and leave the others—”
She placed a finger upon his lips, stilling his words and shaking her head. Her long, loose hair moved like a wave upon her breasts, creating a pretty picture he would think on often during the thick of the battle.
Moss-green eyes so full of wisdom stared down on him. “And I would never ask that of you. I could never respect a man, let alone my man, were he to run away like a coward. No, Freyr, you will face your fate, and you will meet your death as is destined.”
He heard the unspoken words and waited for her to say more, but she seemed to be waiting on him.
Narrowing his eyes, he shook his head. “Then I don’t—”
“I am the goddess of wisdom. And of death, Freyr. It means I can slip beyond the veil. I can bring you back home. Once it is done, I will find you, and we’ll never have to be separated again.”
His fingers dug into her waist, and he yanked her down. She gave a tiny squeal of surprise. Her breasts smashed into his chest, and her arms were trapped between them, but he didn’t care how uncomfortable it felt. He needed her close, needed to feel her touch all over him.
“Are you sure? Can you really do this, Baba?”
“For you, I can do anything, Freyr,” she whispered, then wiggled just slightly so that her face was no longer partly smushed against his neck. She kissed him, and in their closeness, he felt the beating of her heart pound against his own.
“Phlegm will miss you,” she whispered, and a choked sort of laugh spilled off his tongue.
The sound was high and deep and rang out with both confusion and elation. Unshed tears gathered in the corners of his eyes, and heat clogged his throat. He didn’t want to say goodbye, not yet. Not ever. A lifetime wasn’t long enough with this woman.
“Isn’t it time we maybe consider calling the boy something else?”
She snorted.
And his laughter grew. “Though I suppose the mere fact that you continue to call me Fellatio means our poor boy is stuck with it, no?”
She patted his chest. “My lover knows me well.”
Trembling with both relief and anxiety, he held on until the sun came up. And when it was time to go, neither of them spoke a word. They simply let their kiss say what they could not.
Freyr looked at her as she stood in the doorway, bathed in the glow of sunlight, hair tousled and body enticingly nude. He prayed to the stars with all his heart and soul that somehow, someway his crafty woman could indeed defy fate and bring him back home.
He turned and left.
~*~
Baba Yaga
Baba wet her lips as she looked to both Phlegm and Balthazar for support. Today was the day. She’d felt Freyr’s death like a blade to the chest and had dropped to her knees, howling in pain as the tears took her.
Phlegm had wrapped his small arms around her neck and squeezed. “It’s okay, Mama. Papa’s goin’ come back home.”
Balthazar had wrapped the length of his cool body around waist and squeezed tight, giving her a hug in the only way he could. She’d clung to them both, frantic and dizzy. For the past twenty years, she’d prepared her mind, body, and soul to pierce the veil.
Her words had been big the night she’d promised Freyr that she could. True, she was the goddess of wisdom and death. The ability was there. But parting the veil between life and death was not easy. In fact, if she did it wrong, she could be trapped forever, alone, lost, never able to return, leaving Balthazar and Phlegm on their own.
Glancing at the two of them, she shook her head. “What if mummy can’t do this?” She whispered her fears for the first time.
But little Phlegm, who was so different from the man he’d once been in another life, shook his head. “My mummy can do anything. Bring my daddy home.”
Balthazar’s tongue flicked in and out as though he too agreed with Phlegm’s statement. And though it filled her with pride that her child loved her as he did, Baba did not feel at all that confident.
For the past fortnight, she’d attempted to part the veil, reaching only a hand through it, and though she had moved in and out with ease, the pain of simply passing one part of her body through had kept her awake for the past three nights, wracked with radiating bursts of agony through each fingertip.
Torn between desire and duty, she memorized the handsome contours of her son’s face. Phlegm, would grow up to be a fine man. He’d been taught by both she and Freyr. She’d even taught him a few spells. Her child would be powerful. What path he took in life would ultimately be his choice.
She’d once walked the darkness, and though she did not walk in the light now, she had found her way in the between, a place where she felt free and content, a place where she felt love.
Grabbing Phlegm’s chubby cheeks between her hands, she stooped. Now in crone form, moving wasn’t painless. No doubt, a great source of the pain she experienced from mucking around in the veil was because everything ached while in crone form. Today was her day to change back to maiden, but her spells and incantations were ten times more powerful as the crone. So she remained as she was for now.
“I love you, Phlegm, never forget that.”
He nodded resolutely.
Her smile wavered as a single tear dripped off her lashes. Ever the witch, she snatched up one of the empty vials she always kept on hand and held it up to her cheek to capture that stray tear. The tear of a witch was powerful magick. Capping it, she tossed the vial deep into Freyr’s pouch of goodies he’d left behind when he’d gone, and nodded at her familiar and child.
“Your Papa wanted me to give you a name, boy, a true, and proper name. One that meant something.”
Phlegm trembled, staring up at her with his starlit black eyes, and her heart melted in her chest. Even when Freyr wasn’t around, his impact could be felt everywhere. She’d never stopped to consider that maybe Phlegm hadn’t come to love his name as she had when she’d first laughingly named him. But it seemed even Baba Yaga was still capable of learning a thing or two.
“You’ll now be called Jerrick, w
hich in Papa’s tongue means king forever.”
Jerrick’s smile was like the slow unfurling of a flower to the morning sun. His entire face transformed as he tasted the word over and over before nodding staunchly. “It is a good name, Mummy. I like it.”
“Good. That’s good.” Patting him lightly on the back, she nodded. “Wish me luck, then.”
Hugging him tight around her middle, so tight she almost couldn’t breathe, Baba endured the pain of bone rubbing against bone. If this was to be their last time together, she wanted there to be no regrets. When he stepped away, tears streamed down his face. But she knew he wouldn’t have appreciated her pointing it out. In temperament, he was just like his father.
Whoever his real father was, was of no consideration to Baba because Freyr was the one who’d raised him since infancy, and it was Freyr who the boy took most after. Jerrik laughed easily, teased often, and had the temper of the devil himself. He was also proud. A man didn’t cry—at least in his five-year-old estimation—so she pretend he wasn’t doing just that.
Balthazar gave her one final squeeze before slithering down her arm, and onto Jerrik’s shoulder. Lifting his tail, he gave her a wave goodbye.
If she didn’t turn around and leave now, she never would. So without another word, Baba moved as fast as her creaking, bowed legs allowed up the steps of her home and through the door. The moment she stepped through, her house lifted high on its chicken feet and began to trot away, knowing its mistress wished to be off.
Baba needed the house more for mobility than anything else, as she could barely move for long in this wretched body. Easing to a sitting position, she assembled all she would need to part the veil: a bowl half full of water, pig knuckles blanched in phoenix flame, and a thread of shadow from off Death’s cloak. Her brother hadn’t been overly fond of gifting her with such a valuable treasure, but Baba had her ways, even over Death.
“Veil of death part for me,” she whispered the first part of the incantation, throwing the bones into the bowl. Molten flames of magick curled and licked up against the ceiling, singeing the wood a charred black.
“I seek my lover, torn from me. So I say, so shall it be. Find him now. So mote it be!”
The moment she dipped the thread into the bowl, chaos erupted. The house shook and shrieked as it was caught up in the powerful swirl of magick. Baba clenched her teeth as she rolled around and around, her body slapping against one wall after the other, scrabbling for purchase where none could be found.
And then...they floated in utter and absolute darkness.
~*~
Freyr
He was dead, his life force separated from his body. Freyr lay in a field of blood and bones. Beside him rested the glowing blue souls of his brothers and sisters, all lost to the battle of Ragnorak. Thor was the first to rouse, shaking his head as he looked around a world between planes—not Hell, but not Valhalla either.
Freyr’s only thoughts were for Baba. For twenty years, he’d fought a battle he’d known from the start he could not win. But he’d satisfied the fates, and now, he was free. His soul would be measured, not for whether he’d been good or not, but whether he’d been warrior enough to enter into the gates of Valhalla to feast, dine, and wine for all eternity, to glory in the sumptuous feasts of lust and desire all the rest of his days. Once, that would have been enough for him.
But now he wanted more. He wanted everything.
He wanted his woman, his family.
“Odin!” Thor bellowed. “Hear us now! We fought the good fight, and we are ready to be rewarded!”
The angry whipping winds of the in-between tore the words from his lips, funneling them high into the sky toward the Allfather’s golden palace in the sky.
Thor, bruting, idiotic male that he was, laughed and bellowed, slapping a palm to his massive knee as his blond braids whipped in the wind behind him. For Thor, life had only ever been about the battle. Today was a day of great triumph for him, a culmination of his life’s ambition.
But for Freyr, all he felt was the cold agony of loss. Baba, he had no doubt, had tried as hard as she could to come. But even his powerful witch had been unable to breach the veil between death, life, and realms. He’d lost his family forever. The weight of sadness was as a vise squeezing his soul to shards.
“Freyr, my good man”—Thor grinned cockily—“why do you look so miserable? We have won. We have died with glory and honor. Now, we go onto far greater things.” He draped an arm around Freyr’s shoulder, side-hugging him roughly.
Freyr shoved him off. Thor was an imbecile. The stories often made him out to be a valiant hero, but he was little more than a juiced-up meathead with brains the size of a gnat. He thought only with two things: his cock and his hammer. Sadly, Freyr hadn’t been much different in his day.
“Get off me, you idiot,” he snapped, dusting off his bloody vestures.
Thor snorted. “Don’t worry, Freyr. I’ll make sure the Allfather tosses you scraps off my table when it comes ti—”
The bones beneath their feet shifted .and the world shrieked with a piercing whistle that made his ears ring and bleed.
Thor howled, shaking his hammer into the lightning strike. “Allfather, you’ve—”
A ramshackle house with chicken feet for legs fell as a sack of stone from out of thin air, landing with a loud crash scant inches from Thor’s side. Thor roared, hammer at the ready as he prepared to go on the warpath.
But Freyr scrabbled through the bones, pushing to his feet, as he raced with his heart in his throat toward the house that should have been demolished by the crash but still stood intact.
Thor made to throw his hammer, and Freyr jumped, spearing the blond idiot, knocking him down to the ground, and stealing the breath out of him.
“Touch a splinter of that place, and I’ll rip your balls off,” Freyr hissed, then slammed Thor back down as he shoved to his feet.
The door was tossed open, and out stepped his crone.
“Hag face,” he breathed in reverent awe.
And her milk-curdling face twisted into a horrific smile of iron-coated fangs.
“By the gods, it’s demon swine! What the devil is that thing?” Thor bellowed with revulsion and disbelief.
“All mine,” Freyr snapped then ran, taking the steps two at a time and wrapping his arms tight around the bag of bones he loved more than anything else in the entirety of creation.
She laughed with a sharp oomph, digging her bony fingers into his arms as she tried in vain to peel him off her.
“Can’t breathe,” she gasped happily.
He shook his head. “Breathing’s overrated, Baba.” With a hungry moan, he took her shriveled up lips and kissed her soundly.
“I’m going to be sick,” Thor groaned behind them.
And Freyr simply laughed because she’d done it. Somehow, someway, his sharp-tongued shrew had figured out a way to get to him. She wheezed when he finally let her go, clutching onto her bird chest. Her drooping breasts heaved up and down.
“Gods, woman, I could just eat you up.” He grinned. “You did it, Baba. You found me.”
Ugly as she was, when she smiled back at him, his heart radiated with warmth and love.
“I will always find you, Fellatio. Didn’t you know that?”
He tossed his head back, laughing almost maniacally, so indescribably happy that he literally shone with it. His soul—which was firm enough to hold her in this place—glowed a deep blue.
Reaching into her bag of tricks, Baba pulled out a vial, tipped it back, and drank from it. In seconds, the crone was no more. A rush of wind wrapped around her skeletal frame, transforming her back into the woman he’d fallen in love with what seemed like an eternity ago.
He’d forgotten all about Thor until the demigod gasped. “By Odin—”
Clutching onto Baba’s smooth, perfect hands, Freyr squeezed them and without taking his eyes off her smiling and radiant face, he said, “She’s mine. Lay a hand on her, Thor—?
??
“Yes. Yes, you’ll cut my balls off,” he snapped, “I’ve got it.”
And Baba laughed, the sound like the tinkling of bells. Hugging her tight, never wanting to let her go again, he whispered, “Take me home, woman.”
Nodding, she reached back into her bag and pulled out a vial that glowed with threads of purple and blue. He’d never seen that kind of magick before.
Brows furrowing, he touched the glass with his finger. “What is it?”
Smiling radiantly, she unstoppered the vial and lifting up on tiptoe, she poured it over his head. It smelled of honeysuckle and lilacs. It smelled of her.
“This is my soul and yours, entwined forever, our life forces joined one to another.”
As she spoke, he felt his body coil with tight bands of power, both dark and light. Just like her. Neither good, nor bad, she simply was. He inhaled deeply, smiling as he was bathed in her. He felt a tugging in his chest. Looking down, he noticed a tight silver band that extended from her to him.
And when he plucked at it, he heard music, a ballad so lovely and intoxicating that he felt slave to it. He would follow wherever it went, be whatever it needed, love only it...
She slid her hand along that band, joining her hands with his. “I feel you too. All over me. All you need to tell me now, Freyr is, are you ready to go home?”
He stepped so close into her no space existed between them.
“I want only to ever be with you, my Baba.”
Her smile was radiant. “Good answer.”
Taking his hand in hers, she led him back inside their home and sat, tugging him down with her. She crawled over onto his lap, wrapping her legs tight around his waist as she rested her head against his heart.
“Now hang on, Fellatio, because this is going to be a bumpy ride.”
But he only laughed because when was love ever anything else? “As long as I have my family, I don’t care where we go. Also, I was thinking now would be a good time to do that thing you did to the fairy queen all those years—”
She slammed a hand against his mouth and growled, “Never. Speak. Of. It.”