Wregen
Chapter nineteen
Balin, the Bastard
She did it for me.
I felt her approach earlier today, when she started walking back toward this place they’ve trapped me, so I moved to the window where I can watch people come and go.
But she paused, giving that bastard the smile that belongs to me.
Wrath grew furious enough to remind me he still lives, deep inside me.
He couldn’t do anything else—these fucking shackles bind him more firmly than even Hel could—which only stoked his anger.
That rage, though, was a sprinkle of rain compared to the tempest of fury that drenched me when my skjaldmaer left with my nemesis.
It had stirred inside me the moment she stopped to speak with Balin, the bastard, a cloud gathering energy and moisture.
With each step away from me they took, it grew larger, unleashing its fury when they left my sight.
My hatred for him—disgust that she’d share his company—exploded into a destructive mass.
Worse even than my beast’s hatred, the deluge of my malice threatened to drown me if I didn’t get her back from him soon.
I’ve never despised him more. Even his betrayal all those years ago pales in comparison.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have treated her as I did when she returned. I was … hasty … in my rush to condemn her for betraying me. I might have been rougher with her than I should have been.
A better male would apologize. But she knows what I am. I’m not that male. And she’s going to free me anyway.
She probably made some excuse to herself—she can’t release her dragon without me—but she’ll realize soon enough. She’s taking me with her because she must. I’m her mate and she won’t be separated from me again. Much as she tells herself she wants a life without me.
I stick out my arms, waiting for my mate to remove my shackles, but the stubborn female shakes her head.
“Not yet,” she insists as she tucks the key back in a pocket. “We can’t give them any reason to suspect I have the key until everything’s in place and we can leave.”
A snarl erupts before I can stop it. “I need them off before I crawl out of my skin.”
“You need to wait,” she tells me, her voice gentle, as if she’s trying to soothe me. “You’ve suffered them for this long. You can stand a few more hours.”
I drop my hands, unable to hold back the petulance that whips through me. “I need my magic,” I tell her, “and my beast.”
“Do you miss Wrath when you can’t sense him?” she asks, one eyebrow rising.
“Are you trying to change the subject?” I demand, even as her calm leeches into me.
“Is it working?” she responds with a smile.
I huff out a sigh. “It is,” I concede. “I’ll indulge you, this once.”
“Lucky me,” she scoffs. But her smile turns into a grin, and fuck me if I don’t smile in response.
I barely recognize the male she brings out in me, and I’m not sure how I feel about him.
It doesn’t matter, though. Once we’re back in Helheim, I’ll be the male I always have been.
I’m Hel’s second and even this disarming female won’t change him.
Finaan knows him. She knows what to expect when we’re home again, and she’ll adapt.
“Wrath has been part of me for centuries. Even in Helheim, he’s always there, sharing his emotions, sometimes swaying mine.
It’s unsettling to not feel him. He’s risen twice since that bastard placed these cuffs on me, both times nothing more than a flutter in my gut.
I never thought it possible, but I miss his presence. ”
“He’ll be back soon,” she assures me. “Now, get out. Go waste time somewhere. Come back at midnight, and we’ll leave as soon as we can.”
I guess it’s time to explore. I may not get another chance to find whatever it is Balin alluded to all those years ago, when he told me he’d found a way I might be able to break free from Hel and still control Wrath.
One of the last things he said before he betrayed me, binding me to my mistress even more tightly.
Not that I’d change anything, I tell myself, ignoring the whisper of discontent that flares in my gut at the thought of being bound to Hel forever. I belong there. My mistress’s depraved tastes suit me. But I’m curious. And it may help me take revenge against Balin when the time comes.
I start in the messiest office I can find, since it’s likely to be the most fruitful and I don’t have time to waste.
I haven’t figured out how important this building is, but if my views from its many windows are any indication, it’s the beating heart of this town.
Elves who seem to hold power in this world—including Balin, much as I hate to admit it—come and go regularly.
They spend time in rooms like this and the few larger meeting rooms dotted about.
Nobody except my merry little group sleeps here.
This one’s a waste of time, though. The occupant must manage supplies.
Everything I find relates to trade with other parts of álfheimr. It’s mildly interesting that I find no evidence of commerce with other worlds, but not what I’m looking for.
Three more offices yield similar results—one, the local herdsmaster; another, the elf responsible for brewing ale; and the final one (which I should have realized from the stench alone), the poor sap stuck with creating soaps and lotions.
I’ll stink for days from spending time in that room.
The fifth office, though, is promising. I recognize his scent the moment I swing open the door, a hint of leather covering up the animal smell he’s carried since our youth.
And he calls me a beast, the asshole. I close the door and stride forward, missing Wrath’s heightened senses more than usual.
He could find the hidden places Balin obsesses over, the notes he’s written to himself since I arrived, and the messages he’s received from his queen.
My snooping skills will have to do, I guess. I start with the top of the desk, although I don’t expect to find anything helpful. He’s not that foolish. After a few minutes, I conclude I’m right. There’s not much here, beyond confirming his importance in this place. But I knew that already.
His desk drawers aren’t much better, until I tap the bottom of a drawer that has papers shoved in, as if the entire stack was stored together.
Another smile creases my cheeks, because even without my skjaldmaer nearby, that’s my reaction to everything good these days.
I pull out the folders and check the edges, looking for the latch or opening that will reveal whatever he’s tried to hide.
Before I find it, though, I hear steps I recognize as his.
Dropping the papers and straightening my back, I nudge the drawer shut with my knee moments before the bastard walks in.
I’m relieved not to have been caught with my hand in his drawers—disgusted at the mere thought—and more grateful than I expected that Finaan ignored my request and left these fucking manacles on me.
“Do you think I’d leave anything significant for you to find?” he demands as he leans against the doorjamb, his arms folded across his chest, one ankle crossed over the other. “You’ve been spending too much time with the dead. You’ve lost your common sense.”
“You left with my female. I decided I’d see what I could borrow of yours. It looks like you couldn’t keep her, though. Not that I thought you would. Because, as I told you, she’s mine.”
“Not for long,” he claims, the deluded bastard. “I told you I’d take her from you, and I meant it. She might have some unholy attachment to you now…”
“Did she tell you that?” I ask, unable to help myself. Because my skjaldmaer wants me to believe she still hates me, and I’d love some gossip to throw back at her.
“No, she didn’t tell me that,” he sneers, his shoulders growing stiff for a single beat of my heart.
She didn’t say the words, but she didn’t need to. Her need for me is obvious even to this oaf.
“No matter.” I stride toward Balin, patting him on the chest as I pass. “I’m done here. I’ll see you at dinner. Or not.”
He grabs my wrist, tugging me toward him, but before he gets a chance to reconsider the wisdom of touching me without permission, my arm is at his throat and his eyes are bulging wide.
“You don’t put your hands on me,” I remind him.
“Wrath isn’t my only dangerous side.” Stepping back, I give him a nod as I tap his puny little chest again, then gather all the saliva I can and spit on his pretty white shirt.
He mumbles some complaint or another but I ignore him. He’s got nothing I want to hear.
Finaan does, though, so I make my way back to her room.
“I thought I told you to disappear,” she mutters as she swings her door open in response to my knock.
“The rat got the keys for you?” I ask, looking her over. She changed out of the clothes she wore with Balin. I’m going to believe it’s because his smell was on them, and she only ever wants to smell like me.
“His name’s Rata, and he’s a squirrel,” she reminds me.
I roll my eyes. “Truly don’t give a fuck. Did the rat get the keys for you?”
“He did,” she affirms with a little lift of her eyebrow.
“Where is he?” Little fucker could be hiding anywhere and I don’t have all day to search for him.
“Probably outside with Ruxi and Svend,” she tells me with a shrug. “Why?”
“Go get him for me. Now.”
“I’m busy. If you need him…” She frowns, her gaze tracking to the shackles around my wrists.
“Right.” Shaking her head with a frustrated exhale, she lifts her hands to her hips in the gesture I’ve grown to love.
I don’t know if she realizes what it does to her tits when she lifts them just right, but I thank the gods my huffish little skjaldmaer prefers this stance when she’s annoyed with me.
“Is it important?” she asks, dragging my attention away from the nipples starting to respond to my presence.
“Would I be asking if it weren’t important?” I point out, the epitome of reasonable patience, despite her delays.
“Yes, you probably would,” she counters.