Winter Fire (Book I of the Winter Fire Series)

I snuck back into the suite, padded to my room and changed into a pair of sweatpants and an old t-shirt. Then I wrenched on my sneakers and threw my hair up into a loose ponytail. Grabbing my jacket, I slipped out the door.

  In the lobby, Sydney peered around her book and grinned at me.

  “This is new,” she said. “Usually when you sneak back in it’s for the night. Got two boyfriends now?”

  “No,” I said with a guilty smile. “But thanks for not ratting me out.”

  She turned up a palm. “Hey, I warned you, but I’m not going to mess with your life." Her grin widened. "My house was on a cul-de sac. Try climbing out a second story window at midnight under those conditions. There were at least three dads up gawking at internet porn at any given time, so you were bound to get caught.” She slid back behind her book. I laughed and headed outside.

  It would be dark for a while yet, but the clouds were breaking apart like chunks of ice in a river as they rode the night sky. I crunched across the deck and down the stairs, turning to look out over the mountain. My gaze climbed far up into the hills, where Ringsaker lay hidden in a thicket of forest green, then down to the break in the treetops that hinted at the bonfire site beneath. The blanket of snow stretching toward it reminded me of the night Bren walked me home. The night he had found me on the trail and held me while soft flakes drifted around us. I let my eyes stray to the first row of condos, the end unit the only one visible from where I stood. It was number 209. I needed 217.

  I urged myself forward and cleared my mind, thought of nothing that could deter me as I crossed the clearing. My footsteps slowed when I rounded the corner of the row. The main hotel and lodge were now obscured, but I kept moving. 217 was the last unit. I stood at the bottom of the wooden steps for a moment, staring at the black numbers on the door, then braced my hand on the rail and climbed.

  I paused, my fist in the air, then tapped on the door three times. There was no time for my fear to build. Instead, it exploded in my body as the door eased open and dark eyes met mine.

  I staggered back a step and caught myself, taking him in. He was shirtless, white lounging pants cinched just below his hipbones and long enough to cover most of his bare feet. His hair was pushed back in shaggy tufts, the finger grooves still fresh, and his eyes were already changing from black to a cool, wet blue. He stared at me for a moment, then stepped back against the open door and waited.

  I gazed into the darkness behind him, suddenly sure I had made a mistake and trying to remember what I had been thinking as I lay on Bren’s chest concocting this madness.

  “If you’re so afraid, then why did you come?” His voice was soft.

  I opened my mouth. No sound came and I tried again. “I wanted to talk to you.”

  He pressed his shoulder against the door and slipped a hand into his pocket. “I’m not going to stand on this threshold for long, Jenna. Either come in or don’t.”

  I agonized, reminding myself what was at stake. I peered into the gloom again. “Can you at least turn on some lights?”

  “What do you need to see?” But when he pushed himself off the door and strolled back into the darkness, I saw his silhouette reach toward a wall and a moment later a warm glow radiated in all directions. It was the light over the dining room table, and although it was dimmed, I could now make out the layout of the place. A kitchen to the right with the dining room beyond the breakfast bar. A living room farther along. To the left, a bathroom, and a staircase that I assumed led up to the bedrooms. The entire condo was done in neutral tones - beige carpet, tan furniture, light blue walls - and Loki looked strange standing in the middle of it, like a diamond ring lost in a sandbox.

  He spread his arms in what had become a familiar gesture, waiting. I stepped over the threshold, pulled my hands from my pockets, and nearly hit the ceiling as the door closed behind me. My heart pounded.

  “My bad,” he said. “I forget. You people like to do everything manually.”

  “We don’t have a choice,” I said, using the small talk to smooth out my voice.

  “So they say.”

  Behind him, Fenrir rose from the floor in the living room, his golden eyes glistening in the low light. I was stricken again by his size, my body growing cold as he trotted toward me. He leaned against my legs as he had the last time I'd met him, and I braced myself so that I could stroke his insistent muzzle. Now, the image of him swallowing a god whole flashed through my mind. Fenrir lifted his eyes in question, as though he had felt my tension. He licked my hand and then pushed his head underneath it. I resumed scratching his ears. Whatever his history, he did not seem to be hungry now.

  Loki huffed and shook his head at Fenrir. Then he turned and walked into the living room, the lean muscles of his back flexing as he motioned to the loveseat against the wall. He watched me creep forward, Fenrir sidling me and peering up into my face, and smirked bitterly as I stepped in a wide arc around him and lowered myself on the edge of a cushion. Fenrir dropped to the carpet and rested his chin on my sneaker. Loki took the adjacent couch and reclined into the pillows, his hands laced across his stomach. He stared at me and let the minutes spin out between us.

  “Did I wake you up?” I asked.

  “No.”

  Another minute passed.

  “Did you know I was coming?”

  He flipped his palms and then laced his hands together again. “Why waste time tapping into you when you’re supposed to be asleep? Although your dreams may be interesting.”

  Not to you, I thought.

  “Why not? Only room for Bren in the recesses of your mind?”

  “Can you not do that?” I folded my arms and sat back against the cushions.

  He leaned forward and clasped his hands between his knees. “You came to me. Not the other way around. Unlike your boyfriend, I don’t feel some humane duty to respect your privacy. I’ll do what I have to do.”

  “You know I’m no threat to you,” I said, desperate to keep the exchange calm.

  He smiled and stared at me for a long time before he spoke.

  “What do you want, Jenna?”

  “I want to know why you’re doing this.”

  “You know why.”

  “I don’t. I mean, I know you’re here for Bren, for all of them. I know Thor helped you escape from…wherever.” His eyes darkened and I hurried on. “But what’s in it for you? If the cycle continues, won’t you just end up, you know, in the same…predicament?”

  Hoping my words would settle in him, I looked down and stroked the soft fur on Fenrir’s back. Loki watched me for a while.

  “My…predicament, did you call it? Has little to do with the battle. It’s a detail. It can be altered.”

  I looked up at him. “So that’s what happened? You made a deal with Thor that if you brought them back, you’d be free?” I scratched at my arm. “Even after you… even after all the things you’ve done?”

  “That’s the catch.” He gave me a cynical smile. “Unlike your politicians, the gods have a vague sense of justice. I would still have to live…elsewhere…until the battle commences.”

  “Elsewhere.”

  He glanced down at his hands. “Hel. One L. Not where you’re thinking of, but not far off. Only the elite of Asgard get to retire there.” He reclined again and slung one arm over the back of the sofa. “The monstrous, the criminal…the insane." He gave me a wild grin.

  I drew back and raised a brow. “You get banished to this place for being mentally unstable? Forever?”

  “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave. Hotel California. The Eagles. Before your time, I’d imagine.”

  “I know the song.” I said testily.

  He touched two fingers to his head in apology, then he fixed his eyes on mine. I stared at his irises, alive now with a red flicker.

  “There are bloody scratches on the walls of Hel,” he whispered. “But there ar
e no doors.”

  Scarlet flared around his pupils, the fiery rings of twin eclipses. I felt suffering, death, saw the faces of tortured strangers and wanted to look away, but I was trapped. My stomach lurched with disgust, then panic, and finally with a hopeless grief that twisted miserably inside me. For a moment, I couldn’t remember who held me here, in this sadness. And then it was drawing back, the black hole shrinking, the world filling in around me once again. I gasped like I had been drowning, and clutched at the arm of the loveseat. Fenrir stood at my knee, his massive head turned toward Loki, a low growl issuing from deep in his throat.

  “Yes,” Loki said, nodding, his eyes sharp on mine. “Hel is unkind. But it's a day at the beach compared to where I’ve been. Do you like the beach, Jenna?”

  I grabbed at Fenrir’s fur and waited to catch my breath.

  “I came here to see if there was some other way,” I said, my voice trembling. “This deal you made with Thor, it can’t possibly be the best you can do.”

  “What do you suggest? That I get a good lawyer? Blame my upbringing? Plead for rehab?” He held his hands up, his voice filling with mock remorse. “I didn’t mean to kill and torture all those gods. It’s just that my parents were so hard on me, and I have low self-esteem.”

  I shook my head. “How can you joke about this? About what’s going to happen to you?”

  He sighed, propped his head against his palm. “Most horror is funny. Haven’t you noticed?”

  “Can’t you stay here?” It was the question I had come to ask. The only idea I had to keep him from doing whatever it was he planned to do. I wondered if anyone from Asgard would come after him.

  “Of course they would. Do you think they’d just let me roam around here, causing mayhem?” He raised his eyebrows twice and smiled. “I love that word. Mayhem. Its origins are from the Old High German for crazy. Did you know that?”

  “No. What if you just…you know…lived here. Peacefully. Without causing any trouble. Would they come after you if you didn’t do anything wrong?”

  He leaned forward until he was just a few inches from me. I squashed the urge to pull back, tufts of Fenrir’s fur springing out from between my fingers as I clenched and unclenched my hand. A hint of a smile remained on Loki’s lips, but his eyes were hard.

  “I have already ‘done things wrong.’ I would be a fugitive. I escape only at the destruction, to fight in the battle.” He grinned. “For the other side of course. But this makes no difference to the elders. All must play their role, and they would drag me back in an instant.” He gestured toward me. “Unlike your friends, I don’t have an oath circle to protect me.”

  I thought of what Bren had said - that in Asgard, he and his family were no better than criminals. I wondered if there was any way they would consider harboring Loki, letting him into their circle, if it meant they could all stay.

  Loki’s eyes were still fixed on mine. “You’re crazier than I am,” he said.

  “There’s got to be a way.” I straightened up. “I could ask them. I'd talk to Frieda first and if she -”

  He grabbed my arms and glared down into my face. I heard Fenrir growl but it was far away, beyond the fear that had suddenly closed around me.

  “I am not some misunderstood soul for you to pity and try to save,” he said in a wicked hiss. My heart pounded hard enough to shake my body and my arms throbbed under his hands. His hair had fallen into his face. His irises were crimson now, the color of blood. He stared into me for a moment, searching, then pushed me away from him and sat back again. "Go away, Jenna. I'm tired of this game.”

  I didn’t speak or move for a long time. When I thought I could trust my legs, I rose, using Fenrir for support, and looked out the living room windows to see if the dark had paled.

  “Beautiful and strange, In her fragile bravery, Waiting for the light.”

  I glanced down at him. His eyes had turned the powder blue that would wash over the sky not long from now.

  “Haiku,” he said.

  “I know. The author?”

  “Anonymous.” He said the words deliberately, the same way he had said ‘Alaskan Malamute’ the night I’d met him.

  I turned back to the window. I had worn what would pass for pajamas in case my mother was up when I got home. If she was, I would tell her I wanted to have my coffee on the deck, as I had done every morning of winter vacation, before the world had spun off its axis.

  “She’s still asleep.” Loki said. “But you are already caught.”

  I felt the blood drain from my face.

  “Skye is listening,” he said.

  I had known it was a possibility, and had taken the chance anyway. It could have been worse.

  “To me or to you?”

  He lifted his chin at me. I knew Bren wasn’t in on it, because he’d have been here by now.

  “I’ve been blocking him."

  I stared at him, the second half of my question hanging in the air between us.

  “She’ll tell him,” he said.

  I sighed and let my shoulders drop. It was not how I had wanted things to go, but I had known the risks, and as I stood there, I realized I was more afraid of Bren’s anger than I was of Loki.

  Loki’s laugh was a whisper. He shook his head as I let myself out into the cold, dark morning.

  Chapter 28