“If you’re looking for Hel’s secret weakness or something similar to what defeated Baldur, there isn’t one.” Watching their lips move while they spoke was more disconcerting than simply listening. Nothing was in sync. “She’s a goddess of war and death. Brute force makes her stronger, and kindness may give her indigestion.”
Kirby sighed. “But I’m—”
“Question answered. You wanted to know what Hel’s weakness was and we’ve told you. Debt repaid. You’ll find your car in its spot at your hotel.”
The Hooded Spirits and the mansion vanished, and Gwydion and Kirby were in Starkad’s hotel room with him and Min.
Starkad spun to face them, relief flooding his features. “Thank the gods.”
Gwydion’s fury raced back in force, tinged with futility.
KIRBY RIPPED THE DESTROYED earpiece out and tossed it on the table. “Hel.” She couldn’t manage any other words. Where was she supposed to focus? On the strange appearance of the Hooded Spirits? She had such a hard time making out their features, but her mind told her they were all beautiful.
She preferred that confusion over lingering Hel’s accusations. If Kirby stayed trapped inside those words, she’d tumble into confusion and self-loathing, and she was already struggling to pretend that pit didn’t reach out and grab her every time she drifted near it.
“What happened?” Starkad asked.
Kirby could answer that if she could force her mind to stay on the conversation with the Hooded Spirits.
Gwydion met her gaze, and the angry lines around his eyes softened. “What Hel said about your time with TOM... Was it true?”
“Yes.” There was no reason to downplay or explain. Hel nailed the reality of it all.
Gwydion’s expression hardened again. He whirled on Starkad and caught him with a left cross to the jaw. “You fucking asshole. What the fuck?”
“Ah.” Starkad grunted and flexed his jaw.
Kirby understood Gwydion’s rage; something similar had been simmering inside since she recovered her past lives. But the resentment was becoming numb. Was it because so much was happening, or was she starting to understand Starkad’s reasons for what he’d done? She hated the situation, but she wouldn’t be who she was, in this place, with these men, if life had gone differently.
What a fucked-up way to view—her mind gestured vaguely—all of it. The air in the room kicked on, chasing over her skin and sending a chill down her spine. Suddenly the white lacy outfit wasn’t enough. She hugged herself. A concrete box wouldn’t to keep this feeling out.
Starkad stepped behind her, and a heartbeat later, draped something over her shoulders. She slid her arms into the sleeves one of his button-down and pulled the fabric tight around her. The barely-there scent of sweat mingled with his cologne and the smell of his dryer sheets, wrapping her in security and chasing away the shadows.
“We all made decisions twelve years ago we wish we could take back.” Min finally spoke.
Kirby didn’t want to live in the past. The bulk of her brain kept drifting to times and places this body had never been, and another chunk of her thoughts was clawing its way back toward the memories Hel had summoned.
“None of that matters. It can’t be undone, and if I hadn’t been there, others would have suffered the same way. Others did and still are. At least, this way, Hel helped mold the source of her own destruction.” She grasped for the strength she needed the words to give her.
Gwydion gently squeezed her arm, and her racing thoughts downshifted. He didn’t offer the same kind of safety Starkad did, but she trusted him to stand by her side regardless of the situation, and she’d do the same for him.
“What happened tonight? Did you get what we need?” Starkad asked.
Kirby stalled. Determination wouldn’t get her anywhere without knowledge. Her past twelve lives had proven wanting to live and succeed wasn’t enough to make it happen. And now she had to put the evening into words.
“Brit was there—I’m sure you heard.” Gwydion stepped in, much to Kirby’s relief. “She knew Hel would be as well. Hel attacked. The Genii Cucullati intervened and banished the us all from the party. They spoke to us first, but...”
Brit... Not the time to dwell on her, but she wouldn’t leave Kirby’s mind. Kirby appreciated Gwydion’s abbreviated version of the encounter. “They told us Hel doesn’t have any weaknesses and can’t be destroyed, and sent us back here.”
“Then we’re done.” How did Min say that with so much certainty? “It’s time to walk away.”
Kirby clenched her fists and let the anger flow through her veins, burning everything else away. “All of this, to just give up?”
“We’re making a strategic retreat.” Min straightened in his seat.
She matched his posture, making her spine ramrod straight. “That was what happened tonight. And now we figure out a new angle and attack.”
“We need answers in order to do that.” Starkad stepped between them, facing Kirby. “How did Brit know you were there tonight?”
“She didn’t.” Did Kirby believe that? She’d taken Brit’s word so many times, only to have her trust explode in her face. Was Brit okay? It didn’t matter right now. “But Hel knew we both would be. She expected us.” Compartmentalizing the events, analyzing them for combat purposes, helped Kirby wrap her reactions to them in ice.
Gwydion sank onto the edge of the bed, forearms resting on his knees. “Did she expect you because someone told her you’d be there, or because someone told both us and Brit that was where answers about Hel would be?”
Interesting question. Kirby didn’t like the implications, but nothing about this was what it seemed. “That would mean Aeval did set us up.”
“Or someone gave her bad information,” Gwydion said.
Starkad nudged Kirby toward a chair. She didn’t want to sit, but the instant her butt hit the cushion, her energy evaporated.
He took the spot next to her. “Or someone got the information from her or us. It doesn’t matter that Hel was there tonight; that’s still not her preferred setting. You won’t see Min willingly attend a gun show, or Gwydion at...”
“A data-analyst convention?” Gwydion supplied dryly.
Starkad almost smiled. “That. A god avoids their antithesis. It’s suffocating. And since she was planning to attack you, if she could have chosen the location, she wouldn’t have picked a solstice party.”
“Why does any of this matter?” Min slammed his palms on the table, and the joints creaked. “If Hel can’t be defeated, we’re done. It’s not as though tonight was our only effort. We’ve been doing this for decades.”
This was infuriating. Worse than when she tried to convince Min to trust her, in London. He’d always been stubborn, and in past lives she thought that whole domineering, Min-knows-what’s-best aura he radiated was sexy. It wasn’t working for her now. “That’s not the only thing you’ve been doing. Don’t try to wrap it up, all nice and neat, and put a bow on it. You’ve been fighting this war as much as anyone. Relocating potentials. Giving them their lives back.”
“Exactly. I took them out of the line of fire and put them someplace safe.”
A rock sank in her gut, weighing her down, as his meaning snaked around her. “You want to stick your head in the sand, then? This would all be better if you could just hide away?” She still couldn’t believe Freya made that choice. Gods were selfish, but some of them had to be all right. She glanced at Gwydion. At least one of them was, but that wasn’t enough.
“I want people out of the line of fire,” Min said. “Starkad is right—I avoid the kind of conflict that involves death. I prefer life and love.”
“You knew destroying Hel was the ultimate goal.” What could Kirby say to show him what this meant to her?
Min shook his head. “My ultimate goal was keeping you safe. It always has been.”
“I’m not safe as long as Hel is out there. As long as anyone who wants to destroy me, us, or potentials is
out there. I can’t ignore the threat.” Kirby refused to let the cancer that was Hel and Loki’s desperation spread further.
Min stood, his presence dominating the room, and looked down at Kirby. “You don’t have to save everyone. I’ve hidden myself for centuries, and I can hide you. This can end right now.”
“You’d lock me away from the world, to have me to yourself?” Kirby withered at the thought, despite the surge from her past lives saying he was worth it—that they were worth it.
“To keep you alive.”
Why wasn’t he hearing her? She didn’t know how to get through to him. “I don’t want that.”
“And I don’t understand why not.” Min stepped closer, but Starkad blocked his path.
Kirby rose and held Min’s gaze. “That’s the problem. I’ve spent centuries understanding your obsession with making me love you. Over and over. In every life. Yielding to your request that I give you everything. Even though you knew the mere idea of that made me shy away each and every time you asked it, I came to understand. Could you maybe, possibly, just this once, dedicate a month or two to trying to see the world through my eyes?”
“I am.”
Tension crackled around Kirby. Her every muscle tightened, and she was hyper aware of their surroundings—where each piece of furniture sat, where each man was located, and their posture.
Starkad’s said he was as ready for a fight as she was. When did this turn into a battle?
When she felt her choices being stripped away. Again. “Try harder.”
“No.” Min narrowed his gaze. “You don’t respect life, yours or anyone else’s, and I can’t abide that. I’m trying to understand you, and the more I see, the more it shreds me to the core of who I am.”
“So you’re suffering?” Sarcasm leaked into Kirby’s retort without her permission. “Oh no. No one else here has ever had to do that. I’m sorry my perspective causes you so much pain.”
“I’m suffering because you are. Because this causes you pain. I would do anything to protect you.” Min’s deep voice rumbled through the room.
When she was turned on, that tone made her wet. Now, it cranked her tension to full-blown. “According to your definition of protection. I never asked you to shelter me. To lock me in a box and keep watch over me. I don’t want that. I want partners. People who fight by my side and want me to do the same.”
“What you want is to destroy yourself. You see enemies around every corner. The way you attacked that waiter in London—”
“You mean the man who murdered your friend?” Her voice rose to match the power in his. “The man who tried to blow us up? Who wanted to kill me?” She was grateful Gwydion and Starkad remained silent. This was one battle she had to win on her own, for her victory to hold power. Why didn’t Min understand how important this was?
“The man who had someone to look for, because you won’t drop this fight. Because your ghosts haunt you. It’s the same reason Hel found you tonight.”
Kirby’s anger burned, and she swore she felt it lick over her skin. “You think this is my fault? You’re going to cast shade for me wanting Hel to stop, after you’ve spent centuries obsessed with a woman you can’t keep alive?” If he was throwing blame around, she’d toss it right back, even though she didn’t blame him for a minute for her death in any life.
That he wanted to hold her accountable for what Hel did infuriated her. “You don’t love me. You love a memory. You promised your heart and soul and devotion to a series of women who are dead. Not to me. I never asked that of you, and I’m sure as fuck not giving it to you. And if the only reason you’re here is to convince the others—to convince me—to pretend the world isn’t crumbling around us, I don’t want you here.”
“M—”
“What?” Kirby glared at Gwydion. She didn’t want to snap at him, but if he didn’t get where she was coming from. “Are you going to ask me to be reasonable? To think this through? I’ve been working with faulty information for years. TOM withheld information about the prophecies from me. Starkad didn’t tell me where I came from. In the past two weeks, I’ve had lifetimes of reality dumped on me. I’m expected to process and make the right decisions, based on my entire world being turned upside down. He’s asking me to ignore who I am. To give up on taking my life back, and to give it to him instead. Again.”
Gwydion shook his head. “I was going to agree with you.”
“Huntress.” Min stepped toward her, hand outstretched.
She smacked it away. “Don’t call me that.”
“Kirby, I want to see this through your eyes. I’m asking for the same in return.”
She hissed. “Will you help us defeat Hel?”
“No.”
Of course not. “Do you understand why I can’t let it go?”
“I want to.” Resignation rang heavy in Min’s voice.
“Yes or no?” Was she shouting?
“No.”
A frustrated yell rose in Kirby’s chest and emerged strangled. “Then the conversation is over. You said, if I told you to go—if I told you I didn’t love you or want your devotion—you’d accept my answer. That you’d leave me alone.”
“Please.” Min’s voice softened.
“I’m telling you to go.” It hurt more to say that than she expected. Why? Memories of the past screamed at her to take it back. She was so sick of her past lives controlling her future. “I’m going back to my room. If I see you again, it’s because you have a stake in this war that’s not tied to your obligation to a ghost. Otherwise, we’re done. And I mean that in a very all-encompassing way.”
That bit of her past lives stuck her feet to the ground.
Why are you still here? Let’s leave.
She knew that voice. It had nagged her since she tried to kill herself. It berated her and tore her down and reminded her how weak she was. It had reveled in the death of the TOM in London. And for once, it was on her side.
She grabbed her purse, which had her room key, and walked out. Her chest tightened when she turned her back on Min, but that wasn’t her. The louder voice was cheering her on. The chaos and ache and disappointment and rage threatened to tear her apart from the inside out.
But it was because she chose it.
Chapter Fifteen
Brit appeared in her hotel room, fury raging inside. It wasn’t enough to mask her terror, though. She tossed the sticks from her hair onto the second bed. The weapons had proven useless when she needed them, because she never had a chance to use them.
The events of the party rang fresh in her mind, taunting her at every turn. Kirby’s being there should have been a plus. The only high point in a low evening.
Brit yanked off her mask and threw it into a corner.
Except that Kirby looked at her with so much disdain, unlike the adoration she cast on Gwydion. They were happiest, hottest couple in the entire mansion. Maybe Brit should be happy that Kirby wasn’t hanging on Starkad’s arm instead.
She wasn’t.
Brit yanked off the rest of her clothing—what little there was—not caring that she heard several tears in the process. She tugged on the heaviest sweatshirt and baggiest pants she owned. Clothing purchased specifically to curl up and hide in, that had no connection to her past life.
Except she’d bought it with Starkad’s money. His bribe, to leave Kirby alone.
Hey. Kirby’s ice greeting echoed in Brit’s head. It was colder than Hel’s invisible prison had been, and nearly as suffocating.
Brit climbed onto the bed and wrapped her blankets around her, but it didn’t chase away the chill in her bones.
She’d never seen Hel coming. Even when the bonds broke loose, Brit couldn’t get close enough to the brief struggle to participate. Kirby and Gwydion didn’t even acknowledge her after Hel arrived.
And why would they? Brit had been helplessly outclassed. A twig in the middle of raging, clashing storms. She’d seen Hel’s supposed wrath in school—a tiny explosion here. A sna
p of pain there.
It was all parlor tricks, compared to what Brit witnessed tonight.
She couldn’t do this as a mortal.
You’re not weak; you’re selfish. Kirby’s cold tone echoed in her head.
Kirby was wrong. Compared to beings who could bring wooden floors to life or freeze people in place against their will, Brit was as weak and helpless as a baby.
And unlike Kirby, she doubted some mysterious past was waiting in the back of her mind, to make her immortal and hyper powerful. She didn’t have a god and a... whatever Starkad was, watching her back.
Brit shoved the bitterness aside. She also wasn’t the only one who wanted vengeance against TOM. Kirby might have fully enjoyed being fucked in front of a room full of gods, but that wasn’t why she’d been at that party. She was both a genuine lover, and a dedicated hunter.
Both things Brit had held against her in the past, and maybe shouldn’t have.
The sharp reminder threatened to deter her thoughts, and she dragged her focus back to Hel. Brit couldn’t do this alone, but she knew exactly who could help and how to get a hold of them.
Technically, calling Starkad wasn’t breaking their agreement. She wasn’t pursuing Kirby. True, she hoped it would put them in contact again, but she was offering information to someone she’d shared with in the past.
She swallowed her pride and trepidation, and dialed that familiar number she used to get in touch with Starkad.
As the phone rang over and over in her ear, she winced. Had he dumped the number after all this time? She didn’t know why he’d kept it so long, to begin with.
She was about to give up, when his familiar, “Yeah,” came over the line.
Brit took a deep breath. There would be no casual conversation or politeness here. “Hey. I’m calling be—”
“Did you know Kirby would be there tonight?” Starkad asked.
If he wasn’t fucking Kirby, he wanted to be. There were few things Brit had ever been more certain of. “No. I got intel that Hel would be. I never broke my promise.”
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