AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chipper sits in the lap of the studio technician, Joanne, a woman who my wife has been spending more and more time with of late. Joanne is in her fifties and always wears flowing, summery dresses, despite the encroaching cold weather.
She’s a good, decent woman, and I’m glad that my wife has found a friend as well as a work partner.
But my eyes only graze across her before settling like flaming infernos on Tammy.
She stands in the booth, her hand clutching the microphone as her cheeks flame red. Her angelic voice fills the booth as she sings a song she wrote herself, a song about life and death and a thousand years in the cold dark north before emerging onto a sun-glorious beach and basking with her lover. She sways as she sings, her natural musicality shining through in her performance.
Having Freya has added even more curves to her body, something I thought impossible before. As I sit here, I’m glad that Joanne and Freya and Chipper are here, otherwise I might ruin the performance by smashing through the sound-proofed glass and claiming my queen where she stands.
After completing the song, she exits the booth and comes around to the seating section.
“God, that was awful,” she says.
“It was not,” Joanne snaps. “And you know it wasn’t.”
“It was amazing, wife,” I tell her fiercely. “It was the voice of an angel. But a dangerous angel. A badass angel. An angel capable of taming a devil, you could say.”
We share a secret smile and I feel a deafening army of Valkyries soaring through my mind and heart and soul.
In my first mortal life, all I longed for was for them to carry me off to the heavenly halls where I thought I’d be happiest, most content. But now I’m here, with my wife, looking like a picture of perfection even in her baggy T-shirt and jeans, the fabrics doing nothing to conceal the voluptuousness of her body.
“What did you think, boy?” she asks, scooping Chipper up and coming to sit next to us.
Chipper leans over and softly, tenderly licks Freya on the head. Our daughter smiles in her sleep and together we all lie back on the couch, Joanne leaving the room quietly, shutting us off in silence for a few minutes.
“I’m so nervous,” Tammy murmurs into the quiet. “My first album. What if it’s terrible?”
“You’ve worked hard,” I growl. “All those gigs you did, even while pregnant. And I know it’s not terrible. I’ve heard a lot of music, Tammy, countless artists, over the years. And you’re something else. You, my beautiful, perfect wife, are one of a kind.”
“Gorgeous?” she giggles, gesturing at herself with the hand Chipper isn’t currently rubbing against. “Have you seen me lately? I didn’t know you were supposed to glow after the pregnancy, too.”
“Yes,” I say passionately. “I have seen you, and you look like a woman who’d be naked and doing unmentionable things right now if we were alone.”
“Really?” she whispers, stroking her hand over Freya’s head and then finding my fingers.
“Really,” I say firmly, giving her hand a squeeze, still stunned at the love and warmth that can flow between two mortals, that flows between us ceaselessly, beautifully, and will do so for the rest of our earthly lives.
“Because I love you,” I growl, leaning across and kissing her at the edge of her mouth.
Any closer and I’d lose control.
“And you.”
I kiss Freya and she makes an endearing cooing noise.
“Yes, yes, and you, Chipper.”
I bring my face close to the little man and he climbs onto my head, lapping at my cheeks, as Tammy and I laugh quietly so as not to wake our daughter.
Extended Epilogue
Ten Years Later
Tammy
I sing softly as I chop the tomatoes for the omelet, the morning sun shafting through the window and lighting up the sleek kitchen like the inside of a diamond. Birds chirp from the nearby forest and the shadows of the trees in our garden are already growing shorter, showing that the weatherman might’ve gotten it right for once. Today looks to be glorious.
“Hey,” Freya says, walking into the kitchen and shooting me a mischievous grin that’s half her father and half completely her own. “We’re on holiday, Mom. That means no work.”
“Making you a delicious breakfast is work now, is it? Then I’ll stop.”
She giggles as she hops onto the bar stool. She has the light blonde Nordic hair that Torsten had before it silvered, and her face is full of his same impishness. Since becoming a mortal, Torsten has become far more playful, taking joy in life he tells me he never had as a vampire.
“And I owe it all to you,” he whispered last night, as we lay in bed, both breathless after our lovemaking. It’s gotten even more passionate over the years, stolen in precious moments between our careers and family life. “I owe everything to you, Tammy.”
