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I glared out the window. I didn’t have an answer to the question. No, I didn’t want to hurt my brother. On the other hand, the thought of Eir choosing another was intolerable. She was my mate. I’d moved through the nine worlds trying to find her. To lose her now would be unthinkable.
“We’ll see.”
“Not that this conversation matters anyway because I wasn’t suggesting we…” she continued, losing the train of her thought. She cleared her throat. “Regardless, you’re still a fool.”
“Come up with something more original,” I snapped.
“Halfwit?” she suggested. “Pillock? Dullard?”
“Bitch.”
That brought a faint smile to her face. “Ah, at last. The witch stuff was getting tiresome. I’ll also accept ‘harridan’ and ‘termagant’.”
“You’re enjoying this,” I said.
Her smile twisted into something sharp and cruel. “Of course. I relish your suffering. You are the one who dragged me into this mess, after all. If we’d stayed in my home, we’d have been safe.”
At the thought of what we could be doing, had we remained in her home, my mind betrayed me once more, thrusting images of her pale, supple flesh onto me. It was only too easy to imagine her splayed on the ground, naked and writhing as I took her. I could imagine the graceful slope of her spine as I bent her forward, the soft keening sounds she’d make when I drove her toward climax. The way her legs would tremble and ultimately buckle. The breathy sigh of my name from those full lips.
I snarled.
Sorcery. It was her fault.
“You’re right. You do want me to suffer.”
She trilled a laugh that hung in the air, as clear and beautiful as the notes of a struck bell. “Isn’t that what I said?”
At this rate, I’d bed her just to get her to shut up. And then I’d torment myself about it, wondering if I’d broken my oaths to Eir. If Eir lived, that is. And if she wanted me after all this time.
Chapter Seven
Skarde
I glanced out the window, eyeing the town.
I didn’t see what kept Jovi so enraptured about this place. Under the layers of ice and snow, it didn’t look like much.
“She said it was beautiful,” I said slowly. “I don’t understand why. I’ve seen demon lairs with more character than this place.”
“It has its charms,” Fyrcat replied.
I frowned at her. “What charms?”
“It’s quiet, for one. No wolves prowling around, looking to kill us. At least until you showed up.”
She shot me a dirty look out of the corner of one eye, slowing the hulking metal vehicle as we turned onto the main road that cut through town. The snow was so deep in some areas that the lower half of the other vehicles were barely visible. If not for the flicker of candlelight in upstairs windows, the town would have appeared abandoned. The clouds above were so thick and oppressive, it was difficult to tell day from night. Had Torsten and Jovi made it out of Muspelheim yet? Or had they died in the attempt?
Fyrcat eased over a small incline before steering the truck toward a pair of perpendicular metal lines. They must have been the train tracks she’d mentioned. The truck bounced as we rolled over them, making my teeth clack together.
When the tires hit the slick stone on the other side of the road, the truck jounced, sliding dangerously to the right. Fyrcat let out a litany of curses and tried to turn into the motion, but the back tire hit something in the road. The vehicle went up on two wheels, and I braced my hand against the roof of the thing with a curse as it toppled over.
Fyrcat screamed, and the sound was so shrill, it nearly shattered my ear drums. I watched in mounting fear as spider cracks appeared on the glass in front of us. The truck hit the ground on its side, and something huge and white simply exploded out of the vehicle’s casing and into my face. I struck out with my claws on pure reflex before it could reach me.
The white thing turned out to be a bag of some sort. It let out a pitiful whine as it deflated. When I could take stock of myself, I found myself suspended above the ground, held up by the belt around my chest and waist.
“Fyrcat?” I asked, reaching out a shaky hand to shove her shoulder. “Are you living, witch?”
Fyrcat stirred and let out a groan. Blood streaked down her temple, running into her one eye and down over her split lips. Her small, pink tongue flicked out to test the wound with a grimace.
