by Linsey Hall
Not only that, but she wanted him. She wanted him forever, but if she could only have one last time, she’d grab for it with both hands. It could be their last moment together that meant anything. Once they couldn’t remember each other, there would be no point. For all intents and purposes, they wouldn’t exist.
She wanted nothing more than to bury her fear in him, to tear off his clothes and make love with him until she forgot the threat that loomed all around them, seeping into their minds. She wanted to remember what it was like to be with him. An echo of everything that they’d had and everything that was soon to be lost pounded through her mind.
“I know it will be hard to forget the threat that surrounds us,” she said. “But we have to try. We need the advantage my magic could bring us.”
“I can do more than try,” he said, his voice husky.
He kissed her hard, devouring. She grasped his shoulders and threw herself into the kiss with a desperation that scared her. The urgency of his mouth and hands made her head spin. It was as if a switch had flicked on and the danger was pushed to the background.
“Quickly,” she said against his mouth. She didn’t want to rush this, but they had no choice.
Her heart ached as she fumbled with the zipper of her jeans. She couldn’t get them undone. Her breath sobbed out of her, desperation creeping in to suffocate her.
Logan cupped her cheeks and raised her face to his. “Shh. It’s okay.”
“It’s not!”
He pressed a tender kiss to her lips, wiping her tears away with his thumbs. “It will be okay. I love you, Sylvi. We’ll make it out of this.”
Her heart stuttered. He’d never said those words to her. Hope and joy and fear fought in her chest and she kissed him back, dying to taste him.
“I love you,” she said against his lips. “I love you, I love you.”
His mouth was so hot and desperate against hers that she felt his need. It rose up within her, twining with her own, and swept her away on a sea of emotion.
Logan’s big hands expertly drew her zipper down. She toed off her boots and he tugged off her jeans and underwear. When she felt his big hand at her sex, she gasped.
“You mean everything to me,” he said, his eyes hot on hers. “I don’t have protection, but I can pull out. Is that all right?”
She could see the raw desire in his eyes. It was still a risk, but it was worth it. She wanted to be like that with him. She nodded.
He crushed his mouth to hers as he pushed two fingers inside of her and circled his thumb on her clitoris. Despite her fear of the future, her need for him made the intrusion feel divine.
Her mind clouded from the pleasure as thrust his fingers in time with his circling thumb. She fumbled with his fly, dragging his pants down to free his erection. She gripped it, stroking up and down, marveling at the feel of it beneath her palm. Hard and strong. Like him.
“I’m ready,” she said.
He kissed her and gently removed his hand, then gripped her hips and hoisted her up until her back pressed against the wall and she could wrap her legs around his waist. She reached for his cock and helped guide him into her, gasping at the first hard press of his flesh against hers.
Tears pricked her eyes at the knowledge that this could be the last time. His mouth captured hers as he thrust to the hilt. She moaned. The pleasure that streaked through him rushed through her as well, driving her higher and faster toward a peak she’d never ascended.
She felt his love. Not just his passion or his need, but his love. It made the magic well inside her, more powerful than ever before. She stored it away, hoarding it so that she could use it later when they needed it.
The feel of him moving inside of her, hot and hard and oh so good, dragged her back to the present. His thrusts picked up speed, making her dizzy with pleasure. It coiled tight within her.
“Sylvi.” His voice was gravel at her ear. He was close.
Soon, he lost his graceful rhythm. He pulled out of her and came, jets of hot white fluid spilling between them. The magic roared within her and she forced it into her staff, which was still in the aether.
His shudders ceased. With the magic faded, her need roared to life.
“I’ve got you,” he said, and dropped a hand between their bodies. The feel of his fingers on her clit shot lightning pleasure through her. In seconds, she was coming, shaking and gasping in his arms. Their surroundings faded to nothing, until he was the only thing in her world.
When she surfaced, he was holding her tight to him. She pushed against his chest and he let her down.
He leaned down and kissed her, then met her gaze and said, “I meant what I said.”
He was talking about his love. It made her heart clutch with the impossibility of it all. “So did I.”
“Did it work?” he asked as he handed her pants to her.
“I think so.” She tugged on her shoes. “I stored the power in my staff. Let me see if I can enter the aether.”
She drew her staff and focused on the energy of the aether. She could already feel that she could step inside. “It worked. We’ll be faster than the builder of the labyrinth ever thought possible.” A terrible thought struck her. “But I don’t know how to find the portal. Even if we are fast, we need to know how to navigate.”
“Could the Architect’s knowledge contain a map?” he asked.
“Yes!” She hadn’t thought of that. Of course. They would use the map to find the portal and save loads of time. This would save them. They had advantages the other gods would have lacked. “I’ll check it.”
She turned and leaned her back against Logan’s chest. She wanted to sit on the ground to help herself focus better, but she didn’t want to get any closer to the plants that were fat with the river’s water.
It took her several minutes to calm her breathing and her mind enough to focus on her magic. If she hadn’t had so much practice calming herself before she went into battle, she was sure she’d never have succeeded.
Finally, she was able to search through the Architect’s knowledge, asking specifically for a map of the labyrinth. It felt like falling through a library full of open books, pages and words flying past her until she reached her destination. When the plan of the labyrinth unfolded behind her closed eyelids, she gasped.
It was huge. She’d known it was huge, but it was so complex. At the center was an illustration of a clearing. There was a stylized circle through which a river flowed. That was where they had to go.
She focused her energy on memorizing the first dozen turns in the labyrinth. Once done, she opened her eyes and said, “I’ll have to consult the map at least a dozen more times, but we can start.”
She reached out a trembling hand for his. The tense muscles in her shoulders relaxed infinitesimally when she felt the comfort of his strong grip. She’d go slower with him than if she ran through the aether alone, but she wouldn’t leave him. Nothing on earth or all the afterworlds would make her let go of his hand.
They set off, moving so fast that the walls were a blur. After a dozen turns, she needed to consult the map again, so they stopped. Standing still, with the world no longer rushing past her, she could feel more blank spots in her memory, as if something were missing.
“Sylvi.” Logan’s voice was dark. “My memory is much worse.”
Sylvi blinked away tears and consulted the map. Her heart pounded. They were so far away. They wouldn’t make it. If they kept losing their memory at the same rate, they would have almost nothing left.
“You’ll make it, Sylvi,” Logan said.
If he was losing his memory faster than she was—which he was—then no, they wouldn’t make it. Or he wouldn’t, at least. And from his words, he knew it.
“I’ll have my memory longer than you will. Maybe I’ll make it. I’ll drag you if I have to,” she said.
Dragging him through hell would be, well, hell, but at least they’d be out of the labyrinth. They’d worry about getting out of Hades o
nce they were there.
He kissed her hard and they set off again. The pathways of moss and tangled vines beneath their feet squished with every step and she feared it released more of the toxic river water into the air in minuscule droplets. She wished desperately that she didn’t have to breathe.
The tall walls seemed to close in on them the farther they ran. Vines, leaves, and flowers whooshed by overhead, a blur of green with hints of rainbow. It was magical in the most horrible way.
They had to stop several times to consult the map and for her to catch her breath. She cherished each stop because it allowed her to look at him.
“Talk to me. Tell me a memory of us,” Sylvi said at one of their stops. Even though she should focus on the task ahead of them, she couldn’t help but beg for the link to their past. She wanted desperately to remember everything she could, to relive it in her mind before it was stolen from them. And one small, terrified part of her wanted to see how much Logan remembered.
“I remember happiness.” Logan’s voice was rough. “Joy and pleasure. There’s a raging will to fight—it pounds in my head. But all around it is the feeling of happiness and love. That’s you.”
“But not details?” A gaping chasm of pain opened in her chest at the thought. She felt like her memory had huge holes. How must his feel?
Logan glanced down at her, his expression dark with misery. Sylvi swallowed hard and tried to force a positive expression onto her face. She still remembered details. They’d get through the portal, then she’d remind him. She could remember for both of them.
“I love you, Sylvi. As stupid and as stubborn as I’ve been, I’ve always loved you. It’s so deep a part of me that I won’t forget that. I might forget thoughts and memories, but I won’t forget how you make me feel.”
Aching joy swept over her, followed by the realization that this was going to kill her. No question, heartbreak would be the end of her. She wanted to tell him that she loved him back, but in the face of all this bad, she couldn’t say the words. So she nodded, blinking rapidly, then forced her voice to sound normal. “I need to check the map again.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Logan held on to Sylvi’s hand like a lifeline. Love and fear pressed relentlessly against his ribs as she closed her eyes to focus on reading the knowledge stored in her staff.
Though they raced through the labyrinth at a speed that made the place blur before his eyes, they weren’t moving fast enough. The labyrinth was mind-bogglingly huge and the river Lethe worked quickly.
Sylvi kept saying they were close, but all the labyrinth walls looked the same and he worried she was just trying to reassure him. He was a god, for fates’ sakes. He was never afraid.
Yet the prospect of losing all memory of himself—of Sylvi—was enough to make his heart pound so painfully against his ribs that he thought they’d break. And it was already happening. Fast.
He knew he was over a thousand years old. He knew he’d met Sylvi when they were in Asgard. But he couldn’t dredge up the actual memories of the place or of her from so long ago. A textbook knowledge of his past had replaced his memories and he was terrified that soon, even that would disappear.
He gripped Sylvi’s hand harder, forcing himself not to crush it.
She opened her eyes. “We’re close.”
Hope flared in his chest. No matter how many times she said it, he wanted so desperately to believe it that he couldn’t stop himself.
They set off through the labyrinth at her otherworldly pace, jumping over profuse bushes of flowers and dodging hanging vines. The walls still soared a hundred feet above them, though it felt like thousands.
His mind was breaking more and more until even the present felt odd. The endless sameness of the corridors contributed to his madness. It was an ingenious part of the torture of this place.
Finally, they stumbled upon a valley clearing in the labyrinth. Just being able to see a wide open space in front of him helped to clear his mind.
“There!” Sylvi pointed to a great lake that sat in the valley below. The river fell from the sky, a great waterfall.
The portal to Hades. He gripped Sylvi’s hand. He’d walk through hell with her. He was having a hard time remembering why they had to walk through hell together, but he knew he’d do it without hesitation.
Briars of fear pierced his heart. He was unsure of why he needed to go through hell with her? No! He knew that. They had to go through the portal to escape this place before all his memories were wiped away.
He shook his head violently.
“It’s getting worse?” Sylvi asked, her voice quavering.
He swallowed hard and nodded. “I’ve started to lose memories from the present as well as the past. I feel like I’m grasping at straws. There are gaps in my memory—things I know should be there that are not.”
She threw herself against his chest and wrapped her arms around him. “We’ll make it.”
He tilted her head up and kissed her hard, then pulled back. “To the portal.”
She took his hand again and set off running, again leading him on the strange journey through the aether that allowed them to reach the portal only minutes later though it had been miles away.
When they slowed to a halt on the banks of the lake and looked up at the portal, his heart fell to his feet.
Through his foggy thoughts, he hadn’t noticed how far away it was. Or how small. Hundreds of feet above them, a thin wound stretched across the sky.
“The portal is too small to go through.” Sylvi’s voice hitched.
It wasn’t even a real portal. Yggdrasil had torn a thin gash in the aether, into the world, into himself, and diverted the river Lethe through it. The river poured from long, thin laceration, frothing and white. They could neither reach the tear, nor go through it.
Logan brought Sylvi’s hand to his lips. He kissed her soft skin, then looked down at her. Tears tracked down her cheeks.
“What will we do?” Sylvi’s voice was hopeless. “This was our only chance.”
“There’s always hope,” Logan said. Though he was having a hard time remembering the specifics of their situation and knew that there was no chance for him, hope for Sylvi welled in his chest. He clung to it. He had to cling to it.
He couldn’t bear to confront the idea that she wouldn’t escape. And no matter how gone his mind was, hope and determination would never fade from him. It was how he was wired. How he’d been made.
“Think, Sylvi. Your memory is better than mine now. We need another escape.”
She bit her lip and her eyes raced over the clearing. Vines and moss covered the ground, leading away from the great lake and climbing up over the labyrinth walls in the distance.
Her breath hitched and she turned to him. “The walls create the maze, but the river turns it into a deadly labyrinth. If we can close the portal to the river, the water will stop flowing. The vines will wither and die without it—they’ll no longer be able to rebuild the labyrinth walls if we break through them. We can return to an exterior wall and break it down with our magic or the Retaliator’s heart without the vines being there to rebuild the wall. Maybe, with the river’s magic gone, we could even aetherwalk.”
The embers of hope in his chest burst into flame. He kissed her, hard and quick. “Genius.”
She glanced upward at the portal. “But how do we destroy it?”
His gaze followed hers and his mind scrambled for answers. Only one stood out as possible. It made dread settle in his chest.
“It’s a wound. I’ll cauterize it with Immortal Fire so that the water can no longer flow through.”
Her gaze snapped to his. “No! The flame will create steam. We’ll breathe it in all the faster and lose our memories entirely.”
He nodded. He’d known it as soon as he’d thought of the plan, but he had nothing else. Creating great magic couldn’t come without sacrifice.
Logan turned to her and took her hands. Through a tight throat, he said, �
�I’m almost gone, Sylvi. My memory is a sliver of what it was. It will take time to make it out of the maze, even with the water gone and the magic diminished.”
“No. No. You can’t do this.” Her eyes were wild. She clutched at his shirt front.
“As a full god, I’ve never had a great chance of making it out of here with my memory. But you… Your memory is still largely intact. Being a demigod is protecting you. You can actually make it out. I’ll be damned if I’m not going to do something to help insure it.”
“You can’t!”
“Do you have another plan?” Part of him wished desperately that she did, but it was impossible.
She glanced around frantically, as if she could find the answer written on a labyrinth wall.
He reached up and gently grasped her chin, turning her toward him. “It will work, Sylvi. You get back a few hundred yards. I’ll hold my breath while I do it. I’m a god. I can hold it for a damn long time. Maybe I’ll lose some memory, but not all.”
“No, Logan!”
“Do it, Sylvi.” He leaned down and kissed her hard, then pushed her away. They didn’t have time for tenderness. This would likely take the rest of his memory, though he didn’t want to say it to her. It had always been his fate to be imprisoned until Ragnarok. He’d finally accepted it. It was easy to do when it meant he could protect her.
“Go,” he said. “We’re running out of time. No matter what happens to me, you’ll make your way back and try to use the heart to break through the wall once the vines no longer protect it.”
“You’re coming with me.” Desperation laced her voice.
He shook his head. His memory was a sliver of what it had been. Wasn’t it? He couldn’t be sure of the percentage he’d lost, but he could only pull up memories of the past century, though he knew he was Loki, the Norse trickster god.
That should make him over a thousand years old, shouldn’t it? His mind grasped at threads and wisps of thought, but he could catch hold of none of them. He was becoming more emotion and force of will than anything else.
