breathed easier once Luke was out again. Talking would only cause him anxiety, when what he needed was absolute rest. Well, not absolute rest in the sense of “final rest.” Just rest.
She stared out at the dark road in front of her, and clenched her hands on the wheel.
She’d known Val was up to something.
Aurora could tell, could always tell. They were sisters, and Aurora knew every trick in Val’s encyclopedia-length book. Normally she wouldn’t worry about what her sister was planning; after all, the future was only ever that. It was the present where everything significant ever happened, and the present determined the future, and the present was Aurora’s business. But it was the way Val had looked at her this morning—as if whatever was in that beautiful dark scheming head had something intimately to do with Aurora—that had made the alarm bells go off.
Val had made noises about a hot date, but Aurora was sure that she’d seen her sister slip a pair of scissors into her belt. Not just scissors, but gold scissors, which meant that Val was planning to cut some mortal’s thread.
And the gnawing in the pit of Aurora’s stomach made her think it was not just any mortal, but the one mortal that she...
“Cared about” was not the right phrase. She cared about all mortals, the way a doting owner would care for beloved pets. Even the worst ones had been innocent children once; it was never anyone’s intention to go wrong.
But in the five thousand years since she’d been looking after them, she’d never felt this way about anyone but one.
She remembered the first time she’d seen him—as a baby, of course. It was her job to stand with her two sisters at the cribs of their assigned list of mortals, and determine the weave—past, present and future—of each mortal’s fate.
From the first second she’d seen the infant Luke Mars, she’d known the shape of his whole life and everything about him. At that moment she knew with absolute conviction that he was the only man she would ever love—love as she was never supposed to love a mortal.
And as all these confusing sensations and convictions swept over her, while Aurora stood dumbstruck, staring down into his baby-blue eyes...
Her sister Val had claimed him as her own.
Claimed him for herself and for Odin, Odin Allfather, Almighty Warrior King of the Gods.
Which might sound like an honor, but really what it meant was early, glorious death.
Aurora had never understood what about death could possibly be glorious.
It was a scam, was all, a bunch of PR hype. Odin needed warriors and the Valkyries, women warriors like her sister, went out making it happen...
A head popped up from the backseat, startling Aurora so that she swerved and nearly ran off the road.
“Never let a Norn drive,” the intruder tsked.
“Loki!” Aurora was both limp with relief and pissed beyond belief. The man—although not a man exactly—in the backseat was irritatingly handsome, young and dark-haired and dark-eyed. That is, when he wasn’t red-haired or golden-haired or Asian or African or Latin. Or female, for that matter. You never could tell with a shape-shifter. He was Loki: trickster, shifter and magician, the bane of the whole pantheon of the gods in Asgard.
“You’ve really torn it this time, lovely.” He smirked at her in the rearview mirror. “Crossing destiny, abducting a mortal. And for what?” He leaned forward in the seat, looked over Luke’s unconscious body.
“Oh, my. Not bad actually...”
“He’s mine,” she said with such fiery conviction that she surprised herself.
“That’s not what I hear,” he said, and she faltered again. She couldn’t argue the point.
Of all the gods, why was it Loki who was always there when she least wanted him there?
“Because we’re the same,” he said, as if he’d read her mind, which probably he had. “The other Aesir don’t care about mortals. They’re content to dwell godlike in their godly realm, doing their godly things. But you and I, and your oh-so-fetching sisters—we understand the fascination of these puzzling beings, don’t we?”
Truth wasn’t normally a word she associated with Loki—in any way—but Aurora was struck by the truth of this.
“Some more fascinating than others, eh, lovely?” He winked at her lewdly, spoiling the moment.
She summoned all the dignity she could muster. “I am bound by duty to protect this one.”
“Which is why he’s in a speeding car, bleeding to death.”
“He’s not bleeding to death. I’m going to take care of him.”
“Aurora, sweet,” Loki said in that silky voice that for eons had seduced goddesses and mortals alike. “You can’t play by the rules any more than I can. Ditch the mortal and come with me. Together we’d be unstoppable—we could crack the whole world open.”
“You’re married,” she reminded him. “Three wives. Or is it four?”
“And none of them hold a candle to you,” he said breezily. “My dear, these mixed relationships never work out well. Gods should be with gods, and men should be with men. Or women. Or women with women. Or...”
“You are so very helpful,” she said through her teeth, concentrating on the road. “Can you get the hell out of the car now?”
“You can’t talk that way to a god.”
“Demigod,” she corrected. Loki always exaggerated, especially when it came to himself.
“You need me. How many times have I saved that lovely...”
“Don’t,” she warned.
“Skin of yours?” he finished.
Aurora was about to point out that for every “favor” Loki granted, twelve times more trouble seemed to come of it. Instead, she just said, “Please. Leave.”
“As you wish. You’ll be calling for me soon enough. Just you wait and see,” he said maddeningly, and promptly disappeared.
Aurora bit her lip...then looked at Luke beside her in the seat, and her heart melted. She tightened her hands on the wheel, and drove.
* * *
When Luke came to again, everything had changed. He was in the car alone; it was stopped, with the windows down.
He reached instantly for his weapon and found it was there in his holster, heavy and real. He wasn’t sure how it had gotten there, but he relaxed slightly at the feel of it. He was way out of the city. It wasn’t just by the lack of light that he could tell. The whole air was different, live and breathing, with towering presences...
A forest?
The air was full of a spicy scent—not
