Page 8 of Battle of Witches
That much was true. Freya was like my sister, but she had banging legs and was a beautiful woman. Whenever I shapeshifted into a woman, I always based my legs on hers. Freya had been tall, beautiful, and fierce. Now, she was a wrinkled, tiny witch who lived alone. That wasn’t the Freya I knew. It wasn’t even like most witches I knew.
“That you did. Are you happy like this?”
“I have no complaints. And a little advice, Loki. Take it from me. What you have here can totally work, but you all need to sit down and have a talk about boundaries.”
“How would you know? Your whole thing is being so dedicated to witchcraft, you never married or formed a Coven. That issonot you, by the way.”
Minerva gave me a very Freya smirk and tossed something in the cauldron that made green smoke rise from it.
“Oh, sweetie, that's just PR.”
How utterly scandalous.Thatwas the Freya I knew. How she managed to keep that secret for so long was probably delicious. It was very Loki, and I loved it.
“How did you manage to keep that from Ravyn and her sister? Like, Iknowabout your book club, Minerva. If you kept men around with the shit you’re bringing to book club, they’d never stop asking questions until you told them.”
“I’m good at breaking curses, but I’m famous because of them. One is my publisher, one is my lawyer, and the other is my agent. So, no one questions it when they see us together.”
“Question. They sound amazing and supportive. I approve. Why are you keeping them like a dirty, little secret?”
“It was their idea, not mine. You mightseea little unmarried witch, but at some points, my life was just as dramatic as Ravyn and Ripley’s.”
I’d give it to Freya. Even when she was pretending to be a spinster witch, she had the mostdelicioussecrets. Gaslighting the entire world into thinking she was so dedicated to witchcraft, she never married while hooking up with whoever she wanted sounded like something we would do back in the day, and I loved her for it.
“Ineedto know everything about this drama, how it ended with fake spinsterhood, and you getting famous.”
She lookednothinglike the Freya I remembered until she gave me a cheeky wink. That was all my partner in crime.
“Spoilers. No offense, but Ravyn is the closest thing I have to a child in this lifetime. Ripley is also up there, too. I’m glad fate finally started sending her decent men, and I think all of you are good for each other.No oneknows any of this except my husbands and myself. You’re family, and so is Ravyn, in a way. You know how Iloatherepeating myself. I’ll tell you my story when everyone is here, and all of this is over.”
“I’ll bet it’s epic and worth repeating.”
“We’ve been alive a long time, Loki. When in the history of never have your puppy dog eyes and begging gotten me to do anything I didn’t want to do?”
“Especially when your feather cloak was involved,” I grumped.
Ravyn’s phone started ringing. She’d left it on the coffee table when Bjorn scooped her up and carried her off to bed like the Viking he was. I wasn’t one of those insecure men that needed to see what was on her phone to make myself feel better about life. I was going to ignore it, but it started ringing again.
“With everything going on with Valentine and Asfrid and Ripleythatpregnant, she’d be angrier if you didn’t answer. The screaming and headboard thumping has stopped, so all you’ll be interrupting is the afterglow.”
I grabbed her phone. It was Felix on the caller ID. Felix embraced almost everything about this century like Killian did, but he wasn’t totally on board with getting a cell phone. Theonlyreason he had one was that Ripley got pregnant with a baby that seemed to want to be bornveryquickly. The midwives didn’t know what the baby was and honestly, neither did I. I sired all sorts of children and gave birth once, but they never wanted to get here quite as fast as Ripley’s baby.
“Where’s Ravyn?” Felix shouted.
“I think she’s done fucking, but I can get her.”
“Do your god thing and get her to the hospital. The baby is coming any minute, and Ripley is threatening to curse all of us for possibly getting her pregnant.”
“Childbirth hurts like a bitch. You’re lucky she’s just threatening. I couldn’t do anything to Sleipnir’s father because he was a stallion, and I don’t do animal abuse.”
“I don’t want to hear about that, you plonker. Get Ravyn here, or she’ll miss the birth of her nephew, and Ripley is going to destroy this entire maternity ward.”
“I’ll go get her.”
I was like that for the birth of my first child, and while Ripley and Ravyn were both fierce witches, Angrboda was much scarier. After I gave birth myself, I chilled a little. Yeah, I totally wanted to hurt someone, but raising a child alone was terrifying, even for a god. Even if Sleipnir’s father hadn’t been a horse and I couldn’t stand him, I wouldn’t have killed him. A girl needed to sleep sometime.
“I take it the baby is on the way?” Minerva said.
“Yeah, but I don’t knowanysupernatural that has that short a gestational time.”
