Chapter 44
The air at the foot of the slab folded in on itself, and Hel stepped out of a portal of darkness. "It's about bloody time."
Loki had gotten himself as far as sitting up, one hand still wrapped around Von's forearm like he was a well-placed railing. Hel threw her arms around him without a word.
The trickster's clever face softened. "Hello, little death. I've missed you."
"I've been dying of boredom without you, Dad." Hel drew back and cupped his face in her hands. "You look bloody terrible."
"I've been a corpse. Give me an hour for pity's sake," Loki replied, flicking her on the nose.
She laughed and pulled Fenris down into the same embrace until they were all murmuring together.
"You did it," Hel said to Fenris. "I wondered if you had it in you to let yourself be saved."
"So did I," Fenris said.
Hel let him go and stepped back to look at the rest of them and her newly resurrected father.
"You all look like shit. You need to go home now before my realm takes anything more from you." Her eyes found Linnea and softened. "Good job. Take care of Fen. Dad?"
"Yes, my love?" Loki said, standing up with a wobble.
"Come visit me soon."
"I will, baby. I just have to go take care of some things.
" Loki was gloriously naked, a fact that didn't seem to bother him in the slightest. Everyone was pretending it was normal except for Von, who was going redder by the second.
Fenris made a quick move, and leather pants materialized over Loki's lower half.
"Okay, get out of here, all of you." Hel clapped her hands, and the world shook.
Linnea grabbed onto Fenris's hand as everything went dark. There was a lurch, a smear of cold and color, the sensation of being posted like a letter through a slot too small for a person, and then Linnea was facedown in snow.
Real snow. Clean, cold, ordinary snow, with a real wind off real mountains and a real sky going lavender at its edge with a dawn that actually meant to arrive. Linnea could have wept with relief.
Around her, the others dragged themselves up out of the drifts, groaning and wrecked. They had landed outside Alruna's house in Alfheimstod and as far from the gray of the dead as it was possible.
The door opened, and Alruna came out into the snow in her nightrobe, silver hair loose to her waist. She took in the state of them without the smallest surprise, as though she had been waiting up all the long night for exactly this.
Arne dragged himself up and hurried to his mother, Layla close behind.
"Quickly, come inside, and I'll send for the healer," Alruna said, waving them toward the house.
"If it's all the same, Aunty, I'm taking Ciara home. I need my bed, not a healer," Tor replied, wrapping an arm around Ciara.
"My lovely queen, if you open a portal home for me, I'll be your best friend for life," Von begged, his hands clasped.
"Of course, Von," Alruna said and drew a doorway in the air that opened onto a neon-dark, rain-wet street. "Go and sleep in your own bed. You have earned it a hundred times over."
Von kissed her cheek, turned to make his farewells, but didn't get the chance.
"I'm coming too," Loki said, staring through the portal.
He was leaning against a decorative statue as though he had never once been unwelcome anywhere and didn't intend to start now. The color had come fully back into him, red hair and green eyes and a grin like a drawn knife.
"Father, I think it would be wise to stay with me and recover for a few days," Fenris began.
"I've been asleep forever," Loki declared.
"Bored as hell and wrapped in snakes, which, let me tell you, is a low point even for me.
I'm not going to sit about in the wilderness making polite conversation with elves and wolves while the world turns on without me.
" He pushed off the statue, stumbled a little unsteadily, and slung an arm around Von's shoulders.
"I'm going to see the city with this one.
You can find me in a few days when you and your new mate get tired of fucking. "
"What?" Von squeaked, staring at Fenris and Linnea to save him.
"You freed me," Loki said, gripping onto Von's jacket to stop him from running away. "I owe you a debt, and a god always pays his debts. It is practically the only rule we keep. I couldn't possibly leave your side until it is repaid. Simple."
"We all freed you," Ciara pointed out.
Loki considered her for a moment and clucked his tongue. "Good for you, pup, but I know what I'm about, and this is the one I owe the debt to."
Fenris pinched the bridge of his nose. "Father..."
"Son."
Fenris let out a defeated sigh. "You will check in regularly.
You will not start a war, a cult, or a fashion trend without telling me first. I'll come to Oslo in a week to see for myself that the city is still standing.
" He paused and looked at Von. "And you better make sure that Von comes to no harm. "
"Fenris, you wound me. I would never do anything to hurt my savior.
We are going to have the best time!" Loki blew them a kiss, spun a bewildered Von around, and pushed him through the portal ahead of him before stepping after him.
The doorway snapped shut on the last of the neon like a mouth closing.
"Sooo," Layla said slowly. "What just happened?"
Fenris looked at the place where the portal had been. "It would appear that my father has taken a liking to Von. It's best not to argue with him when he gets like this."
"What, he's imprinted on him like a baby duck?" Layla asked, already laughing.
"Exactly like a duck. Loki won't hurt him, I swear." Fenris turned, and his gaze came down to Linnea. "What now, my mate?"
This was the part Linnea hadn't let herself imagine, because imagining it felt like daring the Norns to take it away. No trial left. No serpent, no bridge, no hall of the hungry dead. Only the two of them, and the whole rest of a life, and a choice that was hers to make.
She smiled up at him. "Now, Mister Lokisson, I'm going to take you home and have my wicked way with you."
Tor and Ciara ended up driving them all back to Ulfheim before the sun had fully risen. He got out of the car and held Linnea for a long moment.
"I'm so proud of you. I don't tell you enough, but I am, little sister. None of us would have survived in Niflheim if it weren't for you, so never doubt your worth again, understand me?" Tor said, holding her face in both of his hands.
"Thanks, big brother," Linnea whispered and hugged him again. "I love you."
"Love you too. Now, go and get your mate settled in your house. We will have a party soon to celebrate it," he said, patting her on the back.
Linnea and Fenris waved goodbye to Ciara and Tor and headed up the snow-covered path to her cabin. Fenris looked about at the woods and the mountain behind them, his nose lifting to catch the scents.
Linnea stopped at the front door and retrieved the key from beneath a dead pot plant.
"This is stupid," she said, her hand resting on the handle.
"What is?"
"I'm… nervous." Linnea looked up at his beautiful eyes, full of love and magic. "This is my safe place. It's the only thing in the whole world that has ever been only mine. Now I'm about to walk a literal god into it, and I don't know why my hands are shaking."
Fenris didn't laugh at her. "I'm not a god to you, love. I'm your mate."
"I know. That's what is terrifying." Her wolf stirred in her, warm and certain, nudging at the door as if to say get on with it. "I want it to be ours, not just mine."
Fenris kissed her. "It will be. As long as you are here, it will always be home to me."
She lifted the latch, pushed the door open, and pulled her mate over the threshold. She whispered a word, and the fire bloomed in the hearth, throwing gold up the log walls.
Fenris straightened in a space built to fit exactly one small woman and her solitude. He was big, but instead of making the cabin feel smaller, it made it feel as if it had been waiting all along to have him standing in the middle of it.
Linnea's wolf pressed up under her skin, delighted that her mate was in her den. She wanted his scent on everything. The furs, the door, the very air. She wanted to come home for the rest of her life, to catch the smell of forged steel and silver dust under her own roof and know he was hers.
"Take your shirt off," Linnea said, dropping her pack and jacket to the floor.
Fenris's brow rose, a smile touching his lips. "Giving orders already, little singer?"
"My house. My rules." She stepped in against him and placed her hands on his chest. "We don't have anyone around, and nothing is trying to kill us.
I'm going to be greedy while I can, and I'm going to have every single thing I told myself I couldn't have.
Starting with the shirt, so get it off before I rip it off. "
Fenris reached back one-handed and dragged the shirt off over his head. He was scarred and enormous in the firelight, and he was looking at her like she was the best thing that had happened to him.
Linnea traced the old silver scars down his chest with her fingers and her mouth, finishing what she had promised herself that first night in Hel's hall. Not one of them was a monster's mark to her. Every one was only him.
"You are killing me," Fenris growled.
"Good." Linnea went to work on his jeans. "Let your mate give you a welcome home present."
"My mate…" he whispered, fingers unraveling her braid so he could bury his hands in her thick golden hair.
Linnea got them both naked with a good deal less patience than she had promised, laughing when she tangled herself in her own sleeve. He caught her and steadied her, and the laughter turned into deep, unhurried kissing.
She walked him backward to the bedroom, and he let her push him down into her blankets. The wonder on his face at being wanted like this, in her home, in her bed, undid her self-control.
"Mine to keep," she said, settling over his hips with her hands on his abs.