#freyda

Eric never went back to his own room that first day, too tired to care and secretly craving company. When he woke up the next evening, Freyda's fingers were threaded in his hair, cradling his head as she slept.

He thought he would loathe living in a landlocked state, but Freyda's property had a massive, man-made lake that they both liked to wade into during the frigid winter months, reminding them of the North Sea.

As soon as Eric proposed doubling the length of the marriage contract in exchange for Sookie's safety and the assurance that Pam would become sheriff, Freyda knew she would offer to release him from it much earlier. He deserved as much.

When Sookie choose not to intervene in his predicament, Freyda was stunned into a quiet rage. She couldn't believe the woman he loved so much was unwilling to fight for him.

Eric had been to Freyda's hometown once a long time ago, when he had been part of a Viking raid that conquered the settlement. When he told her as much, Freyda laughed and said she had conquered a far greater prize—him.

Freyda offered to send someone to murder the "tricky little shifter" when Sam weaseled out of Eric's bargain, but Eric did not want Sookie to hate him any more than she already did. His new wife wanted to ask why he cared about her opinion at all, but she wisely dropped the subject.

Eric found he was well-suited to his auxiliary role where he was given authority and respect, but did not have to deal with the complications that came with being a monarch.

Once Pam was established as the new sheriff of Area 5, Freyda invited her to come for a surprise visit. When Eric saw her, it looked like light had reentered his life, and Freyda insisted her door was always open to his progeny.

Freyda spoke Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish. She was the only one who understood what Eric was saying when he cursed under his breath in Old Norse during tense meetings, and she had to resist the urge to laugh when he secretly called one of her advisors a stupid goat-fucker.

When they wanted a private word together, they spoke Swedish, sometimes remarking on the absurd customs of the American vampires with a sense of European superiority.

Freyda's mansion was spacious and modern, but filled with a sense of Danish hygge. On nights when they could be alone, Freyda liked to lay on the plush fur rug in front of the fire and listen to Eric tell her about his friendship with Leonardo da Vinci, or the time he was almost ritually sacrificed by a group of furious Gaelic witches on a full moon. He would lay his head in her lap while he talked, and she would stroke his hair.

Eric was determined never to ask Freyda for any favors, but she seemed to read him intuitively and granted his desires without prompting. She wanted him to find happiness as her consort, and eventually, he did.

Even though they shared a bed, Freyda refused all of Eric's sexual advances for a while. She was determined not to let him pursue her out of a sense of obligation, and would put her finger to his lips whenever he tried to kiss her. Usually this worked, but one night he pinned her beneath him with a possessive growl and captured her mouth in a bruising kiss. "Let me taste you," he rasped, dragging his lips down her torso and burying his nose into the fine hair between her legs. "That's no way to address your queen—" she began, but she fell silent under his sweet ministrations, his hands firmly circling her wrists.

Freyda was not a fan of True Blood, so she had a variety of donors instead who would sometimes eat a monodiet of a particular fruit to lend their blood a particular bouquet. When she asked Eric what he preferred, he said, "Oranges."

Eric stewed in bitter solitude for a week after he received a photo of Sookie on her wedding day. Freyda did not summon him for state business and let him keep to himself, privately musing that the capricious woman was not worthy of his devotion. When he did not come to bed one morning, Freyda found him seated in front of the fireplace in his office with a small thank you card laying on his desk. She picked up the card and read over the impersonal note of thanks for a set of fine silverware, written as though he was nothing more than a kind acquaintance. "She did not hold you in high esteem, this girl," Freyda said very quietly. Eric's shoulders were stiff and his chin rested on his fist as he stared into the grate, the flames reflected in his blue eyes. "No," he murmured. "She did not."

There was a large stable on the property, and sometimes the queen and her consort slipped away from their duties to go out riding under the light of the moon. When it was time to go back, Freyda would challenge Eric to a race, which she usually let him win.

Eric was ruthless toward anyone who disrespected his queen, and once tore off the head of a would-be assassin in the middle of a grand party, spraying the foreign dignitaries they were entertaining with a shower of blood. When they returned to her bedroom later, Freyda pulled him into the shower and worshipped every inch of him with her tongue.

Whenever Pam was in town, Freyda always scheduled a girls-only spa day so they could catch up and talk about their primary mutual interest: Eric. "When you stole him from me, I wished you nothing but the true death," Pam drawled on one such visit while they both lay facedown on massage tables. "But perhaps it was the only way to free him of Sookie." Freyda considered her words in silence for a long moment. "Do you think he's happy?" she asked. "As happy as a caged bird can ever be," Pam observed.

@siiinfully​

@siiinfully​