The Magic Queen (16 page)

“Obviously,” his deep voice purred.

He was ugly as homemade soap right now, but even so, that voice of his made her shriveled-up nipples tingle.

Rolling her wrist, she toyed with an aqua leaf. The gorgeous gown he’d crafted for earlier was still on, but it no longer looked quite as pretty on her. Crone form wasn’t kind to clothing, which was why she usually just wore sackcloth and called it good.

“Then why do you allow the legends to persist?” he asked, seeming genuinely curious.

She shrugged a single shoulder. “Good for business to assume I really am that badass, I suppose.”

His pretty eyes sparked. “I saw you fight today, witch. Stories or no, you really are that badass.”

She grinned and he shook his head with a look of transfixed horror. “Less smiling, please.”

She snorted. The male was taking great delight in reminding her of her ugliness. Though in a contest of who looked worse, she’d be hard pressed to say she would win.

“And you, did you really sleep with your sister?”

There were stories about him too, like he’d slept with Freya. Gods being gods and all that, incest was hardly an uncommon crime. And though it was normally none of her business who stuck his cock where, the thought of him sticking it into his own sister made her stomach curdle.

Baba was hoping he’d say no. So when he wiggled on his seat and gave her a cringe-worthy grimace, her heart sank to her knobby knees.

She stuck out her tongue and gagged. “You really are depraved, Fellatio.”

Growling, he flicked a pebble at her head, which she easily swatted away. “The story isn’t exactly what you think it is. I was young, randy, newly born, and wanting sex.”

“None of this inspires confidence in me, male,” she snipped.

“Will you just wait, shrew.” He sighed. “I kissed Hel. And she teased me for it, said I’d slobbered all over her and that I was spectacularly—her words—a bad kisser. Freya heard about the teasing. Word gets around in our pantheon at the speed of light.”

She snickered, imagining a young and horny Freyr being teased as a bad kisser. For a fertility god, that must have been his absolute worst form of hell. “I can believe it.”

“She was instructing me on the art of kissing. We weren’t even touching lips. She was simply showing me how a woman liked to be kissed when Loki walked in.” His cheeks blazed crimson as he blushed, and that sight was more adorable than words.

Holding up her hand, feeling ridiculously soft and mushy inside, she tried to hide it by teasing him. “Well, now you’ve gone too far. At least I was only accused of eating children. How disgusting you are.”

“Oh shut up, you.” He flicked another pebble at her. “As if having sex with one’s own sister is the lesser crime. I’d say eating babies definitely qualifies as vile.”

Turning to look into the fire, Baba thought about Phlegm Probably all the talk of eating babies made her think of her own puke-green one. She’d not thought of him once since arriving at this place, which probably made her a bad mother.

She knew that Aphrodite was taking care of the child well. The Goddess of Love had a natural soft spot for children of any breed. A frown tugged at her lips as she wondered what Freyr would think when he learned of Phlegm.

She’d committed to raising that child as her own and had no intention of reneging on that commitment. She glanced at him. And once again, he seemed to know that she’d been thinking of him. He was already looking right back at her.

“Your thoughts are heavy. Why?”

“I have a child.” She blurted it out because if she hadn’t rushed through it, she wouldn’t have had the courage to tell him at all.

“You mean someone was actually desperate enough to mate with you looking like this?” He waved a hand up and down in front of her.

And the nerves that’d begun to settle in disappeared in an instant.

“You make me stabby sometimes, idiot.”

He winked. “Ah, but you love me.”

She felt her spine go taut. He’d hit a little too close to the truth. She slowly worked her way up to her feet. This body wasn’t near as nimble as her other one.

“Do you have friends, Baba?” he asked seriously, seriously enough that her natural inclination to brush him off and laugh vanished.

Instead, she answered as seriously as he’d asked. “A few. My familiar, Balthazar.”

His lips twitched. “You would have a snake as a friend.”

She stuck out her tongue but smiled because that hadn’t seemed like a put-down. “I’ve also got my faithful servants. Black, Red, and White.”

He sat straight up, eyes going wide as he breathed, “The horsemen?”

That’s what she liked about Freyr: he knew without her even needing to clarify anything. “Yes, the horsemen of the apocalypse. They are my sister and brothers.”

He scrubbed fingers across his lightly stubbled jaw, and even hideous as he was, her heart trembled at how easy everything felt between them.

“So you know Death?”

She grinned. “I’m intimately familiar with him. He too is my brother. We were all born of the spirits.”

A soft look crossed his face, and she suddenly found it hard to breathe.

“You’re amazing, Baba Yaga.”

Nibbling on her lip and feeling as though she might combust from the pleasure of his compliment, she didn’t know what to say. She reached for something random instead.

“Did you hear what Fiera said today?”

His eyes sobered. “That someone died, yes.”

She sighed deeply. What would she do if she lost Freyr? He was a god and very difficult to kill. But not impossible. Freyr had told her once that Themis, Aphrodite, and Calypso were smart. And they were. So what were they thinking by allowing the games to take a turn for the savage? Baba put herself in their shoes, trying to think as they would. Why would they really allow the queens to kill? Especially when Themis had said no killing...

And then the light bulb turned on. This was a game and not just a game of pitting combatant against combatant. This was a chess match to the goddesses, a game of moves and countermoves. What if no one had really died? What if they only wanted them to believe it was true? Wouldn’t that add a sense of urgency to the games for everyone else? And though a thread of fear still wormed its way through her stomach, Baba decided to believe that all wasn’t quite what it seemed.

She flicked a glance at Freyr, and her heart trembled. On the off chance that death had been real, Baba was going to do everything she could to protect him.

“I’m off to bed. I’m exhausted.”

Sighing loudly, he nodded before gingerly making his way to his feet. His gait was cumbersome as he waddled toward her, loosely hanging onto his side where he’d been hit with the fiery bolt. She’d used a healing spell on him earlier too. She grinned crookedly. Unlike her, he could return to his beautiful form whenever he wanted. That he kept himself this way made her feel stupidly happy.

Crawling into their tent wasn’t easy. Her bones creaked and groaned, and his wide girth took up most of the room inside. They’d still managed to wrap themselves around each other somehow. But a layer of his fat pressed down on her hip, turning it numb.

“Scoot over, tubby.” She swatted at him.

Laughing, he said, “I can’t. I’m enormous. Deal with it. Just like I have to deal with a face that would kill Death all over again.”

Pressing her face into his chest, she rolled her eyes but couldn’t help laughing. His fingers played along her withered shoulder blade, and she was lulled into that gray zone between awake and asleep, absolutely content for the first time in forever when she softly heard him say, “I never did thank you for saving me today. Witch, you are a true badass, and it’s been a pleasure getting to know you.”

She didn’t think it would be possible to fall asleep after that, but somehow, she did.

~*~

Freyr

He was going to do it. They’d lain side by side all night, and he’d finally accepted the reality of what was happening to him. True, she was hideous in this form. But that desiccated shell was merely a mask because beneath that form was the woman who drove him mad. She made him crazy with more than lust. He liked her. No, it was more than that. He was falling madly in love with his witch. And there was only one way to prove it to her.

He was going to kiss her and not as his morbidly obese self, but as the ravishing god no woman could resist. He was going to kiss those shriveled up lips and let her know she was
it
for him. Transforming into his more natural form, he breathed a sigh of relief and then rolled over, ready to take the plunge when his eyes widened, and he let out a yelp of startled surprise, rousing her instantly.

“Freyr? What is it?” She blinked the sleep from her eyes, looking all adorable and confused.

“You’re not ugly anymore!” He squeezed her tight, sliding his leg between hers and rocking his hips so that she could feel the raging hard-on he sported and had been sporting even before he’d realized she’d changed.

Her lips wobbled, and she briefly glanced down at herself. “Huh. Will you look at that? Great. Now let’s please go back to sleep, you silly moron.”

He shook his head, determined more than ever to kiss her. But not now. He’d sort of ruined the moment by waking her up. He was going to consume this woman, but she was wearing a look of adorable irritation, and he knew it was probably better to let the little minx get her rest before he found himself missing one of his family jewels.

Leaning over her, his lips brushed the shell of her ear as he whispered hotly, “You called me Freyr.”

Moss green eyes held him enraptured as her mouth curved into a tiny “o” of shock.

He smirked. “I’m wearing you down, love. It’s only a matter of time before you beg for it.” He bumped her with his cock again, delighting in the slow spread of pink that traveled up her creamy swan’s neck.

Her eyes turned soft, and her body yielded beneath his completely. If he really wanted to, he knew he could take her now
. Not just yet
. The idea of making this powerful, sexy woman beg for it had him weak in the knees.

“Never.” Her word was a husky drawl that sent shivers up his spine.

Pressing a tender kiss to the corner of her mouth, until his lips tingled, he murmured, “If you say so, female.”

Then rolling over, he closed his eyes and pretended to sleep. His smile grew wide as he heard her toss and turn for the next several hours.

~*~

Aphrodite

“You turned her into the crone!” Themis squealed, balling her fists at her sides and giving Calypso a long-suffering sigh. “Why?”

But Calypso only smiled and pointed back to the screen. “Two reasons. One, everyone knows I take care of my family. And two, it worked, didn’t it?” She smiled sweetly.

Themis shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Yes, but you didn’t know it would.”

Aphrodite held up her finger. “Oh, actually, she totally did. C’mon, Justice, you know she was right. If Freyr can admit that he loves her when she looks like that, then it’s gotta be true love.”

Themis, who Dite thought might someday grow exhausted by their antics and decide to no longer be their friend, finally gave a soft giggle. “You guys don’t make it easy on me, do you?”

Both Caly and Aphrodite tossed an arm across her shoulder and squeezed.

“Yeah, but you love us?” Calypso nodded.

“
Grr
.” Themis growled.

And Aphrodite chose to believe that was a yes.

When she and Caly had gone to Freyr, Aphrodite had been following nothing more than a deep-seated instinct. Icharus, upon first meeting him, had hit all the right notes for Baba’s future mate: blond hair, blue eyes, kind of disposition. But always, there’d been a soft thread of misgiving there too.

She and Caly had teased that poor Ich wouldn’t know what hit him with the witch, but the truth was Baba hadn’t needed kindness. She’d needed fire. She’d needed Freyr.

Though Freyr had been a last-minute addition to the games, Aphrodite knew that Love had found its true mark this time. Baba and Freyr were a fated match.

Freyr already knew it. And Baba was almost there.

She’d never tell Caly this, but of all the couples they’d matched up, Freyr and Baba were definitely becoming her new favorite.

Chapter 10

Baba Yaga

Baba kicked out her feet lazily, watching as the water rippled prettily in the noonday sun. Freyr had risen not too long after her, saying he meant to search this deserted land once more for food. She knew he’d find nothing, but she’d let him leave anyway. Something had told her he’d wanted the space and some time to think. She had too.

Squinting as she stared at the cloudless sky with nary a bird winging through it, she realized something rather startling. This place was horrid, the food was foul, her bed garbage, and still, she was content

Here in this place she didn’t have to be Baba Yaga, the witch who’d eat your children if they acted up. The witch who, with a look, could send you straight to the Underworld, never to be seen again. The witch whose voice alone could render one senseless. In this place, she was simply Baba, a woman who laughed and smiled and couldn’t believe that she could do so.

Not that she was opposed to laughter or gaiety. There’d simply never been much to be gay about in her life. Always, she was on one mission or another or hearing petitions from those brave enough to approach her shrieking shack and ask the witch’s advice.

Freyr did not fear her. At no point had he feared her. True, he was a god and likely not in the business of fearing much. But much of her reputation had truly been earned. Baba never felt much in the way of remorse when it came to handling her business without sentiment muddying the waters. She’d killed. She’d feasted on the bones of her enemies—though never a child’s. She practiced the black arts and danced nude beneath the light of a full moon, chanting to the darkness that lived and breathed in the beyond.

She’d done it all and felt not a prickle of remorse for any of it. She still didn’t, honestly.

But Freyr seemed okay with that. Baba had come against gods in her past. As long-lived as she was, of course she’d gone toe to toe with a few. The fact that she still stood and breathed said something about the mettle of her character. She wasn’t a creature to be trifled with.