by Lauren Dawes
‘You’d better get used to that, Loki. You will be trapped here with this serpent until the end of time.’ Odin turned to Skadi, touching her gently on the shoulder. ‘Say your goodbyes.’
Loki watched in horror as Skadi kissed the snake then placed it above his head. The snake’s body coiled around a stalactite hanging overhead, but its head and open mouth were positioned over his neck and chest. Loki licked his suddenly dry lips, knowing he was staring into the eyes of not just Death, but of Torment and Torture, too.
Odin touched him on the hip. ‘Enjoy your time together, blood-brother.’ The last word was a sneer. Despair rose up in Loki like a swollen river, the banks threatening to break. The sound of their retreating footsteps was what broke him. He yelled, he raged, he swore. He begged, he pleaded, he cried. But they did not return. Straining his eyes, he could see they’d left Sigyn’s and Narvi’s bodies to rot, to remind him of why he was being punished, why he must endure this torture.
A droplet of venom fell onto his throat and the scream that escaped his body left his throat raw. He could feel the poison sinking into his blood, burning, melting his flesh. Another struck him directly on his heart, his skin sizzling and smoking on contact with the poison. Loki screamed out wordlessly, writhing, pulling against his bonds until blood welled on his ankles and wrists and throat. Another drip. Another scream.
In the brief reprieve, a part of him thought maybe this was what he deserved. He was despised by the gods. They treated him as a threat, as a rabid dog not knowing when or if he was going to bite them. He was the trickster god, but it had been Odin who had welcomed him into the fold.
Drip.
A burning started through his body, an all-consuming wild fire without any hope of being extinguished.
Drip.
Odin. He was the one who deserved to be tied to the rocks. He was the one who deserved to smell the fetid breath of death as the corpses of his beloved withered and rotted at his feet.
Odin.
Drip.
Odin.
Must.
Die.
Chapter One
I woke up to raised voices. Climbing from my bed, I opened the door a little. Mother and Father were arguing...they were arguing about me.
*
Darrion faded to the walk-up in South Boston, the weight of the twin Berettas under his arms a comfort. This was one of his safe houses and gods knew he needed them. Although he realized he was a walking, talking target for any one of the rival guilds, he simply didn’t give a fuck. Not tonight. Not any night. After sweeping his eyes around to see if he’d been followed, he opened the front door and slid inside.
The building’s ancient heating system suddenly lurched to life; a dying beast that grunted and groaned as he walked up the five flights of stairs to his apartment. He paused a few feet from the door, the hairs at the back of his neck prickling. Fuck. He drew one of the twins silently. Approaching one side of the jamb, he reached out and tried the handle. Locked.
With a growl in his throat, he faded just onto the other side of the door, ready. A delicate fragrance hung in the air. Honeysuckle, he thought. With narrowed eyes, he moved through the apartment, looking for signs of the intruder he knew was still there.
After a chronic silence, he was met with a hesitant female voice. ‘I mean you no harm, Walker.’
He cursed. ‘Show yourself, female.’
A woman emerged slowly from the bathroom on Darrion’s left. She was wearing a white cloak that covered her head and shoulders, dropping her features into shadow. On her diminutive body, she wore a dress made of the sheerest fabric. A moment later, she drew the hood back from her blonde hair and dropped her blue eyes to the floor. Gods, she couldn’t have been any older than sixteen.
He cursed her again, bringing the muzzle of the gun up to her forehead, teenager or not. ‘Who are you, and how did you find this place?’ he snarled, baring his fangs.
She was Aesirean, her cornflower blue eyes rising then widening until he could see the whites all the way around. The thick scent of her fear started to permeate the room, warring with the scent of honeysuckle. ‘Please,’ she begged, her fearful eyes fixed on his finger on the trigger. ‘My mistress sent me here to speak with you.’
‘Who is your mistress? How did you find me?’ He could feel the air beginning to thicken further as the fear consumed her. He breathed in that weighted air, feeling his stomach clench tight with need.
‘M-my mistress is the queen,’ the girl stammered, the color draining from her cheeks.
Darrion sneered at the title. ‘What do you want?’
The female licked her lips. ‘She wishes me to tell you she has a request—a contract if you prefer.’
‘I don’t work for the Aesir,’ he spat back bitterly, dropping his arm, but not holstering the weapon.
‘Please,’ the girl started trembling visibly. ‘She said she would kill me if I did not come back with the right answer.’
He levelled her with a cold, dead stare. ‘Your queen couldn’t afford me.’
‘She has given me gold.’ The servant spoke in a rush, reaching into the cloak. Darrion raised his weapon again, training it on her head so when she eventually looked up again, the muzzle was right between her eyes. She gasped in surprise, the coin purse dropping from her hand.
She dropped to the ground, her shaking fingers reaching for the gold that had spilled out onto the floor. She started to cry, her sobs delicate—restrained—as if she was afraid to make any more noise. Darrion watched her pale head bob around as she worked; wondering why in the Hel this girl was sent to him in the first place.
She seemed to have pulled herself together when she faced him once more. ‘Please...is there no way you would say yes?’
Darrion snorted. There was one way, but it would never happen. ‘Yeah, get that bitch down here to ask me herself instead of sending me little girls.’
The servant dropped into a curtsey and faded.
Darrion rubbed the back of his skull with his palm and holstered the Berretta. He fucking hated the Aesir, and not because they had their heads so far up their asses they thought they were the ones who invented the sun when they yawned, but because those pretentious fucks had persecuted his people for centuries. There had been a capture or kill order on any Mare found within the civilian population since Odin had deemed them ‘too dangerous’ to remain breathing.
Gods, he needed a drink.
Finding his bottle of Maker’s Mark, he tore the wax cap off and took a deep pull. The amber liquid burned on the way down. The bottle began to shake in his hand, his pissed-off body finally signally its intent. Wiping the back of his hand over his mouth, he put the bottle down and let out a deep lungful.
‘Did my little handmaiden shake you up so badly, morier?’ With a growl, Darrion spun around, pulling a throwing knife from the holster on his thigh and launching it in the direction of the voice. The blade stuck into the wall, vibrating with the force still surging through the metal.
The woman who had been the target had simply side-stepped the steel, unruffled by his aggression. If she’d been going for inconspicuousness, she’d failed. The blood-red gown she was wearing was cinched in at the waist, pushing her breasts up until they threatened to spill over the top in a waterfall of warm flesh. Darrion glared at the woman and reached for his gun.
‘Leave the weapon where it lays, morier.’
Darrion ground his teeth together, but stayed his hand. ‘I could have killed her, you know.’ He stalked to his left, watching the queen with suspicious eyes. She didn’t smell of fear yet, but there was still time.
‘But you didn’t,’ she replied smoothly, running a hand through hair the color of spun gold. Her shrewd ocean-deep blue eyes watched him move, watched him position himself. ‘And do you want to know why?’
‘Go on. Dazzle me.’ Darrion took another step to his left, still moving until he was at her back. She didn’t turn to him, barely glancing in his direction with the slig
ht turn of her head.
‘I still haunt your dreams,’ she replied, smiling insidiously.
Darrion bared his fangs at her, a rumbling growl vibrating through his chest. ‘Don’t flatter yourself.’
The female laughed; a high, tinkling sound that grated on his eardrums. ‘You think I couldn’t finish you by the time it took for you to inhale your next breath?’ he snarled back.
She waved away his threat with a casual hand. ‘Don’t you want to know what the job is?’
‘I couldn’t give a—’
‘Odin,’ she murmured. Darrion’s mouth hung open for a second before he pulled his shit together. He couldn’t be falling apart. He was a goddamn Walker—the best there ever was. Stalking around the other side of her, he watched her face for any signs of dishonesty.
He didn’t see any, but that didn’t mean a goddamn thing.
‘Kill Odin,’ she repeated.
A pause suspended between them.
His eyes narrowed to slits. ‘You’re asking the impossible.’
‘Nothing is impossible,’ she purred back, leaving no doubt in his mind that a satisfied grin would be curling her lips.
He made his way back to where he had started. Staring into her face, his next words came out on a low growl. ‘I should just kill you now.’
‘I’d be gone before you reached for your weapon.’
He smiled widely, showing her his fangs. ‘Who needs a weapon?’
Her pupils dilated, but instead of the scent of her fear, he only smelled lust. Darrion inhaled deeply, taking in the fragrance. His body stirred at the memories that came along with that particular bouquet.
She cleared her throat and jerked her royal chin forward. ‘You think I came here unprotected?’
‘No, I don’t think you’re that stupid. A whore, sure, but not stupid.’
Her delicate expression darkened, her lips thinning out into a nasty snarl. ‘How dare you!’ she hissed.
He chuckled sardonically. ‘Slit your wrists, sweetheart,’ he said dismissively. ‘It’ll lower your blood pressure.’ He stalked away pleased with this reaction. So the great unflappable queen had just proved otherwise. When his eyes returned to her face, she was in control of her emotions once more. This was the woman he knew. This was the woman he remembered.
He took out one of his daggers and sank into an armchair in the corner of the room, picking at the dried blood beneath his fingernails. ‘So tell me, oh great queen, how am I supposed to take out Odin? The last I checked, he was truly immortal.’ Odin was not like the other Aesir. You could kill any god if you did enough damage to their bodies. But Odin...Odin was different.
She continued to stare, drawing out the silence. Darrion’s teeth ground together. Eventually, she said, ‘There is a way for him to die.’
Darrion raised a brow. ‘Even if that were true, you think I’ll believe you?’ he snorted. ‘You want your husband to die? Why?’
Her blue eyes clouded over with rage. ‘I cannot stand for his infidelity any longer.’
His infidelity? Darrion thought wildly. She was the one who ushered people in between her legs like it was a movie theater about to close its doors for the screening. He focused on the tip of his blade for a second. Without lifting his eyes, he murmured, ‘I’m all ears.’
‘Kill Brynhildr and you can kill him.’
His eyes flipped to hers, narrowing, sceptical. ‘How does that work?’
She came two paces closer to him, dropping to her knees. Although he was disgusted by her, disgusted with himself for burying his body into the well of hers so many times before, he still found her curiously arousing. His cock stirred to life ever so slightly at the sight of her supplicating herself to him.
She shuffled forward, parting his knees with her hands and sliding in between his thighs. He didn’t stop cleaning under his nails which was annoying her, he could tell.
‘Bryn has a feather cloak that holds her immortality. Destroy the cloak, you destroy her and Odin can be killed.’
Darrion’s eyes narrowed, the knife stilling in his fingers. He didn’t trust her. She could be feeding him false info just to fuck around with his head. It wouldn’t be the first time. ‘Why have you sought me out, Frigg?’
She smiled at him innocently, but it was like having a viper smiling at him: cold with death not just a threat, but a promise. ‘You are the best.’ Her hands ran up the inside of his thighs toward his hips. Fingertips brushed over his partial erection. Her head dipped and her tongue moistened her lips. There was no way in Hel he was going to let her get her mouth anywhere near him.
He placed the tip of the blade under her chin and tipped her head back. Darrion saw movement from his periphery, but she waved her muscle back with a casual flick of her wrist. ‘I’ve seen decomposing bodies that are more appealing than what you are about to offer me. Get up, my queen.’
Her eyes flared with anger, but she managed to get herself back onto her feet. Crossing her arms over her chest, she looked at him impatiently.
‘So, will you take the contract? As you know, money is inconsequential. I can pay you whatever you want.’
He stood up and slid the blade into the holster on his thigh. Odin was his ultimate hit. He had dreamed of a time when he would be able to put a blade through the All-Father’s heart, to hear his final breaths shuddering from his lips, to know that the god could no longer hunt his people down and take parents from their children.
Darrion refused to let his memories take over, but like a roiling ocean during a storm, there was no way to stop them. He heard the echoes of the screams—smelled the blood. He heard his father’s final words to him. He remembered the way he had abandoned them all. With a shudder, his eyes refocused on the room.
‘Don’t insult me with your money, my queen.’ Darrion’s voice was sharp like a shard of glass and as dark and threatening as a gun muzzle pressed to someone’s temple.
‘Will you do it?’ she asked somewhat impatiently.
‘I’ll think about it,’ he snarled back.
The woman smiled slyly—knowingly—her lips tilting up in the corners. ‘Good.’ She stepped back and nodded to the two men who she’d thought had faded in without his notice.
He turned around. ‘Now get out of my apartment.’
Chapter Two
Korvain wiped the blood from his favorite curved blade against the pant leg of the guy who’d just had a real intimate introduction to the weapon. The fuck had apparently pissed off the wrong people. The Mare looked around the apartment the mark had kept in Boston. It was nice, if you liked the idea of wanting to slit your wrists just for something to do.
Everything was white, or at least it had been. Now it was spattered in the mark’s blood, painted in the stuff. The shag rug where the POS was laying had gone from pink to red. Soon it would be brown as the blood dried to a hard crust.
Message sent.
Korvain’s pocket began to vibrate. Palming his phone, he answered it and held it to his ear. ‘Speak.’
‘Sit rep?’ Darrion’s cold voice asked on the other end of the phone.
Korvain glanced around the room, nudging his mark with the toe of his boot. ‘End game.’
‘Good. Divert.’
Korvain hung up and slid the phone back into one of the pockets of his black cargoes. He faded back to Dorchester, stepping out of a dark alleyway beside a cheap brothel. Under the haze of red-tinged lighting, there was a set of dingy stairs leading to the upper level; syringes and bent spoons littering the treads.
Korvain opened up Darrion’s office door and froze. His boss had the tip of a throwing knife in his right hand, the concentration on his face unmistakable.
‘Don’t move,’ Darrion murmured icily; his blue eyes fixed on a point just over Korvain’s left shoulder. Korvain did as he was told, standing stock-still, hardly breathing. Darrion had trained him, had taught him everything he knew about killing. Korvain knew what the man was capable of, how good he was with a blade in his
hand.
Darrion drew his arm back above his head and released the blade in a downward chopping motion. The blade sliced the air perfectly, flying just a hair’s-breadth away from Korvain’s ear. The blade landed in the wooden board behind him with a sharp thunk.
Korvain released the breath he’d been holding and straightened up. Darrion stalked past him to retrieve the blades he must have been throwing at the wall since he’d made the call to bring Korvain back in.
‘What took you so long?’
‘I didn’t realize you were timing me,’ Korvain replied in a cold voice, walking over to one of the walls and putting his back to it. There were a lot of bare walls to choose from. Darrion was no Martha Stewart.
Darrion took up the same position as before and took aim once more. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. ‘I have another assignment for you.’ His voice was calm, level, matter-of-fact. It was a little too calm—unnerving Korvain and sending a chill down his spine.
‘Why didn’t you just text me the details?’
Darrion looked at him with a hard edge in his pale eyes. ‘Delicacy is required.’
Korvain folded his arms across his chest. When was Darrion ever delicate? When his boss wanted secrecy, it meant it was someone important, not like the POS lesser god he’d killed earlier.
Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. ‘This is a once-in-a-lifetime hit. If you can make the mark disappear, you’ll get paid triple what you usually get, plus I’ll take five years off your contract.’
The muscle in Korvain’s jaw jumped. ‘I’m listening.’
Thunk. ‘You can’t fuck this up if you take it.’ Thunk. ‘If you do,’ thunk, ‘you know what happens.’
That sound was really beginning to irritate Korvain. ‘Okay. Want to tell me?’ he asked, his molars clenched together, grinding.
‘A Valkyrie,’ Darrion replied calmly, throwing a blade.
Korvain barked a harsh laugh. ‘A Valkyrie?’ he asked incredulously. ‘Why not ask to kill Odin himself?’
Darrion turned, throwing the blade in his hand. It hit the wall behind Korvain, but not before slicing open his cheek as he reflexively dodged to the side. He hadn’t been fast enough though. And that pissed him off. The rage Korvain kept simmering whenever he was around Darrion began to boil over, making him see black spots when he blinked.
