Page 12 of Loki

That was rich, coming from him. "I wasn't..." she exploded.

"I saw you put it in your pocket. But I might forget about that if you do something for me. How about it?" He gave her what he probably thought was a charming smile. It just made her feel ill.

Now she could barely keep her lunch down. "But I didn't..." she began, then had to close her mouth before her lunch made a second appearance. She didn't like salmon usually, and choking it down the first time had been hard enough. Bringing it back up again...

"Look, girl, either I tell Karl I saw you stealing artefacts from the dig, or you come and share my tent tonight. Deal?"

Sleep with Nik?

Jorunn lost the battle with the salmon, and threw up on Nik's boots.

ELEVEN

Waves bashed the headland, but in the lee of it, fish clustered. That's where Loki dropped his hook, because he knew he'd catch plenty. Enough for the whole week, if he was lucky. Mother would be pleased with him then, and maybe Father would let him come out on the fishing boat with him, instead of leaving him ashore with the women and children. He was more than capable of shouldering a man's load. He knew it, but his father kept putting him off. Next week and next month and next year...as though he did not want his son to be aboard the ship with him. As though Loki wasn't every bit as good a fisherman as his father, if not better.

Something took the bait and suddenly Loki had to hold fast to his line, lest he lose it, fish and all. But he held on, and kept pulling, until his catch breached the surface.

Only to find it was his father's head...

Loki woke with a start. A dream – it had to be a dream. He hadn't been fishing once since the day he'd lost his family, and he had no intention of fishing ever again.

Help.

The whispered word sent a surge of blood rushing through him, the need to rise, to protect...

Ridiculous decisions, if he chose to make them. He was not Erik's slave, ensorcelled by his witches. He was a shapeshifter, and he answered the call of the wild, not some woman. He could be anything he wanted, do anything he wanted.

And right now, he wanted to go back to sleep.

And yet...he couldn't. For the woman was still there, and she was not alone.

"I'll tell you what. You give that to me right now, and I won't tell Karl I saw you stealing it."

"I wasn't..."

"I saw you put it in your pocket. But I might forget about that if you do something for me. How about it?"

Loki didn't like this man. Too slimy by half.

"But I didn't..."

"Look, girl, either I tell Karl I saw you stealing artefacts from the dig, or you come and share my tent tonight. Deal?"

Help.The word came from her, even stronger, even though she didn't say a word.

And the man, whose whiny voice reminded Loki of a mosquito...

He shot through the stone, searching. Ah, there they were – swarms and swarms of them, just waiting to be unleashed. And he did, sending them toward the slimy man.

Who moved off, leaving Loki and the unnamed woman in peace.

Thank you.Her words echoed in his head, unsaid and yet definitely said, as she briefly sported an embarrassed smile just for him, before turning back to her task – looking for treasures in the rocks, like the one she'd found that the slimy man wanted, whatever it was.

Loki glimpsed it for only a moment, but it was enough to freeze his heart in his chest.

That was Odin's cloak pin. The one that had belonged to his wife, which he hadn't taken off since the day she died, and he'd laid a bunch of wilted roses on her pyre before it all burned. If his cloak pin was here, then he was here. Somewhere.

Alive, just as Loki himself was.

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