Cursed to Love: The Golden Curse

Chapter 9: A Long Story About A Far Away Place

‘The gift of foresight is the gift of pain, until one learns to deaden their heart against it. A Seer cannot be trusted as their survival depends upon having a broken soul.” – Words of the Seer

Freyr took a glass of wine from his sister and sat in a tall backed chair by the fire. The chair threw long shadows across his face, making his dark eyes and hollow cheeks look more exotic and frightening than usual. Freya sat beside Gilda who had been set down on the sofa with her legs up on a pillow. Frederick sprawled out in front of the fire like a bearskin rug. Gilda bit her lip to keep from laughing from pain and hysteria.

“Does something amuse you?” Freyr asked, eyebrow raised. Gilda shook her head rapidly.

“No. Please, start your story.” She said nervously. She was terrified that he would change his mind and not tell the story. He shrugged, he looked as if he didn’t much care whether he told the story or not. When he began, it was not the story that Gilda would have expected.

It seems that a long time ago, there was a small kingdom with a very arrogant, very handsome King. He had no bride, and enjoyed the freedom that this gave him. It is quite easy to seduce foolish young girls when one is the King and every single one of them hopes that they might become Queen.

It happened one day that he met a pretty peasant girl picking flowers in a meadow on his estate. The maiden hadn’t realized that she was trespassing, or she didn’t care, or she was hoping to meet him. In either case, he he was captivated by her beauty. After that initial meeting he saw her often, and had no trouble convincing her of his affections. She was fully seduced by the young King. When he tired of her and told her he had no intentions of marrying a peasant woman, she was surprised and distraught. She begged him to reconsider, but he would not, and he sent her away.

Freyr stopped speaking momentarily. Gilda was trying not to breathe, in case that was what caused him to stop speaking. But he merely took another sip of his wine before picking up his tale again. There was more too it, than a simple lover’s tiff.

Freyr began speaking about a vast army that attacked the little kingdom shortly after the peasant girl had been sent away. A much larger kingdom with more resources was attempting to take over the smaller one. The King sent word to all his subjects and the neighboring areas that if anyone knew of a way to defeat this seeming less endless army, he would give his savior anything they asked for. Many opportunists came, but they were all proved false. After many promised dragons turned out be lizards, or potions that in the end did nothing, someone came who had real power. To his shock it was the young peasant woman he had cast off. The girl told him that she could cause the entire invading army to be sickened. The warriors would be to sick to fight, and his smaller army could defeat them easily. The King was an arrogant man, who believed in no powers greater than those he possessed. Still, he agreed to let her try, and told her that if she succeeded, he would give her anything she wanted. The peasant would only promise to sicken the entire army, in exchange for his promise to marry her after she had done it. Her request, was that she would become Queen. He agreed to this, assuming that like the rest, she would fail.

The next morning, the entire attacking army was dead outside the gates of the city. Their King was gone, either fled, or hidden amongst the corpses. All the young King had to do was to walk his army through his own lands, and into their country to their castle and he was King of both realms. There was no army anymore with which to stop him. Yet, despite his victory, he was horrified by the thousands of dead men, and did not wish to marry the woman responsible. So instead of waiting for her to come and claim her reward, he immediately married the daughter of the missing King, and made her his Queen. This pleased the people of the conquered land, the nobility and possible heirs were simply grateful not to have been slaughtered en masse to secure his rule. Thanks to the deadly actions of the peasant woman, he now ruled two prosperous kingdoms.

Gilda clutched her cup tighter. She had forgotten she was even holding a beverage and drank some of her tea. It had gone cold in her hands. The story continued into the night, almost as if it would on its own without anyone to speak it. All three of them took turns weaving the tapestry of words in the darkness:

A week after the wedding celebrations ended, the peasant girl returned. She informed the King that the power which had allowed her to poison so many men at once, was witchcraft. He was now in danger, because he had broken his promise. To pacify her, despite not believing in witches, he gave her gold in payment for her help, and attempted to send her on her way. The girl was livid. She threw the money at his feet and told him that he would regret breaking his oath. The girl promised to lay a curse upon his house. He would become as much of monster in form as he was in spirit. He would be both animal and man and could never exist fully in either world. By day he would be a man trapped in the body of a beast, while by night he would be a beast in the body of man. He did not like her threats or her riddles, and so he had her thrown out, but not before she spoke her curse. He would have had her killed, to prevent her from placing it, but she disappeared like smoke.

The next morning when the King awoke, he found that he was not a man anymore. He had been transformed into a beast. He was a gigantic, vicious bear, and while his mind was his own, inside the animal, he could do nothing to control the actions of the creature. His guards had heard the witch’s curse and so by some miracle, they did not kill him, but only kept him locked up. At sundown he was relieved to become a mortal man again. He was forced to pay his guards ludicrous sums in exchange for their silence. He swore a few servants to silence with money, gifts and titles, and dismissed all the rest. The untrustworthy ones were relieved of their tongues in order to ensure their cooperation. He became a recluse, restricting access to the castle, and maintained only the smallest of household staffs. He conducted all his state business at night, and claimed he had an illness which prevented him from going out in the day. The castle was nearly empty of people, and those that entered and exited were well paid. While rumors of various illnesses, including porphyria or even vampirism swirled around the kingdom, no one could possibly guess the true affliction of their King.

As a man at night, he had no trouble producing an heir with his young wife. A healthy baby boy was born just past midnight a year after the King had been cursed. The boy was human and perfect and his mother was very relieved. Unfortunately, by morning the perfect baby she held her in arms had been transformed into a tiny wild animal. She was terrified. But strangely, unlike the King, who had to be locked up to prevent mauling his staff during the day, the baby bear behaved as a human infant would. Every evening her baby would become a human child again, and every morning it would take on the form of a bear…but it was always sweet and gentle and eventually she ceased fear it.

As the baby bear became a child, it was clear that it was different than its father. As a human boy it was normal, walked at the right age, began speaking at the right age, and was no different than any other. It couldn’t speak as a bear, but it behaved in every way as if it were a human boy. It played with a rocking horse and read books in the library. The only time it was ever bear-like was for a short time after sundown and just before sunrise. It seemed as though the moments of transition seemed allowed the instincts of the bear to break through. As he grew to a young lad of 6 or 7 he was able to explain that the bear was always in his mind. It constantly expressed its desires, but that except for in those brief windows before and after the change, he was able to ignore it. It was the exact opposite of how his father felt, fully trapped in the mind of the bear.

One day, the innocent bear child, decided that it would like to see its father. Due to some truly terrible mistake of the guards leaving the door unguarded, the little bear was able to free his father. The King roamed the halls in the form of a mindless bear, together with his son. When the Queen was unfortunate enough to happen upon them during their stroll, she nearly lost her mind with fear. She couldn’t stand the thought that his father might accidentally harm him, and so she rushed forward to protect her child. Unfortunately the instincts of the bear could not ignore the threat of a human running toward his cub. The King accidentally killed his wife while he was in his animal form. The man inside the bear was fully aware of everything he was doing, and yet he was powerless to stop it.

When evening came and the King was returned to the form of man, he apologized to his son and said his goodbyes with the boy. He made his advisor the boys’ regent, and left. No one saw or heard of their King again. The boy was protected, and the rumor spread that he suffered the same rare disease as his father. Life in the kingdom continued as it ever had, despite the missing and murderous King.

The young prince was better at hiding his deformity. He even kept nocturnal court as he grew, and so as a teenager and young adult met many fine ladies of quality. When he turned twenty-one he proposed to his favorite of the young women. When he nervously revealed his secret to her, he was relieved that she accepted him anyway. Perhaps she wanted to be Queen very badly, or perhaps she had fallen so completely in love with him that she didn’t mind. Either way, she willing to endure marriage to a monster. Had she refused, or attempted to spread the information of his bizarre ailment…she would have been executed for treason. Even in proposing to her, the King had to be willing to either marry her or kill her.

Although the origins of their marriage were unromantic, the two of them ruled for several years without incident. Upon the birth of his first child, the King knew relief at last. His wife had borne him an heir, and the child’s transformation to a bear was even less dramatic than his own. The weakening of the curse was obvious. When the infant became a small child it was clear how much. This child could even speak while a bear. Aside from that very difficult time before and after transformation, he was almost entirely human as an animal.

After a few years of observing her son, the Queen had no fear of future children. So it was, that unlike his father, this King produced three children. All the children had the same milder version of the curse, and so for many years it was relatively easy to keep them safe and hidden. It was only after one of the servants was a bit too loose lipped in the town tavern that the trouble started. Rumors flew surrounding the mysterious illness of the King and his nocturnal family. Rumors of demons, witches, magic and other wild suppositions abounded. The King pretty much ignored them until a fire was set outside the children’s room one night. The person who did it was apprehended and executed, but the Queen feared for the safety of her children. The youngest was only three, and although this fire had been put out in time, she was fearful of what might happen next. She begged the King to let her take the children to their country estate until they were adults. He refused, he didn’t want to add fuel to the rumors. One night, the Queen caught a man with a knife in the room of her youngest child. The man was swiftly disposed of, but the Queen was no longer content to ignore the threat. She pleaded with the King again to let her take the children to the country, but he refused. He was already called ‘The Demon King’ in the areas which surrounded his kingdom, and he did not wish to be further undermined.

The very next night the Queen bribed several servants, bagged up as many valuables as she could, took her children and left. She waited until after her husband had fallen asleep and was gone. It was surprisingly easy to escape. The King could not make people aware of what he was looking for without revealing his secret. So, when a gypsy with three dancing bears left Gyllene with the circus, and no one could prove they were anything else.

The Queen and her children traveled hundreds of miles, into a new country, and far away from anyone who might recognize and fear them. The Queen kept them moving, never letting them stay in the same place too long, so that no one could ever grow suspicious of their odd behavior.

It took them three years to find a suitable village to live outside of more permanently. It needed to be a quiet country estate with a rather self-involved Lord who did not take much interest in his lands or his people. The town would need to be small and the kind of place where everyone kept to themselves. This Estate, and this town matched the needs of the heirs to Gyllene perfectly. The Queen had several builders build hidden cottage in the woods where the three siblings would be unlikely to be found. They lived in the woods ever since.

 By the time the story ended, Gilda had long since realized who it was about. If she had not seen them as bears with her own eyes, she would have doubted the story’s veracity. She was filled with even more questions at the end of the story then at the beginning. Were they really royalty? If their mother came here with them, where was she now? They were adults now… Were they going to hide forever?

“If this is true, why we never see each other? When you were children and we all lived in the woods?” Gilda asked. It seemed the least important question, but for some reason it slipped out first. Frederick laughed.

“Some of us saw you.” He said without elaborating. Freyr gripped the arms of his chair so tightly that his fingers sunk in to the upholstery, creating long tears, and growled at his brother. Gilda inhaled sharply. Clearly there were some effects of the curse they had not discussed in the story. They had not seen fit to mention why they had intense strength while a humans, and tended to behave like animals.

“What do you mean that some of you saw me?” Gilda asked quietly. Freya sighed.

“Your family came to live in the woods just a year after we built our home here. Mother was afraid every single day that your father would find our house while he was out in the woods looking for downed trees. But as soon as your father finished building your cottage, he and your mother had that terrible accident. We no longer needed to worry about him discovering us…but you were another matter. You were a very curious child.

Your Gran came to live with you a few days after the accident, and while she was a loving caregiver I’m sure…she could not keep up with you. One of us, usually Freyr, kept an eye on you when you went into the woods. I did it occasionally. Not often. Sometimes if I spend too much time in the woods, I find it easy to get lost in being a bear. It’s best if I keep the house. I do not forget myself there. I do not know if my curse is different because of my gender, as it was designed for a man…or why it effects me so differently. But in any case, it had to be Freyr who followed you. If you seemed to be delving too deeply into the woods he attempted to steer you closer to home. He’d scare you back toward your clearing with any one of a variety of tactics. It was easy when you were a small child, but when you started trapping, we really started to worry.” Freya said honestly. “You were so curious and so well known amongst the townspeople. If you had seen us, if you had told them about us… They would have killed us all. We had to discourage you.” Freya finished, looking almost sheepish. Gilda nearly attempted to stand up before realizing she could not.

“The Phantom!” Gilda’s mouth fell open. “You were my Phantom?” Gilda demanded glaring at Freyr as though she would like to strangle him. He smiled with just the corners of his lips.

“Usually.” He said calmly, as though stalking her for her entire life was not particularly invasive.

“You followed me? You all watched me? Like my life was some pathetic source of entertainment? Is that why you think I’m such a joke? That’s why you told Mr. Grummold that I was a stupid, insignificant worm? Because you’ve watched me long enough to know just how worthless I am?” Gilda was furious.

“I don’t think those were my exact words.” He said not moving a muscle. Gilda screamed and despite her shredded feet hurled herself across the room. She didn’t exactly know how she got there, but she was on his lap beating his chest and shoulders with her fists and yelling.

“How dare you?! Did you watch me all the time? Were you watching when I bathed? Were you all just laughing at every foolish thing I did when I thought I was alone? Reading poetry, teaching myself to dance, practicing my French?” Gilda trailed off. She had done so many ridiculous things when she thought she had been alone. To know that someone had been watching was actual physical pain.

It made her feel worse that her attempts to wound him with her tired scratched up arms seemed in-effective. Though oddly no one was stopping her. They seemed accustomed to minor bouts of violence. All those times that her phantom had made that strange chuffing noise…Freyr, or possibly Freya but more likely Freyr had been laughing at her. A knife was in her chest where her heart should be. She had been so very ridiculous. Freyr stood up, wrapping his arms around Gilda’s struggling form and taking her with him.

“It wasn’t just to keep you away from us Gilda. You were young and you needed an eye on you. We owed you at least that.” He said, holding her limbs against her tightly as he carried her towards the stairs. He turned to his sister. “I think she should go to bed. She is hysterical and needs rest.” He didn’t acknowledge Gilda’s attempt to wound him. He didn’t even seemed bruised.

“Put me down!” Gilda said squirming in his arms. He gripped her more tightly so that she wouldn’t fall. “I’m not hysterical! I want to know what you meant! You barely know me, how could you owe me anything?” Freyr looked as though he were about to speak. Freya shook her head emphatically.

“She doesn’t need to know that Freyr.” Freya said firmly. “We’ve told her enough.” She gestured toward the room on the right of the stairs. “Put her in my bedroom. She and I can share.” Freya said as she followed Freyr and the very unwilling Gilda up the stairs.

“I’d keep an eye on her if you put her in my room.” Frederick said hopefully. “She’s already shown a preference for my bed.” Freyr couldn’t smack his brother as his arms were full of a wriggling girl who kept threatening to fall and injure herself further.

“You’d keep more than an eye on her I imagine.” Freyr said as he brought her into what must be Freya’s room. It had two beds in it. It must have been where their mother had also slept. He deposited her with firmly but gently onto the bed furthest from the window. Freya entered behind him and stood close to the edge of the bed so that Gilda could not attempt an unwise escape.

“Goodnight Gilda. Sleep well.” Freyr said with a slight bow and swept out of the room. Gilda sat up in the bed with her arms wrapped tightly around her knees. Freya sat at the foot of Gilda’s bed

“I’m sorry Gilda. This must be quite a shock for you, especially all at once.” She rubbed her forehead. “I can assure you that when you were home, far from our house, we rarely had an occasion to watch you. Your privacy was preserved whilst bathing or dressing. It was only when you were out in the woods and we feared you might accidently stray too far that we kept an eye on you. We did try to be as appropriate as we could.” Freya fiddled with the ends of her braids. “Sometimes we forget ourselves…we are animals half the time – more really as we sleep much of the time when we are human. It’s hard to remember how ordinary people would view our actions. Our own survival has been our sole focus for so long…” Freya stopped speaking. Gilda had tucked her head down onto her knees and was not moving. Freya nodded with resignation.

“Right. I will let you get some rest, but please at least promise me that when I fall asleep you will not attempt to injure yourself by climbing out of bed and trying to use the stairs? Despicable though our actions may have been, we are your best choice for safety.” Freya assured her. Gilda laid down on the bed silently and closed her eyes, stiffly as a corpse.

Freya looked at her with concern. Freyr had put Gilda on the bed closest to the door, as Freya usually slept in the one by the window. She understood his motive, but thought it was perhaps not the best choice. Gilda was very upset and might try to escape. Freya pulled her blanket and pillow off her own bed and laid it down by the door. Gilda sat up and looked at her.

“You think I am going to try to sneak out? I would get barely ten steps before fainting from the pain! Even if I did make it back to Gran’s house without bleeding to death, I’m sure there are several townsmen waiting to burn me alive. I’ve no doubt Freyr has told you how exceptionally foolish I am…but I am not entirely without sense.” Gilda said resentfully. Freya nodded and returned her bedding to the bed by the window. It was better if she was by the window, she could leave through it in the morning before she began the change.

“Alright Gilda. I will trust you.” She said climbing into her own bed. Gilda laid down again and closed her eyes. Freya waited until Gilda’s breathing became even and regular before she closed her own. What on earth were they going to do with this girl? How long before the search parties found their house in an effort to find the girl? And when they inevitably did find them, what were they going to do? As long as the woods were being searched, none of them were safe. Freya sighed inwardly and attempted to sleep.

Freyr sat astride a branch outside the bedroom window. Gilda knew that the bedroom doors all met in a central hallway by the stairs. Silly though the girl might be, she most likely wouldn’t try to escape in the direction of the two men who had recently proven to have exceptionally keen hearing. If she did attempt to leave, it would be through the window. Freyr was fairly certain of it. He laid his head on a branch and closed his eyes. Like an actual animal he was capable of sleeping in a tree.

Freyr slept more lightly than Freya did, who slept as though she were an actual hibernating bear. Even their rooster’s crow did not wake her in the morning. Occasionally she even would go through the transformation without rousing. It made her a dangerous sleeping companion for the girl. If Gilda managed to wake Freya up when she was still in the half hour before or after the change, Freya would not be able to control her actions. Freya was gentle as a bear, but with very protective instincts. She had been fourteen when their mother died and Frederick had only been nine. Freya had become a sort of surrogate mother to him. When she was a bear, her instincts to that end could be very extreme. She had once torn an unlucky wolf to shreds for wandering too close to their hen house in the morning. It had been a full hour after the change, but Frederick had been retrieving the eggs, and as he was still young, he had not noticed the scent of the wolf. The wolf must have been a fairly stupid one in order to wander so close to a hen house that had a baby bear in it. It had perhaps deserved what it had gotten for being so moronic. Freyr just couldn’t endure the thought of cleaning up shreds of Gilda…the wolf had been bad enough. But that was a long time ago. Frederick was older now though, and Freya was much better…much calmer now that he no longer looked like a cub while a bear.

What were they going to do with Gilda? She couldn’t live with them forever. Especially not with her smelling so utterly irresistible three or four days out of every month. The senses of the bear never fully left them even in human form. They could just barely ignore it if they were vigilant. It was hard to be vigilant when a beautiful woman smelled like heaven itself. Women waxed and waned like the moon. Sometimes they held little allure for the bear, which had three imperatives in life: eat so as not to starve, protect itself so as to stay alive, and as all animals do – reproduce itself. When it was clear that reproduction was likely due to state of a woman…she smelled like perfectly ripened fruit, perfuming the very air around her. The desire to utterly consume her in carnal passion was very very hard to ignore.

Right now Gilda was curled up inside his house, emanating the scent of her perfection like fruit gently warmed by the sun. He could smell it lingering on his clothes like perfume. The bear inside him was in a frenzy with desire to open the window, crawl into bed with the girl, and climb on top of her like an animal. Freyr would never do that if he could help it. He was the one who made the rule against making more of themselves. But Gilda made it almost impossible. She was so beautiful that it was hard to believe she was an actual living person. She looked more like a glossy oil painting, something to be admired, but never touched. He had tried very hard to hate her, to look down on her silliness and her ridiculous goals in life…but he had been unsuccessful. She was brave, self-sufficient, and more intelligent than she gave herself credit for. She was also physically perfect. His fingers dug grooves in the tree branch he was holding. It wasn’t even close to dawn but the smell of the girl on his shirt was making him half mad. He took off the leather tunic which bore her scent and threw it on the ground.

He closed his eyes and attempted to sleep, but with his eyes closed, instead of seeing the tree branch and the night sky he saw himself undressing Gilda. His half-asleep brain was very suggestable. A familiar lucid dream began, him caressing her golden skin, twisting his fingers into her golden hair… He opened his eyes, something was moving inside the room. Was Freya getting up to check on Gilda? No. She was still fast asleep, looking like the dead. It was Gilda, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and attempting to step onto the floor. He could hear her exhale sharply as the pain of her feet on the floor startled her. He could smell the blood start running again on her heel. Stupid girl! She crawled across the floor like a thief toward the window. What did she think she was going to do, climb down the tree on shredded feet? Then crawl through the woods on her knees? Where could she even go?

Gilda opened the window and gasped as Freyr swung silently in through it, cat-like and picked her up. She’d had it open less than a second, and he was already gripping her tightly against his inexplicably bare chest and carrying her back toward her bed. As many times as she imagined being carried against the muscular chest of a half-naked man toward a bed…it had never been by a man who was half animal and holding her prisoner. Gilda moaned pitifully as he set her down in the bed.

“How did you know that I would try to escape by the window?” She asked. She had thought that it would be the route that they wouldn’t be thinking of. She half expected that he had been sleeping in the hall, but never the tree outside the window. He shook his head.

“Because you never do things the easy way. Much as you despise me for watching you the last twelve years, it has afforded me to opportunity to get to know you quite well. People are never more themselves than when they think they are alone.” He said quietly, as though trying not to wake his sister. Gilda sighed softly. This was mortifying.

“I hate you.” She said angrily.

“And here I thought you liked your phantom.” He said with a smile in his voice. Gilda could not see his face well in the dark, but she had a profound desire to slap it.

“You terrified me for so long that you burnt out my ability to fear you. I finally spoke to my phantom to keep from being afraid or from going completely mad.” She admitted. He unbent her legs so that she was lying down again, head on the pillow.

“Go to sleep Goldy-locks.” He said, using the name the village boys used to call her…before they all went mad and started staring speechlessly at her.

“How could I possibly sleep with you sitting on my bed? It’s unseemly.” Gilda said rolling away from him so that she was facing the door. He sniffed the air.

“Your feet are bleeding.” He said in a matter of fact voice. Gilda found it excessively creepy that he could tell that by smelling the air. She shivered in spite of herself. She really didn’t want to let him know that he had any kind of effect on her, fear or otherwise.

“Yes. I stepped on them in my attempt to escape the three bear-people who stalked me my whole life and are now holding me prisoner. And I’ll admit that it was unwise…but how could I stay here after this evening? I found out that you have no sense of decency, and I attempted to beat you with my fists as if I were a tantruming child!” Gilda hissed, for some reason also trying not to wake Freya. What was wrong with her? Freya would never let her brother stay here, in the dark, in bed with Gilda…so why was she whispering in the dark so as not to wake her? Surely she didn’t want to stay this way with her phantom stalker? That would be both insane and pathetic. Freyr was lightly chuckling.

“I’m sorry. I must be misunderstanding you. Are you saying that you tried to escape because being burnt alive by evil men, was to you, a better fate then staying here, because it would be embarrassing? Embarrassing because you tried to hit me with your tiny girl fists and didn’t even leave a mark?” He asked holding the bedside candle up to his chest so that she could see that it was not even bruised. A drop of tallow fell from the candle onto his skin.

“Ah! Well, now there is…a mark I mean.” He said with amusement. Oh for heaven’s sake. Did he really not realize that she was a woman? Having a half-naked man in her bed, illuminating himself by candlelight, dripping hot wax was nearly beyond her ability to endure. She willed herself to begin speaking.

“Well…I didn’t think I had hurt you. But I did behave…rather dramatically. I didn’t think I could face any of you again.” Gilda said self-consciously. Not that he hadn’t deserved it…he had deserved worse. She was more embarrassed that it had been so ineffectual.

He slid down to the end of the bed, running his hand softly along her leg and calf until he grasped her bleeding foot gently and examined it in the darkness. Could he see it? Could this man actually see in the dark as well as smell her bleeding foot and hear his sister across the yard when she spoke in a whisper? He grabbed a sock from the drawer by the bed and rebound her foot in it.

“The bleeding has stopped now. Go to sleep.” He ordered. Gilda sighed.

“Are you going to leave?” She asked.

“No.” He said stretching out on the bed.

“You can’t stay here!” She said…although the hot knot of frustration in her chest was only partially anger.

“Freya is here for propriety’s sake, and I will not lay a finger on you.” He said moving almost silent to the floor and rolling to face the opposite way from her, toward the door. Gilda was extremely tired, and she knew that Freyr had no desire to touch her…he not only despised her, but he found her unintelligent and unappealing. He was the only man of her acquaintance to feel that way. Now that he was on the floor, she could be less aware of him. So she obediently closed her eyes and attempted to go to sleep, her face and chest still hot from resentment…or something that felt like anger…but different. A hot squirming feeling in her chest that wouldn’t go away.

Freyr lay on the hard floor, almost afraid to fall asleep. With the scent of the girl perfuming the air he knew what he would dream about. As sleep overcame him, he was lucid for the tiniest moment as his dream began. He almost groaned in his sleep. The dream was the same as it always was when he’d gotten too close to the girl. It was a dream that was painful to wake up from. He and Gilda were alone in a clearing in the sunlight, and he was a human man.