Gilded

by Kendall Grey

  I lift a palm to stop Muninn from entering Gunnar Magnusson’s abode, but he zips around it as if he didn’t even notice me.

  “You can’t come in here,” I whisper loudly, chasing him through the living area, flailing and swatting at him, to no avail. “If Gunnar Magnusson wakes up …”

  I don’t want to admit this, but if Gunnar Magnusson lays eyes on Muninn, it would be bad. Really bad. Muninn is the physical embodiment of memory. He was there when I woke in my ice grave, and he’s the reason I remember who I am. Though the former raven was hanging around our van with Odin last night, I shooed Muninn away before Gunnar Magnusson could come face-to-beak with him. If Gunnar Magnusson had seen him, he’d be laying out my clothes every morning, packing me lunches filled with sickly-sweet love notes signed with a serpentine “S,” and nagging me about where I was last night. Last week. Month. Okay, maybe year.

  The point is, I can’t have my former wife recognizing his—her—husband. Wife. Whatever the Hel we are. Were.

  Ugh. Reincarnation is so confusing.

  “Step off, bitch,” Muninn says, swinging past me in a wide arc, showing off his hair-trigger ability to evade pursuit. Even with Laguz, my hyper-sensitive source of intuition, back where it belongs, I’m hard pressed to track his flight path. “I got business with my brother. This ain’t your concern.”

  I look at Huginn. “I don’t remember him being this rude before.”

  Huginn shrugs.

  “What’s the matter, Muninn? Did you get some inferiority complex stuck in your craw?” I adopt an aggressive scowl and swipe at the corner of my lips with the back of my hand. I saw Thor do that on Asgard Awakening. It’s a sign of manliness. That, or an inability to control one’s salivary glands. With Thor, one never knows. “You’re driving that hummingbird body like a boss, though I gotta say, it’s definitely a step down from your previous model.”

  Muninn swoops around faster than light and stabs my arse with the spike of his beak, sinking it an inch into my booty flesh, and putting a hole in my Thor underwear. I grab the spot, almost dropping Huginn in the process, and stifle a cry of pain. My hand comes away with blood. The little shite!

  “That’s it,” I sneer, setting Huginn on the floor. I point to the exit. “Get out. You two can have your little family reunion elsewhere. I don’t have to put up with this insulting behavior. I’m a god, for gods’ sakes. You should respect me.”

  Muninn snorts. At least, I think he snorts. It sounds like a high-pitched whistle punctuated with snot-sucking vibrato. He flits left and right, up and down. My fingers itch to grab him, but it’s like trying to catch the wind. Too bad I don’t have a net like the one I wove from my hut atop a waterfall back in the day. I invented nets, you know.

  You always were good at weaving, Laguz intones.

  I beam. I was, wasn’t I?

  Oh, stop looking at me like that. Weaving isn’t for sissies. It’s a craft of the clever. Where would you Midgardians get your precious sushi if not for me? I’m the sushi king. I should add that to my list of kennings.

  “Come on, Muninn,” Huginn clucks as he struts gingerly toward the door. “We’ll talk out here. Where it’s private.” He tosses me a blank look I can’t decipher. At least his eyes haven’t gone swirly.

  See, Huginn and me, we’ve been through a lot together. In my current incarnation, we started out as enemies, but through an odd series of events and some bro bonding over WeedPops during a raucous night on the town in New York, I grew to tolerate and eventually even like him. We’ve helped each other when it wasn’t in either of our best interests to do so. We’ve faced death together, and we came out the better for it.

  Suddenly, I’m not entirely sure I can trust him anymore, and that smarts.

  I want to trust him. I really do. I actually cried when I thought he was going to die. But he was Odin’s raven. He’s still connected to Allfather, and obviously to Muninn, whose loyalties I deeply question. It would break my heart if Huginn turned on me, but I can’t dismiss the possibility that it could happen.

  Laguz’s silence suggests it agrees. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer and all that jazz.

  “I’ll be back shortly.” Huginn’s wonky eyes meet mine.

  I lean against the door frame. “Don’t be long. You need your antibiotics.”

  Muninn lands on the floor in front of Huginn, crosses his bright green wings, and scowls at his brother. “Antibiotics are for pussies.”

  “Speaking of pussies.” I nod behind them. Ears flattened, a beautiful orange tabby cat slinks low along the landing, stalking the birds. He stops a few feet away. His arse end wiggles as he shifts weight between his back feet, preparing to pounce. His black pupils dilate and fill most of his yellow eyes. His whiskers twitch.

  Just as the cat leaps, Muninn achieves liftoff, leaving his brother to fend off the feline with his one good foot. “A little help, Loki?” Huginn begs between desperate slashes.

  I let the cat smack him a time or two so he’ll remember who’s boss. Then I grab the tabby and bring him inside the apartment, shutting the door behind me. I pet him while listening to the birds’ conversation through the wood.

  “I’m so happy you’re alive,” Huginn says. “Where have you been? What have you been up to?”

  “Odin has me doing bitch-ass shit,” Muninn replies. A note of disgust laces his words. “Spying, mostly.”

  “On whom?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Muninn deflects. “I came to deliver a message.”

  “Hit me.”

  I lean closer to the door. The cat dangling from my arm hisses and scratches me in a fury of claws.

  “Son of a troll whore!” Cursing under my breath at the welling blood on my hand, I drop the feline devil. He darts into Gunnar Magnusson’s room before I can stop him.

  “Shite,” I mumble, torn between following the cat and eavesdropping on the birds. I can’t have Gunnar Magnusson waking up with Muninn so close. I glance wistfully to the door, having missed whatever message Muninn delivered. The brother birds are quiet. They must know I’m listening.

  “What the—” Gunnar Magnusson howls.

  I trot into his room to find the cat, arse up with his tail pointing at the ceiling, kneading Freddie’s cheek. Gunnar Magnusson sits up, shoving the covers off his legs. His bare, buff chest doesn’t miss my notice. Heat washes over me. I quickly avert my eyes to focus on the cat’s butthole winking at me.

  “What the hell is the neighbor’s cat doing in here? And why did it piss all over the bed?” Gunnar Magnusson lifts his hands with disgust, and then rubs his damaged arm.

  Freddie purses his lips in sleep, oblivious to the racket and his own mush-mouth. The tabby purrs, making bread all over his face, both of them happy as can be. Then Gunnar Magnusson notices his best mate in the bed beside him. Eyes wide, he snatches the yellow-stained, formerly white blanket with his good hand to cover himself as if warding off some testosterone-carried plague.

  I burst into laughter. I couldn’t have engineered such chaos if I’d tried. I silently thank the neighbor’s cat.

  “What h-happened?” Gunnar Magnusson’s deep voice trembles as the scene before him seems to sink in.

  “Isn’t it obvious?” I say. “You, Freddie, and I had an epic orgy last night. We were so rowdy, the walls shook like thunder with our exertions. Your neighbors threatened to call the police after they heard you screaming Freddie’s name. I believe you shouted, ‘Give it to me, Freaky Freddie! I haven’t eaten in days, and I’ve got a hankering for a Royale with cheese to go with this shake.’ Or something to that effect.”

  On our recent road trip, Freddie showed me a clip of an actor called Samuel L. Jackson talking about hamburgers in a film called Pulp Fiction. I now want to watch every Samuel L. Jackson movie ever made. Freddie says it will take me a few weeks to get through them all. Apparently, Samuel L. Jackson is in a lot of movies. He should play a giant on Asgard Awakening. They wouldn’t even have to CGI him to look b
ig. He’s larger than life on his own.

  I polish my nails on the belly of my wife beater. “Freddie wanted to bring in the cat, but I told him I drew the line at animals.” I snicker at the lie. I’ve totally done animals. In animal form. Get your minds out of the gutter, plebs.

  Gunnar Magnusson’s hand twitches on the covers. His other one flies to his forehead, and he grinds the heel of his palm there. “We had sex?”

  “Not just any sex. The best sex you’ve ever had,” I add helpfully. I shrug. “That’s what you said last night.”

  Avoiding my gaze, he plants his massive feet on the floor and stands unsteadily.

  “Your face is pale. Are you all right?” I ask, knowing he is not all right by any measure of rightness.

  “I’m just going to use the …” he gestures toward the bathroom and makes a run for it.

  I clap with delight. If illicit tales of a ménage à trois with his bisexual best mate and a Norse god-turned-human-woman don’t keep Gunnar Magnusson at bay, nothing will.

  “Thank you, Laguz,” I say, tipping my head to the ancient scar on my pelvis.

  Most welcome, master.

  I glance to the bed. The cat curls around Freddie’s head like a helmet, purring as he pumps his claws through Freddie’s hair.

  “What are you so happy about, Sparky?” I heard a man call a cat by that name on a commercial break during Asgard Awakening. It’s a good name.

  Sparky studies me between heavy lids, his top fangs jutting over his bottom lip in a condescending feline smile. This human’s hair entertains me, his slit pupils seem to say. What’s not to be happy about?

  Gunnar Magnusson’s exertions in the bathroom as he wrestles his stomach for rights to his hangover interrupt our silent dialogue. I grin at the mess I’ve made.

  Until I remember I left Odin’s bird-brained spies conspiring against me outside.

  I rush out of the bedroom, leaving the snoring Freddie alone with his new hair stylist. When I open the front door, Huginn is standing on the threshold, waving a crooked wing at his brother, who hovers a few feet beyond the landing.

  “Just remember, Huginn,” Muninn bellows in his deep baritone, “not all that glitters is gold, bitch.”

  He zips away in a big hurry when I fill the frame and plant my feet protectively on either side of Huginn.

  I really dislike that little shite Muninn.

  “Hey, Muninn,” I call after him. “Give the old goat a message for me, will you?”

  The hummingbird pauses, turns around, and dangles in the air column like a miniature helicopter with Samuel L. Jackson attitude.

  I turn an invisible crank attached to my fist, raising my middle finger to full staff. I learned that trick from New Yorkers. Such a lovely, spirited bunch.

  “Pussy.” Muninn shakes and lifts his tail feathers, releasing a dollop of bird shite. An incoming breeze catches and chucks it at me. Thanks to my Laguz-powered reflexes, I manage to duck, but the poo splats and slides down the wall of Gunnar Magnusson’s apartment.

  “That guy is such an arsehole,” I mumble as I shut the door. Huginn struts jerkily into the sparsely apportioned living area, trailing loose bandages, eyes forward. I cut a sideways glance to him. “What did he want with you, anyway?”

  Huginn flaps his wings dismissively. “Just catching up. Nothing to worry about.”

  There’s definitely something to worry about, Laguz hums.

  Yeah-huh, I agree.

  “Did you two hug it out after being apart for so long?” I ask. “Planning a play date for later?”

  With his back to me, Huginn chortles nervously. “Always so paranoid, Loki. Everything’s fine.”

  I cross my arms over my chest and study him. “I never suggested anything was wrong.”

  “Can I have my medicine now?” he deflects. He won’t look at me.

  I grab the bag I left on the floor when we stumbled in last night, root around, and pull out the bottle of pills the veterinarian sent for Huginn. I dole one out and squat, offering it to him in my open palm. He wanders over and angles his head up at me. I see in his outward pointing eyes what I feared: betrayal. My stomach lurches.

  After all we’ve been through. He’s going to screw me over.

  He leans over to peck the pill. I close my hand into a fist before he can snatch it.

  “Don’t make me regret trusting you, Huginn. I swore an oath not to kill you, but it doesn’t mean I can’t hurt you,” I say softly. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  I let the but I will if I have to hang unspoken in the suddenly swampy air between us.

  The feeling of suffocation from my dream returns, squeezing my chest like Narfi’s entrails lashing me to the stones before Ragnarok. A metallic taste pools in the back of my mouth. I swallow it.

  I toss the pill onto the carpet for Huginn to snap up and walk away, clamping my hands to my sides to keep them from shaking.

  Chapter Three

  “There’s no food in this place,” I call as I open and shut the cabinets in Gunnar Magnusson’s kitchen.

  He wanders meekly out of the bedroom wearing a towel around his hips, his injured arm hanging in its drab white sling. Wavy, wet blond hair clings to his broad shoulders, and lickable raindrops from the shower sprinkle his pecs. A thatch of pale down dusts his chest. My fingers yearn to tease it. The two sets of crisscrossing black stitches marring his forehead and cheek take nothing away from his handsomeness. According to the quiver in my gut, my body thinks the wounds are rather sexy.

  I clear my throat and eschew the white-hot lust, forcing myself to study him through the lens of objectivity. Strange how little he looks like Sigyn.

  I glance down at myself. I suppose I don’t look much like Loki either, so we’re even.

  I don’t know how I’m supposed to think of her. Him? Is there even a trace of Sigyn underneath that very male Viking veneer? If she were awakened like I was, would she identify as Sigyn or Gunnar Magnusson?

  I shake my head. Not going there. Sigyn is off limits, therefore Gunnar Magnusson is off limits. I need to keep my eyes north of the towel line. Naturally, they slip south in blatant violation of good sense. I swallow hard. Retarget my gaze higher up. Get snagged on the mountains of his pecs. Swallow again.

  Ugh. I turn around and face the cabinets, slamming them without looking inside. I already know they’re empty.

  “We need some goats,” I announce. “Five or six should be enough for dinner tonight.” I’ll admit, my appetite isn’t what it used to be. I absently rub my grumbling stomach.

  The sounds of chair legs scraping across the floor signal he’s taking a seat behind me. “I’m sorry, Loki.”

  I cock my ear in his direction and lower my hands. Huginn wanders past my feet and sits in the corner.

  “There’s nothing to be sorry about,” I say, unsure of what he’s apologizing for.

  “Can you at least look at me?”

  I sigh and turn around slowly. Leaning my butt against the countertop, I kick a foot over the other and rest it against my ankle. Gunnar Magnusson stares up at me, raw regret laid out like a flayed sacrifice on his battered face.

  “I drank too much last night,” he begins, averting his gaze to a speck of dirt on the floor. “Alcohol and the pain medication made for a bad combination. I don’t normally … do stuff like that.”

  It’s all I can do not to blurt a laugh. I press my lips together and manage to hold it back. The poor bloke is beating himself up because he believes he behaved dishonorably with Freddie and me? Dear gods, he really is Sigyn underneath all that man-fur and muscle.

  I ease into the chair opposite him at the kitchen table and drum my fingers on its top. “You mustn’t blame yourself. We were all a little inebriated. Let’s pretend it never happened, shall we?”

  He nods, shooting some side eye in the direction of the bedroom where Freddie’s snores threaten to loosen the paint from the walls. “Yes. Good idea.”

  “That’s solved, then.” I stan
d and go to the refrigerator. Nothing in there either, damn it. I look back at Gunnar Magnusson. “So, about those goats. Where can I get some?”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Of course.”

  “I don’t know any place that sells livestock. We’ll have to make a grocery run,” he replies.

  “Good. Then you can show me around this Atlanta, and we’ll plot our next move for how to get my other three runes back.”

  In my peripheral vision, Huginn ducks his head guiltily.

  “And Huginn will help since he keeps Odin’s counsel. Right, Huginn?” I prod.

  Squark, he mumbles.

  Gunnar Magnusson studies the bird, then turns to me with a curious expression. “Where’s your rune? The one you found last night?”

  I pat my hip. “Safe where it belongs.”

  His gaze drifts to the spot. He looks like he wants to ask to see the proof but seems to think better of it.

  I pad over and yank the waistband of my Thor booty shorts down to show him. The scar where my mother Laufey sliced open my hip shortly after I was born and removed the chip of bone beneath lights up with a faint white glow. Laguz pulses under the surface. Gunnar Magnusson’s eyes widen, and he passes his fingers over the scar. My skin tingles at his touch. Something within him calls to me. I feel compelled to answer.

  He’s too close. I pull away and tug my shorts into place.

  “You told the truth,” he marvels, his voice airy, incredulous.

  Does he feel the electricity arcing between us? If he touches me again, I will jump him.

  I back up. “Of course I did,” I stammer. “Why would I lie about such a thing?”

  “All this time I thought you were full of shit,” he says. He looks like he’s just taken the flat of a broad sword across the nose. “How did you find it? What does it do? Are you really the god Loki?”

  “You did miss all the fun last night,” I muse. “Yes. I’m Loki. I’ve been telling you so ever since we met.”

  He was pretty drunk in the ballroom when Heimdall and Odin showed up and whisked me away to Asgard right in the middle of the costume ball. He also had several beauties dressed as Asgard Awakening goddesses hanging off his arms while I was jailbreaking Laguz from its cage. I don’t fault him for not paying attention.