Chapter 21
“I’ve come up with a new condition,” Charlie said as she and Elias hiked through the predawn darkness blanketing the forest. “Another requirement for us to work together.”
Elias snorted, kicking a rock out of his path. “This should be good.”
They’d parked his convertible in the place where Charlie normally put the Bronco and were walking to the old house. The night before, Charlie had texted Lou and Abigail and told them that training was canceled tomorrow in favor of her trying to access magical powers that she probably didn’t have.
Abigail, in typical Abigail fashion, had told her that her grades were going to regret it.
Lou, in typical Lou fashion, had demanded that, if she really did have magical powers, they be used to conjure them up some fake IDs.
“I’m serious,” Charlie said, shooting Elias a stern look. “I’ve thought about it, and this is a nonnegotiable for me.”
“Of course it is.” He made a sweeping gesture with one hand. “Require away, darling.”
She narrowed her eye at his use of darling but didn’t waste time telling him off; it would only make him use the term more often. “My requirement,” she said, “is that you can’t shift into mare form during these training sessions. Not unless we’re in immediate danger and you need to help.”
“And you need to help, she says.” Elias rolled his eyes. “As if you could handle catastrophe without my help.”
“I’ve handled plenty without your help,” she said. “Including every time you tried to kill me. When you’re in shadow form, you’re stronger, faster, and able to conjure weapons out of nothing.”
“Mmm.” Elias inhaled, as if smelling a particularly delicious slice of cake. “I love it when a beautiful woman lists all of my best qualities.”
“That’s not my point,” she said impatiently. “My point is those qualities enable you to turn on me—or Henry, or Bjorn, or Vidar—at the drop of a hat. So, if you want to show me that I can trust you, no shifting. Not unless our lives are directly under threat, and I can’t handle it myself.”
“You’ve never even attempted to perform magic before,” he pointed out. “How am I supposed to know what you can and can’t handle?”
She bit her lip, looking up at the dark outlines of the trees. “I guess we’re about to find out.”
“Okay,” Charlie said, glancing around the clearing. “How do we start?”
It was just past 6:30 a.m., and Charlie and Elias stood in the clearing outside the old house.
Henry was napping at the top of the porch stairs.
A few paces away, the Vikings had dragged two rocking chairs out onto the porch and were seated there, mugs of mead in hand.
When Elias had asked if they really needed to drink before seven a.m., Bjorn had been so offended that he attempted to dump his mug over Elias’s head.
Elias dove out of the way just in time to save his precious hair.
“A Viking does three things,” Bjorn had said, staring down at Elias. “We eat, we drink, and we fight. And since it is time for neither eating nor fighting…” He gestured at his empty mug.
“Right,” Elias said, pushing himself to his feet and bowing his head. “My apologies.”
Bjorn rolled his eyes. “Mares,” he muttered on his way into the house for a refill.
Now, he and Vidar were settled in their rocking chairs, full mugs at the ready. The old wood of the porch creaked as they rocked. They were uncharacteristically quiet, sipping their mead and watching Charlie and Elias. Waiting. Expecting a show.
Charlie had a feeling they would be sorely disappointed.
Elias, in human form as promised, stood a generous distance away from Charlie in the grassy clearing. He didn’t look nervous or uncertain; he either had complete confidence that Charlie would be able to access her powers or cared so little either way that he would be happy regardless of the result.
Probably the latter.
He pointed to a wide, flat rock a few feet to his left. “Stand here.”
“Okay.” Charlie frowned, walking over to the rock and stepping up onto it. “Why do I need to stand on stone? Is that how Loki channels his power?”
“No,” said Elias. “I just can’t bear being that far away from you.”
She rolled her eyes. “Seriously, Elias.”
“I am being serious,” he said, feigning offense. “But if you insist upon me having a secondary motive…” He took a few blessed steps backward, giving her some breathing room. “I’m testing a theory.”
“What theory?”
“You’ll see.”
Charlie adjusted her stance on the rock, a tingling sensation running across her skin. Gods, she was nervous. This was it. This was the moment she would learn the truth: Did she have magical blood or not? Was Loki really her father, or was it all an elaborate hoax?
Not to mention how exposed they were. Even with Henry, the Vikings, and (theoretically) Elias on her side, she still felt vulnerable. Rattatosk could show up on their doorstep at any moment.
“Right.” Elias started to pace. After only a few steps, he turned back, never straying more than ten feet from where Charlie stood. As he walked, he explained. “Let’s start with Loki Magic 101. What do you already know?”
“Only what I’ve read in folklore,” she said.
He paused his pacing. “So, only nonsense.”
Charlie shrugged. “The stories say that Loki’s most powerful ability is shape-shifting.
And that he’s a true shape-shifter, one of the only in existence, meaning that he doesn’t only change his appearance; he changes his entire body’s chemistry.
When he shifts into a woman, he becomes a woman, reproductive organs and all.
Same with animals. That’s how he was able to procreate with a male horse, giving birth to Sleipnir, Odin’s eight-legged horse. ”
For a long moment, Elias stared at her, dumbfounded.
“Well,” he said finally, “someone’s been doing her homework.”
She shrugged again. “Lou says I have an obsessive personality.”
“Excellent.” His eyes glittered. “How can I make you obsessed with me?”
“Can we please return to the subject at hand?”
“Of course, of course.” He turned, picking up his pacing. “So. Loki Magic 101. You are correct about the shape-shifting: Loki is a true shifter, which is one of his greatest gifts. But he possesses several other magical abilities that we will also test you for.”
“Such as?”
“Conjuring, for one. He never carries anything in his pockets, because he can keep objects wherever he wants and conjure them whenever necessary.”
“Damn,” said Charlie. “I hope I can do that. I’d never have to lug around a textbook again.”
“As with all Asgardian gods, he also possesses remarkable speed, strength, and durability. He can heal from almost any wound.”
“I’m not particularly fast,” Charlie said, “as you already know from the multiple times we have been chased by monsters. But I am pretty strong. So are Mason and Sophie. But I always attributed it to our upbringing in the circus.”
Elias nodded. “So, potential superstrength.”
“How super are we talking?” Charlie asked, imagining herself lifting up the corner of a house, Clark Kent–style.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Elias said. “You’re only half-god, which means you might only get half of his strength.”
“Only half-god, he says.” Charlie smirked. “As if you aren’t dying to be half-god yourself.”
She expected him to laugh or call her idiotic for suggesting that he wanted to be anything other than the demon that he was. The demon that, as he said himself, he loved being.
Instead, a strange expression took over his face. A moment of tension or pain, as if Charlie had unwittingly struck a nerve.
Interesting. She would have to dig deeper later.
“Lastly,” said Elias, wiping the odd expression from his face and smiling up at her, “there is levitation.”
“Levitation,” Charlie repeated. “You mean … he can fly?”
“It’s not quite the same,” said Elias. “Loki can manipulate objects to move up into the air, which means he can also manipulate himself up into the air. But it’s not like he’s a 747. He can’t, like, jet around the stratosphere.”
“Bummer,” said Charlie. “I used to have flying dreams as a kid. They were my favorite.”
Elias made a face of disgust. “Ugh. Happy dreams? How boring.”
“You’re a sociopath,” she said, echoing her brother’s words from the day before.
“Aw, Charlotte.” He covered his face with a hand. “Stop it. You’re making me blush.”
She tapped her foot on the stone. “Can we get started already?”
Elias dropped his hand. At first he was looking at her face, but his eyes traveled slowly down, tracing her chin, her neck, her collarbone …
and finally coming to rest on her chest. Not her breasts—just above, though the proximity to such a sensitive part of her body and the heat in his gaze was enough to make her stomach tighten and bring warmth to her cheeks.
“Riddle me this,” he said, still focused on that spot in the center of her chest. “If you truly hate me as much as you say…”
He closed the space between them in a few swift strides, stopping a foot in front of her.
Charlie inhaled at the proximity. He reached up, slipping his fingers under the steel necklace hanging from her neck.
Charlie held her breath. Images of Elias ripping it from her neck or even using it to strangle her flashed through her mind.
Instead of doing either of those things, he merely lifted the chain up and shook it in front of her eyes.
“Then why did you keep this?”
Charlie’s heart thumped against her chest.
“It … it protects me,” she stammered. “It would have been foolish to throw it out.”
All of that was true. Why, then, did her voice sound so shaky? Was it just from having him so close?
“Okay, sure,” Elias allowed. “But you could have gotten a new one. A cheap little chain to match the ones you clearly bought for your other loved ones.” His head cocked to the side, green eyes flashing. “Why decide to keep this one?”
Charlie swallowed. He was right, of course.
She could have bought herself a steel chain, too, when she got them for the others.
It’s not like they’d been expensive. She’d considered it, her mouse hovering uncertainly over the box labeled QUANTITY.
She’d wavered between the two numbers on her keyboard, four and five, before finally clicking four and then checking out as fast as possible, before she could second-guess her decision.
In truth, she didn’t know why she’d decided to keep the necklace. She’d told herself it was because it would be wasteful to throw it out, but …
“Can we just get started, please?” she snapped.
Elias raised his eyebrows. He said nothing in response, but the glint in his eyes before he turned away was one of unmistakable victory.