I held up a finger and sipped my coffee. Then I swallowed and lowered my voice to mock his deep timbre. “Miss Mundy.” Skyla choked and covered her mouth to keep from spraying masticated French toast across the table. “No one endangers my perpetuity. If you’re thinking of putting yourself in the middle of this business with the Valkyries and Helen’s golems, then you’ve got another think coming.”

Thorin folded his arms over his chest. “I would never say, ‘you’ve got another think coming.’”

I shrugged. “However you put it, the meaning would be the same.” I looked at Skyla. “Am I wrong?” She snickered and shook her head. “And then you would say...” I lowered my voice again. “‘Are you going to be stubborn about this, Sunshine? I will chain you if necessary.’”

Skyla’s snickers gave way to a boisterous coughing fit.

“You’re no help,” Thorin said to Skyla. He shoved out a hip and readjusted his posture to something... feminine? He batted his lashes. “I’ll tell you where you can stuff your perpetuity,” he said in a high, wispy voice tainted by a bad Southern accent.

I glanced at Skyla. “Is that supposed to be me?”

Skyla jammed more French toast in her mouth and looked away.

“Well?” Thorin asked in his regular voice.

“You’ve got a point,” I said. “I’m not a Valkyrie. I don’t have warrior blood flowing through my veins. But I’ll tell you why I’m not too excited about staying here and sitting on my hands.”

He huffed and rolled his eyes. “You mean, other than the fact that you insist on inserting yourself into the middle of every dangerous situation.”

I slapped my fork down, pushed away from the table, and stood. “I won’t sit back and let others fight my battles for me, Thorin. You know that.”

“Why do the golems have to be your battle?” Lightning flashed in his eyes. “The Valkyries can do this on their own.”

I stalked toward him, heat rippling across my skin. “What if Skoll’s there, and this is our chance to end him?” I raised my hand, and flames engulfed my fingers. “I can defend myself.”

“You can.” He nodded. “But it doesn’t mean you have to take unnecessary risks. Did you not make me swear I would be the wall that everyone has to get through on their way to you? Let me do my job.”

“How about you give me some credit? I’ve done pretty well at keeping myself alive when there was no one else to depend on. I’ve saved your butt a few times, too.”

Thorin smirked and shook his head. He probably had a smarmy retort all packaged up and ready to go, but he was smart enough, for once, to keep it to himself.

“This is my fight as much as it’s yours, Baldur’s, and the Valkyries’. The whole world’s... You can’t ask me to sit by and watch. You know me better than that. If you try to leave me behind, you know what’ll happen. Didn’t you learn that lesson when you went to fight Rolf?”

He growled and spun on his heel. He threw a fist into the wall, and it caved. Drywall dust scattered, and plaster crumbs dropped at his feet.

I raised my chin, put my hands on my hips, and arched an eyebrow. “Feel better now?”

He said nothing. My ears popped, and he disappeared.

I turned to Skyla, still sitting at the table before a half-eaten plate of French toast. She stared at me, blinking, her mouth half open. She closed it and swallowed. “You shouldn’t do that to him.”

“Do what?”

“Antagonize him like that. He’s trying to protect you.”

“He can do that and let me fight at the same time. He can’t put me in a padded box, Skyla. I won’t live like that.”

“Even if it means saving the world?”

Well, damn. When she put it that way... At the moment, I was too angry and proud to admit it, especially to Thorin.

“You already said your fire doesn’t have much effect on the golems,” she said. “How do you expect to fight them? How much difference will your being there make?”

I had no answer, nor the patience to find one. Instead, I spun on my heel and stomped toward my room.

“Where are you going?”

“I think I have a swimsuit in my bags somewhere. It’s either do laps or burn down this hotel.”

She gaped at me and glanced at the patio door. “But it’s freezing outside.”

I snorted. “That’s sort of the point.”

Up and down and back again, I swam laps for what felt like hours. The Bellestrella heated its pools year around, but the chilly December temperatures had chased the other guests away. Mist rose from the warm waters, drawn by the cool air, and I probably looked half crazed out there, considering the inhospitable weather, but the cold and the exercise kept my flames under control. Never mind what anyone else thought.

Swimming pools made good therapy, in more ways than one. My frustrations and feelings of helplessness fueled each kick and stroke as I burned through them until serenity and reason returned. The water muffled exterior noises and distractions, and the exercise was mindless routine, allowing me to sink into my thoughts. Only then did I concede the logic of Skyla’s and Thorin’s arguments, although it took several hundred more yards of swimming before I could burn off enough pride to admit it out loud.

No living in cages or padded boxes, no letting others fight my fights, but no unnecessary putting myself in harm’s way, either—especially if it put others at risk. What was so wrong with letting the Valkyries have the golems? Having reassurance of their support was why I’d asked them to come. Skoll was my fight, the one from which I consistently let myself get distracted. Helen’s golems were ultimately another diversion. I needed to let them go and trust others to do their part.

You don’t have to fight every battle, I told myself. Sometimes, it’s okay to delegate.

After I dried off and changed into my street clothes, I went looking for Thorin and found him in the place that made the most sense. He and Amala and several other Valkyries had rearranged the workout equipment in the villa’s private fitness room and made their own training center. Thorin stood in the middle, surrounded by three women. He had tied his hair back, and sweat had left dark rings on his T-shirt. The women prowled around him like hunters considering the best way to take down an angry bear. Golem fighting practice, I presumed, and Thorin was the golem.

I stepped back, watching from the threshold as Amala skipped forward and swung a right cross to Thorin’s chin. At the same time, Siobhan struck for a kidney blow. He dodged both, moving as if water flowed beneath his skin instead of muscle. He was grace and strength—both the hurricane and the calm eye at the center. A thin layer of poise and civility masked his innate savagery, but that wildness burned in his eyes’ dark depths.

He had revealed some of his true nature, his thunder god heritage, in that Portland field when he fought Rolf, but even then, it seemed as though he’d held back. I wondered what it would take for him to utterly drop his cool composure. What devastation could the God of Thunder inflict if his fetters were completely discarded? What could he do if there was no one and nothing, including his own remarkable self-restraint, to hold him back? A tongue of coldness licked down my spine, and I shivered.

Thorin followed through the path of his momentum and jabbed his knuckles at Amala’s ribs. She jumped back, and his strike grazed her. She chuckled and bared her teeth in a wicked grin. Siobhan was not so lucky. He pivoted, kicked out, and swiped Siobhan’s feet from underneath her. She had barely hit the floor when she bounced up, recovered her fighting stance, and grimaced. That fall must have hurt, but she shook it off.

Naomi moved in for an attack, but I interrupted before she struck. “Not to rain on anyone’s parade”—I pointed at Thorin—“but I need to borrow your training dummy for a minute.”

Siobhan snickered. Naomi stepped aside, allowing room for Thorin to pass. The heat of his stare burned on my neck as I led him outside to the patio.

“They can’t fight Helen’s army with fists,” I said after he slid the door shut behind him. “Their knuckles will break long before those golems do.”

He pressed his lips together, folded his arms over his chest, and leaned against a column supporting the porch roof. “They’re just burning off steam.”

I nodded. “There’s a lot of that going around.”

“What do you want, Sunshine?”

“World peace and an end to hunger and poverty.”

He huffed.

“No?” I clucked my tongue. “I can always hope.”