I shook my head. “Not so much. I can dish out almost as well as I can take.”
Thorin stepped closer, and I tensed. He noticed, and his brows drew together. His gaze dropped to my neck. He reached out and brushed his fingertips over the bruise forming beneath my jaw. “I did this?”
I mimicked his gesture and touched my fingers to his cheek, displaying an angry red welt in the shape of my hand. “And I did this.”
Thorin caught my hand on his face and held it there. His eyes, dark and glittering, bore into mine. “I worried about being able to protect you, but I didn’t think it would be from myself.”
I swallowed, but my voice still came out gruff. “I’ve been ravaged by a wolf, converted to pure energy and back, and I’ve been nearly frozen to death. This is nothing.”
“Still, I am sorry.”
I stiffened my spine and moved away from him. “C’mon, put on some pants, and let’s go to the kitchen. I’ll make us some tea. It’ll calm our nerves.”
Without any hint of self-consciousness, Thorin crouched and dug his pants out from somewhere beneath the bed. Maybe he didn’t care, but I turned away and gave him a moment of privacy. I started down the hall, and he fell into place behind me, still zipping zippers and fastening buttons.
In the kitchen, Thorin leaned against the counter and watched me rifle through the cabinets, looking for my box of chamomile. “Why are you here? Why aren’t you with Baldur?”
I found the tea and set about filling a kettle with water. “Someone had to wait for you. I’ve lost too many people already. I don’t want to lose any more. Besides, Baldur is only focused on Nina. They’re both a little…” I swirled my finger around my temple to insinuate their current mental state. “What else should I have done?”
“You should have run. Kept moving. Staying in one place too long is dangerous. You shouldn’t risk yourself.”
“You’ve told me that before.”
“I see you didn’t take my advice.”
“I told you that I don’t automatically do everything you tell me.”
Thorin’s blond brows arched high. “Yes, I remember.”
I set the full kettle on the stove, lit the burner, and motioned to the kitchen table. Thorin slid out a chair for me and settled into the one beside it. I sank into the seat and let out a heavy breath.
“So tell me what has happened since I saw you last,” Thorin said.
“Since you gave me to Baldur in the cave and stayed behind to fight Grim?”
“I remember, up to the point where Baldur took you away. From then until you woke me just a moment ago, everything is a blur.”
And so, for the second time that night, I told Thorin everything he had missed.
Chapter Thirty-one
I don’t know when I fell asleep again, but I woke on the sofa tangled in an old crocheted afghan. Light from a cloudless morning sky illuminated the room. I sat up and rubbed sleep crust from my eyes. The afghan carried Thorin’s familiar scent of rain and ozone, but the man himself was missing. I shrugged the blanket around my shoulders like a shawl and shuffled down the hall.
“Thorin?” I called into his room.
He wasn’t there, but he had cleaned up the wreckage from the previous night. The evidence suggested he had risen early and not that my enemies had snatched him out from under me while I slept. I shifted my weight and turned on my heel, meaning to return to the front of the house, but a phone rang and stopped me in my place. The sound came from within Thorin’s bedroom, muffled, but unmistakably his ring tone. I crossed the room, following the ringing, and crouched beside his bed. Beneath the dust ruffle I found Thorin’s cell, lying just beyond my reach among the company of a few dust bunnies. Must have been kicked under here by accident last night, when he was fighting ghosts or nightmares or whatever that was.
On my knees already, I slunk onto my belly, extended my arm to full length, and stretched for the phone. Maybe it’s Skyla. Or Val. Whoever it is, he or she’s gonna hang up before I get to this thing. Stretching again, I managed to latch a couple fingertips around an edge on the phone case and dragged it out.
Afraid of losing the caller, I hurried to accept the call and put the phone to my ear. Please let it be Val. “Hello?” I said as I slid out from under the bed.
A moment of silence, a cold chuckle, and then, “Hello, Solina. Or should I call you Sabrina?”
It wasn’t Val at all.
Shivers rolled over my shoulders and dribbled down the length of my spine. “Wh-who is this?” But I already knew.
“I’ll give you three guesses.”
I swallowed and took a deep breath, trying to overcome my shock. “Rolf.”
“In the flesh, so to speak.”
“Wha—How did you get Thorin’s number?”
“I told you.” He chuckled again. “I know everything.”
As silent and graceful as usual, Thorin appeared in the doorway. He opened his mouth, as if to ask a question unrelated to the current situation, but his dark eyes skimmed over me, kneeling on the floor, phone to my ear, and he swallowed whatever he’d meant to say. Blood had drained from my face the moment Rolf verified his identity, so I probably looked pale and drawn. Thorin’s nostrils flared, and he frowned. He stepped fully into the room, his posture wary and alert. “Who are you talking to?”
“Ah, is that the God of Thunder I hear?” Rolf asked. “Perfect. Put me on speaker phone. He needs to hear this.”
I looked up at Thorin and met his gaze. His eyes were turning black, reacting to my distress. I stretched forward, passing him the phone, and said, “Put it on speaker.”
Thorin scowled but did as I said. He swiped his thumb across the screen and held the phone out between us. “Who is this?”
“Hello, Magni,” Rolf said. “I’m afraid you won’t really know me. Not now—not as I am after all these years.”
“It’s Rolf Lockhart,” I said when Thorin raised a questioning eyebrow at me. “Or, that’s what he said his name was when I met him in San Diego.”
