Stormbringer (33 page)

It'd taken Sigmund weeks to convince Lain he didn't need to hide in his human shape every time he wanted to canoodle on the lounge. Lain had a bunch of hang-ups, his
jötunn
skin being one of them.

“Um,” said Sigmund. Then, lest Lain get the wrong idea, “We can still…y'know. Right?”

Lain made a gesture that might've been a shrug. “I, uh…” It was hard to tell, but Sigmund thought he might actually have been blushing. “Honestly, I haven't done it. I assume so.”

(oh, um…wow)

Sigmund had sort of assumed Lain had done
everything.
Like, literally everything. Which must've shown, because Lain laughed and slapped playfully at Sigmund's flank with a, “Oy. None of that, you.” But he was laughing, and Sigmund was laughing, and when he reached up, Lain came down, heavy body settling against Sigmund's own, all firm muscle and hard bone, slotting in between Sigmund's hairy chub.

“None of that, either,” Lain said, lips ghosting up and down Sigmund's neck, rubbing himself in a way that sent heat and lust tightening in Sigmund's belly.

“Oh, god.”

“Yeah,” said Lain.

Sigmund kissed him, fingers twining through the stiff quills and soft down on Lain's scalp. Then across the whorls and ridges of his horns, Lain moaning from the attention.

Jötunn
horns, Sigmund knew, were not for combat. They were for this instead.

“Fuck…Sig.”

Lain's sides were heaving with his breath, tattoos pulsing with his hearts. It was a powerful feeling, being able to do that to a god. To have him open and wanting. Powerful and frightening, Sigmund's own need a hot pool beneath his belly, fighting with the fear that fluttered in his chest.

He swallowed. “H-how do we, um…?”

Lain chuckled, not raising his head from where it was bowed over Sigmund's, his forearms trembling from holding himself up. “It's not rocket surgery. Tab A, slot B, that sort of thing.”

“Okay.” Jesus, they were going to do it. Sigmund
wanted
to do it, but: “Wait. Do we need, like, a condom?”

That'd been Sex Ed from Dad, way too many years ago now not to be embarrassing. David had laid down the rules: Yes means yes and no means no, and if you're not sure, ask; your bedroom has a door and I can always work late; and for God's sake, use a condom.

Sigmund, much to his shame, did not have a condom.

Lain huffed. “I'm a god, Sig. We don't really do STIs.”

“Yeah, but…You get pregnant, right?” If he got Lain pregnant, Dad would
spew.

For one second, Lain was still. Then he slumped forward, face buried in the pillows by Sigmund's shoulder, shaking with what turned out to be laughter.

“Oh. Fuck, Sig,” he said.

“Well, you can!” A pause, then, “Right?” Sleipnir had to have come from somewhere.

“How about”—Lain began nosing his way up Sigmund's jaw—“tonight we fuck, and later I can draw you a diagram about the
jötunn
reproductive cycle.”

“It's just, I'm too young to be a dad, man.” Despite his protestations, Sigmund's hips were clearly interested in an audition for the role.

“And I'm too old for more damn kids.” Lain's lips and hands and tongue were working down, leaving hot, wet streaks across Sigmund's collarbone and the dark curls of his chest.

“Okay,” Sigmund managed. “It's settled. No getting pregnant.”

“I promise.” Bottom of the rib cage, sending jolts through Sigmund's body as his stomach reacted to the tickling.

Sigmund had never really considered tickling erotic before. Though, maybe almost anything could be erotic with a god's face inches from your—

“Ohmigod!”

Scrap inches, substitute a hot, purple-black tongue, licking one huge stripe up Sigmund's dick. He'd been, uh,
faltering
a little with all the pregnancy talk, but so much for that!

Sigmund got all the warning of a jaw clicking open, before he was swallowed into heat and
sucked.

“Oh J-Jesus I—”

Then nothing. Just cold air, a whimper, and Lain's smug-ass voice saying, “We've really got to break you out of this habit of calling to other gods in bed.” Sigmund had half a reply on his tongue when Lain's hand wrapped around his balls, putting an end to that. “I mean, outside it's one thing.” Lain was grinning, the sadistic bastard. “But in here I really must insist you address your prayers to me and me alone.”

“Fuck! Lain!”

“Much better!”

Sigmund groaned, throwing an arm over his eyes. Above him, he felt Lain shift again. Then fingers, wrapping around his cock.

When Sigmund dared look, Lain was occupied, scowling down the length of his body, one hand lazily stroking Sigmund, the other doing…something between his own thighs. Parting feathers, maybe?

Sigmund didn't get much time to think about it; a moment later and Lain was bringing his two hands together, guiding Sigmund…

…guiding Sigmund…

…guiding…

“Hnnrgh!”

Hot and tight and wet. Slick and sucking. Somewhere up above, Sigmund heard Lain sigh. Mostly, he was lost. Lost in the roll of hips, in the banking embers that roared to life beneath his skin.

“Oh, Sig. Yes!”

The sound of Lain's voice, broken and lost, keening through the words in a way that wasn't human, was something deeper and older, some true self and—when Sigmund closed his eyes—he could
see
it. See the endless inferno that burned around him, consuming and devouring. Building and caressing, until Sigmund's limbs shook and his fingers clutched at rough-spun pillows, sweat beading on his skin and every muscle pulled tight and—

“God!”

Lain laughed, hot and riotous and
loud.
A roar as brilliant as the sun, and Sigmund fell. Fire licking up his skin and pulsing from his swollen prick, into the strange and endless body of the god above. Sigmund's god, made new for him and him alone, and when Sigmund came it was with Lain's scent in his nose and Lain's laugh in his ears and Lain and Lain and Lain and Sigmund, who'd come inside a god and finally understood salvation.

Afterward—though, admittedly, not very long afterward—lying in the dark, Sigmund learned Lain was a cuddler.

There was a lot of Lain to cuddle, all firm flesh and gentle feathers. Big claws wrapped around Sigmund's waist and a big tail, curled up around Sigmund's chest.

Lain didn't sleep, but he drifted, and he was drifting now. Lazy and content, radiating unchecked waves of it out through the Wyrd's endless, weaving threads.

Lain didn't sleep, but Sigmund did. Limbs heavy and heart stilling, one less virgin in the Realms, curled tight against the chest of his private deity.

Fingers tracing scars and tattoos that shone dully in the darkness, Sigmund allowed himself to sleep.

That night, he didn't dream a single dream.

Sigmund's getting better at kissing, but he isn't great at sex. That's not a criticism. It's an invitation to practice. Which I'm sure we'll be doing a lot of at some point in the future. Hopefully soon in the future, when we get out of this miserable mountain.

I wait until Sigmund is long asleep before moving. It is nice, lying there, feeling the weight of his body and the coolness of his skin. The way he snuffles softly and nuzzles against the pillows when I stroke his forearm, his shoulder, his chest.

His neck.

My hand is clutching his throat before I realize I can't move it.

(no!)

(“you owe me a debt, boy. now you will repay it”)

My whole body is frozen. I scream, or try to, but my lungs won't breathe and my lips won't open and my hand
won't move,
the flesh of Sigmund's neck soft enough for me to feel the thunder of his pulse beneath the skin.

(“what do you see in him? this hearth-warming weakling?”)

(he fucking stabbed you through your filthy black fucking heart just fucking fine, you piece of shit!)

I laugh. Except it's not me who does it, the sound crueler and more broken than I'm used to hearing from my own lips.

“Perhaps if I gut him in his sleep, my love will slither out amongst his bowels.” Loki's not speaking English, which is nice, even if Sigmund is still asleep and, Jesus Christ, I hope he can't hear.

The hand—my hand—moves away from the exposed flesh of Sigmund's throat.

(if you touch him, Sigyn will
kill
you)

Loki sighs, wistful and frustrated. He won't actually hurt Sigmund. I don't think. But he's not great at making life choices, either. And if it came down between the two, I know which Sig he would choose.

I know which I would, too.

Loki extracts himself from the bed. Careful not to wake Sigmund, despite his earlier threats. This is the problem with Loki. This is
always
the problem with Loki. The word
mercurial
is only a start.

(get the fuck out of my body!)

This earns me a scalp covered in flattened feathers. “This body is mine,” Loki hisses. “You are merely a mask I wear to amuse my heart's inscrutable designs. Do not think highly of your independence.”

He is
everywhere.
In my hands, my limbs, my tail. The tiny muscles at the base of every feather and the taste buds on my tongue. Everything, and there's not a single thing I can do to push him aside.

I try. Christ, but do I try. In the end, all I succeed in doing is screaming inside our head.

“Hush.” Loki pads across the room, lighter and faster than my own movements. Lithe and feral. “You promised me a debt. Now it is time to pay.”

Fuck. I did do that, didn't I? In exchange for a single bullet fired into the center of a shield.

Fuck fuck fuck. Fuck.

I scream my silent scream. If nothing else, I'm going to give my asshole alter ego one hell of a fucking headache.

We cross the floor. Well, he crosses the floor and I come along for the ride. As we do, our flesh rearranges on our bones. Our
bones
rearrange beneath our flesh. Shrinking, skin turning a rich bronze beneath the firelight, wool and fur and gold weaving their way into existence. Real Viking-style clothes, the sort we used to wear, back in the day.

Back in the day when we were short. The smallest
æsir.

When our room door opens, it's Loki who slips into the corridor, padding along on fur-lined boots.

Oh fuck he better not be about to do something fucking stupid. This is supposed to be the easy part, now. The going-home epilogue, the kiss in the sunset and the Happy Ever After, riding off into the distance in the dark-skinned arms of—

“Oh just
shut up
!”

(fuck you!)

“Tssch. Fuck this, fuck that. Yes yes, we've heard it before. Now quiet. If you do not wish to pay the price for the deals you make then do not make them.”

(I am not taking life advice from you!)

I imagine punching myself in the head. Hard. Loki gives another annoyed suck of breath through his teeth, but otherwise says nothing.

Instead, he slips outside, into the warm damp air of Sindri's eternal night, cast in soft blue bloom from the enormous waving mushrooms. Ahead, just beyond the fence of Brokkr's hall, firelight flickers, cut by the long dark shadows of the
þursar
that gather ‘round and…

Oh.

(oh)

“Yes. Now you see. So hush.”

He wipes his palms against his tunic, the wool soaking up his nervous sweat. Somewhere beneath his rib cage, my heart begins to speed up in sympathy with his own.

He skirts the edge of the camp, a shadow amid shadows, finding what he's after only on the far side. Three shapes, settled down around a fire. One little broken family, huddled in the dark.

Loki steps into the light, chin raised and hands balled to hide their shaking. His mind is a jagged whirl of fear and shame and an endless, aching hope. He works hard to slam all of it down, back into the bubbling black pit wherein he lurks. Away from me but, most of all, away from the three pairs of eyes that look up at his approach.

For a second, nothing. Just the sharp pop-snap of the fire and the distant murmur of the other
þursar.

Then Valdís stands. Her eyes are very, very wide, feathers on end as if she's seen a ghost.

Finally, she says:

“…Father?”

And I look away.

I said before Thor was an imperfect man and an amazing father. Turns out he learned those traits from somewhere, and it wasn't from his own coldhearted shrike of a dad.

The stuff that comes next is a family thing. It doesn't need retelling.

Especially not by an outsider like me.

It's a sort of peace, for a little while. But of course it doesn't last.

I hear the shouting, first.
Dvergar
voices. Not angry or hurt, just shouting. A startled trail leading from up the hillside down into Sindri.

“What's that?”

Valdís rears to full height, peering into the gloom. She's fucking enormous when she stands straight, without the hunch, maybe ten or eleven feet all up. I don't know where she gets it from, particularly given her shortie of a dad.

A dad who's currently helping Eisa with her archery. She's good, and Loki doesn't really have a lot to teach her. But he can offer her paternal approval and, more important, she can offer him a daughter, if for only a few hours.

They both stop now, though, turning away from the target to where Valdís is pointing.

“There! Something comes!”

Something does come, descending in a tattered swoop of blue-black feathers. Before I've even registered it, Loki's bent down, scooped up a stone, and lobbed it into the sky. He really is an excellent shot, particularly when he's showing off for Eisa. Somewhere in the distance, we hear a squark, followed by a thud.

Then we're running.

We get to the downed intruder the same time the group of
dvergar
do. They're kids, mostly, and one of them is holding a slingshot. When he sees Loki he flashes an awed and jealous rainbow and says, “Was that you?”

On the ground, something black and feathery flops around, cursing up a storm.

“You!”

“A rock!” Munin rights itself, one wing dragging a little as it stares up at us with a glossy eye. “A freakin' rock?”

“Die,
æsir
spy!” yells the
dvergr
kid, lunging forward.

“Enough.” Loki lunges, too, catching the kid even as Munin hops, squawking, out of the way.

“These beasts are Ásgarðr's spies,” the
dvergr
protests, even as he backs away from Loki. “They do not belong here.”

“Hey hey hey.” Munin flutters up onto Loki's shoulder. “I'm a free agent, thank you very much.”

“Make trouble elsewhere,” Loki tells the kids. Then, before they can answer, he turns, trailing his own children as he moves back to the
jötunn
camp.

“A rock?” Munin is still saying. “Really? A
rock
?”

“Why are you here?”

“Could ask you the same question. Thought you were dead, was looking for the other one.”

“You found me. Speak.”

Munin bobs and caws in a way that might as well be a shrug. “Sure. Forseti has a message for Thor's kids. He wants Mjölnir back in Ásgarðr. Now.”

“Why?”

If Munin had lips, the damn thing would be grinning. Ratbag little shit always did love giving bad news.

“Because,” it says, “there's gonna be a war.”

Fifteen minutes later, I'm me again, Sigmund is awake but only just, and Þrúðr is scowling at both of us across a table. Valdís takes up a third side, Uni is on the fourth. Munin, meanwhile, stands in the center, preening and radiating smugness over the mayhem that it's bringing.

“I will not allow Ásgarðr's destruction.” Þrúðr has been clear on that point, several times.

“And Þrymheimr will not allow Mjölnir's return.” Valdís has been clear on that one, too. “Too long have we suffered under Ásgarðr's violence, helpless as your father slaughtered
jötnar
by dozens. We would rather die in battle than return to those unhappy days.”

“Father did no such thing!” Þrúðr snaps. “He defended Ásgarðr, not—not hunted you for sport.”

Valdís scoffs, I roll my eyes, Sigmund says, “Er…,” and even Uni looks away. Munin, meanwhile, hops from foot to foot, grinning a gape-beaked grin.

“Ásgarðr has no quarrel with the
jötnar,
” Þrúðr says, but with the soft flush of her faltering conviction.

Valdís growls. “I was born like you,” she says. “Hidden in my skin, cursed by a decree passed down from Odin long ago, that none who walked Ásgarðr's halls could show horn or feather.”

Þrúðr looks away at that. “I remember,” she says, voice tight. She also remembers she used to call Valdís by a different name, among other things.

“By my brother's blood was this curse lifted. Too painful a price by half, yet now I walk the Realms as I was born to be. As does Father.” She glances at me, now painfully aware I'm not
quite
the monster she calls Father.

I shrug. “It's nice,” I admit. Then, grinning, “I can fly now. When some assholes haven't clipped my wings.”

Beside me, Sigmund startles. “Wait. What?”

“I do not see what this has to do with Mjölnir,” Þrúðr says, ignoring Sigmund.

That's a fine strategy for her but not so much for me, so I turn to him and say, “Yeah. Clipped right down to the shaft. See?” And I open my wings.

They aren't small, and Munin squarks and jumps aside, lest it get a face full of feathers. Valdís just shifts to peer around me, and Þrúðr pretends not to be startled by the show.

Behind me, I can hear the grin in Valdís's voice as she says, “Odin is dead, and his edicts are fraying. Much
jötunn
blood was spilt to make this so. We will not allow things to go back to how they were.”

Meanwhile, Sigmund's fingers are poking beneath the covert on my wing. “Damn,” he says. “They cut these down to nubs. Will they grow back?”

“I, er. I think I have to molt first.”

Sigmund makes a startled exclamation, mind suddenly offering him up a variety of images of enormous orange and gray feathers littered all over our apartment. Because, yeah. That'll be fun. What on earth am I going to tell the cleaner?

“Mjölnir is mine,” Þrúðr says. Then corrects herself just as quickly, “Ours. I will not allow my brother's sacrifice to be in vain.”

“And what ‘sacrifice' is that?” Valdís snarls. “The knowledge that he is the very thing he has been told to fight against? That you all are?”

Þrúðr sits up very straight. “I am
ásynja,
” she snaps. “My brothers are
æsir.
”

“An
áss
with horns and feathers?” Valdís says. “We all saw it. Soon, all of Þrymheimr will know the shame and hypocrisy that Ásgarðr holds.”

“No! How dare you. I will not allow you to sully the name of my family.”

“ ‘Sully' it with what? The truth?”

“I am
ásynja
!” Þrúðr's fists slam down on the table. Hard enough that Uni winces.

“You are
jötunn,
” Valdís counters. “Beneath the false and frail skin. Beneath the rune curse Odin laid. You are as we are. As was your father.”

“No!”

Sigmund's fingers in my feathers are nice, but the fight is getting sort of heated. So I say, “Actually, he was.”

Þrúðr falls silent, and I look up, shifting and folding my wings back into nothing.

“You remember I told you I was there for the birth?” I ask. She nods, just a fraction. I know she remembers. “So I saw him, fresh and bloodied and covered in down. Little tail twitching.”

Valdís snaps, “Hah!” even as Þrúðr whispers a denial under her breath.

“Vala, please,” I say. Then, back to Þrúðr, “His mother, Jörð. That just means
Earth.
You've never met her because she isn't real. Just a story, as if Odin wanked off onto the dirt and, bam! Suddenly, Thor. So think. Þrúðr. Why would Odin be so keen on hiding the legacy of his giant-killer son?”

“…No,” Þrúðr breathes.

“She was a
jötunn.
A
risi,
actually. Like me.” That's one way of explaining it. Þrúðr doesn't need to know the other. Not after all these years. “That makes your dad a
þurs,
same as Valdís.”

Jötunn
genetics are complicated and nonsensical enough to make a biologist weep. Needless to say, the
þursar
are who they are—and are where they are—because they have
æsir
blood. All of them.