“My female,” I clarify. “She’s mine.”
The pompous smirk returns, joined by a wink that makes me want to cut off the offending eyelid. “She disagrees.”
A flurry of emotions spills through me at his suggestion that he knows my skjaldmær better than me. My stomach twists as I see past the mask he wears into the male I’ve always known him to be. I would mold her into the female she was born to be, help her release the fears that hold her back. Balin would turn her into a shadow of that female, a plaything he’d toy with until he grew bored. And she wouldn’t see his true purpose until it was too late. He’s learned how to hide himself, even from the most perceptive elf.
The compulsion to claim Finaan as mine lies on top of feelings I almost don’t recognize, it’s been so long since any of them breached the walls I built in Helheim. I need to protect her, but not because she belongs to me. No, I need to protect her because she should always belong to herself. The idea of Balin changing anything about her causes me more pain and angst than I’d ever thought possible.
Fuck me. Maybe there is a hint of a noble male still alive inside me.
“I don’t give a fuck,” I snarl. “She’s mine. If you touch her, I’ll skin you alive, slowly, before giving myself to Wrath and letting him suck your entrails out, bit by agonizing bit.”
“You’ve always had quite the imagination,” he murmurs, one eyebrow jutting up in the arrogant way it does sometimes. “Anyway,” he says, shaking his head as if to clear his thoughts, “the female you’re traveling with asked me to free you. I think you’ve earned her pity. Not the emotion you want, but sometimes you have to be grateful for what you get.”
I snarl but he wags his eyebrows and keeps chatting like the bastard he is. Fuck, do I hate him.
“I decided to indulge her,” he continues. “You’ll wear these and we’ll let you move freely within this building.” He gives them a little shake, as if he’s displaying them for me.
“I’m not interested in your jewelry,” I tell him. “I think I’ll stay.”
Balin smiles—a genuine, I-had-sex-for-the-first-time-in-my-life smile—and I realize I’m gonna put on the fucking bracelets and wander this building. He’s hoping I’ll refuse, and I’ve always been a stubborn bastard. But Finaan is out there somewhere. The idea of them spending time together while I’m stuck here is like a knife being shoved into my gut and twisting, pulling and ripping my entrails as they coil around the blade.
“I’ll tell her what you decided.” He turns to drop the shackles into the box and plop the lid down. “She really is quite beautiful,” he adds as he stands, kicking the stool back toward the wall. “Nowonder you want her.”
“What the fuck will they do?” I growl, jutting my chin toward the shackles as I ignore his dig about my mate.
“You don’t trust me with the female you’d like to claim?” he asks, one side of his lips curling up.
“The female I’ve claimed,” I tell him again. “And that you will stay the fuck away from.”
He cocks his head, like he’s considering it, then looks down at the box. “They’ll restrain you and your beast. They’re also spelled to this building. If you leave it, you’ll suffer. I’m hoping I’m there to see it,” he adds with that same gods-damned smirk he’s been throwing at me since our days in Midgard.
“And when it’s time for me to leave?”
“We tried that before,” Balin responds with a shrug. “I don’t know what Queen Haleth will do with you, but I doubt it will involve your freedom. You were warned not to return, but here you are.”
“You won’t keep me in this place,” I growl. “Helheim is my home and I will return there.”
The fucker shrugs again, a dismissive shift of his shoulders. “That’s not for me to decide. I’ve come to offer you the only freedom you’ll have in Álfheimr. Do you want it?”
I give him a sharp nod and shove my wrists through the bars, loath to agree to his terms but even more resolved not to sit in this cell a second longer. Balin would pursue Finaan just to anger me. She’d reject him—my skjaldmær would never stoop so low—but the thought of it has had Wrath writhing inside me since we woke up in this place.
He snaps the metal around my wrists and I gasp, fighting to hold in the scream that shoots from my gut and almost makes it past my sealed lips. Still, I can’t stop the tremor shaking every part of me. The flame that ripped from my wrists and out the moment they bound me is an inferno, nearly as agonizing as the pit. It incinerated each smidgen of magic in my veins. Even Wrath disappeared. His perpetual presence—a tangible part of me, even when he’s in his hole—gone as if it never existed.
My stomach revolts, vomit erupting into my throat as I lean over and retch. Balin dances back, barely missing the remnants of the meager meal someone brought me hours ago. The smallest glimmer of a laugh kindles in my chest.
I should have aimed better.
It’s a full minute or more before I’m able to stand and stare down the bastard. He grins.
“I had no idea I’d enjoy that as much as I did,” he declares, the corners of his eyes still wrinkling.
“You always did look to me for your happiness,” I respond. “Fool that you are.”
“Oh, come on now, Wregen. You’d be laughing if it were me wearing the cuffs.”
“You’d be dead, Balin,” I remind him. “When you join me in my home—and you will, because Óðinn and Freyja will never welcome you to theirs—you’ll wish my ministrations were limited to a couple of cuffs around your wrists.”
“Time will tell,” he responds, the enigmatic bastard. He fishes a key out of his pocket and opens my cell door, wavinghis arm as if he’s inviting me to join him in a meal. “Shall I show you to your room?”
