Page 58 of The Deeper Game
“We accept you as nobody else ever has,” he continued. “Can’t you do the same for us? We need to rob the Prime, even if it’s foolhardy.”
He was right in that they did support me in every one of my desires, my goals, my dreams. Well, short of dressing as tights-wearing woodsmen and brutishly ravishing me in a forest like in the cartoon porn I enjoyed.
But in general, they did.
“Did we force you to return to your sheep farm?” he continued.
“I don’t want you to die.”
“We can’t justnot die; we have to live, Ice.” He started up his tattoo implement as if that were the end of that. “Even if it means dying.”
“So…what, then?” I bit out. “Death is your endgame?”
“Death is everybody’s endgame.”
A tear slid down my cheek.
“Screw you,” I sobbed. “I’m telling them that you have a bad feeling.”
“It won’t change anything.”
“Fuck off if I don’t want you to die,” I gasped, feeling another tear roll down my cheeks.
He stopped the thing again and ran a finger gently over my elbow. “The worst thing about death would be leaving you, goddess.”
“Odin,” I said, tears rolled openly and wantonly down my cheeks now, and I was gripped with this wild, irrational feeling. “Put it on, then. I want it now. The whole tattoo.”
Sounds came from the foyer. The door. “We’re back,” Zeus called from the other room. Clinks in the kitchen. Putting away bottles.
I started crying even harder now. I loved them so much!
There was a blur of motion from the right.
Big hands grabbed Odin by his shirtfront.
Zeus.
Odin’s tattoo tool went flying as Zeus threw him against the wall with a resounding thud. “What the fuck are you doing to her? Why’s she crying?”
“I’m giving her the tattoo.”
“She’s crying! If she doesn’t want to have a tattoo, she doesn’t have to get one.”
“Stop it!” I said. “I want the tattoo! Let him be!”
Thor was at my back, untying me. “God, Odin.”
“Stop it! I want the tattoo,” I said.
“Then why are you tied up and crying?” Zeus demanded.
“Because I’m worrying about the Prime.”
Zeus gave me a serious look. “You know we’ll be brilliant, goddess.” He let Odin down and stalked over to me. “Let’s see.”
Thor had just untied my arm and freed it. I held it out so that Zeus could inspect my tattoo, which was all red and puffy like they get. “Motherfuckers,” he read. “I think it looks good.”
“That’s all that it says?”
