Since denial had failed me, I tried outright refusal. “No.”
“Oh, it must be good if you’re fighting this hard.” Thorin tugged me until I was virtually in his lap. He locked his arms around me and grinned like a fiendish imp. “Tell me. I’ve had millennia to develop my torture techniques.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Try me.”
I squinched my eyes shut, waiting for whatever torment he was planning. “Do your worst.” I held my breath and anticipated his attack, but it never came.
When I opened an eye to peek at him, Thorin was staring at a distant spot and wearing a funny expression.
“What is it?”
“Shush,” he whispered. “Listen.”
I stilled my breath and imagined opening my ears. A distant yip yip yeoooowl echoed through the quiet desert night. The fine hairs on my arm and neck rose, and my heart skittered, playing a staccato rhythm against my sternum. Another, lower-pitched howl answered the first one. Deep shadows fell over the land as the late sun neared the horizon, painting the desert in pinks and golds and taking away the day’s heat as it went. According to Thorin, wolves preferred to hunt at night, and those sounded eager for the darkness.
In the cooling desert air, my breath came out in frosty smoke signals of dread. “Please tell me it was a coyote.”
Thorin shook his head. “Wolf. More than one.”
“But Hati’s dead. I’m sure of it.”
“Maybe Skoll called in for reinforcements.”
“What do we do?”
Thorin held his hand out to me, palm open. “Mjölnir. Now.”
I tugged the gold chain and charm from my collar and yanked it over my head. Thorin snatched the hammer and pushed me from his lap. He stood, flipped his wrist, and gripped the weapon, ready for attack. In an instant, he had changed from twenty-first-century man to Viking warrior god. He lacked only a helmet and a bear-skin cape.
“This was too easy.” I rose my feet. “Finding Skoll this soon. It’s uncanny.”
“I agree.”
The wolves howled again, closer that time. I counted four different voices but couldn’t be certain. I stepped beside Thorin and scanned the landscape, though seeing anything farther than a couple of yards in the low light was impossible.
“It’s like they were already here, waiting for us.”
“Yes,” Thorin said. “Exactly like.”
“But how?”
“I don’t know. Maybe Skyla didn’t wait until she got to the Aerie to send out word of our plans. Maybe she didn’t want to share credit with the Valkyries and went straight to Helen.”
I coughed as shock and indignation stole my breath. “How can you say that? She saved us all at those warehouses. We wouldn’t have made it out without her.”
“I’m just considering all the possibilities.”
“Okay, let’s consider that it was your beloved Baldur who barreled headfirst into that trap. He knew Helen wouldn’t hurt him—maybe he wanted you to get caught. Maybe he knew I would come trailing after.”
Thorin sneered. “Baldur hates Helen. He would never cooperate with her.”
“You ever hear of Stockholm Syndrome? Sympathizing with one’s captor—it’s not out of the question.”
Thorin lurched forward and raised a hand toward me, fingers curled as if wanting to grasp my neck. “The last person to question Baldur’s loyalties didn’t live long enough to question him twice.”
I set my hands on my hips and glared at him. “Get your priorities straight, Thorin. Save your threats for the wolves.” I stomped a foot and threw my hands out. “You talk about humans wasting time with our short lives, but you’re so ancient your thought processes have started to petrify. You’ve gotten complacent, and Helen took advantage of it.”
Perhaps I shouldn’t have aggravated his temper, but I was scared, and not just of the wolves. I was also mad at him for doubting Skyla. And, fair or unfair, I may have resented him for failing to see what was happening in time to save Mani’s life.
The way Thorin affected me frightened me, too.
“Get outside yourself for one second and try opening your mind to the possibility that you and your beloved Aesir are more fallible than you think,” I said. “I’ll accept that Skyla has betrayed us if and when you show me the proof. But for God’s sake, Thorin, I am not your enemy. I’m trying my damnedest to keep us both alive.”
Something like lightning flashed in Thorin’s dark eyes. Thunder rumbled in the distance. I sank inside myself and opened my vessel of fire.
“Put away your flames.” Thorin’s voice was low and raspy. He stepped close again. “I am not your enemy, either.”
I backed away. “The hell you say. You threatened me.”
A muscle in Thorin’s jaw flexed as his teeth ground together. “You provoked me.”
“Your self-control is slipping, and that’s not like you.”
Thorin’s nostrils flared. “That’s because you are singularly skilled at getting under my skin.”
“You were being unreasonable, and you’re mad because I called you on it. You’re so used to having no one challenge you that you’ve gotten apathetic. Someone needs to wake you up.”
