3. Helayna

3

HELAYNA

F or a moment, I was sure that I'd died. I couldn't comprehend how I could have possibly survived.

I remembered being inside a giant snake. Literally inside his flesh, passing through his stomach. Being digested. Absorbed. Drained.

So cold. So dark. If I was awake, I couldn't tell. If this was to be my permanent existence…

I'd rather die.

Something heated my bottom lip. Warm and thick like melted wax. It was so warm that I couldn't help but lick my lip, drawing that tiny bit of heat inside me.

Honey, thick and warm and sweet. I didn't know how it could possibly exist in this hellacious place. Maybe I had died.

But why didn't I awake in paradise, instead of this forlorn place of endless night?

I blinked, but I couldn't see more than vague shadows, slightly darker than the blackness surrounding me. I didn't know who, or what, they were.

"Blessed be," the closest shadow rumbled against me, so deep and bass that it sounded more like rolling thunder than words. "She lives. Take more, my queen, if it will help you."

Something pressed to my lips, smearing more of the thick, warm honey.

I suddenly knew what I was. The roof of my mouth throbbed. Fangs descended. And I couldn't have kept those fangs out of him if my life had depended on it. His flesh warmed against my mouth as he pumped into me. I pulled my fangs out of his wrist so I could gulp his blood as quickly as possible.

So good. I couldn't remember ever feeding so deeply. So well. Though surely I had before. I knew what to do. I just didn't remember actually doing it before. Feeding.

I was a queen. A vampire queen. Hadn't the man in the snake told me so?

Mouth locked to the warm, sweet honey flooding me, I cried at the relief flowing through me. His offering swept through me, spreading heat. Straightening bones that had shattered. Popping others back into place. It hurt, yes, and I moaned against his skin. But I knew I was healing.

He had saved me. Whatever he was.

My Blood. The woman in the dream had told me they would come if I called.

"We need a place of safety," he said to the darkness.

A large, vague shape let out a disgusted snort that sounded like a boulder crashing down the side of a mountain. "Safety? Here?"

"How about the base of Yggdrasil?" The other shape offered. "We can shelter among the roots."

"It's near the gates," the other shape warned. "If J?rmungandr wakes…"

The other one shrugged, massive dark wings shifting around him. "Then we're fucked anyway."

Wings. Creatures darker than the endless night.

What were they? Where was I?

The names J?rmungandr and Yggdrasil were vaguely familiar. They rang with truth in the air between us, and something answered in my blood. Like an echo. A resonance, a spark of joy.

Loki. The trickster of Norse mythology. I knew that much. But I had no idea how I—or the dark shapes who'd saved me—fit into that legend.

The one I was still feeding on tucked me closer as he rose to his feet. The other two stepped closer, surrounding me in a wall of protection.

I swore they felt more like stone than anything alive. Could statues talk and walk and move?

My head swam and I felt the sensation of moving, though we didn't take a step at all. Pressing my tongue to the punctures I'd made, I slowed the blood flow a bit. I felt so much better. I didn't know if he could spare much more, though he didn't seem affected by how much I'd already taken. He certainly made no move to stop me.

I felt like a freaking child in his arms. I'd never met someone so large. Like a mountain. Maybe a giant?

With wings?

And blood that tasted like molten honey?

I licked the punctures and slowly lifted my mouth from his wrist. I stared up where I thought his face must be, but I couldn't see anything identifiable. "Thank you. I hope I didn't drain you too severely."

One of the other shapes laughed. At least, I thought the groaning sound of the earth splitting open was supposed to be laughter. "Drain D?rr of the Black Mountain? I'd like to see where you'd put that much of his essence."

Essence was a strange word for blood. "Thank you just the same, D?rr. Thank you for saving me, of course, but you've also healed me."

"I live to serve, my queen. Though I hope my essence doesn't cause you any negative side effects."

My forehead creased, but I tried to keep the frown from my lips. "Why would your blood harm me? Are you poisonous somehow?"

The three dark shapes seemed to be looking at each other, though I couldn't see their expressions in the darkness. Maybe they were daring each other to see who'd be the one to tell me.

I felt much better, so I wasn't truly worried. Or maybe that was simply how wonderful it felt not to be in terrible pain inside the giant serpent. The warm, thick honey spread through my body, pumping me with more energy than I'd felt in… ages. Maybe ever.

D?rr carefully set me on my feet and then I sensed him dropping down before me, bending low. He still gripped my shoulders, his giant fingers tenderly making sure I kept my feet. "Forgive me, my queen. I couldn't think how else to save you."

"What's wrong?"

"Touch me and you'll know."

Hesitantly, I stretched out my hand toward the dark bulk before me. I laid my fingers on the shadowed shape. I thought it was his bowed head, but I didn't feel any hair. Only a faint warmth from his slick skin. I'd thought he was warm before, but now that I'd fed, I realized I was much warmer than he was. That wasn't necessarily concerning, though the oily stuff on my fingers was definitely different.

"You're an Aima queen, descended from a goddess. From your name, and where we found you…" He tipped his head back and the inky depths of his eyes glittered like black diamonds. "I would hazard to guess you're descended from Hel."

His words resonated within me. "That seems familiar… but I don't honestly remember."

"I smelled Loki," one of the other shapes said. "He was the father of Hel, Fenrir, and J?rmungandr."

I shuddered, remembering the parental way he'd treated me—while leaving me to suffer and die inside one of his children. "What are your names?"

"I'm Svar of the Endless Slough."

"Myrk of the Bottomless Pit."

Their names were certainly unusual. But at least they knew their names. I only had Loki's word to go on that mine was even Helayna. Though it felt right once I heard it.

I trailed my fingers down D?rr's head to his shoulder. It wasn't just his head that was slick. It felt like he'd crawled out of an oil pit. The stuff coated my fingers and started to warm on my skin, but not in a bad way.

In fact, it felt good enough that I shivered. The rest of me was so fucking cold that I was tempted to rub against him like a cat and smear the warming oil all over my body.

"You don't know," he whispered roughly. "You don't know what we are."

"No…?"

"When you called us, we had been sleeping as gargoyles for at least three thousand years."

Well. That explained the wings, and why they'd felt like stone against me. They really had been living statues.

"They can't transform as quickly as I can. I'm a few hundred years older, give or take. That makes me stronger."

"Okay."

His fingers tightened on my shoulders and I felt the searing intensity of his stare, though I could barely make out his glittering eyes in the darkness. He braced me, as if he feared he would need to catch me. "We're dark alfar, my queen."

"Okay…?" I repeated slowly, not sure why that was a problem.

"You might know us better as dark elves," the one on my right said.

I was sure I'd probably heard fairytales at some point about elves, but I'd never expected to meet any.

Let alone call them as Blood.

Let alone dark elves. Though it certainly made sense in this cold, dark place. "And you said we're at the base of Yggdrasil? That's the world tree of Norse mythology, right?"

D?rr didn't answer immediately.

"Yes," the one on my left finally replied. "We're at its base in Hvergelmir. Does that mean something to you?"

"No…" I said slowly. "Why should it?"

"Because it was also called Hel, after the goddess who commanded this realm."