Realms and Rebels: A Paranormal and Fantasy Reverse Harem Collection

by C. M. Stunich

  “Gunnar’s a—an acquaintance of mine,” he said. “He’s more the healing sort. If anyone around here can patch you up properly, it’s him.”

  “And how far away is this Gunnar?”

  “It’s a short walk. At least when no one involved is bleeding to death. Are you really going to argue about this? He might know more about the gates, besides.”

  I couldn’t say I was really in any shape to face that dragon or its kin again, if they happened to be lurking around the gate to Asgard—or Midgard, I’d take that too. Gathering more information was hardly ever a bad idea. Odin had been right about that much.

  “All right. Let’s get on with it then.” I followed Jerrik to the door.

  My agreement definitely had nothing to do with the fact that every nerve in me protested at the idea of moving away from that firm but gentle touch. I wasn’t here to mix with mortals. I needed to get home.

  If this was the way to do it, then I’d do it.

  3

  I tried to keep my posture straight as we walked farther along the terrain beside the cliff, but the pain was starting to stiffen the muscles around my wounds. My feet stayed steady, but my shoulders hunched against the sensation.

  The memories that drifted around Jerrik trailed with us. I didn’t reach out on purpose, since he’d expressed discomfort at the idea, but it was impossible not to catch glimpses. Mostly of that bright green-and-golden world he’d obviously spent his formative years in.

  “Is this something they do a lot—the light elves?” I asked. “Tossing people into Muspelheim?”

  Jerrik grimaced. “You haven’t been seeing or hearing very much if you don’t know that, Miss Raven. It’s not just the light elves. All the unearthly realms have been using this place as a dumping ground for centuries.”

  Oh. I glanced around me. The place hardly appeared to be all that inhabited.

  “Most of the discards don’t survive past the first few weeks,” the light elf added.

  A different sort of shiver crawled over my skin. “We’ve mostly traveled in Midgard when we’re not at home,” I said. In recent centuries, anyway. It seemed Odin really had left the other realms to fend for themselves far too long.

  Of course, I wasn’t sure he’d have intervened either way. He preferred to observe and consider. What the beings of all the realms did, he left up to them, for the most part.

  “Lucky for you,” Jerrik said.

  I licked my lips. They were getting dry again after just a few minutes in the hot breeze that never seemed to let up over this barren rocky landscape. “I didn’t realize light elves were quite that superficial. A face is still a face.”

  “Even one that’s horrifying to look upon?” Jerrik said, but his lilting voice sounded more pained than playful in that moment. “I’ll admit my attitude may have been at least as much of the problem, at the point when they told me I’d better get out.”

  He glanced at me sideways. Wondering exactly how much I’d seen? I had the feeling he was looking forward to being rid of me and going back to… whatever one did to pass the time in a place like this.

  “Hmm,” I said, remembering Odin’s change in tune when I’d heckled him about his interest in Midgard. That might very well be what had gotten me sent here. “Some simply don’t appreciate what an acerbic attitude can bring to the table, do they?”

  The light elf’s expression softened just slightly with a hint of amusement. “Had a lot of trouble with that yourself, have you?”

  “As I said, I’m not bird-brained. I express myself quite thoroughly regardless of my current form.”

  “And what a joy you are to be around.”

  I looked at him sharply, but his voice had been amused too, not as cutting as I suspected it could have been. Almost as if he were making a joke with me, not at me.

  “Here we are,” he said, before I could think of what to best say next. A hovel a lot like his own stood against the cliff up ahead.

  This one also had a beat-up curtain in the doorway, although Gunnar’s was pulled to the side to let in the dull glow that emanated from the magma streams and fire pits. A tapping sound carried through it. As we approached, I made out a figure sitting just inside the doorway, big with a fall of wavy brown hair that just brushed his eyebrows.

  “Gunnar!” Jerrik called out. “I’ve got a project for you.”

  I might have bristled at being referred to as a project if Gunnar hadn’t stood up and ducked through the doorway then, with a wide and welcoming smile lighting his face. He was nearly as tall as Jerrik and much broader, muscles flexing in his bulky arms beneath the ragged sleeves of his shirt, but there was a softness to the slope of those muscles, to his movements, to that smile. Even his eyes were soft, despite being as gray as the rocks around us. The only part of him that didn’t fit was the hard angles of his square jaw.

  The tapping must have come from the chisel he was holding in one hand. In his other, he gripped an object that looked halfway to becoming a bowl. I guessed I knew one way people passed the time in this dreadful realm.

  “What do we have here?” he said in a warm rumble of a voice. Memories trickled from him as they had from Jerrik. I could tell without even peering at them too closely that he was a jotun—a giant. Jotunheim was one of the realms I had flown through now and then in more recent years. I knew those darkly forested hills, that sharp tang of pine.

  “Odin’s raven, she says.” Jerrik nudged me forward with a light hand on my undamaged shoulder. “Guardian of memory. Unfortunately a dragon of the very real present attempted to turn her into dinner.”

  I shot him a glare and bobbed my head to Gunnar. “The light elf said you might be able to encourage the wounds to heal faster.”

  The giant’s eyes widened as he took in my bloody bandage. “I’ll do what I can. I don’t have proper training, but I’ve studied every healing text I could get my hands on.”

  A giant who studied medicine? There wasn’t anything physically off to look at him, not like Jerrik’s scar, but he clearly wasn’t a typical example of his race.

  He ushered us in and had me lie on a stone bench with a thin blanket as its only cushioning. At least it warmed the hard surface a little. I sprawled on it on my belly and winced as Gunnar pulled off the now-tacky makeshift bandage.

  “You did a decent job stopping the bleeding,” he said to Jerrik, who’d propped himself against the wall.

  The light elf made a noncommittal sound. “She was on the verge of dripping all over my pristine floors.” He didn’t look completely comfortable in the giant’s home, but he seemed hesitant to leave.

  Gunnar shook his head as if bemused by Jerrik’s attitude and grabbed a bowl off a shelf. “This mineral paste should seal the cuts, numb the pain, and encourage the wounds to scab over faster,” he said. “It might sting a little going on.”

  “Go at it,” I said. “It can’t possibly hurt worse than I’ve already felt in the last hour.”

  He chuckled, but when he started to slather the stuff over the tears in my skin, it was with a touch as soft as the rest of him.

  The paste did sting at first, a prickling itch that shot through my flesh, but after the first few passes all sensation in that area dulled. I became more conscious of the lean of Gunnar’s body next to mine, the undamaged skin his fingers brushed here and there. The warmth of his presence, so much more appealing than the heat outside.

  A tingle raced through me and settled between my thighs, a spot I’d never needed to be aware of until now. Why did this damned body have to be so sensitive?

  “There,” Gunnar said, straightening up. The low dip of his voice sent another tingle through me. He cleared his throat as I rolled onto my side. A faint flush had colored his cheeks. Then he averted his gaze, turning to rinse his hands in a bowl of water.

  The fact that I wasn’t the only one affected by our brief intimacy relaxed me a little. He could hardly think it odd that I was feeling a little flushed when he was clearly experiencin
g the same thing.

  I didn’t want to dwell on that aspect of this moment, though. My attention snagged on the memories stirring around us. Gunnar’s and Jerrik’s were mingling, but I could tell one from the other on a level below consciousness, like a taste in the back of my throat. Jerrik’s were sharp-edged and faintly bitter. Gunnar’s were foggily sweet with a hint of melancholy.

  I pushed myself into a sitting position. The sensations of one and then another memory slipped past me. A group of giants surrounding Gunnar, shouting at him as if egging him on. Him cringing and covering his head. One of them thrusting a sword at him that he backed away from.

  Another time, meandering through the woods, gathering plants—herbs—in a basket. One of his neighbors kicking the basket from his arm on his way back into town.

  The comment popped out of my mouth unbidden: “You weren’t much of a giant, were you?”

  Gunnar blinked at me, but he didn’t appear to be offended. “The raven of memory, is it?” he said. “Do you see my whole history just looking at me?”

  “No,” I said. “It sloughs off you in little bits and pieces. But the most fraught moments are the heaviest. They tend to fall first.”

  “I wasn’t much of a giant,” he agreed. “No taste for bloodshed. No interest in waging any wars against our kind or any other. No use to my people. So they tired of me. It’s all right. There are plenty I can help here.”

  “Try to help,” Jerrik said.

  “Better than not trying,” Gunnar said mildly, and Jerrik looked as if he’d swallowed a stone.

  “So, you teach yourself healing and patch up random strangers.” I cocked my head. “I’ve seen plenty of people who make much worse use of their time. It’s a shame so many of them are out there while you’re stuck in this awful place.”

  That last thought tumbled out before I’d even realized I was thinking it. But it was true. I didn’t have quite Odin’s skill at gleaning motives and morality, but the man before me was clearly a lot better than this realm deserved.

  A little of Gunnar’s earlier flush came back. “I’ve made the best of what I have.”

  Which was really the most un-giant-like thing he could have said. Modest, timid, and compassionate. How bizarre. “Your parents could have done better naming you,” I remarked.

  Gunnar blinked again, and then he burst out laughing. “Yes, yes, they could have. I don’t have much love for guns.”

  “And Miss Raven has a lively tongue,” Jerrik said, pushing himself off the wall. “Well, I suppose—”

  “Knock, knock,” someone called from the entrance in a bright brash tenor. Jerrik’s mouth twisted.

  Gunnar turned with a smile. “Svend,” he said. “Come in.”

  Jerrik cut his gaze toward the giant. “Are you sure—” he started in a low voice, but the newcomer had already sauntered up to the doorway.

  This young man stood with a slight bowing of his shoulders, but everything else about him exuded confidence. He nodded to Gunnar and Jerrik, raising his eyebrow at the latter, an easy grin on his face. His brown eyes, as bright as his voice had been, settled on me. He was shorter than the other two, but nearly as brawny as Gunnar, though on him the muscles looked sturdy rather than supple. A ragged fringe of black hair swept across his pale forehead.

  So, we had a dark elf in our number too.

  “I thought I saw you bringing over company,” he said. “And I happened to come across some apples this morning. It seemed like this might be a good occasion for them.”

  He produced four small but perfectly red apples from a pouch dangling from his belt. Jerrik’s lips parted.

  “Thank you,” Gunnar said, taking one.

  My stomach pinched. As a being of Asgard, as immortal as the god I’d served, I didn’t need to eat all that often, but after the day I’d had, I could use a little replenishing now.

  Svend’s gaze found mine again, his grin stretching a little farther as if just for me, and heat pooled lower in my belly. The apple. Focus on the apple, not this distracting body. If Gunnar thought the food the dark elf had brought was safe, I’d trust that.

  I accepted one, and Jerrik begrudgingly took the third. Svend raised the last fruit to his own lips and took a bite. The movement of his lips against each other as he chewed made me want to squirm on the blanketed table. Dear Asgard, I could not wait to be in raven form again. Apparently all I needed to prompt the shift was to be terrified out of my skull. That should be fun to arrange—but perhaps not too hard in this place.

  “So, you’re Svend,” I said, tipping my head to the right as I took in the dark elf. More memories unfurled around me with his arrival.

  He didn’t wait for me to peek into them. “Your resident dark elf, at your service,” he said with a little dip at the waist. “Anything you want or need, I’ll find a way to provide it.” I suspected the gleam in his brilliant eyes was intentionally provocative. I shifted my weight, and the peaks of my breasts brushed the fabric of my dress with little sparks of friction that raised the nipples into points.

  “For a price,” Jerrik muttered.

  I dug my teeth into my apple. Tartly sweet juice flooded my tongue. That was a sensation I’d rather lose myself in. Impressions floated from Svend of caves even narrower and darker than the one we were in, the shuffling of bodies against each other—

  “And what have you been tossed away for, my lady?” Svend said, drawing my attention back to the present. “It can’t be your lovely looks. Myself, I was too tall. No room for a dark elf to live or work if his head connects with the cave ceilings. Sadly, they weren’t willing to renovate the entire city on my behalf.” He spread his hands casually as if to say, What can you do?

  I choked on a laugh and almost inhaled my next bite of apple into my lungs.

  A light elf whose beauty had been marred. A giant lacking in violent impulses. And a dark elf squeezed out of his heritage of diminutiveness. Quite the trio we had here.

  “Muninn, raven of memory,” I replied. “Or woman of memory, temporarily. And I wasn’t tossed away. I was sent by Odin on a scouting mission. I’ve seen enough. Now I’d like to get back to Asgard.”

  I only noticed the jerk of Jerrik’s hand at that moment. His gaze had gone flat. “You really don’t know when to stop talking, do you, Miss Raven?”

  My brow knit. Svend let out a sigh. “Asgard will take some doing. But it’s lucky for you I stopped by. My most frequent trade is information.” He beamed at Jerrik. “Some distrustful souls believe that makes me an informer. But I can be circumspect when the situation requires. I choose what to share with whom wisely.”

  “Or by how much you can get by barter.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I don’t have any money.”

  The dark elf waved me off. “For a friend—or a lovely lady—I don’t worry about the price. It’s just good conversation.”

  Gunnar was frowning. This was the first time he was hearing my full story too. “The gate to Asgard—The Blaze will have that as tightly guarded as the rest, won’t he?”

  I glanced between them. “The Blaze?”

  “A giant,” Svend said. He patted Gunnar on the arm. “Much more true to form than our excellent friend here. That’s the only name he’s given to anyone I know. He’s ruled over Muspelheim for as long as anyone I’ve spoken to has been around. Built a fortress of stone in the south to shut off all of the gates out of the realm. No one leaves without his permission.”

  “When I arrived from Asgard, I didn’t see any fortress,” I said.

  “Muspelheim’s gates have fractured,” Jerrik said. “The way in and the way out isn’t always connected these days.” At Svend’s amused look, he crossed his arms. “I do listen even when you ramble on for ages. Have to get my trade’s worth, don’t I?”

  Fractured gates? I hadn’t even known that was possible. Had Odin?

  “The gate back is still here,” Gunnar said reassuringly. “It just may be harder to get to.”

  “Certainly
harder.” Svend sank his teeth into his apple and chewed thoughtfully. “But hard doesn’t mean impossible. I personally believe very few things are impossible.”

  “Other than you ever getting straight to the point?” Jerrik said.

  “Even a preamble serves a purpose, my good ljosalfar,” Svend said. “Now, Muninn, I would think your best bet—”

  A roar echoed down the hall of the cave, cutting off whatever he’d meant to say.

  4

  I sprang off the table, every hair on my human body standing on end. With a thunderous crash, the walls of the cave shuddered around us. A crack split through the ceiling over our heads. Gunnar’s eyes widened. “Out!” he shouted.

  The ground lurched beneath us as the four of us dashed for the entrance. Chunks fell from the ceiling to smash on the floor. I narrowly dodged one that would have clipped my shoulder. Outside, another roar reverberated through the air.

  We’d just reached the fore-room when the stone blocks burst apart at the lash of some massive paw. I dove back into the shelter of the cave, but it wasn’t much shelter now. One of those rocky dragons was clinging to the cliff-face, heaving and wrenching at it, while another scattered the blocks that had made up the front of Gunnar’s home across the dark plain.

  Svend had whipped a dagger from his belt, and Jerrik snatched up a thin shard of stone that could serve as a spear. Neither weapon looked likely to do much damage to those beasts.

  The dragon on the ground spun to face us, its maw opening to emit a belch of searing air and flame. We scrambled back into a side room just as the burst of fire hissed past us.

  Flames caught on the contents of Gunnar’s shelves. The cave around us shuddered again, more rubble tumbling around us as the cracks in the ceiling gaped.

  I sucked in a breath, fighting to think around the pounding of my heart. The first time one of those dragons had attacked me, I’d been unprepared and uncertain, and wounded before I’d gotten my bearings. I might be small and soft compared to their immense bodies, but I had powers of my own.