Violence is no longer my way, but my bulk and strength add credence to any threats, which are often more valuable than any actual violence.
“You will not.” He rolled his eyes. “What would Ellie say? All your big and scary-handsome won’t save you from that particular bit of bad behavior, now will it?”
I let go of his arm and allowed him to turn around, but I kept a grip on his wrist to keep him from casting spells. “I see magic, Loki elf. You try anything and I’ll smash every bone in your hand.” Even if he didn’t believe me, the threat still stood.
“Yes, yes, Victorsson smash. I get it.” He rubbed his wrist as he turned around to face me. “Will you listen now? Please? We don’t have a lot of time.”
I needed to keep my attention on the elf, but my body and soul cried out for Ellie. “What do you want?”
There had to be a way to tamp down the mate magic, otherwise Gerard and Remy would be utterly insufferable every moment Axlam and Portia Elizabeth were out of sight. Which they kind of were, to be honest. The extra wound-up tension was distracting.
I was not a werewolf. I could keep a grip on my emotions.
Hrokr sniffed and rubbed his wrist. “There are fae around. They don’t like me, and my dear father seems to be too busy to give a damn.”
“Why do you want my help?” The last thing I needed was to knowingly piss off the fae and the elves by helping a Loki elf, especially one who lived behind concealments. Because the elves put this Loki elf where he couldn’t bother anyone for a reason.
Hrokr stared out into the trees. “Those two dryads? The ones who were sniffing around your cabin? They were looking for me.”
No, they weren’t, I thought. My gut said no, but I had zero evidence pointing toward another reason.
My gut also told me that Alfheim was about to get sprayed with the shrapnel created by several fae-involved bombshells.
“Why?” I asked.
He looked in the opposite direction, as if he thought the two dryads would manifest at any second. He inhaled. “I’m half fae.” He said it as if I was supposed to understand why I should care.
Tornadoes in a hurricane, I thought. “And I’m supposed to help you how?” I said. I might be almost seven feet tall, strong, and scary like he said, but if Oberon came calling, I’d be David to his Goliath. And Alfheim harbored not one half-fae slight to his Fae King honor, but two.
Hrokr here had just made his slight one of my problems.
He pouted.
“What do you want?” I asked again.
He ducked down and peered through a bush as if the two dryads were about to manifest out of the cold waters of my lake. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“No,” I said.
He sniffed the air. “Could you ask Miss Ellie Jones if I could, perhaps, possibly spend a night or two in her library until Oberon’s goons go away?”
He wanted to hide in Ellie’s library? The one room the cottage had not even deemed me worthy of seeing? The room that wasn’t there but was?
“Absolutely not,” I said.
Even on a good day, the last thing the world needed was a Loki elf—and Hrokr here was clearly one hundred percent a Loki elf—hanging out in a magical fae library that charged up overnight.
His lip quivered. He was Arne’s size and build, with the same basic shape to his face, and the quivering lip was just too much. I snorted.
He grinned. “See?” He pointed at me again. “You like me! We’re friends! I helped you out. I helped the kids. All I’m asking is just a few days somewhere out of Grandpa’s reach.”
“Tit for tat, huh?” I said.
All the friendliness drained from his posture. His face hardened. “I might trick, but I don’t kill.” He huffed and slapped his chest with his free hand. “Yes, I’m an aspect of Loki but I’m not Tov Lokisson! I’m not malicious for maliciousness’s sake. I’m me. I’m the protector of the vulnerable. That’s what my mother wanted of me. She asked me to be me. She did. I can’t do that if they take me to be fae.” He sniffed. “I don’t want to be fae. I want to be me.”
Crazy elf, I thought. But if there was one thing on this Earth I understood it was emotional turbulence. Calling that turbulence crazy never helped anyone.
Hrokr blinked. “So you’ll ask?” He must have read my face.
“It’s not my decision.” It was Ellie’s and the cottage’s. “Why didn’t you ask your father for help?”
Hrokr’s eyes narrowed and his belligerent, angry body language resurfaced. “Dad will break my breaking of my concealments,” he said. “He’ll make it so you can’t be bothered to remember me ever again.” He hiccupped as if the weight of his loneliness was enough to crush his spine. “I’m sooo boooorrrreeed,” he moaned.
How very Loki, I thought.
I grabbed his hand again. “You stay away from Ellie, do you understand?” No one hurt my mate. Not Hrokr. Not the fae. Not Arne or Magnus either, for that matter.
Hrokr pouted again.
One of the dryads appeared right next to my bicep. Displaced air rushed over us with an audible pop.
Hrokr screamed. I instinctively tried to swing us away.
She reached out and laid her hand on my elbow. I couldn’t move.
The dryad blinked from under her antlered helmet and smiled. “Well, well,” she said. “Isn’t this interesting.”
She reached out her other hand toward someone I could not see. Words I didn’t understand fell from her lips.
And we moved.
Chapter 13
The fae—who was not a mere dryad—grasped the arm of someone on the other side of Hrokr’s concealments, and…
I blinked. Hrokr shrieked like a rat skewered to a board. And we were in a pasture, in the snow still, but surrounded by sheep. Big, strong, magically-volatile New Zealand sheep.
About three hundred feet
