by Nora Ash
Something panged again—this time in my gut rather than abdomen. A whisper of a warning. Or, more likely, a warning whisper from the scrambled eggs I’d consumed on the flight a few hours ago. I forced myself to stop gnawing on my bottom lip and asked, “When?”
“Soon, Annabel,” he answered, and for the second time, the way my name left his lips, so sweet and syrupy, stopped me in my tracks. “But for now, I would like to introduce you to my brothers.”
“Okay. Are they as…” Insufferable. “...uh, charismatic as you?”
“They are alphas too, if that’s what you’re asking,” he said, flinty eyes turned almost jade by the sunlight. “Don’t worry—we don’t bite. Much.”
There were a million things I wanted to say next, many of them scathing, some of them involving only four letters. But none would come. I opened and closed my mouth several times, intending to say them all, but all I could manage was an indignant squeaking sound as heat prickled in my cheeks.
Saga regarded me for a time, an expectant eyebrow raised, but when no tirade came, he just chuckled and swaggered off toward the door. “I guess I should warn you—Bjarni is gentle with women, but if you think I’m bad, wait until you meet Grim.”
Well, then.
I trudged along after him, finally muttering, “Who even names their child Grim?”
As he set my bags near the door to fish out his keys, Saga said, “He has had a surly disposition since he was an infant, and that has not changed.”
“Awesome,” I deadpanned.
He opened the door and held it for me to enter before him, the first genuinely polite thing he’d done all day. I murmured my thanks as I passed him, then immediately regretted it. He was staring at my ass so intently I could feel it.
My attention was diverted the moment I took in the interior of his house.
I’d seen people try to make minimalism work before. Mostly it came off as boring or sterile—white rooms with white decor and furniture and art that cost tens of thousands of dollars, but to me it usually looked like little more than a blank canvas. It was off-putting, like stepping into a spaceship or a hospital where everything good and interesting goes to die.
Saga’s home was not like that at all.
Everything in the space was necessary and functional, but cast in neutrals—café latte beiges and warm grays. Much of the furniture was crafted from wood, and the enormous fireplace at the far end of the living area was made from stones that looked like they could’ve been plucked from the yard or a nearby riverbed. Exposed beams kept the ceilings from feeling too tall, the space too vacuous, and yet the way the shadows played near the peaks still made them feel colossal.
They had an enormous sectional near the fireplace, above which they’d mounted a TV. Even if they didn’t have a private room for me here, which they clearly did, I was certain I would’ve been able to sleep on one of their couches just fine. They looked plush enough to swallow me whole.
“Holy crap,” I said, marveling at the sheer size of it all. “It’s big enough to be a bed and breakfast.”
Saga smirked. “I suppose I could arrange for some room service….”
Before I could put him in his place, he stepped into the living room and gestured to the east end of the house. “That’s the kitchen.” He took me by the shoulders and aimed me toward the west. “There’re the bedrooms and baths.” Then he turned me north again, facing the enormous sliding glass doors. “And out there’s the rest of the farm, and likely my brothers. Do you like sheep?”
“Sure,” I said, though it must not have been with much enthusiasm, because Saga followed up with, “What about horses?”
I looked back at him. “I fucking love horses.”
“Do you know how to ride?”
“Yeah. Will I get to?”
Saga shrugged. “We’ll see what mood they’re in today. Grim’s the one who handles them. They’re temperamental beasts, just like him.”
I couldn’t hold back a laugh. “You’re really not selling me on your brother.”
He led me out the sliding glass doors toward the back of the property. The earth rolled in great, heaping mounds dotted with four-legged clouds grazing or playing with one another across the verdant fields. Some of them had been recently sheared, their coats cropped so close the pink of their skin shone through. Others were way more woolly. One in particular looked like a thunderhead on the horizon, standing atop one of the hills its compatriots were ignoring. I never knew a sheep could look that angry.
“That’s Slagathor,” Saga said, jutting his chin at the beast. “She’s a bad sheep. Won’t come in for her shearing. Bjarni’s been chasing after her for ages, but she gets down in the woods and he worries about chasing her too far out. Could be a fox would get her, or a wolf.”
“I didn’t think there were any more wolves in Iceland,” I said, squinting as a shadow fell over Slagathor from behind.
“Well, there weren’t for a long time,” he answered, cocking his head as he noticed too. “But they’re on their way back in, it would seem….”
The shadow darkened, congealing into the shape of a man. I let out a startled cry, spooking Slagathor, who tried to make a break for it down the side of the hill.
She was too late.
The man was upon her, framing Slagathor’s Brillo-pad body between his huge biceps. She bleated, not in terror, but in rage, still attempting to mount a valiant escape with only the use of her front hooves.
“Oh, no you don’t!” the man crowed, wrapping himself around her like a soldier might throw himself on a grenade. “And don’t you bite me, or I’ll bite you back this time, I swear it!”
Slagathor bucked, the effort tossing them both sideways. They slid down the hill together, grass and dirt bursting in the air, until finally at the foot of it, he grasped both sets of her legs in one hand each and draped her across his shoulders.
“Settle down, girl,” he urged her, his booming laughter echoing across the field as he stood. “You fought well, old friend. One day, there will be a place for you in Valhalla.”
I stared at the blond giant. He had the same fair hair and eyes as Saga, his ruggedly handsome features finalizing any question of their blood relations before I could ask. But somehow, he was even bigger than the man by my side, if that were even possible. Wider, at least, if not taller, and from the way he moved with the sheep draped across his massive shoulders, it was clear that every inch of him was made of pure muscle. The scruffy but soft-looking beard covering his jaw completed the image of a bear in human form.
“Bjarni,” Saga said with an eyeroll, “and his girlfriend.”
“I heard that,” the giant called, an easy grin spreading across his face as he headed toward us, Slagathor still securely clasped in his grip. His eyes darted first down and then up my body as he approached, but when he stopped in front of us he didn’t level me with a smirk like the one Saga seemed to wear permanently. “Annabel, I take it,” he rumbled. “You’re even lovelier than we imagined.”
Despite his obvious flirting, his eyes held a glimmer of warmth—and just a touch of blue amid the gray, offering a softer contrast to Saga’s unyielding steel.
“So you do know how to appreciate a female not sporting four hooves and a wooly coat?” Saga said, raising his eyebrows in mock surprise.
Slagathor shot Saga a withering look beneath the wool that had accumulated over her face. Bjarni only laughed. It seemed to come rushing up out of somewhere deep inside him, a joyful roar as golden as his hair.
“I would shake your hand, but then Slagathor would kick me,” he said to me, offering me a wink. “Though I’m almost willing to let her, if it means having your hand in mine.”
My heart stutter-stepped, another blush overtaking my face. I’d been flirted with before, but Saga had already knocked me off-kilter, making it harder to steel myself against Bjarni’s flattery. Damn alphas. “Oh. Well, I….”
“She wanted to see the horses,” Saga cut in, return
ing his hands to my shoulders in what I tried to tell myself wasn’t as possessive a gesture as it felt. “Where is Grim?”
“In the stables, I think,” Bjarni said, though he never looked away from my face. “Let’s check, shall we?”
One thing he definitely had in common with his brother was that he didn’t give me the opportunity to answer. Immediately he whistled, but it was unlike anything I’d ever heard before. It was almost like a songbird, but amplified, echoing between the buildings and over the terrain. There was something deliberate about it, a rise and fall in pitch and in the length of the notes. My stomach fluttered along with it as I watched the undulations of his throat.
At length, he paused. Silence draped over us, save for Slagathor’s annoyed grunts. One of her ears twitched, and a moment later, I heard it—a sharp, melodious reply.
“That’s… beautiful,” I said once it faded on the wind. “What is it?”
“A language,” Bjarni said. “A very old one. Used by herders and hunters to communicate over long distances.”
I’d heard of a few countries where small groups of people used similar methods to relay information. In some parts of West Africa, certain people like the Yoruba whistled whole conversations. But I’d never heard of it being used in Iceland before.
It made me even more curious about the Lokisson genealogy. If this was isolated to people in their family, maybe they had a connection to a different group of settlers. Maybe I could even link it back to the Vikings as a previously unknown form of communication in their society.
A new thrill rushed through me. I might have just hit the dissertation jackpot.
“To the stables, then,” Saga declared, only this time when he guided me, he placed his hand on the small of my back.
I was too excited to care. Also—there would be horses.
Ignoring the slight twinge crawling up my spine, I hurried to keep pace with the two alphas as they led me to the stables. To my disappointment, they were all empty—or so I thought.
As we got closer, a soft huff shattered the illusion. A stallion nearly as dark as the shadows around it tossed his mane and was answered by a low, smooth voice cooing in a whiskey rasp.
“Sofðu, unga ástin mín
úti regnið grætur
Mamma geymir gullin þín
gamla leggi og völuskrín
Við skulum ekki vaka um dimmar nætur….”
I stopped so hard and fast my bones rattled. I’d heard this lullaby before, but never… never like this. It stirred an ache in my heart, each word more mournful than the next and leaving the singer’s mouth like notes plucked on a funeral harp. Clouds that hadn’t been there before shrouded the sun.
“Það er margt sem myrkrið veit
minn er hugur þungur
Oft ég svarta sandinn leit
svíða grænan engireit
Í jöklinum hljóða dauðadjúpar sprungur….”
Bjarni stopped too, turning to scrutinize me. “What? You don’t want to see the horses?”
“It’s not that,” I choked, doing my best to clear the knot of emotion from my throat. “It’s that song… Is that your brother singing like that? It’s….”
Saga rolled his eyes. Three times, he pounded on the gate. “Grim! Stop singing about dead babies!”
The horse whinnied, followed by a curse, both of which were soon drowned in the tide of Bjarni’s laughter. And just like that, the sun returned, chasing away the dismal gray that had threatened to envelop me.
“I am tending Draugr’s shoes,” Grim snapped, his accent thicker than that of his brothers. “The least you could do is not incite him to kick.”
Saga opened the gate to let me through. “It’s not our fault he’s a terrible beast. The horses are your responsibility. Could have trained him better.”
He tried to come through after me, but Bjarni strode in instead, coming to stand right behind me as I peeked into the stall.
The horse, Draugr, was magnificent. As the sunlight slipped in through the slats in the roof, it brought out the decadent chocolate hue of his coat, turning charcoal as it slipped into shadow. For an Icelandic horse he was surprisingly tall, cutting a strikingly handsome figure.
When he turned his head, I noticed his asymmetry for the first time. The poor thing only had one eye. The top of his mane had been styled so as to obscure it, but with each defiant toss of his head, he revealed the hollow socket.
“Jesus,” I whispered, only for my view to interrupted by a sudden opening of the door.
I stumbled backward into Bjarni, the breath knocked from my lungs by the rock wall of his chest. Instinctively, he wrapped an arm around my waist to catch me, and for a moment, the ache in my heart migrated south.
It was only my pulse pounding, and nothing more than that. Spurred by the slick slide of adrenaline through my veins, my muscles tightened, but the worst of it subsided away when Bjarni let go to grab hold of Slagathor again, who’d begun kicking fiercely.
All the Lokisson men cast formidable shadows. But the one this brother cast was impenetrable, and damn near terrifying. As it passed over me, I felt that same dark undertow I had back when I’d first heard him singing. For a moment, it was like his very presence blotted out all the light in the world.
Where Bjarni and Saga’s hair shone like spun gold, the only thing that glimmered about Grim were the steel hoof rasp in his hand. His hair, shorn close on the sides with a little length on top, fell over his forehead on one side like a vial of spilled ink. Immediately, I thought of Draugr and his missing eye, but Grim had both—one a pale, frozen blue, the other a dim, smoldering amber.
I understood that undertow better—the sense that I was being pulled toward him, into some realm both alien and bleak—now that I’d seen those eyes. It wasn’t the first time they’d held me fast in both captivation and horror. And it wasn’t the first time I’d heard that song, either.
“You,” I whispered over the blood crashing in my ears. “You’re real.”
3
Annabel
Grim only blinked mildly at me. “Yes. I hear most people are.”
I gaped. He looked so much like the man I’d been seeing in my dreams, the ones my mom referred to as my “daymares.” I’d chalked it all up to stress over school, whether I’d get my doctorate, whether the university would offer me a position. But now, staring at Grim, I couldn’t help but think….
What? That you’re psychic? Please.
Grim looked over my head and beyond Bjarni. “They didn’t say anything about her being dim.”
“Says the man who spends all his free time with horses,” Saga snorted, moving to push past Bjarni. “Is there one she can ride? We want her to have a pleasant stay, remember?” The way he emphasized the last word, I got the distinct impression there’d been some conversation about my arrival—and that perhaps Grim hadn’t been fully pleased.
Bjarni interrupted the tense moment by turning abruptly, swinging Slagathor down off his shoulders and onto Saga’s. “Here, hold this.”
Slagathor bleated sharply, thrashing to escape. Saga had no choice but to grab onto her, or risk getting his skull kicked in.
“Ah, yes,” Grim murmured as his gaze drifted over me. Compared to his brothers’, there was a distinct lack on interest in his mismatched eyes. “We wouldn’t want Miss Turner to be unhappy.”
I cocked a brow. His rudeness had managed to cool my shock at seeing one of my daymares made flesh, reminding me that déjà vu happened to everybody. It didn’t mean anything. “Unhappy?”
This time when Bjarni took me by the waist, it was with both hands. “What my brother is trying to say is that we’ve been looking forward to your visit and want to make sure you have a good time.”
A good time my ass. Bjarni might be somewhat better at manners than both his brothers, but it was blatantly obvious what kind of “good time” he was thinking about as he pulled my back tight against his front. He was even discreetly scenting me, his breath ho
t on my scalp despite the chill in the air. Something stiff grew rapidly against the swell of my ass, poking me in the lower back.
I squirmed away, fighting back the prickle of sensation spreading all across my skin.
“Is Draugr your horse?” I asked. Grim might be rude and kind of scary, but at least he didn’t seem to want any part in whatever fucked-up game his brothers had going. I was getting the unpleasant thought that they had some sort of wager going for who could bed the American girl—and I wasn’t interested.
Even if they looked like Norse gods.
Not one bit.
“He is.” Grim shot Bjarni a look over my shoulder, then returned his unsmiling focus to me. “You can’t ride him.”
“Oh, okay.” I managed a light tone, despite his unfriendly demeanor. Did he have to be such a prick about it?
Saga muttered something in Icelandic, and from the tone it sounded like he was scolding Grim.
“We have so many horses, surely you can find one for the girl to ride,” Bjarni said, his hand clasping lightly around my shoulder. I considered squirming away again, but that would bring me into Grim’s personal space—a place I had no desire to invade.
“Ideally one that won’t break her neck,” Saga added.
Grim turned away from us to face the horse again. “Draugr is getting shoed. I have to finish before you can harass him.”
“I would never…,” I began, but Saga cut in.
“Let her pat the horse, Grim.” He sighed, shifting the peeved-looking sheep still wrapped over his broad shoulders. “You should be happy she doesn’t mind ugly beasts.”
“He’s not ugly!” I snapped, glaring at Saga for insulting the gorgeous horse.
“Maybe not ugly, per se,” Saga said, that damned smirk pulling up one corner of his mouth. “But that sour disposition doesn’t usually help him with the ladies.”
Too late, I realized who he was talking about and it wasn’t the horse.
“I meant Draugr,” I muttered, turning my glare at the chuckling Bjarni.
