AN: Freyja came to me as some kind of adorably indomitable demimondaine. Iwaldi is just my asshole father lol


Part 7


Mother Dearest,

I hope this letter finds you with a glass of wine in your hand

and a certain Lord at your feet! I have taken another appointment

in service to the Crown again and the work has kept me so

busy that I've decided to cancel my residence at the Academy.

If you would consider returning from your stay on Alfheim early,

I have some some momentous news to tell you that is best

shared in person.

Give my regards to Uncle Freyr and Aunt Gerda.

Your loving daughter,

Sigyn signed off her name with a flourish of crosses. She released a steady sigh through pursed lips as another headache began to throb at her temple, sending a wave of faintness through the roots of her unbound hair. Her hand dropped absently to her stomach as she stared out over the balcony of the solar. From here a golden vista shimmered atop hundreds of gleaming spires that ascended to the palace, in a way that almost banished her fears to the shadows.

Aside from the bouts of nausea, Sigyn was beginning to take comfort in the constant thrum of heartbeats that kept her company. But there was also something more. A spark of awareness tingled along her veins, alerting her to Loki's approach before she heard or saw him.

Her lips had pulled into a smile before she felt his hand clasp her shoulder.

'Fortunate you did not mistake my touch for an enemy,' remarked Loki behind her when she rested her cheek on his long fingers.

'I knew it was you.'

'Oh?'

Since Sigyn and Loki's blood had wed in her womb, a sense for the remnant of her blood in him had lit like a distant lantern. 'I think … our connection grows with the child,' Sigyn suggested as Loki reclined beside her. She stared down curiously at the blue rivers branching beneath the pearly skin of her upturned wrists. 'I have this … sensation, when you're near.'

'I've heard pregnancy can enhance a woman's sorcery most mysteriously.' His lips twitched with smug amusement. 'I think it would be prudent to explore my ability to give you sensations from afar.'

Despite herself, she arched one brow. 'For academic purposes?'

'Precisely.' Loki slid closer and pulled the leaf of parchment toward him, inspecting the still-drying script with a nod. 'Do you think she'll enjoy the surprise?' he queried.

'Very much so,' confirmed Sigyn sardonically, before adding, 'Provided it's framed the right way.'

He flashed a winsome grin. 'Framing is in my purview.'

'Thank the Norns.' Sigyn anxiously twisted the quill in her fingers. 'Can you help me rewrite our story?' she asked abruptly.

His brows creased. 'Whatever do you mean?'

'My mother will want a titillating account of the game I played. How I manoeuvred my way into court and bewitched your interest. She'll want to savour tales of times I toyed with your heartstrings.'

Sigyn may be powerful and passionate, but she was far from the heartbreaking seductress her mother raised her to be. Her most ambitious trysts, Freyja conducted strategically unprotected. Each of her well-bred daughters was a trophy to the temptress's talents, and a carefully considered investment in the family's wealth.

It only took Loki a moment. 'Your plot took years to play,' he spun. 'When I needed healing after battle, you took the opportunity to administer a rare potion that could turn a Prince's eye powerfully enough for him to defy the laws of royal marriage. You convinced the All-Mother of your innocence – until she died, and then you initiated your pursuit; placing yourself in a location I frequented. The effect of the potion was still potent enough that I was powerless to resist your charm, but had diminished enough that I suspected nothing ...'

Loki trailed off at the sight of tears clouding Sigyn's eyes. 'What? Too close to the truth?'

She nodded into her hands and broke into a sob. Her emotions were fluctuating like the weather lately, sometimes turning through numerous seasons in a day. One that never left her, though, was guilt.

He coiled an arm around her waist, pressing her tender temple to his shoulder. He was growing more accustomed at this kind of intimacy now. Indeed, under the cover of darkness, something of an addiction was forming. Sigyn often woke to feel herself being dragged back into his arms from wherever she'd rolled in her sleep. Loki was realising the benefits too, of having the object of his affections within reach when he stirred from slumber burdened with need only she could relieve.

'The best lies sit beside the truth,' he murmured against her ear and reached up to stroke her hair. 'It gives them credibility; makes them easy to believe.'

'It's brilliant,' Sigyn admitted in a muffled sniff.

'It's my lie,' he absolved her. 'And if it pleases Lady Freyja, what's the harm in it?'

She scoffed. 'Losing my soul.'

'It's not lost. It's mine.'

Sentiment stilled her then, a dark smile shadowing her lips. 'It's only fair.'

Loki beheld her for a long moment, his stare drawn into honey-sweet eyes that simmered with shared secrets, until her lashes fell like a veil.

'One more thing,' she asked, pushing herself up off his shoulder. 'Can you … hide my scar? Til after the wedding.'

Loki savoured the brand his blade had made on her cheekbone with a fond gaze. 'Not a minute longer.' He brushed his thumb over the mark, erasing it with an illusion.


Sigyn's mother did not delay, and within two days Freyja was embracing her on a high sunny terrace of the palace.

She stepped back and held her at arm's length, appraising her appearance with maternal scrutiny. 'You look healthy, Sigyn,' she remarked, barely containing her surprise. 'Radiant. Good to see you out of all that black for once!'

This was high praise from the enchanting goddess. As for her, titian hair tumbled around a voluptuous figure swathed in an apricot gown, which complemented her peaches and cream skin now beginning to wither around her sumptuous pout and the creases of her coquettish eyes.

Warmth seeped into Sigyn's smile. 'You're going to need to sit down for this, Mama.' She gestured to one of the benches around a table set with afternoon tea. She nestled close to her mother, taking her manicured, bejewelled hands into her own. 'I've received a proposal,' she shared.

Freyja beamed for her. 'And who is this lucky victim?'

'The King.'

Her mother's grasp seized her hands in a painful grip. The news left Freyja's mouth agape and her tawny golden gaze aglow with pride. 'I apologise for any hope I reserved on you. You may have been a late bloomer, but you've outdone all my expectations, daughter. A King of Asgard … what a glorious achievement for our family. I'm so proud.'

Sigyn bit down on the inside of her smile. If her mother only knew the subjugation that had achieved it, she would be far less impressed.

Freyja ladled sugar into her steaming teacup. 'All these assassination attempts,' she disparaged with a tisk. 'Don't kill what you could control with a kiss. The Nine can trust a daughter of mine to temper a ruling hand.' Her mother nodded sagely.

'Tell that to Lo',' Sigyn muttered of her stubbornly protective younger sister.

'Don't mind Lofn.' She waved off her worries airily. 'If she speaks out of turn she will promptly be corrected for daring to doubt her sister's capabilities. Now –' a conspiratorial grin danced on her painted lips. 'A King does not often choose a handmaid for his Queen. How did you do it? Tell me everything. Spare no detail.'

A grin breaking out on her face, Sigyn took hold of her mother's hand as it reached for a pastry and brought it to her belly instead.

'An heir?' Her eyes rolled closed. 'Norns above, now you're just overachieving darling.'

'Two,' Sigyn added.

'Twins?!' Freyja was apoplectic. 'What a blessing,' she mused faintly, overcome with joy. 'What a blessing ...'

Sigyn was relieved to feel Loki nearby at that moment.

'We'll continue the tale later,' uttered her mother cannily as she sighted the King over Sigyn's shoulder when he emerged from an archway, and rose to greet him with a curtsey.

Sigyn watched as Loki took in her mother's shining eyes. 'Lady Freyja,' he welcomed her in a croon, reaching for her hand. 'I have so much to thank you for.'

'You are most welcome, Your Majesty,' Freyja indulged as he dropped a kiss on her knuckles. 'My Sigyn has waited many years for a suitor worthy of her gifts. But I'm sure you'll understand – time is of the essence, considering her condition. The wedding will need to be timed with discretion, before she begins to show,' she advised.

'I assure you my Lady, I share your impatience. Shall we sit?'

Loki joined them at the table, flicking out the tails of his surcoat as Freyja gracefully poured him a cup of tea. 'Will Prince Thor be returning for the wedding?' she enthused.

Loki feigned a regretful tilt of his brow. 'Sadly, no. He is unable to abandon his current commitments on Midgard. I've sent word to him, asking for his blessing.'

Sigyn suspected he had done no such thing.

'In that case,' continued Freyja, 'there's another concern that bears acknowledging. I think it will be wise to discuss a plan for Sigyn's father.'

Sigyn's mouth fell open but a response stuck in her throat, and she searched her mother's eyes for an answer.

Her father was another matter altogether. Iwaldi commanded Vanaheim's armed forces – currently waging an insurgency against the ruling Realm since the chaos of the Convergence. Sigyn's marriage to the King of Asgard was hardly going to broker peace between the warring Realms. Every autumn during her formative years, Sigyn had been sent to live with Iwaldi's family on Vanaheim. Their bond was just as complicated.

As the years passed, her father's doting had crumbled from the crust of a volcanic temper, always churning beneath the surface of his stoic charisma. The smallest missteps – real or imagined – could set off the eruption of black rages that drove him to day-long tirades around the keep that left Sigyn rocking on her bed, chewing her fingernails to the quick and too afraid to leave her room to check on the welfare of her younger half-sisters, Hnossa and Snotra. He had the honour never to lay a hand on them or his waifish wife – though he was sure to remind her that he could, that he should ...

Each spring Sigyn returned to Asgard a little less sane, a little more hidden in shadow. Now she wondered how much she had inherited of his darkness; how much her own cruel streak had hardened in the forge of his brutality. The claws that Frigga once so feared and now so fascinated Loki. As Sigyn's reverie circled the drain of her virtue, slender fingers slid around her immobile hand at the distant sound of her name.

Loki's eyes were peering into her vacant stare, and she refocused on him with a jolt, becoming aware that her whole body had stiffened with tension in her absence.

'Are you alright?'

'Really Sigyn, don't fret,' her mother chimed. 'I'm sure it can be managed with some kind of arrangement.' She prodded a prompting look at the King.

Loki's gaze had narrowed. 'Forgive me, Lady Freyja – but could you enlighten me as to the man's identity?'

'Why, Iwaldi is Commander of the Vanir Military.'

Loki's teeth bared in a stunned smile. 'I was not aware of this ... intriguing complication.' He flicked Sigyn a glance and she wilted in her seat.

'Do we have to invite him?' she offered uneasily.

Freyja cast her daughter a scandalised glare. 'Well of course, he's your father! What would the court say! Certainly with a tactful discussion, he'll come to see the potential of your and King Loki's alliance.'

The glint in her mother's eye was not so much blind optimism as opportunism. Likewise, Loki had withdrawn into his thoughts, eyes shifting with cunning calculation like cards shuffling in a deck before he redrew his hand.

'We'll devise an approach,' he decided finally.

After Loki took his leave to chair a late council meeting, Sigyn strolled the parapets in-arm with her mother until the sun sank in the horizon and dusk drowned the sky. Freyja nattered eagerly about wedding planning, each idea more grandiose than the next. Meanwhile, Sigyn mulled on her father's split ideal of honour against the principles manoeuvred by Loki; between the values that had been espoused by Odin and those Frigga followed.

Taking a wider view of her valour, she recognised that monarchs set their own rules. By Loki's side, it would be Sigyn's turn.


'Traitor.'

The accusation echoed in the bedchamber with sinister sonority. Loki circled Sigyn like carrion coming in to land.

'Why didn't you tell me?'

Her already-skittish heart seized. She gaped up at him as he squared on her. 'I didn't think -'

Sigyn was not sure the moment when the intensity she took for betrayal in his glare boiled over into fiendish glee. Loki whirled her around and pushed her against the wall, knocking a gasp from her lungs as he snared the lengths of her hair in a fist pinned against the stone above her head.

The restraint sedated her instantly. But a sharp kiss of steel at her throat sent a perverse surge of heat between her thighs.

'You didn't think it mattered? Our Realms are at war. Are you truly so enthralled to me your treachery didn't occur to you?'

His words fell like snow on fire. Sigyn failed to suppress a whimper as that eternally insatiable ache squirmed down her chest and coiled heavily in her hips. Politics and patriotism were nothing compared to this man's flesh warming hers, beguiling her blood with decadent damnation. She was his in spite of anything – despite everything.

'I don't care -' she coughed in a sneer, leaning into the blade.

'I care,' Loki whispered, and his tongue dragged from her exposed shoulder to her earlobe. Velvet breath leaked heat into her flesh and her blood burned. 'I could have enjoyed you so much more.'

The knife sheared through the back of her peacock green gown, which pooled at her feet. Then it was stowed in his coat, freeing his hand to roam feverishly over her bosom. As her flushing flesh spilled through his fingers, Sigyn arched back against him wantonly, her bare skin melting onto each pleat of leather and ridge of metal caging her. Her own fingertips crawled down the scales of his maille-clad thigh, seeking out the bulge swelling against her backside.

Her touch strummed a hum from his throat. Sigyn's dizzied breath grew uneven as Loki's hand crept beneath her navel. Her quim slackened readily to those damnably agile fingers that stroked over her pearl and delved into her slick silk. A delicious hiss slid from his lips at the lush wetness that always awaited him. She grasped his length hungrily, almost whining with desire.

'Norns help me,' he cursed coarsely, 'you just keep getting more satisfying, Lady Sigyn. What am I to do with you?'

Too far gone to feign innocence, Sigyn only panted a languid laugh into the stone and slyly breathed, 'Fuck me like you stole me –'

The fingers vanished, along with his belt. Loki's jaws fastened in the nape of her neck, and she sagged in his grip with a sigh. He grit his teeth on a growl as he sheathed in her treasonous heat.