 It was only the girl. Reassured that neither Zed nor Tsi had followed him to the little woodland cottage Rhaegar took the opportunity to move closer to Thyri. He slipped his arm around her waist as Svea stepped across the threshold, ignoring the girl’s flustered apologies entirely. Gar felt Thyri brace herself against him a little but he ignored the protest, pulling her closer until their bodies collided. Her resistance held out for just a few moments after that and he grinned into the kiss she offered. Odin, he had missed her.
“It can’t come quickly enough,” he growled as he felt the familiar crackle of electricity as her fingers walked their way down his chest.
“You really came to see me?” Thyri asked reproachfully as she pushed her heels back down into the floor and tilted her chin upwards to look at him. “You swear?” The Dane saw his lover’s eyes flick down to the crib and realisation dawned.
“I swear,” he reassured her before leaning down and whispering something in her ear. Thyri glanced over at Svea in the kitchen with a placated smirk or triumph. Whatever it was he had said, it had evidently been exactly the right thing.
“What about the boy?” asked Rhaegar curiously.
“He doesn’t need me,” Thyri responded quickly, her voice thick with its old silk, “he has a wet nurse, he can stay here with Svea.” Gar followed Thyri’s gaze to the girl. It worked purposefully from his perspective. He got Thyri back, and they could live in the Pantheon together again; they could get their lives back. The boy would stay safe and secret in the wood...but something didn’t quite sit right. Had they not gone to so much trouble because Thyri had wanted to keep the child? What was the difference between leaving Jorg behind in the woods and having him taken by the council?
“Are you sure it’s what you want?” he asked, “because if you want to stay here longer...?”
“No!” Thyri replied, a little too quickly, “no, I will go mad here.” It was a feeling Rhaegar understood all too well; he didn’t push the matter any further.
Extracting himself from Thyri’s embrace Rhaegar moved through the cottage to the kitchen. He leaned against the work surface and looked down at Svea, his purple eyes curious. The God sighed and reached into his leather jerkin, drawing out a paw-shaped pendant on a length of leather thong. He held it out for Svea to take.
“For your service,” he said, as if he were giving her money, rather than a religious relic, “and your silence. It will not be forgotten.” When she didn’t move, Gar reached out impatiently and grabbed hold of Svea’s hand, pushing the pendant into her scarred palm.
“Can you keep him safe here?” he demanded, “do you need anything else when Thyri leaves? You need only ask; anything you or he needs I will get for you. I am not ungenerous.”
Thyri looked at Svea from behind her lover, her expression forbidding. Only Svea knew of her turbulent relationship with her infant son; how one moment she would demand to hold the child, and the next she would be screaming at Svea to take him away. A worry flickered in her chest; would the girl tell Rhaegar? He was Svea's God, Thyri was nothing to her, not really. What would he think if he knew? Would he look at her differently? Glancing down at the baby in the crib Thyri felt the old icy fear grip her throat and she took a decisive step away from the child, turning her back on him so as to look out of the window at the trees beyond. Jorg began to cry.
 |
|