Realms and Rebels: A Paranormal and Fantasy Reverse Harem Collection

by C. M. Stunich

  I pushed away from the wall and ran for the ruin of the entrance. “Muninn!” Gunnar shouted. Footsteps thudded after me, but I didn’t wait. I had to do this fast, before the dragons devoured us alive.

  The lower dragon snarled as I sprinted past it. The one on the cliff-face swiveled and launched itself after me. The air burned in my throat. Feathers and wings, I could use those now. But they didn’t emerge, so I made the best of what I had.

  Shadows of memory drifted around the dragons when I reached for them. I whirled around and drank them in. Flickered images washed over me, and I caught on something I could use. I clapped my hands together, my body bracing, my mind narrowing to the finest details of that one past moment.

  A herd of cattle wavered into being on the rocky terrain farther beyond the cliff. A rare herd one of the dragons had gotten to stalk and feast from in a long-ago memory drenched with joyous hunger. The smell of the cows’ meaty flesh wafted from their crowded bodies. At their nervous lowing, both of the dragons snapped to attention.

  I swept my arm. The herd born from the dragon’s memories charged away in a stampede. The first dragon gave a hunting cry and sprang after them. The second one followed, gnashing its teeth.

  Onward, onward, I thought, with one last shove toward my creations. They ran even faster, outpacing the dragons—but never so swiftly they’d vanish from sight. Then I sagged against the cliff-face.

  The three guys had been running to my side. They slowed, staring after the dragons and the herd of cattle that had appeared to their eyes out of thin air.

  “What in Hel’s name was that?” Jerrik said. His gaze jerked from the retreating dragons to me.

  “I can do more than just see memories,” I said. “There’s an energy to them, a power. I can sculpt with it.”

  “So, you’re an artist now?”

  “She’s a magician!” Svend crowed. He grinned at me. “That was fantastic. You know, with that kind of skill, maybe you could make your way to the gates after all.”

  I didn’t feel all that triumphant. Mostly I felt exhausted. It’d already been a trying day, and building a construct out of memories on the fly was rather draining. I swiped my hand over my face. “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “Are you all right?” Gunnar asked in his low warm voice. When I nodded, he glanced back toward his home. Or what was left of it. Rocks were strewn all around the entrance, which was partly caved in. My gut pinched at the sight. I didn’t know how long he’d lived there, how much work he’d put into setting up everything that was now destroyed, but he simply said, “I’m glad we all made it out unharmed.”

  “Awfully strange, two dragons randomly attacking a cave,” Jerrik said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen them act like that. Almost as if there was something they particularly wanted inside.”

  “Jerrik,” Gunnar said.

  The light elf scowled. “I’m just saying, when she took off, the dragons went straight after her. Suddenly they didn’t give a damn about your house anymore.”

  They had come right after me. A chill crept over me despite the hot breeze. “Maybe the one I escaped on my way in held a grudge?” I said, but that didn’t seem like a full enough answer. How had it even known where to find me?

  Svend tipped his head, looking into the distance. “I’ve heard The Blaze hates Asgardians—even more than he dislikes everyone else. Some of the monsters in this realm follow his orders. He might have told them to be extra vicious when it comes to anyone who enters from the realm of the gods.”

  I rubbed my arms. Was some scent of Asgard clinging to me? I’d spent more time in Midgard than home in the last several centuries, but no one could ever completely shed their essence.

  “They’ll be back then,” I said. “And maybe others. I can only divert them for so long. I’d better get on with finding that gate. You were going to tell me how you figured I could do that.”

  “I did have a few thoughts,” Svend said. “That was before I knew you could make memories come to life.” He studied me with a look both awed and appraising. “The gates are beyond the walls of the giant’s fortress. Heavily guarded walls. But if you could distract the guards and The Blaze himself… All we’d need is a diversion, and then you could make a run for it.”

  That sounded simple enough. I straightened up, pushing myself off the rock. With Gunnar’s treatment, the wounds on my back only stung a little. “I’ll take that plan. Now, where’s this fortress, and I’ll be out of your hair.” Before I brought even more destruction to what little these three still had.

  “Well,” Svend said, “that journey could be a rather dangerous one if the monsters of Muspelheim are out for your blood. I have to tell you, as much of a living as I’ve managed to pull together here, I can’t say it’s the most enjoyable life. If I could travel to Midgard and find a place to settle there… Would you take a little company along the way, for whatever help I can provide?”

  Gunnar stepped forward. “I’d want to make the attempt too. Almost anywhere would be a better life than here. I might not be much of a fighter, but I can carry anything that needs carrying. I can make sure your wounds continue to heal.”

  He glanced at Jerrik. The light elf was still scowling. The shifting glow that emanated from the magma stream nearby deepened the shadows of his scar. He sighed.

  “It seems we’re as likely to get killed in the attempt as gain our freedom,” he said. “But you know I’m not at all fond of this place. I’ll watch your back on the journey there if it gets me out of here, Miss Raven.”

  Not exactly the most passionate pitch I’d ever heard, but I guess I couldn’t blame him for being noncommittal when he’d only just met me. Not to mention the small matter of bringing a couple of bloodthirsty dragons down on his head.

  I hesitated under the weight of their gazes. I’d always conducted my travels alone—alone, or at Odin’s side, or perhaps with my fellow raven for a bit of company. That was what I was used to. These three… The way they looked at me, the way my body responded to them, it was a distraction of a different sort, one I hadn’t been prepared for.

  Part of me was tempted to say I’d rather keep to my own, look after myself, take the directions and leave. I was already tied to the Allfather, and right now that connection felt more like a shackle than anything else.

  But another part of me prickled with the awareness of how tender this new body was. How damned vulnerable to claws and flame. I didn’t know how to navigate it like my raven form in any way that counted.

  The guys hadn’t penned me in. Even now, they were waiting for my answer, leaving it up to me. It was my decision where I went and who went with me, not orders I was following.

  And I had to admit taking in Gunnar’s hopeful expression, Svend’s sly grin, even the skeptical wryness in Jerrik’s tone… Being in their presence had been enjoyable in a way I couldn’t say I’d ever experienced before. A different kind of company, one I owed no service to.

  “Oh, all right,” I said. “I don’t see what it could hurt, anyway.”

  “A stunning endorsement of your confidence in us,” Jerrik muttered, but his stance had relaxed a little.

  Svend was beaming now. “Brilliant,” he said. “I know the most direct route to get there—which conveniently should also give us some shelter should dragons or any other creatures come calling. We’ll grab supplies and then take the tunnels.”

  5

  The tunnels dipped down beneath the cliffs, far into the hard gray ground, splitting and weaving in every direction. Patches of glowing red crystal lit our way. Svend sauntered along confidently in the lead, seeming to know exactly which way to turn without a second’s hesitation. I followed with the smell of sulfur tickling my nose.

  In most places, the floor of the tunnels was smooth, worn down by passing feet. Here and there, though, a particularly stubborn ridge had resisted. I caught one of my awkward human feet on one and stumbled.

  Jerrik caught my arm to steady me. His fingers slid
against my skin as he released me, and one of those distracting tingles raced through my chest.

  “I’m still adjusting to this body,” I said, feeling the need to justify my clumsiness. “I only ever lived in raven form until yesterday.” At least, I assumed that was yesterday now. I was used to forgoing sleep now and then, but my head was starting to feel a bit muddled. Whether it was fatigue or the stress of this little excursion, it was hard to say.

  “You look awfully grown up for an infant,” Jerrik remarked.

  I rolled my eyes at him. “I’m eons older than you, elf. And I’ll live eons more.” I held out my hands, turning them as I studied them with a frown. “The human form has altogether too many parts.”

  “Oh, but there are so many uses they can be put to,” Svend said from ahead of us in a singsong voice. Even though I could tell he was teasing, a flush coursed through me.

  “Why don’t you slip back into your bird form then, Miss Raven?” Jerrik asked. “Like Freya with her falcon cloak, as I’ve heard it told.”

  “I don’t have any cloak, as much as I wish I did,” I said. “I haven’t quite got the hang of the transitions yet. I only seem to shift when I’m in mortal danger.”

  “That does sound inconvenient.”

  I cut my gaze toward him, wondering if he was teasing now too, but his expression was mild. Almost friendly, for once, although he wasn’t looking at me right now but straight ahead. I had the unmarred side of his profile. His face seemed incomplete like that. Like someone else, someone I hadn’t actually met.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  He glanced at me then, giving me the full view. There. That was Jerrik. The rapt attention in his clear blue eyes brought a strange flutter into my pulse. His hand shifted on the strap of the cloth bag he’d grabbed from his home—small but apparently enough to carry his few possessions.

  “Sorry for what?” he said warily.

  “Where do I start? I barged into your house, bled on your floor, disrupted whatever you’d been up to before I showed up—and now I’ve got you trekking across the realm on a mad caper.”

  Something shifted in his expression, like a shadow lifting. The set of his mouth softened. “I don’t have to be here on this trek. I wouldn’t be if I didn’t think I might get a much better life out of it. If getting this opportunity took a little blood on my floor, I suppose I’ll forgive you that.”

  My lips twitched. I found myself smiling back at him. Ah. So this was what it felt like to exchange one of those fond glances I’d observed only from a distance before. It brought a glow into my chest that rivaled the crystals overhead.

  Memories still drifted around all three of the men. The flavor of a couple settled on my tongue, flashes of images blinking by behind my eyes. The glow tightened, squeezing my heart.

  “But you won’t go home. To Alfheim, I mean.”

  Jerrik’s smile faded. “I can’t. They’d send me off again. I’m happy enough with Midgard.”

  “You have people back there that you miss,” I said. Faces had swum by in those streaks of memory: an older man and woman who shared some of Jerrik’s features—his parents, I assumed. A teenaged girl who could have been a female version of him—a sister or a close cousin.

  He shrugged, dropping his gaze. “I expect everyone in this place does, Miss Raven. Except someone like you who was sent on a temporary mission, not banished.”

  He sounded so resigned it sent a spark of anger through me. “It’s cruel, shunting people they don’t approve of out into this place. You didn’t deserve this. None of you did.”

  “You don’t need to rally on my behalf.”

  “I’m just saying what I think.”

  He paused, studying my face. “It really bothers you.”

  “Why shouldn’t it?” I said. “I’ve seen enough callousness to recognize it when I see it. The world certainly doesn’t need more.” The endless battles stringing into endless wars… Would mortal kind ever be done with savaging each other?

  But then, it wasn’t as if immortal kind were exempt from viciousness either.

  “You worry that much about strangers and you’ll never find the end of it,” Jerrik said.

  I met his gaze and held it. “You’re not a stranger anymore.” I exchanged more conversation with him than anyone other than Odin or Huginn by now.

  For a second, we just looked at each other as we trudged on through the tunnel. Then Jerrik looked ahead again.

  “Well, it’s not as simple as plain cruelty,” he said. “Muspelheim isn’t the only realm that’s become unstable, you know. All the lesser realms have been… deteriorating since Ragnarok shook their foundations. Asgard holds steady, I assume, and Midgard has always been the solid centerpiece, but the rest... Anything or anyone who throws off the balance can make the situation even worse. I don’t blame them for casting me off.”

  Didn’t he? I thought I caught a note of something more fraught under that flat statement. But he changed the subject on me.

  “And you—do you always go everywhere Odin sends you? He’s your master?”

  That last word sent an uncomfortable shiver through me despite the warmth in the air. “I’ve served him because I chose to,” I said.

  The truth was I couldn’t remember a time when I hadn’t. I wasn’t entirely sure what would happen if I tried to stop. Like most of the gods, Odin wasn’t all that good at taking no for an answer. Witness the fact that I was here at all, in this wretched form in this wretched realm.

  “I suppose it’s an honor, serving the father of the gods,” Jerrik said. Again, I wasn’t completely sure he wasn’t jerking my chain.

  “I’ve seen a lot, heard a lot.” But not everything I wanted to know right now. Curiosity niggled at me. “If the accident hadn’t happened,” I said. “If you’d been able to stay in Alfheim, what sort of life had you been planning there?”

  Jerrik’s expression shuttered. “I told you to stay out of my memories, Miss Raven,” he said sharply, and picked up his pace enough to leave me at his heels.

  I blinked at his back. The question had risen up because I hadn’t gleaned enough to know from the shreds I’d let myself take in. But clearly I’d hit a sore spot.

  Gunnar, who’d been keeping pace just behind us, stepped forward to join me. “Don’t mind Jerrik,” he said quietly. “You can never tell with his moods. But it’ll lift again soon enough.”

  “Are the two of you friends?” I asked. Jerrik had called the giant an acquaintance. They hadn’t behaved all that warmly toward each other.

  Gunnar chuckled. “Of a sort. If you’re not trying to kill each other over a better cave or a bit of food in this place, that’s pretty friendly right there. Are you doing all right? Your cuts aren’t hurting you? If you start to tire out—”

  “I’m fine,” I interrupted, shortly but softly. I didn’t need Gunnar’s concern, but it was touching all the same. I couldn’t actually remember anyone ever bothering to check in about my state of being before. “The dressing you put on the wounds seems to have done the trick. And I can walk a long while. I might not be used to this body, but I’m still just as strong.”

  His gaze skimmed my body. “I can see that,” he said. A faint huskiness had crept into his voice that made my nipples pebble against the fabric of my dress.

  Okay, now it was my turn to do some subject changing. “You obviously like tending to people’s health,” I said, a little too brightly. “Do you figure you’ll set yourself up as a doctor when you get to Midgard?”

  A smile crossed Gunnar’s face. “Maybe something like that. I have to blend in, but if there’s any way I can help people somehow…” The smile faltered. “I’d like to make up for some of the chaos my people have caused. If it hadn’t been for the great war…”

  His apparent guilt prickled at me. “Ragnarok was a long time ago,” I said. “And it all happened the way it was meant to. The gods played as much of a role as anyone.” Odin with his prophecies and scrying, watching every
thing and everyone fall into place. He never showed the slightest bit of guilt over the agony so many had gone through in that end that had become a new beginning.

  “The jotun still have a taste for violence,” Gunnar said. A flicker of a memory brushed over me: a group of other giants jeering at him. Won’t even pick up a spear or an axe. What a defective you are.

  My jaw clenched. I reached out instinctively and grasped his large hand in my much more slender one. “There’s nothing wrong with you, you know,” I said. “You’re not missing anything. You have something that the rest of them don’t.” A compassion an awful lot of other beings could have used more of too.

  Gunnar’s head snapped around. He started at me for a second with those kind gray eyes. They suddenly looked stormy.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “I just say what I see.”

  “Well, then I’m glad you ended up here to see me.”

  The moment seemed to swell between us with more intensity than I’d been prepared for. I slipped my hand from his with a bob of my head. When I fell back to walk on my own for a time, he let me.

  My feet rasped against the rough stone. The light wavered brighter and darker as we passed each glowing crystal. My spirit itched to fly, to sweep straight through this place, but of course, my body refused to budge.

  As soon as I made it back to my raven form again, I’d weld myself to it if I could.

  A thicker wave of heat wafted over me. I looked up. A stark glow stood out in the floor several paces ahead: an underground channel funneling magma past us.

  “Not a problem at all,” Svend said cheerfully as we gathered at the stream’s edge. “I’ve forded this one dozens of times. Here, Muninn, I believe ladies should go first.”

  I snorted at that, but I let him take my hand. He helped me keep my balance as we eased down a small ridge in the side of the stream bed. A stone jutted in the middle of the searing liquid.