Magnus chuckled. “The redhead was kind of cute.”
“If you could get past the thees and thous. I prefer more modern screams myself.” Not that he’d be crazy enough to try and get it on with a Norn of Fate.
Or at least not those Norns. Now, if he could find Skuld, it would be a whole different story. Her, he’d happily tie to his bed for the rest of eternity. Maybe even beyond.
A familiar, blood-curdling scream sounded right as Morgan opened the door to Logan, Kir and Jordan’s condo.
Magnus tapped him on the shoulder. “Will those do?”
Morgan rolled his eyes and stepped into the Tate-Saeters’ condo. He did his best to ignore the mayhem as Jeff, his half brother, chased his twin sister Jamie around Kir’s living room. The two of them were yelling so loudly Morgan was surprised Hel didn’t come to ask them to keep it down because they were waking the dead.
Magnus, however, never could ignore a good fight. “Get him, Jamie! Run, Jeff, run!”
The two paused, and Morgan blinked. Jeff, whose curls had been short when he left, now had… “What is up with your hair?”
Jeff growled, pulling a waist-length mass of red curls over his shoulder. “Jamie stole my rubber band.”
“It was my rubber band. You stole it to begin with.”
“I need it! Fenris won’t let me cut my hair.”
Magnus started to laugh, but Morgan was watching them both closely. Something was wrong. The two of them were crazy, but they were never manic. Today, their playing had a whiff of…desperation? Sadness? Whatever it was, the pair looked far too unhappy to be joking the way they were. “What do you mean, he won’t let you?” No one stopped Jeff from doing what he wanted. No one. Not even their father.
“Did he say Fenris won’t let him?” Morgan was stunned. He remembered Fenrisùlfr. The wolf was fierce, but Morgan doubted he would ever harm Jeff. He tugged absently at the magical earring Logan had given him just before they’d departed for the bridge. It hid them from Odin’s scrying, allowing them to get to Yggdrasil without having to confront him openly. They’d left just before Jeff, Travis and Jamie departed for Norway to save Fenris.
Rumor on the bridge had it that the Old Man was hiding in Valhalla after his defeat at the hands of Fenris, but Morgan knew better. If the man was in Valhalla instead of on Earth, it was because he was up to something.
There had been other rumors, dark ones, but they hadn’t dared linger. Skuld was most likely on Midgard instead of under the World Tree, and that meant she was in danger. That Magnus had agreed with him and hustled them both home only caused his anxiety to grow.
The Wonder Twins ignored him. Jamie held out the hair band and shook it in Jeff’s face, dancing back when he tried to snatch it. “It’s mine, dickhead.”
Jeff growled and chased Jamie around the sofa again.
“You know, I’m sure Kir has a nice, quiet quest he can send us on.” Magnus was watching his brother and sister act like idiots with an amused expression.
Morgan flinched as the rubber band smacked Jeff right between the eyes, Jamie crowing in triumph over her “kill shot”. “I hear Barbados is lovely this time of year.”
The two started backing toward the door when the Wonder Twins suddenly froze. “Oh my god.” Jamie stared at them out of huge, tear-filled green eyes, as if just realizing they were there. “Jeff. Magnus and Morgan are here.”
“Welcome home.” Jeff bound his hair with shaking hands, but now that Morgan looked closer he didn’t seem to be any better than Jamie. What the fuck is going on?
The twins exchanged a look that had Morgan’s heart pounding in fear. He was right. All the horsing around suddenly made sense—the Wonder Twins were trying too hard to get back to normal.
Something bad had happened while they were gone.
“I’ll go get Kir and Logan. You go get Jordan.” Jamie nodded and took off.
Instead of heading off to fetch Logan and Kir, Jeff approached Morgan and Magnus.
Something in the way his brother moved told Morgan everything he needed to know. Fenris, Logan’s son, had claimed Jeff as his mate. His brother had always been nimble, but now he moved with a preternatural grace that hadn’t been present before. In his gaze a fierce predator lurked.
He’d deal with that, and Fenris, later. The wolf would take care of Morgan’s brother, but still. Jeff was his little brother, and Morgan would let it be known that Fenris was not the only one watching out for him. “What happened?”
“I didn’t want to say it in front of Jamie. She’s cried enough for both of us. But, Morgan, Magnus…” Jeff sighed, grief tightening his features. “Dad’s dead.”
Morgan blinked. He hadn’t heard what he thought he’d heard. He couldn’t have. Thor was…
Thor. Invincible.
Jeff nodded, as if he sensed Morgan’s disbelief. “Grimm killed him.”
No. Morgan shook his head, unwilling to believe that…
That…
Magnus gripped his arm as he swayed, steadying him.
“The bastard nearly killed you as well, elskede.” Fenris came out of the kitchen and wrapped his arm around Jeff’s waist. His gaze was hard as he stared at the brothers, as if he thought Morgan and Magnus were somehow a threat to his beloved. “He killed Thor to get to me, but took Jeff by accident. As Jeff had changed for the first time, he assumed the wolf was me.” He grabbed Jeff’s wrist and lifted Jeff’s arm, much to Jeff’s obvious aggravation. “He still bears the scars of the Old Man’s cruelty.”
Morgan recognized the line of scars running down his brother’s arm and felt rage threaten to blow the top of his head off. While he’d been merrily tripping along the Bifrost Bridge, Grimm had nearly killed his brother. “He tried to skin you?”
Jeff flinched. “Yeah.”
Morgan took a deep breath, desperately trying to calm himself even as Magnus punched a hole in the wall. Their grandfather, in his insane bid to retake the Vanir and Aesir, had once again gone too far. While they’d been gone on their useless, stupid errand, Jeff had nearly died, and Thor…
Dear gods. Thor.
How could it be? His father had become an ass thanks to Grimm and his manipulations, but he’d finally been throwing off the effects of the mind-altering apples Grimm had been feeding them all for centuries. He’d been coming around, trying to reconcile with his children, and no matter how angry Modi and Magni had been with him they’d loved him dearly.
He was their dad. The man who tossed them in the air, who fought Frigg and Odin when they would have banished them. The man who’d known that while Magnus loved horses and swordplay, Morgan loved puzzles and reading. But as time wore on, that loving man had become cold and harsh toward his children, mimicking Grimm’s behavior and driving his children away.
None of them had seen, not one of them had realized, what was really going on, except Loki. And Grimm had tried to kill him too.
Only Loki had been immune to Grimm’s power. He’d saved Baldur’s life, taking Baldur’s place, and his pain, within the Thing, when Grimm would have seen Baldur slain. Loki had saved Baldur’s life that day, almost at the cost of his own.
Changing their names to Logan and Kir, they’d gone on the run, eventually becoming lovers. They’d been hunted and terrorized by Grimm, with the help of all the gods, including Magni and Modi, who now called themselves Magnus and Morgan Grimm.
They’d all believed Grimm’s lies, that Loki had caused Baldur’s death and that he was using some look-alike to taunt them. His fake grief, combined with his powers of persuasion and the mind-altering apples, had kept them in line. They’d been obedient little drones until Logan and Kir managed to cut off Grimm’s supply of apples, causing them all to realize how far Grimm was willing to go to avoid the prophecy of Ragnarrok.
He’d tried to kill one son to avoid death, and had succeeded in killing the other.
Oh, gods. He was going to miss his father.
Speaking of family, he needed to know. “Where’
s Jeanne?”
“Here. She’s with Jordan, trying to deal with Dad’s death and Jordan’s weird pineapple thing.”
Morgan groaned. Jordan had become pregnant with fraternal twins, one from Kir, one from Logan, and ever since she’d been obsessed with, of all things, pineapples. The scent, the taste, even the look of them. If he stumbled over one more pineapple he was going to lose it. It was driving them all crazy. She’d even tried to buy yellow paint, a color that normally made her shudder, over the Internet. She’d bought pineapple-scented candles, pineapple-scented room deodorizers, and insisted on canned pineapple on everything, even beans. Hell, she’d even put pineapples on the holiday tree, for fuck’s sake. Her kids were going to be even freakier than their fathers.
Dad would have loved it. Jordan might not have been his flesh and blood, but the moment he’d married Jeanne, Jordan had been his. The pang of grief that went through Morgan nearly dropped him to his knees.
“Dad’s funeral is in a couple of days. We got word to Gra—” Jeff winced. “I mean, to Frederica, and she requested that we not be there.” He smiled viciously. Morgan blinked in shock as his brother grew fangs. Fenris gave off a low growl, responding to his mate’s anger. “We told her to go to hell. We even offered to provide the hand basket.”
Of course Frigg wouldn’t want her exiled family to come to her son’s funeral. Morgan cursed under his breath. Their grandmother had become just as much of a problem as Grimm in her own way. But if she thought she could stop them from saying good-bye to their father she was sadly mistaken. Enough of the younger gods followed Kir now that she’d have a battle on her hands if she tried to enforce her rule.
“Tell us exactly what happened.” Magnus settled himself on Jordan’s pristine white sofa and clasped his hands between his knees. The others might not realize it, but Magnus was far more shaken by their father’s death than he was willing to let on.
Fenris escorted Jeff to the sofa and settled him next to Magnus. Jeff allowed it, oddly enough. He, too, must be far more hurt than he was willing to admit if he was allowing Fenris to pamper him. Jeff took hold of his mate’s hand before speaking. “Dad was calling me, wanting to work things out.”
“That’s good.” At least Morgan knew his father had tried to make things right with the twins before he died.
Died. Gods. Not a word he’d ever thought he’d associate with his father. Ragnarrok had been a fairy tale, the death of the gods so far in the future he thought it would never come. Now the first had fallen, and the rest would soon follow.
“It would have been better if he’d lived.” Jeff huffed out a breath when Fenris stroked his hair, but the gesture seemed to calm his brother. “Anyway, he came to visit, and we had…words.”
And that would hurt Jeff more than anything else, that his final words to their father had been said in anger. Morgan needed to make sure his brother understood he had nothing to be ashamed of. “He knew you loved him, Jeff.”
“Yeah.” Jeff’s voice broke. He cleared his throat. “Dad, he was… I…” He turned his face into Fenris’s chest. “I can’t.”
“Hush, elskede. I will tell them.”
“I swore I wouldn’t cry until that fucker was dead.” The vicious tone was thick with tears.
“A vow none of us will fault you for breaking, min kjærlighet.” Fenris buried his face in Jeff’s thick curls as Jeff sobbed on his chest. “Your father, he came to make peace, but a hole in the defenses allowed Grimm through.”
Part of him wanted to snatch his brother from Fenris, to give him comfort himself, but the very fact that Jeff was crying on Fenris told him exactly how his little brother felt about the wolf. Jeff loved Fenris with everything in him, and would probably fight to the death to stay by his side.
“How did the hole get there? Logan’s been pretty good about keeping the shields up.” With Jordan’s pregnancy and Kir’s safety on the line, the Trickster would have done everything in his power to keep his lovers safe.
“They made a mistake. They thought they needed to get to you two quickly, so they traveled through the veil to the Bifrost Bridge quick and dirty instead of carefully. It meant tearing a hole in the defenses around our homes.” Fenris continued stroking Jeff’s hair as Jeff’s sobs quieted. “Because of the urgency of their message, they felt it best. But it didn’t allow time to gently part the protections. They relied on Jordan and Tyr—I mean, Travis—to put them back up.”
“Why? Why were they coming for us? They should have been here.” Magnus snarled what Morgan was thinking. They would have returned eventually. What was so important that it couldn’t wait, that they’d risk Jordan?
Fenris sighed as Jeff shivered. “Skuld is here.”
Morgan let loose a string of curses that would have done his brother proud. Of course. As soon as they realized Morgan and Magnus had been on a fools’ errand they would have done their best to fetch them home, fearing some sort of trap. “How did she wind up here? Was she delivering a message?”
“We don’t know, and neither does she. She has no memory of her life beneath Yggdrasil, or of what she truly is. She calls herself Skylar Kincade, and believes she’s a photographer.” Fenris tilted his head, his expression confused. “Heimdall was supposed to tell you all of this. Did you not meet him on the Bifrost Bridge?”
Magnus and Morgan exchanged a quick, confused glance. “No. Heimdall wasn’t there.”
Fenris sighed wearily as Jeff sniffled. “Damn. This is troubling. We still do not know whose side the Guardian will come down on. If Heimdall chooses to follow the Old Man he will be a powerful enemy.”
“Where is he?”
Jeff, his eyes tear stained, lifted his head from Fenris’s chest. “Who? Grimm, or Dad?”
“Dad.” Morgan would deal with Grimm later. The fucker would pay, and pay dearly, for killing Thor and hurting Jeff.
“John Kline Funeral Home.”
That was only a few blocks away from Kir’s home. “Frederica let Kir make the arrangements?”
“Nope. Mom made them and then told Frederica after the fact.”
Go Jeanne. His stepmother was a feisty woman, and would make a bad enemy. A lot of Jeff and Jamie’s temperament came from their seemingly sweet-natured mother, even if neither of them could see it. They adored their mother and thought her a saint. “Is Jeanne all right? Nothing happened to her, did it?”
Both Jeff and Fenris shook their heads. “She was kept safe.”
“And we’ll continue to do so, no matter how much she argues with us.” Kir, his blond hair gleaming, his blue eyes full of sorrow, came into the room. He was quickly followed by Logan, who was rarely far from his lover’s side. “She’s staying with us while Jordan is pregnant.”
“Hey, the M&M’s are back.” Logan grinned, but there was a shadow over it. Thor’s death had apparently struck the Trickster harder than Morgan would have guessed. Either that or Jordan’s grief was weighing on his mind. “Have a nice stroll, boys?”
Magnus flipped him off. “Why isn’t Grimm dead?”
“You think we didn’t try?” Kir settled on the ottoman that doubled as their coffee table.
Logan sat right behind him, one arm draped across Kir’s shoulders. “Fenris damn near chewed his face off, and then Jeff had a go at it. The fucker healed everything we did to him.”
White clouds began to race across the blue of Kir’s eyes. “My father killed my brother as he once tried to kill me. He nearly killed my nephew and my niece.” Thunder sounded outside the condo. Just remembering what Grimm had done to Jeff and Jamie had the god ready to explode, and that wouldn’t be good. “I’ve been tempted to ask Fenris to change me just so I would have the pleasure of—”
“Hell to the no, Blondie. Not in any lifetime.” Logan’s arm tightened around Kir’s shoulders, pulling the startled god closer. “Jordan, back me up here.”
Morgan looked over his shoulder to find Jordan had entered the room. Jordan shook a finger at her lover. “No wolfing ou
t on us, Kir.”
Kir’s brows rose. “You two are always telling me to sit and stay anyway. So why not make it official?”
“I am not a dog, Kir.” Fenris huffed indignantly. “No matter how many times Jeff says otherwise.”
“What I want to know is, how did Odin kill Thor? I thought Jörmungandr was supposed to do that.”
Magnus had a very good question. According to the prophecy of Ragnarrok, Fenris was supposed to kill Odin and Jörmungandr would kill Thor. But with Thor already dead, the prophecy was all askew. And if Fenris had already tried to kill Grimm and failed, what other parts of the prophecy were wrong?
Damn it. He rubbed at his eyes, hoping no one saw his tears.
“Here.” He looked up to find his stepmother, Jeanne, standing in front of him, a tissue in her hand, Jordan close by her side. She looked haggard, the loss of her husband weighing on her.
He took the tissue. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Jeanne settled down on the ottoman after nudging Kir and Logan over. It was huge and would easily take all three of them, but they gave her the lion’s share anyway. “I loved him too.”
“Dad told me before…” Jordan gulped. Behind her glasses her eyes filled with tears. “He said that Jörmungandr wasn’t the serpent.”
Morgan nodded. It made sense. There was more than one kind of serpent. “Then the serpent, the betrayer, is Odin.”
Magnus tensed next to him. “And Grimm must die.”
“He’ll have his Ragnarrok.” Morgan’s fist clenched.
“And we’ll deliver it to him.” Magnus held out his hand. “For Dad.”
“For Dad.” Morgan covered his brother’s hand, smiling as the others echoed the sentiment, placing their hands over his and his twin’s. After a brief moment he sat back, ready to avenge the man who’d raised him and, more than once, defended him. “Tell me the plan.”
Before they could respond, Uncle Val strolled through the front door. It wasn’t an unusual an occurrence these days. Val had wormed his way into the good graces of all of them, protecting Jamie and Jordan with his life.
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