Mist

reach the life beneath this city.”

“Yes,” Dainn said, panting like a wolf in the sun.

Fear and excitement and lust tangled in Loki’s chest. Even though Dainn had forgotten the full extent of the power he had possessed before he’d lost lifeblood of the Eitr, even though he had shown no sign of such extraordinary abilities in the moments just before he and Loki had been violently separated by the upheaval that ended Ragnarok, even after centuries in Midgard, he had not lost himself.

But there was always a price.

“I am impressed,” Loki said. “But look at yourself, my Dainn. You’re weak as a woman’s will.” He stepped over broken glass and spilled liquor, approaching Dainn cautiously. “I could kill you now with a single word.”

But Dainn was no longer listening. He was gazing into another world, one only he inhabited. It was as if Loki didn’t exist.

No one ignored Loki Laufeyson, not even Dainn. Especially not Dainn, even the near stranger who stood before him now.

“Look at me!” Loki commanded.

Dainn did nothing, said nothing. Loki raised his hand and struck Dainn across the face with all his Jotunn strength. Dainn’s head snapped to one side, but he didn’t react. Loki struck him again, raising blood from his lips.

No effect. But Loki knew of one other way. A way that had worked most effectively on an ascetic elf who had suppressed his physical needs so long that it took only a single spark to ignite a universe of lust.

Loki leaned close to Dainn’s face and breathed a Bind-Rune against his lips, seductive and heavy with desire. He knew when Dainn’s body began to stir. His own excitement rose as well.

“I don’t believe you’ve fucked anyone in a very long time,” he purred. “You know what I can do. I can become what you most desire.”

Dainn blinked. “I want no part of you.”

“No part at all? Your body says otherwise.” Loki grabbed the back of Dainn’s neck. “Admit it,” he said. “You have never found a lover to compare with me. Take my word for it. Screwing Mist is like making love to the handle of an ax.”

Dainn jerked away, but it was clear he was still beyond the ability to resist. “Your tongue is not so agile that it cannot be removed,” he whispered.

“That would be a terrible waste,” Loki said, “when I can put it to such better use.” He flicked his fingers, congealing ice out of the moisture in the air and shaping it into a rope. With it he bound Dainn’s legs and sealed his lips. The restraints might not hold the elf long, but Loki didn’t need much time. Dainn was caught in Loki’s bonds like a fly in amber. Only his eyes expressed his rebellion. And hate.

“Easy,” Loki purred. “I promise this won’t hurt at all.” He wedged his hand under Dainn’s shirt. “Your heart is beating fast, Dainn Faith-breaker.” He slid his other hand down to cup the bulge pressing against Dainn’s trousers. Slowly he unfastened the button and pulled the zipper down. His long fingers probed inside Dainn’s fly.

“Lovely,” Loki murmured. “I had almost forgotten how very well- endowed you are.” He released the object of his desire from its confinement and began to stroke.

Dainn’s breath caught in his throat. The ice covering his mouth melted and dripped onto his jacket. “Stop,” he whispered. “I don’t . . . want . . .”

“You are the stubborn one,” Loki chided, halting his caresses. “Very well. Perhaps this will suit you better.”

And then he changed, his shape melting into something softer, something curved and bountiful in breast and hip, golden-haired and perfect.

Freya. But not Freya, of course. Only the image of her, the illusion Loki had used to seduce and control Dainn, deceive him and blind him and steal his will.

“Better?” Loki asked in the husky voice of a practiced seductress. She knelt at Dainn’s feet and went to work.

But somehow Dainn fought him, refusing to give Loki satisfaction no matter how skillfully he practiced his arts. He quickly changed himself again, becoming strong and wiry and firm-jawed, a tawny lioness, a warrior.

This time Dainn reacted. His breath came fast, and his fair skin flushed nearly to his navel.

It would be only a matter of moments now, Loki thought. And then . . .

At first he thought the vibration under his knees was coming from the floor itself, and he pulled away, anticipating an earthquake.

But there was no earthquake. The shaking came not from the earth but from Dainn himself, and when Loki looked up, Dainn had begun to change.

20

Startled, Loki hopped up and back, pressing himself against the wall behind him. What he saw made it impossible for him to maintain his female shape, and in an instant he was Loki again. Loki, father-mother of monsters, who had never seen such a creature as this before.

You have, he thought. But only in the mind.

That had been dangerous enough. This was far worse. In the Old Tongue of the northern peoples, the thing before him was a berserkr: almost impervious to pain, immune to the cut of a blade, indestructible by fire. The body was massive and slightly hunched, the neck set low between the powerful shoulders, the fur black with a rainbow sheen worn by no living animal on Midgard. The face was neither human nor beast, though it, too, bore a sleek covering of fur as smooth as velvet. Ears set halfway between the top and sides of the head lay flat to the broad skull. Its teeth were white and sharp, its claws gleaming at the tips of blunt fingers.

It was not one of the Ulfhednar, the Wolf- skins, or the Bjornhednar, clothed only in bearskins and savagery. It was something even Loki, for all his skill in shifting shape, could never become.

And Dainn had claimed he could control it.

“What are you?” Loki whispered.

The creature glared at Loki through slitted red eyes, the pupils showing only a narrow penumbra of deep blue. He grunted a sound that might have been a word and took a step toward Loki.

Loki glanced past him toward the door of the apartment. “What do you want?” he asked. “Is this supposed to be a challenge? A warning? A threat?”

Dainn growled and lifted a pawlike hand, claws like crescents of silver catching the dim lamplight.

“You won’t hurt me,” Loki said. “You could have come after me in Asbrew and again in this very apartment, but you didn’t. Ask yourself why, my Dainn. Ask yourself why you didn’t even make the attempt to kill me.”

With a roar Loki felt deep in his bones, Dainn lunged toward him. He swiped his paw at Loki’s head. Before Loki could leap aside, Dainn changed his angle of attack and struck the wall, raking parallel grooves in the paneling. Then he froze, staring at his hand in bewilderment.

Sick with fear, Loki retreated to a safe distance. He could escape in an instant if he chose, become a fly and keep out of Dainn’s reach as long as necessary. But that would require a great deal of energy after the teleportation, and there were things he wanted very badly to know.

“You see?” he said. “There is too much between us, my Dainn, no matter how vehemently you deny it.”

Dainn wrapped his arms around his chest in a pathetically human gesture and closed his eyes.

“There, now,” Loki said. “What are we to do next? Will you cast off this shape, or shall I sell you to a circus?”

The beast began to shiver, every coarse hair on its body erect, and a moan of agony burst from its chest. It spoke another almost incomprehensible word.

No.

Loki never saw the transformation. It was nearly instantaneous, as if the whole episode had been no more than an illusion from the beginning.

But it wasn’t. For as Dainn opened his eyes, he looked directly at the quintet of deep slashes in the wall. And