The Magic Queen (18 page)

His hot hands were splayed open and moved along her flesh in a slow, deliberate wake of touch that burned her up. Baba had never let a man hold her like this before. Never let a man into the privacy of her mouth, let a man trace her, learn her. Make love to her. But she didn’t just want to let Freyr in. She wanted him to consume her.

Kissing the divine had drained her, but she felt the hunger move inside of her again, a tiny spark that grew in warmth and power.

Freyr was gentle as he slowly pushed her down onto that wet mattress. The play of cold water along with his warm body made her feel alive, excited, and dizzy. He moved his hips between her parted thighs, and she wrapped her arms around his back, moving in a sensual dance, finding his rhythm instantly as though they’d been crafted as one long ago, his likes her likes and hers his.

They were no longer Baba Yaga and Freyr but a single, moving, thinking entity. His hot mouth had moved down her neck to her chest before sliding down the swell of her breast and replaced by his tongue when he got to her nipple. He took her deep in his mouth, rolling her tight nub around his tongue. She groaned, still exhausted from what she’d done earlier. But wet for him. Baba knew she would always be wet for this male.

Her male.

She rubbed her fingers lightly along his scalp, knowing that this wasn’t a time for rough play. This was different, softer, deeper. It was so much more than meeting the demands of flesh. It went into their hearts.

The waters around them bubbled, responding to the sex magick Freyr could not help releasing. The winds sang a song like the sweet ringing of church bells. Baba closed her eyes, feeling this moment with her whole heart, letting it take her and consume her. And then he was sliding inside of her, not pounding her as he had before, but moving deep and sure.

“Baba, my sweet, sweet Baba,” he murmured against her right nipple, before proceeding to suckle on it as he had the other one.

Her skin broke out in a wash of goose bumps, and she wrapped her legs at the ankles tight around his strong hips, meeting him move for move, thrust for thrust.

“Freyr,
lyubov moya
.” The mother tongue of old slipped out of her, and she didn’t panic when she realized she’d just called him her love.

Because that’s who he was. Freyr was coming to mean everything to her.

As though he’d understood what she’d said, he moaned deeply.

“I adore you, woman,” he muttered, staring deeply into her eyes. That’s how they came: locked in each other’s sights, sharing breath, and hearts as the orgasm ripped through them both.

Chapter 11

Freyr

Every day and every night since, he’d made love to his woman. For Freyr, it’d only ever been sex. Lust. Desire. Hot need. And sex. Raw, carnal, nasty sex. And while he and Baba had those moments too, it was so much more than that for him.

His woman—his witch—consumed him.

Freyr had come into this game looking for fun, for something to alleviate his boredom. He’d not believed the goddesses when they’d told him they’d found his mate. No fertility god could ever be so lucky. For them it was all about the sex. Every day. Every night. It didn’t matter with whom. But it did now.

Everyone else paled in comparison to his lovely witch. And he knew, whether in crone, mother, or maiden form he’d always want his sharp-tongued shrew.

She rolled over and gave a tiny little snore of sound. His lips twitched. He almost thought watching her wake had become his favorite part of the day. He loved seeing the way she’d slowly rouse like a kitten lazily stretching and blinking open its eyes. Her full pink lips slowly curled into a large smile, and n her toes played with his foot before finally she blinked once, twice...

“Good morning, love,” she whispered the same three words she’d used since they’d first made love a week ago.

Heart swelling in his chest, he feathered his knuckle along the petal-like softness of her cheek.

“Morning.”

How had he gotten to be so lucky? How had this happened to him? He’d never been a particularly good god. Though he could be hated by none, he was a rascal through and through, irreverent at the best of times, and downright cruel at the worst. He always knew that no matter what he did, no one could hate him.

But for her he wanted to be the best person he could be, wanted her to always be proud to have him on her arm, wanted her to always look upon him as she did now. With awe. Love. And wonder.

Her stomach growled, and he grinned. Reaching behind his back, he plucked up the bowl of apples he’d gone and retrieved this morning. They’d long since eaten through their ration of rats and were once again forced to subsist on nothing but apples.

“You shouldn’t have.” She spoke the words behind her wrist.

Baba was always uptight about her morning breath. And yes, it stunk, but so what? He loved her, and it hardly mattered.

Shoving his chest, she tried to get him off of her, but he didn’t want to move.

“You’re soft. Let me stay.” He lowered his head and sucked on her soft throat, kissing her sloppily because he knew how much it tickled her.

Giggling, she swatted at him. “Stop it, you silly oaf, and let me stand. I need to get cleaned up.”

Rolling his eyes dramatically, he moved the leg he’d been using to pin her down. “You’re hard on a man, witch.”

She snorted. “Yes. And you love me for it.”

For days, he’d known the words were right there, waiting to be breathed to life, and now he knew the time had come.

“Yes. I do. With all my soul.”

The easy banter of seconds ago was sucked out of the room, replaced by a tension so thick his heart thudded powerfully in his chest. Not once had he ever considered that she hadn’t felt the same. He’d felt the truth of her love for him in every touch, every sigh, and every heated glance she gave him.

Breathing harshly, Baba twirled on her heel and ran for the brook. Her sexy, nude arse jiggled hypnotically. But for once, he couldn’t concentrate on that sexy arse because he wasn’t sure, but he thought it likely that his heart had just shattered in his chest.

~*~

Baba Yaga

He’d said it. The L-word.

“Holy sheeeet!” she scrubbed her face harder, washing out the morning grit, heart pounding like a drum in her chest. And she’d run away like a scared baby.

She blinked, feeling like crying all of a sudden. What had she done? Why hadn’t she said it back? She felt it. She’d been feeling it for weeks now, probably even since the first moment she’d seen him and she’d mistaken the beat of love for indigestion.

And while her heart soared that he’d admitted to it, had spoken the words aloud, she was also petrified. Even now, her feet refused to move. To go back to him. To tell him that she felt it too. That he consumed her. That there’d never be another male for her, that he was all things, the end of everything and the beginning of it all.

Shaking her head, she stared into the stream with sightless eyes, trying to figure out her problem. Why was she doing this?

And then it clicked, she did it because the words were so big, so massive that she might as well take a blade to her neck and bleed herself dry. That’s how big it was to her.

Any day now, hell, even any minute now, the little imp could return, telling her it was time for the final trial. She’d had her scrying bowl for days, learned as much as she could about her final combatant: the Pied Piper and her wolf mate.

And it wasn’t like there wouldn’t be time to tell Freyr how she really felt after it was all said and done. But something in her belly, a horrible nagging practically screamed that she needed to tell him now, that she shouldn’t wait. Anything could happen...

Eyes widening, heart pounding, she twirled on her heel and ran back for camp. “Freyr!” she screamed. “I love you too! I do, I—”

As though she’d just slammed into a wall, Baba stumbled, practically falling on her face as she came to a complete halt, staring wide-eyed at a smiling Calypso.

Calypso, in full god getup with octopus tentacles for hair and in glass-like form gave her a finger wave. “Hal-loo.”

Stomach sinking to the regions of her knees, Baba knew seeing the water elemental in her goddessy glory like this couldn’t be good.

Tongue feeling swollen and too thick for her mouth, she asked, “Where’s Freyr? What have you done with him?”

“Baba,” Caly said like a mother talking to her wayward teenager, “if you’d only told him you’d loved him already, none of this would have been necessary. I mean, I know it, Dite knows it, and we know you know it. So why didn’t you say anything?”

Stomping her foot, feeling the old, primordial, and terrible temper of that cursed and ancient witch she used to be rush through her limbs, Baba tried to breathe through the rush of madness, knowing that attacking the goddess would probably be the very last thing she ever did, but feeling furious and helpless for the first time in her long life.

“Where is he?” She clutched her hands maybe in prayer or more than likely, to keep from choking the bitch.

Calypso just chuckled, as though it were funny.

“You knew the rules, dear. The timing for all of this was completely dependent on you. Sadly, there is another just as stubborn as you are. Or maybe not that sadly because it has been great fun watching all of you admit that we were right after all. Freyr is where he should be, waiting for you to find him.”

This didn’t make sense. There was supposed to be a fight. Battle. She’d already devised a game plan for how she was to come against the Pied Piper—Rayele. The woman was helpless without her flute. It would have been a simple matter to get the cursed object out of her hands, and soundly defeat her, then turn with triumph toward her male and say, “I love you, idiot.”

“What have you done to him?” Baba shook her head, feeling her throat squeeze tight with fear.

“Oh, me?” Calypso tapped her chest. “Absolutely nothing. I vow to you, witch, that your male is perfectly safe. For now, anyway. I cannot promise you more once Rayale gets in there. She’s a woman possessed and no doubt in as much of a frenzy as you now find yourself.”

“You stole her man too?”

Calypso gave her bug eyes., “Well, of course I did. Both of you hard heads need a good thwack on the head to get you to move to do anything. Believe it or not, Baba, Dite and I really did only want to make love matches. Nothing more and nothing less.”

“You vowed to kill us all if we didn’t fall in love. The only reason you can’t is Themis.”

Calypso’s laughter sounded like the roar of the sea at sunset. “I suppose I did.”

Baba tapped her foot, not at all finding this funny. She wanted to get to her Freyr, and she wanted to get to him now. “Would you have?”

Calypso thought about it for a moment. “Yes. Of course. A goddess is only as good as her word in this world. But the thing of it is, you sharp-tongued shrew, we already knew it would never come to that because made perfect love matches.”

“Then why the games?”

“Because you, and all the others are all stubborn, willful, prideful morons. That’s why. You needed to be in harm’s way for you all to realize that, ‘Hey, I actually love him.’” Her aquamarine eyes shone.

And Baba’s heart sank. She wanted desperately to deny those words, but deep down, she knew it was true. Being forced to remain in such close proximity to Freyr was what finally made Baba open her heart and to learn to trust him. Trust was a privilege she’d allowed so few in her life that she could count them all on one hand.

“Well, I love him. So bring him back to me, and end this stupidity.”

“No,” The goddess shook her head. “You know I cannot. The rules of these lands are simple but powerful. You had to fess up to your love to him or fight the battles. The time for words has come and gone, my dear. Now, nothing remains but action.”

“Where’s the demon?”

Calypso frowned prettily. “Who?”

Baba shook her head, forgetting that he actually went by another name. “Peabrain. Why have I not seen him in ages?”

“Ah, the little minion.” She snapped her fingers. “Well, he returned to his mama when she and Xolotl left. And let me tell you, he hates your guts but good!” Caly laughed heartily. The way she said, as if she were hinting at something, told Baba everything.

She gasped. “When they fell into the waters and almost drowned in our battle...”

Calypso nodded. “Yes, they would have died, and it would have broken my heart to lose my sister, but she reached him just in time and whispered the words in his ears. Thankfully, I’m made of water and heard the declaration just fine. Saved them in the very nick of time.”

Baba’s heart sank to realize that she and Freyr had come so close to ending this nonsense if she’d just have opened her mouth and said the words that’d been inside her all along.

Clenching her molars, she stared intently at Calypso, “Take me to my man.”

Bowing low, Calypso stepped to the side and swept out her hand, revealing a shimmering doorway built of water. “Then as they say, oh Magic Queen, your wish is my command.”

Chapter 12

Baba

Grabbing hold of the hem of her leaf gown, a new one Freyr had crafted for her the day before. This one was built of waxy, vibrant green leaves interspersed with tiny bursts of pretty white flowers that smelled amazing. She’d never seen flowers quite like these. The petals looked like they’d been dipped in mother of pearl the way they shimmered in the sun. He was always doing thoughtful things like that for her now.

Her heart clenched as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and stared at her surroundings. Just as every other time, the land was completely different than the one before it. This one was a world made of stairs that spiraled high into the clouds and deep into the earth. A deep amber glow permeated the wood so that the world looked as though lit by millions upon millions of candles.

Standing on the precipice, staring down into the bowels of infinite staircases, Baba experienced a moment’s sharp panic. What was this nightmare? And where the devil was Freyr?