Gears of Mischief (The Valhalla Mechanism Book 1)

by Kendra Moreno

  I studied him for a moment, watching how serious he was, and my smile fell. I felt my inner gears switch, changing direction. It was obvious Thor believed what he said, even if it sounded preposterous.

  “Say I believe you,” I murmured, tilting my head. “I have a duty to the Queen to tell her and warn the people.”

  “They will not believe you.” Loki took a seat on the love seat I perched on, his body too close to mine. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Thor shift uncomfortably, saw his focus on the both of us and how close we were. “You’re free to attempt such a feat, of course, but know they will likely think you’re mad.”

  Loki’s eyes glanced over my shoulder, towards the window, and I had a split second to see his eyes widen before the glass blew out towards us. He wrapped an arm around me and jerked me practically over his lap, his fingers moving quickly to spin some sort of barrier in front of us, stopping the shards from spearing into our skin.

  I didn’t let him hold me there for long before I was on my feet and staring in surprise at the same creatures that had attacked them in the square. There weren’t nearly as many of them, but they were climbing through the window as if it were a normal day at the park, as if the glass did not slice into their skin.

  “Dark elves!” Thor snarled and held out his hand. I watched, in amazement, as the large hammer that had previously been leaning against the wall, flew on its own into his hand, as if he was a magnet of some sort.

  The large God had a moment to shoot me a crooked grin, before he swung the hammer and sent one of the dark elves back out of the window.

  Now is certainly not the time to feel aroused, I chided myself, before reaching down and tying my skirt around my legs quickly like pants, just in time to throw a knife and stop the elf that came towards me.

  I grabbed the small battle axe from my thigh sheath and the short sword I kept along my opposite thigh, before I joined in the battle.

  THOR

  I cursed the fact that I couldn’t use my lightning in the house without destroying the entire block, but my hammer still did plenty of damage to the elves that crawled inside the shattered window. My fist helped, too, and for a moment, I considered putting a little extra oomph into my attacks in the hopes that Tillie would see.

  Which was idiotic.

  As ideas went, it was probably one of the most ridiculous things I had ever come up with. She was just a mortal, just a skilled, beautiful, Midgardian.

  I watched as she wielded the small battle ax as if it were a large one, slicing across creatures as they attacked without an ounce of hesitation. She was certainly a temptation that none of us had the time for, not when Ragnarök was just beginning.

  The number of dark elves streaming through the window was small, and I suspected they were more of a warning than a true attack. If it had been meant to kill us, there would have been far more. They wanted us to know that something far worse was coming.

  “We already have to worry about Ragnarök,” I growled as I threw an elf away from me. He flew through the front door and out into the street “And now we have to worry about being attacked from the fucking dark elves!”

  Not a single passerby looked towards the elves and I knew it was because of the enchantments Loki had put into place around the house. With the shimmering magic, no one would see anything besides a decrepit house. How had they even found the house at all? I turned my head in time to see Tillie kick one of the elves in the gut before ramming her short sword through its sternum. Her skirts were tied around her legs, as if she knew precisely what to do should she be attacked while in such a contraption.

  They must have followed her to the house, I thought. It was the only way they could have known.

  Somehow, I was so focused on throwing out elves and slamming my hammer into their skulls, I didn’t realize I was back to back with Tillie until we bumped into each other. I glanced over my shoulder and grinned, a look she shot back. Even with blood splattering her and the dress, she was beautiful, perhaps, more so. There was something about a battle that always made my blood sing and seeing her in the middle of fighting made me want her more.

  She leaned against me and shot over her shoulder, ”I like your hammer, after all, muscles.”

  I snorted at her teasing at a time such as this and tossed my hammer, watching as it knocked out three of the elves before it flew back to my hand. “I knew you would.”

  “Show off,” she grinned and then proceeded to take out three of her own elves with nothing more than a short sword and her skill, all while wearing a dress.

  For a moment, I completely forgot that we were under attack. I didn’t think about Loki as he fought his own battle. I didn’t think about the mess of the sitting room. My eyes were riveted to the woman currently swinging her small axe and shouting a battle cry, screaming the words, “You bloody wanker!” at the top of her lungs as she nailed an elf right in the chest.

  I was so caught up in her battle, that I didn’t see the punch coming. It caught me off guard, the hit coming from the elf in front of me. He had used his fists, but I hadn’t even moved. Sometimes, it paid to be all muscle.

  I wrinkled my nose at the elf, and he took a step back in surprise, as if he expected that hit to knock me out cold. “Is that all you’ve got?” I growled and punched him in the face. He flew backwards into the wall and went through it, falling limp somewhere outside.

  I grit my jaw and focused on throwing the rest of the elves out of the house. I was tired of the games, and I just wanted to look at the fierce woman fighting at my back.

  Was that too much to fucking ask?

  Chapter Twelve

  In the end, there were not so many dark elves that we drowned beneath their numbers, but there had been plenty enough to litter the floor. My dress was splattered in blood, and as I untied the makeshift pants and let the skirt drape to the floor again, I realized that there was no part of me not sporting spots of reddish black. Sighing at the sight, and already attempting to think of a way to walk the streets again to get home, I stepped over a body and took a seat on the couch. Thor looked over at me with raised brows, as if maybe he expected me to faint or get hysterical, but he really shouldn’t have. I had seen far worse things than a few crushed skulls and blood.

  Wiping my blade off on a fallen elf before lifting my skirt and strapping it back to my thigh, I didn’t miss the looks Thor and Loki shot at me. I might have lingered as I did so. Both men were splattered with their fair share of blood same as I was, though Thor looked far more hostile and at home being battle-worn. Loki immediately started stripping off his layers, and I watched him closely. He lost his coat, then his vest, before his suspenders and shirt followed. The skin that was revealed was toned, beautiful, and covered with ink.

  “You have tattoos?” I tilted my head to study the design, until I saw the serpent that curled around his body and disappeared into his trousers.

  “I have one tattoo,” he corrected. “A reminder.”

  “Of what?”

  “That is probably a tale for another time,” Thor interrupted, coming over to sit beside me. I didn’t turn his way immediately, keeping my eyes on Loki as he wiped a towel across his face to clean the blood off, completely unconcerned with my eyes on his body. In fact, when he glanced at me, I saw the recognition there, that he liked my eyes on him. For a split second, I swore I saw a ghost of horns on his head, tall curling things, but when I blinked, they were gone.

  It must have been the adrenaline from the battle making me see things.

  “I think,” I began, studying my small axe in my hand before leaning down to wipe it on the elf laying half on the table and half on the floor. “My people won’t believe in Ragnarök, not without what they consider hard proof, but they will believe in a threat of a new gang, one who deals in alchemy.” Loki turned towards me and frowned, but I held up my hand to stop him. “I know that you’re some sort of alchemist, Loki. I don’t mean offense. We call anything we don’t understand alchemy. It�
��s better than saying magic.”

  Loki moved over and took a seat, propping his feet up on a dead elf. He didn’t replace his soiled shirt, so I was privy to a pleasant view of his abs. “You want to tell your superiors that there’s a gang causing all the damage?”

  “Maybe I can spin them as a satanic cult? Witch hunts were a thing.”

  “But then they won’t be prepared for the worst stages of Ragnarök,” Thor argued, running a hand through hair that had come loose in the small fight. “What will they do when the worst stages happen?”

  I frowned. “Honestly, this is a bit above my paygrade. I don’t know what to do besides tell the Queen everything and let her call me a raving lunatic.” I studied Thor. “Are you going to take off your shirt, too?”

  Grinning, he relaxed back on the seat further. “Would you like me to?”

  Loki sighed, the sound so exasperated, that it snapped my attention back to his face. As if I couldn’t control it, I stood and stepped around the table and the fallen bodies. He dropped his feet to the ground and leaned forward as I stepped close. His hands twitched as if he wanted to settle them around my waist. I wouldn’t be opposed to such a movement, but he didn’t know that, not yet. Even with him sitting, his face still came up to my collarbones, his height something I found incredibly attractive.

  “How bad is Ragnarök?” I murmured, staring into his emerald eyes. We were barely a hair breath apart, my thighs in between his knees where they splayed open. He opened his mouth and hesitated. “Tell me the truth.”

  Giving into the urge to touch, Loki’s hand ghosted along my hips before settling there. Even with the layers of dress between us, I felt the heat that came from him, a heat that was different from that of Thor’s. I glanced behind me to see Thor watching Loki’s hands, watching our stance. The yearning is what nearly did me in. I yearned for them, too.

  “Ragnarök is the end of days, the end of realms.” Loki squeezed my waist and brought my gaze back to his. “Odin thinks it’s only Asgard, which is why we left, but Thor and I believe it’s all nine realms, and now, we think it originates on Midgard. Every bad thing you can imagine will happen unless we can stop it first.”

  “And you think we can stop it at all?”

  Thor moved behind me, but I kept my focus on Loki, so much so, that when I felt Thor’s heat at my back, it surprised me. I felt surrounded, but in the best way possible. Thor didn’t seem to notice the position or notice the flush that was slowly climbing up my throat though I tried my best to hide it. Loki noticed, though, his eyes on the flush, a smile curving his lips. I didn’t back down from the challenge in his eyes, didn’t question it as I leaned back and felt my spine meet the hard chest behind me. Thor’s hands immediately wrapped around my shoulders to steady me, as if he thought I was falling. Loki’s smile widened.

  “We’ve been searching for an item, something Odin mentioned could help slow the stages when he spoke of the prophecy, but we don’t know where it is, or even what it is. Skadi is searching the libraries on Asgard.” Thor’s voice was so close, it reverberated down my skin, and I glanced over my shoulder up at him. His eyes crinkled at my gaze, his hands still on my shoulders, but he didn’t try to grope me, even though I was practically offering myself. It seemed men not of our world were better gentlemen than the ones from here.

  “We only have a single sentence in an old book that Thor barely remembers to go on. But if anyone can find it, it would be Skadi. She’s the Goddess of the Hunt. I’ve already gone through all the books I brought with me, just in case.”

  I turned back to Loki, met the glint in his eyes, and because I couldn’t get the image out of my head, I reached up careful fingers and touched his forehead, exactly where I had seen the ghost of horns before. There was nothing there, nothing that my hand met, and Loki raised his brow, waiting patiently for my question.

  “You sure you are not a demon?” I teased, but whatever I said made the playful smile drop from his lips, made him release my waist and start to lean back away.

  Thor snorted behind me. “Loki has lived a whole life answering that question.”

  Realizing the problem, I reached out and snagged Loki’s hands, pulling him closer again, even if my brain told me it probably wasn’t a good idea to be so close to Gods. Loki’s eyes looked at where I held him, at the way my slim fingers circled his wrists before I brought them back to my waist again.

  Waiting for his eyes to meet mine, I grinned. “It’s perfectly fine if you’re a little horny. I don’t mind.”

  The answering smile that broke across his face, the soft laughter, made my insides flip.

  Chapter Thirteen

  It took ten minutes before we were standing in a mostly clean room again. Some of the furniture was still broken but Loki had uncorked one of his larger bottles and mumbled some words in a language I didn’t know before sprinkling the pink liquid around the room. I had watched, amazed, as the bodies and blood faded away, just as it had done during the battle. When I had asked how he did it, he simply waved his fingers at me and left it at that, the heathen.

  “You said you have people you want to protect?” Loki stared at a bottle in his hand, the liquid inside glowing blue as he swirled it. He had finally pulled on a new shirt, a fact which I bemoaned.

  “If I’m being honest, I have precisely one person I care to protect above all others, my mother.” Most of the other people I cared for could take care of themselves, like Thod. “She would be aghast to know that, to realize I didn’t care for anyone else, but I really dislike all the men that have been paraded in front of me.”

  “Men?” Thor asked. Loki looked over where I sat, my posture far too loose for a lady of my status. I could practically hear my mother chiding me in my head, but now that I had found someone who didn’t care for my masks, well, I was reluctant to put them back on while in their home.

  “My life is made up of appearances and facades. A lady of my age should have already been married and had at least two children, if not three.”

  Loki hummed at my answer, his eyes crinkling at the clear displeasure in my voice.

  Thor shrugged. “And why aren’t you?”

  I scowled at the large man, tempted to pull out my knife and show rather than tell. “Because men are disappointing, and I haven’t been able to stomach any of the spineless arses.”

  Thor held up his hands at the venom in my voice and I looked away, but I didn’t miss the gleam in either of the men’s eyes, the challenge that they seemed to take from that statement. Regardless, I would never be resigned to be a breeder, to only being a breeder and nothing more. That was not who I was and if I had to be alone for the entirety of my life to keep it that way, I would do so. I was not afraid of being lonely.

  “Perhaps,” Loki murmured, coming over to sit beside me. He placed the bottle on the small table, allowing it to breathe whatever sweetness was inside. “it’s because you weren’t built for Midgard.”

  I tilted my head, confused, but I chose not to pursue that topic right away. I would ask him later what he meant, and what world he assumed I should belong to.

  “I can place a protective barrier around your home that will at least keep anything magical out,” Loki tapped the bottle and the answering ting rang in the room. “Including the dark elves.”

  “Does it keep you out?” I asked, grinning. That would be a handy potion, indeed.

  His answering grin should have told me what he was going to say. “Nothing can keep me out.”

  “I’ll go find something for you to wear,” Thor interrupted, standing up.

  “Your clothing would swamp her.”

  “I’m pretty sure I have something she can fit in,” Thor argued.

  I watched the two go back and forth, waiting for them to decide before I sighed and leaned my head back, resting my eyes while they argued like old women. Eventually someone would get me something to wear.

  LOKI

  My eyes trailed over to where Tillie sat, her head back
as if she were completely at peace with two men arguing over who would provide her clothing. Her posture was loose, far different from the woman who had come in the door, her illusions away for now. It was endearing, to see her so without the masks she wore, to hear her talk how she would normally talk if she wasn’t constantly concealing who she was.

  The pink bedroom had been a sham. Just as I knew the dress she wore was another one. She was trained to be whoever she needed to be—that was the role of a spy—but she clearly was not any of those facades at all. She was a warrior more than she would ever be a lady, but I suspected hardly anyone knew that about her. The so-called men paraded for her to add another mask to her repertoire were no doubt nothing more than useless twits, so I could not blame her for wanting nothing to do with them. Someone like Tillie would want adventure and excitement, not parties and jewels.

  Tillie cracked open an eye and looked over to Thor where he stood digging through the drawers in the other room. She could just see him from her position, could see his back as he searched for something she would be able to wear, before she sat up fully. I kept my body turned away even though I could see her from the corner of my eyes, watching as she reached out a finger for Mjӧlnir, the hammer sitting on the seat beside her where Thor had left it. The mechanism inside clicked but no lightning came out.

  “Do you like battle hammers?” I murmured, glancing at her fully. To her credit, she did not jerk her hand back in surprise. She narrowed her eyes and wrapped her finger around the handle, holding it.

  “I like all weapons, but I prefer a battle axe.”

  I could imagine her, dressed in the armor of a Valkyrie, wielding a large battle axe. I could see it so clearly, that I grinned, and I knew I would procure an Asgardian battle axe for her at some point.

  A Valkyrie, even if she didn’t have wings, should never wield a Midgardian weapon.