by Kate Pearce
But try convincing the gods to change policy.
I sigh, deciding—again—that I couldn’t risk sharing the truth with Odin. It would only take one man in that room to believe that women are somehow lesser, that a husband has the right to do what he wishes with his wife, whether or not she agrees, or that it is his obligation to correct her behavior—
And the men in that room, deciding our fate, they are not modern men. They are gods and demi-gods.
I collapse into the chair, and the leather creaks beneath me. I wipe my hands down my thighs, the denim of my Levi’s rough and bracing. The slight burn focuses my thoughts. I couldn’t have taken the risk. These are people’s lives and afterlives I’m fighting for. As always, having made the decision not to tell him, calm settles over me.
“It’s not a good idea.” The voice pierces the door like an axe’s blade.
Another voice answers. Softer, so I can’t make out the words, but no less steely for it.
I lean forward on my chair, unwilling to go so far as cross the room and press my ear to the door, but eager to catch every word I can.
“She wants to start a club, halfway across the country from The Wild Hunt, just for dames, led by dames?” A snort. “And she has the nerve to say her club will be a support club? We’ll be supporting them. She probably just wants us around as goons, to provide muscle when she gums up the works.” Words in the old language pour through the door toward me.
He…does know that’s anatomically impossible. Right?
Soft voices again, three of them, I think, but Big Voice cuts over them all. “It’d be bad enough if she was just anyone, but she’s not. She’s Loki’s dóttir.” Another string of the old words, and this time, they’re directed at my father, and cold anger has me out of my seat and through the door before I can consider what I’m about to do.
My voice is cold. As cold as Hel on a punishment night. “You can say what you want about my proposal. About me, even—I can see how that might matter. But my father? That’s just dirty pool.”
The man in the center of the room—what will be the main meeting area of the clubhouse if my petition is granted—turns to peer at me over his shoulder.
Tyr.
Of course. He’s one of them.
Demigods should really have tattoos. Or light-up signs, so I could tell them from regular folk. But we all fit in so neatly here, except for the immortality thing. The complete lack of childhood never bothers anyone—but when our hair doesn’t start going grey, people freak out.
I’m a little gratified to see the same surprise on his face that I’m pretty sure is on mine. It’s like watching dice rolling—a thousand expressions tumble over his face in the time it takes me to inhale, and it finally stops—snake eyes. A coldness passes over his face, and I’m surprised I feel chilled by it. Like I should expect anything else just because—
Memories of that night flash through my mind. That first time, he hadn’t lasted long, but I’d been chasing my own completion and found it with him. Then he assured me he’d make up for it, and he had, worshipping my body with his mouth and his gaze and the wicked things he could do with his hands. He’d brought me to completion, and then again, higher and higher each time until I thought, perhaps, I might have turned into a Valkyrie, and this is what it was to fly.
If he’d known I was Loki’s daughter—that night would never have happened.
We hadn’t meant anything to one another. The entire night was instinct and need, not love or companionship. And even though I’ve thought of him more than once in the past twenty-four hours, I certainly never thought I’d see him again when I tiptoed out of his room while he slept.
So this sudden, stabbing sensation of betrayal at seeing him here, arguing against me—it’s ridiculous.
I try to swallow it away.
Tyr finishes turning toward me, and the blankness in his gaze makes me suck in a breath. “Hello, princess,” he says, and I flinch at the coldness of his tone.
“Queen, actually.”
He sketches a little bow that manages to be both elegant and entirely sarcastic.
“Enough!” Allfather’s voice cuts through the space between us like a knife. I jump nearly out of my skin. I’d almost forgotten anyone else was in the room.
Tyr bows his head and steps back, and Allfather moves into the space he’s vacated.
And that is when I realize what I’ve just done.
I’ve interrupted their meeting.
Church.
So called, because it’s sacred.
Blast.
*
She burst into the room, all fury and righteous indignation, and I threw Allfather a see what I mean look. Because this is what I meant. Loki’s unpredictable, and we were lucky to see the back of him. It isn’t unreasonable to worry his dóttir might be the same. I didn’t expect her to confirm it so quickly. But when I look at Allfather, he’s choosing to ignore me.
Fine. I’ll wash my hands—the flesh one, anyway—of the whole thing. I don’t even know why I bothered—Father hasn’t let me help in any meaningful way in—almost as long as it had been since I took a woman home. It’s not like he was about to start allowing me to help now.
Then I looked over my shoulder and saw her. Wearing denim trousers again, with a corset-like shirt that puts her assets on display and leaves her arms bare, showing an array of tattoos. Of course it’s her.
My gut tightens, and the blood rushes from my head. Twenty-four hours since she’d slipped from my bed, and instead of forgetting about her, I’d just come up with a very long list of things we hadn’t managed to do in the time we’d had together.
“Hela Lokisdottir.” Allfather’s voice is loud in the suddenly very quiet room.
That night, I’d muttered, groaned, and even screamed her name, and I hadn’t put it together. But she pronounces it differently from Allfather. And, if I’m being honest, the Lokisdottir part always had more of my attention.
Oh, gods and goddesses. I slept with Loki’s dóttir. And for the last twenty-four hours, I’d been imagining doing it again. And again.
Those big, dark eyes of hers stare up at me like I’ve cut her open, and I swallow back the apology that wants to spring free. I didn’t know who she was when I met her at Aegir’s, and I’d guess she didn’t know me, either. If she did, she’s one hell of an actress.
Instead, we’re just two people with the worst kind of luck.
And I have proof she’s as reckless as her father—going home with some man she didn’t even know. I won’t be a cad and mention it, but the knowing sits under my skin like an itch.
“You shouldn’t be here.” Allfather draws her attention from me to him, and it’s like a weight lifts.
She sighs. It’s loud in the now-quiet room, and it’s hard to believe there’s anyone here but the three of us, but the highest ranking officers of The Wild Hunt are here, perched on the edges of tables or lounging in deep, red-upholstered chairs. I clasp my hands behind me and bow my head, but I can’t keep my eyes off her. It’s hard not to remember the way she looked at me—under me—that night, and the sound of her voice is all raw silk and good whisky. Luxuries a man like me can’t afford.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I wasn’t eavesdropping. But I did hear him—” She shoots me the sort of look that could wound a man. Assuming he cared about her opinion, and of course, I don’t. So I shrug my shoulders to help the words roll right off me. “I heard what he said about my father, and I couldn’t just let it go.”
“You care about your father so much?” Allfather’s face is just visible beneath the floppy brim of his enormous hat. The monocular over his good eye gleams, the lenses fanned out around it like a peacock’s tail. The full focus of his attention is on her, now, and it’s made men quake, literally made them piss themselves with fear, but she just stands a little taller, and her voice stays steady. Pride rushes through me like a warmth, and I try to ignore it.
“Caring isn’t the point,�
� she says with a shrug. “He’s my father.”
Allfather’s gaze cuts to me, then, and I’m not as good at ignoring his silent communications as he is at ignoring mine. He’s telling me this is the sort of loyalty a father should inspire in his child. That I should take notes. Being his son as well as a member of The Wild Hunt hasn’t been an easy ride. For either of us, I suppose.
He turns back to Hela. “Will your father be wearing your patch, should we grant your position?”
She grins, and that fearlessness and her genuine amusement hits me like a punch to the gut. I knew she was beautiful, but—this is something more. “The Belles will be an all-female group, Allfather, so I don’t think he’d qualify.” Her smile turns falsely innocent, and I’m not surprised to see an answering gleam in Allfather’s eye, even through his monocular.
His voice, however, is all seriousness. “And if Loki turns himself into a dame?”
She lifts her eyebrow, and then falters, as if she can actually imagine him doing just that. A sadness passes over her face, and I’m surprised at how fragile it makes her appear. Her voice is tight when she answers. “No. Even then, I would not offer him a patch.” It cost her to admit that.
“But you’d interrupt Church for him.” Not a question, exactly, from Ragnar “Rock” Lodbrok. One of the newest officers, the boy seems to think if he doesn’t speak, we’ll forget he exists.
She answers him anyway. “He’s my father. And until you grant my petition, there’s no reason not to give him my loyalty. Indeed, should you deny me, he might well be the last ally I have.” It’s not quite a threat, but it’s close. I wonder if she knows that.
“And if we do grant your petition? You realize that will mean that every member of this club will be deserving of the loyalty you now lavish upon your father?” I see where he’s going with this and resist the urge to smile. It would only look smug.
“I do,” she says. “Every member.”
Caught you, I think, and I do smile now, letting it be downright arrogant.
“Even him.” She jerks her head to indicate me. Not caught at all, then. She’d just played along with it. Damn. “But not until you grant my petition.”
Allfather sits back and tents his fingers. The monocular flares, activated by some unspoken command, and sends shimmers of blue light across his froth of beard. “I am not, at this point, prepared to grant your petition outright.”
What the hell? His mind’s been made up since before we left home. What’s he up to?
Hela looks unsteady on her feet, and without thinking, I step close enough to her to brace her, should she need it.
“I am, however, willing to grant your club, the Hel’s Belles, prospect status.” She struggles with that but manages a grateful response that he waves away. “Just for six weeks. That will give us time to see how your club operates, and ensure our two clubs can work together.” He lifts his aether-wand, a slim steel tube the length of his arm with a coil of copper around it. “It will also give us time to help forge the bond between you and The Wild Hunt.”
She tilts her head, considering, and then nods. “Thank you, Allfather.” She sounds sincere, if a little disappointed.
“Love and respect, prospect Hela Lokisdottir.”
“Love and respect,” she tells him, and then turns to me and repeats it without any irony or resentment.
“I hope I didn’t cause any offense earlier.” Thoughts chase themselves across her face and I smother a grin. “With what I said about your father, I mean.”
She laughs. “You didn’t, actually, say anything I’ve never said. To his face.” Though her tone is light, her voice slides into a wryness that makes it impossible to doubt she’s telling the truth, and it isn’t a comfortable one for her.
I reach to shake her hand, and light gleams off the metal. I’ve forgotten. Again. But she reaches for it and shakes my hand without comment, and why I’d expect any different from her, I can’t imagine. The receptors in my fingertips get the same information I can see in her eyes—a softness and steel that strike me as entirely feminine. Something familiar, in a bone-deep way that goes beyond sharing a night in a stranger’s bed. Something in my chest dislodges at the sight of her, the feel of her, and for a second, it’s almost impossible to breathe.
And suddenly I’m very grateful her club is halfway across the country, and I’ll be going home tomorrow, because then I won’t have to worry about the way she makes me feel. “Best wishes,” I tell her, and it’s as sincere as her pledge to the Wild Hunt.
“There is one condition,” Allfather says, and her fingers twitch in mine. Protective instincts surge through me, and I hold her tighter. Father’s conditions are legendary. “I would like to keep one of my men here, to keep an eye on your club, and learn its workings.” He grins, looking for all the world like someone’s benevolent grandfather, which makes me stiffen even more. “And yes, to provide you with muscle, should you find you are in need of it.”
“Thank you, Allfather.”
She sounds grateful, and I want to warn her. Father’s not doing this out of the kindness of his heart. He has an agenda. He’ll probably stick Rock with her—the kid doesn’t seem thrilled about this new club, and he’ll make life a nightmare for her while staying inside the bounds of the aether-bond.
“You will be on loan to the Hel’s Belles for the next six weeks, Two.”
My road name is like a slap to the face. I nod, because if I have to speak to him, I might explode. What the hell is the old man up to now? Is he that determined to be rid of me awhile? Trying to keep me from the meetings he has back home with Freya? Or does he think I don’t know about them?
He twirls the wand in his hand like a baton, and I grind my teeth. He’s kept our aether-bond light, just enough of a tether he can communicate with me across distances, but not so much it influences how I feel about him, but if he cranked it up a bit, he could reduce me to a slavering dog. He’s threatened it more than once, though he’s never followed through. “Of course, Allfather,” I finally manage to say, and he grins again.
I look over at Hela, and I see her figuring it out. Two, a shortened version of Tyr. Finally she asks, “Two?” and I nod. Her expression is all of course you are, though she doesn’t say the words out loud. “I’ll be grateful for your assistance,” she whispers, and I’m lost to the shape of the words from her mouth.
Which must be why I do it.
I let a slow, lazy grin spread across my face and move my thumb in a lazy circle on the back of her hand. “Seems we’re going to have a bit more time together.” I think about every, single thing we did together in that borrowed bed, and every fantasy I’ve had since, and I make sure it all shows on my face. She tries to look pissed off, but her eyes go wide and glassy, and her breathing is a little uneven. My index finger is registering her pulse, and it’s definitely elevated.
She’s not unaffected by me, and I will work with that. The fact she is Loki’s dóttir might have deterred me before, but now, it merely makes the pulse between us more attractive. Something we both want, with a side of revenge? Perfection.
Then Allfather claps my shoulder with one hand, and reaches with his other to shake my hand. My flesh hand, that is, and I try not to contrast that with how readily Hela twines her fingers with my metal ones. “Do me proud, son,” he says, and then, in a voice so low only I can hear, he adds, “Perhaps that paternal loyalty she put on display is contagious.”
My gut wrenches, and he slips away, the rest of the officers of the club trailing behind him, leaving me with nothing to say, even if he was there to hear it.
Damn him.
3
I watch Allfather and his entourage leave my office, closing the door behind them, and the click is loud in the sudden silence. I’m not really sure what just happened here.
Tyr—Two—is directly in front of me, and I’ve forgotten how huge he is—he’s broad enough I can’t see around him, and tall enough he has to hunker down a little to meet
my gaze. It’s like my entire world has become nothing but him. The corner of his mouth twitches up in what could be a grin, though a predatory one. “You’ll be prospecting with The Wild Hunt. For six weeks. At the end of it, should I decide you’re suitable, you’ll be granted your charter.”
“You seem quite unconvinced I’ll manage any such thing.”
He shrugs, lazy and dismissive, and I actually close my hand into a fist to resist the urge to slap him. “I know you,” he whispers into my ear, and I shiver at the heat of his breath on my neck as much as the menace in the words.
“You know nothing about me.”
“I know that you brought home a man, on absolutely no acquaintance. That’s all the proof I need that you’re as impulsive as your father. It’s not a leap from impulsive to irresponsible, especially considering your familial connection.”
His words leave me cold. “I would argue that bringing home men on no acquaintance is, firstly, of no matter to anyone except those men and myself...” I step into his warmth, frustrated that I still find him attractive, that the memories of that night we spent together simmer in the air between us. “And secondly, that such liaisons might be the more responsible choice, as there is no opportunity to confound things with messy emotional entanglements.” I bite my tongue before I can say anything more, but he’s on those words like a wolf on a rabbit.
“You prefer your…liaisons…without emotional entanglement?”
“Yes.” I make the word as biting as possible, because I know he’ll twist anything else I say to suit his needs.
“Well, then,” he says. “It seems to me that this latest assignment of mine should work out well for both of us.”
My mind stalls. For a full minute, I stand there trying to figure out what he’s just said. Finally, I blurt out, “What are you suggesting?” His finger trails down the line of my neck, and I shiver.