Mist

As he forced himself to breathe, his drowning lungs straining against broken ribs, he began to fall again . . . down, down into a dream of darkness, remembering the wet sound of his blade piercing Bakrauf ’s eye, flesh, and muscle, the crunch of Hrimgrimir’s nasal bones driving into his brain. He drew his body into a ball, head tucked against his knees, the blood trickling from his mouth sticky under his cheek.

He could let himself die now. Die, and remove the danger he would pose to anyone who came near him. End the tortured existence the beast had never let him abandon.

But it still wouldn’t let him go. It roared and claimed him again, its strength flooding his body and wrenching at his gut, its implacable will fighting to do what the elf could not.

Dainn screamed, and the beast granted him mercy.

* * *

When Mist returned to the kids, Gabi was on her knees beside Ryan rocking back and forth in distress, the bloody knife just out of her reach. She looked up at Mist knelt beside her.

“It’ll be all right,” Mist said, carefully touching Gabi’s shoulder.

“No,” Gabi said. “No todo es derecho.”

The knot in Mist’s throat expanded to fill her whole body. “The ambulance will be here any minute,” she said. “They’ll know what to do. He’ll be fine.”

Skuld will it be so, Mist thought, well knowing Skuld wouldn’t change this mortal girl’s fate even if the Norn were alive and capable of interfering.

But no one was to blame for this horror except Mist herself. The kids had been hurt because Ryan had trusted her to protect him, because she’d let them stay at the loft. She had never anticipated that they’d interfere with the fight or have the courage to face what they couldn’t possibly understand. Especially Ryan, who’d already had a taste of Jotunar violence.

And then there was Dainn.

Oh, he’d tried not to let to let it out. He’d allowed the giants to beat him down, distracted them, done everything but let loose the thing he had so urgently warned her about.

But she hadn’t been able to bear his pain. “It doesn’t matter what else happens,” she’d told him, urging him to fight for himself.

She hadn’t understood. He’d told her the beast would attack the mind, the “psyche,” and devour whatever it found. But that hadn’t been how it had played out. She could still see him thrusting the spatha into Hrimgrimir’s chest, spinning and striking like Jackie Chan without the wires. He had handled the sword as well as she did, as if he’d trained for centuries. He’d deceived Hrimgrimir and allowed himself to be kicked nearly to death, only to gain the upper hand again and impale Hrimgrimir like an insect on a pin.

His savagery had bought her time to get the kids away. But Ryan had slipped out of her hands during a moment of inattention. She and Gabi had followed him right around the front of the loft back to the gym and the door that opened onto the driveway. They’d arrived just in time to find Dainn on the verge of killing someone who definitely wasn’t a giant.

Someone who’d been holding her katana and obviously thought he could beat Dainn in a fight. If she and Ryan hadn’t interfered, the mortal would be lying dead in a pool of his own blood, not tied up and half unconscious. And now Dainn was gone— far gone, Mist hoped—and fighting to regain his own soul. She would find him when she could, find some way to help him. Or, if he couldn’t be helped . . .

Ryan moaned, and she pulled her thoughts away from things she couldn’t control. She touched the boy lightly on the shoulder, but he didn’t react.

“I should never have let him come downstairs again,” Gabi said, hunching over her knees. “He said he had to, that something terrible was happening. If we hadn’t tried to help Dainn—”

“It’s not your fault,” Mist said. “I should have realized he wouldn’t stay upstairs.” She swallowed. “Ryan warned us that something was going on. It would have been much worse if he hadn’t.”

“Worse?” Gabi said in a voice far too bitter for one her age. “Dainn tried to send us away, but Ry wouldn’t . . . he just wouldn’t listen.”

“I know,” Mist said, awkwardly stroking Gabi’s rigid arm. She felt helpless to comfort the girl, and she didn’t like that feeling. It had become far too common lately, and today she’d had her face rubbed in it.

Just as she had during the war. As Gabi cried, her face buried in her arms, Mist checked the makeshift bandage she’d tied carefully around Ryan’s head. Her experience in treating mortal injuries didn’t extend to head wounds, and she was no healer.

What in Mimir’s name had she really learned? What had she done?

She clenched her fists, feeling as if she could become a beast herself with only the slightest effort. It wasn’t just what she had done. Loki would only have risked a direct attack if he had overcome his fear of Freya and her supposed ability to manifest her power through her daughter.

If his intent in sending the Jotunar had been to kidnap Ryan and create as much chaos as possible in the process, he’d been wildly successful in the second goal. Would he consider that success worth the loss of three of his minions and the questions that might be raised when their bodies were examined by mortal authorities?

Mist laughed. Oh, he’d find a way to deal with it. He wouldn’t be constrained by pedestrian mortal ethics or morals. She was. She had known about the Aesir’s survival for all of thirty-two hours, and already she’d lost any small advantage she’d ever had, dead Jotunar notwithstanding.

She hadn’t thought it was possible to despise Laufeyson more than she did already. She’d hated him for what he’d done in Asgard. For what he’d done to her. But now, her hatred was something incandescent, a spark that required only the lightest touch to become a conflagration. He was responsible for what had happened to the kids, to Dainn, even to the stranger.

She glanced across the room at the mystery man, who still wasn’t moving beyond a few random twitches. Who in Hel was he? He certainly didn’t look like someone who could hold a katana like a fifthdan kendoka. He was wearing casual but well-made khakis and sports jacket, now torn and rumpled, but no overcoat. His build was slim and wiry, and his handsome Asian features were more pleasant than threatening. The lines framing his light brown eyes fanned out from the corners the way they often did in people who loved to laugh.

All in all, he could be any young and successful professional enjoying a day off from work, if being out in this kind of weather was something he found enjoyable. But why would a man like him be walking by on Illinois Street just in time to join a battle?

If she was going to make any attempt to salvage the situation, she had to do something about him, and quickly. He had witnessed a savage fight between one man and three giants, a battle the “man” had won beyond all probability and with stunning skill and brutality. Mist had been deliberately vague with the ambulance service dispatcher about the circumstances surrounding Ryan’s injury, but she doubted this guy wouldn’t be so discreet. He looked like the kind who would describe everything in loving detail. He would say that she hadn’t only defended Dainn unequivocally but had also encouraged him to leave the scene of a crime.

Once the ambulance showed up and the EMTs called the cops— which she wasn’t going to do, since she needed to buy all the time she could—she wouldn’t have any chance to turn things around. The police would be after Dainn, and Mist might find herself under arrest.

Not that they could hold her. But Dainn could turn on anyone who threatened him. The cops wouldn’t stand a chance. And Loki would win.

Mist scrubbed the sweat away from her forehead with the back of her arm. She might be able to hide the stranger until the cops were gone, but that was hardly a permanent solution. If it came down to his life or the fate of Midgard . . .

The fate of Midgard wasn’t in her hands, she reminded herself, but Freya’s. Freya, who had given her daughter skills she couldn’t depend on.

Except one.

The bile rose in Mist’s throat. Dainn had told her that her mother had glamour that could “induce feelings of lust, love, and devotion with only the slightest effort,” and that mortals would be particularly vulnerable to the effect. Mist had the same ability. An ability she hated with all her heart.

Hel, maybe it wasn’t even possible. But it might stave off disaster until she could find a better solution.

“Gabi,” she said. “I know this has been very difficult for you, especially when you still don’t really understand what’s going on.”