A Curious Twist of Lime

by Heather R. Blair

  25

  I don’t know who’s more fucking surprised when Konstantin runs onto that bridge and sees me setting foot on the other side. He throws his hands up as the horde shrieks and pours into Niflheim above and around him. Thankfully, they ignore me. Whatever hold the Master of Shadows had on his minions, it seems to be gone.

  “What. The. Fuck? First your woman, and now you.” His rage is apocalyptic, his face an ugly shade of red. Konstantin has always been a cold motherfucker. Now his crazy is out there for everyone to see.

  I guess the shadow elemental is having a bad day. I grin, because it’s about to get a whole lot worse.

  My bear is dying to burst free. He doesn’t give a shit about Konstantin at the moment. It’s Alice’s smell wafting over the bridge that takes everything I have to hold him in check and remind him of the plan. Because this is a human job. We agreed on that when we got free of the sand.

  “Attack him!” Konstantin orders as I advance.

  A few creatures fly at me half-heartedly from the left and the right. They’re not really into it, and as the bodies pile up, the attacks slow, then stop altogether. I wipe caked gore and blood from my hands, then raise my eyebrows. “Hired help not what it used to be, eh? I’m sure Viktor can relate.”

  Konstantin curses, then pulls his sword.

  “If you want something done right,” he mutters, shoving a werewolf out of his way, ignoring the pitiful screams as the starved creature falls into the abyss.

  “An army enslaved is no real army at all. You can’t bind them to you, any more than you could Alice.”

  He ignores this. “How the hell did you get free anyway?”

  “Turns out Vorpal sand negates itself.” I keep my eyes on his, ignoring the sword waving too closer and closer. “I used the gauntlet to dig myself free.” I tap my belt.

  He isn’t stupid enough to be distracted, not even sparing a glance for the twisted hunk of metal hanging there. His sharp gaze holds mine. “Lot of good it will do you now. There hasn’t been a bruin born that could beat me.” With a snarl, he extends his blade and leaps. Instead of dodging, I plant my feet and brace myself.

  Cold and sharp, a foot of steel sinks into my shoulder. Flesh and sinew are laid bare to the bone in an instant. Agony has my teeth snapping together, my bear swallowing a roar of rage. But I don’t try to twist away, I barely even flinch. I need him close for this to work.

  Eyes narrowed, Konstantin closes the distance between us, twisting the sword deeper. “Reflexes not what they used to be, milord?” he taunts. My good arm is coming up even as he speaks, but the mercenary is too intent on finishing me to notice. Until the sand rains down over his head.

  Instinctively he steps back, yanking his sword free. The fresh, hot slice of pain is too much. I let loose a roar so loud the bridge sways back and forth behind him. Konstantin turns toward to run for it, but he’s too late. My hand is already around his throat.

  The fucker can’t melt away this time. I drop the twisted, useless gauntlet on the ground. It’s useless now—except as a makeshift container that held just enough Vorpal sand to stop one shadow elemental in his tracks.

  I squeeze, lifting him off his feet. He tries to swing the sword around, but the angle is too awkward and he’s losing air too fast. Another squeeze and he chokes, losing his grip. The sword clatters to the ground, my blood dripping off of it, the red stark against bright silver.

  I kick it back toward the shadowy void that is Midgard. I’m not taking him there, not back to where he can threaten Alice or my people. I’ve got a better idea.

  Step by step, I drag him across the bridge and into the woods I just escaped. Around me his horde vanishes one by one into the forest. I catch a glimpse of a green-striped tail and a sharp smile as I pass beneath a familiar tree, then the pit is before us once more.

  Konstantin is barely conscious. Loosening my death grip on his throat revives him, but he doesn’t have time to do more than blink before I toss him down the slope. Konstantin stumbles backward, nostrils flaring. He’s trying to find both his balance and some air, but it’s too much. He loses his balance, falling to his knees in the glittering blackness. When he tries to rise, it doesn’t work. The sand holds him fast. His eyes turn as flat as the pool around him. With one hand on his throat, he tries to laugh and chokes instead.

  “I didn’t take you for the cruel-irony sort,” he croaks.

  The shit of it is, he’s right. I can’t let him die like this. Taking his head after a proper trial is one thing. But this death right here is one I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.

  “I’ll come back for you.” My smile is tight, my fingers pressed against the blood steadily flowing down my side. “I just need to stick you somewhere while I make sure Alice is all right.” Of course, if she isn’t all right, I’ll come back and rip him limb from limb and watch every piece until the sand pulls what’s left of him under.

  He chuckles, but it turns into a cough. “Well, if she isn’t, it’s not my doing. She was meant to be a scared little rabbit. Instead she turned into a goddamned she-bear.”

  I grin. “How did she beat you? Was it the magic?”

  “No.” Konstantin stares at the blackness all around him with a scowl. “Like I said, she turned into a goddamn she-bear.”

  It’s my turn to cough. “Literally?”

  “Yup.”

  Odin’s balls on a pixie stick.

  “And if she hadn’t sapped half my magic before I crossed that bridge, I would have killed your ass, Vorpal sand or no.” Konstantin lifts his gaze to mine and I swear he almost looks amused. Being bested so thoroughly seems to have humbled the bastard. Or at least brought him back to his former self. He twists off his ring and tosses it to me. “You’d better go. The gate is closed and there’s no telling what they’ll do to her now that the threat’s gone and you’re not there to calm the rabble.”

  “I will be back, Master of Shadows.” And there will be a reckoning, for everything he’s done. I know he sees the promise in my eyes, but Konstantin doesn’t flinch.

  Instead, he smiles, a bitter twist of his bloody lips. “I wouldn’t expect anything less of the new king.”

  When I come out back by the road, it’s empty and still. The early evening sun is just setting over the mountains, turning the waterfalls bloodred.

  That better not be a sign.

  I stumble my way to the castle. The blood flow is slowing down, bit by bit, but I’m still weak. Too weak to fight a castle full of my own people.

  But not too weak to die trying. If they’ve hurt her, I don’t care if they’re my own blood, I’ll rip Hearthstone down brick by fucking brick.

  The first thing I see when I enter the throne room is Kolya. He’s got his hand on Alice’s shoulder, yelling something at Markus, who’s also got a hand on her arm, trying to pull her forward. He’s shouting, too, acting very un-Elder like.

  “Drop your fucking hands or lose them,” I snarl from the doorway.

  “I’d listen to him,” Alice whispers into the abrupt stillness. You could hear a pin drop from a mile away, as Kolya and Markus both take a step back.

  “Your Majesty . . .”

  Wait. Since when did Kolya start calling me Your Majesty without the words being coated and deep-fried in sarcasm? Before I puzzle this through, something slams hard into my chest. My closing wound reopens with a burst of blood and pain, but I couldn’t care less. Alice is in my arms again.

  She’s alive. I’m alive. The fact that my arm is nearly severed is kind of besides the point. I breathe her in. Then frown. She smells like brimstone, copper and. . .

  Wet fur?

  Before I can open my mouth, Alice unleashes hers.

  “Markus wouldn’t let them go into Niflheim with me!” Her lips move rapidly against my throat. “And I couldn’t sustain the magic when I tried. It just melted away when Konstantin did. I couldn’t hold on to it anymore. I guess it was too much, too fast.” She starts to shake. “I thought he would k
ill you before I could get these bastards to move their fucking asses.”

  I blink at the profanity, then grin before schooling my expression into the sternest mask I can manage. I wrap my fingers in her hair and tug it back. “Did you really think he’d best me?”

  Her eyes are wet and I’m not sure if she’s about to laugh…or cry. “Let’s say I was . . . concerned.”

  “You should’ve had more faith in me,” I scold.

  “I know,” she whispers. And neither of us are talking about Konstantin anymore. A single tear escapes, rolling down her cheek. I swipe it away with my thumb, then lean down until our foreheads touch.

  “And I should’ve had more in you,” I say, my voice thick. “What the hell did you do to Konstantin?”

  “She turned into a bear.” Kolya pushes away from the wall he’s been leaning against. “It was quite a fine a sight to see. I daresay I understand now how humans feel about us now. Your woman was a terror.”

  The frank admiration in his words has me looking over Alice’s head at the count. He lifts a shoulder.

  “I would have liked to see that,” I murmur against her hair.

  “He was winning though,” Alice murmurs against my chest. “Until I went after his magic. That really spooked him.”

  Kolya snorts. “Especially after his army about pissed themselves at the sight of her.”

  Sounds about right. Twisted as the motherfucker is, Konstantin is also smart. He stuck to the shadows for years, biding his time. He’d believe it was smarter to cut and run than lose everything. My smile twists on my lips.

  In the end, he didn’t run very far.

  “Speaking of Konstantin,” I look at the bruins milling around us, “I need to go fetch the bastard from Niflheim, along with our men.”

  Alice frowns. “The gate won’t open till first light. How—”

  I lift the portal ring the elemental’s mother gave him and explain briefly. “Anyone want to come with me?”

  Kolya bares his teeth.

  My eyes narrow. If he wanted to cut my reign short, now would be the perfect time.

  The count smiles, reading my mind perfectly. “Even if I had so little honor, your woman would stay my hand, eh?” Then he straightens his shoulders, looking back at Markus with a hint of rage in his eyes. “And unlike some, I know who my king is now.”

  Obviously, Samuel was right. When the count is in, he’s all fucking in.

  “I’m coming, too.” Alice tugs on my torn shirt.

  I put both hands on her shoulders, a shudder going through me at how fragile she feels. How did my little Alice ever survive a man like Konstantin? He almost killed me today. Twice.

  My first urge is to say no, to lock her deep inside Hearthstone’s walls, far away from the asshole who held her prisoner for so long. But even my bear understands why we can’t do that. She saved more than herself today. Alice saved me and my people.

  I think that has earned her the right to do as she goddamn pleases.

  At least with me and a few dozen bruins at her back.

  “Are you sure you want to go back there?” I ask, leaning down until my lips brush her ear, the question for her alone to hear. She knows exactly what I mean. Niflheim was her prison, and confronting it and the man who held her chains all those years on the same damn day is a bit much. My woman is tough, but that’s a lot for any FTC in our world, let alone my little human with a twist.

  She shivers under my hands, and for a heartbeat, I wish I’d ripped Konstantin’s head off like he took Asher’s. Screw due process. Then her shoulders straighten, and she lifts her head to look me dead in the eye, those soft grey eyes steely in the fading light.

  “Yes,” she says. “I have more questions for him. About my family.” Her voice breaks, and I know I can’t refuse her.

  “Stay close,” I warn Alice as we cross the bridge, but there’s no need.

  Ten minutes later we’re standing in front of the pit.

  It’s empty.

  Konstantin is gone.

  26

  Both of us stare at that empty pit for a long time. I don’t know about Georg, but it’s not Konstantin that I’m thinking of. I’m thinking of how easy it is to lose everything because of someone else’s baggage. A childhood, a family—a whole life.

  I don’t want to lose Georg because of my baggage, or his. Not when it’s not so very hard to find a way. Together.

  I reach for his hand. His fingers are big, strong and sun browned. Mine look impossibly pale next to his, delicate, soft and helpless. But I proved otherwise today. Smiling, I trail the tips of those fingers over his palm, still thinking of the paths we take, both the ones we choose and the ones we don’t.

  “I didn’t know how lost I was until you found me,” I murmur, half to myself.

  He steps closer, bringing his free hand to my face. “I didn’t know what I was searching for until I looked up and there you were. You are mine, Alice. No matter what anyone else says, that is the truth.” The low, urgent promise of those words sends shivers feathering down my spine. But it’s the fierce look of love in his eyes that sways my heart.

  “I know.”

  His eyes widen, golden brown swallowed by black before his fingers slip into my hair, coiling the inky strands around his fist as our mouths draw closer. His lips curve before they touch mine. Like the man himself, they’re soft and firm, sweet and wicked, coaxing me to give in.

  But I did that a long time ago, the very first day I saw him here. When I rescued him and he rescued me right back. My bear. My bruin.

  Mine.

  As always, the taste of him makes me dizzy. My hands creep up the rough leather of his coat and over those broad shoulders as I wrap my arms around his neck and hang on tight. He’s right, this is where I belong. It really wasn’t so hard to figure out after all.

  “Let’s go home,” he breathes against my lips.

  Home is Hearthstone. Georg’s castle. Because with Samuel dead that’s what it is. No one will dispute Georg’s claim after today—not even Kolya. They’ve learned their lesson about standing together. Little old me isn’t going to bother them in the least now. He could have a hundred human mistresses and they’d still cheer him on.

  But my breath hitches as I remember Asher’s sneer.

  Mistress is just another word for whore. And that is all she’ll ever be here. The king’s whore.

  “Alice?”

  I have a smile ready when Georg pulls back, eyes searching my face. I’ve made my choice, and anyway, he’s right. It doesn’t matter what anyone else says.

  “I’m ready if you are.”

  I’ve won. I have the woman, and in a few hours, I’ll have the crown, the title and all the shit that goes with it. Life should feel damn good, and it does.

  I just left Alice for the first time since we got back from Niflheim. She’s still sleeping, partly because dawn was barely streaking the sky when I left, but mostly because I tried like hell to make up for our time apart last night.

  My smile fades as I look out over the lightening woods. The coronation is today. In a few hours, I’ll officially be responsible for all this, everything as far as the eye can see.

  I was only a year past my majority when they crowned me next to Lake Superior. I remember looking out over those steel-grey waves without an ounce of doubt. I was a cocky son of a bitch, but I have more miles on me than I did then. I know the road ahead is going to be rocky and full of holes. Call me crazy, but I look forward to the challenge.

  I’d look forward to it a whole lot more if Alice were at my side, instead of relegated to the shadows. It feels like starting a journey with my boots untied, or my pack half full.

  But Samuel was right. It wouldn’t be wise to challenge the Elders so early in the game. In a few years, when I’ve established myself and consolidated some power, it’ll be a different story.

  My bear gives a low, mournful chuff, but I shrug him off. “It is what it is.”

  At least we have her
back. In the end, that is all that really matters.

  Isn’t it?

  Impatient with myself, I spin around to head back to the castle.

  A young boy coming down the road stumbles back, almost falling on his ass and glaring at me. It only takes a single look to make his gaze fall to his toes, but he peeks up again almost immediately.

  “It happened right here, you know. The great battle with Nazary’s bastard,” he says in an excited whisper. “Were you there?”

  “Actually,” I scratch at my beard, “I missed it.”

  It’s like I’ve just told him Christmas has come six whole months early. Bony shoulders go back as he stretches himself to his full height.

  “I saw it all.” His thin chest puffs out. “Medeinė turned herself into the biggest bear you ever saw right on this very spot and saved the whole castle.”

  “Medeinė?”

  “Yes,” he says, rocking back on his heels. “That’s what they call the king’s lady now.” His eyes are bright and shiny. “Just like the warrior of old. She grew taller than the waterfalls at Hearthstone and knocked the shadow man so hard he fell clear out of the world. Papa says maybe she knocked him off Yggdrasil entirely! She hit him that hard.”

  “But his lady’s a human, isn’t she?” I scoff, folding my arms and watching his face. “Not one of us.”

  “This one is.” His chin comes up. “She turned into a bigger bear than the new king himself.”

  I lift my eyebrows. “Sure of that, are you?”

  He shrugs. “Papa says the lady saved us all, so I don’t think it matters what she is.”

  “Perhaps you’re right.”

  He nods sagely before taking his leave, obviously anxious to share his story with anyone who’ll listen. I watch until he reaches the bend in the road, where the mist from the falls swallows him up.

  Medeinė, huh?

  That’s interesting. Very interesting.

  With a grin of my own, I head back to the castle.

  27