A/N – Sorry about the long wait between the updates! Thanks for being patient. And awesome. Have I told you all how awesome you are? Well, you're awesome.

BIG NEWS – I'm published! (No, not pregnant. I said this to a friend and that was her first response.) My urban fantasy novel, Devil's Blood, is up for purchase on Amazon right now. I use the pend name B.B. Morgan. It would be amazing if you would go check it out, maybe buy it, and leave a review. Being a writer is my dream, and breaking into the publishing world is about like trying to break into the music industry – really super freaking hard. However, in the publishing world thanks for independent publishers like Amazon, it's easy to get into the market. Then it's up to the readers to decide. That's you all.

(Devil's Blood is part of a series, #1, so there will be more books coming out. I'm already working on the first draft of #2. I aim to have it out by this time next year, but that's tentative.)

ANYWAY, onward to the actually chapter:

Chapter 14: Stay Gone

Stoick whittled; it was a useless pastime, but it passed the time he'd otherwise spend worrying. The hearth burned away on the last log on the fire. Someone else's dinner filled his stomach, like most nights. His own hearth hadn't seen a warm meal in nearly twenty years. Only fires. Stoick pulled his sorrow in and tore his eyes away from the hearth. He could still see Valka standing there, some concoction bubbling away. He no longer felt the dread of dinner. He missed it. He missed her.

Stoick leaned back in his chair, the same chair he sat in when his worries grew too heavy, which happened more of late than it had before. What was a chief to do? Astrid had not returned from the forest and no one has been able to find her, or any trace of her. Harald claimed to have found a footprint by the river, but it could have been one of the hunters, or a dragon, or a wild boar. One footprint, not a body.

A body. That thought sent a cold shiver through him. He did not want to find Astrid dead. The poor girl, and such a talented warrior to loose. What else could he have told her to convince her of the forest's dangers? The stubborn girl thought otherwise, Stoick saw it in her eyes, no matter how many people the dragons hurt or killed, no matter how many times he reminded her of those that had been taken.

Twenty years.

He'd been able to keep her infatuation with the forest and her connection to the witch a secret, but that had changed when she ran into the forest. Spitelout made damn sure of that. It hadn't been an hour before the entire village knew that she'd run off, and whispers soared from there.

Stoick had the same questions as everyone else: Why had she run? Where did she run to? Was she not afraid of the dragons and witches? What did this have to do with the dragon master burning her house down? He had singled her out. Why? Why? Why?

If Astrid were to return, it wouldn't be to anything good. She humiliated the Jorgenson family, and her own. Spitelout has been stirring the gossip pot as much as he can, spilling vile rumors whenever possible. He'd always held the largest spoon. He'd make sure that Astrid's betrayal came well-known.

The fire crackled down to the last embers, and Stoick stood to settle into his bed. No point in worrying. His troubles would all be there in the morning.

He had one foot through his bedroom door when a fierce knocking hit his front door.

"What?" Stoick thundered.

The door opened, and Gobber and two breathless hunters ran inside.

"An attack?" Stoick grabbed his axe and held it tight.

"No," one of the hunters said, hand on his chest. He heaved for breath, hands on his knees. "We were in the forest, to the southeast, and we saw, the beast."

"The Night Fury," the other chimed in, just as breathless.

"Did it attack?" Stoick looked the men over for injuries. They appeared fine.

"No," Gobber said, and motioned toward Stoick. "Come on now, get to the good part."

"The dragon master rode the beast, but he wasn't alone."

Stoick met Gobber's gaze, and prayed to Thor that his assumption was wrong. "What do you mean he wasn't alone?"

"Someone rode with him, a blonde woman."

Stoick took a deep breath, squeezing the handle of his axe.

"This doesn't look good, Stoick," said Gobber.

"No, it does not." Stoick grit his teeth, and exhaled slowly. He pointed his axe to the hunters. "Go home. Get some rest. I will inform her family. Keep this to yourselves for now. I don't want unnecessary hysteria."

"Yes, Chief," they said together, and scurried out of the door.

Stoick watched them stumble down the hill from his door and to their own, and made sure they didn't go elsewhere. Only after did Stoick make the dreadful walk to the Hofferson's house. It was late; a knock at this house would rile them, no doubt. Stoick steeled himself, and knocked on their door.

Harald opened it. "Stoick?

Ingrid stood by the stove, but no stew cooked in the pot.

"May I come inside?" Stoick asked kindly. He saw the effect this had on both Harald and Ingrid: intimidation, fear, and anxiety. "I am sorry to bother you this late, but it couldn't wait until morning. I wanted you to hear this from me first."

Harald shut the door quickly. "What happened? Is it Astrid?"

Stoick held his breath; his pause gave away the answer. Ingrid covered her mouth, eyes glistening, and fell back into her chair.

"Oh, please, don't say she's dead," Ingrid cried, her voice already ragged from tears.

"No," Stoick said. "Two hunters returned just now claiming to have seen Astrid with the dragon master, riding with him on his Night Fury."

"Oh, Odin, no," Ingrid cried.

"What?" Harald said, shaking his head. His blue eyes held the same fierce stubbornness as Astrid's.

Stoick inhaled, and kept his voice even as he told them, "If Astrid has indeed chosen the dragon master over Berk, then she is an enemy, just like him."

X

Astrid woke up to an empty bed. She ran her hand along the warm furs underneath her. The night before seemed too dream-like to have happened, more daydream than reality, but her bare skin against the furs confirmed it. The soreness between her legs told it that it had happened. She had pulled him closer, and let him make love to her. She had given herself to him. She belonged to him, no one else.

Her parents couldn't give her away now, not like she was. They couldn't sell what she had given away.

She rolled onto her side. He stood at his work bench, wearing his simple pants and shirt. His armor lay to the side, and he held one of his shoulder pads in his hand. He hammered and tweaked, fixing it by the sounds. Astrid watched him for a while, until he turned around and saw her.

"Good morning," he said. "How did you sleep?"

"Better than I have in a long time." It was no lie.

"How do you feel?" His eyes glanced along her blanketed body.

"Fine," she said. Sore, but fine. Losing her purity hadn't hurt as much as she'd thought. She felt much the same as she had the night before.

His face reddened, and he took long strides to her. "Was that, I mean, have you…" He tried to speak with his hands, but they stumbled too. He blurted, "Have you done that before?"

Astrid shook her head. "Why? Did you think I had?"

"No," he said quickly. "I just…I mean…"

"Just start talking," Astrid said softly. "Let the words flow. Don't worry about them making sense."

A smile tilted his worried lips. He blinked and looked down at his hands, holding the leather shoulder pad. "Dragons mate for life. I know that dragons and Vikings are different. Sometimes people don't always follow the rules they say they do and sometimes they do things they shouldn't, like when they marry they're mates, but not always mates for life."

"We're mates now, right?" Astrid asked. The primal sound of the word tingled on her tongue. Mates.

He looked up at her, eyes wide.

"That's what it means, isn't it?" Astrid sat up, holding the blanket to her chest. His eyes flickered to her bare back, down to the curve of her hip that vanished into the blanket. She didn't mind him seeing her naked, he already had, but it was still chilly despite the fire. "I gave myself to you. I'm yours."

His worried features softened; he closed the space between them, took her face into his hands, and kissed her.

"Was that your first time?" Astrid asked.

He smiled, embarrassed. "Oh, I mate with all the girls in the woods."

"So just me?"

"Just you. Only you." He kissed her again.

"You gave me you, so that mean you're mine," Astrid added, her breath against his lips.

"Yours. Astrid's."

Her name on his tongue warmed her like no fire could. She pulled him down into the blankets with her, and he gladly came. She snuggled to him and he held her close, as close as they had been the night before, only this time he wore clothes.

"Yours," Astrid said, then paused and sat up, not minding the blanket as it fell away from her chest.

"Is something wrong?" He sat up on his elbows.

"I don't know your name." The subtle fact caused a violent alarm in her chest. She gave herself to him without knowing his name. In her mind he'd never needed a name. He hadn't needed a face or a voice.

He blinked at her, and leaned away, surprised. "Oh. I told you, didn't I?"

She shook her head.

He shrugged. "Hiccup."

"Hiccup," she repeated.

He smiled, and kissed her. The more she knew about her witch in the woods, the more human he became, more tangible, within reach, and yet she didn't tire of him. She wanted more. He kissed her harder, and she let him.

Hiccup. Hiccup. Hiccup.

The more his name resounded in her mind, the more familiar it became. Hiccup. With each repetition, a darkness ebbed forward. Why?

"Hiccup," Astrid said aloud, and felt the same sense of darkness, of sadness, as if attached to his name.

"Yes?" He paused his kiss on her neck. "Astrid? What's wrong?"

Hiccup leaned away, brows together, eyes searching her face. Astrid couldn't make the words form, her thoughts tumbled about like angry Terrible Terrors.

"Astrid?" Hiccup brushed his fingertips along her jaw.

"How old are you?" Astrid asked in a single breath. Before he could answer she added, "You'll be nineteen this winter?"

He blinked, leaning away. "Yes. How did you know that?"

Astrid couldn't form words. She shook her head, trying to loosen them. Hiccup. His mother. Pieces that had been right in front of her all along. Why hadn't she seen them before? There were no witches. There never were.

"Astrid? What's wrong?" Hiccup said again, feverishly this time, with his hands on her shoulders.

Astrid couldn't take her eyes off of him. Hiccup. It had been almost twenty years since Stoick's wife and young son vanished; that son, Astrid knew for certain, had been named Hiccup. He'd been a tiny thing, she'd heard. This Hiccup, this young man, had lanky limbs and thighs like weak branches. He would have been a small baby. Could it possibly be? Could this stranger to the village be the heir to Berk?

"Hiccup," Astrid said with what little voice she had. "It's you."

"Yes, it's me?" Hiccup raised a brow at her. His hand met her cheek and ran a finger underneath her eye. "Astrid, tell me what's wrong. Don't worry about the words not making sense. Let them flow."

She smiled, and tried to laugh; how could she tell him the truth? Did he know? Did she want him to know? What if she was wrong?

"Astrid?"

"It's just a lot of emotions right now," Astrid whispered, not entirely a lie. She felt a great deal. "Overwhelming. It's overwhelming. And I don't know what to do about it."

"It'll be okay. I'm here." Hiccup hugged her tight. "I'll always be right here."

Astrid locked her arms around his narrow middle. Stoick had mourned his loss for twenty years, and his son had been a stone's throw away the entire time, watching. Stoick had order arrows fired at his son, pinned for his death and demise, and cursed him. Astrid grabbed onto Hiccup's shirt, and buried her face into his neck. He'd been right here all along.

X

"Stoick!" Gobber called; he burst through the front door and sent it slamming into the wall. "Stoick! We've got a problem!"

Stoick had woken up with the call. The banging of the door had shaken him out of his bed. He grabbed his axe on instinct on his way out of the house. Gobber stood in the doorway, hand and hook on his knees; he'd run as fast as he could. Dawn had broken behind him. Blue skies, no dragons, no fires.

"What is it?" Stoick released his death grip on the axe.

"It's Spitelout, he's at the Great Hall."

Gobber needn't say anymore; Stoick pushed past him and ran toward the Great Hall. Thor only knew what that revenge-driven madman would be doing. Nothing good. At once, Stoick saw the gathering Vikings at the steps, and Spitelout standing several steps higher, talking with his hands, pointing his sword above their heads.

"She's turned her back on us! Forsaken us!" Spitelout shouted.

A whisper sizzled through the crowd, turning into a venomous chatter. Stoick ran faster. He'd knock that idiot off those steps and throw him into the ocean, unless Harald got there first.

"She's been against us this whole time! It's that girl's fault the dragons keep attacking!" Spitelout puffed his chest out at the agreeing murmurs. "I say if those beasts want her so bad, we give her to them!"

Several shouted along with him, fists in the air.

"Let those witches have her!"

"Yeah!" "I'm with Spitelout!" "Get rid of her!"

"Spitelout!" Stoick shouted over the crowd, and brought it to an immediate silence. He parted the lingering mass of Vikings, never breaking eye contact with Spitelout. He stomped up the steps to be eye level with Spitelout. "What in Odin's name are you doing?"

Spitelout puffed himself up again. "That Hofferson girl's run off into the woods."

The murmuring grew behind him. Stoick tightened his grip on the axe, willing himself not to hurl it through the man's head. It might break the axe. Why couldn't it have been a dragon attack?

Spitelout threw his hands into the air, gesturing toward the crowd. "Astrid's put the entire village in danger. Who knows what kind of spell those witches have put her under. She could have been passing them information on us, letting them into the village, hiding them."

The murmurs turned frightened, angry, and louder.

"That is nonsense," Stoick said with as much force as he could without thundering it at them all. He had to stop this before it got out of his hands.

Spitelout crossed his arms, a triumphant grin on his ugly mug. "Did you know that Astrid kept seeing that devil from the woods?"

Stoick's silence rushed the crowd with a new wave of murmurs, louder than before, suspicious and agitated.

Spitelout basked in his blow. "That's what I suspected. You knew that Astrid couldn't be trusted, yet you didn't see fit to punish her. Our own chief didn't expose her wicked deeds."

"What wicked deeds would those be? Turn down your boy?" Stoick pointed at him with the tip of his axe, sharpened and ready to slice through flesh. "If I had the choice between Snotlout and the woods, I'd have taken the woods, too."

A few people laughed, others lightened. A few nodded. Spitelout frowned.

"No matter," Spitelout said, taking his leave through the crowd, one step at a time. "She went on her own time, willingly to the witches. She has thrown herself to them. She's shone her true colors. She's not one us of anymore. She's one of them."

Every eye turned to Stoick for the answer, for hope, for the truth about Astrid Hofferson; no one wanted to believe that she, a talented and promising warrior and Viking had done such a treasonous thing as to side with dragons, with those witches.

"Astrid has gone," Stoick announced, much to the shocked surprise of the crowd. "Where she is, we don't know, or when she will return. Don't listen to Spitelout. We will not label her a criminal without an explanation. If she is found, I am the first person to notify. The Viking that harms her will deal with me."

The crowd nodded, eyes lingering on the axe Stoick held out above their heads. He meant those words. If any one of those men or women attacked Astrid, it would be because of Spitelout's accusations.

"Get back to your duties," Stoick said as he shooed them away from the steps. "Berk won't run itself."

Across the crowd, Stoick met the eyes of Harald Hofferson. A rock fell into his gut. Stoick made his way across the square and to their home. Harald looked on edge, like he hadn't slept or eaten since Astrid's flight to the woods. Ingrid looked worse. She'd lost weight, dark circles plagued her eyes, and she clutched her husband's shirtsleeve as if it were the only thing keeping her standing upright. It might have been.

Stoick followed them into their home and sat down at their table. Harald shut the door, Ingrid slumped into her chair beside the hearth fire, and Harald clasped his hands over his face.

"What do we do, Chief?" Harald came to sit at the table, across from Stoick. "If Astrid shows her face again she'll be a dead Viking. I've heard the hunters talking about what they'll do to her if they find her." Harald's eyes watered, and a burning hate, a father's worry, and sleeplessness mixed together behind them. "Spitelout keeps spitting nonsense about a sacrifice to the witches, like that will make things any better."

"I agree," Stoick said. "If that witch is infatuated with Astrid, killing her would only enrage him."

"Then why does he keep it up?" Ingrid asked, her voice hoarse. "He's turned half the village against her already."

"He wants revenge," Stoick told them both. "Spitelout is trying his best to make things worse."

"He's doing a damn good job," Harald spat. He blinked the water from his eyes. He turned away from Stoick and stared into the fire. "All we can do is hope the hunters come back empty-handed. As long as Astrid stays gone, she'll be safe."

Stoick stood to leave. They needed time alone. He took a step to the door, then turned. "I know it is hard," Stoick began, and felt the rock in his throat. He swallowed over it. "I know the pain of losing a child. Be thankful that you still have your wife, Harald."

Harald teetered on the verge of tears, but refused to show them. Ingrid buried her face into her hands. Stoick knew that to be his departing call, and bid them then a farewell; he left them to their grieving. It would be a long day for them, and a long time to not feel the emptiness Astrid had left. How long, Stoick didn't know. He still felt it.