He brought them up onto the land and to an outcropping of rock, where he let her down gently above a shore covered in sparkling, iridescent black sand, forming a narrow beach outside the dense trees and undergrowth of the forest.
Gasping a little to catch her breath as she balanced her feet on the white rock, Silvia looked around at where the two of them stood, then glanced at Tyr.
The God of War pointed out towards the ocean.
His face remained stoic, but she heard a touch of humor in his voice.
“It’s over now,” he said, pointing at the dragon and Thor. “My father has arrived.”
Silvia followed his pointing finger.
She stared, dumbfounded, as Thor and the dragon hung by the edge of a nearby cliff, a much higher cliff, made of black rock.
The dragon’s head and a graceful curve of neck poked out of the water, Thor sitting there, balanced easily at the highest peak, his silver hammer slung over his shoulder.
The two of them hovered there, unmoving and attentive, in front of a third figure, who stood on the midnight-black cliff.
Silvia hadn’t even noticed the third person at first, likely because the man was significantly smaller than Thor, much less the enormous, iridescent and black-scaled dragon.
Clearly, though, something about the man being there changed everything.
Silvia found herself studying what little she could see of the man at this distance.
She saw a dark robe, a long, gray beard, and thick hair that flowed past his shoulders of the same color. He held a staff in one hand, and Silvia swore she saw an eyepatch over one eye, covered in jewels.
The figure leaned heavily on the staff, his lips moving as he spoke.
As to whom he spoke, there was no mystery.
Thor and the dragon remained perfectly still, listening.
Thor no longer beat on the head of the dragon with his hammer, and the dragon was no longer trying to buck him off. They were all too far away for Silvia to hear any of the actual words Thor’s father was speaking––or even the vague sounds of him speaking, given the wind and the sounds of sea birds and the waves––but the two were obviously listening, and something in the posture of the dragon, especially, told Silvia that Jörmungandr didn’t like any of what he was hearing.
“It’s over now,” Tyr said, matter-of-fact “Odin, our father, is explaining what will happen now.”
Silvia looked at him, curious. “Which is what?”
Tyr shrugged his boxer’s shoulders.
“Some is difficult to translate for a human,” he said vaguely. “There are aspects to being a god that may not make total sense to you, so I will let Thor explain that part. But the core of it is, Jörmungandr must return to Asgard. He is needed there, and Odin has no patience for his games, or the games of his father, Loki.”
Tyr glanced at Silvia.
“Loki is our brother. Thor’s and mine. He can be… complicated. Apparently, he put Jörmungandr up to this theft, to distract our father from some other scheme he had in the works. He deceived his son in the process… in part by distracting him with you. I honestly have not yet unraveled the whole thing, but it appears Loki may have gotten the ring in the end, after all.”
Silvia nodded, not sure what to say to that.
“My father will deal with Loki,” Tyr added. “In the meantime, Father is telling Jörmungandr he has broken laws, by taking you here, but even more by putting the Andvaranaut in your human body and nearly killing you, and trying to force you to agree to be his mate. Odin says that our nephew is lucky you have soul-ties to Thor… and that those ties likely saved your life. Odin says Jörmungandr must answer for this crime, as it goes against Odin’s own laws around noninterference on Earth.”
Silvia nodded.
She wasn’t sure how to feel about that part, either.
She mostly wanted to know what “soul ties to Thor” meant.
“You must ask my brother this,” Tyr commented neutrally. “It is not my place.”
Silvia opened her mouth, but Tyr spoke before she could.
“Odin will take Jörmungandr now,” Tyr said, matter-of-fact. “It is done.”
Silvia looked out over the crystal blue water, following Tyr’s gaze.
The instant she focused on the dragon… it abruptly vanished.
So did the bearded, one-eyed Odin on the cliff.
Thor tumbled down, falling from the height of where the dragon’s neck and head had been. He landed with a relatively small splash after the wave-churning crashes into the surface of the ocean before.
Silvia winced, but Tyr laid a hand on her shoulder.
“I will take you back now,” he said.
Silvia looked up at him, startled. “Wait… what? No. I want to talk to––”
Before she could get out the words, everything around her vanished.
16
Screwed
S ilvia stood on a grass lawn, a dozen feet from a tall Pacific cypress tree.
She stared around, panting, fighting to remain on her feet.
Alone.
She was alone.
Tyr was no longer with her.
It was day again, somehow.
Even after the midday sun she’d left behind on the world of the elves, the change disoriented her, if only because some part of her was still on that bridge, with Thor. Everything that happened after that felt like some kind of crazed fever-dream.
The sky stretched wide and blue overhead, with white and gray cumulus clouds decorating the horizon over downtown San Francisco. The sun beat down on her skin. A cool wind flicked and teased her long, dark hair around her, curling it around her shoulders and back out again behind her.
Strangely, she wore the clothes she remembered herself in when she was dining with the dragon god, Jörmungandr.
She had no idea what happened to what she’d been wearing on that bridge.
Which kind of sucked. She’d really liked that coat.
She fingered the strange fabric of the green and blue dress, the reddish stone necklace with the deep black and green stone in the center. She glanced down at the aqua-blue high-heeled shoes covered in amber-colored stones.
The fabric of the dress still felt damp.
Her toes squished with water inside the high-heeled shoes.
She told herself the clothes served as proof, a kind of irrefutable evidence that she hadn’t imagined everything that happened in that underwater sphere.
She hadn’t imagined all of it, at least.
Her mind doubted, though.
With Tyr and Thor gone, standing in the full sunlight of a San Francisco day, it all seemed too fantastical to believe.
She stared out over the city from the top of Alamo Square and wondered if the clothes more served as proof that she was still dreaming.
Clasping her arms in her hands, she frowned, looking around.
She was just chilly enough in the wet, filmy material of the low-cut dress to believe this was probably real. She likely wouldn’t be standing here, shivering, wishing she had a heavier shirt or jacket or scarf if this was a dream.
She needed to go home. She wouldn’t be sure until she went home. She needed to talk to Morty, to pet his cat, and then she’d know.
But she already did know, she realized.
She wasn’t dreaming.
Some part of her might be in denial, but she wasn’t dreaming.
She hadn’t been dreaming in that underwater bubble, either, or with Tyr, or watching Odin on that black-rock cliff in the world of the elves.
She was really here. Back in San Francisco.
At the thought, a pain hit her in the heart.
Tyr dumped her off, presumably on Thor’s instructions, and the Thunder God hadn’t even bothered to say goodbye. The realization pained her in a way that caught her off-guard. She’d told herself up and down that it didn’t mean anything––that it couldn’t mean anything, what happened between her and Thor––but she’d never manag
ed to make herself fully believe it.
None of her constant reminders to herself, that this would never amount to any kind of happily-ever-after, did her a lick of good.
Some part of her held onto Thor, anyway.
Some part of her quietly, secretly held out hope that it would all work out.
Even though that made no sense whatsoever.
She would have thought she warranted a goodbye, though.
After everything they’d been through over the past few days, she would have thought there’d be something . Something apart from an interdimensional Uber in the form of Tyr, Thor’s brother. Something that would have let her believe it wasn’t all entirely meaningless for him.
But gods were different.
Gods likely didn’t think that way, with superficial niceties and letting people down easy, and playing the game of “it’s not you, it’s me.”
Thor was done with her, so he cut her loose.
The thought saddened her, but honestly, should it have?
What did she expect?
“Get it together, Silvia,” she muttered under her breath.
She gritted her teeth, wrapping her arms tighter around her torso, warming herself against the cool San Franciscan wind.
“Go find Morty,” she scolded herself. “Take him out for cheeseburgers and beer. Tell him your crazy story. Laugh about it with him. Then move the hell on. You got some great sex, the mother of all weird stories to tell, and a new dress out of the deal. What on earth are you complaining about?”
She heard the truth in her mental monologue.
A quieter, more stubborn part of herself wasn’t having it, though.
M orty leaned back in the leather booth, exhaling as he stared up at the ceiling.
It was evening now.
Silvia wore tight black jeans, a huge sweater with a scooped neck, and giant hoop earrings along with make-up, her high-heeled boots, her new lipstick, a silver watch she kept fiddling with, and a ring her mother gave her.
She was warm, finally, after a hot shower and a change of clothes.
She’d also finally finished telling Morty everything.
Some of it, she’d told him two, even three times as he made her repeat herself in a number of areas. Clearly, Morty was still trying to hammer out all the details in his mind, even after her lengthy explanations and descriptions.
She honestly couldn’t tell if he believed even half of it, even now.
She wasn’t sure it mattered.
In the end, Morty needed to hear it, and she needed to tell it, no matter what he decided about her story or what any of it meant.
She was still sad.
She was trying to hide that from Morty, but she suspected he picked up on it here and there.
She suspected he also knew the cause.
She did her best to hide it anyway, telling herself she was being stupid, that she had no reason to be this knocked over by something so obvious and inevitable.
“You’re bummed, aren’t you, chica.”
Silvia looked over at Morty, realizing only then she’d been staring at the bar crowded with people, not seeing a single one of them. A massive fish tank stood behind the bar itself, dividing the two halves of the room, and the two halves of the circular bar with its chrome surfaces and shelves covered in bottles.
She focused on Morty with an effort.
He’d leaned over the booth’s table, and now clasped one of her hands in both of his, the hand that wore the etched silver ring on her index finger.
She didn’t think about why she’d chosen to wear so much silver.
Seeing the genuine sympathy in Morty’s eyes, she sighed, even as she withdrew her hand from his, forcing a reassuring smile.
“It’s stupid,” she said, embarrassed. “I know it’s stupid.”
“Hey,” Morty said, holding up his hands. “I saw him. I get it, girl. Believe me. That was one gorgeous slab of man. And if things were as high-chemistry between the two of you as you say… hell, I’d probably be at home drinking generic, corner store vodka about now, watching nineties rom-coms and crying into several pints of ice cream.”
“With the vodka?” Silvia clarified, lifting an eyebrow as she gave him a half smile. “You’d be eating the ice cream with the vodka?”
“I’d pour that vodka all over that ice cream… make myself a vodka-mint-chip float.”
Silvia smiled wanly.
Honestly, that didn’t sound like a terrible idea.
“I’ll buy the ice cream,” Morty offered, clasping her hand again. “If you buy the vodka. As long as I can help you pick out which nineties rom-coms we watch. There were some real stinkers in that era.”
Silvia let out a snort-laugh that was almost real.
Leaning back in the booth, she shook her head bemusedly at her friend, thanking her lucky stars she had him, that she wasn’t going back to an empty apartment that night.
Not to mention, his suggestion for the rest of their evening was far better than anything she’d come up with. It was definitely better than sitting in a bar all night, surrounded by strangers, feigning normality while she got hit on by drunk tech guys.
Sighing, she nodded to Morty, pressing her hands down on the booth’s wooden table to push herself to her feet.
“I think your plan one hundred percent wins the night…” she began.
Her words trailed off when she saw someone by the door of the bar, looking around in the dim light, a taut look on his face.
She hung there, half in and half out of the booth, her hands still holding her up as she stared at the man’s face, at his general build, at the shocking blue eyes as they flickered around the room, absorbing faces only to dismiss them and move on to the next.
“Oh my,” Morty muttered from next to her.
Clearly, he’d turned around in his seat and now saw what Silvia saw.
“I think you’re in trouble, Silvie,” he said.
There was a silence where they both stared at the man near the front door.
“…Actually,” Morty amended, when those blue eyes found the two of them and their booth. “I think you might be full-blown screwed.”
Silvia remained more or less frozen, watching Thor as his eyes fixed on hers.
She saw him flinch, then break out in a wide grin, right before he began striding in their direction, walking through the crowd like a shark parting a school of minnows. People just got out of his way, gawking up at his face, at his ice-blue eyes, at his blond hair, which was now back in a half-ponytail at the top of his head, kind of like…
Well, a Viking.
Or maybe Genghis Khan.
Silvia still hadn’t managed to make either her brain or her body work by the time Thor reached their table, which seemed to take him both way too long and nowhere near enough time.
The god stopped right in front of them, grinning at both of them.
Then, inexplicably, he leaned down to Morty, and ruffled his wood-brown hair with the bright blue streaks in it.
“Hello, friend of Silvia Hope,” he said cheerfully.
Morty gaped at him, like he couldn’t decide whether to be charmed, or if he’d just been violated in some way.
“May I talk to your lovely companion alone?” Thor said, his eyes now locked on Silvia’s, even as that smile and those eyes grew a harder flash of heat. “There are things we must discuss, and I do not know if I can wait a minute longer.”
At the silence from both Silvia and her roommate, Thor looked at Morty directly.
“I will escort her home,” he added seriously. “Not a single harm will come to her, I promise. I know you likely have reason to be wary, given what happened previously––”
“No,” Morty cut in, looking hastily at Silvia. “No, as long as it’s all right with Silvia, it’s all right with me. I’m happy to head home a bit early. It’s been… a week,” he added, quirking an eyebrow sympathetically at her. “I’ll go find us a movie to watch. And maybe some food.”
Morty gave her a meaningful look, letting her know he was still up for their previous plan of vodka, gourmet ice cream, and bad nineties movies.
Silvia slowly lowered her weight into her side of the booth.
She sat stiffly on the battered leather seat, looking up at Thor, then tearing her eyes off Thor with an effort to focus on Morty.
“I’m good,” she assured him. “I’m sure we’ll still need the… supplies… you mentioned,” she added, letting him know exactly how she thought this little talk with Thor would go, and the grand brush-off she was likely to receive by the end of it. “Maybe more so, in fact. I can throw in money later, if that’s okay.”
“Of course, sweetness,” Morty assured her. “I’ll take care of all of it.”
Sliding out of the booth, he gave her a last, sympathetic grimace.
“Take your time,” he said. “Call me if you need anything.”
She only nodded.
Watching Morty walk away, she only looked over, flushing a little, when Thor slid his enormous bulk into the section of the round booth directly across from her.
Looking at him, she couldn’t help thinking Morty was right.
She was screwed.
17
One Hundred Years
S ilvia stared at the God of Thunder, feeling like her brain was paralyzed.
She was still staring at him, still trying to decide what the hell to say to him, when he broke out in a wide grin.
Something in that grin shocked her.
Not just the warmth visible in it, or even the desire she saw in his eyes.
It was the relief she saw there, the sheer intensity of it.
He shocked her even more an instant later, when he leaned abruptly over the table, kissing her hotly on the mouth. His hand wrapped around the back of her head as he deepened the kiss, then he was gasping, kissing her harder, clutching at her long, dark hair.
She found herself kissing him back without thought, opening her mouth when he coaxed her lips apart with his tongue. She leaned into it when he deepened the kiss more, letting him pull her partway over the table to bring her closer to him.
Gods on Earth: Complete Series (Books 1-3): Paranormal Romances with Norse Gods, Tricksters, and Fated Mates Page 15