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“Where’s Hunter Thorn?” Isa interrupted. “I was told you were with him, just now.”
No one would have told him that. Odin’s people knew better. He was fishing.
“I’m not sure,” Odin shrugged. “He’s around. I don’t monitor him.”
Well, as of today, he wouldn’t be.
As much.
Mostly.
Isa wasn’t buying it. “You’re forgetting I know the type of lover you are.”
Odin cocked his head. “Oh? What type is that?”
“The devoted kind.”
He shouldn’t rise to the bait, and yet… “I’m not sure about that. It’s recently been brought to my attention that I had a serious crush on Hunter back in the day.”
Isa turned steely within a second, his gaze hardening, the temperature in the room dropping a noticeable degree all at once.
It wasn’t safe, goading him like this, Odin was aware. It would only cause problems for Hunter down the line, but then again, he had no intentions of ever letting the Huntsman leave, which meant he’d be here for Odin to take care of.
And besides, hadn’t this been his purpose for bringing the other man here anyway? Sure, he wasn’t using him against Isa the way he’d initially intended, but the end results were the same. He wanted to piss Isa off, wanted him to lose his cool.
It was a dangerous game, but Odin had been sitting on these pieces long enough. It was far past time he played them.
“You had to have noticed,” he continued. “You paid such close…attention to me in the past.”
“Was that before or after he tried to have you killed?” Vetle mumbled. He’d moved to flank Odin’s left, just behind the couch, but his words were loud enough that everyone in the room could hear.
Odin didn’t scold him for it. Instead, he clucked his tongue in agreement. “That’s right. There was that little incident. We’ve never spoken of it before.”
When Odin had returned to the city and made his presence known, Isa had been careful not to ever be alone with him. This was the first time in a decade that he’d visited Odin’s turf, and the fact that he’d only brought one guy along with him was unsettling.
Either he seriously believed he was safe here, or there were other tricks up Frost’s sleeves. Until Odin knew for sure which it was—though he was leaning toward it being option B—he had to be smart about this.
Poke at him, sure, but full-on send him into a rage?
That might be taking things too far.
“Should we?” Isa relaxed back in his seat, but it was a rouse. “I was hoping since you’d forgiven Hunter you’d also extend that courtesy to me.”
“I’m fucking Hunter,” Odin stated crassly, noting when that caused Isa to flinch. “I don’t have anything with you. There’s no reason I can see to forgive a stranger.”
“We weren’t always strangers,” Isa reminded, only to have Odin snort.
“You aren’t really helping your case, brother. When we were close, you tried to kill me. Now that we’re all but nothing to one another, why should I believe you want anything different?”
“My mother wanted you gone,” Isa told him. “It was her plan. I specifically chose Hunter because I thought for sure he would fail. It wasn’t a secret how he felt about you, even you’d picked up on it. That’s most likely why you went with him in the first place.”
He hated that Isa so easily had his past self figured.
“My mother ordered your death, but she left choosing who did the deed to me. The plan was always for you to make it out of that forest alive. How was I to know that Hunter would take the orders to heart and shoot? Frankly, I didn’t think he had it in him.”
“You kidnapped his sister,” Odin reminded.
Isa didn’t seem apologetic about that in the least. “I was curious how deep his feelings for you were. Think about it. How fascinating, wondering which out of the two of you he would choose to save. In the end, it was you anyway, so I’m not sure why you’re so upset.”
