My words rang out, and the crowd began demanding answers from Thor, looking disgusted. Because if anyone else had said such a thing, while sitting on Odin’s throne, they would have been torn limb from limb.
Thor shook his head. “LIES! I would never—” But his words were drowned out by the crowd as they shouted questions on top of questions.
“That man is blessed by Odin, I tell you! I can feel it!”
“Did you attack his wife?” another demanded, sounding appalled.
“They are sitting on Odin’s throne! Do something, Thor Odinson!”
Gunnar calmly stood and walked over to Thor’s statue, inspecting it pensively. Then he pulled something out from behind his back beneath the cloak.
I gasped as he lifted a strange hammer high above his head in one beefy arm. His hood fell back to reveal his long blonde hair, and with that hammer held high…
Gunnar was the epitome of what Thor should have been.
Then he brought it down with his full strength on top of the statue.
One blow.
CRACK!
The sound echoed through the room, silencing everyone as Gunnar’s strike pulverized the statue in a cloud of white dust and falling rubble.
I stared at the hammer in his hands, trying to process the scene like everyone else in the room. Gunnar spun the hammer in the air, catching it by the hilt. He looked up to find everyone, including Thor, staring at him in stunned disbelief.
Where the hell had he gotten that?
“Heard you’ve been looking for this,” Gunnar said casually. “Step right up, God of Thunder. Step. Right. Up.”
Thor began panting, shoving Asgardians out of his way in his haste to approach the throne. He stared, wild-eyed at his hammer, visibly shaking.
“MJÖLNIR!” bellowed in outrage, lifting his hand out as if he could grab it, even though he was still twenty feet away.
Chapter 41
I wisely climbed to my feet, because I suddenly saw guards slipping in through the tall doors on the opposite side of the room.
I watched as Gunnar closed his eyes, his muscles suddenly bulging as if from some great force was trying to tear Mjölnir from his hand. Thor was trying to call it back to him…
And Gunnar was resisting.
Making the whole scenario look like an arm-wrestling match.
I heard Gunnar’s knuckles crack at the strain, but the hammer didn’t budge. I kept a close eye on the guards, but they seemed just as transfixed with the spectacle as everyone else, lowering their weapons in shock—whether to see Mjölnir, two strangers on the throne, the destroyed statue, or the fact that Thor was having performance issues.
I heard a strange noise and glanced over to see that Gunnar was snarling under his breath, between growls.
“Daddy will never let go, Calvin.”
And my heart threatened to break while somehow lighting on fire.
“Daddy will make him pay, Makayla. No one hurts your mother,” Gunnar snarled, his feet sliding a few inches as he maintained his death grip on the hammer. White fur began to sprout from his arms, but he didn’t fully shift.
And I released my restraint on my ichor, having been holding it the entire time so as not to give anything away until the right moment. My veins suddenly began to glow with golden light, and I heard some of the Asgardians gasp in horror, recognizing it immediately.
A godkiller was here, and rather than killing every god within eyeshot, he was letting his friend collect justice from just one god.
The hammer began to crackle with electricity, wild arcs snapping out to stab at the columns, the walls, the other statues.
Thor’s face was a sheen of sweat, and he was gritting his teeth, panting desperately as he reached out, his hand like a claw.
I felt the air begin to tingle in warning, so I threw up a shield of air. With a concussive explosion that obliterated the other statues and knocked over the throne, Thor sagged to his knees with a wheezing groan.
Gunnar, on the other hand, maintained his stance, glaring down at the God of Thunder, panting furiously. His lone eye rippled with liquid gray, and he let out a roar that sent the hardened warriors of Asgard fleeing from the room, giving up their lifelong vocations as guards.
Because shit had just gotten real.
Gunnar wasn’t finished, though.
He suddenly leapt high into the air, closing the distance to Thor in one jump, swinging the hammer down with all his strength—and some strength he definitely shouldn’t have had. Whether that was the Nemean Lion Cloak or Geri and Freki, I had no idea.
Thor flung his arms up in an X, but the force of Gunnar’s blow cracked the marble floor in a ten-foot radius, sending Thor flying into a nearby column. He struck it with his back, cracking it, but landed on his feet. He squared his shoulders, glaring back at Gunnar with pure hatred.
Hurt and humiliated, but otherwise still in the fight. Because as strong as Gunnar was, Thor was a god.
Which meant it was my turn to tag-in to the fight. Gunnar had made his point. He was going to go down in the history books as a legend of the highest magnitude. The werewolf who humiliated Thor.
Except I didn’t jump in. Without knowing exactly what I was doing, I pointed one hand at Gunnar as I clenched my other fist—the one with the Temple Crest branded into my palm.
And I murmured a binding in a language that I didn’t know.
An arc of wild, golden lightning struck Gunnar in the spine, and he arched his back with a roar of pain.
I panted frantically, trying to release my power, not understanding exactly what I was doing, but seeing that it was only hurting my best friend.
Gunnar screamed—one long breathless roar.
Thor chose that moment to hurl a dark, violent, lovingly-crafted bar of lightning at the man who had stolen his hammer.
It was a cheap shot, cowardly play, since Gunnar was obviously weakened. My golden bar of lightning winked out upon contact with Thor’s own lightning.
Gunnar flew across the room and through one of the stone columns before slamming deep into the wall hard enough to make a crater. He fell to the ground, a section of the wall collapsing on top of him, burying him almost instantly.
Thor laughed—a harsh, cruel sound. “Stay down, dog.”
Other than that, the room was deathly silent.
Thor turned to me, setting his jaw. “I wasn’t supposed to kill you until the wolf died. To inflict maximum pain.” I blinked, shaking my head. What the hell was he talking about. Thor was working for someone? “Let me just tell you how truly excited I am about this next part. I’ve been dreaming about it for quite some—”
The rubble burying Gunnar shifted, and a large rock tumbled down the pile. Thor froze, glancing back with a frown. Everyone watched in silence. My heart raced, begging for Gunnar to have survived the fall. His Nemean Lion Cloak had to have helped somewhat.
But five seconds later, nothing else happened.
Thor grunted, turning back to me. He opened his mouth to speak just as Gunnar exploded from the rubble with a roar that made the hair on my arms stand on end.
He clenched Mjölnir in one fist, and locked eyes on Thor.
And he was blazing with golden veins.
I gasped, staring down at my own arms. They no longer glowed. Was that what I’d done? Transferring my godkiller power to Gunnar, just like Odin had done with his wolves? I knew I had been thinking about power transfer quite a bit, but I hadn’t consciously chosen to do it with Gunnar.
Seeing how much pain I’d caused him, it suddenly made more sense. I hadn’t been killing him. I’d been hurting him, just like when he’d had to prove himself to earn the wolves.
Gunnar had also been made to swear an oath to Odin beforehand.
But Gunnar and I already had such an oath with the werewolf rune my parents had given him in his youth—to help him control his shifting cycles.
And I remembered how when I had first put on my Horseman’s Mask against the Greeks,
Gunnar and I had bonded in some strange way—his eyepatch turning to the quartz-like stone of my Horseman skin.
Had I transferred my power to him then, too? Or was that something different?
Regardless, I was simply relieved to see him alive.
He stomped down the pile of rocks, his face set with grim resolve as he advanced on the God of Thunder with calm, measured steps. Thor rapidly began hurling bolts of lightning at him. They struck Gunnar’s Nemean Lion Cloak and fizzled out, having no more effect than a water gun.
Thor’s eyes widened in horror, and he began shimmering with rainbow light. Gunnar lunged, closing the distance in a blur, and picked Thor up by the throat, slamming him into one of the columns. Thor gagged and gasped, the rainbow light winking out as if nullified by Gunnar’s touch—just like my experience in Niflheim.
Thor had been forced to put some distance between us in order to run away. Gunnar leaned forward, his face blank as he stared into the terrified god’s eyes without blinking.
“Fear me, God of Thunder. Wulfric has come to claim your soul. No one messes with my family,” Gunnar snarled.
And he lifted Mjölnir high, still gripping Thor by the throat in the other hand. Thor began clawing at Gunnar’s wrist, begging for forgiveness.
Instead, Gunnar gave him the hammer of justice.
Gunnar brought Mjölnir down—releasing his stranglehold at the last possible second—on top of Thor’s head in an explosion of blood and golden lightning.
Thor crumpled lifelessly to the ground. Gunnar calmly knelt down over him and checked his pulse.
But a sudden blast of yellow lightning zipped out from Gunnar, slamming into my abdomen and sending me falling off the pedestal, into an innocent bystander—a large, bulky man. I shook my head, dazed. I stared down at my hands to see my golden veins back online.
There had to be a better way to trade power than to taser each other repeatedly. Recalling how Gunnar had almost had his arms bitten off, I decided a little shock was preferable.
The man I had bowled over helped me to my feet, glancing nervously at my glowing arms and being exceedingly gentle with me, as if to reassure me that he wasn’t a threat. He was a tall, bulky man with white-blond, close-cropped hair, and a short beard. “I am Heimdall,” he said, taking a polite step back when he was certain I could stand on my own. Surprisingly, he dipped his chin respectfully. “Thor had gone too far, Rainbow Maker,” he said, eyeing the staff still clutched in my hand. I had to physically pry my fingers off, deciding that they’d locked up when the bolt of power hit me.
Heimdall dipped his head, and then turned his back on me, letting me know he wanted no part in our quarrel with Thor.
For shits and grins, I reached out to pinch his ass before jogging away. He gasped, hopping away in surprise. “That’s from Freya!” I cackled over my shoulder, remembering my flippant comment to her back in Niflheim. And then I ran up to Gunnar to make sure he was alright.
I found him seated in a pile of blood, staring down at Mjölnir.
Asgardians formed a row facing him, but they were a healthy distance away, no one eager to be the first to address the man who had just killed Thor.
A god.
Then they saw me, glowing with my golden veins, and they recoiled in fear, not understanding my part in all of this but knowing I had been the catalyst for the chaos—the dude found sitting in their throne, taunting Thor.
Gunnar noticed my arrival and glanced up. “I did it,” he whispered, and I saw that through the mask of blood painting his face, a streak of clear skin stretched down from his eye. A tear.
I knelt down, pressing my forehead against his as I gripped the back of his head. “Hell yeah you did. Calvin and Makayla have a fucking godkiller for a dad.”
He shook his head wondrously. “I don’t know how you did that, brother, but I will never forget it.” He reached out to grip my forearms, tight enough to hurt. His eye danced with barely restrained emotion. “Never,” he promised, his voice cracking as he stared at the golden light in my veins.
I nodded, smiling faintly. “That’s what you two were talking about, wasn’t it? Odin gave you Mjölnir.”
Gunnar nodded with a slight grin. “Only after I promised to keep you safe. He cares more than you know, Nate. That was the only reason he let me borrow his wolves. To keep you safe. He told me afterwards.”
I blinked at him, my internal self-righteousness wilting. “Oh.”
“But I couldn’t have done it without your help, brother.”
I sighed, hanging my head. “Alright, you big brute. Let’s get out of here. We did what we came to do. Odin and Freya are safe to take care of Ashley. They can come back and clean up this mess themselves. The way I see it, our work here is done.”
“Let’s go give the Allfather the good news.”
I winced. “You sure he’s going to take it well?”
Gunnar nodded adamantly. “I spent a lot of time with him while you were in Fae with Callie,” he said, tapping Mjölnir suggestively. “In his eyes, Thor died long ago. It just took until today to bury the body.”
I glanced down at the bloody mess a few paces away. Not exactly buried, but I knew what Gunnar meant. “Eye,” I said, reaching into my pocket for something I’d transferred there from my satchel earlier.
He frowned at me. “What?”
I pulled out an empty glass vial and held it up to the light. “You said in his eyes. He’s just got the one, remember?”
He grunted “I get it,” he said dryly.
“Heh. I.”
He growled, shaking his head in frustration. “Don’t make me use the hammer on you, Nate. Things were going so well—hey! What are you doing?” he hissed, trying to shield my actions from the other Asgardians.
I stoppered the vial, holding it up to study Thor’s crimson blood. Except it wasn’t just blood. The moment I—a godkiller—had set the vial in front of it, I had felt a sudden thrum of power, just like when I had killed Athena.
I had just bottled up Thor’s soul.
But Gunnar didn’t need to know that. “Call me paranoid, but I want proof of death. Or insurance so I can find him if he decides to come back to life later.”
I pocketed the vial and climbed to my feet.
“Bloody Funday,” I said, shaking my head.
“What?”
“It’s a new holiday at Chateau Falco. The Sunday you killed Thor. Bloody Funday.” I glanced over at him. “It is Sunday, right?”
He shrugged.
I furrowed a brow. “We’ll roll with it.”
He shook his head. “Let’s go, man.”
I nodded. “I’m driving this time. I know how to leave. I just didn’t know how to get here.”
Gunnar let out a sigh. “Good, because I’m exhausted,” he admitted, hefting Mjölnir in his hand.
I rolled my eyes. “I did all the work here. You were just a glorified cheerleader.” Before he could respond, I grabbed his sleeve, waved at the baffled Asgardians, and Shadow Walked us back to the Armory.
Now it was time to take down Mordred.
If I decided to let Gunnar join me, I’d have to throw him into the healing pool first so he could regain his strength.
And I wasn’t going to warn him ahead of time.
I also wasn’t going to warn Odin. Because all my thoughts about his story had come to a head. Hearing Thor’s claim about how he wasn’t supposed to kill me until Gunnar was dead had changed things for me.
Thor had been working for someone, or on their behalf.
It had never been about Ashley, although I wasn’t going to tell Gunnar that. Maybe when he cooled down a little and set Mjölnir down—somewhere far from reach.
Thor’s statement had both confused and clarified some things, leading me to a sneaking suspicion. And only Odin had the answer.
And after what Pandora had told me about time, I was thinking I needed to jump on things fast, because if my suspicions were true…
We were all
in more trouble than we’d initially thought.
Chapter 42
Pandora was waiting for us when we arrived in the usual balcony area I had designated as my traveling spot. She took one look at me and blurted out, “How long were you in Asgard?”
Gunnar and I froze.
“An hour?” I guessed.
Pandora swore. “I figured as much. It’s been five hours for us.”
I gritted my teeth, shaking my head. “Damn it. Why is this all happening right now?” I demanded. “I thought only Fae was messed up.”
Pandora shrugged. “It’s all connected somehow. I don’t have any answers, but I’m keeping track of it all,” she said, showing me the notepad and pen in her hand. She scribbled something down and then looked up, noticing the panicked look on Gunnar’s face. Because a large chunk of time had passed and a whole lot of things could have happened to Ashley in that window. “Oh. Your wife is fine. Freya is working hard to keep her comfortable, and she thinks the babes will come tonight.”
Gunnar let out a shaky sigh of relief to hear that he hadn’t missed it. “Thank you.”
Odin entered the room at that exact moment. His eye immediately locked onto the blood-stained Mjölnir. “It is done,” he said with a sigh.
“Yes,” Gunnar replied.
Odin looked back up at him with a hollow smile. “Thank you. I will miss the man he once was, but that man died long ago. If there had been any way to sway him, I would have never had to steal Mjölnir in the first place.”
I frowned. “That was why you stole his hammer? Because he’d turned bad?”
Odin pursed his lips, motioning for us to follow as he resumed his walk. Pandora left, flashing me a sad smile on her way by. I scooped up my satchel from against the wall and shared a long look with Gunnar as we approached Odin.
Gunnar looked just as confused as me, though.
Odin spoke over his shoulder, first glancing left and right to make sure we were alone. “I would like to explain,” he began, speaking softly. “But I am forced to speak in generalities so that we do not attract the wrong sorts of attention.” He looked at me. “This is one reason your parents never left you a detailed explanation of your own past, or their plans for your future. And it is why they hired gods to assist you. Merely talking about such things out loud can get you killed—even here, in your Armory. There is only one truly safe place where these things can be discussed—Solomon’s Temple.” I stared at him, shaking my head. So that was why my parents had chosen Last Breath for their landlord.
Knightmare: Nate Temple Series Book 12 Page 25