"I have come to make confession."

His brows furrowed and he cocked his head, taken aback. This was probably the last thing he had expected me to say after all that had transpired.

I wouldn't allow him to look away and kept my gaze level with his. His expression soon turned to one of intrigue and amusement. It was as if whatever we had shared in the past had simply been shut away. I wasn't dealing with my friend Alfred; I was talking to a monarch who was in the mood for some entertainment.

Alfred shifted his position on the side of the bath, and it was then that I noticed he was fully naked. The water obscured most of his body except for the upper torso, but it was still a disconcerting thought. A proper Christian who couldn't bear to have sex with me was now completely bare in front of a woman and didn't care a wit.

Who was this man?

Composing myself, I awaited his decision.

A moment passed and neither of us moved.

"Well then," he drawled, "Confess."

A tingle shot up my spine, and I swore I heard a low buzzing my ears.

"I have tried confessing my sins to God in the solitude of my chambers before, but I have come up wanting for more," I began. It was no secret that one was expected to confess on their own during prayer time. It was what any good Christian would do.

But it was only a precursor to confession with a priest. Alfred would do.

"For more what?" he prompted.

"Absolution."

On my walk here, I was so filled with anger that I thought of all the ways I could hurt him. Curse at him and berate him for the loss at York. Poison his wine goblet so that he'd be near death for a month but never pass on. Kill those he loved and leave this place like a shadow on the wind.

But for all my plotting, I couldn't follow through. Despite my petulant nature, I wanted to carry on. I wanted to get to the bottom of this. I wanted real answers and hard truths before I decided to enact my will.

The only way I could even keep myself from being tossed out was to get baptized.

One sacramental rite done and over with.

But in order to get him to start speaking to me again, I would have to keep the faith alive with yet another rite: my penance.

"Why do you not take your burdens to a man of the cloth then?" his tone was still so teasing despite the severity of my approach.

He wanted to make it a game then? So be it.

"Are you not the spiritual leader of your kingdom, Your Majesty?"

He sighed heavily, "That I am."

I watched him as he made himself more comfortable, keeping my eyes from drifting too far downward. The buzzing was back, even lower this time but still a warning.

My last bits of pride had the courage to act indignantly.

"If you're quite done, Your Majesty, I'd like to begin."

His composure slid solidly into that of a steely-eyed man, hard beyond his years.

"You will do well to remember the unnecessary benevolence being shown to you, Lady Helena," he warned, "One's allegiance to God does not change his station in life."

I was taken aback for a few moments before I caught up to him, "And what exactly is my station at the present moment, Your Majesty?"

The anticipation of his response made me feel like I was drowning in a cesspool. His answer would indicate my survivability.

"As far as I'm concerned, you don't have one," he finished. No preface, no decoration. Cold, hard facts delivered at killing distance.

All of my explaining hadn't won him, nor my truth telling. Not even my bloody conversion to his single-minded religion had changed his heart. What more could be done?

Where had my cunning gone? What happened to the girl who knew what to do, how to speak, and where to go?

The problem was outside of my capabilities. Alfred's trust was beyond salvaging.

Or was it?

Frustration and anxiety pooled in the center of my stomach. The emotions I struggled every moment of every hour to suppress were released to run rampant. I needed them for the sake of appealing to my Gods.

'Please, sweet Goddess mine. Help me, or all is lost here,' I begged. Somehow even the voice in my mind managed to waver with thinly-veiled panic. Tears welled at the corner of my vision.

Alfred smirked, "So you think crying will win my favor?"

He was absolutely ruthless. Had someone told me a fortnight ago that the young man was capable of such behavior, I wouldn't have believed it. Every moment of the war was changing him, altering him into less and less of who he once was. Shifting him into a more callous, cold, and calculating person. Someone more hostile, bent on subjecting the world to his will.

Someone more like Ivar.

Goodness.

He really was, wasn't he?

I was surprised I hadn't drawn he comparison sooner when it was so blatantly staring me in the face.

I laughed aloud, a short and clipped sound that reverberated off the stone walls of the bath.

Had he always been this way-a scheming, shrewd man who kept his true nature at bay for the sake of timing? Or had it just happened recently with his ascension to the throne?

Despite the stunned look on his face, Alfred's eyes still held their menace. A fixture that had been put in place long ago. How could I not have seen it? It was just so obvious now.

Young King Alfred was an ambitious and power-hungry creature for all the worst reasons just like the rest of us. He pretended to want to unite England for patriotic and practical reasons when all he really wanted was ruddy power!

It was like his skull had been peeled back to reveal the workings within. His mind was laid bare in its entirety.

And if I knew the workings of a man's mind, I knew what to do with it.

'Thank you, Goddess.'

A ghostly whisper.

A deathly chill that cut through the bath's steam.

Hel herself was here.

'I am not through with him yet,' her voice was agitated.

Alfred's look of confusion was replaced with a cold exterior. He waited impatiently, betraying nothing.

'Remove your clothing,' the ethereal voice instructed, sounding fractured in a thousand pieces as it echoed inside my mind.

Though the divine guidance had come, it had not brought with it that compulsion that made difficult things easier to do.

'Show him how a North Woman behaves-even a baptized one,' she imparted, her derisive laughter echoing.

It made sense. He wanted power, and so I would put on a show of power for him. How wise my Goddess was.

Drawing myself up to stand straight, I reached backward to grab a fistful of the white material and tugged it over my head.

I heard a sharp intake of air from the young King and struggled to withhold the smugness that stole my heart and warmed my thighs.

"What do you think you're doing?" he breathed.

I stood before him naked. White skin contrasted with only the black Hel stone tied up in a cord around my neck. I had discarded the pearl cross and ruby brooch on the ground as the useless rubbish they were.

Judging by the King's expression, all of his power had been ceded to lap at my feet. I relished it.

"I believe I am confessing, Your Majesty. Do the Lord's people not present themselves before Him bruised, broken, and bare?"

I drew a hand down between my breasts in demonstration. Alfred wound his gaze up and down in perfect followership.

'Enter, child,' Hel's voice coached further, 'Let the stone's face touch the water.'

I obeyed immediately and stepped daintily into the pool, using each tantalizing footfall as another chance to draw Alfred's attention in.

What was going to happen when the Hel stone touched the pool's water? Faith would bring me the answer.

Slowly inching my way in, I kept my eyes fixed on Alfred.

The moment before the stone dipped in, I paused. I didn't know what held me there-whether it was Asgardian influence or my own personal weakness, I couldn't be sure.

But fully taking in the sight of him beneath the water, my body began to hum with bad intentions, causing me to plunge fully into the water.

The instant the stone was submerged, it began to ooze a red substance. My vision clouded underneath it, and I came up for air.

Once at the surface, I noticed my close proximity to the young monarch. My nose practically brushed his chest.

I was not afraid. This had, after all, been my Goddess's plan. And what a brilliant plan it was.

Curiosity got the better of me, and I darted out my tongue to taste the deep red liquid.

Wine.

It remained steaming as the water had, yet it tasted better to the tongue.

Alfred's focus on me strayed as he took in the miracle before him.

"What is this?" he asked. There wasn't so much fear in his words as wonder.

"The blood of our Savior; the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ," I answered.

I took advantage of his awe and moved slowly to drape myself over his limbs.

The way my legs spread over his felt natural. A primal flame burned in my belly as I petted his head, arms, and shoulders, desperate for his gaze to return to me.

He finally realized that his own investigation would provide him no more of an answer than I had already given him. His wide, questioning eyes turned to face me once more.

He equated me with the miracle. And that had been my aim all along.

I was the ultimate embodiment of power now, for I had the Messiah at my bidding. Or at least he thought.

"How?" he breathed, reaching his hands to press into either side of my face. His stare pierced me through and through, "How can this be?"

I thanked my Goddess for swaying him so captivatingly well. My own displays of allegiance were nothing in comparison to the workings of the Gods. Alfred thought his Lord was here and that it was my doing. Thank Hel, I had him snared.

I stroked the side of his neck and brought a thumb to swipe at his strong jaw.

Did I love this man?

No.

I doubted I was capable of such a sentiment anymore. But I knew I could be happy with him. At his side and in control.

Was that enough?

"I confess, Your Majesty, that I have lost myself in the Almighty Father."

A kiss at his neck.

"In His Righteous Son."

A kiss on his jaw.

"In His Holy Spirit."

A kiss on his cheek.

"And in you."

He grabbed the back of my head and pressed our mouths harshly together.

He came undone beneath me, any semblance of composure lost in the swirling red currents of the bath.