Her sister gave Isla a sideways glance before nodding to Alva. “She speaks the truth. Our mother does request your presence. I can’t tell you exactly what’s happening. You know Mother and her secrecy, but it is imperative you return to our home forest.”
Maya stepped closer, her hand snaking around Alva’s forearm and pulling her back a few steps. “She is not going anywhere until I have my say. We will camp here for the night.” With that declaration, the angry Huldra stomped away, all but dragging Alva until she stumbled, and Maya let go of her arm.
“Follow me, or...” She left the threat hanging. All three women knew better than to cross Maya. They might be family, but her temper was legendary among the tribes, even those living on Midgard. During the Elves’ Great War, she had single-handedly killed five hundred men in one day, and at least thirty women. Too bad elf energy wasn’t sustaining.
They followed Maya through the great trees surrounding the Asgardian capital city. Any positive thoughts deserted her the farther they walked into the forest’s darkened interior. With a quick glance over her shoulder, she caught the worried look Isla gave Adriana. That didn’t bode well, but she didn’t want to make Maya any angrier than she already was, so she filed the question away until she could ask her two closest friends without being overheard.
Maya stopped in a small clearing, not too far away from the main path that would take Alva to Freyja, but enough of a distance that she wouldn’t be able to contact her boss for help. Alva chewed on her bottom lip as she tried to think of a backup plan and remembered hearing rumors about Heimdall having the ability to see anyone anywhere, no matter what world they lived on. It wasn’t much, but hoping the gatekeeper could see her was all she had. With a drawn-out sigh, she forced her frantically beating heart to calm. The last thing she wanted was for Maya to realize just how much she scared her.
“We’ll camp here. Isla, gather wood, and Adriana will find food,” Maya demanded.
Isla jammed her fists on her slender hips. “Would it kill you to ask?” Maya gave her a deadpan expression, not bothering to answer her. Isla scowled, then whirled around on one heel and stomped back into the forest, her grumbles fading with every step.
“Seriously, Maya, you need to work on your social skills,” Adriana said. “Haven’t you heard the expression about attracting more bees with honey instead of vinegar?”
“Shut it, Adriana. I’m hungry. Go find our dinner. Rabbit would be nice.”
Alva met her sister’s gaze and discretely nodded. Adriana pinched her lips and shook her head as she followed their cousin’s path between the trees. As the light of day faded, the shadows reached out to touch the dark space just a few feet inside the forest and surrounded her sister, who disappeared.
Alva sat on the ground, her legs crisscrossed with her wrists balanced on each knee as she watched Maya pace and noticed the chill in the air. Something was wrong. She had not talked to her cousin in months, nor had she spoken with her mother, so she had no idea what it might be.
Maybe avoiding her mother, no matter how much better it made her feel, may not have been the best decision. Not that she’d had a lot of free time in the last few years. Working for Freyja, manipulating and spying in the war on Midgard, had taken most of her time. Besides, the last thing she wanted to do was see her mother, not after she had decreed the old ways as law. They were to be followed by all Huldra, and anyone who didn’t want to follow them would die.
All Alva had dreamed of growing up was finding the one man who could see past her tail and the bark covering her back and love her for her. She had never wanted to trap men, forcing them to fall in love with her, then stealing their life-force. Did the men live on the energy, the soul, or the blood? She had no idea because the man’s body was nothing more than a dry husk after being drained. They shouldn’t have to die for her people to live.
Maya reminded her so much of her mother. They were both very angry women, and nothing could change that. At least, nothing she had figured out anyway. After her youngest sister’s birth, she’d caught a glimmer of emotion on her mother’s face while staring at her newborn baby, but in a blink, the loving expression had morphed into what she and her siblings called the bitch-queen face. Her mother had been cold ever since.
It had not always been that way, though. When Alva was a young girl, first learning how to balance with her tail high up in the forest’s canopy, she could remember her mother laughing and playing with her, chasing her through the trees and tickling her until she laughed so hard, she couldn’t breathe.
“Maya, please sit down. You’re driving me crazy pacing like that.” She waited until her cousin decided what she was going to do, the evidence of her indecision on her pretty face. “Please?”
Rolling her shoulders back, Maya shrugged and sat on a fallen tree trunk on the other side of the small clearing. “I’m not stopping because you asked.”
Alva bit back a chuckle at her cousin’s blatant lie, but it didn’t matter. Her constant pacing had stopped. “I know we haven’t talked in a while, and I’m sorry about that. Freyja kept me very busy with the war on Midgard.”
Maya leaned forward, unintentionally imitating Alva’s pose. It was the interest glittering in the Huldra’s eyes that surprised her. “You were there? What was it like?”
She thought about how to respond for a moment, then shrugged. “It was war. A terrible, horrible time that almost destroyed that world. As usual, Óðinn played games and tried to harness the chaos, but Freyja and several other amazing women helped stop him in time. They even tracked the German Führer, Adolf Hitler, to Paraguay, where he died trying to organize the Fourth Reich. He orchestrated horrible things against the people he didn’t like.”
“I don’t care about that. What were the battles like? What weapons did they use?”
Alva shook her head. “You are very battle-minded, aren’t you? Do you not care about the well-being of the murdered people? Their families?”
She shrugged and leaned back. “Why should I? I am a Huldra who lives on male energy. Isn’t that the same thing as murder? We must do this to survive. Are we less important than the males throughout the Nine Worlds? Don’t we have the right to live too?”
Alva chewed on her bottom lip, then forced herself to stop. It was a bad habit from childhood. Thankfully, she only did it when she was deep in thought. Maya’s statements resonated. After all, she’d thought that very thing mere moments ago. Huldra did have the right to live, but was the cost to males too high? She had no clue.
Her gaze followed a small ant trying to drag a leaf three times larger than itself toward its den a few feet away. “I hear what you’re saying, Maya. I do. Our race does have that right, but at what price to other races? Murdering men for their energy isn’t right, but my mother won’t listen to any other way.” She met her cousin’s narrowed gaze. “I do not agree with how my mother is governing our people.”
Maya opened her mouth, but when Isla and Adriana reappeared, she closed it again and stood. With a flick of her finger, she motioned for Isla to drop the wood chunks balanced precariously in her arms in the center of the clearing.
Adriana held up two small rabbits. “Will these do?”
Maya stared at the hares. “They’re small, but I see some meat on them.” She nodded at Adriana. “You did well enough.”
Her sister scowled and dropped the limp bodies at Maya’s feet. “Well, your highness, I do not skin animals. Why don’t you put the knife sheathed in your boot to use and take care of it for us?”
Once more, Maya’s dark-green eyes narrowed. Surprisingly, she reached down and deftly skinned each rabbit, laying out the hides to dry, while she fabricated a makeshift spit over the now-blazing fire.