“Thorin!” I screamed—not so much a cry for his help, although it was certainly welcome, but to alert him to the presence of trouble beyond the villa’s interior.

The stone man who held my arm cinched an unforgiving embrace around my waist. His partner reached for me, but before he could complete his objective, his head exploded. Thorin stepped through the bedroom doorway into the courtyard and recalled his hammer to his outstretched hand. The old sagas and texts had said Mjölnir would “…never fly so far as not to return to his hand.” That trick was one of the few things the Marvel comics had gotten right.

The third golem, the one not occupied with holding me in place, stalked toward Thorin, heedless of the hammer’s threat. Thorin swung, reducing the golem to a rubble pile. Then he shifted his attention to my captor and me.

He raised Mjölnir again, taking aim. “Duck, Solina.” Before he could release the hammer, a gun barked, and he jerked and dropped the hammer. A bloodred rose bloomed on his shoulder.

I screamed and reached deeper into my well, seeking the starlight within—anything to save us. To save him.

Thorin reached for me. “No, Solina. Don’t.”

He swept up Mjölnir and flung the massive hammer toward me. I ducked. The golem’s head, mere inches from my own, disintegrated in an explosive burst of dust. Thorin stretched out a hand, calling for his weapon, but another gunshot ripped through his chest. Another bloody floret spilled across the center of his shirt, and he fell to his knees. In the low light, the stain appeared dark, almost black.

Had I thought only rain and thunder pumped through his veins?

He coughed and slumped onto his side. A man, a human, stepped forward, brandishing a knife. He crouched over Thorin, slashed his shirt open, and drew the blade in flickering movements across Thorin’s chest. I screamed for him to stop, and the intruder looked up at me, wearing the kind of smile that issued a challenge.

The golem had not let go of me, but the loss of his head made him clumsier, off balance, slow to react. After a brief struggle, I freed myself from the golem’s grip, but by then Thorin’s attacker had disappeared, leaving the thunder god prone on the floor in a bloody pool. That last gunshot had torn through the center of his chest, through vital organs. But he was immortal, right? Did he have lungs and a heart? His wounds proved he had blood, though, and that realization chilled me to my core.

I backtracked to the bedroom’s shattered doorway and crouched beside him. He lay across the entrance, Mjölnir in hand, his breathing shallow but evident. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. I retracted my flames and stroked his temple, pushing his hair off his face.

His eyes fluttered open. He smiled, revealing bloodstained teeth. “Sunshine,” he croaked.

I choked down a whimper. “God of Thunder, you gonna die on me?”

“Wasn’t planning on it.”

“Good. This would be a bad time for you to leave me on my own after all the bravado you’ve been selling so hard.”

“Bring it on.” He winced.

Heedless of my nudity, the broken glass, and my scraped and bruised skin, I knelt beside him, intending to help him to his feet, but at that same moment, the wolf of my worst dreams bounded through the doorway at the opposite side of the room. His amber eyes fell on me… and slid away. His gaze settled on Thorin, and he hunkered low. His muscles bunched, his teeth gleamed, and he snarled and coiled for a leap.

Something’s not right about this. Something’s not right about the wolf...

I once saw an Internet video of sun flare—lavalike whips and arcs of plasma exploding from the sun’s molten body. Holding that image at the forefront of my mind, I called out my fire again. The previous fight had drained my stores, leaving me little to use against the wolf, but I intended to make the most of what remained.

Leaping forward, I grabbed at the beast of my nightmares. He yelped and slipped away, fast and sleek. I’ve got to stop underestimating his speed.

Thorin grunted something unintelligible. A dull sound thudded behind me followed by a squall of mortal pain. A brief look behind me revealed that Thorin, still seated and bleeding, had taken down another attacker. A flesh-and-bone man lay on the floor in the doorway, blood pooling around his head. That distraction had invited the wolf’s attack. He came for me, teeth bared. I raised my flames again—one last effort—and met him, catching the beast in a fiery embrace. He squealed, applied his claws and teeth to my softest parts, and tore his way free.

I grabbed at the wolf again, but he evaded me. His attention flicked to something behind me. His ears lowered and drew against his skull. His tail tucked under his belly. He bared his teeth, leapt through the patio doorway, and dashed across the courtyard. Then he jumped over a short row of privacy hedges and raced into an alleyway.

I spun around, searching for whatever had frightened him away. Thorin, still slumped on the floor, had drawn back and held Mjölnir positioned for a throw. “Too slow,” he panted. “I was too damned slow.”

I dropped my flames and reached for a dirty shirt on the floor by Skyla’s side of the bed. The T-shirt barely covered everything once I shrugged it on, but it would serve for chasing a wolf. “I’m going after him.”

“No,” Thorin said, his voice weak and raspy. “Let him go.”

“Hell, no. We might not get this chance again.”

“Solina—” He started another protest, but I ignored him and sprinted through the doorway, across the small lawn, hurdled the privacy hedge, caught my foot in a branch, and fell on my outstretched hands. I screamed a few choice words, rolled over, stumbled to my feet, and took off in the direction I had last seen the wolf’s disappearing backside.

Chapter 5

Every step sent pain stabbing up from my heel, through my ankle, into my knee. I could have stepped on any number of things: broken glass, rubble, shrubbery. Ignoring my physical complaints, I kept going, single minded and intent on the wolf.

The alleyway ended at an access street leading to hotel parking in one direction and Las Vegas Boulevard in the other. A wolf running pell-mell down the main drag should have stirred some kind of interest—shrieking tourists or honking horns—but the night was relatively quiet. Maybe the wolf had changed into human form. In a town nicknamed Sin City, a naked man streaking down the sidewalk was much less likely to incite a riot than a wild wolf. He could have also hidden himself among the parking deck’s shadows, intending to lure me into a surprise attack. My gut clenched at the thought of playing hide-and-seek in the garage’s dark interior.

To Las Vegas Boulevard it is.

I scampered down the hotel’s access road, sticking close to the darkest shadows of a building. Cars rolled past me, oblivious or simply uninterested. My heel protested louder, and I skip-hopped on tiptoe, limping forward until I reached the sidewalk.

A group of casually dressed sightseers crossed in front of me. A few noticed me and turned around as if to inquire about my situation, possibly even ask if I needed help. Or maybe they simply wanted to ridicule my strange and bedraggled appearance.

“Um, ma’am?” said one of the young men. I guessed he was Southern by his accent, inclined to help a woman in distress by his upbringing, and an Atlanta Braves fan by the logo on his ball cap. Bless his heart.

I interrupted him before he could finish his thought. “Did you see a wolf come from this direction?”

He frowned and recoiled. “A wolf?”

“Or a large dog that looked like a wolf?”

“Is that what happened to you?” asked a young woman standing beside the Braves fan. She studied my disheveled appearance. “You get attacked by a dog or something?”

“Did you see it?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Nope. No dogs. Or wolves.”

“How about a naked man?”

She cut her eyes to the Braves fan. “Saw him naked this morning. Does that count?”

Despite my anxiety, I smiled. “No, but good for you.”

She smiled back. “Yes, it was pretty good for me.”

“You sure you’re all right?” asked the Braves fan, whose cheeks had flushed a deep shade of pink.

Really? Blushing? I thought that was illegal in Vegas.

“I will be,” I assured him and pushed past the group so I could peer down the sidewalk. A scream rose above the traffic noise. The tourists and I turned toward the outcry.

“There goes your dog,” said my blushing knight-in-dingy-baseball-cap. He pointed at a shaggy, four-legged figure, crossing Las Vegas Boulevard among a crowd of pedestrians. A few had stopped and pointed at the lupine figure dashing toward the sidewalk on the highway’s opposite side.

Someone else saw him and screamed. Terror spread, and people dodged aside, making way for the wild beast. I took off after him, following not by sight but by the shouts and parting waves of people. As if sensing my presence, the wolf slowed and stopped under a streetlight. He turned and looked back at me.

He’s not red. That’s what’s different. He’s browner, tawny colored. What the hell? But if the wolf wasn’t Skoll, who was he? An answer flared in the depths of my mind, but I shoved it away. Acknowledging that possibility was too painful.