by Evie Kent
Not love.
Not true connection.
This was the third delivery day they had stumbled upon us in the throes of passion. The ones before hadn’t been quite so salacious: the first had been just a heavy groping session, lips locked as we loitered at the electrified gate, like we just couldn’t help ourselves while waiting for our order. The second, meanwhile, had been a quiet, fully clothed fuck on the couch, missionary, my ass out for all to see, Nora’s moans rebounding off the walls. She always clung to me, but for the voyeurs, she squeezed extra tight—so they could really see it.
“Poor girl,” I crooned, my whisper amplified to a dozen different voices of varying pitches—like I was playing with my food before eating it. My words rose like thunder, cracking through the main hall. Near the gate, someone tripped, the distinct sound of some poor bastard’s feet tangling and knees hitting the ground making Nora’s lips quirk. I bucked into her hard, a reminder that she had a role to play, and she batted her watery lashes down at me, nipples dancing with every heaving breath. I flashed a wolfish grin, one that did make her blush. “I rather like you this way… All tied up and nowhere to go.”
She responded with a hapless moan, squeezing her eyes shut, and I resumed my punishing pace, one hand on her throat, the other on her hip, each bruising in their own right. I pumped into her, hard and rough and fast, making my firebird bounce and squeal, until the gate clanged closed. Her eyes snapped open, and I slowed, both of us peering up and finding ourselves alone.
Grinning, I pinched her chin and arched up to remove the black silk gag.
“Good girl,” I praised as I settled on the table, the oak cool beneath my shoulders. “Are you all right?”
Nora nodded, then croaked out, “Yeah.”
Purplish-blue fingerprints marred her throat, her hip, and I made a note to heal them later—unless she told me otherwise. Sometimes she did. Sometimes I caught her studying them in the mirror.
“Shall we investigate our loot?” I asked with a sigh, jerking my chin toward the ramp. She licked her swollen lips, brutalized a little while ago by my mouth and teeth and cock, and then shrugged.
“I dunno.” The minxy tease rocked her hips, milking a sharp spike of pleasure from my core. Ignoring my scowl, she shrugged one shoulder, then fluttered her lashes again, a vision of innocence. “Maybe when we finish?”
I answered with a smile full of teeth and danger, shoving the silk back into her mouth, then grabbing her throat and pounding up into her hard enough to make those tits really bounce.
We had been ordering quite a lot in the recent weeks, our delivery requests doubled in size, sometimes tripled. It had been Nora’s idea, something discussed over candlelit dinners, our feet touching beneath the table. Many of the supply requests had been frivolous: paintings, rugs, a brand-new dish set, fresh linens. She’d thought it best to make it seem like she was here for the long haul, adding a woman’s touch to my prison—nesting, she had called it. Making it feel like a home. It gave off the impression that she intended to stay, and the villagers catching us all over each other, totally fixated on us and not them, only compounded that.
They had to be unsuspecting.
The more assumptions they made about us, about the silly human girl who had fallen for the wily charms of an immortal trickster, the better.
Half of our supplies we kept, decorating the main hall, warming everything up. The rest I transformed into goods she would need for her escape. Over the last few weeks, we had consumed a number of fictional disaster and horror movies, hiking trips gone wrong, mountain climbs turned fatal, cabins that were pure evil. Conjuring backpacks and hiking boots and first aid kits out of nothing would have taken a lot out of me, but being able to see them, I could easily transform a kitschy painting that was supposed to hang in our bathroom into something worthwhile.
Thus far, Nora had much of what she would need to suffer through the first breath of a Norwegian winter. Thermal gear—a sleeping bag, fleece-lined leggings, a puffy jacket that made her sweat whenever she wore it around the caves. A GPS device, one that I would fixate on and provide connection to so that she could move through the landscape undetected.
She still needed weaponry to protect herself. Food to sustain her.
But…
That was pretty much it.
My firebird was almost ready to fly away.
It was a thought that threatened to drown me, even now when I was buried balls-deep inside, forcing pleasure and blushes and moans from her with ease. So I focused on that, on the cries she made when she came, on the way her cunt danced along my cock, how her belly shuddered through every pleasurable contraction. I loved to watch her come.
Just as I loved her.
I forced my lips to stay stretched in a patronizing smile as she writhed on top of me, bound and gagged, all the while knowing that in a few weeks she would wriggle through that old den—and leave me. And I’d let her, because she deserved freedom. Her promise to find that fucking bitch’s ancestor was sweet, and I suspected Nora would try with all her heart to bring the modern-day witch back here.
In the end, she would fail. It was inevitable—I had almost come to terms with it.
What mattered most to me was that when she escaped this place, and she would, Nora Olsen would eventually go on to live a full, happy human life. In sixty, seventy, maybe eighty years, married and bloated with life’s experiences, she would die just like she was meant to. The world would keep on turning, and I’d be stuck in here… alone.
Just like I was meant to.
I went on fucking her long after her climax, forcing another small one out of her before I shattered apart. Clever little contraption, that metallic coil in her womb. No pregnancies yet. No telling if any of the other consorts, those without access to contraception, had been so fortunate. Had they birthed a demigod out there in that village? Did my lineage live on?
Or did they just kill the monsters in their crib?
More to obsess over, to weigh me down and bury me alive when Nora was finally gone.
After wiping the sweat from my brow, I saw to her bindings. The ropes left lovely marks across her flesh, ones that neither of us saw fit to remove just yet. Her freedom was short-lived, for I replaced the ropes with my arms, drawing her into my lap and cradling her to my chest as we sat in the middle of the dining table to catch our breaths.
“Okay,” Nora murmured, cuddling under my chin before peeking over my shoulder at the crates. “Let’s go have a look.”
I sighed softly and just held tighter when she squirmed.
“In a minute,” I whispered, wanting to hold her a little longer.
While I still had the chance.
27
Nora
“I think it’s snowing.”
A gust of chilly air billowed in through the Nora-sized hole in the mountain’s base, and I squinted against the cold. Blackness greeted me at the far end of the den, peppered by tiny white dots and a ground hard as steel. October was basically in a full-tilt sprint toward November, a bitter Norwegian winter on the horizon, and it was either get out now or risk being snowed in.
Although I felt him hovering beside me, crouched low and somber, Loki said nothing. He had been very quiet all day, and I understood why, but I wished he could have put on a smile—just for me. Just for us. A part of me wondered if he thought I was doing cartwheels on the inside, so giddy that today was the day I’d finally make a run for it. I mean. I was. I hadn’t been able to sleep much last night, just counting down the hours until it was time to move. But that didn’t mean I wanted to leave him. The thought of going to bed without him tomorrow, wherever I was, cut my heart into tiny pieces, and Loki’s silence, his longing looks, his refusal to meet my eye for more than a few seconds all day just crushed those little itty-bitty pieces to dust.
Clearing my throat, I pushed up, sat on my heels, and wiped the grit from my hands. Loki stared down at the opening, mouth in a thin line, and only looked up when I t
ook his hand, threading our fingers together and squeezing.
He was so cold today, but maybe it was just all the flannel. I’d been sweating since I added the many layers, but come nightfall—real nightfall, not this sun setting at 4:00 p.m. bullshit—I would appreciate the extra padding. My backpack full of supplies weighed just about as much as I did; Loki had insisted that I carry guns and ammo and knives alongside my food, my thermal tent, and the first aid kits. The GPS tablet he had crafted from a weird artisan vase we forced the villagers to find for us was heavy as fuck, but it would get me far away from this place, out to Gamleby—which was about a week’s hike away. From there, I’d grab a bus, a train, something to Oslo; we had decided the best thing to do was to lose myself in the more populous areas. Rent an Airbnb under a false name using the IDs Loki had made. Hunker down. Make sure no one had followed me.
Loki would stay here and keep up the same insane delivery schedule, ordering like he was ordering for two. We even recorded my voice on the laptop—moaning, laughing, screaming, crying, calling his name. He intended to play it whenever the village assholes popped in, just to keep up the charade. Magically, he could produce my voice, make it whisper through the interior caves, but the thought had seemed to upset him when he proposed it a few weeks back. The recording was just… easier. It required less of him.
Because he had already given so much to me.
After, you know, inadvertently taking my whole life away.
But never mind.
“Hey…” I shuffled closer, pressing a hand to the dead center of his chest—just to feel his slow heartbeat, to imprint it on me so I could remember all the times I had fallen asleep to it. Those nights, I could forget. Those nights, there were no nightmares. Loki continued to stare down at the opening, pointedly avoiding me until I forced myself into his eyeline, our gazes locked. “I’m coming back.”
His lips flickered into a weak smile, and before I could get another word in, he kissed me. Sweet and deep and aching, our mouths melded together, falling into a familiar rhythm that I would miss in my fucking marrow the second I got out of here. His huge hands cupped my face, held me close, and I clutched at his sweater, green like his eyes, hard enough that the stitches groaned.
We had done this already—fucked last night, kissed and whispered sweet nothings in the hazy aftermath until I fell into a fitful, fleeting sleep. But now, it was like neither of us wanted to pull away first, clinging to each other, grabbing and groping and hands in hair. His breath warmed my cheek and his touch set my soul on fire.
And when he finally put an end to it, I felt like there was a piece of me missing without him. Even with his forehead pressed to mine, our eyes closed, our breath racing, I felt lesser now that we had stopped—like the end was near and I couldn’t resist it anymore. Couldn’t think wistfully about this day that was weeks and weeks away, all the while knowing I could crawl into bed with Loki that night, or laugh about something stupid over lunch, or push him off the rocks at the waterfall so that he belly flopped dramatically into the pool.
Fuck.
“Be safe, firebird,” he croaked, and our eyes fluttered open together. I licked my lips, wondering how soon after this I’d stop tasting him, stop smelling him—campfire smoke and masculine musk and an evergreen forest as old as time.
“Helga Kristianson.” That was her name, the witch’s ancestor. I knew it by heart, could spell it backward and forward, had burned it into my brain. “I’ll find her.”
Loki had kept tabs on his captor’s line for generations, and to summon this one’s name, her age, her general location, he would disappear into long, scary trances. Sometimes he stopped breathing, his eyes clouding over, his body stiff as a corpse. He always came back, of course, but my heart still dropped into my gut and out the other side, worried that this time I had lost him.
Helga was twenty-one, blonde-haired and brown-eyed, tall and athletic, and lived in southern Norway like her ancestor. That was all I needed to get started, and whatever the fuck I had in my bank account would pay a top-notch private investigator to do the rest.
Loki and I stared at each other, me still in his lap, my hands on his chest, all bundled up in winter duds that were making me sweat. Time seemed to slow around us, until he finally blinked first, then nodded to the opening.
“Go,” he ordered, all stiff and distant and cold. I swallowed thickly, hating how he sounded, until his eyes softened, and his mouth brushed over my cheek and up to my ear. “Before either of us change our minds.”
Today had been in the works for months. I dreamed about it. We talked about it all the fucking time. I thought I’d be ready…
Only now that it was here, I couldn’t move.
I couldn’t tear myself away from him.
But I did. I forced my reluctant legs to climb off him, then grabbed my huge backpack and shoved it through the opening. I did so with shaking hands, adrenaline spiking and tunneling my focus to this moment, to the first step. Once my bag was out of reach, when I needed to crawl and shimmy in after it, I shot Loki one last look, squeezed his hand one last time, blinked back a rush of unwelcome tears before sniffing and dropping down on my belly.
It was a tight fit. Even with the added width Loki had torn into the rock, claustrophobia set in almost immediately. Musty air filled my lungs with every breath, and it was slow going the whole way through, pushing my bag ahead of me, then wriggling over stabby rocks, wincing as old bones disintegrated beneath my hands and knees.
Suddenly, the resistance disappeared. My bag flew away from me with one final shove, clearing the tunnel and tumbling into the great outdoors. I tensed, holding my breath, waiting for the explosion of screaming alarms, maybe even gunfire, footsteps falling like bombs as a bunch of village guards descended on my innocent backpack.
But there was… nothing. Nothing but a softly howling wind and the quiet of a cold October evening.
I inched forward, my jacket swooshing over the ground, one final rock deciding to be an extra-stabby dick when it jabbed into my thigh. With a wince, I poked my head out the opening, then gulped down a lungful of free air for the first time in six months. Tears swelled and fell, and this time I let them, shakily sucking in more freezing air, even as it burned my throat. So much colder than inside the mountain—Loki must have regulated the temperature for me, keeping us cozy and comfortable all this time.
Shivering, I wriggled the rest of the way out, then pushed upright, rising to my full height, blinking into the darkness of the outside world—and then immediately collapsing onto my knees. Mountain rock sloped down ahead of me, ambling along until it met a dense, dark pine forest. A light dusting of white coated the slate; my backpack had already started a collection of snowflakes, some of the fatter ones holding their shape.
Holy shit.
Holy fuck.
Outside.
Freedom.
It had happened.
Mouth dry, throat sandpapery, palms sweaty, I ripped into my backpack and dug out my hat, my gloves, and my night-vision goggles. Loki had crafted the latter after we spent a whole week binging classic and modern spy movies, cataloguing any equipment that might be useful for my hike. After shoving my gloves into my jacket pockets, I popped the goggles on, tightened the strap, and flicked the little button at the side. The world blended into shades of green, little details popping out at me—scraggly moss along the mountain’s face, the individual trunks and branches at the tree line. Tiny, smeared footprints in the snow some twenty feet away, something dark and furry scurrying up and into a hole in Loki’s prison.
Loki.
With a shuddering breath, I scrambled back to the den’s opening. He was there, waiting for me, peering through the Nora-sized hole with a grim smile.
“Fly away, little firebird.”
Fuck, that hurt more than I cared to admit. I braced on the jagged exterior, wondering if he could see me staring right into his eyes through these ridiculous spy goggles. “I’ll see you soon. I promise.�
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I meant it. I really did.
Loki just nodded—like he didn’t believe me, like he never had.
In that moment, I wanted to tell him that I loved him. That was why I’d be back here, why I was so determined to return to this hellhole. I fucking loved him with all my heart, for all that he had done for me, for the person he had made me, for the strength and perseverance I’d learned I had in his company.
But I choked.
Throat too dry, a lump settled squarely in its middle and blocked the words.
My lower lip trembled. When I came back here with Helga, when we broke the curse and Loki finally walked out of this fucking cage, I’d tell him. Scream it from the mountaintops. Whisper it while he slept. I love you.
So rather than muddling through and risk the words sounding forced, I kissed my hand and offered that to him instead.
“Soon,” I told him, my voice cracking. “I’m coming back.”
“I believe you.” No, he didn’t—but he would. Loki sighed, the wind suddenly whipping harder through the trees, the elements all around me seeming to echo him. “Now go.”
After shoving my hands into my gloves, I threw my backpack over my shoulders and bolted down the snow-covered slope. I slipped. I slid. I fell on my ass more than once. But then I was off, Loki’s sigh lingering on the breeze, and quickly lost myself in the trees.
Every inch of me on fire.
28
Nora
The doorbell’s chime launched my heart into my throat. Even at the flood of adrenaline that spurred my body to run, I waited, letting the obnoxiously long tune play out to completion. As the final note echoed throughout my Majorstuen studio apartment, I rose from the fold-out couch, smoothed my hands down my checkered sweater, my flannel leggings, and padded over to the door. Hands trembling, I took my time unlocking everything, like I was in no hurry, and then opened the door wearing what I hoped was a breezy smile.