To Love a God

by Evie Kent

  I’d fuck her within an inch of her sanity—but not today. The time wasn’t right after… this.

  So I kissed her instead. Captured her lips and devoured her like one of the ancient pillagers of this land—a warrior taking what he wanted, when he wanted, as he wanted. She screamed into my mouth when our lips parted, teeth gnashing, tongue stabbing, her eyes wide and accusatory as they glowered into mine.

  But she rocked her hips against me, bucked and ground down, her heels digging hard into the small of my back. Her body betrayed her—time and time again, it would side with me. Let her heart and her mind think what they wished, fight as they wished; I’d have her one way or another.

  I’d make her disloyal body sing.

  Pain suddenly spiked in my lower lip, poignant enough to make me hiss and retreat. I reared back, blinking rapidly, stunned to feel ichor weeping from the wound.

  She had made me bleed. Again.

  My tongue darted out to taste, to confirm, and I scowled. Her blood had such a delicious metallic tinge to it, whereas mine tasted much like the apples that had blessed my kind with immortality long ago. Fascinated by the fact that once more she had wounded me, I set her down and dabbed at my lip, not caring that she shoved off the wall and kicked me on the way out.

  Gold stained my fingertips. Pain throbbed across my lips. Fuck, how this little creature made me feel.

  After almost a century of numbness, of blinding rage and haunting lows, she breathed such life into me with her fire…

  I simply couldn’t let her go. The thought of waking up each morning without her and her unpredictability, her beauty, her foul mouth—it made my chest tight.

  “I’m sorry, little firebird.”

  She stopped immediately, hands at her sides in fists, her hair ruffled. The new name would have caught her attention, a step up from little human. For she was a firebird—my firebird, bold and brave, fearless to make a god bleed twice.

  I leaned against the stone wall, shoulder bearing the brunt of my weight, and then let my head thunk hard against it as I studied her. “I’m afraid I can’t let you fly away home yet.”

  Nora whipped around, brows furrowed, full mouth arced in a frown, her confusion lovely. I swallowed, the lump in my throat stubborn as ever, then forced a half-smile, all my previous oomph fading at the realization that I, Loki Laufeyjarson, trickster, god of lies and shapeshifting, father of Fenrir and Hel, needed her now.

  Needed this little human, this raging firebird, just to get through the days in here.

  “And I am sorry for that,” I added softly. She would keep me on my toes, remind me of the man I was before I’d been sealed alive inside my own tomb. It was selfish to hold her just for that—indulgent and cruel.

  That had never mattered to me before.

  And it shouldn’t matter now.

  It didn’t matter now—regardless of the strange ache in my chest, how it sharpened at the thought of keeping her forever.

  Nora stared at me for a long moment, her expression unreadable, her mind undoubtedly filtering through everything—the underlying motivations of my apology, the new name, what it meant to her and her long-term captivity alongside the beast. When she finally looked down, I expected her to turn on the spot and stalk off; she was rather adept at dramatic walkouts. Instead, she veered to her left, past the table and into the kitchen area, straight to the kettle. She grabbed it stiffly, popped it open, then shoved it under the faucet. Seconds later, the hiss of running water filled the main hall. A few beats after that and she had the coffee brewing—then the eggs out, along with the stack of raw pork strips. Bacon.

  She got to work on breakfast as her belly growled, loud enough that I heard it all the way over here, and mine responded in kind. Pushing off the wall, I strolled toward her, noting the way she tensed with each passing step, then scooped my trousers off the ground and slipped them back on. No need to shove a half-flaccid cock in her face, after all.

  Not only that, but I’d quickly learned the sputter of bacon grease was rather dangerous to any bits of exposed skin in its path.

  Briefly, I stood in front of the refrigerator, watching her work, watching her shake ever so slightly in front of the stove, her jaw clenched and her movements stilted. I then dug out her mango juice and set it on the table, along with our plates and glasses and cutlery.

  Sat on the bench in my usual spot, waiting. Smiled briefly when she served me a cooked, salty, sizzling, fried breakfast. Poured her a glass of juice. Got up to fetch the cream and sugar for her coffee. Settled in across from her at the table.

  Then we ate in silence, accompanied by the clatter of forks and knives on porcelain, just as the first boom of thunder, a storm rolling across the outside world.

  A storm brewing inside me, my mind splintering apart just as lightning splits the sky—over her, what she suddenly meant to my survival, my sanity. My consort. My little human.

  My firebird.

  13

  Nora

  One month.

  One month in here and I was starting to lose it.

  Ever since firebird came into play, I’d worked hard to keep my distance from Loki, exploring parts of the mountain I had been too afraid to before, swimming more, demanding a toilet and a bath so I could hide away in the tub for ages like I did at home. Only back then, I used my tiny bathtub to nurse my aching joints and bones and muscles, totally wrecked from an eleven-, sometimes twelve-hour days at the studio.

  Here, I was restless, but my body seldom hurt. And if it did, there was Loki with his magical touch to heal me. He had done so with my lips after we’d kissed for the first time, touching each with one finger, his intense stare scaring me—exciting me, too, yet another reason I had kept my distance.

  The guy could kiss.

  He could do a hell of a lot more than that.

  And… As the days went on, the walls closing in, the loneliness had really started to make itself at home inside me. Sex offered intimacy, closeness, comfort. With Devlin, sometimes it had felt like a chore, something to just knock out of the way before we went to bed. I’d be exhausted from a day of dancing, or even a performance, but he wanted it, and to keep the peace, I would give it.

  Our sex was just okay. Occasionally good, rarely great.

  Loki had been great and we hadn’t even done the fucking deed.

  One month in, I got it—why he wanted to screw all his kidnapped women. It passed the time. It was a fantastic distraction from your feelings, both inside and out. Nothing triggered a wave of feel-good hormones like a stellar orgasm, and for just a few fleeting moments, you weren’t completely alone in here.

  I understood.

  I almost wanted it—but no. Fuck no. If I gave in completely, the game was up. I was done. He’d send me away, sick of being abused and hit, and then those psycho freaks out there would put me in a house and keep me forever.

  No.

  Fuck no.

  I blinked the lake back into focus. Having long since dried off after my evening swim, I had just been staring at it, numb and lonely, empty on the inside. The last month had proven that I had fire raging in my soul, possessed a resilience that surprised even me. But I was getting tired. And bored. And suffocated.

  Depressed. I’d been clinically depressed before—after my parents, and probably after everything that had happened in the last six months with Opa’s passing and Devlin’s betrayal. Maybe the darkness was back. Maybe it would be here to stay this time.

  Just as I toed at the shimmering blue surface, music erupted from the main hall, loud enough that it carried through the calendar corridor and hit me like a ton of bricks. Was that—Elvis? I retracted my foot from the water, arms crossed, and turned toward the familiar croon. We had given up on cards for about two weeks now—so apparently the god I was stuck with had moved on to music.

  Tricky bastard.

  Obviously that was speaking my language as a dancer.

  I had to give it to him: the guy was trying. In fact, I’d
never had a man work so hard to fuck me before—and this one was a god who thought he was better than me, point-blank, because I was human and he wasn’t.

  Swallowing thickly, I glanced over my shoulder, passed the waterfall to the arched opening on the other side of this cavern. Even in the dark, I knew the winding pathways by now, could navigate them alone with a growing confidence. But I had already walked them today—and if I wanted to keep walking them each day, pretending they hadn’t lost their novelty, I shouldn’t do it more than once.

  So I shuffled toward the music. Through the calendar corridor, the name still a total wash on me, past the updated bathroom and our shared bedroom with the wall of pillows firmly in place dividing the bed. Up the polished stone steps. Into the doorway of the main hall, where I stopped. Seated on the couch, Loki had a record player I’d never seen before arranged on the coffee table, out of which warbled an exceptional recording of “Jailhouse Rock.”

  The corners of my mouth flicked up. How fitting—a song about partying in prison. Was that an invitation?

  I scanned his relaxed posture, knees spread wide, arms stretched out along the back of the couch as if this was just a casual evening spent listening to the record player. Shirtless again, like he had been all week, at least he was wearing pants. A chill spider-walked down my spine; his body, in all its naked glory, had been burned into my mind’s eye and liked to pop up in my dreams, all that muscle, the raw power in every limb.

  A huge cock.

  Like. Bigger than I’d ever seen, even when it was limp.

  Intimidating, kind of, a hog of that size.

  Eyes on the spinning disc, Loki raised a full bottle of whiskey to his lips and chugged back at least two shots’ worth. Then, after wiping his gorgeous mouth with the back of his hand, his gaze slid to me, and he straightened, retracting his long limbs as if to make some room, his expression suggesting that he had just realized I was even there.

  I rolled my eyes. Sure. Like he hadn’t known I was standing here—he could sense me a mile away, but sure, let’s pretend I’d actually surprised him.

  “Hello, firebird.”

  I fidgeted with my hair, most of it dry by now, a few damp patches at the base of my skull occupying my fingers as that name hit me. Firebird—better than little human, and a thousand times more preferable to him purring my actual name. It was complimentary, at the very least, and some part of me wondered if he chose it because he appreciated my fight.

  Because he… liked me being an asshole? Probably not: Loki didn’t strike me as a masochist, but what the fuck did I even know about him.

  “Where did that come from?” I asked with a jut of my chin toward the record player. Loki studied it for a moment with a—rare, kind of unsettling—soft smile.

  “There’s a lot you don’t see in our bedchamber,” he mused before taking another swig of whiskey. “Come on, then… You’re a dancer. Show me your moves.”

  Arms crossed, tapping my one finger on my bicep, I strolled into the hall, right up to the armchair—ignoring the spot in front of the coffee table where he’d given me the best fucking orgasm of my life.

  “What,” I started, forcing some New York attitude into my words, like I wasn’t just a dark cloud floating around the passages in our mountain prison, “you want me to get up on the table and dance for you?”

  Loki shrugged, circling the bottle’s mouth with his finger. I shook my head and scoffed.

  “Fuck you.”

  The god chuckled, then downed another shot. “Just a thought.” He crossed one leg over the other, ankle resting on his knee, feet bare. “What else do we have to do? Plan to stare at the water all night again, eh?”

  Embarrassment ripened in my cheeks, punctuated by a flash of anger that made my eyes water. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be forced to pick between this and staring wistfully into a motherfucking lake all night, would I?

  “Teach me something, firebird,” he insisted, scooting to the edge of the couch, bottle dangling loosely from one hand. Already his breath smelled of booze, yet his eyes possessed an unnerving focus that told me a slowly-nursed quart of whiskey was nothing to a creature like him. He cocked his head to the side. “Show me your passion.”

  My heart skipped a beat at the thought, at the way his gaze seemed to scorch right through me, past the outer layers, all the walls I had to constantly erect around myself in here—right down to the marrow. Another bout of rage flared when my belly looped pleasantly, my sex tingling with interest. I hated that my body responded to him over basically nothing—that I was attracted to him, and not just for his looks.

  Most of all, I hated that the misery I was in, the darkness closing in on all sides, was because of him, because of his circumstances.

  And I absolutely fucking despised that suddenly I realized I couldn’t do this sober anymore.

  Teeth gritted, I stalked around the coffee table and wrenched the whiskey from his hand, hesitated for a few seconds, then brought it to my lips and tossed my head back.

  Oh fuck, that burned. I doubled over, coughing as searing hot, acrid liquid sizzled down my throat and exploded inside me like a nuclear bomb. A glass of champagne was all I had allowed myself in the past—the smart thing to do would have been gentle baby steps from there, maybe a beer or a cider, but here I was, throwing caution to the wind and going in for my second chug.

  It hurt just as much this time, the burn not even a little dulled, but I pushed through, my eyes watering, my nose threatening to run. I’d watched friends use alcohol to disconnect from life’s problems since I was a teenager; I was allowed one goddamn night to do the same, right? After all, they had always seemed to have a fantastic time when they were shitfaced, always bouncing around, giggly as hell, smiling like it was the best night of their lives.

  And then there had been sober me, in for the ride but also out of the loop.

  No more.

  “Yes,” Loki said with a barking sort of laugh, “finally. Join in on the fun, firebird.”

  I kept chugging until my stomach somersaulted—and not in the fun way, but in the I’m two seconds out from puking way. When I finally ripped the bottle from my lips, the world was black; I’d closed my eyes at some point, and the main hall swam when I opened them again, everything just a little off-kilter already. Coughing, I slammed the whiskey onto the coffee table next to the record player, and as Elvis moved on to “Heartbreak Hotel,” I felt both wobbly on my feet and totally disassociated from the fact that I was a prisoner inside a mountain with a god.

  Wow.

  I should have started drinking on night one.

  “Get up, then,” I ordered, staggering into the open space between the sitting area and the dining table. “I’ll teach you how to bop and rock ’n’ roll, Loki, my man.”

  The god snorted as he stood, and I swallowed hard, my insides on fire, my eyes stinging with tears—but my mind a beautiful hazy blend of nothingness and footwork. Yeesh, whiskey hit so fast.

  Fast, fast, fast, just like the car.

  Pressing a hand to my forehead, I grimaced, clinging hard to the nothingness, to the footwork for classic swing. Over the years, many of my ballet friends and I had taught classes to young dancers as guest instructors. I could teach competently, patient and thorough in my direction, in my precision for every posture, every angle of a dancer’s foot, the delicate fanning of their fingers.

  But I refused to give him ballet. Ballet was mine—he couldn’t have it.

  So, I fell back on swing dance routines that were bound to throw him for a loop with their frantic footwork and swinging hips and gyrating legs.

  Only Loki picked it up after one or two demonstrations of the moves, a perfect student, light on his feet with exceptional rhythm. He held me like a partner was supposed to, never veering too low on my hips, never accidentally brushing by my chest—which, unsupported, bounced so much that I found myself missing the restrictive sports bras I’d been wearing since I was thirteen.

  The
whiskey made me shaky on my feet—but it also made me laugh more at his bullshit, made my movements exaggerated and free. Made me willing to fall into his arms, leap and jump, fling myself at him with full expectations that he would catch me, lift me, swing me around and over his shoulders like we had been dancing together for years.

  Just a couple of kids at the dance hall in the height of the fifties swing era, Elvis blaring on the record player and liquor thrumming through my veins.

  “Look at you, firebird,” Loki proclaimed as he spun me out, our feet mirroring each other with perfect triple-step and kick motions. He hadn’t stopped smiling since all this started, probably because I was drinking at long last and infinitely more malleable. Nicer, too, with almost three-fourths of a bottle of booze in me. “Letting loose, having fun… Where has this side of you been?”

  “Hey, I can be fun without being, you know, plastered,” I argued—slurred—as I tugged my hand away and spun out, knees wobbling and room spinning. Never been drunk before. Never, never, never—just like him, so drunk. I staggered around the god with a flourish, swiping the nearly empty whiskey off the table. Sweat stained my forehead, the back of my neck. I hadn’t worked this hard, danced this much, in almost two months.

  “This side of me just never comes out,” I admitted with a sloppy shrug, the jerky movement knocking me off-balance and into the table. And I did. not. give. a. fuck. Was this why people got wasted? The zero fucks given? Hungry for more, I devoured the last of the fire water, then threw the bottle in the general direction of the doorway. Only the glass didn’t shatter—just clunked and bounced and eventually rolled out of sight. I swiped a hand over my whiskey-stained mouth, grinning, staring him down even as the world around me went full topsy-turvy. “You wanna know why?”