Weaving Fate - Nora Ash Page 0,93

to save himself… even if it does turn out he’s responsible for Ragnarök… He’s still my father.”

I grunted. Being sired by Loki had to be a pretty shitty lot. “At least you’re not an eight-legged horse logging around some haughty god all day.”

Bjarni snorted. “True. Could be worse. I could be splashing around the Atlantic, burping up shipping containers.”

We sat in silence for a bit while I ate. It was hard to hold back a hum of appreciation as the stew passed my lips and danced on my tongue—fucking Annabel had left me pretty depleted, and for all his faults, this Lokisson was an excellent cook.

“What was it like growing up with Thor as your father?” he asked after a little while.

I arched an eyebrow at him, still chewing on a mouthful of stew.

His lip curled up in a half-smile again. “I was told a lot of stories about your sire as a kid—a lot of them probably not entirely true. I always wondered what it’d be like—growing up the golden son of Asgard’s favored warrior. I suspect you’re not unfamiliar with the burden of grand expectations.”

I shrugged, refocusing on the stew. “I never minded. It is an honor to carry out my duties as Thor’s heir.”

“Your brother seems… of a somewhat different view,” Bjarni said, his tone still casual. “Sure, he was all ‘I am the son of Thor, you will respect my authority’ in the beginning, but I got the impression he has a more troubled relationship with your father.”

Images I did not care to entertain came up—of Magni as an adolescent boy, recently arrived in Trudheim, sobbing in the training yard after a lesson from our father, wooden sword still dangling from his hand. Red stripes from Thor’s belt coloring his pale skin.

I has been too young to realize how ashamed he had been and kept asking him why he was crying. He had eventually confessed that our father had told him his "Jotunn ways" were an abomination, and he would beat them out of him if he had to.

Magni had made me swear to keep that incident a secret, and I had. But my young eyes were open from then on, however much I wished they had not been. I saw the mistreatment my mother bestowed on him, and I saw Thor accept it. I saw Thor’s pride when Magni excelled at combat, and his anger and disappointment when he did not.

And I saw Magni redirect our father’s temper onto himself whenever I had failed, oftentimes letting me have the glory when an accomplishment belonged to us both. Thor liked to brag about us. He told tales of our prowess in the mead halls of Valhalla and offered our strength up in duels that we always won.

“My father is not the traitor,” I said quietly, finally putting the bowl of stew aside. “He did not come when I called to him not because he wants us to fail, but because I failed. He gave me the task of bringing Loki back. If he has to come rescue me, then I am an embarrassment. Unworthy of a place by his side. And so is Magni. That is what you wanted to know, is it not? That was the purpose of this little bonding moment?”

Bjarni hummed a thoughtful tune. “In part.”

“In part?” I glared at him, but my heart was not in it. Not truly. I was too tired and light from sex, and too… oddly calm. Telling Bjarni what I had never told another soul did not feel like divulging my secrets to an enemy. It felt like talking with a friend. Or a brother.

“You are my mate’s mate. That makes you my family,” he rumbled, stretching his long legs out toward the fire. “I feel you through Annabel, yet there’s so much animosity in our blood. I’m not suggesting we mend fences the way Saga and Magni did, but maybe we can find other ways to see eye to eye. Seems we both have shitty fathers—that’s something, eh?”

I chuffed an amused snort. “That is something.”

Silence settled again, save Loki’s soft snores and the crackle from the fire. I thought about what he had said—and what I had said. And about how resolute Magni had been in his idea that I share Annabel with him—and the Lokissons. How undeniably in love he was with the feral little thing. And her with him. With all of them.

Perhaps one day, she would love me, too. Maybe then the thought