“Good girl. Now go hunt.”
Chapter Two
Rey
As we pull to a stop in front of the school, Father doesn’t reach for the handle. He waits, as always, for Rowen to open the door for him. Valet. Guard. Pet. Whatever role he’s assigned today.
I adjust my long black coat and put on my black Celine sunglasses, like they’re the only armor I need to walk into the enemy camp.
The notorious Erikson family has its legacy stamped all over campus. They even have a family sculpture in front of the student center featured on the brochure that came with my acceptance letter. The founder, Sigurd, holding both of his grandsons in a huddle, Aric and Reeve gazing adoringly into their grandfather’s beaming smile.
I’ve met the youngest brother, Reeve, a handful of times over the years at various social events. Enough times to know I’d rather jump off a cliff than fake a friendship with him.
His older brother, though—Aric didn’t bother with pretending.
He rarely spoke unless forced, and even then it was usually a grunt or a sharp glance meant to dissect every inch of your confidence.
Except for that one time.
The moment I’ve since convinced myself didn’t count. A lapse. A weakness. One I couldn’t afford then and sure as hell can’t afford now.
They’re opposites. Reeve talks until you beg him to stop. Aric barely exists in the room—until you realize you can’t stop wondering what his voice might actually sound like saying your name.
And then there’s his achingly beautiful face.
Jawline like it was carved from granite. The kind of dark, wavy hair stylists try to manufacture for cologne campaigns—except on him, it just falls, effortless while expensive, across his forehead.
“Listen to me carefully, Rey.” Father doesn’t raise his voice now. “Find the hammer or don’t come back.”
“I understand,” I say, nodding. I’d say anything to end this goodbye.
He already spent all night drilling the plan into me:
Find the hammer.
Kill anyone who gets in the way.
Bring it home.
He made it all sound achingly simple. And maybe it will be, because I grew up knowing exactly what we were.
The Eriksons didn’t.
They clung to power out of instinct, circling my family for decades without ever understanding why. As far as they knew, it was all business—territorial tension, inherited wealth, fractured alliances.
But the truth was older. Blood-soaked. Divine.
Odin’s final act at the end of the war between Gods and Giants wasn’t conquest. It was erasure.
He wiped their memories.
All of them.
Everyone but himself, of course.
And the few heneededto remember.
Rowen.
