Gears of Mischief (The Valhalla Mechanism Book 1) Page 14

  Thor sighed and dropped his hammer to the floor with a thunk, the metal putting a small dent in the wood that Thor didn’t seem to notice. “He’s right,” he murmured. “I should step back.”

  “But I like both of you,” I pointed out.

  Thor shook his head. “You like the way I look, Tillie. Even I know that Loki is the more intriguing between us for someone like you.”

  “Like me?”

  Thor glanced up when he took a seat on the couch again, his clear blue eyes reflecting all the conflict he felt. “Clever,” he murmured. “Beautiful. Skilled.”

  “Are you insinuating that you’re stupid?”

  “I’ve been called many things over my long life.” He closed his eyes and ran a hand through his long hair, the locks shining in the light. “Dense is a word often associated with me.”

  “You’re the God of War,” I pointed out, moving closer to him. “You calculate battle strategies in your head. I watched you fight off elves without breaking a sweat. How could you be stupid?”

  “I’m built for battle and nothing else,” he murmured. “And I’ve always been favored anyway. Loki deserves to be happy, to have a chance.”

  I had never expected insecurity to be a trait in a God but here this one was, thinking himself not a worthy opponent when it came to cleverness. He was smart, smarter than people must have given him credit for, but just because he was not an alchemist like Loki, that did not make him a fool.

  “Why do you not deserve the same chance?” I asked quietly, taking another step closer.

  “Loki has been treated unfairly his entire life, as if he had a choice of who he was born to be, as if he could stop the manipulation into what he became.” He shook his head and looked down at his hands. “He’s suffered horrors at the hands of my family, at the hands of those I call my brethren.”

  I reached out and cupped his bearded chin, tilting his head up to meet my eyes. Even sitting, he was still tall, and his crystal blue pupils looked deeply into my own. I smiled, relished the thought of someone as intimidating as him not caring about my dominance, allowing me to control his movements, if even just a small gesture.

  “I would have thought Gods were less likely to stick to Midgardian customs of monogamy, and I certainly would not have thought the mighty Thor so thoughtful about his friend that he would step backwards to make him happy.”

  “Those are your customs,” he pointed out, reaching up a hand to circle my wrist and stroke a brand of lightning there.

  I shrugged. “I would have thought you realized I don’t truly fit in a box, not in my world.” I leaned down and pressed a chaste kiss to his lips, soft, gentle, and I pulled back to peer into his eyes.

  For a moment, he stared at me in surprise, as if he never expected the action, but then his large arms wrapped around my waist and pulled me close, his lips claiming mine in a gentle, thorough kiss. I could taste the lightning on his lips, the electricity buzzing beneath his skin, as if I could reach out and stroke it.

  All too soon, I broke it, panting softly, before tilting my forehead against his. “Don’t worry so much, Thor,” I murmured. “I don’t just like you for your muscles.”

  “You don’t?” The corner of his lips curled. “Let me guess; you also like me for my hammer.”

  I chuckled, before straightening and looking over my shoulder. “You know me so well.” I met his eyes one last time. “But I also like you for your kindness, your penchant for putting up with my teasing, and your willingness to take care of Loki when it’s clear others did not.”

  Clenching his jaw, he captured my hand in his. “Be gentle with him,” he murmured before I could pull away. “He’s going to make mistakes, and I don’t want you to get hurt in the process.”

  “Should I be just as gentle with you?” I mused, picking up the package Loki had left for me. I was tired of being in the large dress.

  He shot me a crooked smile. “My body isn’t fragile, if that’s what you’re asking.” But I heard the words he didn’t say, that there were parts of him that were, and I hadn’t realized I held such sway over the two Gods I had barely met and already bonded with so thoroughly. I couldn’t imagine not teasing them, even at the end of the world. They had become such a staple of my life so quickly.

  “I should go find Loki,” I murmured, stroking a hand down Thor’s face.

  “Up the stairs, second door to the right.”

  I nodded and went off in search of the God of Mischief.

  I found him exactly where Thor told me I would, in a room that felt precisely like the Trickster God. I opened the door without knocking, knowing he might tell me to go away or disappear before allowing me inside. The walls were painted a green close to Loki’s eyes, but nothing could mimic that color, the magic that swirled there. Most of the accents in the room were black; black sheets on an iron bed, black floor, black furniture. My poor mother would have a faint with how dark it was, but I liked it. On one side, a giant table was covered in glass vials and bottles, each full of liquid of some sort. Some bubbled and hissed, including the one currently sitting over a low flame.

  The God I searched for sat in a velvet chair in the shadows, a book open in his hands as if he had tried to distract himself. I met his eyes when he looked up at me, and then his gaze trailed over my face and my body, a sigh slipping from him. The book closed and he tossed it on a nearby table.

  “So,” he murmured, staring at me, “you chose Thor.”

  The words were so sad, so forlorn, that I found myself striding across the room. His eyes followed me as I stopped just in front of him, but he didn’t move, didn’t reach for me, so I fixed the problem.

  I straddled the God of Mischief’s waist and braced myself on his shoulders.

  Loki stared up at me in surprise but even though he had not reached for me before, his hands settled at my waist to brace me there, his large fingers splayed. I still had not changed into the new clothing, but then again, I would need help with my laces.

  I looked deeply into Loki’s eyes, making sure he was paying attention.

  “Why do I have to choose?” I whispered, tilting my head. “If the world ends, why should any of us be worried about such things?”

  Loki tilted his head back, leaning it against the back of the chair. “Thor is the better choice,” he admitted, even after his outburst earlier. “He’s wholesome, good, strong, a gentleman. I’m just the God no one wanted around.”

  I reached up and traced around his mouth, where in the right lighting, I could see the ghost of scars if I squinted. His hand snapped around my wrist, holding me still, keeping me from touching them. “Don’t,” he choked.

  For a moment, neither of us moved, held in limbo by the strain on his face and the agony of whatever memories had caused his scars. I shuffled off his lap and turned with my back to him.

  “I need help with the laces,” I murmured.

  He didn’t move, not right away. I could feel his confusion at the change in subject but eventually, he stood and began to pluck at the laces of the corset, loosening it one by one. The moment he loosened it enough, I shoved it down and off, leaving me in nothing but my near transparent shift. I turned in the center of the puddle of material and looked up into Loki’s eyes, all while lifting the hem of the shift to reveal a long scar on my thigh.

  “This one,” I said, making sure he was paying attention. “I got it because a mark moved faster than I expected. I misjudged him because he was older. Turned out, he was once trained for fighting.” I turned and pointed to the thin scar near the top of my spine, too close. “This one, I learned my lesson about checking a hiding place twice. A woman who thought me a robber hid in a cupboard and stabbed me with a letter opener.” I turned again, and lifted the hem, revealing the slope of my hip, keeping myself as covered as I could, and pointed to the vicious scar on my lower stomach. “This one,” I met his eyes, “means it’s likely I will have trouble bearing children one day.” I sighed. “I got knocked out by the mark
and found myself chained to pipes when I came to. He was a scientist of some sort, one we were already watching because of his experiments, but he had realized I was trailing him and caught me by surprise.” I grimaced at the memory. “The iron poker he used to make this wound was so hot, it glowed red.”

  Loki’s breath stuttered, and his hand gently reached out to touch the puckered scar. “I would kill them all for you.”

  I shook my head. “That isn’t my point. Besides, I already took care of the ones who needed it.”

  “Of course you did,” he murmured, looking up at me. “But—”

  “Do these scars make me unattractive to you?” I asked suddenly.

  He flinched. “What?”

  “Do these scars I showed you make me unattractive? Does it alter your perceptions of my beauty?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Do they change my character? Do they make me evil?”

  “No. Why would they?”

  I dropped the hem and pushed him back, straddling his waist again. This time, the feeling of his hands on my waist nearly did me in, the thin barrier of the slip nothing at all.

  Cupping his face with my hands, I leaned forward. “Then why, in any realm, would your scars change anything for me?”

  Loki grimaced, so many emotions sparkling in his eyes, they were hard to follow or read. “My scars are different.”

  “Only because they were crueler. I haven’t been told much but I know that you’re not treated well, even with your powers.” I stroked his smooth skin, up to his pointed ears, brushing my thumb across his high cheekbones. “Your scars don’t scare me. They don’t change any perception I have of you. They don’t make you evil, or undeserving, or less than another person. They don’t do anything but serve as memories, reminders that people will see what they want to see.”

  “And what do you see then?” he asked. “When you look at me?”

  Almost as if he demanded it, his horns flickered into view and I reached out, touching the ghost, meeting solid metal horn before they came into view fully. They weren’t just horns at all, but metal-like, golden in color.

  “I see the God of Fire, the God of Magic. I see more than a trickster, I see a man completely capable of love, but shamed for that love because a trickster can’t tell the truth, not to those who believe that. I see you,” I murmured, trailing my fingers over his face, the bridge of his nose, the phantom scars at his lips. “I see you, Loki.”

  The horns vanished the moment I removed my hand, as if only my touch had kept them corporal for a moment. I waited for his answer, waited for his words to break the silence. For me, I knew, more than anything, I wanted to be seen without my mask, and celebrated for it. For people that thrived on illusions, it was a fairytale to think someone could love who we were when we had to pretend to be someone else all the time, but Loki and I had long since dropped our illusions around each other. And that was the true test.

  “How are you simply a Midgardian?” he whispered, reaching up to thread his fingers into my hair, pulling the pins loose that held it up. The length tumbled down my back, making it easier for him to thread his fingers along my skull. Dangerous, the position was dangerous, but I trusted Loki, even if no one had trusted him before.

  “Maybe I’m from a different realm,” I joked, shrugging my shoulders.

  Loki didn’t speak for a moment, and so we sat there, our fingers touching each other, with me barely wearing much at all as I straddled his waist. As the silence grew heavier, I leaned forward. I knew he thought I would kiss him, knew that’s what he expected, but instead, I kissed the scars around his lips, starting on one side and moving to the other. His fingers tightened in my hair as I moved down and kissed his neck, the hint of the snake I could see peeking above his attire.

  “I like both of you,” I admitted against his skin. “I can’t seem to help myself, and though it goes against my world’s rules, I can’t help but like you both.” I pulled back enough to meet his blazing eyes. “Is that such a crime?”

  He leaned forward and pressed his lips against the column on my throat, his tongue snaking out to trail fire along my skin. My breath stuttered, my fingers clenching in the material at his shoulders.

  “Multiple partners are not uncommon in Asgard,” he admitted. “But I have never entered such a relationship with other Gods, and especially not Thor.” He leaned back and I moaned at the loss of his mouth. “Is there not anyone else you’d like to have a ménage a trois with?” he bemoaned but his eyes crinkled, telling me he was teasing. “Odin’s children might as well all be golden. We can find a nice human or—”

  “Loki,” I grinned. “I’m not necessarily asking for one thing or the other. All I ask is that we don’t label it or worry about reputations or semantics.” If having no label would stop the turbulent emotions, then I’d fight for that. “If the world is ending, when the world ends, I don’t want to be standing on the edge of the earth as it burns, wishing I had made my emotions clear to you two.”

  Loki leaned forward again, tracing his lips along the edge of my shift, pressing against the tops of my breasts. “We could both court you.”

  “What?” The word came out on a breathy moan as his fingers against my scalp held me hostage and his hand at my waist slipped down over the swell of my backside.

  “Isn’t that how your world does it?” he chuckled. “A gentleman calling on you to get to know each other.”

  Groaning, I threaded my hand into his hair, clenching there, attempting to direct him how I wanted him, but, of course, he didn’t let me. “If I have to listen to you talk about mundane things over tea, I’ll murder you in your sleep.”

  He leaned back and grinned with that crooked smile, the most charming one. I couldn’t understand how anyone could look at Loki and not see beauty. There was beauty in mischief, in magic, in the way he still stood tall after all the injustices he had suffered. I knew what the scars around his lips appeared like, as if at one point, someone had sewn his lips shut. It made me unbearably sad to think that someone had feared his silver-tongue so much, he had suffered their atrocities.

  “If you’re murdering me in my sleep, that would imply you’d be in my bed,” he teased, not realizing the direction of my thoughts. But then his smile softened. “I don’t mind sharing, little spy, but for once, I wanted something that Thor did not have.”

  I flicked the knife he had sheathed at his hip free and traced it along the Adam’s apple at his throat, not piercing skin, not pricking him, but warning him. When the fire brightened in his eyes, I realized that Loki liked playing with knives in other ways, and that I wouldn’t be opposed to such play. I had never considered knives a source of pleasure before.

  “I am not an object, Loki,” I reminded him, “no matter what my world would have you believe. But you have something Thor doesn’t.”

  “And what is that?” he murmured, pulling me closer, unconcerned with the knife I still had at his throat.

  “Magic,” I whispered, closing the distance until we were millimeters apart. “You’re pure magic, Loki.”

  And then our lips crashed together in a blazing inferno.

  Neither one of us flinched away from the flames.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  My home was surrounded by members of the Raven Wing Guild, but I didn’t truly expect anything different. They knew my weakness, and I could see her pacing inside the home through the windows. She was purposely keeping the curtains open, knowing they were looking in, simply so I could see in, too. My mother was many times the spy the Raven Wings thought they were.

  “I can take us past them and hide us from their view so they will never see that we’re here,” Loki murmured.

  Thor and Loki crouched on either side of me, both in black clothing. It looked odd on Thor, the darker color, but I supposed it was necessary to wear it. He was already large, more difficult to blend in. At least he was stealthy enough, I thought. The God of Thunder had light feet when he needed to, reminding
me again that he was a master at strategy.

  “Do you have enough potion to do so?” I asked, glancing at Loki.

  “It will be fine.”

  “Tell me the truth.” I waited for him to meet my eyes and his face softened.

  “I have enough for this and possibly one more large illusion, but I will have to replenish soon and that takes time.”

  I nodded and looked towards the house I had spent my life in. I still remembered the orphanage, remembered exactly what it was like to not have a home, and so it meant that much more to me now. The fact that the Raven Wing dared threaten that home, and the woman I called Mother, made me itch to take them out. I had already picked every single spy out from the others. It would be so easy.

  But we didn’t have that kind of time.

  We had to get inside, warn my mother, enlist her help, and somehow get close enough to the Queen for her to listen to us. She was in Buckingham Palace, was always there in the spring. All it would take is to get close enough to her for her to listen, to hear what we had to say. There would be no soft words or secret codes. Nothing got close to her without her permission or that of the Beast Guard. Her soldiers were representations of her coat of arms, the unicorn and lion that graced it. It had once been my dream to be one of them, though, I wasn’t sure if that would be possible now. I supposed, my only hope was that we could save the world and anything else that came after that would simply be a bonus.

  I glanced down at the outfit Loki had gifted me. The clothing had fit perfectly, as if it had been tailored for my frame, and knowing Loki, it had been. It was a deep purple, the color rich against my skin tone. The skirt was shorter than was proper, the back touching the backs of my calves, but the front ended just slightly around my knee, revealing my boots, and making it easy to move in. The corset was an underbust one, the brocade on it beautifully stitched, and similar to the one I had lost. It didn’t pinch when I moved, never hurt. I had been both thankful and annoyed that the God had figured me out so thoroughly. Though it was not a color I would have picked for a cover, it was a color I liked personally.