Crazy Seduction(erotica)

“What? No unisex hot spring? Henry, I’m disappointed!”

“See! I told you,” he said with a smirk and followed the men through the blurred wall.

He missed the look of confusion on her face, then the flash when she remembered he’d promised to make an exception for her.

-=-

The hot springs had been a huge hit, and Eleanor ensured they didn’t stay in the water too long.

Talia arrived ten minutes into their soak, and from the sounds coming from the lady’s side, the other Valkyries were seriously envious of whatever trophy she’d taken from the beast she’d slain.

Once everyone had dried off with the towels Meixiu and the twins had delivered, they packed them back into the large laundry sacks, and the Valkyries carried them as the group walked back to the doors to the mansion’s cave.

Sigrid insisted she was well enough for a casual stroll but promised to take him up on his offer to carry her if she encountered any pain or cramping.

Henry got to carry Stanley, who was asleep in his arms. He couldn’t get over how small he was. Truthfully, he was slightly smaller than his sister Ylva who was currently sleeping in Hilda’s arms.

When he’d asked Sigrid if she needed help with the twins, she assured him that Hilda was all the help she needed. Her mother would be moving into a spare bedroom in her brownstone until the children passed into their independent stage.

He wondered how this would impact their date nights.

Talia sauntered up beside him and smiled at the baby in his arms. “A male Valkyrie. I never thought I’d live to see the day.”

Henry nodded as he had no words for that.

Then it came to him as he looked at his son. “These are special days.”

Talia smiled thoughtfully and nodded.

“I hear your hunt went well,” Henry said.

Her smile widened. “Yes, it was glorious! Forty feet from teeth to tail, black as midnight, and fast as a lightning strike. There were moments when I thought I might have chosen a foe too great for my skill. It was in one of those moments I found something more in me and took its head with a single slash.”Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org exclusive © material.

He could see she was reliving the moment when she faced her mortality and survived, so he remained quiet.

She came back to the moment and blushed slightly.

“You took a trophy?” he asked.

‘Yes! One of its larger fangs!” She carefully extracted a white dagger-shaped tooth from a pouch she had strapped to her hip. The tooth had to be at least nine inches long.

Henry whistled in appreciation. “That’s the biggest one I’ve seen yet! It looks deadly sharp!”

“It is! It will make an excellent weapon!” Talia exclaimed excitedly.

He smiled at her enthusiasm.

Her smile was replaced with a look of serious contemplation. “I spoke with Hilda regarding your ability to heal. No Valkyrie is ashamed of their scars. They tell the story of my battles. They are me.”

“I wouldn’t remove the scars. For that, you’d be better off with someone as skilled as Eleanor, anyway. Like you said, you want to keep them. I would only repair the underlying structure, the damaged muscle, and nerves. To give you back their function and sensation.”

Talia unconsciously touched her drooping lip.

“It’s up to you. There’s no deadline on the offer. If you ever decide you want it done, just let me know. Hilda told you about the pain management?”

“Valkyries are no stranger to pain. That said, Hilda said there were moments when she was almost lost, but you brought her back.”

Henry frowned. Hilda hadn’t said that to him, and he couldn’t recall having any foresight when he applied the pain. “I-I don’t know about that. I do know it can overwhelm those unable to endure it. Hilda survived.”

“Then I can do no less. I will take you up on your offer, but I won’t be available to do it for a while,” she said. He nodded, and she moved off to speak to Sylvi.

Henry saw they were approaching the doors and was glad he’d added the light orbs as the daylight was waning. He saw Roy and Mary by the doors welcoming the families back and keeping them moving through. Sigrid met Henry at the door and plucked Stanley from his arms. He kissed her, and she smiled wearily.

“I’m going to get some sleep. We can talk in the morning?” she asked sweetly.

“Of course, we can,” he said with a smile. Hilda, carrying Ylva, collected her daughter, and they went into the cave.

Camila waited with Henry, Roy, and Mary until all of the guests were through and Roy confirmed that none of their guests remained on Eden. Henry gestured for them to go first then he pushed the doors closed. He put the dimensional gate spell back into its dormant state, and the crystals dimmed once more. He checked their power levels. The door had been open for almost three hours, and he was still at seventy-six percent. In the power generator’s dormant mode, it would trickle charging the crystals up to ninety-nine percent.

When he turned around, he saw Camila and Roy were waiting for him with their arms crossed across their chests. Mary was looking between them and Henry with interest.

He took a deep breath, raised a finger, and whispered a few words.

The corridor’s end was suddenly closed with what looked like a solid wall of rock once more. The light globes dimmed, and there was a slight sensation of pressure on their ears. He nodded to Roy.

“We have privacy now?” Roy asked, and Henry nodded again. “What’s this Camila tells me about you being under a compulsion to use magic?”

He shook his head slowly. “I think compulsion is the wrong word. It feels like I’m still being used in a battle of wills between Baba and the beings who gave her powers. Neither side has overtly tried to communicate with me. I don’t think they can do that.”

He frowned and shook his head. “No, I have to amend that statement. When I was fighting Hilda, she provoked me badly, and in a moment of inattention, I called up a spell in my defense from the dark spells. I immediately disabled it but not before feeling its strong link to dark entities.”

Camila made a sound of concern, but Henry made a gesture to assure her. “I never connected mentally to the spell. It was launched for me.”

Roy and Camila froze and looked at him. “That shouldn’t be possible,” Roy said.

Henry nodded. “Without my willful approval, no spell can be accessed and launched within me. Yet one was.”

Now his friends looked really worried. Even Mary, who had no background in Magic, was looking at Henry like a time bomb. He continued. “I’ve taken the precaution of adding a kill switch. If one of the really bad spells is launched without my will being involved, I die.”

“WHAT? What the hell were you thinking? That’s completely daft!” Roy roared.

Henry calmly looked the big redhead in the eye. “You don’t know what these spells do. You don’t understand the scale of the entities backing them, providing the corrupt, unnatural energies to unleash their evil payload. I WON’T BE USED FOR THAT!” Henry roared back.

Roy was taken aback at the strength in Henry’s conviction. He tried a different tack. “Who launched the spell?”

It was Camila who answered. “Baba.”

Henry gave Camila an approving look for her clever mind. “Hilda wasn’t pulling any punches. She would have killed me if she could have. The risk was real. She forced Baba to show her hand. She always lacked faith in me, but then, she’d lost faith in everyone.”

“Is… is she inside you?” Roy asked.

Henry winced and shook his head a little as Roy watched him cautiously.

“Not as a full-blown consciousness. That exists… elsewhere, but she can reach me, as proven by her launching that spell. You know Baba stuffed my head full of knowledge before she disappeared.” They nodded. “To be included with those taken by the curse, Baba needed to shed her powers, so she forced it on me. All of it. Some of those spells contained the sensations of their being used and the perceptions she experienced when they were. Bits of Baba were included and are stored in my brain.”

“Not a fate I’d wish for you,” Roy said softly.

Henry snorted. “It wasn’t like I had the power to say no.” They nodded in silent agreement.