Thorin squeezed hard, cutting off my air. My head throbbed and my eyes strained in their sockets, but then heat bloomed over my skin, fast and searing. Thorin yelped, and his arms dropped away from me. I fell to the floor and panted for breath.
“That’s fighting dirty,” he said, rubbing his arms, which were already turning red. “I like it.”
“She’s still got a long way to go,” said Tori, who appeared in the doorway. “But she’s a quick study. Can you agree that it was a good thing, Alek—us bringing her here?”
“Don’t talk like I’m not here,” I said from my prone position on the floor. “I’m exhausted, not deaf.” I giggled, reveling in my victory. “And I totally beat you.”
Thorin chuckled and held out a hand to me. I pulled my heat back inside and took his hand. He heaved me to my feet. “I am willing to admit that the ends justified the means in this case,” Thorin said. “But I would appreciate more direct dealings in the future. The swan feather was vague and a waste of my time.”
“We didn’t want Helen to catch on to us,” Tori said. “We’ve been so careful to keep off her radar. I can’t help that you forgot us so quickly.”
“You have a patron who remembers you, so what does it matter if I don’t?”
I backed away from the reminiscing couple and tiptoed to the door. I would grow a tail and swing through the jungle before I’d be the third wheel on their trip down memory lane. I almost escaped through the door before they noticed my retreating backside. “Where are you going, Sunshine?” Thorin asked.
“A shower and breakfast,” I said over my shoulder. “I’m starving.”
“I want to talk to you about what happens next.”
I nodded. “Meet me after I’ve cooled down. I’ve had enough fighting, and with me and you, that seems to be the only thing we know how to do together.”
After a hot shower, I changed into a borrowed pair of jeans and an old sweater and went to the kitchen to search for something to eat. Skyla was nowhere to be found, and I hoped that meant she was busy investigating the validity of her claim to Valkyrie heritage. She would easily fit in at the Aerie, and finding a place among the Valkyries might help her heal from the wound of losing Mani. It was certainly helping me.
I grabbed a canister of oatmeal and a box of brown sugar from the Valkyries’ kitchen pantry and put a pan of water on to boil. I took an apple from the refrigerator and cinnamon from a spice holder on the counter. The mundane routine of cooking required little of my attention, so my thoughts wandered to other things.
I didn’t know for sure, but I thought Thorin would want me to stay at the Aerie. As for Val, I couldn’t say what he was thinking, but after the previous night, a rift existed between us that neither of us would easily cross.
I had finished my oatmeal and was washing my dirty dishes when Thorin found me. The scent of shower soap wafted from his skin, and he had changed into faded jeans and a thick, cream-colored fisherman’s sweater. He wore his hair pulled back in an uncharacteristic braid. How Viking of him.
“Let’s go for a walk,” Thorin said. “We need to talk.”
We left the Aerie through a side entrance near the kitchen. A worn path ran parallel to the cliff’s edge, and Thorin steered us toward it. The wind whipped off the water and blew the ends of my hair into my face, even though I had tied it back into a ponytail. I envied Thorin’s braid. We walked a while in silence, but then we came to an outcropping of rocks that muted the wind’s roaring enough that we could speak without yelling.
Thorin leaned against a large boulder and crossed one long leg over the other. He shoved his fingers into his front pocket and pulled out a cell phone. My cell phone. “You should call your parents. They’re out of their minds about you. They’ve even resorted to calling me and Val to track you down.”
I bit my lip and took the phone from him. “I don’t know what to say to them. Last time I talked to them, I told them I’d be home in a week. That was two weeks ago. They must be freaking out.” I had thought about my parents a lot, in the quiet moments before I drifted off to sleep or during the rare instances of solitude the Valkyries allowed me. I had put off calling them, telling myself I would call them tomorrow. Always tomorrow. What could I say at this point? How much had I already hurt them? What could I do to make up for that other than go home? And I couldn’t go home. Not now. Maybe not ever.
“I’ve put them off as long as I can,” Thorin said. “Told them you’ve been on an out-of-town trip. Backpacking.”
My eyebrows arched. “And they believed you?”
“They did the first week. Last time I talked to them, they were threatening to call the police.”
I rubbed a hand over my face and groaned. “Oh, Lord.”
“You’ll call them?” Thorin asked. “This would be a bad time to involve the police.”
“I don’t know what I’ll tell them, but I’ll call them.”
Thorin nodded, satisfied with my answer.
“So, what are we going to do now that you’ve found me again?” I asked.
Thorin stared off toward the water. “I’m going to Vegas. Val is going to Siqiniq to take care of some business issues and then try to find a lead on Helen’s wolves from there. I want you to stay here. The Valkyries are trustworthy, and they’d give their lives to protect you. You can learn a lot from them. I can’t look for Nina and Mjölnir and fight off Helen and keep you safe all at the same time. The Valkyries’ abduction of you showed me there are weak spots in my armor.”
I gasped. Twice in twenty-four hours, Thorin had admitted fallibility. I tried to imagine the amount of humility Thorin had to choke down in order to do that. “You want me to hide,” I said as another gust of wind flung loose wisps of my hair into my mouth and eyes.
Thorin pushed off from the rock, put his hands on my shoulders, and spun me around. He tugged the elastic band from my hair and combed his fingers through the knotted strands. As he tugged and twisted, I held my breath. It was such an intimate gesture, really, and I didn’t want to do or say anything to ruin the moment.
“What I want,” Thorin said, “is for you to stay alive at any cost.”
Thorin reached the end of the braid and looped the elastic band around to hold my hair in place. I patted the braid, and it felt smooth and even. Thorin the hairdresser, who would have guessed?
Thorin’s attentions brought him closer to me. His touch burned on my skin, prickling to the tips of my toes. Unlike Val, Thorin was reluctant to reach out to me, which is possibly why I savored his connection. But then I remembered Thorin’s warnings, his bald statements about his own self-interest. I stepped back from him before I did or said anything to invite his criticism again.
For the briefest of moments, Thorin’s brows drew together—in disappointment?—but then his face cleared, and he nodded. We had an understanding.
“Thank you,” I said, motioning to my hair.
Thorin waved aside my compliment. “Are you going to fight me on this? Are you going to give me a list of reasons why you should throw yourself in harm’s way, jeopardizing your whole world and mine so you can avenge your brother’s death?”
I threw up my hand, indicating he should stop. “See, there you go making assumptions, and it’s going to get us in a fighting mood again. You have a valid argument, and I’m going to give it all due consideration. I do want to come with you, want to find Hati and make him pay for killing Mani. But I’m no hero. Not really.”
“What would you do if I were to present Hati to you on a platter?” Thorin asked. “Would you kill him? Give him to the police? Have us banish him to a distant realm, never to return?”
I hesitated. “Could you do that?”
