cabin. Bjarni had tied me up in the outhouse overnight, and I was planning revenge. But the mushrooms grew farther away than I’d anticipated—almost to the foothills of the mountain range.
“I didn’t notice the troll until it was on me. My father had started my magical education at that point, but I was still too young and too inexperienced to fight back. I knew I was going to die. But…” His lips curved in a half-smile. “My brothers had followed me into the wilderness. When they heard me scream, they came bursting out of the underbrush, armed with nothing but sticks and stones. Saga was barely eight at the time, Bjarni only six. They attacked that troll with a fervor Tyr himself would be hard-pressed to match.
“To this day, I don’t know how they managed to chase it off, but they did. They saved my life. After, Bjarni hugged me while I bawled my eyes out. It was my first experience with a kind touch. If he hadn’t held my arms so tightly, I would have punched him.
“After that day, I swore I would always protect them, no matter the cost. We weren’t friends, not for several more years, but we looked out for each other. They made life under their mother’s roof tolerable for me.”
“And your father?” I asked. “Where was he?”
Grim shrugged. “Who knows? Wherever his schemes and plots took him. He would stop by from time to time to check on our progress and prepare us for our supposed Fate to save his bloodline.”
“No kind words? No hugs?” I asked, even though I pretty much knew the answer already. The God of Mischief hadn’t exactly come across as a warm and jovial father on our first meeting.
Grim’s smile turned acrid. “From Loki? I’m sure the answer surprises you, but no. I never minded. My brothers did, for a while. He is our sire, and without his teachings, I would not have become as powerful as I am. But my loyalty is with my brothers. Not him.”
I frowned. “Yet you betray them to help him? I don’t understand.”
He only gave me that dark stare of his, and I sighed.
“Right. You can’t tell me. Fine. Continue. When did you, Bjarni, and Saga become friends, then?”
Grim’s sensuous lips turned to a flat line. He hesitated for several breaths, before he finally said, “When I Presented as alpha. I… was not expecting it. My mother’s kind is not subjected to base biology, not in the same way as the inhabitants of the other realms. I had no such… interests. I’d passed the age when both Bjarni and Saga Presented with no change, and so I assumed I took after her in that way.
“When my first rut struck, I thought I was dying.” He stared straight ahead at some point above my shoulder. His voice was flat, emotionless as always, but something about him was… off. Different.
“Bjarni and Saga were out. I would have gone to them otherwise. But they weren’t there. I was so out of my mind, I went to her instead—their mother. I came crashing through the door, wild and panicked and hungering. I didn’t understand what was wrong with me, but I knew I needed help, no matter who it came from.
“She was in the kitchen when I saw her. And… something in my brain clicked into place. I hated that woman, but right then… she was female, and that was all that mattered. I fucked her against the kitchen counter first. Then on the dining table. And finally in her bed. It was sickening. In the few moments’ respite between ruttings, I wanted to vomit. The sensation of being tied so intimately with her… But it didn’t matter. She would make this… crooning sound, and my body ached for more.”
“You… you raped Bjarni and Saga’s mother?” I whispered, so stunned by his admission I didn’t know what else to say.
“You would think so,” he said softly. “You haven’t met her. I would be hard-pressed to overcome her now. I was smaller then. When I came for her, she smiled and spread her legs for me and told me to, ah—stick it in, I believe were her words.”
I blinked. Repeatedly. “What… the hell? You were her stepson!”
“Bjarni and Saga returned home when I was still tied with her after the final round,” he continued, ignoring me. “I thought they were going to kill me. Part of me wanted them to. They took me out to the stables, but