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To have her so close, hesitating like this; it wakes a strange calm in me, hollowing out my chest, as though we had both stepped onto this road and recognised that it was always our path, this bond something we would always have to grapple with.
leaves.
Sleep, elskan mín, he told me, so I turned and asked what it meant. And he smiled that lazy smile of deepest satisfaction and said, it means my darling.
I try to project myself there, up into that darkness where a woman with sharp teeth told me she did not fear God. She knows the truth. Though she has tucked it deep inside herself, she knows her own worth.
“It’s a strange god that must birth himself a second time,” Thrain rumbles. “Perhaps he knew he would not be entirely real until he was birthed by a woman.”
“Don’t get too comfortable,” Ivar reminds us a little too pointedly. “We have to be ready to respond to any attackers. And though I hear the Picts fight naked, I’m not sure Thrain has enough practise with that sort of thing –” “Gods, you never stop, do you?” Thrain growls at him while the others roar with laughter.
Thrain stews over his thoughts as he braids my hair, tucking unspoken things into each coil.
Where Thrain is crushing and irresistible, Ivar is all sharp edges and stings of pleasure, and Olaf… he is solemn, leading me on, controlling the pace.
Earth and blood and sex. That is what she tastes of. I close my eyes as it sparks along my tongue, down my throat, glittering with ancient wisdom like the water from Mimir’s well. It trickles down each vertebrae until it reaches my hips, tightening every strand of muscle in me, until I want to glut myself on it just for this, this sensation, my body stretching and roiling as though transforming into something else – something bigger, hairier, with more teeth.
A sound emerges from her chest, a rumble that eases everything, like loving fingers running through my hair. It throbs against me, whispering it’s all right, it’s all right. It eases, comforts, throws a silken blanket over the jagged surge of my aggression. She’s purring. I turn back to her, nuzzle her neck mutely. Scenting her, I find only the musky honey of her desire wrapped in the vivid red scent of life itself, no fear to be found at all. We can share, that purr promises. You’re mine – all mine.
She lavishes me with her laughter, her screams, the way she takes my name and weaves it into a shining spell, makes it sacred in her mouth.
So this… this is what it’s like. To be planted deep in the centre of all things. Deliriously, I think of shrines in the hollows of ancient trees. I’ve come to bestow my offering to her in the same way, fitting a sacred stone into slick, glittering grooves. Her pleasure rings in my ears like consecration as she takes it. I’m blind. Speechless. This is a deep, ancient place, the dark depth that bears all secrets of life. A heavy thrum welcomes me, her heartbeat synched with mine. Everything is black, thrumming, thrumming. Goddess. To be within her… is ecstasy.
I will mark her as proof of my piety. Claim her as my goddess. And she will mark me as her own. Like the land wights burrowed in the nooks of the trees they inhabit, I shall be her creature, endure the seasons with her, call the bark of her skin my home.
I make my many offerings until the salt of our bodies covers her inside and out. There can be no mistaking my belonging to her now; our scents are combined in a carnal and obscene bouquet.
Their refusals earlier wounded me. They held themselves away and rejected me. Why would they do that, when I have everything to give them? I have so much to give them. It hurts to hold it all in my arms, no place to put it down, no one to share it with.
It was a reckoning. A girl bearing down on five grown men and getting the better of them. So many times I have wished for the same power that men have; the right to violence, the right to anger. The right to take and take without guilt. To devour.
We all bear the aftertaste of her godhood on our tongues. We know we are hers; I can see it in my brothers’ eyes, the same afterglow I feel. Olaf is trying to hide it, but even on him it is apparent. We were all scorched raw by her, and now, now…
“We thought we knew everything about them. And we thought that made us their masters.”
Anticipation gathers in the air like the tightness before a storm, the smell of rain when the first drops fall.
Then I see the tremor in her hand as she leans against the doorway to step down. And she is herself again; the one I bathed this morning, the one who curled up against me and trembled like a newborn filly in the aftermath of her own wrath.
She is both things. The terrifying goddess and the uncertain, frightened girl. How can a woman manage to be both? How does she manage it in her head?
I open my mouth to speak, but it isn’t necessary; everything has been said. She knows I have chosen to do this out of loyalty to her. Out of love. She comes to me and winds her arms around me, burrowing her face in my chest, pulling me against her. I bury my nose in her hair, scenting her familiar musky honey, the weight in me turned light as feathers.
I feel too much for him; too much, too much. Words are too round and blunt to express it. Teeth are better suited.
“Just promise me you’ll be honest with me,” I urge him. “Promise me that. I’m yours, first.”
I’m tired of demanding things. Of desiring things. My desires feel too big, too heavy; they drag at my feet.
“I don’t understand how things like this can be lost to time,” I mutter. “Well, it’s all the will of the storyteller. Omit, erase and rephrase until the details you most fear can be lost.”
“Oh, women everywhere are the same. None of you will admit your appetites, but when you’re set loose, it’s absolute chaos.”
“Mm,” Ivar purrs. “You did rather tire yourselves out last night.” Thrain twitches beneath me and sighs in annoyance. “Would it serve any purpose at all if I asked you to not bring it up all the time?” “No. I’m going to bring it up as much as I want. In fact I may compose a song about it.” “Freya save us,” Thrain grunts. He grumbles something else but it gets lost in his drinking horn.
Then he groans into my tangled hair, and I feel him pulse out his hot silky offering, flooding my belly with its warmth.
Gods, why does she smell of home? A home I have never known, a home more familiar still than mine?
“When I left Norway, I was a young man,” I tell her. “I left with my mother. We arrived on the northern coast of Ireland, and the life we lived there was not a simple one. Shortly after we arrived, she discovered she was with child.” I try to ignore the heaviness in my chest as I go on stroking her hair. “She asked me to pick a herb for her, because she knew it was not the right time.” “Thrain.” She looks fervently compassionate as she meets my gaze. It is not the gaze of a confused girl; she knows exactly what I’m talking about. “I just wanted to let you know,” I mutter. “If you need me to
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“What do you want to do?” she asks at length. The answer to that has been lodged in me since the beginning, since she welcomed me into her nest and twined her body around mine. “I want everything,” I whisper. “I want to be with you. To claim you. To keep the child, whatever the destination.” She breathes in and holds it. I take her face in my hands, kiss her eyelids, her forehead, the salt on her lips.
“I love you,” I whisper. “There is no point in me hiding that any more. But if you don’t want the same, if you don’t feel the same…” I try to get the rest out. I will respect your wishes. But my throat has grown tight and I don’t want her to hear it.
She makes a small pained noise. Then she kisses me, huffs against me, as though she can no longer form words and is pressin...
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That is perhaps what a daughter’s love is; caring even after the one you love spites you, calls you cursed, tells you that you are what is wrong with the world. You can try and fold yourself into a good girl as much as you like, it will not earn you their love in return.
Thrain. Who sees me, all of me, and wants me anyway.
This – this is what I want. This is all I want. This softness, this deep communion. My roaming fingers find the creases of his brow, the wetness that lines his eyelashes. I kiss him there too, tasting salt.
We’re both losing our minds – his lips, the texture of them, surely God must’ve spent a whole day of Creation refining the curves of the mouth – there is nothing, nothing like it.
“I have wanted you since I first laid eyes on you.” His fingers are working the knots that hold my shift together at my shoulders. In a flick of the wrist, they come apart. “I’m sure, Tamsin.”
till the old songs slip from between my teeth again.
There is something dark and ancient and wild within her, and it fascinates me.
He finally glances up at me. The gaze we share across my naked body is eloquent indeed as he kneels there at my feet, the great wolf of Dublin tamed and docile.
“You’re mine,” I whisper. “Yes,” she rasps at me. “And you’re mine.” Gods, for her to put words to it rather than carnal intention – “Say that again,” I beg her, feeling myself swell to my limit. “You’re mine.”
“How did you come to accept it?” she asks. “That your home did not want you?” I can hear the quiet despair in her tone. I breathe out slowly. “I had to. It wasn’t in my hands.”
“You find other things to pursue,” I tell her, holding her close. “You find other people to belong to.”
There is something savage and ancient in blood, how it hearkens to a distant chaotic past, long-lost ancestors sealing their pacts with scarlet palms pressed together.
