Chapter 20
Layla had the wine cork out before the shimmer of Arne's portal had disappeared.
"To the women," she announced, pouring three large glasses without measuring. "Who are about to spend tonight not thinking about the end of the world!"
"To the women," Ciara echoed, dropping onto the long couch with her legs already up. "Long may we reign."
Linnea took her own glass and curled up beside her. The apartment was different with the men gone. The pressure that had been sitting in her gut all day slid down a notch on the first sip.
Fenris's presence filled whatever space he was in. It had to be some kind of god aura because every time he was in a room with her, half of her was tuned into him at all times. With him out in the woods north of Oslo with Tor and Arne, the rest of her could finally hear itself think.
"This is the best idea you have ever had," she told them, after another mouthful of wine.
"Whatever. I have lots of good ideas," Layla said, scrolling through Tor's TV with one bare foot tucked under her. "Where the fuck is Castlevania on this thing? Ever since Linnea mentioned it, I must have Dracula."
Linnea brightened up a little. "Excellent choice. Bring on Alucard."
"Jump into my account instead on the streaming app," Ciara replied.
"Same difference. Where is the streaming app?"
Ciara pointed without looking up from her phone. "Second row. Third tile."
The opening notes of the first episode of Castlevania filled the screen, and Dracula was demanding to know where his wife was before the third sip of wine.
"Gods, I love a wife guy." Layla opened a large bag of salt-and-vinegar crisps. "Must have all the salt to deal with anyone hurting my Vlad."
Ciara stretched a hand out for the crisps, and Layla shoved the bag her way. Linnea pulled the throw blanket off the back of the couch and tossed it over them.
"Trevor is being a sassy bitch. Everyone drink," Ciara declared.
Linnea drank up. The wine was a nice red that must have been Ciara's good influence on her brother's pantry. Layla's shoulder pressed against hers, warm and solid, and Ciara had her bare feet propped on the coffee table and her wineglass balanced on her sternum.
Linnea relaxed a little further. For the first time since she had walked back out of Von's bathroom, she could breathe easily. Ciara passed Linnea the crisps. Layla refilled the wine.
Her wolf hadn't said anything since Von's kitchen. The space where it usually sat in her was hollow and quiet, and she was choosing, for now, to be grateful for the silence.
The episodes rolled on. They paused it twice in the first 30 minutes to refill glasses, and once so Layla could go to the bathroom.
Ciara updated them on the latest photos of the baby and one of Maria asleep, still holding a flagon of the fae's home brew.
Layla showed them the mock-up Quinn had emailed her of the Vote for Trevor campaign poster, which featured the name in the same font as a 1970s presidential campaign and an unflattering photograph of Kian holding the baby like he had been handed a small grenade.
"It's so perfect. I'm not going to recover from this," Linnea said, wiping her eyes.
"None of us will. It's why we love her."
They got through the first handful of episodes, and Linnea began to think she might survive the day after all.
It wasn't until Trevor rescued Sypha from being turned to stone, that Layla pressed pause.
"Right," Ciara said, turning to face Linnea properly. "What is going on with you?"
Linnea groaned, "Oh, come on. Alucard is just about to turn up!"
"Don't 'Oh, come on' me. Your scent has been doing the thing where it goes flat when you're upset all damn day, and I have been very patient. Now spill."
"Yes, spill," Layla agreed around a crisp.
Linnea took the longest possible sip of her wine to buy herself a moment, and the Ironwood's waited with the same stubborn expression.
"Nothing is going on," Linnea said and slumped back into the cushions.
"Try again."
"Layla."
"Linnea."
"It is fine," she said and made her voice steady. "Today at Von's I just got a useful reminder, that's all. I let myself get a bit carried away last night, and I needed to remember that there is more at stake here than a crush on a god."
"A crush," Layla hummed. "Right."
"Yeah, that's all it is."
Ciara took a long meditative sip. "Sis, that man looks at you like you hung the moon and then taught it to sing."
"He does not."
"He absolutely does."
"He looked at you all day like he was working out the shortest possible distance between you and a horizontal surface," Layla added helpfully.
Linnea put a hand over her face. "Jesus, Layla."
"What? That's just what I saw! He has terrible game, by the way. Shocking. The yearn is uncomfortable to witness."
"I love you, but I'm going to need you to stop talking now."
"He stares at you when you think you aren't looking," Ciara said and started ticking things off her fingers.
"He pulled out your stool at breakfast this morning.
He sat at the head of Von's table because Von put him there, but he was watching the door the whole time you were in the bathroom.
He looked like he was going to put his fist through the wall. "
"You have got to stop watching us, you creepers," Linnea said, going hot under her sweater.
"Nope. We won't."
"Look, you two are spoiled," Linnea replied, ignoring the ache spreading through her.
"You both have these great mate bonds, and you think every girl is going to get the same.
Whatever Fenris and I have going on, it's not that.
He just hasn't had sex in thousands of years.
Thousands. I just happened to be the first girl there, and I'm also not afraid of him, which probably helps a lot. That's all it is."
"Lin," Ciara said quietly.
"And honestly? I'm fine with it being all that it is. The day I start complaining about making out with a guy that looks like Fenris is the day you should put me down behind the barn. Do you hear me? Just take me out into the woods. Do it humanely, but do it."
Layla put her glass down on the coffee table. "Linnea, stop."
"No, I'm being serious," she replied stubbornly. "I'm a grown ass woman. I'm allowed to want what I want, and it doesn't need to be deeper than that."
The two of them looked at each other, and a silent Ironwood conference happened. Linnea drank more wine because she doubted that they were done.
"Okay," Ciara said carefully. "Here's the thing we have to ask, so don't get pissy."
"Oh, gods. Do it if you have to, and let me watch my chaotic bi vampires already."
"Is Fenris making you uncomfortable? If he is, even by accident, because he doesn't know how to be around a modern woman, we can go and stand in front of him and explain it. Tor will. Arne will, and he hates this kind of conversation. We can ask Fenris to back off. You only have to say it."
The wolf inside Linnea that had been hiding all day came up so fast it lurched in her.
No. Mine.
Linnea's wineglass shook in her hand. She set it on the coffee table before she spilled it.
"No," she said. "No, no, don't do that. Do not. He isn't making me uncomfortable. Not even a little. No."
Ciara raised both hands. "Okay. I'm backing off."
"Promise me you won't tell Tor to talk to him, or I will lose my shit. I'm not some dumb ass teenage girl who needs her big brother to step in."
"Fine! We promise. Look at us, we are promising," Layla said, crossing her heart.
"I can fight my own battles," Linnea said, her voice thin and too fast. "If I want him to back off, I can tell him myself. I can handle a wolf. I've been doing it my whole damn life."
Ciara leaned forward to rest her elbows on her knees. "We know you can."
"I'm okay, so you can stop looking at me all weird.
" Linnea ran her hands through her hair.
"It is just that all of this is a lot. Fenris woke up, and the gods are like, 'Sorry, can't help.
' There's a darkness coming that no one knows how to fight.
And on top of all of that, the wolf at the middle of it has decided he likes me, and I let myself feel like maybe that meant something, and today at Von's, I was reminded that he's a god who has had a wife and children, and I'm a normal Norwegian volva who hasn't even finished my training or managed to shift. "
Linnea had decided in Von's bathroom that she wouldn't cry over this, and she was going to stick to it. She sniffed hard and cleared her throat.
"It's okay. I just got a bit ahead of myself, and now I have caught up, and that's the end of it. Can we please go back to Trevor and Alucard kicking each other's asses?"
Layla leaned over and kissed Linnea's temple. "Okay, sis. Sorry for pushing."
"Thank you."
Ciara pressed play on the TV. Trevor went back to cracking his whip at things.
Layla refilled their glasses, with extra in Linnea's, and the three of them settled back in like she hadn't just verbally spewed all over them.
Without a word, Layla rested her head on Linnea's shoulder, and Ciara stretched her feet across both their laps.
Linnea's wolf had gone quiet again, and she told herself she preferred it that way.
They watched the first season and were well into the second, which Linnea got through with her head on Layla's shoulder. The credits on an episode were rolling when Layla shook her gently awake.
"Come on, bedtime. The men will be back any minute."
"What time is it?"
"Half eleven. Up you get."
Linnea dragged herself up and hugged them both before heading for the cool dark of her room. She undressed without turning on the light and climbed under the covers.
The sheets smelled, very faintly, of Fenris. She didn't think to change them, and now she was going to sleep in the smell of him on purpose, like a lunatic.
This is fine, she told the dark.
She rolled onto her side, pulled the duvet up under her chin, and worked through the same argument she had been working through since Von's bathroom.
Normal people had hot times with hot men all the time, and they came out the other side fine. She would have hers, and when the quest was over, and he went back to wherever, she would remember it as a moment in time and not be sorry. You know, if they managed not to all die during Ragnarok.
Humans didn't have mates. They had relationships that were different. They had flings. They had nice memories.
She had always been, as Skari had reminded her every day of her life until she left home, more human than wolf.
So she could do this the human way. She was equipped for it. She would survive Fenris the same way humans survived everything, by enjoying what they had and not asking the universe for more.
"Good plan," she murmured and rolled over.
She drifted down into the soft place she went before dreams and was almost out again when her wolf roused.
He's back.
Linnea's eyes stayed shut when the bedroom door opened and softly closed again.
Paws crossed the carpet, and something very large climbed onto her duvet and lay down beside her. A warm wolf nose pressed against the back of her hand where it rested on top of the blanket.
Linnea moved her hand across the duvet until her palm settled on the heavy paw lying beside her own. His tongue rasped across the back of her hand, hot and brief, and the knot of awful that had been sitting in her gut all day finally, finally let go.
She didn't know how to describe what she was feeling, even to herself. All she knew was she had never felt anything like this in her life. Not from any of the guys she had tried to date before she got kidnapped, and not from anyone after.
Mine, her wolf whispered, very small and very sleepy. Ours.
Linnea didn't try to argue. She was sliding back into sleep when the phone on the nightstand vibrated angrily. She fumbled for it, squinting at the screen.
Von: GET THE FUCK OVER HERE. I think I have found something.