Prologue

Loki

I’ve been in love with Freya since before I even knew what love was. Granted, I’ve been married before - unhappily, I might add, but even then, it wasn’t love. The gods don’t marry for love often. It's a mutual advantage, to increase a power base, because they’re forced to, so on and so forth.

Rarely do we meet, fall in love, and go through the very human ritual of marriage vows.

This didn’t happen with Freya either. I fell in love with her. She married Odin.

Story of my life.

But through the centuries and even more centuries, Freya fell a little bit out of love with her husband. Then a little bit more, and then a little more until I could begin to see that maybe, just maybe, if I waited a little longer, I could show her what she meant to me.

When it happened, you could blow me over with a feather. When she rebuffed me, kindly, I had to steel myself against retreating into my hardened ugly shell - and only because I knew her well enough by then to know when she was lying to me.

Freya loved me. I just had to be patient.

Loki. Trickster. Rebel. World destroyer.

Patient wasn’t exactly a virtue of mine.

But she was worth it.

Even now, sitting in a cage perched atop Yggdrasil with one very pissed off eagle staring at me, it was worth it.

Chapter One

I hadn’t seen Morrigan for days. When Dagda showed up looking like every good girl's bad boy dream, I knew trouble had just walked in. Morrigan shook the town when she saw him standing there, her anger a glorious thing to behold.

Even now, I struggled not to laugh every time I thought about it.

Loki and I also did our best to ignore the yelling and shaking of her new house. It didn’t sound pleasant over there, but things were suspiciously quiet right now. Maybe they’d made up.

I lay in the cocoon of Loki’s arms, his chin resting lightly atop my head. Things were good. Really good.

I brushed away the thought trying to wiggle its way into my brain.

Things would stay good. I commanded it.

The absurdity of that thought made me snort.

I felt Loki’s smile against my hair. “Freya, you worry too much.”

A sigh escaped me. “I can’t help it. We’ve made a lot of people angry in a short amount of time.”

“Congratulations,” Loki said, his voice rumbling with amusement. “You now know what it’s like to be me.”

“Odin won’t forgive this,” I warned him.

“When has he forgiven anything?” He pulled me closer. “Relax, lovely Freya. Put down your thoughts of war for a moment and lie with me.”

“I am lying with you,” I grumbled.

“Yes, but your head is elsewhere and I require my lovely wife to have only thoughts of me whilst I lay beside her.” Loki pulled me on top of him. I peered down into his handsome face and a swelling of love filled my heart. Complete. It was the only word I could use when I was with him. I finally felt complete.

His usually bright green eyes were darker in the dim light - content and happy. His dark hair was a rumpled mess and the dustings of a beard graced his usually smooth cheeks.

He took my breath away.

“Stop staring at me like that unless you want to stay here for the rest of the day.”

I gave him a wicked grin. “And if I do?”

His low laugh rumbled against me. Loki yanked the covers above our heads. “Then I am helpless to your whims, my queen.”

Our distraction resulted in arriving at the bar an hour late. I didn’t open until four today anyway, but my to-do list was a mile long and I ended up with less time to get everything done.

Loki kissed me goodbye, a lingering warm smooch that had me touching my lips and cow eyeing his backside as he walked away from me. I know he knew it too because there seemed to be a little extra wiggle in his step as he jogged back to the house. I didn’t ask what he was getting up to today. Loki. Mischief. Trickery. Whatever. As long as he didn’t blow up the town, I found I didn’t care.

He usually helped around here, so I found it a little unusual that he didn’t come in and offer to lift some kegs for me today. Morrigan was still nowhere to be found, and I hadn’t seen Dagda either.

I pushed open the door only to hear the sounds of pans clattering in the kitchen. Did they sound angrier than usual?

I shrugged and headed toward the kitchen.

My chef and friend stood in the middle of a sea of pans, muttering something unintelligible under his breath. His already disastrous hair stood on end and his beard was even more unruly than normal.

“Gravelbeard?” He wasn’t supposed to be here yet.

His mossy green gaze flicked to me and away as if he saw me but didn’t quite realize I was there.

“No more flour,” he muttered under his breath. “No more bread crumbs. What the fuck is the supplier for if they can’t keep us supplied?” He rubbed a hand over his beard. “Nothing breaded. Nothing fried.” A low moan escaped him. “I’m ruined,” he whispered. “Ruined.”

I blinked. “We’re out of flour?” News to me. I’d just placed an order for it a week ago and hadn’t heard a thing about shortages.

“It’s the humans. They’re bread guzzlers, the lot of them. And now with all those stay at home orders, everyone thinks they’re Gordon Ramsay!”

I pressed my lips together. “The humans have to find something to do.”

“Knit a fucking sweater!” Gravelbeard roared. “Learn the stock market! The gods know only a few people know how it works anyway. Learn to fly. Parachute. I dunno, Freya. But what I do know is I AM OUT OF FLOUR AND I AM RUINED!”

Save me from an overdramatic dwarven chef. “I’ll go to the grocery store and see if they have some to tide us over.”

“Did you hear me, Freya?” he said earnestly. “There is no flour in all the lands. No flour on Midgard, No flour on Asgard. No flour anywhere to be found. And what will the world do without bread?”

He didn’t wait for my answer.

“It will starve, Freya!” A strangled scream came from low in his throat and he kicked a pan that didn’t deserve it. It clattered and spun and made such a racket that I clapped my hands over my ears.

Gravelbeard had a thing about flour. Just a little while ago he’d lost his mind when I dared to suggest adding some gluten free items to the menu and presented him with a large bag of glutenless flour. You would have thought I punched his grandma with the way he looked at me. Betrayal and disgust and other emotions I couldn’t even name right before he lost his mind over it.

“And what will all the yeast do?” he moaned.

One of my eyebrows went up.

“It will starve, too,” he whispered.

I chewed on my lip for a moment. Laughter bubbled within me but I knew if I so much as chuckled, he’d hold a grudge.

“I’ll go right now,” I told him.

He didn’t hear me. He was too busy pulling at his hair and fretting over his ruined life.

Chapter Two

If anyone knew they were about to pick out produce next to a literal goddess, I’d have a riot on my hands. As awkward as this trip was, it would be worse if I came back without Gravelbeard’s flour, so I quickly changed into a pair of jeans and a tank top, slid a pair of flip flops onto my feet, and got into a car Loki and I had bought for trips like this. The concept of driving was still totally foreign to me, but I was slowly getting the hang of it.

Loki pushed for me to get a driver’s license. I thought it was an asinine idea. Loki thought we should do our best to blend in as best we could. When I argued I could just produce one with magic, Loki had given me what I like to call his Care Bear stare and logicked me to death. I didn’t think that was a word, but that was what he’d done.

Looking back, I realized his argument had a point. If we lived here, we should do our best to fit in and what better way to fit in than to do the same agonizing things humans did.

Like driver’s ed.

For times like this, though, Loki looked the other way when I drove into town with my fake license. As long as I started my class on time next week, he wouldn’t argue about it.

The Kroger's parking lot was jam packed with people. I walked in, my long ponytail swinging against my shoulders. Pulling a handbasket up, I wove in and out of the people and headed straight to the produce to get some apples because I’d forgotten to order them the last supply run and because Loki loved them.

I stopped in the baking aisle and stared with dismay at the lack of items. Asgardians do not have to worry about illness but humans did and I was seeing the result of some of this now.

There were two large bags of flour left. I rushed forward, feeling a little guilty, but no one was there and searching for it, so I took two, stared at them both in the basket, then put one back.

Gravelbeard would lose his mind, but the humans needed it more than we did. This could actually be something we looked into further too. If we could harvest our own, we wouldn’t need to pop into the human towns when we ran out or ran short. Being a farmer wasn’t on my top ten list, but whatever I could do to make my town more sufficient, I’d give it a try.

Sif crossed my mind and I wrote her off just as soon as I thought of her. She was a whiz with growing anything, but she was Thor’s wife and the most vain person I’d ever met. Considering who I’d been married to, this was saying something.

Gefjun, though… hmmm. I thought about it as I headed to the checkout. If we could get Gefjun to town and chat with her, I bet she’d be willing to help us get set up.

I’d bring it up to Gravelbeard later on.

Gravelbeard stared at me. “Well what the fuck do you want me to do with that?”

I blinked at him. “Excuse me?”

“A ten pound bag? What can I do with that?” The dwarf stood, hands on his hips, staring at my hard won prize.

I resisted the urge to put my boot right in his head. “First, you say thank you, Freya. Second, you work up the menu for tonight because you’re three hours behind!”

He peered at me from beneath his bushy eyebrows. “This won’t last me long.”

I snorted. “But it will last you tonight until we figure something out.” I picked up the chalkboard and chalk and handed it to him. “Menu. Now.”

Gravelbeard glared at me. I said nothing. Ever since his out of the blue marriage announcement a while ago, the dwarf had been grumpier than usual and that was saying something. Eyra, his love, belonged to Valhalla and the Valkyries didn’t like to share. Eyra was my friend, too, but I knew the Valkyries. Gravelbeard would have a tough road ahead of him if he wanted their permission to marry Eyra. She loved him. That I knew. Whether she would marry him was an entirely different question.

I wondered if the reason he was back so soon from his time off had something to do with her.

With a deep sigh, he snatched the chalk out of my hand and began scribbling on the board. I didn't worry. The dwarf did nothing sloppy. By the time the bar opened, there would be a beautifully decorated sign and a mouthwatering menu written on it.

"Thank you."

He gave me a short nod and waved at me to leave him be. I hid a smile and left the kitchen. I still had a million things to take care of before I had to open.

The bar smelled of yeast and hops and grapes and fruit. Cedar and pine gave the place a heady old world look with a modern twist. I loved it here. I loved the life I had here. Yet I couldn't shake something inside of me warning me not to get too comfortable. Complacency in the gods always meant death. I'd learned this lesson time and time again by watching the people around me. As much as I disliked Odin, he'd always warned me - never let anyone too close. Never relax.

I listened. Mostly. Loki was the exception to that wise rule of paranoia. Morrigan as well. I worried about Morrigan way more than Loki until recently. Now I knew I'd never had real friends until I threw my old life away and stepped into something new. I wiped down the bar even though it was already clean and made sure all the glasses were stocked. I checked all the beer and the mead I served to make sure I had enough. I kept the Rhodomel away from the regulars. First because it was a special recipe. When I found out how much Loki prized it, I took it completely off the menu. I hadn't replaced it with anything yet, but I planned on it when things settled down for good.

I laughed at that one. When you were me, wanted by Odin, hated by most, would things ever really settle down for good? Probably not.

Several minutes later, Gravelbeard came out gingerly carrying the chalkboard sign. He sat it on the easel that faced the front door, bent to peer closely at it, then grunted in satisfaction. "Everything good?" I asked.

He nodded. "We're going to run out of flour halfway through the night," he said, his voice deep like he was spouting prophecy.

"We are not going to run out of flour. That's a ten pound bag." I peered at him. "Unless you put fried chicken on the menu."

His bushy eyebrows went up.

"Gravelbeard." I set down the glass I was wiping out. "Did you put fried chicken on the menu?"

"The muse wants what the muse wants," he pronounced solemnly and walked away.

I walked out from behind the bar and over to the sign.

Buttermilk fried chicken

Beer battered fried mushrooms

Sweet cream Fried Oreos

"Gravelbeard!"

His laughter floated back to me from the kitchen.

Asgard save me from a passive aggressive dwarf.

Chapter Two

Much to my surprise we did not run out of flour during the first half of the night. We ran out half an hour before closing. I crowed with delight as I called out to Gravelbeard. I'd been monitoring the flour situation by popping into the kitchen periodically to peek at the bag. When I saw it getting low, I would recommend one of the menu staples instead of the specials. We always offered a chicken and rice casserole, burgers and a couple of other small menu items. When the dwarf gave me the gimlet eye, I shrugged and gave him wide, innocent eyes. "Hmm," I told him. "People must be watching their cholesterol these days."

"We're immortal you daft cow!" Gravelbeard shouted.

I barked a laugh, uninsulted by his words. Gravelbeard would call his grandmother a deft cow if he had one.

"Thirty minutes to closing," I called back to him. "Might want to start shutting things down!" I noticed he'd moved the flour bag. Was he trying something or had he caught onto my duplicity.

"We have plenty of flour!" he called back. "I've mixed up all the batter so you might want to sell a few more plates so I don't have to waste it!"

"Not a chance, you angry little man," I muttered underneath my breath. It would be just like him to encourage me to sell something only so he could gloat about being right. "Sorry!" I called. "No one is interested in the special tonight!"

I could almost hear him gnashing his teeth. When he peeked around the stove, his mossy green eyes sparking with annoyance, I grinned at him. "Just make up whatever you have left. I'll take it home to Loki and Morrigan."

At the mention of Morrigan's name, his eyes darkened. "I'm curious about what's going on over there. Do you think their house is shaking with anger ... or something else?"

I held a hand up. "First of all, eww. Second, ewww again. And third, if Morrigan wants to do whatever with whoever, then I'm not going to stand in her way." For several reasons. Morrigan could probably kick my ass down Main Street and back again. I hoped I'd never have to test that theory.

"That Dagda. Is he trustworthy?" I spied the bag of flour when Gravelbeard shifted. We still had a quarter of it left. I swallowed my victory shout down. I wouldn't gloat.

Tonight at least.

"I believe he is." Dagda was a lot of things, but he wasn't evil. There were few Asgardians who were truly evil. Power hungry, yes. Unfaithful, absolutely. Odin would be horrified if I ever said this out loud, but we were remarkably similar to humans - at least in the way we thought and the way we always sought something larger than ourselves. We just had magic and power and other things to help us in our pursuits. Humans had only their willpower to get them through life and anything they had they usually had to work for. We could conjure things up out of thin air or just conquer a land to get it.

"They call him the Father," Gravelbeard said, his brow furrowed. "Isn't that what they call Odin?"

"Well, Odin is called the All Father. Dagda is not Asgardian, so we must remember that when we deal with him. He is Tuatha. He and Odin have a ... difficult relationship."

Gravelbeard snorted. "Difficult?"

I nodded, not really wanting to go into all the reasons why my ex-husband was dying to find Dagda and obliterate him. Having him here proved to be entertaining, but if Odin found out ... well, let's hope he didn't find out.

I had no idea he and Morrigan had a thing. Maybe I should have paid more attention to things when I was in the palace instead of trying to win my freedom. "He's a powerful god, Gravelbeard. If he comes here as an ally, we should consider ourselves blessed."

"If he's here as an enemy?" he questioned.

I shook my head once, sharp. "He isn't. At least for now. The wards are active. He wouldn't have been allowed access if he intended us harm. I truly believe he's here for Morrigan and for no other reason."

"He'll get the sharp end of my axe if he is," Gravelbeard growled. He saw my eyes stray to the flour bag. "Gah, woman!" he growled. "Stop looking in my kitchen!"

I didn't remind him it was my kitchen, but I grinned and wiggled my fingers just as the bell at the bar sounded.

I spun around, wiping my hands on my apron, and froze. In my conversation with Gravelbeard, I'd gotten distracted and hadn't noticed that all the sound in the bar had died.

"Thor."

"Hey Mom," Thor said, right before he passed out.

I gasped as his huge head hit the floor with a meaty chunk.

"Dear gods," I whispered as I rushed around and fell to my knees beside him. His armor was torn and smoking in multiple places, his face a mass of bumps and bruises. I lifted his hand and gently placed it into my lap. His thick, blond hair was matted through with blood. My stepson was almost unrecognizable.

"We're closed," I barked. "Everyone out."

To their credit, no one said a word. Everyone got out of their seats regardless of whether they'd finished their meal and headed out the front. When the door was closed, I exhaled a slow breath ignoring the fluttering of panic in my chest. Staring down at Thor, I tried to conjure up the anger I felt at the times he'd mistreated me - the times he'd stood by and allowed his father to say and do cruel things - and yet, I couldn't find it. All I saw was someone I'd known since he'd been a child and someone I'd mothered for many, many years, even when I felt resentment simmering under his skin. I called on my Seidr power.

Loki burst through the door, his eyes wild. "Freya!" he breathed when he found me. He fell to his knees when he reached me and stared down at the injured god in my lap. His lips thinned when he realized who it was. The play of emotions over his face rocked me.

"I will not let him die," I said quietly.

Loki placed a hand on my arm. "I know. Nor do I wish him to." Loki said. "Though sometimes I feel like it would be easier without Thor and Odin in rule, he is still my sworn brother. You honor him today."

I shook my head. "I do no such thing." My hands began to glow. I shut my eyes and scanned his body, searching for the worst injury. I grimaced as my magic told me his head wound would end up killing him if I didn't intervene quickly. Whatever weapon had made these wounds hadn't come from our world. This was deep, dark magic.

"Elves," Loki muttered. "Dark ones."

My gaze shot to his. "Svartálfar? Impossible," I gasped.

"Improbable," Loki corrected. "I'd love to know where Loki was right before he came here."

I stared down at my stepson. "Me too," I muttered just as I cupped my hands around his head. The sound of blood roared through my ears as I searched for the spot that wouldn't heal. There. At the back of his head. I couldn't see it because of the way we sat, but I knew I'd found the right place. Blood seeped through my pants. I inhaled and poured power into his wound. Something resisted me, squirming and evil inside of Thor's wound.

"It's the power of the dark elves," Loki murmured. "Keep going. I will help." Loki cupped his hands over mine and soon, his emerald magic entwined with mine, soaking into Thor's mind.

It felt like we'd worked for hours though I know it could only be minutes. His wound finally stopped bleeding and we moved on to the wounds in his chest, abdomen, and legs. Soon, his breathing was deep and even. I looked mournfully up the stairs. He would be a beast to move.

Loki laughed. "I will help you," he said, reading my mind. "Though I wonder if we should dump him on the steps to the palace," he muttered.

"I wouldn't leave anyone weakened at the mercy of Odin," I reminded him. "Not even his son. His power continues to grow every day. As much as I worry about it, I don't think Thor would be as bad as his father."

Loki gave me a thoughtful look. "He can't add, Freya."

I laughed. "Sometimes I wonder if his intellect is merely an act." I'd seen whispers of a sharp mind occasionally. And it would be just like one of us to cleverly hide behind an idiot facade as we planned to usurp our parents. I gave him a considering look. It was one more thing I'd worry about later.

And just like that, my plans for relaxation went up in smoke.

Thor weighed no less than five hundred pounds. Or at least it felt like it as we hauled him upstairs. What was super strength if all the gods weighed a quarter ton. I grunted with relief as we tossed Thor onto the bed in one of the smaller vacant rooms upstairs. I wouldn't give him my good room, especially since he was kind of an asshole. Stepson or no, Thor hadn't made my life easy over the years. I'd saved his life and put him in bed. I was way over square with him now. In fact, I thought as I stared down at his still form, if we were going by the way the normal gods counted up favors, I'd say this put Thor squarely in my debt.

A grin slowly slid over my face. Loki laughed out loud as he held the door open for me. "There it is," he said, amusement lacing his voice. "I wondered, sweet Freya, when you realized what a joyous package this really is."

I stepped out and we walked downstairs, Loki's light footfalls behind me. He moved silently when he wanted to, but he'd scared me one too many times. After the last time when I nearly had a heart attack, Loki tried his best to let me know he was around. One of the many thoughtful ways he showed he appreciated me and cared about how I felt.

When we were back downstairs, Loki walked over to where Thor fell and bent down, peering at a spot on the floor. He reached down to pick something up and something flared white in my head.

"Loki, I wouldn't -" The world shattered around us in a blast of light and sound. I clapped my hands over my ears and screamed at the agony of it. Loki's face screwed up in a rictus of pain and I tried to reach out to him but couldn't. Everything felt frozen, stuck, like we were flies trapped in amber, stuck forever in this moment of time.

A few seconds later, the world returned to normal as if nothing happened. I stood hunched over, my hands still clapped over my ears. I blinked. A drop of scarlet blood fell from my nose and hit the floor. I moaned in pain as sound still ricocheted through my mind even though the bar had fallen silent.

"Loki?" I whispered.

He swayed and fell to his knees, the stone or whatever it was, falling to the floor. "Freya? Are you well?"

I slowly straightened, bunching up my shirt to staunch the nosebleed. "I think so." I hobbled over to him and fell to my knees beside him. "Are you?"

He blinked at me, his green eyes muddy with pain. "I don't know what I touched," he admitted. "I've never seen its like." He shook his head. "It isn't evil. It just felt ..." He paused. "I don't know. Draining?"

"That's a good word." I pressed my shirt more firmly against my face.

He blinked up at me and his eyes widened. "Oh Freya. Let me." Loki gently took the towel, wiped my nose and pressed a cooling cloth against my face. Where he'd gotten it, I had no idea, but that was Loki. Like a hot Asgardian wilderness dweller, ready with whatever you needed.

The blood stopped and I breathed a sigh of relief. "That was weird," I admitted. "I couldn't move. It was like being stuck in time."

His face went thoughtful. "We were caught like flies in a spider's web."

He bent over searching for the item. I held up a hand. "Whoa there. Remember what happened when you touchy touchied the thing I said not to touchy touchy?"

Loki snorted. "I'm not going to touch it. I'm going to see if I can figure out what it is."

I shimmied on my knees over to where he looked and peered down at it. "It looks like a white rock."

"It does," he said, but I could hear the contemplation in his voice. "It looks like a normal garden rock, doesn't it?"

It did. "Like quartz or something."

Loki tilted his head. "Quartz is a powerful stone, but not all by itself. It has properties alone, but it's usually used with something. It acts as a focus."

"I don't think that stone needed any focus to kick my ass."

"And isn't that peculiar?" he murmured as he peered down at it. He reached for it.

"Don't you dare!" I gasped.

Loki grinned at me, a heartstopping thing. "I wasn't going to touch it, but I am going to move it."

"Move it where?"

"To Morrigan's house. I suspect either she or Dagda can tell us exactly what this is."

I grimaced. "They've seemed preoccupied for the last few days."

Loki grinned at me. "The real world waits for no man or woman," he said as he stood, an emerald beam of light cocooning the strange stone. It lifted gently as he stood and he was careful not to touch it to anything else. "Open the door for me, dear Freya?"

I scrambled to my feet and over to the door, holding my breath as he carefully navigated the stone through all the tables and glassware around the place. Only when he was safely outside did I take a deep breath.

"Stay behind me, darling," Loki said as he looked down the street. "I'm going to cloak us. The last thing we want is questions about this. Whatever this is." His tone of voice sent a frisson of worry down my spine.

"Loki?"

"Be at peace, Freya. I am unsure."

He didn't sound unsure. He sounded terrified. The walk to Morrigan's took forever and it was only when we got to the steps that I realized Gravelbeard was nowhere to be found. I stiffened, even more fear than before paralyzing me. Loki gave me a curious look.

"Gravelbeard," I said, just as the door opened.

Morrigan stood there, dressed in full battle leathers and holding a spear.

I blinked at her.

A roar came from behind her. She held up one finger, turned, and held the spear up as she charged forward. "I don't care if it's the last thing I ever do, Dagda, I'm going to stick your head on a pike and parade it through the streets until I get to your mother's house and then I'm going to stand there and listen to her wail!"

Loki's eyes widened. "I think we came at a bad time," he whispered.

I took a step into the house. He put a hand on my arm. "I don't think that's a good idea," he warned.

The sound of battle came from deeper within the house.

"WOMAN," someone I assumed was Dagda, "I AM COMING HERE TO APOLOGIZE FOR FUCK'S SAKE!"

"Take your apologies and shove them up your fairy ass!" Morrigan screeched.

"TUATHA!" Dagada roared. "YOU KNOW I AM TUATHA!"

I shook my head and kept walking. "Morrigan?"

"Do not enter," Dagda called. "The floor is lava."

"Is that a euphemism?" Loki wondered aloud.

"No," Dagda said. "The floor is literally lava."

"Can you call a truce?"

"No we cannot!" screamed Morrigan. "I'll call a truce when I hold his still beating heart in my hand."

Loki snorted. I shook my head and gave him a warning look. I brought down the palace last time someone angered me. I didn't want to see what Morrigan would do.

"Thor is here," I said.

Silence fell for a moment.

"Thor?" Dagda finally questioned. "Is Odin here?"

To his credit, he didn't sound worried.

"No, just Thor. He's injured."

"Svartálfar," Loki added.

A muffled curse came from the next room. "For the god's sake, Morrigan, can you at least shut off the fire?" The poor god sounded exhausted.

"And why should I?" Morrigan was pissed.

"Because the queen is here. And I, for one, would not like Freya's wrath coming down on my head."

"Did you hear that, Freya?" Morrigan said. "He called you queen."

"I prefer Ruler Most High," I quipped.

I heard Morrigan's sigh. A second later, Dagda entered the room, a massive club slung over one massive shoulder. Any space of uncovered skin was black with soot. His amber eyes glittered with something. Not quite anger. Not quite annoyance. If I wasn't misjudging the situation, I'd suspect Dagda was enjoying this. He offered a shallow bow and stepped out of the way for Morrigan.

Calling her dressed would be an overstatement. She wore a purple leather corset which left her arms  bare, and skintight black leather pants. Lace up leather boots went to her knees. Her hair was braided and fell in a long tail over one shoulder. She wore no makeup today, but her icy blue eyes glittered with the thrill of battle. She'd disposed of her spear somewhere, but that didn't mean she was defenseless. Black feathers floated around her but never floated to the floor.

"I apologize for interrupting," I said, "but we need your expertise."

Dagda stiffened. "Why do you have a piece of Gioll?" he demanded.

Loki's shoulders slumped. "I wish I'd been wrong."

My eyebrows lifted to my hairline. "Gioll?" I only knew of one Gioll and surely a piece of it shouldn't be floating between my husband and me.

"Fenrir is loose," Dagda intoned, his voice a low and dangerous rumble.

"No," Morrigan whispered. "It can't be." She and Dagda shared a meaningful look. Those two at peace concerned me more than Fenris right now.

I pinched the space between my eyebrows. "Loki."

He held up a hand. "I am well aware of how mischievous my children are, Freya, thank you very much."

"Mischievous?" Dagda said, aghast. "Is that what you'd call them?"

"We just finished dealing with Hel," I added to be helpful.

Loki glared at me. "It's only a small piece. Maybe it's nothing."

Morrigan laughed, a low and terrible thing. "Do you know how long it took to secure Fenrir to Gioll? Do you know how many rocks he broke before that one held?" Her voice fell like hail against my skin, cold and hard.

Loki stiffened. "I am well aware."

Dagda leaned against the wall, his powerful arms crossed over his chest. "How did you come by this piece?"

"Thor had it with him when she showed up in my bar. I'm not sure if he carried it or it was a fragment from a battle." I thought about his wounds. They didn't look wolfish in nature and Loki said they were from the dark elves.

Dagda frowned. "You say Thor showed up wounded?"

I nodded. "He might have died had I not healed him. I couldn't do it alone. Loki had to help."

Dagda’s face darkened. “There is much lore associated with your errant wolf child, Trickster.”

Loki had the grace to look away. “If Fenrir is loose, I will deal with it myself.”

“I think the more important question to answer first is why he’s loose.” I held my husband’s gaze. “He couldn’t get out on his own.” I paused. “Could he?”

Loki shook his head. “He’s been chained to that rock for thousands of years. I visit sometimes.” He dropped his gaze. “I haven’t seen any damage to the rock or to the leash that binds him over the years.”

“So someone freed him,” Morrigan growled. She leaned against the wall and squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. “This town is proving to be very interesting, Freya.” A fierce grin lit her face. “I’ve been idle for way too long.” She looked over at Dagda. “How about it, old man? For old times’ sake?”

Dagda straightened, a look of surprise on his handsome face. His amber eyes lit with a banked fire. “I’d love nothing more than to battle evil with you once more, fair lady.”

Morrigan snorted. “There’s nothing fair about me, Dagda. Grab your axe, your harp, and your cauldron and let’s meet at Freya’s house in an hour.” She tilted her head to me. “Good?”

“Great.” It would give me time to find Gravelbeard. Worrying about him was making it difficult to concentrate on anything else, much less one more of Loki’s children wreaking havoc in my world.

Loki sighed as if he could hear the thoughts running through my head. “You don’t need to worry about it. I’ll find my son.”

Dagda laughed, a solid booming thing. “Not a chance, Trickster. Do you really think you could find and tame a world swallowing wolf?”

I blinked. “Errrm. What?”

Morrigan grinned. “Oh yes. Loki’s children are naughty, naughty little vicious things. Fenrir is supposed to wreak all kinds of havoc.” She looked down to study her nails. “Perhaps I won’t have to worry about him tracking down his spear if your boy eats him.”

My gaze shot to Loki’s. He shrugged. “It’s just a prophecy.”

A shocked laugh burst from me. “Just a prophecy? Our entire lives revolve around prophecy, Loki. When were you planning on telling me your giant wolf son is going to eat my ex-husband and potentially the world while he’s at it?”

Loki grimaced. “I thought everyone knew that.”

I stared at him for a moment before I spun on my heel and walked out the door.

Chapter Three

I peeked in on Thor before I searched for Gravelbeard. Odin’s son and the god of thunder lay in the exact same position we left him, completely oblivious to the world around him. His breathing was a little easier now, thankfully.

I shut the door behind me and rushed downstairs to peek in the kitchen. The remnants of today’s dinner were still scattered around the kitchen, completely unlike the usually tidy dwarf.

“Gravelbeard?” I called as I entered. The stove had been turned off, but there was a charred piece of fried chicken still in the still warm pan.

No response. I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and called Eyra.

She answered on the first ring. “Freya, thank the gods. I was just about to call you.”

“Is Gravelbeard there?”

From the long pause, I suspected the answer would be yes.

“He is. The Valkyries are not happy to see him.”

Probably the understatement of the year. “How’d he get in this time?”
I told him I’d help him get in - the legal way - if he gave me some time. Gravelbeard didn’t like to wait and this didn’t exactly endear him to the Valkyries.

“No idea,” she said, amusement lacing her words. But there was an undercurrent of worry there, too. She lowered her voice. “I’m not sure why he’s here, though. I’m scheduled to come home in only a few days. He’s acting nervous.”

I wouldn’t spoil Gravelbeard’s proposal, but he better get it done quickly if he didn’t want to be strung up by lots of angry winged women. “No idea.”

“Wait. He’s coming. Hang on and I’ll let you talk to him.”

“Honey, Freya -”

“I want you to marry me. I don’t care if we never have children or if I have to move or if we can only see each other twice a year. None of it matters to me, Eyra. I want you to be my wife.”

I sucked in a breath at his words. Eyra gasped in surprise.

If only there was a play by play announcer over the phone so I could live vicariously through my friend.

“Gravelbeard -” The phone shifted and scratched against my ear making me suspect Eyra was fidgeting.

“Nay, woman,” my friend said gravely. “Only tell me no if you don’t want to marry me. Don’t tell me no because your people forbid it.”

There was a long silence over the line. My breath caught and held as I waited for her answer. Was I eavesdropping? Yes. Did I regret it? Not even a little.

A soft sigh. A shaky breath. “Of course I want to marry you.”

I silently fist pumped and did a little dance.

“But I can’t.”

My fist dropped like a stone. Oh. Oh, Gravelbeard.

“You don’t love me, then?” my friend asked.

“I have always loved you.”

“Then say yes.”

“The Valkyries allow no man to interfere in their duties.”

“I’ve interfered with your duties the second you met me.”

“It was my fault,” Eyra said.

“That it was,” he agreed.

“So your answer is no then?” Gravelbeard asked. I heard the ache in his voice, the longing for things to be different.

I disconnected from the line, not able to bear being a witness to his heartbreak any longer. I couldn’t do anything about this now, but I would try to intercede on his behalf soon. But first, I had a giant wolf to take care of.

I sent Eyra a quick text.

Sorry, had to jump off. Please have Gravelbeard come home. We have an emergency at the bar. No need to worry! Everything is under control.

I pressed send and locked up the bar. Gravelbeard wasn’t supposed to be working right now, but Eyra had left soon after the wards disaster. I had to assume that’s why he’d stuck around. Without knowing the details, I didn’t want to speculate.

He must have snuck out of the kitchen right after we talked. The whole timing thing was weird, but again … giant world swallowing wolf.

The walk home was surprisingly serene. I hustled but still took the time to soak in the beauty of the town. I never got tired of it here and suspected I never would.

Since the damage to my house, I’d taken a little time to spruce things up and change some things around. A large wraparound porch filled with planters and blooming hanging baskets greeted me. I walked up the cedar planked steps and pushed the door open. Dagda, Loki, and Morrigan were already there. No one sat. Everything felt too important to relax.

I smiled at Loki, but he straightened and gave me a concerned look. I waved a hand at him. Later, I mouthed. It wasn’t my story to tell and wasn’t my heart broken today.

“Gravelbeard may join us later. I’m not sure yet.”

One of Morrigan’s dark eyebrows rose. “In trouble again?”

“He managed to get in Valhalla again.”

Dagda choked. “He did what?”

Morrigan elbowed him. “You heard her. No idea how he manages but trying to hang on to that dwarf and pin him down is like trying to hold onto an eel. Damn near impossible.”

“But no one has ever managed to infiltrate Valhalla!” Dagda stared at us all like we were lunatics.

“Gravelbeard did. Twice.” Loki said mildly.

I wondered if Dagda’s head would explode.

“If he gets strung up this time, it will be his own damn fault,” I said, though we all knew I’d move the nine realms for him. “We have other pressing matters to attend to.”

“Like how we’re going to capture an enormous magical wolf?” Morrigan said snidely while side-eyeing my husband.

“Yes, yes, it’s pick on Loki day, I’m sure.” Loki turned on the faucet and filled a glass of water. “We can’t capture him through normal means. It has to be trickery.” He smiled at us. “Fortunately, I’m the very best at it.”

Dagda snorted. “And how are we to trust you’ll lock up your son again?”

I stilled and straightened, hearing the implied threat in his voice.

Morrigan stood. “I think speaking to Freya’s husband like that is a good way to ensure someone shoves that cauldron down your throat and drowns you.” Her voice was deceptively mild and her posture at ease, but I knew my friend and was ready to rumble.

Dagda’s eyes flashed. He smirked and fingered the tip of his club. Almost .... seductively.

Eww.

Morrigan’s nostrils flared. “Try me, harp boy.”

Dagda nodded his head to Loki. “My wife trusts you, Trickster. Therefore I shall trust you as well.”

I blinked. “Your what?”

Morrigan went pale.

“Your … wife?” I asked, looking between the two of them.

Dagda looked like the cat who drank the cream. “My snookums didn’t tell you? Perhaps she is unused to being snagged into matrimony.”

“If you call me snookums one more time…” Morrigan growled.

Dagda continued stroking his club. “How about sweetie, or babe? Or maybe honey pie? What about -”

Morrigan screeched and launched herself at him.

A flash of emerald green magic lit the air and Morrigan froze in mid-leap. “Not in Freya’s house, children,” Loki said mildly. “Take it outside if you want to rough house.”

“Put me down,” Morrigan said through gritted teeth.

He didn’t. “Do you swear to both play nice?”

Dagda shrugged. “I’m not the one who keeps trying to fight.”

I pressed my lips together to keep from laughing.

“You ungrateful swine,” Morrigan hissed. “I should have split you open from chin to cock!”

Loki grinned at them both. “Ouch.”

Dagda sighed dramatically. “We’ve been married for many, many years, though Morrigan left me a long time ago.”

Loki gently sat the Phantom Queen down.

“And I’d do it all over again,” Morrigan said, though there was a slump to her shoulders that told me maybe she wouldn’t.

She’d lived a lonely existence.

Out of the corner of my eye, Loki swayed. His hand went to his head and he winced in pain. I was at his side in a second. “Loki?”

Pain etched lines in the corner of his eyes. He straightened, with effort, and touched my hair. “It’s nothing. Perhaps a remnant of interacting with the stone.”

I locked gazes with Morrigan. She wore a curious expression on her face but didn’t seem overly concerned. Dagda was busy stroking his club again and looking at Morrigan when he thought she wasn’t watching.

“Are you sure?” I asked. We didn’t get sick and rarely had random aches and pains. Everything made me suspicious these days. I vowed to keep an eye on him but babying him around these two didn’t seem like a smart thing to do, even if it was to keep his manly reputation intact.

Loki pulled me against him and kissed the top of my head. I smiled against his chest and pulled away. “Good. Now let’s talk about how to leash your kid.”

Morrigan crowed with laughter. “Let’s make dinner first!”

“No!” Dagda, Loki, and I shouted in unison.

Morrigan had been taking classes with Gravelbeard. It wasn’t going well. Some things she could make - like grilled cheese, a pretty mean turkey sandwich, and a few other things that didn’t require the application of heat, but most of what she made was inedible.

“I mean, I’ll cook!” I piped up. “Gravelbeard does all the cooking at the bar and I usually eat there, but I miss cooking. So why don’t I whip us up something and we can sit down and hash this out?”

“If you sure you don’t mind,” Dagda said, his eyes pleading for me not to mind.

Loki rubbed his stomach. “Could you make that … uh, the uh…”

“The sundried tomato chicken pasta?” I asked, one eyebrow raising.

“Yes. That. Please make that.” Loki’s eyes begged me not to let Morrigan cook. He didn’t have to worry. There was no way that was happening under my roof. I’d just replaced my kitchen and didn’t want it burned down again, thank you very much.

Morrigan put her hands on her hips. “Fine,” she pouted. “But when this is all over, we’re all sitting down together for a meal that I make from scratch.”

Loki shifted uncomfortably. Dagda stared at his boots. “That sounds great!” I said. “We’ll definitely do that.”

“Great! I’ll go chop veggies for the salad,” she said and went into the kitchen.

I waited until she left and held my index finger up to both men. “Not a word,” I warned. “She’s really trying.”

“But her chicken tastes like roadkill,” Dagda whined.

I snorted. “Considering how much she seems to dislike you, I think you should count your blessings she didn’t poison it.”

“Point,” Loki said. “But can you convince her to let you make the main meal and her make the sides?”

“Nope.” I turned to the sound of their groans. “But I’ll supervise.”

“Not good enough,” Dagda called. “I’d like to leave your town with my backside fully intact. The toilets in this town are no match for Morrigan’s meatloaf.”

I couldn’t help it. I chuckled all the way into the kitchen.

Chapter Four

I sat down next to Loki and snapped my napkin over my lap. He snaked his hand over and squeezed my thigh. Startled, I jerked, jarring the plates and silverware.

Morrigan gave me a curious look. “Sorry,” I muttered.

Loki grinned at me unrepentantly and moved his hand higher. I clamped mine on top of his wandering digits and squeezed in warning.

He gripped my fingers and pulled my hand into his lap. “Loki,” I warned.

“Touch me, Freya,” he whispered. “I can’t bear to be without the feel of you against me.”

Morrigan choked on a piece of roll. Dagda looked at Loki with something akin to horror.

“Gods man,” he said. “Do they teach the gods differently in Jotunheim? The meal is a sacred time for family and fellowship. Not getting handy under the table.”

Dagda was right. This behavior wasn’t like my husband. I tried to tug my hand free but Loki’s fingers tightened for a second.

Loki blinked. “My apologies,” he said and abruptly released my hand.

Weird. But we were newlyweds. I smiled in apology and picked up the bowl of pasta to serve myself.

Loki’s fingers brushed against mine and he held on to the bowl just a hair too long.

“Are you okay?” I whispered.

“I’m fine.”

He sounded troubled. A slight frown marred his perfect brow as he served himself and passed it onto Morrigan.

I got up to pour wine and when I reached Dagda, I leaned down. “The stone,” I whispered, so low only he could hear me. “Should it have side effects?”

Dagda knew exactly what I was talking about. “Not like this,” he whispered. “Something else seems to be going on.”

I nodded and patted Dagda on the shoulder before I moved to Morrigan. She sat too close to Loki for me to say anything, but when our eyes met, I saw concern there.

“We’ll need to check on Thor before we retire tonight,” I said before I picked up my fork. I’d just redone my wards a little while ago and since that day, they've worked perfectly. How Thor wiggled his way bothered me a lot more than I wanted to admit because if he got in, we had a weakness somewhere. Again.

Now that he was here I sensed him at the back of my mind, just like I sensed everyone living here. It was an odd sensation if I thought about it too much. The townspeople felt like a soft, white light warming the back of my neck. Thor was more of an orange, hotter light. He didn’t mean me harm, that I could tell, but I’d be a fool to believe he didn’t want something from me.

“That we do,” Dagda said, “though if he sees me, it will only be a matter of time before Odin shows up here.”

“Then you should leave,” Morrigan said sweetly.

Dagda bared his teeth at her in a fierce smile. “Not without my wife.”

“Wife,” she said with a snort. “I don’t think that word means what you think it means.”

Dagda tossed back his glass of wine and poured himself another. “People change, Morrigan. You of all people should know that.”

She looked at him then. Really looked at him. What she saw there, I couldn’t say, but for once, Morrigan didn’t have a snarky comeback.

Loki ate in silence and when he finished, he pushed his chair back and quietly begged our pardon. I watched as he walked outside, concern filling my heart for him.

“Something’s wrong,” I said quietly.

“I agree,” Morrigan offered. “Do you know where he stuck that rock?”

I hadn’t seen him dispose of it. “No. It really walloped us both when he touched it. I feel fine, though.”

“Probably the backlash of magic. Loki might have triggered a spell which caught you. Since you weren’t its target, you probably don’t have to worry,” Dagda said.

“You think he was a target?” I asked.

Morrigan snorted. “Your husband has a list of enemies a mile long. I’d be more surprised if he wasn’t being targeted.”

“Do you think I should call Hel?”

“And get yourself tangled up even more in her shenanigans?” Morrigan asked, giving me the side-eye. “I’d leave well enough alone. She’s going to come to you soon enough and ask a favor. I wouldn’t give her any more ammo.”

“She cares about him,” I said.

“And I care about Dagda, but if his body showed up gift wrapped on my doorstep, I’d dance on his rotting corpse.”

I couldn’t help the laugh that came out of me. Dagda let out a long suffering sigh. “I could have married a thousand other women, Morrigan, and yet, I chose you. Maybe I am an idiot.”

A twinge at the back of my head made me straighten in my seat right before I scrambled out of it. “Thor is up.”

Morrigan cracked her knuckles. “It’s go time.”

“No. No it’s not, Morrigan.” I said patiently. “It’s question Thor about why he’s here time and why he brought a shiny white rock attached to what basically amounts to an enormous fucking werewolf.”

Morrigan and Dagda followed me outside. Loki was nowhere to be found.

“A werewolf,” she mused as we walked over. “Guess I never thought of Fenris like that.”

“He turns into a man, likes to eat things he shouldn’t, and is set on destroying the world.” I shrugged. “Seems like a werewolf.”

Dagda snorted. “Allegedly.”

“I’d say prophecy is more than allegedly,” Morrigan countered.

“We all know how well prophecy works out for us,” I added. “Half the time we spend muddling through it, and we get most of it wrong anyway.”

“That’s half the fun of it,” Morrigan said.

“Speak for yourself.” I pushed open the entrance to the bar. I already knew Loki was here, but it was odd that he’d left without saying a word. He stood behind the counter of the bar, pouring himself a drink.

“Lightning boy is awake,” he said as he tipped back a glass of good whiskey.

I frowned. Loki drank, but he never tossed back shots. “Have you talked to him?”

He shook his head. “Thor and I haven’t spoken since I stole his stepmom.”

He gave me a rueful grin. “"I'd do it again, though."

I didn't like thinking about being Thor's stepmom. All the waters got muddied when I thought about how we all knew each other and who was related or married or loved or hated who.

"Has he been out of the room?" I asked.

Loki shook his head. "I can hear him pounding around up there, but he hasn't left the room. He probably knows I'm down here. I bet he's waiting on you."

"Of course he is." I let out a deep sigh and peered upstairs as if I expected Thor to burst out of his room and try to attack me. He'd always been kind of a jerk, but I did have some empathy for him. It had to be hard to be the son of Odin and to live up to his expectations on a daily basis. Odin wasn't an easy man to like, and he was even worse to try and please. I should know. I'd been married to the man for what felt like eternity.

Not being married to him was sometimes even stranger than being married to Loki. Looking back, I would have liked to have had some time by myself before I ended up wrapped in another marriage, but seeing my husband standing there - tall, strong, and handsome - I knew that it happened the way it was supposed to happen.

Loki shoved a frothy beer my way. "Looks like you need this more than I do."

I took it and headed upstairs. "Thanks," I called over my shoulder.

"Best of luck," Loki said mildly as he watched me head upstairs.

I stood outside of the guest room running through a million scenarios in my head of why he could possibly be here. None of them positive. Thor wasn't an easy man to harm and he was an even harder man to kill. He'd shown up here on death's door. But why had he come?

I held up a hand to knock, but he flung the door open.

"Freya," he growled as he held the door open. "I expected you to be here sooner."

"Well I didn't expect to be here at all," I retorted as I headed in.

He peered out in the hallway, his eyes taking in everything, before he turned and shut the door. When he turned back, he crossed his massive arms over his chest and stared.

I perched on the edge of the desk and didn't say a word.

We were in some kind of odd standoff and I knew if I broke the silence, Thor would consider it a victory. I studied my nails, the decor of the room, and then eventually my shoes.

Thor broke first. "I know you want to know why I'm here," he snapped.

I shrugged. "I'm sure you'll tell me when you're ready."

His frown looked thunderous. Thor had always been a handsome man. Even when he was younger and a lot more precocious than now, he'd turned head. He was tall, brawny, and had hair of spun gold. His eyes were a brilliant blue - like a lake untouched by human contact. He carried around a massive spear and dressed in leather armor every single day. Even Odin took his arm off sometimes. Not Thor. If he ever slept without it, I'd be surprised. The man expected war everywhere he looked.

Maybe he got it.

I wouldn't know.

"I supposed I should thank you for saving my life," he grumbled.

If I laughed, I would break the tenuous truce between us. I lifted my shoulders. "If you want to."

Thor huffed a breath. "My father would have a field day with this."

"Your father isn't here," I said, my voice mild and unhurried. "What I'm most curious about is why, of all places, you showed up here instead of back in Asgard. There are more qualified people to help you there than there are here."

Thor looked away, his eyes stormy. He inhaled a deep breath and sank onto the bed, his head in his hands. "I can't trust anyone," he admitted after a long moment. "You - " he shook his head. "When you left, things got bad. Really bad."

I'd heard some rumblings of that, and I'd wondered how true it was. When I was there, I tried to do my best for the people there, but I always felt like I never did enough. Odin always told me he was the one keeping people safe. I wondered, not for the first time, whether I had more to do with that than I initially expected.

"No one trusts him, Freya. He doesn't have..." he trailed off. "I am not supposed to be here speaking about this to you. He would have my head."

"Odin can't enter my territory, Thor. You are free to speak. It's only you and me here."

"And Loki downstairs?" A note of accusation tinged his voice.

"And Loki downstairs," I agreed. I wouldn't be ashamed of my marriage or my actions because they were my own. While I didn't plan on marrying again right away, I didn't regret it and I wouldn't make Thor assume I did.

"Father is angry with you." He chuckled, his voice a low boom in the small room. "He's been an absolute delight to live with since you left."

"I can only imagine." I waited.

"I'm assuming you know why I'm here."

I shook my head. "I suspect what injured you, but I do not know why you wound up here. Besides the obvious reason of you not wanting your father to know what you've been up to."

"Fenris is loose. The wolf who swallowed the world roams free once again."

"We figured that out. How much did you have to do with it?"

Thor sucked in a breath. "I would never," he swore. "Fenris will bring Ragnarok with him. My father will die." He shook his head once, a sharp shake of denial. "I'd never bring that down upon my house."

"You had a portion of Gioll with you. It harmed Loki. Or did something to him. We can't figure out what happened yet."

Thor grunted. "The rock exploded. I barely got out with my life."

"So you were there with Fenris when he was loosed?"

He nodded. "I tried to stop them."

"Who is them?"

Thor sighed. "I don't know. Some of them were dark elves. Some of them didn't look familiar. But there was someone in a dark cloak." His voice trailed off. "I don't know who he was, but I know I've met him before. The name is on the tip of my tongue and yet I cannot remember who it could be. He's male. Tall. His voice is raspy, unique. Like maybe there was an injury there that didn't heal." He dug the heel of his hands into his eyes. "It's driving me bloody mad that I can't remember who it is."

"Someone from Asgard?"

"No. It's not someone who lives in the castle. I don't even think it's someone who lives on Asgard. It's someone I've met in my life before and someone I've spent more than a passing amount of time with. But I cannot remember. I do not know if I am bespelled or if something else is wrong with me, but it's making me insane. I cannot tell Father because he will judge me for this."

I knew that well enough. Odin would judge you no matter how well or terribly you performed. It was just in his nature to do that. I put a hand on his arm. "I think you need to rest more. You cannot fight a battle after being so grievously injured. You'll do nothing but harm yourself again."

He shook his head. "I cannot rest until I know who's out to harm me and my family."

"You won't do anyone any good if you fall flat on your face while trying. I'll help you. Loki will help you too. A threat to Asgard is a threat to us all."

Thor really looked at me then, his gaze searching my face for truth. What he saw there astounded him. "Why?" he choked. "Why would you do this for us?"

My brow furrowed. "Why wouldn't I? I don't understand."

He waved a hand. "My father."

"Your father is ... your father." It was the nicest non thing I could say about Odin. Thor might have issues with him, but he was still Thor's father. There was loyalty there and love and probably a deep seated desire for acceptance. It wasn't my place to damage that or try to usurp it even knowing all the things Odin had done wrong.

Thor snorted.

"I will help because I am a child of Asgard. I grew up there. I married there. I fell in love there." Or I did sort of. What I felt for Odin might have never been love, especially now that Loki was in the picture. What I felt for him far surpassed anything I'd ever felt for my ex-husband. "Your people are still my people. I would die to protect them."

"My father is an idiot," muttered Thor. He looked up at the ceiling. "The Trickster. My brother. Are you happy with him?"

I blinked. Could he have possibly asked me a more awkward question? "I am." It was all I could say to him. He deserved to know the truth. "I didn't mean to marry him. That was sort of an accident."

Thor laughed out loud. "Say no more. With Loki, nothing ever means to happen.'

"But I am glad it did. He has been good for this place. This town." He was good for my heart, but I left those words unspoken.

Thor grunted. "He is a good man, though he hides it very well for those he does not care about."

"He is," I agreed. As much as I didn't want to say it, I felt like I had no choice. "If you would like to stay here, you may, but you need to know the wards are fully bonded to me, Morrigan, and Loki. They recognize intent. If you ever switch allegiances or try to cause me harm, I cannot guarantee you will make it out of this place with your life."

Thor's bushy eyebrows rose. "Powerful indeed," he murmured. "Does Father know?"

"Your father is well aware of how powerful my wards are. Which leads me to my next question. How did you pass through them?"

Thor's brow furrowed. "I just walked through them."

I tilted my head. "Impossible. The wards are not keyed to you."

He held up a hand and put the other over his heart. "I swear to you. I walked right through the wards and through the town to get to your bar. There was no trickery involved, though I did wonder why you'd left your town so open to attack from outsiders."

"This is true?" I questioned. "Do you swear it on your father's honor?"

He grinned at me. "We both know Father has little honor, so I swear it on my own, Freya. I walked right through them and felt nothing."

The thought of that worried me more than I liked to admit. "It shouldn't have been possible. Odin couldn't get through."

"Perhaps I am more likable than Odin."

"Perhaps." What I did notice was Thor didn't sound nearly as dumb as he usually did. "Thor?"

"Yes, Freya?"

"I always thought you were pretty smart."

His eyes gleamed. "Did you now?"

"I did. And do. Why don't you show it to the world?"

He stood, his leathers squeaking with the movement. "The world cannot be ruled by two smart men. One of them would not allow it."

Odin. He would never allow Thor to rule if he suspected Thor could do it better.

"So you bide your time?" I asked.

He shook his head. "There are greater things out there for me other than Asgard. I haven't found them yet, but I plan to."

"And yet you save your father's rule anyway?"

"Of course I do. He is my father, Freya. If we cannot be loyal to our parents, we cannot be loyal to anyone."

I inclined my head to concede the point. "Very well. Tell me about Fenris and the men you saw around him."

"Is there a drink in it for me?" Thor asked.

"There's a lot of drinks in it if we can figure out who let the dogs out."

Thor stared at me strangely. "Wolf, Freya. Fenris is a wolf not a pet. And he's just one man."

I sighed and stood. "Come down to the bar. We'll get you an ale."

I left him alone in the room and headed back downstairs.

Loki had two tumblers of whiskey and a bottle of tequila next to him. I looked up at him and he wiggled his eyebrows and headed for me.

"Come here, darling. Let me love you." He scooped me up into his arms and danced with me.

"Loki!" I exclaimed. He was prone to bouts of romanticism, but he'd been acting strangely for the last few hours and I grew concerned the rock was affecting him in a way none of us could understand.

Thor's footsteps sounded loudly on the stairs. He cleared his throat, but Loki didn't stop.

"Brother!" he called. "Come, make merry with me and your mom."

I groaned. "Please don't."

"Freya," he said and stared down at me as if he were disappointed. "Thor is your stepson and my brother. We must include him in our merry-making if we are to be a family."

Thor held up a hand. "No thanks." He made his way over to the bar. "Mind if I pour myself something?"

"Not at all," I called back, queasy with Loki's jerky movements. "Please let me down."

Loki sighed dramatically and set my back on my feet. "Spoilsport, darling."

I held a hand up and touched his cheek. "I don't think you're okay."

Thor stared at us as he poured his ale. "What's the matter with him?"

He touched Gioll and he's been acting weird ever since.

Thor frowned and walked over to his brother. He peered down into Loki's eyes. Thor was a few inches taller and much more brawny than the leaner Loki. "You look unwell, Loki. Do you have a headache?"

"Odd question, brother. You know we don't get headaches."

"Not usually," Thor agreed. "But we do if we are under the influence of a spell."

Loki scoffed. "Nonsense. I am perfectly well. Can't a man love his wife without being accused of trickery?"

"That's kind of your thing," I said.

He grinned at me unrepentantly. "And it's how I got you, my darling."

"Told you," Thor said mildly.

I scoffed at both of them. "Regardless, we have several things going wrong right now. I'm not as worried about Fenris showing up here. The wards will lock him out."

"If he means you harm," Thor interjected.

"I think my son means harm wherever he goes," Loki muttered under his breath.

"I don't know." Thor looked thoughtful. "He seemed more scared than anything. I didn't see where he went, but when I came to, his tracks led him away from us. I don't think he will come here. There's no way he even knows about this place."

"He hasn't been a man for a very long time," Loki said. "I do not know if he even knows how to shapeshift anymore."

"He can change forms as well?" Great, I thought. Just what we needed.

"All of my children can, though Hel doesn't use it nearly as much as I would like her to."

I rolled my eyes. "Is there anything to distinguish him when he does change forms?"

"The eyes," Thor said. "I could always tell it was Loki by his eyes. He could fool everyone else, but he never fooled me."

"Not even when I was the fish?" Loki asked, peering at his brother.

"You came close, brother. But it's always the eyes. And the giggling," Thor added after a moment. "You could rarely resist laughing when you were trying to play a trick on me."

"That's when I was a kid," he protested.

Loki's fingers were tangled in my hair, stroking through the loose curls and down my neck. While I didn't mind, I found his touch maddening because it made me think of other things than what we should be focusing on. His touch was warmer than usual.

I wouldn't normally think something was wrong about that, but I brushed my fingers against his throat. "Do you feel hot?"

He wrapped a hand around my waist and dragged me against him. "Hot for you," he murmured against my ear.

I gasped in surprise and then with something else, but Thor's murmured "eww" banked any fire Loki had set. "There's something wrong with you."

"There isn't," he insisted. "So I'm hot for you. There's nothing wrong with wanting to love my wife."

"Yeah, but you're being weird about it." I wiggled my fingers at him. "Like really weird and overly affectionate."

Loki's brows drew together. "Is there such a thing as overly affectionate?" He hadn't loosened his hands from around my waist yet.

"In front of your brother, yes."

His lips turned down. "You wound me."

"Loki." I snorted. "I'm serious. I think we need to call a healer in."

He rolled his eyes and threw his hands up. "Maybe I'm lonely! Did you ever think about that?"

"Lonely? We were just in bed this morning spending time together."

He let go of me and pinched the space between his brow. Loki began to pace, his steps frantic and agitated. "Maybe I want more. Maybe I need more." He spun to me, his green eyes glowing.

I took a step back. "Loki?"

He bared his teeth at me. Then he stopped abruptly, his eyes wide with shock. "Freya! I do not know what's wrong with me." His mouth turned down in pain as if he struggled with something internally. "I can feel something inside of me. Something dark and twisted." He clenched his fists together. "It loves you." His chin dropped to his chest. "But it also wants to hurt you."

Thor shoved the barstool he was sitting on back across the floor and stood, his fingers hovering over Mjolnir.

"Please don't destroy my bar," I murmured. "I just remodeled it." I looked at him out of the corner of my eyes. "Can you call the healer?"

Loki snarled. "You want him, Freya? The god of thunder? Is he more handsome than me? So he can call lightning. Whoopity doo!" Magic gathered in his hands. "I can show you more than he can. I can show you the world. Thor only knows Asgard. He hasn't seen everything I have!"

"Loki, I don't want Thor." I kept my voice low, controlled, and steady. "I married you." I dropped the glamour on my hand and wrist. "And this. This is what that means. We are bound."

I locked gazes with Thor and silently told him to go. He understood my look and began to slowly back away. When Loki moved his gaze to Thor, I clucked my tongue. "Look at me, darling. He doesn't matter. It's just you and me." Fear, dark and thick, choked me. Whatever this was had snuck into my town. I'd need to alter the wards.

Again.

"You and I will be together for the rest of eternity. And won't that be fun?"

My husband smiled at me then, but it felt and looked all wrong on his face. Something dark streaked through his eyes. I swallowed hard. "That's right. Just you and me. Forever." I took a step toward him and held my arms out. "Come, let's go home for the night."

"Dagda and Morrigan?"

They were still outside waiting for us, but I knew the moment they saw Thor they'd know something was wrong. "They're outside." I smiled at him. "We can tell them we need some alone time. Won't that be fun?"

Loki stepped into the circle of my arms. I held him against me and waited for him to relax. Thor entered the bar with Dagda and they slowly walked around him. Loki didn't even blink, as if the circle of my arms was all he needed to feel whole. It felt odd. Foreign. Like I held a child who had no independent thought.

My stomach lurched with fear, but I was mostly angry. Why did they keep screwing with my husband to get to me? Was that what this was about? Was someone trying to get to me again or was this an accident? I tended not to put much into the coincidence category, especially now that Fenris was involved.

Loki's son and a spell that only affected Loki sure didn't seem to be an accident. "Honey?" I whispered as Dagda crept up behind him.

"What did that rock do to you?"

He smiled against the top of my head. "It made me see everything, Freya. I can't be anything without your power."

"My power?" I questioned, my heart beating like a rabbit.

"I mean you," he corrected, too quickly.

"But what would you do with my power?" I asked, hoping he would keep talking.

"You're trying to trick me," he cajoled. His arms tightened around me.

"I would never try to trick you. You're way better at it then I am."

"You're right," my husband said as his grip became even tighter. "Remember that."

Dagda held his club up. My eyes widened.

"Don't kill him!" I screamed just as I shoved away from Loki.

My husband stared at me in shock just as the club connected with his skull.

"If that's pulling blows, I'd hate to box with you," Thor said.

"Is it normal for one person to bleed that much from a head wound?" Dagda asked, worried.

"Head wounds always bleed worse than other injuries," I snapped as I wiped my husband's forehead with a cool cloth. "You didn't have to hit him so hard."

"It's Loki," Dagda said by way of apology.

"And what does that mean?" I asked as I wrung the cloth out.

"It means I'm not stupid. Loki won't be able to beat me in a physical battle, but I can guarantee he could beat me in a battle of cleverness or wits. I like things straightforward. Your husband is very much into subterfuge."

I could see his point. "Fine," I snapped. "Hand me the gauze."

"He'll be fine in minutes. No need to wrap it," Thor said unhelpfully.

"It makes me feel better," I said as I held my hand out to him.

Thor dropped a roll of it in my hand and I tenderly wrapped Loki's head. He'd be angry when he woke up, so the least I could do was make sure he didn't bleed all over his clothing.

"Nice shot with the club, by the way, Dagda," Thor said, eyeing the bigger man.

Dagda grunted. "The club comes in handy sometimes."

Dagda could probably strangle a dinosaur with the size of his hands. I'm glad he didn't decide to strangle my husband because I'd be way more traumatized over that than I was a head wound. Still. I'd rather us not have to knock him out at all.

Loki moaned, his head jerking to the side. "It's okay," I whispered as I tried to hold his head steady. "Stop doing that. You'll just make it worse."

His green eyes blinked open, unfocused. He jerked and when he realized he couldn't move, his eyes widened in surprise.

We'd tied both legs and arms to the bed posts, leaving him in a spread-eagled position. "Freya," he purred once he realized his predicament. "All you had to do was say you're into bondage and I would have gone to the store." He grinned at me, but it still didn't seem right.

"Brother, you're under the influence of a spell. I don't know what kind, but there's someone here to see you who might be able to help.

"I don't need to see anyone. Why don't you leave so Freya and I can get down to business?"

The door opened and Morrigan breezed in, an older man dressed in odd robes following close behind her. "I really like how horny Loki is these days. I mean, I expected the god of tricks and thieves to be like that anyway, but to see it all out in the open? Well, it's just grand." Morrigan winked at me, but I saw the concern in her eyes. She was great at flippant responses in moments of importance, but she'd gone for the doctor, so I'd forgive her for this one.

The doctor stopped at the edge of the entrance to the room staring down at my husband. He shook his head and stepped out. "Odin will have my head if he realizes I'm here and helping the man who stole his wife."

Morrigan snorted. "And guess who will have your head if you don't?" She grinned at the doctor, a wild and feral thing.

Dagda chuckled. "I'd listen to the Phantom Queen. She could make your life harder than Odin could."

"No threats," I interjected. I nodded my head to the doctor. I'd never seen him before but he looked vaguely familiar. "I'm Freya, as you probably know."

He was an older gentleman, with a balding head and kind eyes. He wore an odd blue crystal attached to the clasp of his robes and he carried an old leather satchel.

"I am too old to be afraid," he said. He met my gaze. "I know who you are. I know you were married to a man who was not kind to you." He looked at Thor. "Or too many." Then he looked down at Loki who grinned at him with that fierce rictus of a smile. "And I know your husband is afflicted by something I haven't seen since my younger days at university."

I swallowed hard. "Can you help him?"

"Perhaps. But I can't break the spell."

"Why not?" Thor growled. He paced the room.

"Because it's not how this spell works. Someone is trying to call him to them." He opened his case and pulled out an odd glass. He held it above Loki and prisms of light shot out above him. Greens, pinks, blues, oranges, and smoky black painted the walls in an odd light show. The strange man made a hmm noise and put that away before grabbing something else I couldn't explain. This time it was an odd looking hammer.

"Mmm," Loki said. "Are you going to beat me with that, Doctor? Please, please do."

Morrigan cracked a laugh, but Dagda and Thor looked disturbed.

The doctor merely raised an eyebrow. "Just to be clear, the TRickster is fighting this spell, and it's fighting back making his behavior seem a little erratic."

"Like an oversexed suburban husband?" Morrigan quipped.

Dagda growled. "Woman, you aren't helping."

"Like you aren't oversexed, you overgrown oaf."

Dagda huffed a breath and fell silent.

"What can we do?" Thor asked.

"You can be patient," the man said. "Or you can wait for the spell taker to wrest him away and you can follow them."

Thor grew thoughtful and gave the man an odd look. "Who are you anyway?"

"It does not matter. I am a peaceful man. All I want to do is help and leave."  He pointedly did not look at Morrigan when he said it.

"Odin won't find out. He can't see in here anymore and no one saw me get you." Morrigan kicked her feet up on the desk. "Now let's get Loki working again. He's being pervy and it's kind of freaking me out."

The doctor poked and prodded at my husband who didn't make it easy for him. Every time he touched him, Loki would moan in fake ecstasy. The doctor remained stoic, but by the time he finished the exam, he'd broken out into a cold sweat on his forehead.

"Can you do anything for him?" I asked, hopeful.

"I'm afraid not. It's too far gone. You have to wait until it has run its course."

I slumped against the wall. "We can cure almost anything!" I shouted. "Why can't we cure this?"

"Because my dear," the doctor said kindly, "this was an attack from something not of your world, or by someone so ancient, I've never seen it." He frowned down at my husband. "It's similar to what I've seen before but not exact. The last time I saw something like this, the Norns were fighting a war. This is like their magic, but twisted." His lips twisted. "Perverted somehow. I can't explain it. What I do know is someone is using him to get to you. There are pieces of your magic inside of this spell." He looked up at me. "Any idea of how someone got it?"

Morrigan sat upright. "They used her magic in the spell?" She looked at me. "How many people did you cast out when we redid the wards?"

I groaned. "Hundreds." A dead end, then.

"Not at all. Remember we have a list." Morrigan snapped her fingers and a piece of paper appeared in her hand.

"What good will that do us? We don't have time to go through five hundred people to figure out who's holding a grudge against me. Everyone who left had a grudge!"

"Yoohoo! Are you forgetting about me?" Loki called, wiggling his fingers through the restraints. "Come here and give me a kiss, Freya. I can't believe you're standing there unaffected while I'm strapped here for your pleasure!"

"Loki." Thor's patience seemed barely restrained. "Give it a rest, would you?"

"Never," snarled Loki. "Because you want her for yourself?"

"I'm not into the stepmom dynamic." Thor gave me an apologetic look. "Sorry, Freya."

"No harm done." I hopped off the desk and over to Loki. His eyes were still the same green, but there was something snaking through them - a dark spark of something every few seconds.

"I don't feel good," Loki moaned a second later.

The doctor stepped back. "That's my cue to leave."

"But you didn't do anything!" Morrigan called.

He tossed a blue bottle to us. "Use this to help him get some sleep. I can't help anymore. The spell has to be followed to completion."

"What's the completion?" I asked.

The doctor shrugged. "Whatever they want it to be, I suppose."

"Death?" I fished. "Dismemberment? Me involved in a life of s&m and bondage?"

"Yes," Loki said with a groan.

"Usually, the spellcaster wants subservience. Not always. Sometimes it's death." He held both hands up and shrugged right before he disappeared in a cloud of gray smoke.

"Who the hell was that?" I growled.

Morrigan shrugged. "Don't know. I asked one of my handmaidens for a recommendation. She said he was the best. Melva didn't know his name either."

"Ah, Melva. How is she?" Dagda asked.

Morrigan stared him down. "Fine, no thanks to you."

"It was before we met," he insisted.

I held my hands over my ears. "Please don't say anything else. I don't want to know." Whatever their history was, it sounded sordid. I had enough on my plate than to get tied down in their domestic drama. The good thing was, both of them were powerful and ready to brawl at a moment's notice.

"We'll leave," Morrigan said. "But we should take him to your house before we do." She nudged him with her hand. "You okay for a quick trip?"

Loki grimaced. "You smell funny. Like birds."

Thor snorted.

"Keep talking, tricky man and you'll wake up to my ravens doing terrible things to your internal organs."

Loki didn't sound like Loki. He sounded like someone I couldn't put a finger on.

But someone familiar.

Chapter

No one would let me get close to Loki on the walk back. They could have sent him through with magic, but everyone was hesitant to use magic on him when he was already under the influence of a powerful spell.

I grumbled under my breath the entire walk back, pissed off that once again someone had gotten to me through him.

"He needs a bubble," Morrigan said, appearing next to me and startling me out of my maudlin thoughts.

"Or something," I agreed. "We need to tweak the wards."

Morrigan nodded. "Yup, to inanimate magic or objects too." She chewed her lips. "Gotta say. This one felt more devious than the rest of them. Everything had to work perfectly for this to happen. Thor had to be able to get into the town without being harmed by the wards. He had to carry the piece of rock back with him. Loki had to touch it for it to work." She whistled low. "Whoever did this knew you all well. They knew Thor would come to you instead of back to Asgard and they knew Loki wouldn't be able to overcome his curiosity to see what had dropped. It was one teeny, tiny rock."

"You think Odin is involved?" I lowered my voice so Thor wouldn't hear.

"Absolutely. This smells right up his alley."

"But what does that have to do with Fenris? Odin wouldn't let the wolf loose. It's prophesied he will die by the creature."

"And isn't that fitting," she observed. "His sort of son marries his wife and later Odin dies by that son's other son?"

"You just made my head hurt."

"It's poetry. Karmic poetry. But you're right. That would be some kind of dumb on Odin's part to release Fenris, especially if he knows the prophecy."

"He lives for that shit," I answered honestly. "There's not a prophecy out there that he doesn't know."

"Thanks to the Norns."

I nodded. "Who might be involved in this?"

"Maybe, but it doesn't smell like them."

Morrigan gave me a rueful smile. "Do we ever really know the Norns?"

I thought about it. "Probably not."

She slung an arm over my shoulder. "We're babies compared to them. We have no idea what they'll do on any day and we should never underestimate them." She squeezed my shoulder. "Nor should we ever think we're on friendly terms with them."

I craned my neck to look at her profile. Her expression seemed at ease, but her words were a warning. "What does that mean?"

"You know what it means. We amuse them, Freya. The Norns are like puppeteers. Remember. They're the weavers of fate and time and all the shit around us affecting everything we do."

I frowned. "What about free will?"

"Oh there's that," Morrigan agreed. "But do we ever really know how much of it is us and how much of it is them?"

"That makes me feel a little ill."

"Good," Morrigan said. "It should. We should never get too comfortable with anyone. Especially not with someone who saw creation begin."

Dagda and Thor carried Loki between them. I slowed my steps. "Do you think he's here for honorable reasons?"

Morrigan stared at Thor's broad back. "He isn't here to cause harm. The wards would have tossed him out."

"The wards allowed him to walk right in here."

Her eyes widened. "I forgot about that!" She dropped her arm and sped up to walk beside Thor.

I could only make out a little of what they were saying. "How'd you get in here?"

I could hear Thor's exasperated response. "I already told Freya, no trickery was involved!"

Loki said something. I quickened my pace until I was walking beside them.

"It's got to be the necklace."

"Necklace?" I asked.

Loki jerked his head to Thor. "A bet. When we were kids. He won and held it over my head ever since."

Thor stopped causing Dagda to curse. His eyes widened as he fished around inside of his upper armor and pulled out a necklace with a hammer on it. He moved the leather strap and a tiny vial the size of a rice grain swung out.

I slapped my hand over my face. "You didn't."

Loki grinned happily at me. "I did," he said in a singsong voice.

Thor looked gobsmacked. "Loki. How many vials of this did you give out?"

Loki snorted. "I'm not a complete idiot."

"Depends on how many you gave out, Trickster," Dagda said as he gave the vial a thoughtful look. "Thor accidentally tricked the wards. He carried Loki's blood and since the wards recognized it, they let him pass.."

"Whoa," Thor said.

Whoa indeed.

"We'll have to fix that as soon as we get back to the house," I told Morrigan. I looked around at my companions. "Does anyone else have any of your blood hanging on a necklace or in their possession?"

Morrigan rolled her eyes. "Only morons give their blood to people."

"It was a bet!" Loki shouted.

"I don't understand what kind of bet would have blood as a prize," I muttered.

"Blood is a valuable prize, Freya," Dagda said as he grunted with Loki's weight. "You can do a lot of damage with a mere drop of it."

I peered at the necklace Thor held between his thumb and forefinger. "And you never did anything with it?"

Thor's expression darkened. "Despite what you might think of me, I do have honor."

I held a hand up. "I'm not saying you don't. What I'm wondering is if this is all of it or whether you gave a piece up to anyone else."

"I forgot I had it after a few years and a few years after that, I never thought about it again. I never take the necklace off, but I've never used any of it either. This was the drop Loki gave me. The full one."

I knew better than to heave a sigh of relief. Yet. Too many things had gone wrong for me to relax over that tidbit. "We might need to figure out a way for the wards to recognize Loki by something other than his blood."

"Easy enough," Dagda observed as we reached the house and walked up the stairs. I held open the door for all of them and they carried Loki into my bedroom.

"Yes," Loki said, excitement in his voice. "Freya, darling! We're home and I'm still chained up. Imagine all the terrible things you could do to me!"

"Like duct tape your mouth shut?" I murmured under my breath.

Loki gasped. "I am your husband! You're being very mean to me." His mouth pouted, but that dark shadow crossed his eyes.

"Let's talk when you're no longer under the effects of dark magic." I said as Dagda and Thor dumped him on our bed.

"I am under the influence of nothing," he exclaimed. "I just want you all to myself. There's nothing wrong with that."

Loki gasped and jerked against the restraints as Thor had to loosen his side to tie him to the bed. The thunder god whispered an incantation and the bindings glowed a bright white before they settled down. Dagda did the same thing and repeated it on his feet. Soon enough, the Trickster god was secured to the bed. I wondered where I would sleep because there was no way I'd get any sleep tonight. Not with him trying to constantly get into my pants.

"Come here, Freya." Loki wiggled his eyebrows at me. "I'm ready for a long night."

I sighed and walked out of the room, Morrigan trailing after me.

"He's annoying right now," she mused.

"Indeed." I headed to the kitchen and opened a bottle of red wine. I poured Morrigan one and then myself a glass. We clinked it together and plopped down onto the living room couch.

"I'm tired," I mused. "I'm ready for a break."

The door burst open before Morrigan could say anything. "All this fun and you leave me out of it!" Gravelbeard snarled as he walked in. The sound of metal clinking against his belt told me he was geared up and ready for battle. "No fun here tonight."

"Yoohoo!" Loki called. "Freeeyyyyyaaaaa!"

Gravelbeard's brows drew together. "Is that Loki?"

I nodded.

"What the Hel is wrong with him?"

Dagda walked out just then. "He's horny."

Thor followed him out. "And bespelled."

"He'll probably kill us all if he breaks those bindings." Morrigan observed.

Something occurred to me. "Why isn't he using his magic?"

Morrigan and Dagda exchanged a look. Thor stared at his shoes, the ceiling, anywhere but at me.

"Morrigan? Don't you think it's weird he's not using his magic? He's being awfully passive. And Loki is never passive." I forced her to look at me. "Never. Don't you think it's weird?"

Morrigan's eyes flashed and she finally threw her hands up. "Loki loves you. He's fighting. Even if it doesn't seem like it. The best I can tell is he's trapped in a battle inside of himself and he can't relinquish his magic without fear of the other ... thing gaining control of it."

"Who's speaking to me?" Fear squirmed inside of me. It didn't seem like Loki speaking to me. It was his voice, but it wasn't the way he ever spoke to me. I knew my husband. Maybe not as well as I could, but he'd been around me for as long as I could remember. He'd always shown me nothing but respect.

I walked into the bedroom.

"Freya -" Morrigan began.

"No." I shut the door and turned to face my husband. He lay on his back looking at the ceiling, but when I came in, he titled his head to look at me.

"So. You finally came in for some fun?"

"Who are you?" I demanded.

Someone banged on the door behind me.

Something flashed in Loki's eyes. "What kind of question is that?" The tone sounded hurt, but there was something other in it. Something annoyed I couldn’t manage to figure out.

"Where's Loki?"

My husband ... no ... whatever was controlling my husband grinned at me then - a wide and happy thing - and I knew I'd see that smile in my nightmares. "Loki can't come out to play right now. He sent me instead."

I swallowed hard. My heart felt like it sat at the edge of my throat. "What do you want?" If my voice sounded trembly, I couldn't help it.

"Just you, my darling."

"Who sent you?"

Loki jerked against his bindings. "I can't play that game with you. If I do, I lose."

"Lose what?" I took a step closer to him.

"Something precious to me. Nothing to you. Everything to me." His voice went a little higher pitched than before.

"Something you love?"

His eyes flashed that horrible, oily black. "Something I love," he agreed.

"How can I get that for you?"

His head tilted, a creepy movement making him seem like a marionette. Maybe that's exactly what he was, trapped by a puppeteer jerking his strings. "And why would you want to do that?"

"Why does anyone do anything? I'd do it for love." I meant it. Loki would do the same for me.

The being inside my husband blinked in surprise. "I've seen inside his soul. You love this man knowing the darkness of his heart?"

"I love this man knowing his soul. His heart might be dark, but it belongs to me."

A thoughtful look crossed his face. "Freya, Goddess of Odin's heart, perhaps I have misjudged you. If this bargain were any less secure, I would forsake it for you. But, alas, I cannot find a way out of this deal, so Loki belongs to me."

Odin's heart ... "This deal is with Odin?"

Loki stilled. "And if it is?"

"Then I will tell you Odin's power base is not what it was. I stripped much of it from him when I left Asgard. I am more powerful than him now. And if you really want out of this bargain, I can find a way to break it for you." I knew what I said was partial truth. Whether I held more power than him, I couldn't have said. Some days it felt like it and some days I woke up sweating in fear that Odin would have his revenge.

The door behind me flew open. "You cannot," Morrigan said urgently.

"Done," the being said. A crack of thunder boomed through the room. I staggered against the power of it, my stomach lurching as the room swayed beneath me.

Great. And here I’d just fixed the foundation of the house.

Chapter

"What have you done?" Morrigan hissed.

"What I had to." No regrets. I'd make the deal I had to make if it saved him.

Morrigan's shoulders fell. She gave me a long look. "Brynjar."

Loki's expression lit up. "Clever girl. How'd you know?"

"Possession is kind of your thing, isn't it?" Morrigan leaned against the door jam, arms crossed over her chest.

"It's my favorite," Brynjar said.

"Who compelled you?"

"Our fates were already tied, Phantom Queen.”

She glanced over at me, her expression disturbed.

"What does he mean?" I asked. I never wanted to see Morrigan disturbed because anything that could disturb her didn't bode well for me.

"Brynjar is a Fylgja. A spirit is the best way to describe him."

I'd never heard of the creature. Morrigan laughed. "Usually they are not dangerous."

"Usually," the being inside my husband stressed.

Morrigan glared at him. "How did you become tangled up in a deal you cannot walk away from?"

"It's of no importance. I cannot walk away even if the deal had not been made because I must walk with him as he embraces his fate."

"Fate?" My heartbeat picked up as I glanced at Morrigan. From the stubborn set of her jaw, she knew where my thoughts led me. The Norns had to be involved.

"Brynjar. The Norns. Did you make the deal with them?" He seemed cagey when he spoke about Odin so I jumped on the first thing, but maybe this was more complicated than I thought.

Wasn't it always?

"I am not allowed to divulge any information about this bargain."

"Are you under a geas?" Morrigan interjected.

Loki's lips twisted as if the very act of talking about a geas disgusted him. It probably did. Few of us bargained with one, but it sure seemed like I'd seen more than my fair share over the last few months.

Gravelbeard, Thor, and Dagda stood silent, close to Loki. Thor wore a horror struck expression while Dagda looked more thoughtful. Gravelbeard looked like he usually did - like he wanted to smack someone over the head with the blunt part of his axe.

"You can't speak of any part of this bargain?" Dagda asked.

Loki's eyes lit up like Dagda was especially clever. "That's right."

I tilted my head in thought. "The bargain specifically? Or the people involved in it?"

Dagda shook his head once, a sharp quick question the Fylgja missed. "Loki's fate. Tell me about it."

Loki grinned, a wide and happy expression. "Clever, clever Dagda," Brynjar said. "And what will you give me?"

Dagda plucked the harp from his waist. Loki's eyes widened and he shrank into himself.

The god plucked a string from the harp and music crescendoed through the room, filling my heart with battlelust and honor and the feeling like I could never be defeated. His eyes held an apology as he plucked a second string. A discordant note shattered the mood and I fell to my knees in grief.

Sorrow hit me in the solar plexus. Thoughts of everyone I'd ever loved dying played like a motion picture through my mind. Loki sobbed and cried out begging Dagda to stop.

"I'll tell, I'll tell! I'll tell what Dagda wants!"

The music stopped abruptly. Dagda replaced the harp and waited.

"Foul play," Brynjar muttered. "I am tied and bound and Loki will not allow our magics to meld. If he would, you would hold no power over me."

"And yet here we are," Dagda said, his fingers playing over the golden strings. No music played, but Loki's eyes strayed to his fingers and he trembled within his restraints.

"I'll tell," he whispered.

Morrigan stepped closer to me. "Some of this will not make sense," she whispered as Brynjar began to speak. "Fylgja do not sense fate like the rest of us do. Remember there are thousands of threads, all dependent upon the decisions we make and Loki makes. Do not despair."

Well, I wasn't going to despair until she told me not to. My brows drew together, but Brynjar's high-pitched whispery voice forced my attention to him.

"The Trickster becomes the tricked. The love he worked for will burn in the fire of a thousand suns. The All-Father will ride the world on the back of a great and terrible beast of trickster blood or he will perish or rule. The Trickster in a cage watched over the world, unable to do anything. His tricks are gone. His words are useless. He is a rat in a maze forced to watch everything he loves die or live without him. Words fall like honey from his lips. The Trickster falls in love. The children carry his body to Valhalla. The eagles rise against the fire and burn with revenge. It is all this and no more."

Brynjar fell silent.

My mouth fell open because not a lick of that made a bit of sense to me. "So Loki will live or die or lose me or his children? Or Odin will die or live or rule?"

I turned bewildered eyes to Dagda who merely shrugged. "We asked," he said mildly.

"Maybe we should apologize," I muttered.

Morrigan leaned over Brynjar. "That was even worse than usual. What are you not telling us?"

I thought he told us everything until Brynjar's eyes shifted away from the Phantom goddess over to me and I saw something dark slither across his eyelids. He lied. Maybe not about all of it, but enough of it to make me wonder what he really hid.

"Do you know what happens to people who lie to me?" I asked the fylgja.

The smile he wore fell away. "Freya is weak," he whispered. "That's what Asgard says."

I snorted. "Read the room." I advised. "I have with me all allies." My gaze locked with Dagda. "And potential allies." I gestured to everyone in the room. "The Phantom Queen, more powerful than me. The god of thunder and son of the All-Father." Thor's eyes widened at that, but his expression wasn't angry, more thoughtful as if he saw me in a new light.

Dagda straightened and gave me a small bow. "Ally," he said in the silence.

"Tuatha, Asgardians, Dwarves, and Frost Giants."

"Loki is under my control." Brynjar insisted.

I grinned at him, a terrible smile ready for war.

"If you think that, you don't know Loki at all."

His gaze shifted around the room. I waited for a moment before I summoned my sword. Gravelbeard grunted and pulled his axes from the sheath on his back. He never left home without them even when he worked in the kitchen.

A maniacal laugh came from Thor. Dagda raised an eyebrow but didn't draw his weapon. The man's brawn was enough to make most people second guess whether they wanted to tangle with him so he probably had to draw his weapons less than we did.

"You'll kill Loki!" Brynjar shouted.

"Maybe," I said. "But we'll kill you too."

I took a menacing step forward, murder in my eyes, and called Brynjar's bluff. Just as I raised my sword over my head and began to bring it down, a high-pitched scream wailed from Loki's throat.

"I relent! I relent," he shouted.

I pulled the blow at the last minute. Dagda, who possessed a club of war but also of resurrection, nodded. I didn't ask whether he would use it on my husband, but he seemed like a good man.

"No more riddles. Tell us about Loki." I rested my sword on the bed right next to his left ear, my hand still ready to strike. Cutting my husband would feel like death, but I'd do it to save him.

"I can't help the way prophecy feels to me, War Goddess, but I shall endeavor to be clear in my words." His gaze flitted nervously around all of us. "The Trickster's tricks have caught up to him and he has stolen something precious from someone powerful. He will pay dearly for this slight and will have to give something he loves dearly to survive it."

"What has he stolen?" I asked, taking a step closer to him.

He shook his head wildly. "I do not know! I see threads, miles and miles of thread. I do not see specifics."

"Hold, Freya," Dagda urged.

Morrigan agreed. "He speaks the truth."

"You will stay here until I figure out how to break your bargain, Brynjar. Escape and I will hunt you to the edge of the world."

"I can't get out anyway," Fylgja muttered.

"See you don't try," Morrigan warned. She jerked her head toward the door.

We all followed her out, shutting the door securely behind us.

Chapter

"Is anyone else not surprised that Loki got caught in his own web?" Thor asked as he helped himself to a bottle of beer from my fridge.

Dagda sighed. "You cannot keep a man from his nature, Thor. Otherwise he will die a slow and painful death."

"What did he steal?" I wondered aloud.

"I once saw Loki pocket a packet of gum when we went into town," Gravelbeard said. "I don't think he cares about what he steals, just that he can."

"Good to know no one thought it might be worth a mention that I married a klepto," I grumbled as I gestured to Thor to get me a beer.

"It's not the thing," Morrigan clarified. "It's the mischief. He is compelled to do things that cause chaos."

"He doesn't do it to me." I took the beer Thor offered and opened the top.

Gravelbeard laughed. "You're so adorable."

I blinked. "He doesn't."

"How many times have you lost your keys this week?" Morrigan asked as she grabbed a bag of chips and opened them.

"I -" My mouth fell open. "Son of a bitch."

Dagda chuckled. "He cares about all of you. This is mild. I've personally watched him turn into a fly to sabotage some of the most incredible blacksmithing I'd ever seen. He makes a bet and has to win no matter what lengths he has to go to do it."

"I can't believe that shit is hiding my keys from me!" I was late opening the bar one day because of it and Loki even "helped" me try to find them.

Gravelbeard laughed. "He hides shit from me in the kitchen all the time. I've gotten used to it. Now any time something comes up missing, I salt the shit out of his food."

Morrigan fist bumped Gravelbeard. "He did it to me once." She grinned. "Just once."

I had to laugh. "How about dinner, then we figure out how to get Brynjar out of my husband?"

Thor turned out to be a master chopper in the kitchen. I handed him bell peppers, onions, and celery, and he had them finely chopped before I could even get the rest of the ingredients out. "I hope dirty rice is okay," I said to all of them. "It's easy and it's the only thing I have all the ingredients for."

"As long as someone else is cooking, I don't care!" Dagda called back.

"Smart man." I put a pat of butter and some olive oil in the pan and waited for it to heat up.

Morrigan and Dagda sat next to each other on the couch. My friend's spine was stiff and her hands were crossed on her lap. I'd never seen her nervous like this.

Thor and Gravelbeard both had their weapons out on their laps and their heads together earnestly discussing something about them - probably how many men they'd killed with them. I smiled to myself and tossed in the veggies Thor had chopped, stirring them until they were soft.

I had an odd family. Some of them weren't quite family, but maybe if they stayed with me and we worked together, maybe I'd offer them a spot here.

Thor would be a sticky one. Odin's son. My stepson. Just having him here felt dangerous. I'd done a lot of things to Odin - or so he thought - but offering his son a place here would make him apoplectic. But it was dangerous for me, too. Thor and I would have to sit down and have a long conversation. He hadn't been all that nice to me over the years, but maybe things had changed. It felt like they had and I knew his intentions weren't to harm me.

However, Thor would be the perfect person to plant here and send intel back to Asgard for Odin. Yet, when I looked at him, I didn't see it in him. He was a lot of things, but I knew Thor wasn't evil.

And after today, I definitely knew he wasn't stupid. I grinned at all the dumb things I'd seen him do over the years as I realized he had one goal in mind: to make people underestimate him.

I tossed in a thawed pack of breakfast sausage and cooked it until it was brown, then added herbs and spices to the pan before I added a carton of chicken stock. When it began to simmer, I added two cups of rice to the pot, covered it, and turned the timer to twenty minutes.

"Anyone want a glass of wine?" I asked as I lowered the heat on the burner.

"Mead would be better!" Thor called.

I grinned. "I'm sure I have something in the back."

"Breaking a bargain isn't easy," Morrigan said later as she sipped her mead. "This is incredible, by the way. Blackberry?"

"Yes, my own recipe. We have a blackberry patch at the edge of town. Blueberries too." Thorny as hell so I usually made Loki get in there and gather them. I wouldn't let him use magic either because I felt like it affected the taste. Nature wasn't meant to be tampered with. We could magic food all day long, but it never tasted the same as when we made it homemade. I made beer, wine, mead, and food the way it was meant to be made - by hand.

Thor grunted in agreement as he shoved a forkful of a second helping of dirty rice in his mouth. "I didn't know you could cook," he said once he finished chewing.

His words, while not meant to be mean, stabbed me in the heart. His father never let me try. I cooked in secret usually because I was a queen and "not meant to be in the gutters with the workers."

I could have told him, but Thor was no dummy. He knew my life with his father wasn't fulfilling. "I've always enjoyed it. Now that I'm here, I can cook whenever I want."

From the way his eyes darkened, I knew he'd gotten my message. "Well, perhaps Father should have paid you to cook instead of the numerous women he fired from the kitchens."

"Yes," I said mildly. "No one could ever make roasted boar quite like he liked it." Odin still had no idea I was the one who made the boar he'd brought back from a hunt all those years ago. He'd raved about the meal but I'd instructed the kitchen staff not to reveal who made it. The older human woman, Martina I think her name had been, took credit for it, though it had made her uncomfortable.

When she'd been unable to repeat it, Odin had lost his shit, so I made her a bottle of the same spice I'd used. It mollified him somewhat, but the poor girl got verbally abused every time he requested it and it wasn't quite the same. I felt terrible about it and had eventually let her go with quite a chunk of change to leave Asgard if she wanted. The last I heard, she'd set up a bakery in Midgard and won some kind of television competition for her cupcakes.

Morrigan reached under the table and squeezed my knee in comfort. She didn't know everything about my life under Odin's rule, but she knew enough.

"You made that boar, didn't you?" Thor asked, his fork raised in the air.

I tilted my head. "I'll never tell."

He roared with laughter. "Dad never got over that! He bitched and moaned about that boar for nigh on a hundred years! To this day, every once in a while I'll hear a grumble about that one time he had the most delicious roasted boar he'd ever had in his entire immortal life." He raised his glass of mead."You are full of surprises, Mother."

I raised the glass back. "And so are you, Thor. So are you."

His blue eyes twinkled. "I saw my father break a bargain once."

Morrigan snorted. "I've seen your father break multiple promises."

He held up a finger. "A bargain, Morrigan. Written in blood and magic."

I leaned forward. "How?"

"He called on Forseti. The man's a legend in Asgard." He grinned. "You should know, Freya."

Indeed, I did. Forseti had recently helped me out when Odin was making divorce demands. I still had to deal with the person I'd chosen to take back with me. For now, she lived several streets over with money to live and a house of her own. She still seemed scared of what Odin would do to her and I hadn't been able to convince her that Odin wouldn't break the law. She'd seen him do a lot of terrible and shady things, but there were witnesses to my claim and he wouldn't embarrass himself over a servant.

Or former servant. I had plans for her and they involved offering her a hefty paycheck.

Thor raised a finger. “A word of caution, though. He also involved Var. I’m not sure, in the end, who was most successful at breaking the oath. I suspect it was Var.”

My stomach lurched at the name. Var. If I ever saw Var, I’d punch her in the kidney. She’d never met a contract she couldn’t either enforce or wiggle her way out of, even a marriage contract. Supposedly, she was the one who ensured couples stayed married and faithful.

As evidenced by Odin sticking his pecker in anything that moved, Val either didn’t care about this aspect of her job or she was involved in more than just a bargain with Odin.

Guilt filled Thor’s eyes and he looked away.

Dagda grunted. “Var. I’d like to toss that woman off of Asgard. She’s like those lawyers Midgard has on the t.v. that scream about 18-wheeler accidents and big, big settlements.”

I laughed. “I see Morrigan got you into television.”

Dagda clenched his fist. “It’s a wonderful waste of time,” he admitted.

"Smart man." I put a pat of butter and some olive oil in the pan and waited for it to heat up.

Morrigan and Dagda sat next to each other on the couch. My friend's spine was stiff and her hands were crossed on her lap. I'd never seen her nervous like this.

Thor and Gravelbeard both had their weapons out on their laps and their heads together earnestly discussing something about them - probably how many men they'd killed with them. I smiled to myself and tossed in the veggies Thor had chopped, stirring them until they were soft.

I had an odd family. Some of them weren't quite family, but maybe if they stayed with me and we worked together, maybe I'd offer them a spot here.

Thor would be a sticky one. Odin's son. My stepson. Just having him here felt dangerous. I'd done a lot of things to Odin - or so he thought - but offering his son a place here would make him apoplectic. But it was dangerous for me, too. Thor and I would have to sit down and have a long conversation. He hadn't been all that nice to me over the years, but maybe things had changed. It felt like they had and I knew his intentions weren't to harm me.

However, Thor would be the perfect person to plant here and send intel back to Asgard for Odin. Yet, when I looked at him, I didn't see it in him. He was a lot of things, but I knew Thor wasn't evil.

And after today, I definitely knew he wasn't stupid. I grinned at all the dumb things I'd seen him do over the years as I realized he had one goal in mind: to make people underestimate him.

I tossed in a thawed pack of breakfast sausage and cooked it until it was brown, then added herbs and spices to the pan before I added a carton of chicken stock. When it began to simmer, I added two cups of rice to the pot, covered it, and turned the timer to twenty minutes.

"Anyone want a glass of wine?" I asked as I lowered the heat on the burner.

"Mead would be better!" Thor called.

I grinned. "I'm sure I have something in the back."

"Breaking a bargain isn't easy," Morrigan said as she sipped her mead. "This is incredible, by the way. Blackberry?"

"Yes, my own recipe. We have a blackberry patch at the edge of town. Blueberries too." Thorny as hell so I usually made Loki get in there and gather them. I wouldn't let him use magic either because I felt like it affected the taste. Nature wasn't meant to be tampered with. We could magic food all day long, but it never tasted the same as when we made it homemade. I made beer, wine, mead, and food the way it was meant to be made - by hand.

Thor grunted in agreement as he shoved a forkful of a second helping of dirty rice in his mouth. "I didn't know you could cook," he said once he finished chewing.

His words, while not meant to be mean, stabbed me in the heart. His father never let me try. I cooked in secret usually because I was a queen and "not meant to be in the gutters with the workers."

I could have told him, but Thor was no dummy. He knew my life with his father wasn't fulfilling. "I've always enjoyed it. Now that I'm here, I can cook whenever I want."

From the way his eyes darkened, I knew he'd gotten my message. "Well, perhaps Father should have paid you to cook instead of the numerous women he fired from the kitchens."

"Yes," I said mildly. "No one could ever make roasted boar quite like he liked it." Odin still had no idea I was the one who made the boar he'd brought back from a hunt all those years ago. He'd raved about the meal but I'd instructed the kitchen staff not to reveal who made it. The older human woman, Martina I think her name had been, took credit for it, though it had made her uncomfortable.

When she'd been unable to repeat it, Odin had lost his shit, so I made her a bottle of the same spice I'd used. It mollified him somewhat, but the poor girl got verbally abused every time he requested it and it wasn't quite the same. I felt terrible about it and had eventually let her go with quite a chunk of change to leave Asgard if she wanted. The last I heard, she'd set up a bakery in Midgard and won some kind of television competition for her cupcakes.

Morrigan reached under the table and squeezed my knee in comfort. She didn't know everything about my life under Odin's rule, but she knew enough.

"You made that boar, didn't you?" Thor asked, his fork raised in the air.

I tilted my head. "I'll never tell."

He roared with laughter. "Dad never got over that! He bitched and moaned about that boar for nigh on a hundred years! To this day, every once in a while I'll hear a grumble about that one time he had the most delicious roasted boar he'd ever had in his entire immortal life." He raised his glass of mead."You are full of surprises, Mother."

I raised the glass back. "And so are you, Thor. So are you."

His blue eyes twinkled. "I saw my father break a bargain once."

Morrigan snorted. "I've seen your father break multiple promises."

He held up a finger. "A bargain, Morrigan. Written in blood and magic."

I leaned forward. "How?"

"He called on Forseti. The man's a legend in Asgard." He grinned. "You should know, Freya."

Indeed, I did. Forseti had recently helped me out when Odin was making divorce demands. I still had to deal with the person I'd chosen to take back with me. For now, she lived several streets over with money to live and a house of her own. She still seemed scared of what Odin would do to her and I hadn't been able to convince her that Odin wouldn't break the law. She'd seen him do a lot of terrible and shady things, but there were witnesses to my claim and he wouldn't embarrass himself over a servant.

Or former servant. I had plans for her and they involved a hefty paycheck.

Thor raised a finger. “A word of caution, though. He also involved Var. I’m not sure, in the end, who was most successful at breaking the oath. I suspect it was Var.”

My stomach lurched at the name. Var. If I ever saw Var, I’d punch her in the kidney. She’d never met a contract she couldn’t either enforce or wiggle her way out of, even a marriage contract. Supposedly, she was the one who ensured couples stayed married and faithful.

As evidenced by Odin sticking his pecker in anything that moved, Val either didn’t care about this aspect of her job or she was involved in more than just a bargain with Odin.

Guilt filled Thor’s eyes and he looked away.

Dagda grunted. “Var. I’d like to toss that woman off of Asgard. She’s like those lawyers Midgard has on the t.v. that scream about 18-wheeler accidents and big, big settlements.”

I laughed. “I see Morrigan got you into television.”

Dagda clenched his fist. “It’s a wonderful waste of time,” he admitted. "Damn it, Morrigan. I have been sitting in front of the Hulu too much these past few days."

"Down with the man," Morrigan said as she raised her fist up. "You've been in power too long anyway."

Dagda rolled his eyes. "The Handmaid's Tale. She burns up every time we watch an episode."

"Everyone should burn up when watching that. It's the slow erosion of rights that tricks people into complacency."

She wasn't wrong. I'd seen that in my own life.

"Alright," I said, steering the conversation away from the toxic dystopian patriarchy and back into somewhat smoother waters. "Assuming it's Var we're dealing with, how do we get her to absolve the contract on Brynjar's part?"

"If we try it ourselves, it will kill him. And possibly Loki too. The only way to assure a clean break is to get either Var or Forseti involved. And hope they won't tell Odin or the Norns," Morrigan said.

"If it's either of them," I said, my brain spinning with thoughts on who it could be.

"It's one of them at minimum. I don't know who else it could be. We'd have to figure out who Loki has pissed off," Dagda said but he couldn't even finish the sentence without chuckling.

"So basically everyone," Gravelbeard said. He raised his fork in the air. "Good. My axes are dulling. I'd like to smash some things."

A sadness existed in his eyes that hadn't been there before he'd left. I wanted to pull him to me and squeeze him tight but I knew he wouldn't appreciate it. Once this was finished, I'd find Eyra and force her to talk to me.

The Valkyries had her in an impossible situation. She loved him. It was evident in the way she looked at him. Though I'd never seen a more odd couple, they worked. Somehow.

"I'm sure we'll get to do lots of smashing," Thor interjected. "Especially if Loki is involved."

I glanced at the closed door my husband lay behind. "So how do we contact Var?"

Morrigan groaned. "Do we have to?"

"I'm afraid so," Dagda said. "Let's finish up the meal and head outside."

Chapter

A howl unlike anything I'd ever heard shook the world. We stopped in our tracks, turned to the west.

"Fenris," Thor breathed, his hand on his hammer, his eyes wary.

"Fuck," Dagda said.

My heart hammered against my chest. He couldn't get in here. Could he?

Morrigan shook her head once. "No. We're safe. The only way he could get in is if we left him in."

"Morrigan," I said, horror leaching into every pore.

She turned to me just as a man came into focus in the shadows.

"Gods," Dagda whispered.

"Hello, Freya," the man purred, his voice a dark slithering thing against my skin. "I hear my father is here."

"These godsforsaken wards," I spat.

"It's the blood," Morrigan said. "Perhaps we need to further explore Loki's family connections and the power of his blood."

"Odin?" I asked.

"No. I know he cannot enter. Even with Thor here. It's Loki."

The man stood there in the shadows. Gone was the fearsome beast, but shadows lurked around him, ebbing and flowing. All I could see around him was the darkness. Granted, there was little light in my settlement right now, but even if there were, I wondered what he would look like. Loki was dark haired, but his eyes gleamed like a precious gem.

"And if he is?"

"Then I would speak with him." He came further into view.

"Come no closer, Fenris. Or we will battle before you are ready," Thor said, his hammer singing with energy.

Fenris held up both of his hands. "I am not here to cause trouble. I give you my word."

"And what good is the word of the son of a trickster and one who is fated to destroy our world?" Dagda asked.

"You ask this of me and yet Freya stands here branded with magic from my father?" Fenris came closer and light cast shadows over the harsh planes of his face.

One thing I could say about Loki ... he made pretty children. The man who stood in front of me could be chiseled from stone. Fenris' cheekbones stood out, perfectly sculpted. His lips were full and his eyes gleamed chartreuse in the darkness. His nose was noble, perfectly sculpted, below two dark eyebrows, arched in curiosity. "I promise you, Mother, I am here to harm no one."

I startled at his words. Mother.

Fuck.

I'd never had a child naturally. Instead I'd been the stepmom of so many children I'd lost count. When I thought about the relationship between Loki and Thor, I psyched myself out, and couldn't think about it for more than a second.

No one else blinked. My feelings about this felt decidedly human.

"Why do you want to see your father?" I held up a hand. "Come no closer, Fenris. I have no wish to battle you, but you must prove your words if you seek to enter my home."

"We have much to discuss. War comes to Asgard." He didn't take another step.

I studied him. "I ask for your oath, Fenris. Swear in blood no harm shall come to my home, my settlement, or anyone in it. Swear to harm no one and no thing and I will allow you entrance, though the one you seek is ... indisposed."

"Freya," Morrigan warned.

"I will not distrust someone because it's the popular thing to do. Fenris was chained for unclear reasons. Should we distrust a man chained for millennia when none of us know why?"

"Assertion of power," Fenris claimed, his voice flat and his posture still. "I grew too large and too powerful to be controlled. They punished me because I refused to live under their authority."

"Swear it, Fenris and I will offer guest rights. You will receive food and ale and a soft pillow to lay your head. Refuse and you will die." I straightened, my sword at the ready to be summoned.

A dark eyebrow rose. "You think you can defeat me?"

"I think I will die trying," I said.

We stared at each other for an uncomfortably long moment. He bowed his head once. "Very well, Freya, formerly of Asgard, Queen under Odin." He held a hand up and magic, bright chartreuse, glowed from his hand. "I swear upon my name, Fenris, son of Loki and giantess Angerboda, I mean you nor the inhabitants of your settlement any harm. I will leave her the same way I entered. Peacefully."

The oath soaked into my skin, his magic so intense I lost my breath for a moment. When I could speak, I bowed my head. "Then enter, Fenris. Drink and eat and rest your head in my home."

He placed a hand over his heart and tilted his head. "Thank you for your hospitality."

I pointed to the house. "I'll be there in a moment."

When he was almost to the house, Thor took me by the arm. "This is a mistake, Freya."

I pried his fingers away. "If this is a mistake, it is mine to make. Be wary of how you speak to me, Thor. This is not Asgard and I am no longer your father's wife."

I followed Fenris into my house hoping I hadn't doomed us all.

Chapter

Fenris stood like a stone inside of my kitchen - still and expressionless.

"Would you like something to drink?" I asked as I edged around him.

"I had a house like this once." His voice sounded hoarse. Emotion crept into the words and empathy flooded me. Fenris hadn't been old when he'd been chained.

"Did your mother cook?" I asked him. I'd made dinner not too long ago and there was none left, but I'd offer him guest rites and would make him whatever I could conjure up.

He smiled, but it was a sad and twisted thing. "No. We hunted and foraged for what we ate."

"Would you like me to cook you something?" I opened the refrigerator to hunt for something to cobble together.

Silence fell for a moment until he spoke haltingly. "You would do this for me?"

I straightened from my hunch. "Of course I would. You are Loki's son and therefore my own. If you would honor me, I'd like to make you sustenance." I gestured to the barstools. "You're welcome to sit and wait."

"You honor me, Freya. Not the other way around." He stared at the chair as if it had been too long since he'd seen one. Perhaps it had been. After a moment, he hovered over it and perched on the edge.

"Would you like something to drink?" I asked him again.

"Do you have any ale?" he asked, his voice hopeful. "I haven't had any in so long."

"It's your lucky day. I run a bar here. I have any kind of ale, wine, or mead your heart desires."

Fenris' strange eyes lit up. "I'd like something heartier if you have it."

"Of course." I held up a finger. "Give me a moment."

I left him in the kitchen and sent a warning glare to everyone who walked into the house as I headed to the back. Dagda and Thor had the grace to look sheepish. Morrigan gave me the middle finger and Gravelbeard rolled his eyes. Hopefully they didn't antagonize the ancient, dangerous werewolf in the time it took me to grab a six pack of beer from the cellar.

One could hope.

When I walked back in, Gravelbeard and Fenris were involved in a deep conversation about the best pressure points to bring an opponent down. Gravelbeard's eyes were wide and a slight pink flush had made its way onto his rounded cheeks.

Oh my. I think he had a man crush. I suppressed my smile and offered Fenris two choices - a cream ale I'd made before I left Asgard, and a peanut butter ale I'd created after I left. It had just become ready so I hadn't had the chance to sample it as much as I'd like to, but I'd pulled it out of the cooler and taken a tiny nip before I'd come back up. I thought it tasted amazing, but peanuts were an acquired taste.

"May I sample both?" he asked. His manners were impeccable. For someone chained to a rock for millennia, he sure could teach the people around me some lessons.

"Of course." I opened two bottles and poured him a little of both in two small shot glasses. When he tasted the peanut butter, his eyes widened. "What is that?" he breathed.

"Peanut butter and chocolate."

"Peanut?" A small frown appeared between his brows. "I do not know what that is. My mother had a fondness for chocolate." His voice trailed off.

"Peanuts are a legume," I said. "Many people think it's a nut, but it isn't. It belongs to the bean family. Chocolate is from the cocoa family. It's prevalent in Midgard."

"Then perhaps I shall bring my mother some if it is easy to find here."