by Evie Kent
My heart skipped a beat.
My mouth went dry.
Where there was darkness, suddenly there was light. A thin beam of gold sliced across the corridor from the spot that always caught my toe. I gawked down at it, stunned, slowly processing the fact that I’d finally hit that stupid bit of rock hard enough to knock it loose. And behind it, sunshine. An unexplored path to the outside?
Oh my god.
Oh my god.
Everything inside me lifted at the thought of finding something new.
Heart in my throat, I dropped to my knees and scooted closer. Sure enough, there was the dick rock that had it out for my pinky toe; I hurled it away and crouched lower. The hole was about the size of a grape, but with some cautious—mildly frantic—poking, I parted the crumbling opening just enough to shove an apple through.
Holy shit.
Adrenaline skyrocketed as I got on my belly and peered into the opening with one eye. On the other side, a narrow, low tunnel stretched through the mountain’s base—straight to the outside world. From the scattered bones and very faint scent of shit, it must have been an animal den at some point.
But now…
Now it was my way out. The village was on the opposite side of our prison, cameras trained on the main opening. This… Maybe they’d missed this. Its size, its position—maybe they had ignored it completely.
“Holy shit,” I squealed, ripping at a few more pieces of rock. “Loki!”
If I couldn’t burrow my way through, I knew a certain god who would be happy to lend a hand. With his strength, he could open this up from grapefruit-sized to Nora-sized in five minutes flat—guarantee.
“Loki!” I shot up on trembling legs, my palms slick with the old fight-or-flight sweat, struggling to think straight, to process, to plan anything beyond getting through that fucking hole. Grinning like a lunatic, I staggered down the corridor that would eventually take me back to the main living space, shouting for Loki as I went. “Come here, come here, come here!”
At the distant echo of boots on stone, I rushed back to my salvation, determined not to lose it, an irrational fear churning in my gut—like if I left the hole alone for too long, the mountain would seal itself up.
Loki came racing around the corridor’s gentle curve in under a minute—not a bad response time, actually—with a panicked look in his eyes.
“What? What? Are you hurt?” he demanded, slowing from a sprint to a jog to an abrupt halt when he found me crouched on the floor in front of the sunbeam, which I gestured to like I was demonstrating the best Price is Right prize of the season. His brows furrowed, and he stabbed a hand through his hair, hair that had grown out since I’d arrived, framing his face in gentle auburn waves. “What… is that?”
“It’s a way out,” I said, giddy as fuck, adrenaline making me shake. “I just found it… and it’s opening the more I pick at it.” Difficult as it was, I tried to keep my excitement in check, because while this looked like a possible escape, it could end up being just another serving of fuck you from the mountain. “I think I can fit through if I really squish.”
Both of Loki’s hands snapped in and out of tight fists briefly, my enthusiasm not as infectious as I’d expected, before he squatted down and squinted into the sunlight.
“The village is on the other side, right?” I mused as I jabbed at his arm, unable to help myself. Seriously, he could look a little more enthused about my discovery. Instead, he just hummed back at me, a low rumble that could be a yes or a no.
“Well, then maybe they aren’t watching this,” I carried on, refusing to let his hesitance ruin the first good thing that had happened to either of us in weeks. “It looks like it was an animal den, or something… See all the bones?” I waited for an answer, but Loki just crouched lower and examined the hole in silence. Whatever. “So, maybe this could be my escape! Move. Let me see if I can fit…”
I nudged at him, and when he didn’t budge, I got down and shouldered him out of the way—or, at the very least, inched him aside as much as he would let me. Sure, he would have to make the opening a lot wider, but I was long and lean, thinner now than I had ever been during peak performance season with the company. With enough scooting and shuffling, I could squeeze through. Burrow my way out. I dug at the opening, clawing off a few more of the thin stony layers.
Then, just as I looked at him and drew a breath, about to ask if he could give me hand, Loki grabbed my arm and hauled me up.
“No,” he growled, his grip bruising and his expression unreadable as he dragged me down the corridor—away from salvation. I planted my feet, adrenaline spiking again, but this time it steered me into fight territory, somewhere I hadn’t been with Loki in months.
“What are you doing?” I tried to twist my arm away when he stopped, indecision ripping across his features. “Are you okay?”
Obviously not, but if I could deescalate this here and now, we could get back to what mattered.
“No, you can’t…” His tongue flicked out to wet his lips, eyes on the sunbeam for a long moment before he turned away and shook his head. “You can’t, firebird.”
“Loki,” I snapped, dragging my bare feet, trying to make myself as heavy as possible when he started marching me down the corridor again. Not that this tactic had ever worked before or anything, but, you know, it was the thought that counted. “What the fuck? Stop.”
But he didn’t. Loki towed me from salvation to the waterfall, unmoved by my struggles, dragging me like a flash flood hauled away everything in its path.
“What the hell is happening?” I demanded through gritted teeth, muscles already sore from fighting him. “This is a good thing. Can you just stop?”
When he finally did a few long strides from the calendar corridor, he spun back so suddenly that I almost crashed into him.
“You can’t go, firebird.” Loki shook his head again, his fingertips bruising up my forearm. “No. No. I’m not… You…”
Realization struck hard and painful. My eyes widened, and I booted him in the shin, viciously twisting my arm this way and that. “You selfish asshole! What, are you just not ready for me to leave yet?”
His jaw clenched, the muscles rippling, and his eyes seemed to darken as he stared me down. “You’re not going through that, that, den. No.”
“Yeah?” I glared up at him over the tip of my nose. “You gonna stop me?”
He could. Absolutely. Loki had proven time and time again that I was no match for him physically, but that wasn’t really the issue. In the last four months, we had shared so much of ourselves with each other. It was real. And now he was pulling this bullshit? No. No. Unacceptable.
“I don’t… want to,” he said slowly, finally easing up on my arm. Not that it mattered: there were five huge bruises glaring back at us, purple and ugly. I scoffed, used to ignoring pain, to pushing through it until my body finally collapsed.
“But you will, right?”
He swallowed hard, so fucking handsome in his black button-up, his tailored grey slacks, boots that gave him an air of true authority as he stomped about. Fuuuuck, I loved when he wore those boots while he screwed me.
I loved when he screwed me—period. But right now, from the twitch in his cheek to the tightness of his mouth, I knew he was about to screw me again, and not in the way that I loved.
“You’re not going,” he muttered, and before I could argue it, he tightened his hold on me, five individual pain sites screaming, and dragged me into the calendar corridor.
“Loki!”
“I can’t… lose you,” he admitted as I grabbed at the etched-up walls, planted my feet, pounded his back with ineffectual fists. Sure, I understood the panic, the fear: if I was gone, he would be alone again. Forgotten. He hated this place, hated the loneliness, but so did I.
“We’ve talked about this,” I spat as he lugged me up the steps into the main hall. “You can’t just go back on your promise. You can’t.” My voice cracked, followed swiftly by the stin
g of tears. That managed to slow him, but he still didn’t let go. “You’re better than this.”
“No,” Loki muttered, shoving me at an armchair like I would just sit in it—like I was one of his other dutiful consorts. “No, firebird, I’m not.”
“Bullshit.” I steeled myself, refusing to sit, refusing to let him throw me around a second longer. I glared at his handsome profile and stood tall. “Yes, you are. I know you are.”
“You know nothing about me,” he thundered in my face, his features furious and broken. The dishes rattled. The cupboards trembled. The lights flickered. But I stood firm.
“That’s not true,” I told him, proud of how steady I kept my voice, lifting my chin and looking right into his eyes. You don’t scare me anymore, god.
Loki scratched at his stubble, then finally released me with a shove toward the ramp. He positioned himself squarely between me and the doorway into the rest of the mountain. “You’re not leaving through that thing. I’ll cave it in if I must.”
Hot, angry tears finally spilled down my cheeks, and I let them, refusing to break our locked gazes. “Don’t you fucking dare.”
“Don’t push me, firebird.”
“Fuck you.”
I marched around him, taking a wide berth so that he couldn’t just grab me again, when suddenly the lights extinguished. And not just the strings of lights artfully decorating our living space, but all light. The appliances died, their constant hum silent, and it was like this petulant god had found a way to blot out the sun.
“You are such a child.” Arms up, I crept forward in the dark, eyes as wide as possible, only to clip my hip off the corner of the table. Loki said nothing as I hissed and swore, totally camouflaged in the surrounding blackness. Pain bloomed around my midsection, my hip bone taking the brunt of the hit, but I was way too riled up to care. “Turn the fucking lights back on.”
Nothing. I gave him the benefit of the doubt, waiting about thirty seconds before scoffing and groping out into the darkness.
“For fuck’s sake,” I muttered, navigating a room I thought I knew so well totally blind. It took longer than it should have, and I knocked my knee on both the bench seating and an armchair, but I made it out without him stopping me. Stumbling down the steps, I veered left into the calendar corridor, the roar of the waterfall guiding me, and skimmed my fingertips along the chipped walls on either side, until—
“Oh shit.”
Until I tripped over an immoveable object that wasn’t usually there. I fell hard, toppling over a seated, hunched Loki, legs tangled around him. Anger dulled the pain in my hands and knees, and I scrambled into a crouch, glaring in his general direction, before reaching out to smack the shit out of a god having a motherfucking tantrum…
And found him trembling.
“Hey.” Everything in me softened, and I crawled forward slowly, carefully, rearranging his limbs until I could climb into his lap, straddle his hips, and wrap my arms around his neck. His breath fell in fast, short huffs against my throat. Maybe this hadn’t been a tantrum at all: maybe it was a panic attack. I closed my eyes and snuggled in closer—because that I could understand.
“I know you have to leave,” he whispered hoarsely, arms somewhere not around me, my hug unrequited. Still, his nose brushed the curve of my neck, his mouth moving against my skin as he spoke. “I know you need to leave. And I did this to myself, to… to us, encouraging our bond, but the thought of you going out there, where I can’t follow—”
“Stop.” I cupped his face, still blind even with my eyes stretched open as far as I could push them. Not that I needed to see to see him. I knew his face. The slight dimple in his chin, the rugged jawline, all scruffy and villainous. The slight bump on his nose, as if he’d broken it one too many times. His eyes, forever green, wonderfully eternal. As my fingers whispered up his cheeks, as I captured his face firmly, I knew him, even in the dark. “Loki, you know that if I’m getting out of here, it’s to find that witch’s ancestor, right?”
His trembling downgraded to the odd shiver, his voice tainted by a frown. “What?”
“Yeah.” I grinned, wondering if he could see it, if it was only me lost in the black. “You think I’m just gonna go home and forget about you?” If I’d had the chance during the first month, maybe even the second, that would have been my only recourse—the best way to survive. But not now. Not anymore. I chuckled, mimicking his patronizing laughter perfectly. “Wow. You’re dumber than I thought.”
Loki shook his head ever so slightly, still trapped between my palms. “Don’t—”
“When I’m out, I’m going to hire someone to find her.” I had savings and Opa’s inheritance at my disposal. The only holiday bookings I’d made in advance were in Norway; months ago, I’d wanted the freedom to go wherever the urge struck. Yeah, I had plans, but very few had required deposits. Now, with disposable income at my fingertips for the first time ever, I had decided after the real talk that if I got out, I would put it toward something good. “I mean, you’ll need to give me her family’s details, but I’ll find her, bring her back here, and all together we’ll break the curse…” I swallowed hard, throat suddenly thick, the tears from before resurfacing—no longer furious, but hopeful. “And then you’ll be free.”
Loki sat stiff and still beneath me for a long time, firm between my thighs, so solid, like he had turned to stone and become part of the mountain. Then, with a deep breath, he moved; his hands crept up my calves, over my ass, until they finally settled on my back. At first, the pressure was featherlight and distant, until I nipped his neck, and then he clutched at me, one hand soaring up to the nape of my neck and cupping the back of my head.
“Why?” he croaked, so tentative, so incredulous—as if he just didn’t believe me. Given his past, I couldn’t blame him if he thought these were all empty promises, that I was just saying what I needed to in order to walk the fuck out of here. And even if he took my promise as genuine, it probably sounded like a pipe dream, something nice to imagine but impossible to do.
Hell, maybe that was the case.
Maybe I was dreaming too big, betting too high on myself.
But I had to try. I couldn’t leave him here—not without a fight.
“Loki,” I murmured, hands sliding down his neck so that his pulse beat slow and steady against my palms, “you can do so much good with your powers. You can help people, make the world better, but above all…” I swallowed hard again, eyes closed as I pressed my forehead to his, our noses nuzzling. “You are not an animal. You don’t belong in a cage. You’ve suffered enough. It’s… It’s enough. And I…” When I opened my eyes, thick tears cascaded down my cheeks, four months of emotion coming to a boil and making my heart spill over. “And I will b-be the last woman those fucking people kidnap.”
He dragged me in for an embrace at last, and I clung tight to him, shaking, gulping down my sobs. Once again, we found comfort in each other, even without the promise of freedom, without a hope for tomorrow. In the safety of one another’s arms, we were home—just for a little while.
And when the floodgates finally closed, when I beat back the storm, we both settled on the floor together, me curled up on his lap, my head tucked under his chin. Loki wiped at my face with one huge hand, drying my tears in two swipes, while the other played with the ends of my hair. Arms folded to my chest, I breathed him in, the musk of the man I had fought and hated and fallen for all in the confines of this fucking mountain.
“So…” I cleared my throat, words slick with feeling. “How do we do this?”
Loki sighed softly, then brushed his mouth over my temple as he said, “I have a few thoughts.”
The thousands of butterflies in my belly soared, and I smiled in the slowly lifting darkness, light trickling back in from all sides. “Of course you do…”
26
Loki
Hand wrapped tight around her throat, a fleshy noose with no give, I cocked my head to the side with a cruel smirk.
“Does that feel good, firebird?” I missed nothing, gaze blazing across her naked figure, from the ropes knotted around her midsection that trapped her hands behind her back, that twined up and around each breast, onward to the black silk gag between her lips, all the way to her wide, pleasure-addled eyes. Nora whimpered and mumbled something incoherent in response, bouncing with my every brutal thrust. Even as cool September drifted toward cold October, another month under our belts, both our bodies were slick with sweat from ravenous fucking right out in the open.
On top of the dining table this morning, rather than my girl bent over it.
“What was that?” I purred, features twisting into a frown of mock concern. With a hand cupping my ear, I sat up a little, hips settling on the oak again, allowing her a few precious seconds of rest. “I couldn’t quite make that out?”
She moaned helplessly, shoulders slumping, breasts the faintest shade darker in their bindings. This was our first foray into shibari rope binding, and after a lot of internet research, we had kept it rather simple. On top of the ropes around her breasts and her waist, twine twisted around her bent legs as well, forcing them to stay in one position, my firebird forever kneeling—before me with my cock nudging the back of her throat, then on top of me while I toyed lazily with her clit. We had spent the better part of the last hour working her up, ruining her, making her eyes water and her whole body blush.
While I loved the look, there was a purpose behind it: for the last ten minutes, we’d had an audience. Awkward throat clearing and hurried footsteps punctuated our morning fuck, the villagers hauling in our huge weekly delivery in four massive crates. When they’d first arrived, I acknowledged them with a backward glance, but at no point did I stop pounding into her.
Fun as it was, that was the game.
No consort had ever been inside this cave as long as Nora Olsen. We had passed the five-month mark, and in order to free her safely by mid-October, before the real winter set in, everyone out there needed to think we were still hot and heavy, as my girl phrased it. We were, of course, hot and heavy. Smitten. Infatuated with each other outside of the bedroom. But that was difficult to express, and my worshippers likely assumed I collected girls for sex…