Queen of Swords: The Banished Gods: Book One (The Banished Gods Series 1)

by L. A. McGinnis

  He’d always been proud of his body, hewn from decades of fighting. For the longest time, this act had been about one thing. Release. Biology. Okay, that was two things. But as she watched him, he felt…powerless. Powerless against her, or rather, against this growing attraction between them. What it meant. How it made him feel.

  “Loki?” Morgane looked worried now, so he pushed all of his fucking bullshit to the side.

  He stalked over, those green eyes locked on his every step, his erection jutting out in front of him, leading the way so to speak. And when she reached up and pulled him down to her, murmured his name so low he barely heard it, he straddled her and caught her hands in his. “Can’t have you going anywhere, love.” Her eyes fluttered shut. “You’re all mine.”

  “Yes,” she whispered, “at the moment, I am.”

  He wanted to put his mouth on every square inch of her body. He wanted to taste her again, but he chose her mouth, which was so damn sweet. Settling into the cradle of her body, feeling the heat bloom between them as she adjusted for his weight, begging him with little moans and movements while he guided himself to her, notching the head of his cock into her before she arched up and took all of him inside her.

  He drove into her, hard. Once. Twice. With that, the bed shifted, tilted, and with a thud, fell to the floor. Her eyes flew open. Before she said a word, he braced his other hand beside her and began moving faster and faster, holding her hands still as her body bucked in time with his while they both rocketed toward the release that was so damn close. With each stroke, something flared hotter. With every thrust, some bond between them grew taut, winding tighter. Morgane gasped out his name, and with it, he broke apart and spilled into her before collapsing, wet with sweat, his lips grazing the side of her neck before settling himself against her. She wrapped an arm around his waist and nestled closer with a satisfied sigh.

  Damn it. He’d come here to get his shirt. Really. That’s what he’d told himself the whole ride here. And now he had her wrapped around him, still inside her, and ready to have her again.

  And again if she’d let him. Words were about to tumble out of him. Words he’d be a fucking fool to say. Even worse, words that would get her killed.

  So instead, Loki looked around her place. “So. This is what you call home?”

  Morgane had, for the past several hours, imagined a hundred ways they’d be together. This was so not one. Here in her hot, dirty, little apartment on her bed, which now tilted dangerously to one side, with weapons strewn everywhere and half a dead demon on the floor.

  “I think we broke the bed,” she managed.

  All the while, Loki slowly inspected her pathetic life.

  She wished he wouldn’t. The pin-marked maps on the walls, the paint-speckled floor, the dirty window overlooking the brick side of the next building over, the windows covered with sheets of plywood and bars, even five stories up. The dented and broken steel door, four inches thick, once her most trusted protector.

  “Jesus, Morgane. Living like this—”

  She cut him off before he got any further. “Yeah, I know. I know.” The real problem wasn’t the shoebox, or the door, or even the shitty neighborhood. It was how he looked at it all. Like he was seeing it for the first time and now that was the way she saw it too, and it was sad. Just…really pathetic, which embarrassed her. She quickly looked away before she caught a glimpse of the pity in his eyes.

  Because that would make this whole damn situation a million times worse.

  “Yeah, this is my life, welcome to it.” She pushed away from him, feeling corded muscle beneath her hands as she did so. Damn, but the man was beautiful. Way too beautiful, if you asked her, to be roaming around this earth.

  And he had fantastic timing.

  Come to think of it… “What are you doing here, Loki? And don’t say you were in the neighborhood because nobody comes to this shitty neighborhood unless they have a death wish. Did Mir change his mind about letting me go?”

  “I was worried about you. Thought I’d check in on you, find out how you were feeling.”

  A lie. Or rather, the truth disguised as a lie. “Lucky me, you happened by as those things were breaking down my front door.” Her voice sounded way too calm, way too measured, even to her.

  He smiled up at her, his eyes shining. “I do have really good timing. Do you wish I hadn’t come?” He was smiling, his voice teasing, playful.

  “No,” she said, losing steam by the minute as reality kicked in. “No, I’m grateful, I am.” Among other things. “But I need to know, since you’re here…who are you? Who are you and why are you hunting these monsters too?”

  Instantly, the glow dimmed in his eyes. “I can’t give you those answers, Morgane. Actually, I can’t tell you anything.”

  “So you just happen by at the exact right time to save me, you bed me, but you won’t tell me who you really are? Or why we’re out doing the exact same thing, every night?” Whatever light was left in those brilliant blue eyes promptly extinguished.

  “How did you even find me, half dead the other night? Were you following me?” When his face went smooth and blank, that small flicker of trust she’d begun to feel for him faded. It disappeared completely when he met her eyes. And denied her, shaking his head slowly.

  Staring down at him, she knew she’d remember every second of tonight. The way he looked, the way he’d made her feel. All of it. But that’s all they’d ever be, memories. Because feelings this intense were not made to last.

  His deep voice dropped to a hushed whisper. “Morgane, I only came by to get my shirt. To check if you were all right. The rest of it…”

  Her hands shook as she picked up the shirt and tossed it in his face. God, in her history of huge mistakes, this was the hugest. The most huge. “Yeah, I get it. Now you can take this and go.”

  The only upside to this whole debacle was that by tomorrow he’d never find her again. She’d be out of here, disappearing as she always did, and if the demons couldn’t locate her, then Loki wouldn’t either. As if he read her mind, he stared hard at her, his gaze pleading. “I can’t tell you, Morgane, I just fucking can’t. You aren’t even supposed to remember who I am or anything about me….” His mouth snapped shut as if he’d already said too much.

  “You know what, it doesn’t matter. You should go. Make sure you take your damned shirt with you.” She hated the ache in her chest. Hated the fact she’d let someone into her life this easily, after years of being so careful. She’d been a fool tonight. A damn stupid fool. Not to mention she’d slept with a complete stranger, no protection, no condom, no nothing.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  Yet. She couldn’t take her eyes off him until the door closed behind him. As if some force of nature drew her to him, she couldn’t have stopped herself if she tried. From the way his arms flexed when he pulled on his pants, to the way his shirt fit tight over his shoulders and the soft, uncertain way he stared down at her for a long moment before fingering a strand of her hair on his way out. Every moment of tonight would be etched onto her memories. Because tonight was the best of her life. And not because of how she currently spent her time.

  But because of the way he had reached in and pulled something out. Something she’d shoved down so long ago, she didn’t know it was still inside her until he’d found it.

  Morgane made a half-assed attempt to lock the door behind him, fell into the tilted bed with the twisted sheets, and tried to sleep, dreaming of Vikings and demons and whether people like her ever got second chances at anything.

  8

  “Yeah, this’ll work great.” The next afternoon Morgane nodded to her new landlord, trying not to gag from the stench of day old gin emanating from the old man’s pores.

  This fourth shitty apartment, which looked exactly like the first shitty apartment she’d toured today, would do just fine. And as a bonus, it had a commanding view of the whole shitty neighborhood and was directly on the train line to O’Hare. Easy o
n, easy off. The seventh floor location offered a strategic vantage point, and the rent was cheap enough. As soon as she pressed five hundred dollars cash into the fat man’s hand, she pulled out her burner phone and made the call. “Yeah, I need another door, Tim, before nightfall, if possible. Yeah, the same model as before, let me give you my new address.” As she rattled off the number, the fat man planted himself directly in her path.

  “You can’t do nothin’ to my property, bitch. This’s mine, and you can’t—”

  Without breaking stride, Morgane pressed another five hundred into his hand. “What do you say to an extra five as a down payment, and you can go buy yourself something nice?” Morgane winked while she slammed the door shut in his face. The van, rented early this morning from U-Haul, held everything she owned and was barely half full. She’d need a new bed, thanks to last night, but that wasn’t a priority.

  Getting this door installed by nightfall was a priority.

  Going out to hunt tonight was a priority.

  It was funny, she thought, how her priorities had changed so drastically. There had been a time, not so long ago, when her life had been as normal as the next person’s. Just two years. Twenty-four months. Just over seven hundred days.

  And yet, a lifetime ago.

  Back then, she had a father, a mother, a sister. A family. They’d lived in the suburbs, shared a perfectly normal life, one so filled with boredom and routine, each day could have been predicted down to the very last, scheduled moment. Until a car accident tore it all apart. The day her dad was killed by a drunk driver, predictability had gone out the window.

  Her sister, Ava, drove back to Pittsburgh and stayed. Her mother, Gwen, tried to pretend everything would be all right. And had failed miserable. Morgane wanted to stay in college, but suddenly classwork eluded her, so she’d finally given up and moved back home, too.

  Morgane called those months the Dark Times.

  The three of them mashed together, wallowing in grief. Her mother unable to get past it. Her sister, unable to stop being pissed off. Morgane, too numb to help either of them.

  It was Ava who’d first suggested the trip. Let’s go to the city, at least try to have a bit of fun. The counselor said it would be good for us. We can remember Daddy, and it’ll help us heal as a family. Remember what it’s like to be alive.

  Then Morgane found out how bad things could really get. What Dark Times really were.

  And what she would give to bring predictability back into her life.

  She stared into the cracked mirror and a lean, muscular stranger stared back. These memories made her feel heavy, as they always did. But whatever Mir had given her must have kicked the toxins out of her body. Less than forty-eight hours and physically, she felt good.

  No, better than good. She was the goddamn Energizer Bunny. Only one more thing she had to change, she thought, setting two boxes of extra light sun blonde on the stained bathroom sink and turning on the water, praying it was hot.

  An hour later, the last of the sun streaming through the dirty window, she surveyed the guns and knives strewn across the mattress on the floor while she towel-dried her newly blonde hair.

  And when the moon rose through the skyscrapers made by man, and over the lake made by God, she buckled on her gear.

  And went hunting.

  9

  Questions raced through Loki’s mind.

  “Are you going to start answering me, or are you going to stand there staring out into space?” It took Loki a second to even remember where he was. What he should be doing.

  “I asked you a simple question about the girl. What did you find out?” Odin sneered from atop his throne. Right. Gold throne. Odin. He was here to report on Morgane and what happened between them. Shit.

  “Yes, focus, you idiot. Who is she? What is she? You were supposed to find out why she’s hunting demons in my city? Why she’s still alive?” Odin bared his teeth, his patience wearing thin. “For the love of… None of these are difficult questions.”

  “Yeah, about that…” Loki cleared his throat. “You’ll be happy to hear I got my shirt back.” He should have known better, after a thousand plus years, to jerk the guy’s chain, but then again, he never was a fast learner. When Odin’s magic lashed out, an ice-cold whip of power that hurled him across the room and crushed his skull against the stone pillar, he put two and two together. Yeah, the All Father was pissed.

  “I got my shirt back,” Loki mumbled out of the side of his mouth. Damn, he’d said that already. Trying again, he amended, “I talked to her, Odin, and by all appearances, she’s human. She’s completely, totally human.”

  “Yes, I gathered as much, since I can smell her all over you. So you slept with her? At least tell me you wiped her mind afterward?” Contempt twisted Odin’s mouth. “No? Then you are as stupid as you have been acting these past couple of days.”

  Loki’s knees popped as his boots hit the floor, Odin’s magic receding.

  “If she’s human, how can she see the Grim?”

  “I don’t know.” Loki admitted.

  “Well, figure it out. Or I’ll send Tyr or Freyr after her and they will.” Something inside Loki snapped at the thought of either of them even being close to her.

  “I’ll take care of it,” he said quietly. He’d protect her, from whatever Odin had planned. He had to, she was in his blood now. He couldn’t shake the memory of them together, the salty taste of her. There was no place he didn’t imagine seeing her green eyes or catch a whiff of her spicy scent. “Look, I swear to you, she’s flesh and blood. I think…” Odin cut him off.

  “Do you know what I think? I think you’re the reason we’re here in the first place. You and that death goddess you spawned. You thought you could outrun your own fate. But in the end, you burned our world to ash. You doomed us all. When we died, in those last days on Asgard, you watched. You and Hel.” Odin tapped the arm of his throne, in time to every single word that came out of his mouth. “Lest you forget, some higher power banished us here. Because. Of. You.”

  Leaning back, his eyes narrowing into slits, his fingers drumming idly on the arm of the throne, Odin continued, “You might be the reason we’re cursed. But I’m still in charge. Which means I’ll do with the mortal as I see fit.”

  Like a switch being flipped, Loki watched the light shut off in Odin’s crystal clear eyes. Everything in Loki stilled while Odin’s edict continued.

  “Furthermore, you will never see this human again. Her name will never cross your lips, no thought of her will cross your mind. Never again.” He snapped his fingers. “If you do, I’ll come up with a suitable punishment for you both. Remember. Death is kind, but I am not.”

  “That is all.” Dismissal thrummed in Odin’s voice.

  Loki bowed slightly before turning on his heel and striding out of the room. It took everything he had not to run and warn Morgane right then, and only because Odin would expect that.

  Because if he knew Odin, his modus operandi was to eliminate every potential snag. And he was sure Morgane had just become the biggest one.

  The snag that might unravel the whole damn sweater.

  Across town, Morgane was sick and tired of waiting patiently in the shadows, studying the iridescent puddle of oil. It looked like a rainbow, shimmering layers of color undimmed by the dark, or the dirt, or the grime of this lower level of the city. By now, she should have found her prey, or rather, they should have found her, but maybe they simply weren’t hungry tonight.

  One never knew what the black-souled bastards were up to.

  Right before she turned to head home, she heard the faint scuttling of claws and reached down into her boots to check for her extra knives. Then patted her coat. Then double-checked the weapons at her hips. Rotated her head, feeling the faint pop of her neck. Those first few months, there had been fear, later anticipation, and then readiness. Now she was simply calm. As if realizing her days were numbered if the odds played out.

  “About time, you
little bastards,” she murmured, the words a hiss of sound across the concrete. Then, for a second, she did nothing but blink when she saw exactly what was coming.

  Once again, there were so many of them. So many, she realized the game had finally changed. Somehow, they had tracked her. As her heart leapt into her throat, she sank onto her haunches, hands yanking out both hip knives. This was no longer a hunt, the methodical stalking of prey. This was an all-out extermination.

  “Fine,” she muttered, fitting a handle firmly into each palm. “Just fine, if that’s the way you want to play, then so be it.”

  In the seconds before they overtook her, she was already leaping forward to meet them, the first three dead before they’d touched her.

  She left another three shriveling away in the dirt, but not before they found her arms with their claws. Her wounds were only scratches at first, growing deeper and deeper as she waded into them, grinning as they wailed, stacking up like cordwood. Her arms giving out, her legs rubber, she stumbled, climbing back up only to go down again.

  “Come on,” she willed them, “come down here and make it quick, you bastards.” The knives were getting heavier, her clothes now soaked through with black and red blood.

  Right before she fell to her knees for the final time, dizzy from the pain, she might have heard the roar of a motorcycle. But it was only the scream of the last demon she saw before it latched onto her and pulled her down into the dark.

  10

  As she was dying, Morgane’s vision flashed between darkness and light. Fragmented images, memories maybe, faded in and out, flickering, slower and slower. The thudding of her heart dwindled until she stopped counting the heartbeats. Voices, all around her, dissolved away into silence.

  There had been a time when she’d dreamed she was flying, when light had blazed white against her tightly shut eyes, so dazzling it had burned straight through her. So bright, she was relieved when the endless darkness beckoned. It promised peace and empty quiet, away from all of this death.