Weaving Fate - Nora Ash Page 0,26
if he didn’t have a furious human over his shoulders, not even flinching at my continued assault.
Enraged, I screamed and swung at him until I didn’t have the energy any longer. But in the end, it didn’t do a thing except drain me of my already flagging strength.
After a good half hour, I hung limply in his grip, exhausted and miserable, but resigned to my fate.
“Are you quite done?” Modi’s haughty tone made me grit my teeth, but I didn’t have it in me to bite at him. Instead I remained silent.
The air cracked somewhere close to my ass, the unmistakable sound of electricity sparking. “I asked: Are you done?”
I gasped in a breath of air, eyes widening in outrage and shock. He wouldn’t!
But yeah, he would. He’d already proven as much. And he’d thoroughly won the battle of wills that followed.
Stupid goddam power-tripping alpha!
“Yes.” I was going for terse, but my throat was raw from screaming, so it came out as a broken whisper.
“Good.” He relaxed his hold on my hamstrings, only to pull on my legs so I slid down and into his arms, bridal-style.
I blinked up at him, suspicious of the motives behind this more comfortable position, but he didn’t so much as look at me. Instead, he glanced at Bjarni.
“Feed her.”
Bjarni arched an eyebrow at the command, but his features softened when he looked at me. “You done throwing away perfectly good food?”
I glared at him. He was so not forgiven for just standing by while Modi asserted his dominance over me.
The blond giant cracked a half-smile and swung his backpack off one shoulder to rummage through it for more food. “How about I take that as a yes, hmm? Here you go, sweetie.”
It was a sandwich identical to the one I’d tossed at him before. I ate it in silence, wincing with every swallow. He gave me a leather jug of water to wash it down with too, followed by a golden apple that turned out to be so sweet and delicious I couldn’t hold back a hum of appreciation at the first bite. Even my aching mate-bonds seemed slightly less painful while I ate it.
“Is that…?” Modi began as he stared at the apple between my lips.
“Mmhm,” he confirmed with a relaxed rumble.
“She is mortal!” For the first time since he’d picked me up, Modi stopped, and abruptly so. His fury was palpable.
“She’s the mate of gods,” Bjarni said with a shrug. “Do you wish for your brother to have a mortal lifespan?”
Modi blinked, redness rising in his cheeks. “I… Of course not! But—they’re sacred!”
Bjarni snorted. “Not that sacred. How do you think my brothers and I haven’t aged all these years we’ve been in exile?”
The redheaded god stared at him. “Loki,” he whispered, his voice low and angry.
“Mostly,” Bjarni agreed. “Idunn has a weakness for flattery.”
“Idunn?” I croaked I remembered some of the more obscure texts I’d read on Norse mythology. “The goddess of youth? You gave me one of her apples? Am I… immortal?”
“Well, you shouldn’t age, so long as you eat an apple once a year,” Bjarni said. “Idunn wasn’t sure about the effects on a human. Made me swear I’d never offer one to a human to find out. Of course, I didn’t give it to you specifically to find out what would happen.”
He looked very pleased with himself, but I was still too busy processing having just eaten a fruit that would potentially keep me alive for eternity to praise him for his wit.
Besides, if we didn’t manage to stop Ragnarök, no one was going to live for that much longer. Not even the gods.
Eventually even the concept of immortality drifted to the back of my mind as exhaustion and the rocking motion of Modi’s gait lulled me to sleep.
Ten
Modi
My kidneys still ached as we made our way off Bifrost and into Midgard, high on a windswept mountainside in the land I knew as Norge.
Bjarni insisted we call it Norway, reminding me how Annabel spoke English and so should we when we were around her. I didn’t care enough to argue, even if a spiteful part of me wanted to take every opportunity to make the feral little omega as uncomfortable as possible.
She wasn’t particularly strong, but during her tantrum as she hung over my shoulder screaming like a banshee, she’d had impeccable aim. I grimaced and shifted the sleeping girl in my arms, momentarily considering placing her back over my shoulder so I could rub my back where