by Eva Chase
9
Aria
I should have been able to sleep. I had the whole damned hall to myself—one that had previously belonged to some lesser goddess whose fate I hadn’t really wanted to ask about—including the softest bed I’d ever had the pleasure of sleeping on. The night outside the window was still and quiet. Any chill it had brought, the blanket I was snuggled under protected me from.
But still, I’d been lying there for at least an hour with nothing to show for it but the groove I was probably wearing into the mattress with all my tossing and turning.
When we’d first gotten back to the real Asgard, there’d been a moment or two when I’d thought maybe I didn’t need an actual building as a home of my own. What would be the point when I could just hop from one of my gods’ beds to another depending on the night? But then as that first full night had gotten closer, I’d felt edgier and edgier about the idea of settling down to sleep the whole night next to anyone at all. Across all the one-night stands I’d had since I’d moved out of my mother’s house, I’d never stuck around to cuddle.
What I had with the four gods who’d summoned me was different from that. I couldn’t deny it. But it was also new and a little unsettling. To be practically living together… No. I didn’t even know what to call this yet. I needed a place where I didn’t have to think about it.
Which had worked out fine the first few nights, but now apparently I had too many other thoughts chasing each other around my mind.
I burrowed my head in the plump pillow and squeezed my eyes tighter shut, as if that would bring sleep on faster. After another couple minutes, I groaned and shoved myself into a sitting position. My jaw creaked with the size of my yawn. But still my head was buzzing with the memories of my latest trip to Muspelheim, the things Muninn had said, the attack by the draugr.
What if Surt sent a force like that into Midgard? We couldn’t keep watch over that entire realm as well as Asgard. Muninn knew about Petey. She’d shown me his foster home in her prison, lifted from my and the gods’ memories of the place. What if she pointed him there?
I rubbed my bleary eyes. Why would she do that? She had to know it’d only make me ten times more furious. If she’d wanted to threaten me, to hold his safety over my head, she could have done it this morning. I had to be here, and rested enough to fight properly, if I was actually going to protect my brother.
Maybe, as exhausted as I felt, it wasn’t exhausted enough. I pulled on some clothes and walked down the hall, figuring I’d swoop around over the city for however long it took before I was barely keeping my wings unfurled. I slipped past the door—and froze on the first tile of the path outside.
Odin was stalking down Asgard’s main throughway, his cloak swaying in his wake, his hat pulled low even though there was no sun to guard against. He was already most of the way to the rainbow bridge, well past my hall. Where the hell was he going at this time in the night that he couldn’t just spy on from his high seat?
I hesitated for only a second longer, and then I darted after him, setting my feet softly on the stone tiles.
I stayed far behind Odin as I followed him, sticking to the deeper shadows around the buildings. When he strode onto the faint glimmer of his rainbow bridge, I waited until he’d just disappeared over the crest of it and leapt into the air with a light flap of my wings. By the time I’d glided over the bridge, he’d descended almost to the ground. He unfurled the last length of the bridge, which he’d contracted earlier so no dark elves could clamber up to Asgard that way, and set off across the tilled farmland where he’d set it down.
The rolling fields made it easy to keep an eye on his tall form even in the night. Wherever we’d ended up, it was warmer than it’d been in Asgard, the air sharp with heat despite the darkness. A half-moon shone starkly overhead. Only a faint breeze rustled the stalks of the plants below me. I flapped my wings cautiously, trying to make as little sound as possible. My valkyrie powers might make me invisible to any mortal unless I wanted to be seen, but I doubted that worked on the Allfather.
He paused once, and then again several minutes later, cocking his head as if listening for something. I couldn’t hear anything other than the occasional rumble of a truck passing along the two-lane highway nearby. Both times he veered a little more to the right.
We passed a few houses that gave me the impression we were in some other country. I’d never seen any in that style back home. After a while, we crossed the highway and rambled over a couple of low hills. The vegetation turned scruffier, dry earth dotted with weeds and prickly shrubs.
At the top of the third hill, a dusty shack stood next to a shriveled tree. Odin slowed. I eased down to the ground and crouched behind one of those thorny bushes to watch.
He paced around the shack and a little farther down the other side of the hill. Whatever he found there made him come to a halt. His head bowed in apparent contemplation. He rubbed his bearded chin. I thought I could make out a frown on his worn face.
My legs were started to get stiff in their cramped position by the time he returned to the shack. He circled it once more, slowly, his single eye narrowed. He appeared to examine the tree in turn. Then, with a sigh I could hear even from my hiding place, he headed back the way he’d come.
I tensed behind the shield of my shrub, but Odin stalked down the hill a few dozen feet from where I was crouched without glancing my way. When he’d reached the bottom of the hill, I eased around the bush and crept up to the shack myself. What the hell had he been looking at?
It didn’t take long to figure it out. Over the other side of the hill, the cracked earth was blackened with a scorch mark like we’d seen in the field in Asgard—the one Surt’s bridge of fire had left behind. Had this been its starting point?
An uneasy shiver crawled over my skin. I rubbed my arms as I took to the air again. If Surt and his undead soldiers were lurking around here, I didn’t want to be caught on my own.
How had Odin known about this place? Why had he come down just to look at it?
Somehow I had the feeling he wasn’t going to answer those questions willingly. I’d bet he didn’t plan to even mention this little trip to the rest of us tomorrow.
I had to fly a little faster than before to catch up with Odin. I wasn’t sure enough of the path we’d taken to find my way back to the bridge on my own. He strode over the hills and across the farmers’ fields at a swifter pace than before, now that I guessed he’d found what he’d been looking for. This time, he didn’t stop to consider his direction at all.
When the sheen of the rainbow bridge came into sight up ahead, I eased up completely, dropping down onto the thick lower branch of a waxy-leafed tree. I might as well let him go on ahead of me before I followed, now that I knew my way home.
It was a good thing that I did. I’d just settled onto the branch when Odin jerked around. He peered back across the field. I went rigid, holding my muscles still and my breath in my chest, shadowed by the leaves around me. His gaze seemed to pass over the tree, but it didn’t stop there. Finally, he started walking again.
What was he afraid of?
He reached the rainbow bridge and started up it, the base of it fading in his wake. Just a hint of it remained below the streak of clouds he disappeared into.
As soon as he was out of sight, I sprang into flight. The swoop of my wings brought me up to the bridge. I peeked cautiously through the haze of the clouds to see the Allfather’s peaked hat just vanishing over the crest of the bridge.
I soared the rest of the way to Asgard, the cooler wind there buffeting my wings. Odin was out of sight by the time I reached the city. Back to his hall to get some sleep—or to spend more time spying on the world from that magical seat of his?
I’d hoped going out to fly would burn off some of my uneasy energy. Instead I’d ended up feeling even more wired than before. My pulse rattled through my veins as I headed down the street. I had too many questions jostling around with the worries in my head, and
my mind was getting too foggy to sort them out.
My heart tugged me toward one of the other buildings along the main road. I hesitated outside the door to Thor’s hall, but the longing inside me propelled me onward.
I didn’t know where my place was here, now that Odin was back and calling so many of the shots. I had no idea what the future might hold for me or any of the gods I’d started to think of as mine. But the thunder god wasn’t part of any of those conflicts. Thor came with no dark secrets, no furtive motives. He liked me, he wanted me, nothing more complicated about it than that.
It was easy to find his bedroom. The low rumble of his sleeping breath carried through the doorway. I slipped inside to find him sprawled on his back across a gigantic bed made to fit him. His brawny form almost filled the whole thing anyway, but that was fine. I didn’t need much room.
I eased under the blanket and tucked myself in next to him, leaning my head against his shoulder. I hadn’t meant to wake him up, but Thor shifted onto his side at my touch, his arm sliding around my waist.
“Ari?” he murmured sleepily.
I nestled closer to his muscled chest. A momentary panic clenched around my lungs—what was I doing here? Why had I given in to this impulse? What was he going to think it meant? But at the same time, the warmth of his body soothed my nerves.
This was Thor. He’d think it meant what I told him it meant.
And I needed this right now.
“I couldn’t sleep,” I said. “I just… I wanted to be somewhere I feel safe.”
A pleased hum emanated from the thunder god’s throat. He bent his head to kiss my forehead. “You’ll always be safe here,” he said.
I wasn’t sure that was true, as much as he might have wanted it to be. At that moment, it felt as if it could be right, and that was enough. His hand stroked over my hair, and my eyelids drooped, and for the first time all night my body relaxed. In the temporary peace of Thor’s arms, I drifted off to sleep.
10
Aria
I might have been nervous about falling asleep next to any of the gods, but there was something very appealing about waking up next to one of them.
I eased into awareness with Thor’s tangy scent in my nose and those solid muscles pressed up against me. In my sleep, one of my legs had ended up tucked between his. Heat pooled between my thighs when I adjusted my position, and Thor let out a ragged breath. The evidence of his own arousal rested against my hip.
“Good morning,” he said, his voice so thick with desire it sent an eager shiver down to my core.
“Very good,” I said, and scooted up his body to capture his mouth with mine.
Thor kissed me back hungrily, but his hand stayed gentle as it skimmed down my back. It came to a stop at the waist of the jeans I hadn’t bothered taking off when I’d crawled into bed with him. His thumb teased over the skin of my back with an electric tingle where my shirt had ridden up.
I traced my fingers up to his sculpted shoulders. My nipples hardened where they brushed against his chest through my shirt. I was just about to strip that shirt off so I could enjoy him skin to skin when a singsong voice called from outside.
“Oh, pixie! Ready for today’s mission?”
From the Loki’s wry tone, I suspected he could guess that I wasn’t particularly ready. But we had agreed last night that I’d help him track down another of the dark elves’ gates today, and the sooner we got started on that, the safer Midgard would be. Protecting Petey was a heck of a lot more important than scratching this itch—as much as my body protested as I pulled away from Thor.
“Coming!” I hollered back.
The thunder god groaned as he sat up beside me. “Wretched giant,” he muttered good-humoredly, but the words reminded me of Odin’s remark about Surt yesterday. I hoped Loki’s hearing wasn’t quite good enough to have caught this one.
“You’ve survived how many eons without me around?” I said. “You can probably make it through a few hours more.”
“That doesn’t mean I want to,” Thor said with a grin.
He looked so pleased with himself for that remark that I had to lean in for one more kiss. The sweep of his tongue over mine was a promise of more to come whenever we picked up where we’d left off.
Loki was standing on the tiled road outside the front door, his lips curled with amusement. “I apologize if I interrupted anything,” he said, sounding not at all sorry.
“How did you even know where—” I started, and then remembered. I’d tried to take off on the gods once, after the dark elves had threatened Petey, and the trickster god had tracked me down without any trouble at all. He was the one who’d chosen me, who’d focused their powers when they’d summoned me and recreated me as a valkyrie, so the tie between the two of us ran even deeper than with the others.
Which wasn’t really a bad thing. I couldn’t think of anyone other than him more likely to get me out of a sticky situation, if I happened to find myself in another one I couldn’t get out of on my own.
“I don’t monitor you that closely,” he said, motioning me along with me. “But you weren’t at your own hall when I came calling there first.”
“I had trouble sleeping,” I said, as if he needed an explanation.
“And I’m sure joining the Thunderer in his bed was wonderfully restful.”
I elbowed him in the arm, a little harder than I would have if he hadn’t been an essentially immortal being. “It was, actually. A lot more than if I’d tried to snuggle up with you, I’m sure.”
“Oh, I would have made sure you didn’t regret that choice.” His smile stretched wider as we headed down the road toward the bridge. He handed me a bundle of fabric. “I assume you haven’t had breakfast yet.”
The napkin fell open to reveal a roll filled with cheese. I dug into it, finishing it by the time we’d reached the glimmer of the rainbow. The pinch of hunger in my stomach subsided, but a different tightness gripped my gut. None of the other gods knew where Odin had gone last night, I didn’t think. I wasn’t sure what there was to tell yet, though. He hadn’t done anything wrong.
“How are we going to do this?” I asked instead. The last time we’d gone searching for dark elves, I’d piggybacked Loki so he could speed us along while I used my valkyrie senses to search for the dark elves’ distinctive oily energy. It wasn’t the most dignified position, though.
“I suppose I could carry you over-the-threshold style,” the trickster suggested with an arch of his eyebrows.
I wasn’t sure that would be all that more dignified, and it’d definitely be more of a distraction. “Maybe we should stick with piggyback.”
He chuckled. “Whatever suits you, pixie.”
With his elbows hooked under my knees and my arms looped loosely around his shoulders, he leapt into the air. I’d forgotten how quickly he could move when he wasn’t holding himself back for the rest of us. The wind warbled past us, tossing my hair. In just a few seconds, we’d crossed the rainbow bridge and were speeding through the sky above the Midgardian landscape that sprawled toward the haze of the horizon.
I let my awareness stretch out toward the streets and buildings we soared past. Flickers of energy touched my senses, most of it the soft brightness I felt from human beings. I caught one flash of something thicker, but only a single form. We were looking for somewhere that several dark elves had congregated around.
“I’m covering new territory, separate from the areas we perused last time,” Loki said. “No point in retreading over old ground.” It was the first time he’d spoken since we’d left Asgard. The muscles in his back shifted against my chest as he veered to avoid a looming mountain. Was he being quiet because of the exertion, or was something bothering him?
The sight of the land rushing away beneath us reminded me of last night’s flight again. I rested my chin by the crook of Loki’s neck, letting the spicy smell of him, like fire-warmed ginger and cardamom, wash over me. If anyone in Asgard knew better than to unquestio
ningly trust Odin’s decisions, it was the god holding me.
“Do you really think that blocking the dark elves’ gates is going to fix very much?” I asked.
He shrugged, shifting me closer to him as he did. “They’re harming people. When it comes to that, you have to set down restraints, regardless of what their motives might be. I can’t blame the gods for how they handled me after I completely committed to my role.”
I didn’t think I wanted to know what complete commitment had involved. I hugged his shoulders a little tighter. “What did they do?”
“Oh, I was chained up to a rock in a rather dank cave with a snake dripping poison on my face. Not memories I like to dwell on.”
I shuddered at even the vague picture his words drew up. The slight edge in his voice made me suddenly sure he’d had to dwell on those memories not that long ago.
“Muninn sent you back to that time, didn’t she?”
“Briefly,” he said. “I endured it then for Norns only know how long—a small second helping wasn’t too heavy a burden.” He gave my calf a light squeeze. “You don’t need to worry about me, pixie. They did what they had to do. Just as we’re doing what we have to do. What’s driving the dark elves, we can sort out once they’re no longer terrorizing the populace.”
I did worry about him, whether he liked it or not. Especially when I knew how good the trickster was at hiding how deeply things affected him. I opened my mouth to say something along that line—and a trickle of viscous energy licked over me. I stiffened, and Loki glided to a half.
“Do you feel something?” he asked.
I focused all my attention on the direction that sensation had arrived from. We were poised over ruddy desert now. The impression of several pulses of dark elf life reached me from the base of a mesa to our left. As I traced them, a couple disappeared, and two new impressions emerged in their place. I swallowed hard.
“I think we’ve found our gate.”