Chapter One
I am running for my life, my feet clad in boots covered in mud and much worse things. My pants are threatening to slide down over my ass in what amounts to the worst clothing betrayal I can imagine in this moment. Pieces of wreckage act as obstacles I have to leap over like a goat. I give silent thanks to my previous misadventures for making me agile, because tripping right now would not only make me like the heroine of every single bad horror movie I have ever watched, it would be deeply embarrassing.
“Get around her on the left!”
“Cut her off!”
“Can’t you just lunge and grab her?”
“You fucking lunge and grab her!”
I hear a heavy sound behind me as someone lunges and fails to grab me. There’s no time to laugh, though a slight ‘ha ha’ escapes my lips between gasps for breath.
“She’ll tire soon enough. Keep her moving.”
That voice isn’t panicked, or consumed with the lust of the hunt. That voice is deep, calm, and completely in control. That’s the voice that scares me, more than any of the others that surround me in a cacophony of male prey drive.
This isn’t fair. If there were any goodness or chivalry in them at all, they should be my rescuers. They should be helping me. But there is no kindness in this wicked clan of men. The Vikar do not value mercy. I do not think they have a word for it.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see someone moving faster than I can, legs pumping at a speed that puts mine to shame. He has a longer stride, and I am already tired from trying to survive after getting through something that should have already killed me.
He keeps pace with me, this man with dark hair and scintillating blue eyes that catch the sky and reflect it back at me. I keep running, but my legs are tiring, my lungs are fatiguing, and I start to realize why the heroine falls down in horror movies. It’s because that is what happens when your body runs out of steam. You don’t lift your feet as high as you should and they catch on a tree root, a bit of uneven ground, or in my case, a rock.
It sends me tumbling head first onto the ground. I do a complete revolution, head over heels, before coming to a dizzy halt.
I am captive.
By the gods, I am going to be taken.
A rough, bloodied hand takes hold of my throat. I am dragged up from the ground, barely able to breathe. Both of my hands scramble at the one that has me by the neck, but they are ineffective.
Those shining blue eyes rimmed with dark lashes and filled with malefic intent gleam down at me.
“You gave us a good chase, but it’s over now,” he says. “So stop running, and stop fighting, unless you want to be hobbled and chained. You’re going to be roped one way or another, but we can keep that for the bedroom if you decide to be a good girl.”
I never thought I would encounter a real life Vikar warrior. These men are not like the ones I am accustomed to at home. Our men are heroic, stoic, and brave. They build and they protect. These creatures are entirely different beasts. They are raiders and warriors, brutal creatures with no conception of a conscience.
This man who has me is my moral and mortal enemy.
His underlings and subordinates surround us like slavering dogs hoping to be thrown a piece of the catch. Even if I were to somehow wriggle out of his grasp, I would immediately be set upon by vicious men.
I have been struggling to survive for days now. I am weak. I am hungry. Not for lack of food, I found plenty of that in the wreckage, but just because running really works up an appetite. Being hunted mercilessly takes its toll on a woman, but I still have fire in me. I kick out at my captor, a tall man with his raven hair in a braid, and a dark beard clipped relatively close to his chin. He is handsome in the way cruel men are handsome, with sharp, hunter-type features.
He stares down at me with icy eyes and my body reacts as though I am under a predator’s gaze. I want to tell him I never liked blue eyes on a man. There’s too much cold in them. There’s nothing resembling goodness in his. Just triumph. He thinks he’s caught his prey.
I keep both my hands on his one big paw and try to pry his fingers away. It doesn’t work at first, because he’s strong. He tightens his grip, and for a second I can’t breathe. I grab at him again, but this time I grab his little finger and yank as hard as I can. That works.
He makes a shrill sound and he drops me.
Fuck, yes.
I scramble away as fast as I can, but dozens of hands are reaching for me. They catch me again, and they hold me fast. Not by the neck this time though. This time they grab me by the arms and they put steel cuffs on to keep my hands behind my back. One man holds one arm. Another holds the other. I’ve no means of escape as the warrior who grabbed me first approaches me again.
“You’ve got a fighting spirit,” he says. “But I’ll break you of that. You’ll soon learn to submit.”
“You’ll need to set your finger first,” I say.
He laughs. I wasn’t making a joke, but he’s probably covering for pain. Sprains and breaks hurt like a bitch. I hope I broke it.
“You belong to us now, girl. Best you understand your place. Doesn’t matter who you were before now. Matters who you are here, now.”
‘Here’ is a crappy outpost on a wild world. I am dragged to the Vikar camp, a place clearly set up hastily and out of temporary structures. I wonder why they’re here, what they think this place has to offer them.
Unlike these beasts, I come from a beautiful place. I have seen vistas of nature and shining cities that bring tears to my eyes. This settlement is rough. There is no care for or interest in aesthetics. The dwellings are made from black corrugated metal alloys, lit red with electric cables that power the Vikar tech. The edges of the shelters, walls, even tables are sharp. Nobody’s bothered to fix the edges. That would take care and show compassion for their fellow men. They don’t want to do that. I guess it explains the patches on their leather attire, though. Everything these people are wearing looks scuffed and scarred, much like them. Aside from the man with the brutal smirk and a four-minute mile, this is a rough crowd.
“Get her processed, then bring her to me,” he orders. “Don’t touch her in any way other than is absolutely necessary. She’s mine, you understand?”
“Yes, Jarl,” the man now controlling me says.
“Good.”
Jarl Drako—I guess that’s his name—strides off into his trash camp, and I am left offended at the standard of building.
“Why don’t you roll the edges of this stuff?”
“You’re a prisoner of Jarl Drako. You’ve got better things to worry about than how we build our towns.”
“This passes as a town for you people? It’s barely a collection of hovels.”
“Spoiled Frayer girl,” he says, referring to the broad name of the people I belong to. The Vikar and the Frayer are technically the same. We’re both human. But that’s where our similarities end.
There are no pavements between the buildings, only paths made by heavy boots. I can’t imagine what this place looks like when it rains. The wreckage of my ship has more aesthetic appeal than most of these deliberately constructed places.
My captor takes me into one of the buildings. I’d like to say it’s a medical one, because a glaring red LED in the shape of an X is displayed crookedly over it. The interior contains rusty crates containing what might loosely be described as medical supplies. Vikar don’t really pursue medicine. From what I’ve heard, they pride themselves on dying of sepsis.
It sounds stupid, but that’s only if you don’t understand what they really value. These are warriors dedicated to death. Everyone else’s and then their own. They cherish killing and they eagerly await their own ends.
I don’t know why I am here. They’re not going to clean my wounds, I know that much. And they’re not going to take pity on me in any sense.
“Sit.”
When I do not immediately comply, they force me down onto a chair. An alcohol swab is swiped over the back of my neck, and a second later I feel a thick needle pushing something into the limited amount of flesh available there.
I cry out at the sharp pain, as a tracking chip is inserted into me, something that marks me as a slave to these men who are on a rampage. They will keep moving after this. They might take me with them, or they might leave me behind, but regardless, they will always know where I am.
“That’s your mark,” he says. “One you’ll never be free of. We’ll track you to the ends of this world and beyond if we need to.”
“Cool,” I tell them. “There’s just one problem.”
“And what’s that?”
“I’m already taken. I’ll never belong to any of you. So you can all go to hell.”
They look at one another, and then they start to laugh. It is a harsh, mocking sound.
“There’s nobody else left for you to belong to, stupid girl,” the crude warrior says. “I don’t know how you survived, but I can tell you now, nobody else did. You’re lost property, and Jarl Drako has claimed you for his own.”
“Is she ready?” Drako steps into the medical shack. I guess he decided to come find me rather than wait for me to be brought to him.
“She’s been chipped, Jarl. But she’s mouthy.”
“Leave us,” he says, waving the men away. They go, and it is just me and Drako, face to face in what passes for a medical center for these people.
“Nice trash town you’ve got here,” I say. “But usually, when you build out of garbage, the idea is to recycle it first.”
He smiles at me, his teeth flashing in a shark-like grin. “You’re already feeling better,” he says. “You recover quickly. Impressive, for a woman of your bloodline. Most of your kind would have chosen to die rather than be inconvenienced with trying to survive after a crash.”
“No, they wouldn’t,” I say. “Women of my bloodline are amazing, and you’d be lucky to lick the shoes of any of them.”
“Feisty too,” he deadpans. “But I am going to teach you some respect. I’m going to teach you a lot of things.”
“Like what?”
“Like take your clothes off. I want to see what I own.”
“You don’t own me,” I argue. I know he expects me to just submit, but fuck him. He doesn’t know me. We just met and…
He flips me face down over the table, yanks my loose pants down, and smacks my ass hard enough to make me squeal.
“That was so satisfying,” he says. “You really needed that.”
“I did not. I…”
Another hard slap lands. I’m half-scared he’s going to beat me awfully, but it’s just the two smacks I am forced to endure before I feel my cheeks parted by his big hands, and something hard and smooth pressing at my anal hole.
“What…”
“Relax and breathe,” he says. “It’s going to make this easier.”
He slides a slim dildo into my anus with what I have to say feels like a practiced touch. He lubes the shaft and works it into my butt in a way that feels almost more clinical than it does sexual. After all, if he wanted to ravage me, he has my pussy exposed too.
“We have a lot of ways of controlling wayward women,” he says. “Being headstrong runs in our bloodlines, so it’s often necessary to show a breeding wench her place. This helps.”
He clicks something, and the dildo starts vibrating intensely inside my butt. It doesn’t feel bad, it just feels… like a lot. I let out little gasps as he keeps me in place over the table quite easily with one hand on my back.
“This is going to make your pussy nice and wet,” he says. “And you’re going to beg me to fuck you.”
I am being pinned in place, my sex exposed, my ass punished, my entire being taken captive by a wicked jarl, and I am not sure what to do with myself.
I was not lying. There was someone who owned me, at least in the traditional sense of claiming me. According to all the laws of our people, I am being stolen in this moment, forced to perform for another conquering male. My wishes are irrelevant. My holes belong to him, and he is making very certain I know it.
I worked so hard to avoid this fate. Why do all roads seem to lead to being fucking owned?
[divider]Chapter Two
Mere weeks ago…
“It’s time you were married,” my sister says.
“It’s time you stopped talking about men,” I reply. “There are other topics. Most of them are more interesting.”
“Why don’t you let us introduce you to some of the new warriors,” Mila says, airily ignoring my objections to the topic of conversation. “There’s some quality on the street these days. Weltheim has grown, and the men are coming from all over the colonies to live here. There are soldiers, warriors, politicians…”
I make a gagging sound as she lists the many types of man I definitely don’t want. Soldiers get sent off to die. Warriors send themselves off to die. Politicians are the ones who send the soldiers. It’s a whole hierarchy of men mostly dying. I don’t need a man, and I will not be letting my sister set me up with anybody.
“She can do what she wants,” Freya sighs. She is our eldest sister. Usually the three of us look remarkably similar. We have round faces, blue eyes, and flaxen hair. Ruddy cheeks also run in the family, as do snub noses and wide gazes. As girls, we looked like nesting doll versions of one another. Now, things have changed a little, for the moment at least. Everybody is knocked up, except me. Mila is a few months along. But Freya is about to give birth any moment.
She stands up slowly, or tries to. The pregnancy has played hell with her hips. Sometimes they work. Quite often, they don’t.
She rocks back on her heels and ends up back on the chair she was trying to escape. I race over to offer my hands to help pull herself up. Her belly is throwing her balance off in all sorts of ways. She’s only a week or two away from giving birth, and we’ve all come home to help her with the new baby.
Right now there’s just the four of us here. Me, Mila, Freya, and Bjorn, Freya’s eldest. He’s two years old and thankfully napping. Whenever he’s awake, he’s destroying something. He can’t help it. It’s in the blood.
He’s about to lose his status as baby of the family. I know how he feels. I used to be the baby of the family, before my older sisters started adding to our numbers.
I help Freya over to the kitchen, where she’s insisting on cooking dinner on the old stone range right in the center of the longhouse. This place is so anachronistic. The houses around it are on smaller sections and are made of modern materials. But my father bought three acres of prime land next to the river when he was just a young man, and he built this house to woo my mom before they were married.
It’s been ages since I was here. The first time I got the chance to get out of town, I took it. I was seventeen and eleven months when I hopped on a truck heading to the countryside. There were too many men already starting to circle, putting their claim on me unofficially. I was going to be dragged up for selection at one minute past midnight on my birthday, and I was not going to have it.
If Freya hadn’t gotten pregnant, and if Mila hadn’t also gotten pregnant, I’d have stayed away longer. But one thing or another seems to drag me back. My father’s loss is still felt. My mother’s is too, but she passed not long after I was born, so I have no memory of her. My father was all the parent I ever had, and his absence rings hollow through the house.
I almost expect him to come walking in the front door, wrap me in a hug, and tell me I don’t have to do any of it if I don’t want to. Or I walk into the kitchen, and I expect to smell his specialty cake. But he’s gone, and new family members are arriving, and that is how life is.
For the last few months I have been off in the far lands, herding goats. It’s not glamorous, but it spared me the attentions of local warriors who would fight each other for the right to make me their wife. My plan is to stay in the longhouse with Freya until she gives birth, then go back to the goats before any men get the very silly idea of trying to marry me.
“Assuming what she wants is to be picked by a warrior and have his babies,” Mila says. “It’s time she grew up. She can’t run around in the fields with animals forever.”
“Ha fucking ha.” I scowl at my older sisters.
Freya is cool about it, because it’s her second baby and she’s always been cool about most things. Mila, on the other hand, is having her first baby, and she’s acting like nobody else has ever done it, and everyone should do it immediately. According to Mila, if you’re not currently having a baby, you might as well throw yourself in the river. And don’t get her started on me not being married. She’s married, naturally, as is Freya, as is practically every female in Weltheim City, because it’s basically mandatory in an unofficial sort of way.
In spite of Mila’s occasional obnoxiousness, I’m excited. I love babies. Bjorn came before I left, and getting to hold him when he was small is a memory I will always treasure.
Right now, all three of us are staying at the old longhouse, our family home. My father built it with his own hand when he brought my mother here as a very young man, and helped found the city. It’s hard to believe that all of Weltheim was developed in the last thirty or so years, but technology means progress is swift.
Freya needs our help because her husband is a soldier and as such has been sent off to do soldiering. He’s not even on the planet, which is fine because he’s pretty useless by all accounts when he is around anyway. Freya is five years older than me. I was thirteen years old when she was selected by Ragnar.
I was not impressed by him then, and I’m not impressed now. He should have gotten leave to come home. Pregnancy is a fairly predictable affair. Nine months, and all that. His poor wife shouldn’t be waddling about trying to fend for herself as well as Bjorn.
“I’m not going to run around with animals forever. At least not Earth animals,” I tell them. “I’m going to be selected for the next expedition. I’ll be in another solar system by the end of the month.”
My sisters roll their eyes at me, but while looking at each other. I don’t know why nobody in the family takes me seriously when I tell them I intend to be an interstellar sailor.
“You’re 5′5,” Freya says. “Have you seen the warriors who get to go off-world? There’s not one of them under 6′2, and that’s on the small side. You’re too small. And you refused to do any further education, so you won’t be qualified for scientific posts.”
“And you’re too small,” Mila adds, redundantly and unnecessarily.
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I don’t want to be a soldier. I want to go see wild places. I want to discover new worlds. And take goats there. And I’m going to try out for the mission regardless. They said anyone can try. It’s an open call. I’m anyone.”
Mila just smirks at me. She enjoys winding me up. The middle child is supposed to be the peacemaker, but Mila didn’t get that memo.
“Before you head for the stars, would you run out for me and get some bread?” Freya says. “I would have baked some, but I have to sleep so much more at the moment.”
“Of course,” I say. “I’ll go to the corner shop.”
“No, get the shuttle and go into the city. There’s a bakery that makes a special pregnancy bread. It makes me feel less nauseous.”
Freya can ask me to do literally anything and I will do it. I am the baby of the family and I’m supposed to be spoiled, but I guess a lot of familial memos got lost in our family. This is something a husband should really be doing, but I’m actually very glad both Mila’s and Freya’s husbands are currently elsewhere. It’s so nice to enjoy our family home as sisters again without loud, bearded men saying loud, bearded things.
Before I go out, I put on a shawl and head covering, just to try to stay out of the eye line of any stray men, in case Mila was right about a slew of eligible bachelors spying me and assaulting me with their many marriage offers.
I am dressed plainly compared to most of the women I see on the streets. They are wearing quite gorgeous dresses in myriad colors and wefts. I am wearing a skirt that covers pants, because I have spent the last year clambering through brambles and I’ll never trust a garment that doesn’t completely cover my legs again. You get a thorn in your you-know-where and you don’t forget it.
I stand out, I’m afraid. I feel as though I don’t belong here, in one of the nicest places in the world, and in several other worlds besides.
Weltheim was a spot on the side of the river when my father built the house as a young man. Now it’s a thriving city. When I step out of the fence line, I am almost instantly swept up into a crowd that is flowing toward the center. On either side of our pretty grassy section replete with trees and flowers, and the river flowing at the back, are apartment buildings that tower dozens of stories into the sky.
Our family has maintained a little slice of heaven in the middle of relentless development, and I am so proud of all of us for holding our ground. We get offers on the place all the time, but nobody can stomach the notion of the house that our father built being bulldozed to make room for a big box filled with hundreds of strangers. We still believe in his dream.
But the city has grown even more since I was last here. It feels like progress is swallowing the world up, almost like the city is an entity of its own, and its growth doesn’t really have anything to do with what we people want. It’s just what it was born to do.
We are Vikings, after all, and Vikings do two things. No, not those two things. We travel, and we build. Our society has stood the test of time, through eons of war. Our clan, the Frayer, is considered the most learned and advanced of the clans. Traditionally, our society was arranged around bloodlines, but it is too large to do that now. The Frayer contains millions of souls. But blood still matters, and that is why my father’s house still stands, and why everybody in this city owes something to our family.
Our greatest enemies are the Vikar. None are to be found in this city. They are a brutal clan of raiders who spend their days traveling from world to world, wreaking havoc on unsuspecting colonies.
Weltheim is regarded as one of the capitals of Frayer civilization. Our ferocity has been turned toward a conquest of the mind and of the material world. We think, philosophize, and build—weapons, actually. Quite a lot of them.
That’s the dirty little secret that a filthy goatherd like me would never be permitted to bring up in polite society. All this wealth around us is in large part built on the back of weapon sales. And who do we sell most of our shiny wonderful weapons to? Well. Best not to ask, isn’t it?
I used to romanticize the Vikar. I used to read books about them, and imagine how it must be to travel in vast spaceships, wreak havoc on civilized worlds, and be fearsome and terrible always. My father indulged my fascination, though he also told me that several wars had been fought between our clans, and that it would be best for me not to encounter them if I could help it.
As a grown woman, my fantasies have evolved. I imagine, sometimes, what it might be like to be taken by a rough, brutal lover who has no concerns for finery or height requirements. I’d never admit it to my sisters, but I do want a man. Maybe. Or maybe not.
I get onto the shuttle. It’s somewhat busy, full of brawny men with thick beards all oiled and well-trimmed, and hearty women of greater height. My mother was sick when she was pregnant with me, and I think she passed because she gave birth to me. They tell me that’s not true, but somewhere in my marrow, I know that it is.
Some say that’s why I’m small compared to an average woman. We’re Vikings. Most adults are six foot tall minimum. But they say there wasn’t enough strength in her body to grow me. I think it’s because I’m a different kind of woman. I was made to exist in the wilds, slink along with the stars, and generally avoid civilization.
I ride the several stops to the special bread shop and get off. There, I buy three loaves of the special bread so Freya won’t run out of it when everyone eats her bread by mistake, or Bjorn decides to stuff one of the loaves into the toilet. He truly is a feral little beast, and I love him for it.
On the way back, I think about selection for the away mission. There is one on the pad now, a voyage to the stars to explore and perhaps even settle a new colony. They are looking for men and women of strong body and sound mind. It’s not easy when most people have been married and are busy having babies to inhabit all the big buildings they keep putting up, so I think I am in with a chance.
My sisters don’t really believe I am going to go, but I am quite serious about trying. The selectors might reject me, but I have to at least try to get some kind of true freedom. My days in the countryside with the goats were pleasant, but I am too young to retire. I want to have adventures. I want to make something of myself, especially before I so much as think of having a baby.
I smell smoke when I get off the shuttle at my home stop. That’s strange. I’m used to smoke in the country, but it’s prohibited in the city. I pick up my pace as I hurry toward the house. The smoke thickens, and I hear sirens. Fire engines come racing past, each covered in big muscly men clinging to the exterior as they rush to put out the blaze.
“No!”
I cry out in dismay as I realize that the family home is on fire. The longhouse my father built is almost fully engulfed in flames. A crowd has formed on the sidewalk, which makes getting through it difficult. I elbow and curse my way through until I find Mila outside, holding Bjorn, who is crying his head off.
The traffic on the road is holding up the engines.
I don’t see Freya.
“Where is…?”
Mila points to the burning house. “Freya!” she cries out. “I couldn’t get her…”
I drop the special bread and sprint for the door. Mila probably only just got herself and Bjorn out, but if Freya couldn’t move because of her hips, she’s probably sitting in there… I can’t even begin to bring myself to think the rest of that horror.
I reach the door of the house, but just as I am about to enter, a massive hand grabs me by the back of my jacket and hauls me backward, throwing me away from the flames as if I weigh nothing more than a child’s doll. I tumble head over heels away from the longhouse as he dives into it.
Time slows down as I scramble to get up. I don’t know who he is, but I know he’s not my brother, and he’s not my father, which means he doesn’t love my sister as much as I do.
I try to follow him, but the heat being generated through the door is intense, and the smoke is billowing and there actually isn’t time. What feels like less than five seconds later, he is charging back out of the house, carrying Freya.
I chase after him as he runs her to the ambulance on the street. The medics are prepared for her with oxygen and a mask and a special blanket.
Bjorn is screaming for his mother as she is laid gently on a stretcher. She tries to sit up, but she is pressed back down again, and an oxygen mask is secured on her face. She looks okay, but I know that doesn’t mean anything necessarily. Fire is dangerous in so many ways.
I look at the man who rescued her, and who pushed me away from the fire. He is still standing next to the stretcher, having pulled off his respirator and shed his jacket. It looks like it has been melted a little in the flames. How did Freya survive? The gods must have been looking down on her.
The man is focused on her entirely. He has dark reddish hair, and brown eyes in which fire licks when he turns to glance at me. He’s handsome. But most men are. Being visually appealing doesn’t mean anything. The fact that I feel like I just got kicked in the gut when he makes eye contact with me might mean something, but there’s no time to think about that.
The medics start to load Freya into the back of the ambulance.
“Go with her!” Mila insists. “Don’t let them take her alone. I’ve got Bjorn. I’ll come after.”
She needn’t worry. I am not going to let Freya out of my sight.
“I’m coming with her,” I say, moving toward the stretcher and the ambulance. “I’m her sister.”
The medics don’t say yes, but they don’t say no either, which I think is the same as yes in this situation. I scramble into the back of the ambulance with the medics, and with the firefighter who saved her. It’s a tight fit as we take off for the hospital.
I keep silent to allow the medics to work on Freya. I take her hand and I hold it and I pray that she is going to be okay. The memory of the fire is seared into my mind. How quickly everything can be destroyed. All the work. All the love. All the life that was lived in that home. And now all I really care about is that Freya is okay.
The ride is not long. Seven minutes, and she is being wheeled away into the emergency room, and I am not allowed to follow. I find myself standing outside the hospital with the firefighter.
“What’s your name?” He speaks with a gruff tone that immediately puts my back up. I am not in the mood to be hit on right now.
“Oh, fuck off,” I say.
It’s already starting. He’s going to want to know who I am, and then he’s going to want to know if I’m married. I should have worn a fake ring when I went out to get bread.
He gives me a frown.
“I’m not interested,” I tell him.
“I’m not interested either,” he returns in a low growl. “But I need your name.”
“Why?”
“For the incident report.”
“Muffy Hoffbrau,” I say, giving him the name of the girl I didn’t like in kindergarten.
I step past him, intending on storming into the hospital. I did hear them say I couldn’t go in, and should wait in the waiting room for an update on her condition, but fuck literally everything about that. Freya doesn’t have anybody besides me right now, and if anything happens to her I won’t forgive myself.
That same hand from earlier grabs the back of my collar and yanks me back with the force of my own momentum.
“The hell are you doing?” I curse at him for stopping me.
“You’re not allowed to run into the emergency room. You’ll get in the way.”
“What’s your name?”
“Thor,” he says.
“Of course it fucking is,” I curse. “Let me go. I need to be with my sister.”
“They will call you when she’s stable enough to be seen. If you go in there now, you will be underfoot and will make everything worse.”
“She’s pregnant.”
“Exactly,” he says, giving me a slight tug, because he still hasn’t let go of me. I feel like Bjorn must when people are restraining him from one of his many excellent ideas. It’s frustrating as hell. Bjorn screams at the top of his lungs and bites when that happens. I’m actively considering both courses of action myself right now.
“She needs me.”
“She will be sedated,” he says. “She won’t even know you are there. Can I let you go, Muffy, or are you going to keep being a problem?”
“What do you think?”
He snorts.
“Let me go.”
“No.”
I try several methods to make him let me go. I try kicking him. That doesn’t work very well, or indeed, at all. I bite his arm. That makes him grunt.
“You’re a feisty little thing,” he observes accurately.
“Get the fuck out of my way,” I say, pushing past him one more time. This time he’s not stupid enough to grab me again. I have no interest in being dictated to by a man. He might have saved Freya, and I can apologize to him later if I feel like it. But right now I have to get to my sister.
Nobody in the hospital gets in my way, but they’re not exactly helping either.
“Freya!”
I call her name.
“Selene!” I hear her voice coming from one of the rooms in the absolute warren of a place. I follow that sound like it’s my own personal North Star. She’s not in the emergency room. They’ve wheeled her into the part of the hospital where they try to make it look slightly less hospital-ish with a mural of land spirits gamboling over rolling hills and forests. It reminds me of the lands where I tended my goats.
I find her in one of the birthing suites, a calm place with traditional music being played. The walls are painted a deep green, and there are several living plants in the room as well. It’s a nice place to give birth.
But my sister is not due for another week.
Freya is sitting up in bed. In the short time it took me to get past the firefighter and find her, they’ve managed to get her into a hospital gown and wipe away most of the smut from the fire. She still smells like wood char, but I notice there aren’t bandages. She wasn’t burned. That’s a miracle we will all be grateful for, for a very long time.
I rush to her side and wrap my arms around her. “It’s okay,” I tell her. “I’m here.”
“Selene,” she says, her voice racked with obvious pain as she utters my name. “It’s happening.”
“What’s happening?” I am asking perhaps the most stupid question possible.
A doctor enters the room at a quick stride. “The stress of the fire has triggered labor,” she says. “It’s time to welcome the little one.”
“Selene,” Freya says again, reaching for me. “I need you. Don’t leave me.”
She looks so stricken and so scared.
“They literally couldn’t make me leave you if they tried,” I promise her. “I’ll glue myself to you if I have to.”
She smiles a little at that. “I am serious,” I say. “I’ll nail myself to the floor. I’ll cement myself to the pipes. I’ll reincarnate as a hospital bed…”
“Okay,” she says. “I get it. You can stay as a person. Just don’t…”
“I’m here,” I promise her, just as a contraction makes her contort with pain.
This does not look like much fun.
I’ve helped goats have babies before. It doesn’t look like much fun for them either. There’s a lot of blood, bleats of pain, and pushing, a great and terrible effort on which life and death hang.
Freya grips my hand as tight as she can, so tight I’m not sure I’m going to get that appendage back. I don’t mind. She can have it.
I knew I needed to be here. Everything in my gut and the rest of my body besides told me to follow after her. I can’t imagine what it would have been like if I was making polite conversation with a bulky firefighter, or sitting in a waiting room right now.
Humans have a much harder time than goats, I learn. Freya is like a warrior, sweating, pushing, gasping for air at times.
My eldest sister is an absolute beast. Over the next two hours, she shows me that she is so much more than I ever understood her to be. She stops being the person I knew and becomes a portal for life itself. There is blood. There are tears. There are cries. I am in awe as she performs a miracle for the second time.
The moment I hear her daughter cry, I feel a chill run across me and through me. This is a moment like no other. The mundane is stripped away and I am given an understanding of life in a way that I have never experienced before, and may very well never feel again.
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