Page 6 of Loki's Heart
Great. The maggot could read minds. Loki stopped and scowled at the pencil-thin seer, determined to set the annoying bug straight. “Do youknowwho I am?”
“Everyone knows who you are,” the seer replied in a voice that sounded suspiciously like his blood-brother, Thor. “Especially you.”
Loki narrowed his eyes. Should he strike the creature down where he,it, stood? Or continue on for the greater good?
“I would recommend continuing on.” Truthsayer sounded like Loki himself now when his eyes glittered with eerie amusement. He even went so far as to wink. “Otherwise, you might miss a chance to lie with her before she’s cast beneath Yrsa’s spell forever.”
Not amused in the least, he sneered and went to do away with the abhorrent creature, but Revna stopped him with two firm words.
“Stop, Loki.”
Just like that, he didn’t have the heart to disobey, which alarmed him to no end. Since when had heeverlistened to anyone telling him what to do? It wasn’t in his godly DNA.
“Since she held your heart,” Cian enlightened in passing, evidently following his thoughts as well as Revna in this ridiculous place. “And ye ought to be bloody grateful, laddie.”
Had the damn wizard just called himladdie? Him,Loki, as though he were some Irish underling who hadn’t existed for ages? Who—
“He did.” Truthsayer’s voice was just plain old grating now. “And he’s right.” He snickered, sounding suspiciously like Cian. “Yeshouldbe grateful.”
Should he then? Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew they were right, but it was hard to see past his aggravation, and this dark, derisive world didn’t help much. Revna might seem in awe as they passed beneath jet-black trees with mirror-like leaves, but he just couldn’t find the interest he should at such an eerie, unsettling place. The spark of joy that usually preceded being somewhere he could cause all sorts of havoc.
“Because you’re down half a heart,”Revna murmured telepathically.“Otherwise, you would experience your typical frivolous joy. You would see what we see.”
He nearly groaned at the feel of her in his mind. It had been far too long. She sounded as sweet as her fiery heat. As delicious as what he knew he could pull from her. “And what do you see?”He enjoyed the shiver that visibly shot through her. “Feel?”
“Beauty beyond all the darkness,”she replied.“Beauty within the darkness.”
While he liked the sound of that, he still didn’t see it. Rather, all he saw was her with his heart around her neck. He still wasn’t sure what to make of it being there but wasn’t overly worried. If she had a piece of his heart, he would take it back when she no longer needed it. Simple as that. Until then, he would flirt as he always did.
Lustas he always did.
“I might not see this world as you do, but I clearly see beauty within its darkness.” He came alongside her, forcing the troll Svend to walk a little less close. “I see so much of you here. So much—”
“Enough.” Rather than bite back in her usual sensual, flirtatious way, Revna sounded weary. Disenchanted where, usually, she was anything but.
“You need to focus on Yrsa,” she went on, “rather than me.”
He waited for her to finish with “at the moment” because he knew she desired him, but she did not. Instead, she picked upher pace when Svend did and fell in beside the tiny Vanaheim seer again.
Did she realize who she brushed off? He glanced around. Did any of them? He wasLoki. God of Chaos. Trickery. Blood brother to Thor. Father of Hel, Goddess of the Underworld. Yet here, it seemed he was no more than a tag-along whose heart didn’t even belong to him anymore.
“Nor should it,”Cian muttered into his mind, his voice coming through as clearly as Revna’s.“Because Revna has it. Saved it from certain demise.”
“Demise?”He chuckled. “I highly doubt she—”
“She did,”the wizard growled back.“And you should be grateful. More grateful than you realize.”
He heard the disdain in the Irishman’s internal voice. Raised his brows at his boldness.
“But then, look at who I give counsel?”Cian continued.“A god still patting himself on the back for creating the Forge when, all the while, someone else kept your heart safe. Kept you from being extinguished before your precious dagger ever saw through your divine plan.”
Before he could respond, Cian went on.
“Don’t you see, God of Chaos?”he said.“Revna had more to do with your plan’s success than you ever imagined. Some might say the sole reason it worked because,”he came alongside Loki and narrowed his eyes,“tell me if I’m wrong, but could Loki’s Dagger, your dagger, have gone on to do what it was supposed to, had you died?”He shrugged.“Or, in this case, been enslaved by a Vanaheim succubus who slowly sucked the life out of you for eons to come?”
“Impossible to know,”he bit back even though he did.
Cian was right. Without Loki, his dagger would have lost all its power. Never Forged the couples it needed to in order to win the Great War.