Page 11

HIS EYES DARKENED into storms and his voice rumbled. “What are you doing?”

“Surviving,”

I said with a growl to my tone. Rocks shifted beneath my feet, but I dug in deeper to hold my ground. Ve was twice my size, so it was only the threat of my blade at his throat that kept me from being snapped in two. “You see, I’m quite fond of Danmark. It might be cold, but the people are simple and the work easy.”

I pressed the blade harder, and he scowled. “I’d like to go back. Now.”

His hand moved, but I snatched it away and pressed the blade into his skin until a dot of dark red blood appeared, tracing a line down to his collar bone and settling into the fibers of his tunic.

The muscles in his jaw feathered. “Back away.”

“No. Take me home, or I kill you.”

He let out a slow hiss of breath between his bared teeth. “Do you remember how Odin threatened anyone who touched a hair on your head?”

he asked. “Nice haircut by the way.”

I frowned. “I thought you left before that.”

“Balder relayed the message. Seems he thought I might be a danger to you.”

His smile told me he didn’t appreciate the irony there. “Not only would I be in trouble, but if you disappear now, the gods will tear through the Earth to find you. Starting with your old family. By the time you got to them, they’d be nothing but bones.”

Blood drained from my face. The desperation gave me new courage. I allowed the blade to sink deep enough that he’d have a noticeable cut.

A fleck of fear raced through his eyes, then his jaw locked. “What a wonderful life you must have had to be so determined to get back to it. Tell me, did they treat you like a queen?”

A new emotion crossed his face now, and it looked like victory. “No, that was your sister, wasn’t it? I know of Tova. I know how she is marked by Odin as a favorite. You’d rather go back to her shadow instead of staying here, where you are not only a favorite of Odin but his actual blood?”

“I do not need others to worship me,”

I said. “And I do not need to explain myself to you when I’m holding the dagger. So, will you help me, or do I have to kill you?”

The fear was gone, and he had the nerve to smile. “You couldn’t kill me.”

“I’ve killed for less.”

His knee came up hard against my gut, and I lost my footing. I slashed with my blade and felt the satisfying connection against the skin of his arm, but it tore down his sleeve with little impact. Ve shoved away from the cave at his back and drove his fist into my chest.

I flew back, bashing my head on rocks, and skidding down the hill.

The breath was knocked from my lungs, and I struggled to get it back. I pulled myself to my hands and knees, ears ringing and head made of stone. It took all my strength to lift it and crawl to the edge of the stream. My dagger was lost somewhere, but I had others. I ignored the pain in my chest as I reached for my boot.

“I mean, you literally couldn’t kill me. Not before I kill you.”

I whipped out my blade and used all my energy to turn, lunging at him. He caught me by the arms with an amused grin before flinging me backward. This time, I landed in the stream. The icy water sank straight to the bone.

I dug deep to find the energy to drag myself to the shore, toes still dipped in the clear water, as Ve watched with arms crossed at the water’s edge. Behind him, the horses pulling the chariot were grazing on grass like this was a common occurrence they witnessed.

I reached to a slit in my pants for another blade.

In a flash, Ve was at my side. “I think you’re done,”

he said, gripping my arm. “I’d feel much better if you handed all your knives over.”

“I thought you said I couldn’t kill you.”

I struggled to catch my breath or find my footing. Dizziness clouded my head so much that I had to grip Ve’s arm for strength. “Afraid you might be wrong?”

He laughed. “Not a chance. I’m afraid the next person you try to use them on won’t be as forgiving as I am.”

“Forgiving?”

I reached a hand to the back of my head, where my hair stuck with blood. “I’m bleeding.”

He lifted his chin so I got a proper look at his neck, where a long red cut ran. “I’ve no sympathy.”

He turned and marched back up the hill to the horses.

I would not be returning with him. “It’s best for you if I leave,”

I shouted after him. He whirled around.

“You’ve no idea what’s best for me.”

“I know you can’t want to marry me.”

“No,”

he said. “I don’t.”

The words shouldn’t have stung, but they did. He marched back until he was right in front of me. “I don’t want to marry anyone. However…”

A faraway look entered his eyes. Then he dropped his head to see me, with a glint in his eye. “Do I need to put a dagger to your throat to ask for a deal, or am I allowed to simply ask?”

I studied him. “What would you want from me?”

“Two months,”

he replied. “Two months of pleasantries as you pretend to be my fiancée who is madly in love with me, and after we’ve properly convinced everyone, we leave, together.”

I frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“I don’t want to live in Asgard anymore. I want to see your world.”

He raked his gaze over me. “And I finally have a way to do that.”

I shifted, removing my hand from the hilt of my next knife. He was a fully grown god. If he wanted to leave, he could. If I couldn’t get myself out, I failed to see how I could free us both. But victory gleamed in his eye like I’d already said yes, and it was his greatest heart’s desire. “Explain.”

He did so with a grin. “You don’t know it, but you’ve been dictating my entire life. My parents have used you, or the idea of you, to hold me here for two decades, and I’ve never been allowed to travel the world as I wish. I could leave whenever I want, but they’d never stop chasing me.”

He closed the gap I’d created and pointed between us. “But if we go missing together, none will think we are missing. They will believe we ran off to have some privacy as we start a life together, and by the time they realize we aren’t coming back, I’ll be across the seas already, where the gods’ eyes cannot see.”

“But I won’t,”

I brought up the flaw in the plan. “I’ll be somewhere in Danmark where they found me.”

He shrugged. “That’ll be your problem, and if I took you back now, that’d be your problem anyway. This gives you a head start to come up with a valid excuse on why a goddess is living somewhere as cold and desolate as Danmark.”

I wrung out my tunic as I debated it. Droplets of water collected at my feet before finding a trail back to their stream. I felt much like them, trying to find a path of escape. Something about this plan appeared too easy. “So, you’ll stay missing forever?”

Ve watched me with a coolness that a man who’d been held at knifepoint moments before should not possess. “Not forever, but for as long as I want until my taste for mortal adventure is satisfied, then I’ll return to Asgard with a fine tale of conquests followed by why you and I didn’t work out to explain your absence. Perhaps you were too aggressive for me,”

he added with a knowing look to my daggers. “Their interest in you will fade, and I’ll get the freedom I desire.”

It was a fine plan, but it was flawed. “You could kill me instead, and get your freedom.”

“I could.”

He didn’t hesitate in his response. “But fiancée or no fiancée, my parents will find a way to hold me here. It’s a unique sort of prison.”

He stepped closer, dipping his head to see me better. “How about you? You could stay here and enjoy everything that comes with the favor of Odin.”

A week ago, I would have gladly faced an entire clan for the chance at Odin’s favor. Now, it was Odin I feared the most. What horrors would he do to me when he realized I was not his prized granddaughter? “Like you said, it’s a unique sort of prison.”

There was a question in his eyes, but he didn’t ask it.

“We have a deal?”

I stuck out my hand.

His met mine. “We have a deal, my love.”

I brushed past him to the chariot. “First rule, you’ll never say that again.”

“You don’t like nicknames?”

“I don’t like that one.”

I found one of my daggers amongst the rocks, and sheathed it. Ve held the other, and he flicked it to me.

“How about my delight?”

That one made me visibly shudder. “Now I sound like a dessert.”

“Darling?”

“Fine, I don’t like any nicknames,”

I said. “Remove every one of those from your vocabulary, please.”

“Very well. But what I should be calling you is my savior.”

He stepped aboard the chariot next to me, and coaxed the horses onward, back to my marble home. “You’ve no idea how long I’ve waited for a chance to escape. First step, I’m throwing a proper engagement party tomorrow night to announce to everyone how much I love you.”

I added that to the list of stories I’d tell someday. Have a god tell me he loves me. With luck, no one would know it was false.