Morgan's Fate (7 page)

Odin blinked, startled. “Magni and Modi were here?” If Magnus and Morgan had come here, then the others knew the prophecy had been interpreted wrongly.

No wonder they were holding so tightly to Skuld. The woman hadn’t done any of the usual things she’d done since falling to Midgard, or she would already be his.

“Yes, they were.” Urdr sniffed disdainfully. “Great brutes they are, who seek to take Thor’s place. As if any could.” Verdandi nodded, straightening up and returning to her spinning. “The twin sons of Thor may be fated to wield
Mjolnir
, but they will never live up to their father’s greatness.”

Grimm nodded sadly, even though he disagreed. Thor had been one disappointment after another, but he could hardly say so to two of his greatest admirers. “I know, and I regret that my blow was the one that took him from us.”

Urdr patted his hand. “It is what it was meant to be, All-Father. Of that, we are certain.”

“What did Magni and Modi ask you, great Urdr?”

Urdr shrugged. “They wished to know the prophecy, great Odin.”

Shit. Just what he didn’t want to hear. “And you sent them away with their wish unfulfilled.”

“Indeed.” Urdr handed Rina a plate of tea cakes. “But we know why
you
are here. You wish to know why Skuld has lost her memories.”

Verdandi snorted. “Of course he does, because he’s not stupid.”

Urdr scowled at her sister before smiling once more at Grimm. “Skuld sought to change that which will be, and in doing so angered the one who placed us in guardianship over the Well of Fate. Her punishment was to lose that which she most treasured.”

“And that would be?” Odin bit into a surprisingly tasty cake. “This is good.”

“Thanks. I got the recipe off of Martha Stewart’s website.”

“Sister, please.”

Verdandi rolled her eyes. “Fine, fine. Keep thee-ing and thou-ing them to death, I have a life to spin. Pain in my ass.”

“Skuld lost her future.”

Odin choked on the sweet treat. “What?”

Urdr nodded. “She lost that which made her what she is. In tampering with fate, she was lost to it herself.”

“She’s
mortal
? For real?” Oh, that would be sweet, poetic justice. Odin was certain he knew exactly which prophecy she’d tampered with. The knowledge that she was paying for such a gross abuse of power was sweeter than the cake on his tongue.

“No, not mortal. But…lessened. She shall never again sit beneath the branches of Yggdrasil and sip the cool waters of the well. She has changed her fate by tampering with yours, and the price she pays now is greater than you could possibly imagine.”

Above them, Yggdrasil trembled.

Grimm eyed the swaying of the World Tree’s branches with some misgiving. It was a sign of Ragnarrok that the tree itself moved. “So Tyr can’t find out the true prophecy?” Of course, neither could Grimm, but that was beside the point.

“He can, if she remembers who and what she once was.” Verdandi looked at the life thread she’d spun and frowned. She picked up a pair of shears and snipped the thread, ending the life, a job that had once belonged to Skuld. “If that happens, she’ll be able to interpret the prophecy for them, or at least most of it.” She glanced up at him from under her lashes. “If that happens, they’ll know everything you do.”

Grimm growled. “Then she must die.”

Rina laid her hand on his arm, stilling him. “Why did you want Sleipnir here?”

Good question. They’d been rather upset not to see his horse. “Yes, why?”

“Because what was lost shall once again be found, and when it is, the next step of the prophecy will be fulfilled.”

“And Sleipnir is tied to this somehow?”

Urdr giggled behind her hand. “Intimately.”

“Really?” He’d have to keep a closer eye on his horse. The beast was smarter than most, but had none of the shape-shifting abilities that Loki’s other children had. And he wasn’t spoken of at all in Ragnarrok, while both Jörmungandr and Fenris, his half-brothers, were. “Now, isn’t that interesting.”

Sleipnir would be watched. If the last of Loki’s children was going to betray him, then Odin would find a way to do without his services. Permanently.

“How will he be tied to the prophecy?” Rina, bless her heart, had kept her head, asking the question he should have.

“The Guardian shall slay the Trickster.” Urdr ignored Verdandi’s scowl.

Grimm couldn’t contain his glee, not that he wanted to. “Oh, one of my favorite parts of the prophecy.”

Urdr giggled. “Indeed. And it shall be his own doing.”

Even better. Loki would die soon, and Grimm wouldn’t have to lift a finger to achieve it.

Chapter Four

A shiver ran down Skye’s spine as she settled down in the Tate-Saeters’ spare bedroom. She had a lot to think about. What was real, and what was false? Everything she thought she knew was turned upside down. The only thing that had felt at all normal was her attraction to Morgan, and even that she was questioning.

The Norse gods were real, and they thought that she had something to do with the insanity that was their lives.

She had enough craziness in her life, thank you very much. She didn’t need theirs on top of her own. She’d leave in the morning. She needed to get away from them before they found a way to abuse her gifts, or worse, keep her locked here forever.

They thought she was the future, but all she had was a past, a past none of the people in the other room could possibly understand. Not even the super-luscious Morgan.

Her parents and aunt hadn’t believed her when she’d told them about the dreams. They’d shushed her, told her to hide that part of herself for fear others would think she was insane. They hadn’t listened when she told them that they would die if they drove off that day. She’d been hysterical, inconsolable, only leaving the living room when her mother sent her to her room. She’d run, hidden in her room until they left, ignoring her father’s pleas to say good-bye and her mother’s soft, soothing voice, trying to calm her down.

Her Aunt Maria hadn’t been so forgiving, especially when Skye refused to recant her prediction. She’d told Skye that she was wishing harm on her family and had punished her severely, locking her in her room, denying her anything except trips to the bathroom and the most basic food. Maria had only relented when word came back that her parents had, indeed, died in a car accident.

Her aunt had looked at her differently after that. Things between them had never been the same. Skye had left once she was eighteen and hadn’t looked back. Skye hadn’t spoken to her in years, not since her aunt called her cursed.

Skye wasn’t cursed. She wasn’t some punishment from the gods, or possessed by the devil. She’d done her research when and where she could sneak away for it. With the help of the few friends left to her, she’d discovered the truth.

Skye was psychic. The term for her particular gift was precognition, dreams and visions of the future she couldn’t always control. Like the prophetic words she’d spoken to Frederica Grimm, sometimes things just popped out without conscious thought.

Her friends thought it made for one hell of a party trick.

She glanced toward the wall that separated her from the bedroom of Kir, Jordan and Logan. These people believed her. They had from the moment she’d knocked on Fenris Saeter’s door and told a tale no one should have.

Was it because they were just as crazy as she was?

She rolled over and groaned into her pillow. Great. Now she was comparing her own brand of insanity with theirs. She bet her aunt would
love
that. Maria Bergen had never once attempted to contact her since Skye had left her home, not even when Skye almost lost her scholarship to Penn State. Her aunt had ignored all the paperwork, sending it back unopened, leaving Skye with one hell of a mess to clean up when she’d been informed of it. She’d had some help from the school counselors and administrators, but it had taken weeks and nearly cost her a semester.

Maria Bergen could rot in hell. Skye had loved her parents, and her aunt, but Maria hadn’t loved her. If she had, she’d never have let Skye go. They were all they had left of their family, all that remained of the Bergens, but that had meant nothing to Maria.

“Is she asleep?”

Skye blinked as that deep voice rolled over her and sent her pulse racing. Morgan hadn’t gone back to his condo after all.

“I think so.” That was Jordan, her smooth voice so much lighter than her stepbrother’s.

“We should have told her the rest before she went to bed.”

Yes, they should have. On that, she and Morgan agreed wholeheartedly.

“Morgan, you know why we didn’t.” Magnus, his voice almost identical to his twin’s, spoke up. There was a roughness to his tone that Morgan didn’t have, an underlying passion that made Skye wary. It would take a stronger person than her to tame Morgan’s twin. “She doesn’t remember anything. The last thing we want to do is frighten her any more than we already have.”

“Are we even certain she’s who we think she is?” Jordan’s tone was skeptical. “I mean, isn’t she supposed to be all-powerful?”

Morgan snorted. “No. She’s just as immortal as the rest of us, but for some reason she believes she’s totally mortal.”

“So you think it’s amnesia, and someone gave her false memories?” Magnus’s tone became thoughtful, far more like his twin’s. “If so, we can’t tell her too much. I remember hearing that with amnesia cases you can actually make things worse if you give them too much information at once. Sort of like, if you wake a sleepwalker, you can accidentally startle them into a heart attack.”

“I thought that was a myth?”

“Are you willing to risk it?”

One of the brothers sighed roughly.

“Look, you two. If we could really damage her by telling her everything at once, then I say we hold back.” Skye stiffened as Jordan talked about keeping Skye ignorant about…whatever they were discussing. So much for trusting the Tate-Saeters. “If we tell her who she really is, I’m afraid she won’t take it well.”

“That’s an understatement.” Morgan’s voice was full of regret. At least one of them didn’t want to keep her in the dark. “We need to fill her in gently, coax her into remembering. The last thing we want to do is cause her any more pain.”

Aw, how sweet. But if he didn’t fill her in, she’d show him what real pain was.

“I agree with Morgan. Whatever caused her to forget who she is couldn’t be good. It would take one hell of a trauma to make one of
them
lose themselves. Besides, we’ve got more important things to worry about.”

“Like?”

“Like, where’s
Mjolnir
? It should have come to either Morgan or me.”

“You mean the movies are true?” Jordan’s voice squeaked at the end. “Oh, man, that’s so cool.”

There was silence, and for a second Skye wondered if they’d moved past her door. Then Morgan spoke once more. “We’re not sure how it’s supposed to work. We might have to go to Dad’s and look for it.”

“We could try calling for it.” She could almost hear the shrug in Magnus’s voice. If she were a little bit braver she’d sneak to the door and open it, see if she could watch them. But with her luck she’d be caught, and they’d stop talking. She was still hoping one of them would say something more about her. Why did they think she had amnesia? She remembered her childhood perfectly. Hell, she even had a few childhood scars she could show them.

Something wasn’t adding up. How could she have had a perfectly normal life, yet have a bunch of living myths saying she wasn’t remembering who she was?

“We could, but if it works do you want to explain to Kir why his window is broken? Or to Logan how his protection wards got taken down?
Mjolnir
may be one of the few things that could punch right through them without even slowing down.” Morgan sounded frustrated. “Logan’s fire magic is pretty damn strong, but not as strong as
Mjolnir
.”

Magnus, his voice just a hair lighter than his twin’s, sounded more amused than annoyed. “We could blame Jordan. She’s pregnant. She could get away with it.”

There was the twin sounds of flesh on flesh and two masculine voices saying “Ow.” Jordan must have smacked her brothers. “You two should go to Dad’s to look for
Mjolnir
.”

“No.” Morgan’s instant disagreement was firm. “I won’t leave Skye unprotected.”

The warm fuzzies that filled her at the sound of his determination scared her almost as much as the fact that they were discussing mythology like it was the real deal.

“You seriously think Kir and Logan couldn’t keep her safe?”

The silence that answered was thick with tension. “I know they can, but…” Morgan’s sigh could be heard through the door. “You don’t know how long I’ve waited to be close to her. Now that she’s here, I don’t want her out of my sight. Not even for a moment. The danger she’s in just makes the need to keep her near worse.”

They kept saying that she was in danger, but so far Skye hadn’t seen a hint of it.

“Okay, Morgan.” Magnus was taking his brother’s side. “Then we wait and see if Kir can’t unlock some of Skye’s memories. Maybe if she remembers who she is we’ll finally get some answers about the prophecy.”

What prophecy? Skye shivered again, frightened beyond anything since she’d watched her parents take off in their car for a day trip to the shore. That sixth sense that gave her visions told her exactly what they were speaking about.

They were speaking about Ragnarrok. The end of the world. Suddenly, the danger they were discussing made a macabre sort of sense. If the Old Man she’d seen killing that family thought she could somehow answer the questions of the Tates and Grimms, he’d stop at nothing to kill her.

Skye huddled under her blanket and prayed to whatever god was listening that she was wrong. Because if she wasn’t, things were far more fucked up than she’d ever thought possible.

“I heard you guys last night.”

Morgan, Magnus and Jordan winced. Perhaps she could have been more diplomatic, but damn it, she was tired of being treated like a mushroom. She was stepping out of the dark and demanding they stop feeding her bullshit. “You keep telling me it will all make sense, that you’ll explain everything.” She pinned Morgan down with a glare when he started toward her. “So. Explain. Why is the Old Man coming for me, and why won’t you let me go home?”