Page 1 of Delinquent Dette
Chapter One
The Chasing of the Drakes
Frikka
1799
Frikka was no stranger to dalliances among his father’s court…or rather, one in particular. Sex was not the taboo it was among other clans, with lust and love being more accepted among the Nielsens. After all, Frikka needed practice to do his goddess-given duty to his Drake.
Where his father drew the line, though, was the annual chasing of the Drakes, for no Dette son of his line would ever breed among the raiders come season. He could try, though. Frikka was good at the impossible.
Tradition held that on a Dette’s first spring, where heat lit their perfume and their amorous nature drove them to court, they would be given a female gosling. The Dette would nurture the goose and forego their first heat as a gift to their bodies, as Freya had told their first Dettes was right, and when that gosling laid its first egg, the Dette would nurture it and brood it. And if it hatched, they’d be chosen by the goddess to dance among the raiders Drakes in the forest and choose a warrior to give their first full heat to. And any egg borne of the chasing became a soldier for the jarl’s raids. Branded to never mate.
So, when the jarl’s Dette sons came into season, their geese were kept pure and the eggs never hatched. No bicolored scales would ever touch the ranks of raiders. The pearlescent flecked freckles over Frikka’s flanks marked him as a true carrier for the royal trait. He’d bear a line of jarls and kings! So, from birth, his freedom would end sooner and harsher than most.Politically.
In spite of this, when Frikka was given his gosling, the poor thing grew and withered for want of a gander, beady eyes staringforlornly from her pen at a particularly rutty, virile creature missing part of a foot and an eye. Rumor had it the thing had eaten snakes and won a fight with a hunter’s falcon, even wounded the jarl’s prized hunting dog. And with one eye, they considered him an omen of Odin.
And one of the Viking soldiers, voyagers of pillage to the new worlds, Sten, had babied the thing as if he were a kitten most his life, when not out on a raid.
Maybe Frikka left the pen open one night, or perhaps it was his own spirit commanding it and the goddess acting. Some swore they’d seen that whore of a cockerel mating his prized virginal goose Blomst through a hole in the fence. And it was no surprise when she laid a clutch of fertile eggs and fearlessly nested with an eager Frikka, teaching him to properly turn and tend the ovoid shapes before his chosen egg hatched into a healthy gosling, much to his father’s shame.
And so, the shaman had declared it—Frikka would chase the Drakes as the goddess intended.
Sten
At the year’s first thaw, they leashed their longboats and returned home on still-frozen seas, loaded with riches for their jarl and enough unspent seed to satisfy a thousand Dettes. They’d take their given percent of the haul and join the chase where they may be allowed to spend a heat with a Dette. After all, as someone branded of the fatherless, given to the god Tyr for his power and bounty, it would be the only viable way for him to take a heat. No mate would he be given, unless the smashed and pressed flowers he’d smuggled from the spicelands were enough to convince a Dette to take someone of his low stature, another fatherless Dette, perhaps. And with the jarl’s approval, of course.
Or, perhaps he’d woo another one, the Dette he’d lusted over since his tail bore the chubby fat of youth and his wings hadn’t tasted sky. One freckled with the pearlescent clusters of high kings. A forbidden of forbidden.
One the jarl would kill to control. His own son.
He’d offered to share the flowers among his brethren, had regretted doing so. His commander had snatched some for himself, tossed them aside as perfumery and superstition while imbibing and using the few stray flowers to rut with the younger Drakes.
Many scoffed at Sten as superstitious.
Others remained wary.
But when the Dettes were presented and identified, Sten would flaunt his prize until the perfect Dette chose him.
Hopefully.
It was equally likely the flower was a dud, but it didn’t hurt that his pet gander Orne was a talented escape artist, and equally complacent when it came to sharing a pen with Frikka’s ceremonial goose. Sten only had to show him how to get in once, and he learned well.
Clever little manwhore.
Sten had vowed to Orne that he’d never eat him, ever.
So, when Frikka passed through the jarl’s garden to spy upon the lounging soldiers, those sweet blue eyes locked onto his own with a simmering promise in them.
When they finally approached one another, polite indifference plastered over their faces, Frikka could only smile and wish the Drake luck and speed. After all, Sten wasn’t a very fast runner. Not for him, anyway.
Chapter Two
Frikka
The goddess smiled upon Frikka that season and during the running of the Drakes, had caught Sten and claimed him as his prize for his heat to come. They’d spent a long, lazy spring evening making love on a moss bed by the creek, and from his pouch, Sten had pulled free a pressed blossom, blue in color.
Between the pages of an English book, the pretty thing rested in his hand and gave off a faint, sweet scent. While his human form had thought the treasure an amusing thing, his dragon purred and demanded Sten for his own—for always. And the thought didn’t scare him.
