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Regrettably and before she could get Angrboda out of her home, the Giantess reached the end of her manipulative, and quite frankly, disgusting attempts at subterfuge.

In the blink of an eye, her brows furrowed, she rolled back her shoulders, and with her puffy blood red lips pulled into a harsh, thin line, she went in for the kill.

Sighing wistfully, Angrboda leaned across the table, and cooed in the most horrifically high-pitched but still gruff and gravely tone that made chills skate up and down Hel’s spine, “Have you found your Mate, daughter dear? Do you know who he is? Are you ready to go to him?”

Hel saw the crooked wheels of her mother’s demented, deluded, and deranged mind turning. Angrboda thought she had prepared for every scenario. She was sure she could wear her daughter down, take her to the brink, then break her like a twig.

Preparing herself for the worst, knowing it might even be more horrific, Hel smiled, but didn’t answer even one of her mother’s questions. The more Angrboda asked, and the goddess ignored, the angrier the Giantess became until she switched mental gears without missing a beat.

Moving closer still, her hot, fetid breath and scorching spittle showered Hel’s face as she asked very pointed, crude and lewd questions concerning any man who might be Hel’s Mate.

From there she went straight to the goddess’s double visage, then quickly devolved into vile slurs and cruel jokes about the dead side of Hel’s body–of which Angrboda blamed Loki without rhyme nor reason.

Finally, when the Giantess realized Hel was simply not going to rise to the bait, she came right out and asked, “Can you even have sex? I mean, half of that down there is dead too, right? What man in his right mind would slide into you?” Laughing wildly, she taunted, “After all, his dick, if he has one, might shrivel up and fall off from just one thrust.”

Thankfully, Garmr had sensed Hel’s mental distress and had knocked on the door. Even better, Angrboda had quietly slipped out the backdoor.

“And people wonder why I’m a hermit. Why I just can’t go to Hopper. Why I need to work through my issues in my own time. I just… Shit!” She spat with such force that the Ravens opened their beaks and roughly cawed in response.

Running her fingers through her hair, she huffed with even more exasperation than before.

“It would be easier to list the things I don’t have to work through, wouldn’t it?

Yep, sure would. I suck. Desi and Faye are only trying to help, and I’m an ungrateful friend.

What a heaping, steaming crock of shit I’ve made out of everything.

Why do I always make everything so difficult? ”

“You don’t,” Carys soothed. “You have perfectly good reasons for everything you’ve done. Stop being so hard on yourself.”

“Yeah, cause that’s your job, right?”

“Wait… What? Well, I never. I was only trying to…”

“Yes, you have, and you still do all the time.”

“Fine. As I was saying, I was only trying to help, to be supportive, and I know you’re just projecting because it makes the bitter pill of what’s happened and continues to happen a little easier to swallow.

You need someone to blame and I’m here. So, I’ll just sit quietly and listen while you mentally give yourself forty lashes and relive the most horrific times of your life.

I might even pop some popcorn and try one of those stupid diet sodas you love so much.

This is sure to be an Emmy award winning performance. ”

“See? Now was that so hard?”

“You have no idea.” And with that the Dragoness Queen slammed her mental blocks shut with such fury that the Magic echoed through Hel’s mind.

“Great,” the goddess grumbled. “Wonder how long she’ll be giving me the silent treatment?

I’m so good I even piss off the one with whom I share my soul.

I am a wiener, Baby.” Chuckling out loud, she added, “That is one of my top ten human sayings. I just love when they do the whole play on words thing.”

Damn! She was seriously batting a thousand and laughing at herself while she did it. Not to mention putting the rotten cherry on the shit sundae her day was turning out to be, Hel was even more disappointed with herself.

She’d bailed on Desi’s Party. Hidden out in her Realm. And now she was thinking about running away from home, so she didn’t have to talk to one of her closest friends, just so she didn’t have to admit what she’d done.

“And I will most definitely have to tell Liv what I did. That Valkyrie and her Familiar don’t miss a thing. Hell, they probably already know.”

It was nuts. She did love Liv. They had a blast together, and it would be fun to have some company. She’d only spoken to people on the phone or through their special mental telepathy since Valentine’s Day, the date of that blasted party.

So, why wasn’t she moving?

Her feet were planted on the patio stones and her muscles were at the ready, but she was sitting there like a bump on a log staring at that blasted statue. Lately, her eyes were always focused on the same thing, always gazing and daydreaming.

“I am getting exactly what I deserve,” she sighed.

“I bailed on my friends, and I have chosen to talk to a statue of the most gorgeous man in the world instead of the real life, breathing thing. If I would only stop being so damned stubborn and take a chance, I could have the real thing. Yep, I am definitely in the running for Queen Bonehead of all the Boneheads in the entire universe.”

From the moment she’d commissioned Noreri of the North, the renowned Dwarf sculptor whose work decorated the Norse Pantheon and Odin’s Castle in Asgard, she’d known it was a mistake.

She’d cancelled and rescheduled its creation at least six times with the stupidest excuses anyone could ever imagine.

Then, finally, after being hounded by Carys for three straight days, Hel relented. She called the Dwarf, ordered the statue, and said she would not bother him again until its completion.

When Noreri and his three brothers, Austri, Sueri & Vestri delivered the sculpture, the sheer likeness and attention to detail quite simply left her speechless.

It was as if the man made for her by the Universe, the Omnipotent Being known as Hope, the one who liked to be called Hopper and wore western wear was right there in her home– in her garden .

She’d spent days looking at him, practicing what she would say to him, and most of all, not running away the minute he looked at her or entered the room. She’d come up with a hundred ways to say she was sorry and to explain why she’d done what she did.

Sadly, not a damn one of them seemed sufficient.

How did a goddess apologize to an Omnipotent Being, to her Mate, for being a coward?

Would Hopper think she was an idiot if she simply said, “Sorry I’ve been avoiding you for hundreds of years, but I just don’t think I’m good enough for you.

” Then before he could answer, she would add, “I mean, let’s be real.

You’re Hope personified, and I am just not.

My lineage speaks for itself. My dad is the notorious Trickster god.

My mother is the Giantess Odin calls Distress Bringer.

I am the goddess of Helheim and the Ruler of the Dead. And I… well, I… umm… I mean, I look…”

Of course, that was when Carys always jumped in and started ranting and raving in a mixture of ancient Welsh and English that was quite hard to understand.

The Dragoness Queen had given Hel a rash of shit a mile wide and two miles long for weeks afterward.

She’d started with, “You are beautiful inside and out, and I am not the only one who thinks so. Arawn tells you that. Garmr tells you that. Fate and Desi tell…”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got a frikkin’ fan club,” Hel always snarled. “Give it up, Carys. I have a mirror. I have eyes. I know what I look like.”

“Cut the bullshit,” the Dragoness snapped.

“I will not listen to you disparaging someone I love. I just won’t do it.

But… you will listen to me. You will hear every word I have to say.

” Not missing a beat, pausing for effect or taking the slightest breath, Carys just kept going with the ferocity, loyalty, and devotion of a true friend.

“All you have to do is swallow the misguided and quite frankly, idiotic belief that you are not good enough for Hopper and go to him. Are you trying to tell me that you believe the Universe has made a mistake?”

“No, I mean…”

“You are either blind… Which I know that you are not. Or stupid… Another thing I know is absurd. Or totally unobservant… Which is ludicrous. That leaves me to assume that you have chosen to ignore the fact that the Omnipotent Being known as Hope, the man made for you by his very own Aunt, the renowned and infamous Universe–who most assuredly does not make mistakes–thinks the sun shines right out your backside. You simply refuse to acknowledge the way he looks at you, the way his eyes swirl and sparkle. You blatantly ignore the telltale way he cannot stay away even when you turn tail and run at every occasion. For some stupid, asinine, and quite frankly, idiotic reason, you have chosen to ignore everything you know to be true about the nature of living beings–and that includes you, my dear girl. You have made a conscious and concerted decision to let your insecurities and misguided belief in what the assholes of the world–and I absolutely include your insidious mother with green skin, rotten teeth and hair that needs a good wash and brush in that set because she is the Grand High Poobahess of Shitheads–say about you and have chosen to deny yourself the love and adoration of a good man and the happily ever after promised to you.”

“But I…”

“Hush up. I’m not finished.

And Carys was most definitely not finished.

The heat-filled tirade had gone on for nearly two hours and on the last occasion had only ended when Hel was called to Nastrond, the Corpse Beach, where the souls of murderers, perjurers, and notorious liars were sentenced to spend eternity.

Normally, she hated going there, but on that day, it was a welcome respite from the Dragoness Queen’s lecture.

“Okay, enough of that trip down Memory Lane, and the jaunts up Commemoration Court and Reminiscence Avenue,” the goddess scoffed. “I need to get up and get prepared.”

Pushing off the cushion of the chaise, she took one last glance at her garden then did a one-eighty and headed into the castle. Setting her glass in the sink, she took the long way around the huge island in the center and headed for the hall.

Two steps from the threshold, she chuckled to Carys even though she knew the Dragoness Queen would not respond, “You remember that country song we heard in Texas? The one that everybody in the Sampson Twins’ bar knew the words to?

Drop Kick Me Jesus through the Goalposts of Life?

Well, my favorite, the one I truly relate to is I Shaved My Legs For This.

But I would add, And I Damned Near Bled To Death. ”