Page 162 of Fallen Gods

“Everything is going to be okay.” Laufey pats my face. “For now, rest. Tomorrow, you can decide what to do with that weapon with your…new friend.” She smiles up at Aric. “I’ve heard a lot about you. Odin positively hates you.”

Aric bursts out laughing.

“And your parents,” she says, sobering, “were some of the best friends I had in my entire miserable life here in Midgard—Earth.”

Aric reaches for her hand. “That means a lot.”

“What now?” I ask, looking around at the damage.

“We wait,” Sigurd’s voice says from the door. How long has he been standing there? “I’ll take Laufey and get her checked out.” He shares a look with us, then notices Reeve still unconscious on the floor and all the dead bodies frozen around the chamber. “The wound to Odin is likely fatal. Thor will stop at nothing to try to heal him, though.” He presses his wrists together, then twists his hands in a counterclockwise motion. I hear an audible click. “The runes are back on.” He walks over to Laufey and gently grabs her hand, addressing me one last time. “I hope you know what you just did.”

“What?” I ask.

“They’re waking up.” He shakes his head. “All over campus.”

The other fallen Gods and sleeping Giants.

Good, I think.They deserve to know. To havealltheir memories, the good and the bad.

“And the Bifrost?” Aric asks.

“I’ll send for cleanup. Join the bonfire. If anyone asks, the storm caught a few things on fire. Don’t call on the hammer. For now.”

He leaves like we didn’t just take out Odin, probably for good.

I rush to Aric’s side. He pulls me in for a hug before I can make it. Then he kisses down my neck. “Are you hurt?”

The hammer’s back in my hand. I press it against him, and it sinks underneath his skin like a lock clicking into place, the runes doing their jobs. “It was you the whole time.”

“More like us.”

Reeve starts coughing. “Hi, still here, conscious again. Please don’t have sex next to the dead people, it’s weird. And good job on surviving, sorry for what I did.”

“Why shouldn’t we kill you right now?” Aric growls, thunder still in his voice, the hammer sparking down his back.

Reeve arches a brow. “Because I gave Rey that rune. Helped you out, didn’t I? And if you kill me, who would explain what happens next? I’m known to be a very good storyteller, you know.”

Before Aric can retort, Mjölnir groans. The sound is alive—hungry. Sparks shoot from it, not toward Aric, but toward me.

I freeze and then hold out my hand. The hammer wrenches itself from Aric and floats to me, then sends a series of fiery sparks down my legs and arms. My wounds quickly heal, the warm feeling putting me at peace.

Mjölnir drifts into my hand, and the shaft lights up with runes beneath my palm.

Mine, I think.

Aric stares. I stare back, the weight of it settling between us. The hammer belongs to both of us.

The realization is sharp.

By birth, it’s mine.

By worthiness, it’s his.

The weapon shimmers once more.

Aric holds up his hand. It leaves me just like that. He doesn’t use it, though, merely lifts it into the air. It presses against his back and locks into place again. His body jolts with the impact, breath ripping free from his mouth like the hammer is truly a part of him.

He’s not using it; he’s protecting it.