Chapter Three
Scandinavia
960. A.D.
IF BECOMING DEAD andtransparent wasn’t bad enough, now Raven had been thrust into complete darkness. While she should be frightened, she wasn’t. Rather, a dark thrill of excitement shot through her. A rush to match the one she’d just felt kissing Loki in front of Tor.
A thrill followed swiftly by rage.
Rage that thankfully hadn’t caused catastrophic weather but, for the first time ever, allowed her to act the way she wanted to without repercussions. Allowed her to remain cool and collected as she reminded Tor that he was in no position to act jealous.
He had willingly given up that privilege.
By the same token, she wished she had refrained altogether. Wished she hadn’t shown him how frustrated she was with him. Frustration she had not realized was so strong until she laid eyes on him again. He didn’t deserve to know he had gotten to her. Didn’t deserve to be part of her emotions at all. Not when he had decided to fall in love with someone else when he, above all, knew a woman from the future was coming for him.
It seemed like the worst kind of cheating imaginable.
“Because it was,” came his deep voice from the darkness. “And I’m sorry, Raven. I really am.”
She didn’t like how quickly he could read her mind. “Where are we, Tor?”
If she could, she would manifest fire, but no. She was dead and without magic.
“I don’t know.” A ball of fire flared to life in his palm, illuminating their surroundings. His gaze was trained on her, his confession unnecessary. “Revna just happened.”
“Whatever you say.” In no mood to have this conversation because she had no intention of forgiving him, she eyed their surroundings. “It looks like a cave.” She frowned, wishing her sisters were here when usually she prayed for them to give her space. “It also looks like nobody else made it.”
“Not to this location, anyway.” He glanced around and frowned. “And with good reason. This cave sits beneath Midgard’s Rift in Mt. Galdhøpiggen’s underbelly.”
Before she could respond, he shifted into a huge, stunningly gorgeous dark blue dragon. If a heart was still beating in her chest, it would have flipped. Male dragons were something she had studiously avoided over the years due to how unstable they made her. And dragons that looked like him? Pretty sure there weren’t any.
“Our human halves can’t survive down here,”he explained, speaking telepathically in dragon form.
“Right. Down here beneath Midgard’s Rift. Because I’m technically dead, I guess.” She sighed and peered up at the ceiling. “So why aren’t Maya and Dagr here?” They had created the Rift, after all. “And why didn’t I,” getting the hang of being ethereal, she made air quotes, “manifestin the Rift.”
“Because you’re not entirely dead,”Tor sounded convinced,“but somewhere in between.”
“In between?” As odd as the sensation was, because she couldn’t actually touch or feel herself, she crossed her arms over her chest. “How can I be in between? Where did my physical body go? How do I get back to it?”
Honestly, as freakish as this was, she was probably better off without it right now. Especially considering how overly aware she was of being alone with him. How she imagined her body, never mind her inner beast, might respond to his if she were flesh and blood. A thought she buried deep down because as much as it irritated her, like before when he appeared beside the ash, her inner dragonhadresponded to him. So much, it was a wonder she didn’t shift and go to him, be damned how violent the weather might get.
To hell if it struck them both down.
