by A. K. Koonce
The energy within me wavers when I’m fully out of the threat of being buried alive. My knees give out, but the mound of debris around my legs doesn’t let me fully fall.
His body brushes mine, and in one big swoop, my feet are lifted from the ground. The beautiful, dust-covered warrior flings me over his shoulder. And Torben carries me out of the mess I’ve made.
“Aric’s house is just up ahead and now I can’t decide if you’re a badass or just batshit crazy,” he grunts as he steps through the rubble and out into the suddenly quiet night of the Realm of Niflheim.
“Both,” I mumble. “It’s probably both.”
7
The Horde
Aric
The wise words of a skilled melody flow through my one-room mansion like glass breaking across jagged rocks. The quick tempo is one the realm of the living didn’t discover until recently. The last four decades or so. Vows of anarchy and fire burn into the lyrics.
It’s a true masterpiece.
Just like the one I’m looking at.
My brow arches high as I gaze at my newest piece. It rests delicately on the Greek ivory pedestal I once picked up while catching a runaway light elf in Rome.
I take a slow pull of my whiskey. A long, dreamy sigh slips from my lips. This one gives me so much heartache to look at. Maybe I shouldn’t display it like the others. The high, arching black walls of my home press down too harshly on the soft red material. It’s a lonely sensation to look at it. It calls to the soul. That’s what good art does to you.
Maybe this one should be just for me and my worn heart.
I peer down the long line of displays. The small black glove of Napoleon’s is to my right. It’s a prized piece from that time I beat him in a round of chess. I admit I intended to cheat, but the poor bastard was terrible at the sport.
To my left is another prize of mine.
It’s small in size. Approximately one-and-three-quarter-inches long. Still holds the hue of a fiery sun. Just like the day they made it in 1948.
The very first toasted corn.
Cheetos. Man will never create another like it. I’m convinced they peaked on that day in ’48.
But this one. This piece is special. The cast-iron light above it haloes the red lace in a heavenly way.
Just the way I remember her.
Unimaginably perfect. Too beautiful to touch. But if you dare—which, of course, I do—her body is just like this. Delicate as lace. Intoxicating to the feel.
“So fucking sensual,” I whisper to myself, my words wafting around the enormous room.
“. . . Aric . . .”
I lift my gaze to the matte black wall ahead of me and consider the soft sound I just heard. Voices crawl in sometimes. It’s a result of my own drafty whispers. They’re like a scatter of spiders; you startle one, and they all get in a panic to move about.
“I should stop talking to myself.”
“. . . Aric?”
My head tilts slowly as I assess my sanity with a slow sip of my whiskey. Nope. My mind is a fortress of stability. As sane as I’ve ever been.
No voices. Not today.
“Aric, would you just—fucking look at me!? At least offer me a hand across this . . . shit!”
I take a long sip of my whiskey as I consider that possibly I should check in with my demon therapist down the road . . .
If I turn and acknowledge the words, then it’ll only give them life. No need to encourage something that isn’t there.
“You’re not real,” I tell the phantom voice that sounds all too much like the memory of the woman who’s constantly in my head.
“Fuck you! You have no idea what I did to get here! The very least you could do is pull me out of this fucking horde of stuffed animals!”
My lashes lift high as my eyes grow wide and fearful.
“Not the Beanies,” I murmur to myself before spinning quickly to finally give the voice my attention.
And there she is.
. . . I think. Gods, I hope I’m not finally losing my mind after all these centuries.
But if I were to let go of reality, I’d do it for her.
I’d bask in the madness of my mind just to see her beautiful face one more time. I suppose this is what basking feels like: like the floors fallen away, and the world no longer makes sense.
Because Rhys Love is flailing with just her midsection, arms, and head peeking out of a mountain of highly collectable mint-condition Ty Beanie Babies (Still in the original packaging, of course).
“Rhys, Love.” I lift my hands slowly as I carefully cross the room to go to her. “Those are very important artifacts. Please stop—stop throwing them, darling.”
“Torben is waiting outside! Get me out of this. Why do you have these? There are thousands here. Why?”
“It’s an investment, Love. You—you wouldn’t understand.” I rush to rescue her, taking each piece one at a time and setting them carefully into a newly sorted pile on the glossy, black floor.
“Aric!” Her arm lifts, and she flings several into a wall as she takes a giantess step forward, probably crushing the Beanie life out of so many little ones that I can’t even see.
“Oh gods,” I whisper, my heart seizing as if their pain is my own.
She staggers closer to me in the sea of Ty tags, and as she falls forward from the waves of beautiful plush beanies, she clutches one in her meaty little fist, squeezing the life out of it without care.
“Rhys, Love, please put Princess Diana down. Please, I beg you.” My knees nearly give out as I look up at the crumbled face of the deep purple bear.
She looks up at me then. Her confused gaze slipping from me to the beaten Beanie in her hand. Slowly, she lowers her war cry of a fist, offering me Princess Diana like the symbol of peace that she is. With shaking hands, I take it from her, carefully placing it atop the pile of my collection to my left.
Then it’s just us.
The face I’ve dreamed about for nights on end is looking up at me with the sweetest pale blue eyes. Staring into her gaze is like looking into the skies. And finally understanding heaven.
“You’re okay,” she whispers on a breathless tone.
My palm lingers between us, daring to inch closer and closer until she, too, feels the pull and settles her face against my hand. Soft porcelain skin meets my fingertips. Thick lashes flutter closed at the brush of my touch against her jawline. I’m drawn to draw her. I find myself tracing the sweet angle of her face, her cheek, her jaw. I don’t know when it happens, but I’m holding her with both hands suddenly. Only heavy breaths separate us as I cling to her and she clings to me.
A horde of unspoken words suffocates us but in the best possible way. It’s like if we don’t speak, nothing is wrong. Every single thing is right in this moment. And I just want to hold on to it for a little longer.
Until I can’t any more.
“Are those my panties?”
My eyes open slowly to that strange question. She’s peering around my shoulder to the brilliant lighting I just installed above the sleek ivory pedestal. To shine down on . . . yeah . . . her panties. The red lace ones that I knew I should have kept for only myself.
“Uh . . . you know . . . I don’t know. Are they your panties? I found them on a mountain. Can’t remember when, exactly . . .” My voice trails off, but the pure cutting look of disbelief in her pretty eyes tells me I should have shut the hell up several moments ago. “Okay! They’re your panties. I—I held on to them for safekeeping and then . . . as a memento. Something that held me closer to a solitary moment in my life when I felt entirely wanted.”
Her features soften, but there’s still so much confusion in her gaze when she peers around the wide-open room filled to the literal ceiling with piles of unsorted treasures.
“A memento you’ve displayed in this museum of strange and bizarre collections.” Her attention comes back to me once more.
My smile is so wide it hurts when I beam at the one person who a
ctually gets it. “Exactly! Yes! Thank you for seeing it as it truly is!” She’s so fucking incredible. No one gets me like she does.
“You’re collecting things from the places you’ve been—the people you’ve met—to make up for the places you can’t be and the people you’ll never see again.”
My heartbeat staggers at her explanation of my trophies. Sharp pain slices into my chest, but it’s quickly smoothed over.
“No.” I shake my head at her and pull her over to the first pedestal of fine art. “It’s a collection. I’m a collector. It’s no different than a museum.”
“Museums show things that once were, Aric.” Her tone is a tragic, pitying thing.
Another bubble of discomfort lodges into me, stealing some of the air in my lungs.
“No. No. No. It’s—just look at this one.” I pull her by the arm over to the mysterious mask on the small pedestal in the corner. “Do you know what this is?”
She reaches out to the burial mask I found in the heart of the Valley of the Kings, but I swipe her hand away like a quick cat.
“Haunted, darling. It’s probably haunted. Never touch stolen artifacts, Love.”
Her brows scrunch with even more heavy confusion, her lips parting without words to fill them.
I know the feeling: awestruck.
Pride swells in my chest, and I don’t think I’ve stopped looking at her since the moment she put down Princess Di. Her hair, though filled with chunks of dried dirt and a bit of blood, is as soft as I remember. My fingers tangle in the ends of her pale locks.
Cool fingertips skim up my stomach. Nerves ignite beneath her palms like fire to gasoline.
“I missed you so fucking much,” I whisper sharply against her temple.
The quiet laughter that shakes out of her is cutting against a jagged breath that escapes her lungs. And then I’m holding her against me. I can’t keep her at arm’s length. I want to feel every part of her and know everything is just as I left it.
Because I left her in the midst of Hell.
And still she came back for me.
Even if I don’t fucking deserve it.
“Is this what you do?” She pulls back from me just slightly, just enough to peer up at me in my arms. “You put on jeans and fuzzy house slippers and stride around shirtless in your mansion listening to riot music like a retired rockstar?”
An entitled smile pulls at the corner of my lips at the image she’s painted of me.
“Rockstars never retire, Love. They just rock a bit quieter. In more comfortable slippers.”
Her fingers stroke back and forth along my shoulders, sending delicious temptation all through my nerves at what I know the two of us can feel like together. The memory of us is imprinted on my brain like a scar that I hope never heals.
“You’re alone, Aric,” she whispers, her smile fading from her pretty face. She looks up at me with pitying eyes that I hate to see.
“I’m never alone. My memories are all around me. I’ll never be alone.”
“Memories.” She shakes her head sadly at me, still with her tragic gaze held on mine.
“I’m imprisoned, but I haven’t been alone,” I tell her once more. “For the last several days, I’ve been in my head.” My chin tilts lower as I whisper against her lips. “With the memories of you.”
A gasp is her only reply, and it shakes out against my tongue before I claim her mouth with my own. Her tongue lashes against mine, our hands gripping tighter, bodies melding together so hard, it’s like we won’t allow time or space to ever get between us again.
I fucking won’t let it.
Time is a bastard. He slips in and dwells on for far too long. And sometimes . . . he leaves all too quickly.
“I have to go,” Rhys murmurs against the press of my lips as I kiss her cutting words away.
My hand tangles in her hair, roughly pulling her harder against me, and her pleasure hums across my tongue. There’s a fight within us that’s showing itself with every ounce of affection we show each other. There’s a violence in our passion now.
Because neither of us wants to admit that this can’t last.
My hands find her hips, and the shirt she’s wearing as a dress is pushed up her lush thighs. Every part of her is soft and intoxicating and . . .
“Shit, Rhys,” I groan into her, growling more than ever the moment I realize there’s nothing beneath the shirt.
Not a single scrap of lace even separates her sweet cunt from my touch.
“I—I have to—,” she says.
And then my index finger parts her pussy lips. Her wetness soaks over my palm with the slow exploration I make even lower. The exhale that slips between us is jagged and cutting and needy as fuck.
“You have to go,” I remind her, my mind and my body at war with what has to be done in this moment.
It hurts with a physical splitting in my very soul to imagine letting her go.
Again.
Even if I know Torben is keeping her as safe as he can.
It isn’t enough.
“I have to leave,” she echoes.
I nod as she kisses me so hard, her nails bite into my shoulders to drag me even closer. Sharp pain and pleasure burn through me. All because of this beautiful woman.
Fuck. That’s it.
I pull back from her and kick off the house slippers. Her balance wavers as she staggers back from me without my body there to support hers. But I quickly stride toward the door and start lacing up my dirty boots.
“What—I’m sorry, what?” she asks without an ounce of clarity in her tone.
“Let’s go,” I huff. I peer around the room at every item I’ve ever treasured.
And I honestly don’t give a single fuck if I ever see any of it again. If Hela puts me in a place worse than this . . . I’ll take it. I’ll take the punishment if I get one more night with my Goddess of Love. I’ll go anywhere she goes. No matter the price.
“Go where?” she asks as I swing open the heavy, black door.
My eyes burn into hers.
I’ll never let time slip in between us again.
Or even the Queen of Hell, for that matter.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here, Love.”
And just like that, I’ve made a choice.
I’ll fight for Rhys Love. I’ve never even fought for myself.
But I’ll fight for us.
8
Love Magic
Rhys
“We have to go,” Torben says the moment I step out of the strange house that’s built right into the ground like a bomb shelter. The door slams shut against the muddy earth, and I turn in time to Aric squatting down to use an old skeleton key to lock up his home sweet home.
But I haven’t seen him yet.
I haven’t seen for myself that Latham’s okay.
My lashes flutter, and I can still feel the strange sensual fluttering of his words whispering in my mind.
“Latham,” I say on a soft tone, just loud enough to cause the two men around me to pause what they’re doing. It doesn’t matter though. Because I’m not speaking to them. “Latham?” I call out quietly once more.
Go. Get back to safety, Love.
My eyes flash open then at the sound of his tormentedly soft tone, and I stare up at the warrior god.
“Take me to him,” I command.
“You’re—” His hand shoves down his beard hard as he turns away before turning right back to me with all that pent-up anger he always has. “You’re fucking failing, Princess. You think Hela doesn’t know what goes on in her realms? She does. And if she hasn’t come to kill us yet, it’s only because she’s enjoying this game.”
A game. It’s always a cruel, cruel game for her, isn’t it?
My life isn’t a fucking game.
And neither are theirs.
“Take me to him!”
“He’s in Neverend,” Aric says vacantly. Cryptically.
Torben shakes his head hard.
I k
now he’s just waiting to roar about all the things we shouldn’t be doing and how we need to get back and la-de-da-da.
“Let’s go,” the annoyed god barks with a dramatic wave of his hands as if he’s lost all grip on his life and everyone in it.
A big smile pulls across my face as I watch him storm off toward whatever Neverend is.
“You’ve trained him nicely, Love,” Aric whispers, bumping his elbow into mine as we follow after the man now muttering to himself about being told what to do by a woman half his size.
And now I’m smiling even harder.
The night feels cold as we stride out of the eerie city and out into the empty nothingness of this land.
“Do you think you have this effect on all three of us because you’re a love goddess?” Aric asks flippantly.
“She doesn’t have an effect on me,” Torben grunts just as Aric rolls his pretty russet eyes at his friend.
“Right. Whatever you say. I’m sure your cock gets hard for adventures into the slums of Hell all the time. Bet you’re out here in my domain vacationing whenever you get the chance.”
“Shut up, Dragon.” Torben doesn’t even look back at the two of us as we tread behind him.
“Hasn’t even come for a visit since the world went crazy with too much peace and love back in the sixties and he thought it was all going to come to an end.” Aric shakes his head happily as he reminisces but eventually turns back to me. “Do you though? Think that we’re just under a love spell of some kind?”
My mouth opens and closes at that . . .
“Are you . . . are you in love with me?” I look up at his sharp features, the shadows painting across his face with an even wilder, dark allure.
His shoulders lift lightly.
“I know that you’re different,” he says quietly after some time. “I’ve never felt the things you make me feel.”
“So you assume it’s magic?”
His laughter chimes out loud and clear into the night, sending shivers of addiction all through my body.
