Maybe they had. Maybe he’d been reborn as well.
Did Odin know? Did he realize one of Asgard’s greatest enemies had been lurking down here, as immortal as us, for all this time, acting as tyrant over Muspelheim’s outcast inhabitants?
Did he know the blazing giant had locked away the gates? Had he sent me here with the full awareness that I’d have to face Surt to find my way home?
The questions knotted through my chest. Why had the Allfather really sent me here so unprepared? Was this some kind of sick test?
Or maybe it hadn’t even occurred to him how battered this world would leave me, to bring him whatever information it was he’d been looking for.
I straightened up, my heart heavy. At least I knew who I was dealing with now. I knew Surt had memories I could exploit to our advantage. From there it would just be past the steel doorway set in that stone wall, into the fortress, through the gate that would lead me home.
As I stepped back, the breeze shifted around us, picking up to a full-out wind. A wind that must have gusted straight to the dragon sleeping coiled on its master’s home. The glowing red eyes opened. Its massive head swung toward us.
With a hiccup of my pulse, I spun around to run for the tunnels—and caught sight of a second dragon diving straight toward us.
Jerrik gave a shout, a split-second too late. Flames exploded from the beast’s throat. I threw myself to the side, but the fire blasted over me. It might have cooked me alive if Gunnar hadn’t lunged after me, shielding my body with his bulk. A pained sound escaped his lips as the flames crackled over his arm and side.
One of the dragons roared. Claws screeched against the rock. Svend grunted and let out a hiss through his teeth. Jerrik grabbed my arm and Gunnar’s hand, heaving us in the direction of safety. No shadows had ever looked so welcoming as the ones in that open tunnel.
Svend spun around, tossing something at the dragons. A bit of meat from his pack. One of them snapped at it, and he darted for the tunnels, gesturing for us to follow him. He staggered a little. Blood was seeping down his leg through his trousers.
Through the thundering of my pulse, I managed to focus my mind. To catch a strand of memory from one of the dragons and cast it down on the terrain below us. The dragon’s swung around, but they didn’t race after the prey I’d conjured like they had before. I’d only diverted them for a moment.
I bolted for the tunnels, one hand clamped around Gunnar’s wrist, the other clasped in Jerrik’s. We stumbled after Svend into the darkness, just as another flare of fire sizzled after us. Gunnar’s burnt arm brushed the wall of the narrow passage, and he groaned.
Down the first two spirals, Svend turned, his gaze searching wildly. The instant it met mine, he tugged me into his arms. “Lovely lady,” he murmured. “You’re all right. We’ll get you to that gate yet.”
I leaned into him, but a cool trickle of doubt pooled in my stomach, thinking of Surt, of Odin’s mission, of my whole sorry life before now.
Everything I’d done had been to serve someone else. To serve the Allfather. To serve Asgard. I’d wanted the three men who were here with me; there was no question about that. But how much had they wanted me?
How much had the effort they’d put in, the passion they’d shown me, the risks they’d taken to protect me been simply because I was the one tool they’d found that might get them out of this wretched realm?
Maybe it shouldn’t have mattered. Why should anyone bother with me except where I could be of use?
But right then the thought stabbed through me more sharply than any dagger could have.
9
We staggered down the rest of the cliff passage into the wider tunnels, leaving the dragons’ roars behind. Gunnar had left the pack he’d brought at the base of the spiral path. He hefted it with a wince.
“Over here,” Svend said. “There’s a spot where we can sit out of the way, get ourselves patched up. Decide where we go from this.”
He hurried us through a couple of winding tunnels to a slab of rock leaning against the wall. At his careful push, it revealed a thin opening into a room with a stone bench and a single crystal beaming overhead. When we’d squeezed in, he tugged the slab shut again using a groove in its side.
Gunnar sank onto the bench. I winced when I looked at him. Half of his tunic was charred, and much of the skin beneath was mottled and angry pink. But his gaze had gone to my legs.
“You’re bleeding,” he said.
The air currents brushed my knees with a faint sting I hadn’t noticed before. I’d scraped them when I’d tried to leap out of the way of that blast of fire. A drop of blood seeped down my calf from one. They didn’t look a tenth as awful as Gunnar’s burns.
“Never mind about that,” I said. “What have you got for broiled giant?”
He managed a rough chuckle and dug into his bag. “If you patch these dried leaves on the burns, and then glue them down with this salve, that should heal them soon enough. And here’s the mineral paste for your cuts. And Svend’s.” He glanced past me to the dark elf.
The slight tilt to Svend’s stance was the only sign he was feeling the pain of the gouge on his calf. “I can look after you first,” he said to me.
I grimaced at him. “Fix your leg. I’m fine.”
I picked up the packet of leaves Gunnar had indicated. He tugged off the remains of his shirt, putting the rest of his gentle brawn on full display. I started setting the leaves on the raw skin of his shoulder and back as gently as I could. Jerrik picked up the pot of salve and smeared it on as I went. The thick lotion hardened over the leaves with a sheen like the inside of a seashell.
“Did you manage to get out of there unharmed?” I asked the light elf.
“Relatively speaking,” he said. He held up his left hand, showing a thin cut across the last two fingers where a dragon claw must have nicked him. “Nothing a quick bandaging won’t fix.”
Gunnar sighed as we finished the job, the burns now hidden beneath the shell of the salve. He glanced at his shirt and seemed to decide it wasn’t worth trying to repair.
Svend had just finished bandaging his own cut. He knelt at my feet, the brush of his fingers as he tended to my knees bringing back a whisper of the pleasure I’d felt with him in a similar position just a few hours ago.
Gunnar rested his hand on my waist, but suddenly his touch felt more like pressure than affection. All the dark thoughts that had flooded my head as we’d fled the dragons came back.
They were going to ask how I could get them through that fortress now. How soon they could win back their freedom. My throat tightened.
Then Gunnar said, in his soft rumble of a voice, “You should go without us, Muninn.”
I whirled to face him. He gazed back at me, his gaze tender and solemn at the same time. A different sort of wrenching filled my chest. “What are you talking about?”
“It won’t be just the dragons you have to contend with to get us to the fortress and through it,” he said. “There’s The Blaze—Surt, if that’s his real name—and his guards and Hel only knows what other monsters he keeps in the place. We have no real way of fighting most of them. That mess on the clifftop just now proves it. You have your power on your side. You can make it through. But you might not if you have the rest of us holding you back.”
“You stopped me from getting burnt to a crisp,” I said.
“We were taken by surprise,” Jerrik said. “When you go this time, you’ll be prepared. You’ll have your magic at the ready.” His jaw worked. “Gunnar is right. Your chances are better on your own. I don’t want to drag you down. You don’t deserve to be stuck in this place—or to face whatever Surt would do to you if he finds out where you’re from.”
“You don’t deserve to be stuck here either,” I protested, but Svend was already straightening up, bringing his hand to my cheek.
“You’ve been a little spot of brightness in this dim realm,” he said. “I won’t see that squashed out because of me. Yo
u tell us what we can do to help, and we’ll do it—so you can get home.”
Gunnar and Jerrik nodded. My heart squeezed. They weren’t like Odin, just looking for how I could serve them. Of course they weren’t. These weren’t gods but men—men who cared for me more than I’d thought anyone could.
Until recently, I hadn’t thought it mattered. But now…
“No,” I said roughly, looking from one to the next as Svend let his hand drop. “I’m not leaving without you. I’ve been a bright spot in your lives? You’ve been the only real brightness in mine in centuries. The only happiness I could really call mine.”
“Muninn,” Jerrik started.
I shook my head. “No argument. If you won’t come with me, then I’m staying here.”
There wasn’t much they could say to that. My gaze drifted toward the doorway, my mind tracing the twists and turns we’d have to make to reach the surface again. Remembering the looming fortress which would look so much more imposing from the ground. The roar of the dragons, the stench of their breath.
A shiver ran through me. I might be immortal in a way, but I could still die as much as any being of Asgard could. And the three men with me were full mortal.
“You’re right that it’s going to be hard, though,” I said. “I wish…” I clenched my hands. “I wish I could be more sure of myself. I still don’t feel this body is totally mine, completely under my control. I can’t even transform back into my usual self. If I had that control, if I knew my powers would work exactly the way I intended them to…”
Gunnar’s fingers trailed down my back, bringing a rush of warmth into my skin. “That power must still be in you,” he said. “When do you feel it the most? What’s made you more comfortable in this form?”
The honest answer spilled from my lips. “Having you touch me like that.”
His breath caught. He turned me toward him and cupped my face to bring my mouth to his. The kiss was so yearning it sent a flutter through my chest. A now familiar hunger lit low in my belly.
“Take control, then,” the giant murmured against my lips. “Take me, Muninn. However you want me.”
In that moment, no invitation had ever sounded so enticing. I teased my fingers into his thick hair and kissed him harder. His arm came around my waist, hugging me to him, but the planes of his bare chest felt too distant. I broke the kiss just long enough to yank off my dress. Then I stepped back into his arms with a pleased hum at the sensation of my naked breasts pressing against him.
Jerrik and Svend watched us, their breaths gone ragged with their own arousal. My awareness of their hungry gazes stoked the flames of desire inside me. I climbed onto the bench, straddling Gunnar, twining my tongue with his as we fell into another kiss. Yes. Every shiver, every tingle—they all belonged to me. This body that contained them was part of who I was now.
I’d be damned if I ever let anyone take it away from me.
Gunnar raised his hands to fondle my breasts. Each caress of his fingers sent deeper waves of pleasure coursing through my chest. I rocked on his lap, against the hard bulge of his erection straining at his pants. His kisses turned wilder, though no less tender.
I knew what I wanted. I wanted to be filled in a way I never had been before. To feel how this body could take in another’s in a way that could bring us even more bliss than I’d already found.
At my light shove, Gunnar lay back on the bench, propping himself up with his good shoulder. I yanked down his pants and underclothes. His cock sprang free, gloriously hard and erect. I leaned over him, letting my sex slide against the length of it. The giant groaned and tugged my mouth to his for another kiss, even wilder than before.
My wetness slicked over his hard length. This body was more than ready. Gripping him for a moment, I eased myself down. A whimper broke from my throat as I took him deeper and deeper. Pleasure trembled all through my nerves. Oh, dear gods, how had I lived for so long without ever knowing bliss like this was possible?
I pushed myself upright again, squeezing my hips, riding him with each pulse up and down. Gunnar clutched my thigh. His other hand skimmed up me to tweak my nipples again, his face flushed with need. I ran my fingers over his solid chest, soaking up the feel of him. Giving myself over to the frantic burn of ecstasy.
I sank deeper onto him, and he hit a spot inside me no one had ever touched before. My limbs shuddered, and then I was coming, coming so hard a gasp wrenched out of me and my head seemed to float up toward the ceiling on the cresting of pleasure.
“Muninn,” Gunnar said hoarsely. His grip on my thigh tightened, and he filled me even more with a gush of liquid heat.
I rocked to a stop over him, my chest heaving. I felt so good, but it still wasn’t enough. I needed more.
I kissed Gunnar softly and eased off of him. Watching me, he must have guessed what I intended. He stroked his hand over my hair and stood up from the bench.
My gaze found Svend next. Lust and longing danced in his bright brown eyes. I held out my hand to him. “Take me.”
He didn’t need me to make the request twice. In an instant, he was leaning over me, tipping me back on the bench. The hard stone braced me. I teased my fingers down his front and cupped his groin, finding him just as hard.
The dark elf’s breath stuttered. “Lovely lady,” he murmured, and dipped his head for a searing kiss. It went on and on as I fumbled with his trousers and his hand slid down my body to caress the little nub between my legs. It was so sensitive now that I cried out into his mouth the second his thumb flicked over it, shot through with a bolt of pleasure.
Svend paused just long enough to haul off his shirt. The sight of those sculpted muscles made my mouth water. I splayed my thighs around him, urging him onward, and he plunged inside me.
“Oh gods,” he said with a choked sound. “You can’t imagine how good you feel.”
A giggle tumbled out of me. “I can. I’m feeling it.” The giggle turned into a moan as he swiveled his hips, stretching me in heady new ways. This was my body, soaring on pleasure. This was my body, welcoming him, singing with sensation at every thrust.
Svend slipped his hand between us to rub that blissful spot just above my core as he bucked into me even faster, and I spiraled off into ecstasy again. My eyes rolled back with a flash of sparks.
“So good. So damned good,” Svend was murmuring, and it was. It was. Even more so when I felt him join me, spilling himself with a groan.
Every bit of me was quivering with fulfilled need, but I wasn’t done yet. As Svend sat up, I pushed myself upright with him. My eyes locked with Jerrik’s. He wet his lips, and his mouth curved into a wry grin.
“Shall we take each other, Miss Raven?” he said.
“Please,” I said. I stood up as he stepped forward, and our mouths collided.
His tongue slicked across my lips. He grasped me by the waist and swung us around to brace me against the wall. The heat of his body soaked into me from head to toe. I ground myself against his erection, and he let out a stuttered chuckle. Then he was kissing me again, deeply and desperately, as we yanked at his pants together.
He grazed the tip of his cock over my sex, so teasingly I whimpered. I clutched his shoulders, but he dipped his head and lifted my breast to catch it in his mouth. A full moan rippled out of me as he worked his tongue over the nipple, rocking against me but not quite penetrating me at the same time.
I tangled my fingers in his hair, strands spilling from his ponytail, and tugged his lips back to mine. My other hand covered his around his erection. We guided his cock into me together.
Another release was building inside me, swift and shimmering. I bucked against Jerrik, and he met me with each thrust. As one hand held onto my hip to steady me, his other traveled over the tender skin of my neck, my breasts, my ass. I pressed into his touch. My body, that they all took such pleasure in. My body, that responded with such pleasure in turn. A different kind of flying.
With that thought, I came once more, with a
gasp and a crash of pleasure that lifted me off the wall. Jerrik plunged even deeper into me and reached his release at the same time. He leaned in, tilting his head to claim another kiss.
Every inch of my body was humming with satisfaction now. Satisfaction and a sense of presence I hadn’t felt before. Mine, all mine—these arms, these legs, the naked skin that covered them.
I tipped back my face as Jerrik eased away from me. My eyes slid closed, and a new fluttering emerged in my belly, rising through my chest. I was this human, this woman three men had just adored. And I was a raven too.
I contracted into my feathered form in a snap, with a triumphant cry. My wings flapped automatically. I soared up to the cave room’s ceiling, my avian senses tasting the currents of the air, finding a crevice my human eyes hadn’t even noticed. I flung myself up through it.
Up, up, and out into the red glow of the fiery realm. My wings unfurled completely. The feel of that tepid wind buffeting my feathered body was everything I’d been longing for. I let it pull me up toward the gray sky and whirled in a loop. I was myself again. I was where I belonged.
And yet not. Before I’d even finished my first loop, my heart was tugging me back downward.
Part of me belonged on my feet on the ground now. Part of me felt just as much longing for the men down below as I’d once longed for my wings.
I folded them close to my body and dove. The air warbled past me as I shot down through the dark crevice, into the room where I’d lost myself to pleasure and found myself in it too.
I shifted purposefully this time, my human legs springing out in time to catch me firmly on the stone floor. My dress drifted back into place against my skin as if I’d never shed it. Well, that was convenient.
The three guys were staring at me. Perhaps hearing a person was a raven was a little different from seeing that person actually transform into one.
“I’m back,” I said tentatively.
The sound of my voice stirred them from their daze. “You’re lovely in every form, Muninn,” Svend said, blinking.
Realms and Rebels: A Paranormal and Fantasy Reverse Harem Collection Page 55
