Chapter 12
Linnea always loved going upstairs at Ritual to escape the crowds and the noise when she needed a break.
The glass door swung shut behind Tor, and the club noise fell away in a single hush. The bass that had been pounding became a faint pulse, and the shouting and the singing were all gone, replaced by soft lighting and comfortable chairs.
The mezzanine was a carved line of black wood paneling, with three deep oxblood couches around a low table.
A throne-shaped chair of leather and antlers stood at the head of it, which couldn't have been more Von if his name had been stitched into the seat.
The wall behind the throne was carved with panels featuring Havi's wolves, Geri and Freki, and his ravens, Huginn and Muninn.
Below the floor-to-ceiling glass wall, the dance floor moved like a silent shoal of bodies under shifting red and gold light.
Linnea let go of Fenris's hand because she had found herself automatically taking it when they went up the stairs, and she still didn't know what to make of their moment on the dance floor. His fingers slid through hers slowly, and a drag of warmth ran up her arm.
Behave, she told her horny brain. If Von hadn't intervened, she would have probably done something she would have regretted. Crushing on Fenris would be bad for her health in every possible way.
"Right. Quick introductions, because Fenris has heard all your names in the car, and the matching of name to face is overdue." She squared her shoulders. "Fenris, this is my brother Tor."
Tor nodded once, not enough to be friendly yet, only that he was going to be civil for the moment.
"This is Ciara, Tor's mate. The Wolf Slayer. She will probably try to cut your throat if you give her a reason, so watch yourself," Linnea teased.
"Don't tell him that. I'm joy incarnate," Ciara deadpanned, sitting down on one of the couches.
"Sure you are, sis. This is Prince Arne and his mate, Layla."
Arne stood beside Layla with his arm around her waist, holding her casually close just in case a fight broke out.
"You are Vili's son," Fenris stated, and he smiled a little. "You look like him, little cousin."
"I suppose it does make us cousins, though my father and I aren't close," Arne replied and seemed to relax a little more.
"Linnea tells me that the situation is…complicated."
"Ha! Understatement," Layla declared, letting Arne go and sitting down on the couch beside Ciara.
Linnea smiled. "Layla is an Ironwood, too, and don't let her cheekiness fool you because she's just as deadly as Ciara."
"She is also a princess and has a soft spot for hobbits," Layla added.
Fenris inclined his head to Layla the way he had to Freya in Havi's lounge. "My lady, your tattoos are as beautiful as you are."
Layla made a noise like she had been hit gently in the diaphragm with a cushion. "Oh, no. He's polite and princely. Tor, fix it. It's unnatural in wolves."
"How am I supposed to fix it?" Tor asked.
"I don't know, but he is going to ruin our standards."
Linnea looked at Von, who had sat on his throne through all of this with his eyes shining like he was watching a Yuletide pageant put on by gods.
"Now that we are all acquainted, we can all be on our good behavior and talk like adults," Von said with a smirk.
"The alcohol situation, however, is dire.
Boys, let's leave the ladies to catch up while we get them some drinks.
Most importantly, get me some drinks because I'm going to need something strong to get over Loki's son being in my club.
" Von clapped his hands once, gold and black rings flashing.
"Come here, Fenris. I need assistance getting up again. "
Linnea made a choked sound, but Fenris didn't seem to care as he offered Von a hand out of his throne.
"Be still, my beating heart," Von said, shooting Linnea a wink as he passed.
Fenris looked at Linnea one heartbeat longer than he needed to, and his fingertips brushed the back of her wrist as he passed.
Marking us so everyone knows he wants to…
Linnea shoved her wolf down and found Ciara and Layla both watching her with identical expressions. She sat down on the couch beside them, careful of her skirt not riding up too high.
"What?" she asked.
"Nothing," Ciara said.
"Absolutely nothing," Layla agreed.
"You two are the worst."
Layla pulled Linnea into a hug, and Ciara joined a heartbeat later. The three of them pressed into a knot.
"You had us worried, little sister," Ciara said.
"And you're lucky Imogen and Arawan decided not to come, or you would have been in real trouble. They were looking for you too," Layla murmured into her temple.
Linnea face-palmed without releasing the hug. "I left a note."
"A dramatic one," Ciara said.
"It was everything I dared to put down on paper."
"It said I have gone to hunt the wolf. It has started."
"You all know where he was, so technically you knew where I went," Linnea argued.
"Yeah, you went to hunt for a fucking wolf god without knowing how unstable he was. What's there to worry about? Asshole," Layla replied, tickling her side as they let go of each other. "You should have waited for us."
"I knew you were going to Italy to see Cosimo's new mate," Linnea said and smiled. "How did that all go?"
"Vidar, Uncle Taranis's knight, is actually the Vidar as in Havi's son, and Elise went into labor after we told them all you were missing," Ciara replied.
"What?" Linnea didn't know what to be more shocked about. "Start with Elise!"
"The baby popped out this morning. We have been trying to call you, remember?"
Linnea pressed her hand to her mouth. "Oh, my gods. Is she okay? What about the baby?"
"Both are fine," Layla reassured her. "The castle had some incredible tremors during the birth because Kian was so nervous. Look."
She unlocked her phone and held it out. There was a picture of a small, swaddled boy, dark-eyed with a shock of bright red hair on a head that looked too small to support it.
"Oh, my gods, he has so much hair," Linnea crooned, zooming in on the picture.
Layla giggled. "Chrissy said Oberon cried worse than the baby did."
"I'm glad they are okay. We were all so worried about how a human and fae baby pregnancy would go." Linnea handed the phone back, swiping away a tear before it could fall, and accepted that she was going to be yet another person who was going to spoil the hell out of him. "Have they named him?"
"Not yet," Ciara said, and her grin turned evil. "Maria and Bridget are trying to convince them to call him Gary."
"Gary. The fae prince."
"And Quinn is pushing Trevor."
"Quinn only wants that because she's obsessed with Trevor from Castlevania.
" Like Linnea, Quinn believed every situation could be helped with the addition of vampires.
They'd bonded over them like nothing else over the years.
Vampires were only second to dragons in Quinn's fantasy-loving heart.
Linnea could only imagine the argument she was putting up, started laughing, and found she couldn't stop. "Oh gods, poor Elise."
"Arawan and Imogen had to go back to England so Arawan could do a god thing and bless the baby," Layla explained.
Linnea sat up. "What, like Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty?"
That set them off again, and it took a full minute to bring them back to normal.
"Tell me he is doing the actual bestow a gift on the infant thing."
"Imogen is probably going to make him whether he wants to or not. Gods know what a baby present from a death god is going to look like," Layla said, and her expression turned thoughtful. "Probably a baby-sized magical battle ax that matches Imogen's, I bet."
"Just what a growing fae prince needs," Linnea replied.
The men came back with the drinks. Von was leading them, with three glasses spread between his long fingers, Tor behind him carrying three more, Arne and Fenris bringing up the back with another and a heavy bottle of mead.
Somewhere between the couches and the bar, the atmosphere had shifted. Tor was no longer glaring at Fenris, which Linnea took as a victory. Fenris's eyes found hers on the way back to the couches, the corner of his mouth lifted half an inch, and her chest went warm.
"Move over, my little witch," Von ordered.
Linnea slid down the couch to make room, and Fenris sat beside her without comment. Her thigh pressed against his, and she was suddenly, stupidly aware of every inch of him. Fenris sipped his drink and relaxed beside her.
Mine, her wolf said, low and pleased. Sitting next to me. Where everyone can see.
Shut. Up.
Von dropped into his throne, crossed his long legs at the ankles, and lifted his glass. "Now that we all have our drinks, why don't you tell me what the fuck is actually going on?"
"Havi and Freya told me that you can help Fenris and me find Loki," Linnea said in a rush, ripping it off like a band-aid.
Von choked on his drink, coughed heartily, and set his glass down. "Excuse me. Sorry. I am fine. What the fuck?"
"Maybe let's start at the beginning, little sis," Arne suggested, grinning. "Before Von has a conniption."
"I'm not having a conniption!" Von growled. "I'm just…surprised."
Linnea sipped her mead and started from the night she had woken from the dream of Fenris walking from the Hall of Nowhere, and how she knew she had to go to check out if what she had seen was real.
She spoke quickly of Fenris finding her, breaking into Havi's cottage, the seidr-call to Freya, and how she and Havi had golden bind-runes burned across both their tongues.
She told it the way she would have told it to Gudrun, fast and stripped down.
She skipped the part about Fenris in her bed in wolf form, cutting his hair when he was only in a towel, and summarized the drive to Oslo and their arrival at Ritual.
She didn't mention the dance or the make-out session, and Von only grinned but didn't out her.