“My beautiful mate,” he murmurs, “I’ve hidden so much from you. You don’t know me at all, and you’d never have let me kiss you, never trembled in my embrace, if you did. You have no grasp of the depths of my depravity in Helheim. I will open my soul to you, purge my conscience in this, at least, and give you the knife to wield against me if you choose. But not here. Let me help you reach the dragons first. When you’re ready to mount your beast and leave these caves, I’ll set all of us free.”
“So, you expect us to just go on together? Travel to Panta as if nothing’s happened? As if I don’t know you’re the reason I spent three hundred fucking years trapped in that place.”
He shrugs again, and the urge to punch him gives my legs the strength they need to stand. “That is exactly what we’ll do,” he decrees as I stride over to him.
I don’t hold back, and he doesn’t try to stop me. The first punch sends him flying to the floor and he grins up at me, blood dripping from his cheek.
“That’s my warrior princess,” he whispers before my fist closes the mouth that changed everything I thought I knew about this male.
I drop to my knees, straddling his chest, and his hands grip my hips, as if to support me while I destroy his face. I can’t feel anything except the skin breaking beneath my knuckles, my blood melding with his while I paint him in my fury. I’m destroying everything I see, all the beauty that attracted me to this hideous male, and I’ve never felt so alive. Every few seconds, Wregen laughs and says something to spur me on—“Fuck me up” or “Don’t stop” or “I deserve all your hate” or “Give me your rage”—and I think I might kill him now.
Svend’s hands on my shoulders, and then around my gut dragging me away, pierce the inferno Wregen’s unleashed in me. He manages to pull me off the asshole who isn’t nearly as destroyed as he should be before I can fight back.
“What the fuck are you doing, weasel?” Wregen rasps, blood spurting and dripping from him. “Let her finish.”
“She was about to kill you,” he whimpers. “You said you want to take us to the dragons.”
“I also told her to take everything she needs from me,” he grunts. “I don’t require much life to reach the dragons. If she wants most of it now, it’s hers.”
“No, I’m done,” I tell him, standing up and striding over to spit in his face. “I won’t waste any more time on you.”
He nods, trying to catch my gaze. “As you should be,” he says. “For what it’s worth, I am sorry.”
But I’m done. “Fuck you,” I mutter as I give him my back.
The arrow slams into my leg before I’ve turned fully away, a spray of blood splattering across the stone around me while I fall to my knees.
Fuck.
Just … fuck.
My thigh feels like it’s been crushed by rock, every nerve and muscle obliterated. I’m suddenly freezing, so much blood spilling from me, it can’t give my body the heat it needs. Wregen is yelling in the background, but I can think of nothing except the agony rippling through me.
I need to snap the fuck out of this.
I refuse to die here.
I refuse.
Sucking in a deep breath, I snap my head up and try to understand what’s happening. Who attacked us.
What I see terrifies me.
Garmr’s free, and he’s not alone. A dozen of the large males Wregen called jötnar surround him, all of them aiming arrows at me.
“She’s not your target,” Wregen snarls. He’s already standing—although I have no idea when that happened—and stalks over to plant himself between them and me. “I’m the only one here you’re allowed to kill.”
“You’re not allowed to kill anyone,” I cry, pushing myself up to stand next to him. “These beasts will pick you apart and eat your bones. Back off while you can.”
Garmr growls, deep in the back of his throat, and I can’t speak “dog”, but I know exactly what he’s saying.
“Get the fuck behind me, Finaan,” Wregen grumbles as he shifts to place himself between the jötnar and me again. “I don’t need to leave here alive. You do.”
“We’re both leaving here alive, asshole,” I hiss as I drag myself to the left. “You’re leading me to my dragon to make sure she breaks free, or I will chase you down in Helheim and kill you myself.”
“Fucking stubborn female,” he mutters under his breath. “Ruxi knows the way and I’ll be dead, so your beast will probably meet you halfway. Stop being so gods-damned difficult for one minute.”
“Hel wants you alive, elf,” the tallest of the jötnar yells as he shifts his bow slightly, leveling his arrow at me. “We’re free to kill anyone else we’d like, but I think I’ll hold onto this one. She’s too pretty to kill right away.”
