I knew not what to do now. I couldn’t even leave the comfort of leaning back against my cottage door. Life would move on, but for me, no amount of dazzling colored glass or bright future beyond Ragnarök could make up for what I had lost. Even when I might have said something, I had chosen to be a spectator and missed my chance.
I was content to wallow in misery as that truth settled, when a knock at my door jolted me away from it. I was startled, breathless when I opened it to discover—
“My king—”
“Do you love me, Ravnur?”
Chapter 1
FREYR
MINUTES EARLIER
“Youwon’tdrown!Joinme!”
“Are you mad? Movement aside, I can barely stand!”
“So? Swim!” I glided backward through the water, my long hair plastered against my body as I floated. Oli stared at me from over the edge of Skidbladnir’s bow. I had not intended to take up his offer when he first presented it to me—presented himself as a gift from Loki to lift my spirits in the aftermath of Ragnarök. I had laughed at him, for few elves, dwarves, or even fellowgods could handle the entirety of me inside them. How could a mortal?
In truth, the last several times someone had accepted my terms for being bedded by me, I was relieved when they begged for reprieve, and my cock never went near them.
Well, in most cases it went near their lips afterward, for they had wanted to please their king in thanks for the pleasure they’d received, even if not fully fulfilled. While I appreciated my bed partners in whatever way I had them, it always felt hollow. I had grown weary of endless carnal company. If that was all I craved, I might have stayed in my loveless marriage longer.
No. Even then, I never could have kept Gerdr after she asked to be released. I’d known she didn’t love me, but for years, I’d foolishly thought I could win her over anyway. When, after Ragnarök, she could bear me no longer, how could I refuse her wishes? She would have left anyway if I had tried, but at least this way we parted as friends and wished each other well.
Oh, to love so deeply but to not have the recipient of that love, love you back.
Was that how I had been making Ravnur feel?
I had noticed his looks, his longing. He had never been forward about any of it, not until after Gerdr left me and I surrendered to fleshly temptations to forget her. Even then, Ravnur was subtle, chaste in what he dared. As I told Oli, Ravnur had never asked for me to bed him. The others all asked, practically begged me.
Ravnur was waiting for me to ask, but did I dare risk the potential sullying of our friendship should I fail to be able to love him as he wanted? Or did I sully our friendship worse by continuously denying him the chance?
“Are you going to ask Ravnur for a stroll?” Oli called down in challenge, as if reading my thoughts.
I had somehow sensed he would ask that and tried to be teasing in my reply. “Is that your stipulation for joining me?”
“Yes.”
“Then yes,” I answered softly.
I could imagine no greater pain than experiencing the loss of love again, and so I was terrified to even entertain inviting it back into my life, much as I missed it. But perhaps there really was nothing to lose if my numb existence was the alternative with Ravnur lost in his longing.
Oli climbed onto the railing of the boat, difficult though it looked after how raw I had left him, and leapt from the bow.
He never hit the water. In the moment when a splash should have followed his submersion, there was nothing, and I knew he was gone.
“Oh, Loki,” I muttered, and did the only other thing I could.
I laughed.
My mirth was temporary though, for as my body was cleansed by floating in the lake, being alone left me to consider the burdens I still bore that Oli’s company had only helped to alleviate for a time. To truly banish my burdens—or rather, to make them bearable again and less like burdens at all—I had to move forward. I had to move on.
Could it be with Ravnur? The more I lost myself in bodies, the less I had to think about the ache in my heart, but that had only made it ache more each day for I did not even have the promise of hope anymore. I had grown so consumed by my despair that I had not been able to surface from it.
Ravnur was beautiful, but in all ways contrary to the beauty I had found in Gerdr. While her pale, gleaming skin had caught my attention from afar, and her strawberry-colored locks and clear blue eyes had kept it, Ravnur was her opposite. Darker skin, black hair like the raven he was named for, and eyes the color of violets. Yet, despite his darkness where she was madeof brighter hues, Ravnur was just as radiant, for there was something else within him that brightened my days whenever we were together. There was an ease with Ravnur that I had never known with anyone else, as if with him, I could be Freyr—no,Fricco—more than only god and king.
He had been of age when we first met but had seemed so young and fragile to me that I had scarcely noticed him as anything other than a subject in need. How quickly he had made a name for himself. How quickly he had flourished, and always in ways to make himself more visible and useful to me.
