by Amie Gibbons
Quil finished with a few shudders and little jerks inside me before he pulled out and flopped down on me, resting his head on my chest.
I closed my eyes and fully relaxed into the bed.
Okay, now it was time for a nap.
“That was intense,” Quil whispered, stroking my side with light fingers. “There was a force. What was that?”
“Carvi,” I said.
I would’ve petted his soft curls like I always did if my arms would work enough to move.
“He wanted to play too. He was pulling me into the astral plane and having sex with me in there, while you were out here. It’s kinda weird.”
His hand paused.
Huh, maybe I shouldn’t have told him that.
But I never lied to Quil.
It was one thing that made us work.
“Did he do this with permission?” Quil asked after a moment.
“Ummmm, kind of,” I said. “I didn’t say no. I… basically said yes. I can’t really remember.”
Quil growled under his breath. “I thought he said you were off limits while he was helping you?”
“He did, then he kinda changed his mind, and said it was okay long as you’re here. Like I’m okay with it if it’s you two together. I’m not sure I follow his reasoning, but it was all about my trusting him, and him saying if I was with you at the same time, it wasn’t a breach of trust.”
Quil sighed and slid off of me.
“Wait!” I gasped before I realized he was just scooching up the bed.
I couldn’t push myself up enough to follow by crawling so I got up on my knees and scooted up.
We got under the blankets and I settled my head on his chest, his arm wrapped around me and drawing little circles on my arm.
“Get your nap in, sweets,” he said. “I’ll have a talk with Carvagio later.”
“Are you okay? I… I’m kinda worried this was a breach of your trust now.”
“I don’t like the idea of Carvi playing with us, or even just you while you’re with me. I don’t want him involved with us in any way. And I thought he was backing off since he’s helping you. It breaks the trust he’d built with me.”
“Oh, okay,” I said, closing my eyes.
###
I woke up in the field of flowers again.
“Oh, come on,” I said, looking around. “What the?”
“Hello again.”
I whirled around and the fake Milo was standing in a patch of the little purple flowers and I tossed my hands up.
“Am I really here, or am I just dreaming?”
“Are you ever really here?” he asked. “It’s just your spirit traveling through the realms. Or others’ spirits entering your mind. Do you ever really leave?”
I met his eyes. “Good point. What do I call you?”
He smiled. “Now, now, that would be telling.”
“Yep.” I crossed my arms. “Why am I back here?”
“Because you still don’t understand, and you want to. Where are you?”
“Flying. Why?”
He smirked. “I meant right now. Where are you? This place, what is it?”
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
Let me tell ya, I was getting really sick of the riddle guy.
“You don’t know? How are you to understand if you can not even name this place?”
“How am I supposed to name it if nobody’s ever told me?”
He gave me an annoyed look. “Because you’re psychic.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I can just know things. I have to know what to look for.”
“Says who?”
I pressed my lips together and counted to three.
Arguing with the god wasn’t gonna get me anywhere.
“If I can know more, then I don’t know how yet,” I said.
“Figure it out. Tell me where we are.”
“I don’t know,” I huffed. “The dimension we’ve been calling Asgard?”
He jerked. “Huh, you know more than you think.”
“Wait, I’m right?”
He shrugged. “Wrong name, but close enough for your understanding.”
“This is where I need to be, to find the spell that started all this,” I said, voice picking up speed. “Am I really here? Can my mind take it here? Without a spell? Without protection?”
He met my eyes.
And his were iced over. Pale.
Not Milo’s eyes.
He grew in front of me, brownish grey fur sprouting from his body, making him into a giant wolfman with the hair thin enough over his face to show a strong jaw and thick lips under his snout.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“You don’t know your mythology very well, do you?”
“Ummmm, I learned the basic Greek mythology in ninth grade.”
He snorted. “And yet you knew the name Asgard. I am from that mythology.”
I wrinkled my forehead. “I swear I remember something from Nordic mythology about a giant wolf, but wasn’t he the bad guy?”
He tossed his head back and laughed. “That depends on your perspective. We’re all the heroes of our own stories. We all do things for what we consider good reasons.”
He met my eyes.
And I swear I recognized his.
“Even hurt the people closest to us,” he said. “I betrayed a trust; I broke a promise, and my family has been split ever since. I’m not evil, merely imperfect.”
“Why are you here?” I asked. “Why are you helping me? Well, kinda helping?”
“Because if this doesn’t stop, one of my grandchildren and his family will die. And neither of us wants that.”
“Your grandson?” My head snapped back. “Is that my dad? Is that why I’m so powerful?”
He threw his head back, laughing. “Oh, my dear girl, no. You aren’t descended from a god. You… we don’t have a word for what you are. We could make one up.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You don’t need to right now. Not that. That’s what I was saying you’re not ready to learn. Right now, you need to understand what’s going on here, in Alabama, in your world. If the spiral is not stopped, the South will be brought to her knees, and tens or hundreds of thousands could die, including more than one man you love.”
I gulped.
“So, no pressure,” I said, licking my lips. “Can I get into the Asgard plane, get to the layer I need to, without going insane?”
“You tell me,” he said.
“Is there a way to test it?”
“Sure, walk in and see if the marbles spill out.”
I scowled.
“What? Good little southern girl losing that ladylike patience?” he said, bushy eyebrows dancing. “You aren’t a fighter, Ariana, you’re a psychic. You bend to keep from breaking, you feel the flow of the world and go with it like the water that sired you. You will get nowhere by fighting, because you’re not very good at it.”
I narrowed my eyes, blood boiling up.
“Try me,” I said. “I got a tulpa who’d say different if she still existed.”
“Did you beat her by fighting? Did you kill her?” he asked, crossing his arms.
“I…”
No, I hadn’t.
I’d convinced her maker to take her back.
“Exactly,” he said like he’d read my mind. “Stop fighting. Stop trying to control this, to make sure it can’t hurt you. Stop beating your head against the wall. You are water. Flow.”
“Who’s your grandson?”
“You already know the answer to that question.”
“Carvi.”
He narrowed his eyes and cocked his head. “Who?”
“I don’t know his real name. He won’t tell anyone. But him being part wolf would make a lot of sense.”
“In this world, there are predators and prey,” the wolf said. “Wolves, my line, are always predators. We can’t help it. It’s our nature. And you can’t blame a wolf for be
ing a wolf. You, Ariana, you are prey.”
“I am not!”
He smiled.
Red silky mist rose around me, banding together into a lovely red stripped tie.
It slid over my face, covering my eyes.
Something just as soft flowed over my wrists, binding them behind me.
A small sound escaped me as I licked my lips.
I opened my eyes and jerked up off Quil’s chest.
“Sweets?” he asked, suddenly up and alert as I hopped out of bed.
“I had a dream,” I said. “I need to talk to Carvi.”
I pulled the door open and ran out into the main room of the plane.
Carvi and AB lay on the couch, half clothed and making out like teenagers with him on her.
“Carvi,” I said.
He broke away from AB’s lips but kept his eyes on hers.
“You are absolutely invited to join us,” he said.
AB giggled.
“No,” I said. “I just talked to this big wolf guy and he was saying that place I went to, where I saw the people as flowers and the mountain, that was this Asgard place. And I’m pretty sure he’s your grandfather. He was talkin’ about his line being predators and said I was prey. That’s you.”
“I swear it isn’t, lea,” he said.
“Do I get a cute little nickname?” AB asked, voice low.
“Yes,” Carvi said, “just as soon as one comes to me.”
“I thought we were working on getting you a little inspiration,” she said.
“Guys!” I said. “Magic guy talking to me. Can we focus, please?”
Carvi finally looked over at me. “You got yours, now let me get mine. Well, again. We already went.”
“Carvi,” AB giggled.
“Carvi!” I said. “The guy told me I was in that dimension. It means I can get onto that plane! And if not me myself, then me in a dream. I’ve already been there!”
That got his attention.
“Sorry, AB,” he said, pushing off the couch, zipping his pants and standing up.
I kept my eyes off AB cuz she wasn’t wearing any bottoms.
“You were there?” Carvi said. “Are you sure?”
“Yes… well, no, not really,” I said. “But the wolf guy said.”
“What wolf guy?”
“The one I told you about!” I clenched my fists, resisting the urge to growl at him. “The one who looked like Milo for a bit, but then he changed into a wolf, and said I knew his grandson… and that he had a family, so it’s not you. Okay. Okay. I can’t worry about that right now.”
Carvi smirked. “Fenrir.”
“Huh?” I asked.
“That’s the wolf out of Norse mythology.”
“Oh, okay, whatever. He said I was in that plane. So even if I can’t astral project into it or whatever we call it, I can get there in my dreams. Like when you visited me in my head. Except, what if we were just in my head, and he’s tricking me? But he didn’t actually say I was there, did he? See, now I’m confused. I don’t remember!”
“Lea, calm down.” Carvi took my shoulders and looked me in the eye. “You need to take a breath, and remember.”
“It’s getting fuzzy now,” I said. “Like a dream. But he did say that place I was, with all the flowers, that it was Asgard.”
“We are just calling it that,” Carvi said. “That’s not what it’s actually known as. That suggests he might have been a figment of your imagination. He may have been just a dream.”
“Can we go into the dream world to check?” I asked. “Like I did back when we first met, and I was trying to contact you and you walked me through visions. Can we do that, but with us going to the home office first?”
He sighed. “No, because it poses the same danger. Sleeping or putting yourself into the astral plane, it’s the same damn thing. There is no difference. You have probably walked through the astral plane in dreams before, lea. There is no waking version and sleeping version. There’s just going through the planes.”
“But then that means I can take it, cuz I was there,” I said.
“You don’t know that. You can’t know that.”
“He said-”
“Even if he was real, you don’t know him. He could be tricking you. He could be lying!”
I blinked and jerked back.
“Yeah,” Carvi said. “People lie. Gods lie. It happens. What makes you think he was trying to help at all? What makes you think you can trust him?”
My mouth hung open.
And I shut it.
“I just do,” I said. “I can feel it. He wants to help.”
“Then why was he speaking in riddles?”
“Why do you?” I crossed my arms and stared him down.
“Because I must. I have certain rules I have to follow.”
“Well maybe so does he.”
“Ariana.” Carvi clenched his fist and banged it against his open palm. “You don’t know these creatures like I do. You don’t know he can be trusted. You don’t know he has a grandson that you know. All of these could be lies.”
“Why? Why lie?”
“Because he might be an assassin who found a way to get to you mentally, for one. He gets you to go there so you lose your mind. You go insane and die, guess what, whoever made that happen gets the bounty on you. Did it never occur to you this could be an elaborate ruse since you’ve managed to avoid or defeat anyone who has come directly after you?”
Nope.
That had honestly never occurred to me.
Wow, I felt stupid.
“You think he was lying?” I asked in a small voice.
“I think he could’ve been. If he wasn’t, why wouldn’t he tell you what he knows? I know why I can’t, but this man’s a god, if you believe him.”
I sighed. “Maybe he made a promise not to give away too much to humans? I don’t know. He said something about breaking a promise and it splitting his family in half. It sounded like a whole big thing.”
“Is there a way to tell?” AB asked.
“Huh?” I said.
“A way to tell if that was really the god Fenrir, or someone else,” she said. “You’re psychic. Can you check that sort of thing?”
I looked at Carvi.
He shook his head. “If he showed up again. If he would let us. If he didn’t have some way of faking the results. Too many ifs. We can’t trust him, and he hasn’t said anything useful anyway, so I really don’t see the point of the discussion. We get a spell to protect Ariana’s mind, and we go in then. Until then, we work to get those assassins off her fine, curvy ass, and maybe this guy will be one of them.”
“Now,” he said, “I’m going to get another good fuck or two in before we land. Lea, you are more than welcome to join us, but we’re going.”
He marched back to the couch and grabbed AB by the hair, same way he’d grabbed me in the astral plane, and kissed her hard as he pulled her off the couch and to her feet on the floor.
She squeaked as he let her go and looked over at me.
I blinked back.
Could I watch?
That just seemed icky.
Like ickier than joining them would be.
“What’s the matter, lea?” Carvi asked. “Never watched porn?”
“No,” I said. “What girl does?”
“That’s what I said,” AB said.
Carvi snorted and grabbed her hips, jerking into her with his pants still on.
“Whoa!” I held my hands up and whirled, half running back into the bedroom.
I slammed the door behind me, and Quil cracked his eyes and grinned at me.
“Carvi any help?” he asked as I crawled back onto the bed with him.
“If you call pointing out that the god could’ve been lying, or not even a god and just an assassin posing so they can get me to do something stupid, and basically calling me a naïve idiot helpful, then yes.”
He put his hands out, making a come here motion, and I crawle
d under the covers with him, resting my head on his chest.
“You want to join us like I joined you?” Carvi asked in my head.
“No,” I said. “It’s weird.”
“You’re such a prude,” he said.
I rolled my eyes and closed them, relaxing onto Quil.
A moan came through the door and blood rushed down through my groin.
“Ready to go again, sweets?” Quil asked.
“I do remember you promising me some blood,” I said.
He rubbed my back through my shirt before moving his arm out from under me. I sat up as he undid his button-down, staring into my eyes as his fingers worked the buttons.
He shrugged off the shirt, barely sitting up enough to slide it off, and undid his pants again.
“Ride me as you sink your teeth into me,” he said, holding his arms out.
I hiked up my skirt and straddled him.
“This feels… almost wrong,” I said. “Like us doing this in here and them out there is too intimate somehow.”
He chuckled. “You never had a roommate, did you?”
“I had big sisters who snuck guys into their rooms, but if they did anything, they were real careful to stay quiet… mostly cuz they knew I’d tell on them if I knew anything was goin’ on.”
I slid onto him, letting him into me slow, feeling every inch of him as I settled.
Quil sighed and closed his eyes.
Ready to sit back and enjoy.
I put my hands on his chest and moved on him, keeping everything slow, feeling the sensations, feeling him, rather than reaching for the climax.
If there was one thing I’d been told by guys as a joke, it was that I was very destination focused, and I needed to focus on the journey.
“You do,” Carvi’s voice rang in my head.
“Are you eavesdropping?” I asked. “Aren’t you busy?”
“I don’t know about you, but I can do two at once. I can even do three. Come out here and I’ll show you.”
“I can’t do orgy, Carvi. Threesome is possible, but there’s a line.”
He chuckled. “When will you learn, lea, the only line is what you draw.”
I bent forward, riding Quil with slow, careful motions, drawing myself almost all the way off him before sliding back down.
Quil made a small noise and grabbed my hips, moving me up fast and shoving me back down.