Page 17 of Thor

But was it truly a curse, if it placed him under the command of such an enchanting witch? There were worse mistresses, and masters, he could be serving right now...

The donkeys moved, and Thor followed.

NINETEEN

The higher they rose in altitude, the sharper the wind became, knifing through Sibyl's outer layers and all the way through to the other side. Maybe if she dismounted and walked beside the horse, she'd have been warmer, but Karl had given her strict orders to take it easy, just in case, and he'd made sure Jakop, the owner of the packhorses, would remind her if she forgot.

So she stayed on the animal, feeling like an ever increasing lump of ice, until Jakop called a halt for the night.

"We'll camp here. I have a spare tent in this bag for you," Jakop said, pulling out a pair of swags from the pannier of the horse in front of Sibyl's. She dismounted clumsily and probably would have dropped the swag if she hadn't tangled her numb fingers in the drawstring closure of the swag's outer covering.

Luckily, the swag was pretty much the same as the ones she'd used on expeditions back home, so it didn't need much thought to set up. When it was done, it was basically a big canvas sarcophagus – long and wide and tall enough for a human body wrapped in a big sleeping bag to lie down in, and not much else.

The problem was...it was almost exactly like the ones at home, and while those were fine for a winter's night in the Australian desert, they did bugger all against an icy wind sent straight from the North Pole.

After half an hour in her sleeping bag, when her shivering had grown so bad, she was scared she'd bite through her own tongue, her teeth were chattering so hard, she began to wonder if it was safe to go to sleep at all. That was how people died of hypothermia, wasn't it? They went to sleep and just didn't wake up?

What she'd give for the little Everest-rated dome tent she shared with Jorunn back at camp. Or even just Jorunn, because having a roommate would have helped immeasurably.

She thought of last night's hallucination. Having His Norse Hotness in her tent or even in her sleeping bag right now, for real, would be even better.

Something crunched on the rocks outside her tent.

A bear? A wolverine? One of the reindeer Jorunn kept talking about?

Maybe it was just Jakop or one of the horses, doing their business before going to bed.

Except...she could feel the presence out there. It wasn't going away, even if it was standing still.

"Go away!" she hissed.

Whatever it was shifted, but still it didn't leave.

"But you summoned me, mistress. Do you no longer need my help?"

That was Thor, all right, or at least the voice she'd imagined belonged to the dream-Thor she'd conjured up.

This was crazy, Sibyl knew, but so was freezing to death. She'd try anything once.

She unzipped her tent. "Quick, come in here and warm me up," she said, before her courage failed her.

TWENTY

Thor hesitated. His mistress wasn't the first woman to invite him into her bed – nor the second or the third – but surely he was supposed to be protecting her, not seducing her. Yet if that was what she wanted, he'd willingly bed her. Every night, if that was her desire.

"Come on, it's freezing, and you're letting the cold air in," she snapped.

Thor hurried to obey, sliding into the low tent beside her as her shaking fingers worked at the fastenings to close the entrance again. He wrapped his hand around hers to help her, only to find her hands were as cold as the snow outside.

"Let me do that, mistress," he begged, tugging at the fastening, as he'd seen her do. By some magic, the tent sealed itself as his hand passed over it.

"S-s-s-Sibyl," she said. "My name is Sibyl. Stop calling me mistress. You're my hallucination and I summoned you, and I want you to use my name."

Thor ducked his head, for he could not kneel in obeisance in the close confines of her tent. "Yes, Miss Sibyl."

Now he was this close to her, he could not help but notice how violently her body shivered. "You should have kept my cloak, Miss Sibyl, and worn it while you were riding. Now you are too cold, and I fear for your life if we do not get you warmed up."

"That's...what you're...here for," she managed to say through chattering teeth.

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