“Óðinn’s done it, then,” Loki said. He ran a hand through his hair as a pair of black pants materialized around his waist.
Freyja nodded. “Last night.”
“Idiot,” Loki spat.
I tried not to stare as a flagon of mead appeared in Loki’s hand. Only after he’d turned away did it occur to me to wonder if he was referring to Fenris or Óðinn.
“Stars. I’m so sorry,” a soft voice said from behind me.
I turned to see a woman sitting on the table, her dark brown hair an absolute wreck, her cheeks flushed with color, and a long, pale robe pulled tight across her chest. She slipped off the table and padded toward me on bare feet.
“Sol, was it?” she asked.
I nodded. My throat suddenly felt too tight to speak.
“You’re welcome to stay here as long as you’d like,” she said.
A strange warmth rose in my chest as tears pooled in my eyes. I’d only been inside this cottage for a moment, and it already felt more like home than anywhere else on Asgard.
“But...” Loki said.
The woman looked up and met his eyes. Something flashed between them, an entire secret, silent conversation, and she smiled at me again.
“As long as you like,” she repeated.
“Sigyn,” Loki began. He ran his fingers through his hair, straightened, and seemed to think better of whatever he’d been about to say.
“Can I do anything to help?” Freyja asked.
“Maybe,” Loki said. “Probably. I don’t know. Give us a little time to work something out. And keep Óðinn off our tail.”
Freyja’s lips twisted into an inscrutable smile. “Of course.”
Loki ran his hands over his face almost as if he were adjusting his expression, then crossed the room and took both of Freyja’s hands in his.
“Thank you,” he said. The rage and fear that flickered across his face was so naked and fierce I felt like I’d glimpsed the edge of a knife. “You didn’t have to do this.”
Freyja dipped her head, then raised her eyes. “It was Týr. He loves Fenris, you know.”
Of course. The room suddenly felt lighter. Of course Týr loved my husband, just as my husband loved Týr. I’d never thought there could be room in a marriage for more than two, but now here we were, and voicing the love between Týr and Fenris seemed as natural as breathing.
“Freyja,” the other woman said. She’d slipped beside Loki to put an arm over Freyja’s shoulder. “Please, be safe. If Óðinn finds out...”
Freyja’s lips twisted into a grim line. “He won’t, my dear. If there’s one thing I can do, it’s keep a secret.”
I watched as the three of them embraced, the two women wrapping their arms around Loki and bending their heads together. Watching that warm gesture, the tight circle of their bodies, I felt that I stood on the edge of a vast, aching loneliness, an ocean of bleak, empty days and nights.
But no. I bit down on my lip to end that thought. I knew where Fenris was bound, damn it. And Fenris’s father was the most powerful magic user in the Nine Realms. Why else would Týr and Freyja have brought me here, if not to rescue my husband from his prison just as he’d saved me from King Nøkkyn’s fortress?
I watched as Sigyn and Loki kissed Freyja goodbye, and I tried to swallow the bitterness of my own doubts.
THE MONSTER FREED: CHAPTER THREE
“Sit down,” Loki said, once they’d closed the door behind Freyja.
“Make yourself comfortable,” Sigyn said, almost at the same time.
Their eyes met again, only this time they both grinned. I sat, turning away from the depth of their invisible communication. Watching them smile at each other made that gnawing ocean of loneliness rise a little closer to my heart.
As soon as I pulled my chair to the table, a steaming plate appeared in front of me. It was piled high with potatoes, little, round sausages, and boiled eggs on thick slices of rye bread. My mouth watered at the scent.
“Go ahead,” Loki said, pulling his own chair to the table. He sat in it backward, with his legs spread wide around the chair’s back and his hands cradling his head.
I reached for the food hesitantly, half expecting it to vanish again as soon as I touched it. But the fork and knife felt solid beneath my fingers. I sliced one of the potatoes and brought it to my lips. It may still have been an illusion, like Nari on the beach, but it tasted damn good.
“So, you have a couple of options here,” Loki began, after I’d finished the potatoes and sausages and was mopping up the last of the eggs with the rye bread.
Sigyn sat in a chair next to Loki with her feet curled beneath her and a steaming mug in her hands. She nodded encouragingly.
“You can, of course, stay here,” Loki said. “Although that option is risky. You’d be living under Óðinn’s nose.”
Sigyn raised an eyebrow.
“I’m being honest,” Loki said. “I’ll do what I can to protect her, but she should know the truth.”
The unpleasant knowledge that Loki’s moniker was the Lie-smith rose in my throat. I choked it back.
“I can also hide you elsewhere,” Loki continued. “I don’t suggest returning to the Ironwood, or really anywhere in Jötunheimr. You might be recognized.”
I tried to breath through the sudden tightness in my chest. Of course I’d known we would never be able to return to Fenris’s cave. But Loki’s words still hurt.
“Where were you thinking?” Sigyn asked.
“Midgard,” Loki replied.
She smiled. “You like Midgard.”
“It’s the logical choice,” Loki countered. “Everyone overlooks Midgard. And I’ve got allies there.”
“Allies?” Sigyn teased.
Their eyes met again. I had to look away.
Loki cleared his throat. “So. I can give you a good life on Midgard. Lots of money, a place to live. If you’d like, I could look into suitable husbands—”
My head snapped up. “What?”
Something hot and angry rose inside me. Loki and Sigyn were staring at me. I realized I’d pushed back from the table with the knife still clenched in my fist.
“Sol?” Sigyn asked.
“I have a husband,” I spat. “I don’t want your stars-damned money. I don’t want a good life on Midgard. I. Want. My. Husband!”
I realized the knife was shaking in my hand. My vision swam with a sudden flood of tears, but I didn’t dare let them fall. I was not going to be reduced to tears. Not now.
Loki’s lips curved into a smile. “Oh, really?”
“Yes, really!” I jabbed the knife in his direction. “Fenris is trapped on an island in Lake Amsvartnir, and you’re offering to send me off to another realm? He’s your son, damn it! And you’re going to rescue him!”
The tears splashed down my cheeks. I wiped them away. Loki sighed heavily, then buried his face in his hands. Sigyn bent and kissed the top of his head.
“I tried to save him,” Loki said from between his hands.
“I know,” Sigyn said. “And you’ll do it again.”
Loki looked up and met my eyes. “Sol. Are you sure you want to do this? I can give you the kind of life most people on Midgard only dream about—”
“I’m sure,” I snapped.
He glanced at the ceiling, then back at me. For a moment I was struck by how very similar his pale, ice-blue eyes were to Fenris’s.
“I can’t protect you,” Loki said. “I can’t promise your safety on Midgard, and I sure as fuck can’t promise it here. But, if you let me hide you, I can at least try.”
I shook my head from side to side, not trusting my voice. Loki sighed.
“Trying to live with Fenris... Well, it’ll be like painting a target on your back. For you and that child.”
His gaze rested pointedly on the small swell of my stomach. I realized I’d wrapped my trembling arms around my waist.
“I don’t want to raise the baby without his father,” I said. My voice sound
ed like it was coming from very far away.
“You poor thing,” Sigyn said. “Of course you don’t.”
She left Loki’s side and wrapped her arms around my shoulders. A steaming mug of tea appeared on the table, and I reached for it, letting the warmth seep into my fingers. Loki took a deep breath, frowned, and reached for his flagon.
“My son Fenris,” Loki began. “He’s... different. He’s so fucking honest. He doesn’t know the rules, you know? He’s never really understood how to be around people, how to grease the wheels of social interaction. It makes it hard for him to fit in, anywhere.”
“I know,” I growled.
“Do you, though?” His eyes shot through me. “You’ve lived with him for, what, six months? Seven? In a cave in the middle of the woods?”
I swallowed hard. “Five months,” I answered, although I knew damned well I’d spent one of those months locked in Nøkkyn’s fortress.
“I am going to rescue Fenris,” Loki said. “I don’t know how in the Nine Realms I’m going to pull it off, but I’ll get my son out of the mess he was too stars-damned stubborn to avoid. But you, Sol. You don’t have to be a part of this. I’m offering you a way out. No one would blame you if you take it.”
My fingers clenched the mug of tea so hard that my knuckles turned white. Beyond the roiling storm of emotions that tore across my mind and heart, I tried to see Loki’s point. An image surfaced in my mind. Broad, gleaming windows. Torches flickering along the walls. And all the elegant townspeople of Evenfel, dressed up and whispering about us in The White Bull.
“This place has certainly gone to the dogs,” a woman had said, just loudly enough for us to both hear, as Fenris and I left the nicest restaurant I’d ever set foot in.
And Fenris...
Fenris hadn’t seemed to notice. The whispers, the raised eyebrows and shocked expressions, the ridicule hidden behind painted smiles, they just didn’t register on my husband. He’d smiled at me, with his bare feet and his ridiculous outfit. Fenris had watched me walk through the White Bull in my stolen, ill-fitting dress as though I’d hung the very stars that gleam over the Nine Realms.
I swallowed hard and made myself let go of the mug.
“I love my husband,” I said, as calmly as I could. “I don’t want to live without him.”
Sigyn’s hand tightened around my shoulder. Loki tilted his head and watched me with a careful, guarded expression.
“And if that means you have to explain his odd behavior, over and over, for the rest of you life?” he asked.
“So what?” I said. “Are you telling me it would be better to marry someone else?”
Bryn’s handsome face flashed through my mind. The way he’d smiled at me with his hand behind his back, a fistful of mud clenched between his fingers.
“I don’t want to be lied to!” I cried. “I don’t want someone who understands the rules, someone who’ll smile and laugh as they sharpen the knife they’ll stab me with!”
Loki’s eyes widened, and I continued.
“I don’t love Fenris just because he fucked me, or because he got me pregnant, or even because he saved me from Nøkkyn’s castle! I love him for who is he, damn it. Honest and different and...and fucking barefoot! I want to raise his child, with him next to me the whole damn time. Don’t you dare try to shove me off on someone else, Lie-smith!”
Panting, I sank back into my seat. My cheeks were hot, and a wary sense of embarrassment rose as my rush of anger faded. Damn it, I’d planned on begging him to rescue his son, not hurling insults in his face.
Loki’s carefully composed expression shifted as his lips curled. And then, to my amazement, he started to laugh. Sigyn squeezed my shoulders again before pulling her own chair up to the table as Loki laughed so hard I thought the walls of the cottage would shake.
“Wow,” Loki finally said, wiping his eyes. “Sigyn? Did you get that?”
Sigyn beamed at me, and I had no idea why. “Every word,” she said. “Sol certainly seems like a match for the Fenris-wolf.”
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. “So, you’ll do it, then?”
Loki leaned back, ran his fingers through his hair, and drained his flagon of mead. “I’ll do it. And you’ll help. It doesn’t sound like you’d allow me to leave you behind.”
His eyes sparkled as he said this. I had the strange sense I’d somehow gone up in his estimation.
“What will you need?” Sigyn asked.
Loki closed his eyes. “Fuck. Someone who’s good with illusions.”
“Hel?” Sigyn offered.
I shivered at their casual mention of Hel, the half-dead ruler of the Realm of the inglorious dead.
Loki shook his head. “Better if it’s someone who knows Fenris. Someone—” His eyes snapped open. “Oh, shit.”
Sigyn reached across the table and closed her fingers over his hand. “Do what you have to.”
“I can’t.” Loki shook his head, and something cold pooled in the pit of my stomach. What it the Nine Realms could scare Loki?
Sigyn smiled. “Of course you can. Is there something I can—”
“No, damn it!” Loki brought his fist down on the table so hard the wood jumped beneath my hands. “It’s got to be her. Fuck!”
Sigyn leaned back and raised an eyebrow. “My darling. You can handle her.”
I had enough time to wonder if they were still talking about Hel before they both turned to me.
“You should bring Sol,” Sigyn said. “Seeing the next generation might help.”
Loki groaned, then pulled his hands through his hair so hard I winced. “Fine. When do you think—”
“Now,” she said. “It’s only going to be worse if you wait.”
“Stars damn it,” Loki spat.
He came to his feet slowly, and Sigyn pulled him into her arms. She whispered something soft and low. In response, he grabbed her by the waist, spun her against the table, and pressed her down into a long, deep kiss. I flushed as I watched their lips dance together, Sigyn moaning into Loki’s mouth, his hand sinking into her hair. The dark, irresistible surge of sexual heat rose between my legs, hot and hungry. Only this time, the desperate ocean of fear and loneliness rose along with it, pressing against the inside of my throat, making me feel like the air had been sucked from the room.
Loki pulled away from Sigyn with a sigh. He pressed his finger to her lips.
“Hold that thought,” he whispered.
Then, before I could blink, he crossed the room to grab my arm.
“Hang on,” he said.
And the room dissolved around me.
THE MONSTER FREED: CHAPTER FOUR
Cold! I shivered as an icy wind bore down on me, cutting through the fabric of my dress. Loki’s hand still gripped my arm, and we stood together on broken, dark rock, our shadows spread low and black before us. The air stank of the ocean, and the dull thunder of waves made the stones vibrate beneath us. In front of us, an enormous stone fortress rose from the spray-slickened rocks. Our shadows grazed the iron spikes of the front portcullis.
“Who goes there?” someone called.
The low light glinted off swords and helmets as a group of soldiers rushed across the stone toward us. Fear froze my arms and legs; I might as well have been formed from the stone beneath our feet.
“Fuck me,” Loki muttered under his breath.
That was not especially reassuring.
The soldiers formed a rough line outside the portcullis. A tall, older man with a grizzled face strode forward to meet us, one gloved hand resting lightly on the pommel of his sword.
“Speak, or forfeit your life,” he barked.
Loki cleared his throat. “Lovely evening we’re having,” he said.
The soldier frowned. “State your business!”
“I’m here to see Angrboða,” Loki replied. “My business is my own.”
Metal growled over the constant whine of the wind and waves as the soldier pulled his sword from its scabbard
. Its blade flashed against Loki’s neck.
“And who in the Nine fucking Realms do you think you are?” the soldier yelled.
There was a sudden gust of wind, and the soldier’s head rocked backward. A silver blade pressed into the skin below his chin. I took a step backward, but Loki’s hand tightened on my arm. One Loki, at least.
A second Loki stood behind the guard, pressing the blade of a dagger into his neck.
Screams erupted behind Loki and the guards. Metal clattered against stone. The glistening points of three spears arched through the air, their long shafts and bright, sharp heads flashing against the setting sun. Time seemed to slow, stretching and lengthening like bread dough pulled out over the flour-dusted table of my parents’ cabin.
The spears sank toward us. And then they burst into flame. The light of their incineration burned my eyes, but only for a moment. Then hot ashes fell at my feet, hissing against the cold stones.
“I am Loki, son of Laufeyiar,” the Loki standing beside me announced into the stunned silence. The dark wind carried his voice, and I felt certain the entire castle could hear his words. “Born of Jötunheimr, but counted among the Æsir. Father of your Queen Angrboða’s two children. I will not be threatened.”
The Loki with a blade against the soldier’s throat shoved him forward. He stumbled to his knees, his sword clattering uselessly against the stones. Both Lokis glared down at him as I gaped at the men, trying to determine which one was the illusion. Some dim part of my mind recognized this was what Nari had been attempting to do on the beach.
“Of...Of course, my Lord,” the soldier wheezed.
He staggered to his feet. I saw a thin, red line where Loki’s blade had pressed into his skin.
“Just this way.”
The soldier gestured toward the castle, as if he were showing us to our table in the White Bull. Loki released my arm and vanished. The second Loki sheathed his dagger, took my wrist, and pulled me after the soldier without a word.
“WELL, WELL, WELL,” Angrboða purred as she reclined across an expansive red couch. “Look who just washed up on my doorstep.”
The Complete Fenris Series Page 52