The darkness shaded Baldur’s face, hiding his expression, but his godly essence swelled to fill the SUV’s interior. When he worked his mojo, my willpower flickered like a flame before a drafty window. The power within me, my own otherness, withstood his influence, but mundane humans probably caved under his persuasion.
“Fine,” I said at last. “No hospitals, but if anything happens to her, I’ll hold you all responsible.”
Val snorted, dismissing my threat. Baldur at least had the decency to nod solemnly.
“So, back to Thorin’s question,” Baldur said. “Food, bed, or bath?”
“Can’t I have them all at the same time?” I asked. The Taser assault, the dousing from the fire extinguisher and sprinklers, and our retreat into a dusty field had left me resembling something pried from the bottom of a shoe. “I want to eat a four-course meal while I sit in a bathtub full of the hottest water I can stand until I pass out.”
Val turned to look at me and cracked a sympathetic grin. “I think your food will get soggy, and sleeping in a bathtub greatly increases your chances of drowning.”
“I don’t care.”
“Laughlin’s close,” Baldur said. “There will be plenty of hotels there. If these fearless ladies are still awake after we find a room, I’ll get them something to eat even if I have to hunt it down and cook it myself.”
“Val, how did you know where to find us?” I asked.
Val tapped a finger to his temple. “We have our ways.”
“GPS,” Skyla piped up from the back seat. “They’ve all got trackers on them. I’d bet my life on it.”
“You could call it GPS if you like,” Baldur said.
I suspected it had something to do with runes. Runes tended to explain everything magical concerning the Aesir.
“Go to Laughlin,” Baldur said. “Let’s find these women a hot tub and some room service.”
Baldur put in a call on the way and reserved a suite. The city of Laughlin, he explained, was a miniature Las Vegas. When we finally stumbled into our rooms, we found a food-service cart awaiting us, and the smells wafting from it made my stomach growl.
“It’s four o’clock in the morning,” I said. “What hotel offers room service at this hour?”
“It’s a casino,” Val said. “The kitchens are open twenty-four hours a day. Gamblers have to have something to keep up their energy.”
Skyla was out cold. Baldur set her on the living-room couch, draped a blanket over her, and tended to her shoulder. Concern showed in the lines around his eyes and in the firm set of his mouth, but he poked and prodded with the clinical, detached touches of a surgeon examining a patient.
When she groaned once, Baldur clucked his tongue. “The worst will be over shortly. Until then, I’m afraid you’ll just have to grit your teeth and bear it.”
With Skyla’s care and healing entrusted to Baldur, I allowed myself a deep breath—the cleansing kind that gathered the worst of my anxiety and swept it out in a voiding exhalation. I glanced at the empty bed awaiting me in the nearest bedroom. Then my gaze slid to the piles of cold cuts and cheese on the room-service cart. Then I studied the luxurious tub peeking from the doorway of the massive bathroom down the hall.
“Don’t know where to start?” Val asked, lifting the covers off the plates of food to sniff underneath.
One plate offered strawberries and something that looked like chocolate cake if chocolate cake were made of sin. I snatched the dessert and cold cuts from the cart and scurried to the bathroom.
“Need me to wash your back?” he asked.
I answered by slamming the bathroom door shut. The compulsion to flirt must have been coded in Val’s DNA. Too bad the impulse to keep his mouth shut wasn’t. During our past few hours together, my animosity for Val had faded, but my fonder feelings for him had not returned. Can’t we just be friends, free from awkward expectations?
While waiting for the tub to fill, I devoured the cake, shoveling chocolate sponge and fudge cream into my mouth barehanded. After licking the plate clean, I started on the cold cuts. Once the tub had filled, I turned off the water, grabbed the strawberries, and eased into the water. If only some hunky dudes had stood over me, fanning me with palm fronds, I might have called it paradise. Maybe I can talk Thorin into accepting the job.
I relaxed against a water jet that pounded against the muscles knotted between my shoulders. The hot water soaked away my aches and pains. Between my breasts hung Mjölnir on its gold chain, heavy and comforting, and I tried not to think too hard about the impossibility of my surrogate ownership of one of the oldest and most powerful weapons of all myths and legends. Maybe next, Zeus will ask me to hold his lightning bolts for him.
I must have just dozed off when someone knocked on the door.
“Sunshine. Are you sleeping in the bathroom tonight?” Thorin’s voice jolted me awake.
My heart stuttered into a heavy pitter-patter. “N-no,” I said. “I’ll be out in a sec.”
Using my toes like a monkey, I popped the drain open. Fatigue and overexposure to the hot water had rubberized the bones in my legs. I stumbled out of the tub and leaned against the bathroom counter as I tucked a massive bath towel around my chest. My hands trembled. Something burned in the back of my throat, and my eyes watered.
I had put my feelings aside so I could function long enough to survive. The energy required to form the fire blast that defeated Nate had drained me, destabilized my self-control, and laid bare my weaknesses. But I was finally safe, warm, and unharmed. My fire was diminished but not gone—it glowed like the coals of a banked fire inside me. Everyone had escaped Helen’s snare, and I had reunited with Skyla. She was at my side again, alive and on her way to recovery. That realization was my undoing. All my earlier fear, pain, and exhaustion tumbled loose in a tidal wave. My legs gave out, and I plopped to the floor and burst into tears.
“Solina?” Thorin so rarely used my name that hearing him say it was sobering. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
I sniffed and wiped my face. A dismissal formed on my tongue, but I swallowed the urge to send Thorin away. He wanted to help. Why not let him? Why not trust him just this little bit? We could be… friends.
I cleared my throat and said, “I could use some help.”
The door cracked open, and Thorin peeked in, worry showing in his expression. He almost never revealed his softer emotions—outrage, yes, anger aplenty, but not tenderness.
“My legs are rebelling against the rest of my body,” I said and chuckled a hiccuppy laugh.
Thorin eased into the bathroom, knelt, and gathered me in his arms. My tears threatened to return, but I fought them. I could admit needing his help, but I refused to blubber. He pushed up from the floor, rising to his full height, and carried me to my room.
“You press yourself too hard,” Thorin said, though his censure lacked its usual harshness. “You have many uncanny strengths, but you are not omnipotent.”
“If I gave up when I was tired, I’d be dead.”
Thorin made a noise in his throat that might have been agreement. “Still, you should take better care of yourself.”
