Page 58 of The Fanged One

Fenris raised a brow and whispered back. "What if it's me?"

"Oh…you…" Linnea stammered. "This is not the time for flirting."

"Sure it is," he replied.

Hel was chatting happily with the others as they finally introduced themselves. She lifted Ciara's blade out of her hand before Ciara could stop her, turned it to the light, and made an appreciative noise at the runes cut into it. "Oh, this is a nasty piece of work. Whoever forged this is a pure master. How many souls have you created with it?"

"It's fae-made. The body count is fifty-six and change," Ciara said with a smile. "I've been busy recently."

"A woman after my own heart." Hel passed it back hilt-first and moved on to Von. Her eyes lit up. "What are you? You smell like a shaman, but not a boring one. You learned magic a different way."

"Call me anything you like, my lady, but never boring," Von replied with a slight bow. "May I compliment you on your grand entrance? I swear I don't know whether to be horny or terrified right now."

"If you enjoyed that, I can't wait until you meet Dad. You're so cute!" She squished his cheeks between her tattooed hands. "A fascinating creature. I'm going to enjoy your company enormously. I just know it."

She poked Tor once in the center of his chest, hard, before she leaned past him to waggle her brows at Ciara. "This one's yours? Big. Solid. Good bones. Nice one."

"I thought so too," Ciara said with a laugh.

"Hey, don't objectify me," Tor told his mate.

"Why not? You're very pretty," Hel said, already moving to Arne. "Ohhh, a prince!"

She took his hand in both of hers, bent over it, and pressed a dramatic kiss to his knuckles like he was a blushing maiden at a feast. Arne, confused and flattered, inclined his head and said, "My lady, it is an honor to be a visitor in your lands."

"He's polite, unlike you, Fen," Hel declared gleefully. She pinched Lalya's cheek. "And he has a pretty mate to keep him in line. Wherever did you dig these specimens up?"

"They found me," Fenris replied, his eyes on Linnea, full of so much affection that she wanted to pull her sweater up over her goofy, smiling face.

"Aww." Hel's smile softened for half a beat before she buried it and clapped her hands. "Inside, all of you. Before something worse than Knut decides to come and gnaw on your bones, and I have to explain to Lady Freya why I returned you with bite marks."

She swept one arm at the open doors of her hall and the gold light pouring out of them. "Welcome to Éljúðnir. Food and freshly made beds are waiting for you. Everything else can wait until you have eaten because you look like something the draugr dragged in."

"We had to see the Norns before we came here," Fenris said.

"Ah, that explains it," Hel replied with a knowing sigh. "Visiting them always is a drain. Come, we need a drink."

Linnea stepped through the doors, and a deep gold heat rolled through her coat and dried the damp that had settled in her hair. Long tables were set up in the middle of the hall next to roaring hearth fires. The smell of roasting meat, bread, and something sweet baking hit her so hard her stomach growled loudly.

Warm, her wolf sighed, every hackle gone. Safe. Pack. Food.

Hel hooked her arm through Fenris's, and he leaned down to talk low and fast with her in the Old Tongue. Whatever she said pulled a laugh out of him again, quieter this time, only for her.

"Tonight you're my guests, and you are safe here," the goddess said over her shoulder to them. Something ancient and powerful moved through her gaze, making the group stop mid-step. "Rest up because tomorrow, my little mortals, the real games begin, and believe me, I built every door between here and my father to be a real bitch." The smile the goddess gave them was the least reassuring thing Linnea had ever seen.

28

Hel's private chamber at the back of Éljúðnir was comfortable and close compared to the cavernous hall they had eaten in.

A fire burned low in a round stone hearth, and the walls were hung with paintings she had done as well as a few that Fenris recognized as his father's work.

A long shelf ran the length of one wall, crowded with small carved things: a wooden horse worn smooth, a child's shoe, a string of blue beads, a clay cup with a crack mended in gold. They were small tokens, each one gifted to her by the dead. His sister kept the dead's offerings the way other women kept jewelry. Havi and Freya might have had halls of mighty heroes, but Fenris doubted they were as loved as the dead in Niflheim.

"Sit before you fall down," Hel said with a gentle nudge toward a chair. "You walked the Norns' road and the dark stair in a blur of time. Even gods have limits, and you have barely been awake for five minutes."

Fenris sat in the chair closest to the fire and let the tension that had kept him on alert since they had left Alruna finally go.

Hel pulled a black bottle off the shelf, unstoppered it, and poured two measures of something dark and thick into a pair of horn mugs. She put one in his hand and dropped into the chair across from him with her boots up on the hearthstones.