Loki

by JC Andrijeski

  Remembering what she’d seen of Gregor’s house from the Bugatti, Lia felt all the air leave her lungs, even as the blood drained from her face.

  She got the air back first.

  She sucked in a chest-full, then immediately let it out.

  “LOKI!” she screamed up the stairs. “LOKI! WHAT DO WE DO?”

  There was no answer.

  Biting her lip, Lia began taking the stairs two at a time up to the cockpit.

  She reached the top deck, and ran into the small room, past the open door, which was swinging and banging lazily into the outer wall.

  “LOKI!”

  She came to a dead stop, staring around the inside of the navigation area.

  Someone had tied a rope around the steering wheel, locking it in place.

  All the instruments looked dead.

  The engine was definitely dead.

  No Loki.

  No Maia.

  Feeling her heart leap to her throat, even as her breath caught in her chest, she searched every corner of the small cockpit, then ran for the door and half-fell, half-ran down the Fiberglas steps. The door continued to bang into the wall from the rocking motion of the stalled ship, but Lia ran by it, barely noticing.

  She looked over her shoulder as she ran, staring up at the sky, tracking the progress of the approaching object, feeling the air hitching and locking inside her lungs.

  “LOKI!” she screamed, running across the main deck of the ship. “WHERE ARE YOU? WHERE DID YOU TAKE MY SISTER, YOU PIECE OF SHIT? WHERE ARE YOU?”

  She ran up and down the length of the yacht before she had to admit to herself they weren’t up there. Running for the stairs leading below deck, she looked through the galley and two guest bedrooms below. She dug through the smaller spaces next: a pantry, a general storage area, two “heads,” or bathrooms, a small common space.

  No Loki. No Maia.

  Remembering something, she ran back towards the captain’s quarters.

  Sliding and stumbling down the narrow staircase, she entered the main cabin and looked around the sunshine-bathed space.

  Finally locating what she was looking for, she grabbed her leather coat off the king-sized bed, going through the pockets frantically until she found the secret compartment she’d had made within the inner seam, the one where she’d hidden Loki’s magical ring.

  The compartment was empty.

  The ring was gone.

  No Loki. No sister.

  No ring.

  Lia cursed loudly, throwing the leather coat at the floor.

  Pacing the cabin’s plush rug in her oversized tennis shoes, Lia let out a second, louder, more infuriated scream, staring around the wood-paneled cabin, trying to decide what to do, where they could have gone.

  She couldn’t believe how stupid she’d been, how insanely gullible.

  She was still standing there, half-paralyzed by rage, by panicked worry for Maia, by a less-tangible grief mixed with a hotter wanting of revenge––

  ––when something slammed into the main deck of the ship, making a sound like a building had just landed on top of her.

  For a few seconds, Lia Winchester thought she was dead.

  She was sure she was dead.

  Really, being dead was the only thing that made sense at this point.

  Dead or not, she hit the deck.

  She dropped in pure instinct, without thought.

  She dropped before the impact would have thrown her down by force.

  Landing on her hands, toes, and thighs on the plush, pale blue carpet, Lia remained perfectly still, panting as she listened to the rolling crash of impact and what sounded like thunder grow louder, then gradually softer overhead.

  The entire ship started rocking crazily.

  The rocking got worse, growing violent, like it got caught in the wake of a gargantuan boat, or maybe the wash of a giant sea-creature.

  It was nearly enough to make Lia sick.

  Somewhere in that, maybe in her effort not to lose her lunch, she lost her ability to grip the carpet and rolled sideways, crashing into the bulkhead to her right, and knocking open a storage cabinet built into the wood-paneled walls.

  The ship rocked back the other way, and fishing rods, wire, hand-nets, and bobbers rained down on her, along with a few storage containers, seashells, and other knick-knacks. The bigger, heavier pieces made her gasp and throw up her arms, protecting her head.

  She managed to crawl sideways and then to another segment of wall, where she gripped the edge of a built-in bench covered in cushions that had to be Velcro-ed onto the wood. Gripping the edge of the bench, she pulled herself carefully to her feet, and lurched and swayed her way to the door leading to the staircase and the upper deck.

  Her hand on the handle, she stood there, panting, wondering if she should open it.

  She already knew who was on the main deck of the ship––assuming she wasn’t completely crazy, or Loki was a much better liar than she thought.

  It had to be Loki’s brothers.

  Given what they must think of her, should she really go up there? Or should she hide from them? Maybe in the pantry on the other side of the galley? Or in the far back of the dry storage? Or maybe even in the shower cubicle she’d just used?

  Remembering then, what these people may have done to Gregor’s house in Malibu, she clenched her jaw.

  She couldn’t risk them blowing up the boat with her in it.

  If she was their captive, at least she could potentially get away.

  Maybe they’d even let her go.

  Or, better yet, maybe they’d help her find her sister.

  Would they really harm her, if she told them Loki stole the ring from her? Right before he kidnapped her kid sister as leverage?

  Clenching her jaw, she realized she had no choice.

  She needed their help.

  She’d never get Maia away from Loki without help from someone.

  If she was being honest––and again, assuming she wasn’t totally insane––she’d never get Maia away from Loki without help from someone supernatural.

  She’d seen what Loki could do. He could just glamour himself and Maia into palm trees, or mailboxes, or two old Guatamalan cow-herders, and Lia would walk right by them, never recognizing either one.

  No, whatever Loki turned out to be, Lia had no illusions about her chances against him.

  She couldn’t handle him on her own.

  She needed to go upstairs, see if whatever was there might be willing and able to handle the Trickster God for her.

  Clenching her jaw tighter at the thought, Lia jerked open the door, gripping the sides of the opening once she had it free from the wall.

  Slowly, holding each of the two guardrails for dear life, she began to make her way up the steep stairs, aiming her feet for the main deck of the ship. She braced herself with each step, hoping she was ready to face whatever just crashed-landed into the million-dollar yacht she’d helped steal.

  If not, Maia might be lost to her forever.

  15

  God-Brothers

  Lia poked her head out of hole in the deck, pausing from where she’d been ascending the stairs to carefully look around.

  At first, all she saw was smoke.

  She didn’t see any fire.

  Strangely, she also didn’t feel any heat coming from the area with the thickest concentration of gray and white smoke plumes billowing up.

  She was still staring at the smokiest part of the ship’s deck, when two forms walked out of the dense air, one of them being probably the largest person Lia had ever seen.

  The other one was almost as big, and roughly the same height.

  His build made her think more of fighters she’d met, or possibly a professional acrobat. Really, he looked and moved more like some combination of fighter-dancer. With his graceful, predatory tread, Lia found herself thinking if he’d been human, she would have assumed he was some kind of highly-trained martial artist.

  Given ev
erything she’d seen and experienced over the past few days, she found herself thinking he likely wasn’t human, though.

  Raising her hand to shield her eyes and squinting through the smoke, she tried to remember everything Loki had told her about his two brothers.

  She looked at the huge one first, the one she actually recognized, even if this was her first time really seeing him, versus seeing a mirage.

  He definitely looked different now.

  That was in spite of how accurately Loki captured his likeness at Gregor’s.

  Lia focused on his long, thick, reddish-blond hair, the statue-like face that was almost too beautiful to look real, the ice-blue eyes. She glanced over his broad shoulders, the thick chest, and found herself stifling the urge to laugh when she saw how normally he was dressed, especially after how Loki clothed the illusion-version in Malibu.

  He wore black slacks, a white, collared shirt, open at the throat, and a suit jacket that had smudges of white and black on it from the smoke. The white shirt also had a few black smudges on the front. So did the pale skin of the giant’s neck.

  None of it took away from his beauty, though.

  If he was a god, apart from the clothes, he was more or less what she would have assumed a god would look like, whether Norse or any other kind.

  That had to be Thor.

  It had to be.

  Lia’s eyes turned to the fighter-dancer-martial-artist next.

  His dark eyes already stared at her face.

  Lia got lost there briefly, in the god’s eyes, like something about them pulled her into his very soul, or maybe just outside her own body.

  Those near-black irises had a kind of fire burning behind them, despite their dark color. It was as if red embers lived there, inside that deep, coal-black, but strangely, she wasn’t afraid of him, or of the light she saw there.

  She found him, and his eyes, oddly comforting.

  She flinched, blinking when he looked away,

  It was like feeling a connection snap.

  Then she was watching both of them walk towards her, one moving like a champion weight-lifter or heavyweight boxer, the other like a feral cat.

  Swallowing as they approached her directly, she didn’t move until they halted, nearly in unison, just past the edge of the stairway where she crouched.

  Fighting to keep her expression calm, Lia forced herself to take those last few steps, climbing up onto the wooden deck to stand in front of them.

  The yacht was still swaying from the impact of the two gods, but much less violently than before. She could maintain her balance without holding onto anything, but still had her knees slightly bent to absorb the rocking motion.

  She swallowed again, looking between those two faces.

  The blond one looked angry.

  More than angry.

  He also looked confused, borderline bewildered as he stared at her.

  Lia turned to look at the dark-eyed one again, who had to be Tyr, God of War, and the “cleverest brother,” according to Loki, God of Mischief.

  Taking in the expression on Tyr’s face now, Lia blinked, startled.

  She’d expected the expression on Thor’s face.

  She expected anger, confusion, frustration, a demand for explanations.

  She’d expected them both gods to be furious at finding her here instead of Loki.

  Maybe for the same reason, Thor’s expected rage was a lot less disorienting than looking into the eyes of Tyr, which held a faint if knowing humor. The God of War’s perfect mouth twitched, as if he were holding back a laugh, right before he glanced at Thor, smiling wider when he saw his brother’s near-boiling anger.

  Something about this situation had definitely hit at Tyr’s funny bone.

  Lia had no earthly idea what that could possibly be.

  Before she’d fully absorbed and made sense of Tyr’s humorous near-grin, Thor broke the silence among the three of them, his voice a harsh bark.

  “Who, in the name of Asgard, are you?” he snapped, glaring at her with those ice-blue eyes. “And why in the gods has my brother marked you as his mate?”

  Lia stared up at him, her mouth ajar.

  Before she could collect herself enough to attempt to answer, before she could even remotely make sense of Thor’s words, Tyr, the God of War standing next to him, burst out in an uncontrollable laugh…

  …right before he walked up to Lia, shocking the hell out of her by giving her a warm bear hug, squeezing her to his chest before he kissed her on the cheek.

  She was still gaping up at him when the god released her, laughing again.

  He shook her lightly by the arms, grinning down at her face.

  “Welcome to the family, sister,” he said, those embers in his dark irises burning with a merrier twinkle. “You are most, most welcome. Despite my brother Thor’s lack of manners, we are both very happy to greet you as companion to our rather troublesome brother, Loki… and we wish you all the happiness and good fortune in the world.”

  Tyr let out another short guffaw, looking delightedly at Thor.

  “As our father Odin knows, you’re definitely going to need it,” he added, grinning.

  Thor remained unamused.

  He stood on the deck of Gregor’s yacht, his thick, ridiculously-muscular arms bulging where they folded across his chest.

  He stood there, silent, scowling at her and Tyr.

  Lia found it only mildly comforting that the God of Thunder didn’t seem to be scowling at her, at least not specifically, not in a way that felt personal. Instead the entire situation seemed to anger him, at least in part because he obviously sensed some kind of trick.

  In that, Lia had to admit, he definitely wasn’t the only one.

  “I assure you,” Lia said, shaking her head at Tyr. “I’m not his mate. Loki stole my baby sister. He kidnapped her, presumably because he knew you were coming and he needed her as leverage. When I got out of the shower, he was just gone. Loki was gone, the ring was gone, and my sister was gone… and you were nearly here.”

  Frowning, looking around the deck, where a huge, blackened hole was now visible, now that the smoke had cleared, she rested her hands on her hips.

  “I don’t know he got Maia or himself off the boat.”

  She remembered something then, and turned, focusing on the boat’s stern.

  Maia had said there were three Jetskis moored there, presumably tied up on the landing area at the very back of the boat, just below the main deck of the stern.

  Only one Jetski stood there now.

  The other two slots were empty.

  Biting her lip, Lia considered saying something, but something in her hesitated. Truthfully, she was still trying to decide if it was better to sic Thor and Tyr on Loki, or not. Maybe Loki took Maia as a warning for her not to do that exact thing.

  Would Loki really hurt Maia, though?

  Maybe she was delusional, but Lia hadn’t gotten that impression from him at all.

  Loki seemed genuinely fond of Maia.

  He’d also seemed genuinely protective of her.

  He’d certainly seemed genuinely angry back at the beach house when he was “teaching” Ernie not to harm underage girls.

  Furious, really.

  He’d been furious verging on murderous.

  Hell, even now, that internal “radar” of hers––the instincts Lia depended on to survive, the same ones Loki seemed so fascinated by––even now, that radar wasn’t flashing red when it came to Loki. It wasn’t telling her Loki was a bad guy, or that he’d left her behind to put her in danger, or to put Maia in danger.

  Then again, maybe pretending Lia’s “radar” was accurate in the first place was all part of Loki’s manipulation.

  Still frowning, still fighting to decide, she looked back at Tyr.

  “In any case, he’s not my mate, I have no idea where he’s gone, or why he took my sister. Not apart from what I’ve already told you. I assume he left me behind to slow the two of you down,�
�� she added, motioning towards the two male gods.

  “…Which appears to be working.”

  Thor grunted, giving Tyr a dark look.

  From his expression, Thor obviously agreed with Lia’s assessment.

  Tyr was shaking his head though, that smile ghosting his lips.

  “I do not blame you for not knowing this, dear sister,” Tyr said politely. “But gods cannot simply ‘pretend’ to mark someone as their mate. This is something they only do if they are willing to accept the lasting consequences of such an act.”

  Lia frowned, folding her arms.

  It occurred to her that she was protecting her chest, the same part of her chest where Loki pressed his hand, not long before he disappeared.

  Pushing that from her mind, she looked up at Tyr’s dark eyes.

  “Lasting consequences?” she grunted. “What kind of lasting consequences?”

  At that, Tyr and Thor exchanged looks.

  Thor still looked angry, but the amusement in Tyr’s eyes, if anything, grew more prominent.

  “Well,” Tyr said, motioning vaguely towards her chest area. “For one thing, you do know where he is. He has marked you. You should be able to close your eyes, and call to him. When you do, you will see through his eyes. You will know as he knows.”

  Lia frowned harder, looking between the two gods.

  “You’re shitting me,” she said.

  Tyr burst out in another amused laugh, but Thor only scowled.

  Still frowning, still looking between them, Lia nodded towards Thor. “Anyway, Loki told me that gods could block people from seeing them that way. He said the gods could read one another’s minds… and sense them… but they could also block one another.”

  “He told you that?” Thor said.

  Lowering his silver hammer to his side, he took a step closer to her.

  Lia took a step back.

  She wasn’t worried about him hurting her exactly, but everything about Angry-Thor was a bit alarming.

  Also, since it was only the second time he’d spoken since they’d landed, Lia jumped a little just from the god’s deep, growling voice, which seemed to vibrate the air, as if charged with a wave of electric particles. Everything about that voice, including the intensity she sensed behind it, really did remind her of actual thunder and lightning.