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Chapter One
Death must be your heart’s desire.
Vidar slammed his glass down on the counter. The crack went off like a shot in the first lull in the marrow-jarring music the mortals had been writhing to since he’d walked into the club an hour ago.
Damn Loki and his riddles.
The bartender’s head jerked up, his hand freezing on the way to pour a sixth shot of vodka. “Want something else?”
Vidar fisted a wad of money from his inner pocket, threw it on the counter. “Just leave the bottle. And bring me another one.”
The bartender hesitated. Vidar wondered if he’d mention an alcohol consumption limit or ask for his car keys.
Nah. As burly as the man was, he was eyeing him with the wariness he was used to seeing in mortal men’s eyes when they saw him. This man knew violence, could estimate his chances against other men. Against him, he’d rightly calculated them to be none. And that was based solely on the pissed-off vibe Vidar was radiating.
He wondered what the man would think if he knew he could take out the hundreds of men around them without breaking a sweat.
The way he felt right now, he was itching to do that.
The man must have sensed it, too. He did as ordered, though to his credit, with utmost reluctance.
Vidar fleetingly considered reassuring the bartender that he wasn’t breaking any professional code. Having the metabolism of a shape-shifting immortal, he could drink a swimming pool’s worth of Midgard’s—Earth’s—hardest liquor and it would barely smooth his frown. The only time he’d been drunk had been a millennium ago, after he and his team had released Alvar from Fenrir the Wolf’s clutches. And then only because he’d celebrated by going through two barrels of mead imported direct from Asgard.
He frowned into the colorless liquid in his glass. His fellow Lokians wouldn’t touch that stuff at the threat of a hit from Mjolnir. Daven had been pounded by Thor’s Hammer in a wager between Thor and Loki that he would. He hadn’t.
But Vidar’s fellow Lokians didn’t trawl bars and nightclubs for recruits. They’d taunted him that he did so because puny mortals’ liquor was all he could handle. Either that, or he’d grown lazy.
He hadn’t volunteered the real reason. That he’d grown indifferent. Finding recruits had ceased to matter decades ago.
And then, he had found many of his candidates in such places, where outcasts went to blend in. His days of being creative in looking for recruits were long behind him. The extra effort hadn’t proved more effective, and recruits found in joints like this one actually ended up lasting longer. All he had to do while he cast his senses out on search was endure the cacophony and legitimize his presence by downing overpriced, ineffective swill.
He’d better find someone to recruit here. He wasn’t in the mood for another wasted night.
But what else was new? He’d had centuries of wasted nights. To say he was sick of it all was the understatement of the literal millennium.
That was why he’d invoked Loki at dawn that morning for a one-on-one.
Loki had taken his sweet time answering, had appeared around noon. After an hour of enduring the god talking up his latest TV channel acquisition and how he planned to use it to invade Normals’ minds, and showing off his new clothing line’s threads, he’d cut him off. Loki had his undying allegiance and all, and for millennia he’d actually enjoyed listening to him plot and brag, but not today.
Today it was over. He wanted to quit.
He should have, centuries ago.
It had been that long since he’d known his job was futile.
He couldn’t speak for the others, but being one of the twelve Originals of Loki’s Legion hadn’t turned out as advertised. He’d signed on thinking it was the ultimate cause, upholding Loki’s purpose in searching out Gifted outcasts, recruiting them, fostering them, and swelling the ranks of his army for Ragnarok, the Final Fate of the Gods, where they would help him survive that battle in which all the gods were supposed to kill one another, then take over this fucked-up world. All Vidar had managed to do so far was watch his recruits burn in the flames of self-destruction, disintegrate in the maelstrom of madness or wither in the abyss of depression. Rinse and repeat. Ad infinitum.
He was weary of counting the fallen, of the futility of knowing they’d fall. Millennia of that had gotten old. Ancient. He had no more purpose. Not in this existence, anyway. His purpose would be renewed when said existence came to an end.
But he was no longer holding his breath for that. Judging from the millenniums that had dragged by with nothing happening, Ragnarok seemed to have been canceled.
After a long moment of studying his perfectly manicured nails and dusting imaginary lint from his ten-thousand-dollar Loki Line suit, Loki had answered. Not out loud.
The words had expanded in Vidar’s mind.
So you want death.
Vidar had only nodded. Loki had gotten that right.
He could quit without dying. After the first few centuries, Loki had no longer tied the immortality of his Originals to continued service. But without serving Loki’s cause, he had nothing to live for. He’d lived far too long already. He was centuries beyond ready—hell, beyond rip-roaring eager—to hang it all up.
There was only one way to do that. Loki had to strip away his immortality so that his body could die. Or be killed.
But Loki had only flung the cryptic answer at him.
Death must be your heart’s desire.
Then, citing a hot date with his wife, Sigyn, followed by a showdown with Thor over some epic squabble between their sons, he’d disappeared before Vidar could probe or persist.
Vidar grunted with a resurgence of frustration and tossed back another swig of vodka direct from the bottle.
What was a heart’s desire, anyway?
He’d never wanted anything with the all-consuming passion he supposed such a desire should be. And how in Ragnarok’s name could death become that to him? Wasn’t it enough that he wanted the damn thing, longed for its reprieve?
Evidently, not according to Loki. And knowing the god, he’d said his final word on the matter. That meant Vidar would probably live until Ragnarok and, if they were victorious then, beyond.
He’d often heard mortals moan, Someone kill me now.
He so sympathized.
He panned his gaze around. Epileptic bursts of colored light sundered the semidarkness. The air was pregnant with odors and emotions, pheromones and hormones, naturally and chemically induced. And the din. Only mortals high on one thing or another could find this not only endurable but enjoyable. Mating practices had sure changed since he was a mortal.
He’d give finding a recruit another thirty minutes. His life might be unending, but his patience wasn’t. And then…
His thoughts stilled. Noise, followed by everything else, disappeared. The heart that thumped only a handful of beats a minute even in extreme duress hammered.
A woman was sitting in a booth at the farthest end of the club.
And she was…glowing.
