Page 19 of Coven Relics
“Because IamMinerva Krauss. When my essence jumps into a child, I become them. I lose all sense of myself. I don’tknowI’m Freya until I turn eighteen, and my magic awakens. I know howIreact when that happens. I think I’m insane, and there’s this whole process. IfIhad told you I was really Freya hiding in a witch instead of Loki outing me over my perfume, you would have thought I’d lost my mind and started contacting my terrible family about putting me in a home so they could start the process of stealing all my money.”
I mean, if she told us that before or after Ripley accidentally raised the God of Chaos? Before, yeah, we would have thought she was losing it. Then we met an Oreo-loving, werewolf-porn-addicted god, and it wouldn’t have been the weirdest thing we had ever heard.
“It changes nothing, Ravyn. I’m still the exact same person who mentored you in college. All I ask is that you keep this a secret. I still have more work to do, and if Ihaveto become Freya again, this body will be destroyed. It’s not horrible that you know the truth. I mostly only have access to witch magic like this, but some of the old ways might help us find the wolf.”
“Are we doing runes?” Loki squealed, clapping his hands. “Freya was always much better with that than me.”
“I thought you and the rest of the Norse gods were enemies?” I asked. “You and Freya seem close.”
Didn’t Loki piss themalloff? Like, even before he arranged Baldur’s death, I was pretty sure he had things to say to all of them about what they had done to his children, and they weren’t nice. They were probably just as perfect as the new asshole he ripped Gertrude Von Stein when he hit her in the face with Thorunn’s dildo. Also, gross. The tumbler that tea was in should probably be burned. Loki and Freya seemed to find the idea funny.
“Loki and I were both outsiders to them. They had formed their little family and waged war with ours. My family and Loki’s were their enemies, and everyone was constantly fighting. Loki was adopted as Odin’s blood brother, and they took my brother and me in as a means of peace. Freyr and I were always more agreeable to them than Loki was because they thought they had us figured out, but Loki and I were always close.”
“Isn’t there an entire prose about him slut-shaming you in front of literally everyone?” Ravyn asked.
I forgot about that. Loki seemed to have big opinions on not doing that that with everyone, and he specifically mentioned Freya and the other gods doing that. Still, he had pretty famously done that to her himself. Freya and Loki started laughing again.
“Loki didn’t care about who I slept with or how many, but some of the others certainly did. We needed them all to think we hated each other because they were already paranoid about Loki. Heneededto go on that rant so I could pretend to be offended and leave to help free Sleipnir.Icouldn’t free Loki from the cave and the serpent burning him with poison, but I could certainly reach out to one of the primordials who liked Loki, and the rest of them didn’t want to fuck with.”
“And you didn’t say hello when you met Reyson again?” I asked.
“I adore Chaos. He’s great for a good time and stirring up trouble, but he’s absolutely terrible at keeping a secret. He’s on social media now, and I can see that slipping out and ruining the entire legacy I’ve created while he’s making a quiche or something.”
Ravyn and I just nodded. That was valid. We liked Reyson, and he was perfect for Ripley. He loved his family and would always protect them, but sometimes, he just did things because he could without thinking about it and dealt with the consequences later. Sometimes, that was a good thing because Felix and I had our bodies back with our magic but could shift into our animals when we wanted. The other times, Felix had white fur on his face in the shape of a dick, and Reyson refused to put it back.
“That’s fair, but he wouldn’t if he thought it would upset my twin.”
“Yes, you and your twin appear to be the only two people in the world capable of reining those two in. I didn’t come here to confess all my secrets. I came here to help. Does anyone have runes?”
“I hope the runes work because I got nothing unless he gets online again or gives me something I can track,” Balthazar said.
It wasbadwhen not even Balthazar could find him without more information to go on. Valentine and those bones were close. There were several places he could be, but we didn’t have enough time to search all of them before the eclipse.
Freya and her runes justhadto work.
Chapter15
Loki
Different cultures had many names for fate over the years. Back in my time, it was the Norns, but no one really knewwhowas spinning our fates and meddling in our lives. Reyson was one of the first gods created, and not even he had met them. They were clearly powerful because they could spin fates for gods, too. They’d been fucking with me for averylong time.
But I had to think things were looking up, even with a stupid werewolf hiding somewhere with the bones of my creations and Bjorn’s vision about them returning. The whole situation was shit, but good things were happening, too. Sleipnir and Bjorn were finally back with me, and I was totally crazy for Ravyn and Killian. And Freya hiding in the body of a frail witch who just so happened to be Ravyn’s mentor? Call that the Norns, the Moirai, or whatever names they have been called throughout history, but that was them putting together a dream team, so my creations didn’t wreak havoc in a new century.
No one fell for that Angrboda shit during a time when half the population was illiterate, and we were all shitting in holes. The worldshouldhave been a lot smarter now, and in some ways, they were. I was guessing a good bit of the US didn’t even know who Angrboda was anymore. She was now a blip in history as my mistress. Some of the conspiracy theories out there were so crazy, even I couldn’t believe people thought they were true. There would still be people who believed Thorunn and were dying to join her if she went the Angrboda route again.
Most of the old ways had been abandoned. Freya introducedSeidrto our family and the creations on Earth. I didn’t think anyone still practiced it, but they should. Ialwayskept a pouch of runes in my pocket just in case. I was good, but I wasn’t Freya. Ravyn wasn’t the only person in this room she had been a mentor to when it came to magic.
I reverently handed her my runes. I still wasn’t used to seeing Freya like this. When I first met her when she was in her vessel, she was taller than most mortal women and utterly stunning. I could appreciate her beauty in a nonsexual way. We were both highly sexual people and experimented with that freely, but never with each other. Freya was always like my sister. That would have been gross.
It wasweirdseeing her in the body of a tiny witch with graying hair and lines around her eyes. It was utterly fucked up I was talking to Freya but notfeelingFreya. The only reason we even knew was that I’d known she was still body hopping because she thought she had a duty to Lilith’s witches and she was still making and wearing the same perfume. It was a comfort scent for me, and Freya refused to share the recipe, no matter how many people asked her for it.
Freya opened the bag of runes and blew into it. She taught me how to do this, but I was never as good at it as she was. The first rune she drew was Pertho. That one came upa lotwhen I was involved. It meant I had some game to play, and I usually won. Jera was next. That usually meant something about harvest and crops, but Freya probably had different ideas. The final rune was Lagu, a body of water. Not a ton to go on.
“Okay, so here it goes. Valentine and the bones are close. He can’t do what he needs to do on a boat, and there’s too much paperwork to fly with them. We don’t need modern Loki who blends in and fucks up things for mortals in the shadows. We need Asgard Loki, who turned into a mare and got Thor to dress in drag so I wouldn’t have to marry some asshole I didn’t even like. Valentine is hiding somewhere isolated next to a body of water. It’s somewhere with fertile land where things are growing, but close enough to sneak somewhere populated to snatch his victims. It could be a farm.”
“You can’t pay for a rental car with cash or prepaid cards,” Balthazar said. “He didn’t rent one before he cashed his accounts yet, and he hasn’t used a rideshare. So, wherever he went after he left the museum, he got there by foot or hitchhiked.”
I was guessing he unbuttoned his shirt a bit and got a ride with a woman. Showing some skin and flirting worked with men, too. Sex sold, but it also made people extremely stupid. I was the queen of bad decisions and immortal, but I wasn’t about to get in the car of someone who only picked me up because they found me attractive. I liked my serial killer documentaries just like everyone else did.
