“Just hear us out,” Thrym said. He paced around the platform supporting Ailsa. “We mean to steal something from the Aesir so we may use it as leverage in a deal. I plan to propose to the goddess Freya, but I would like to be reassured she will not refuse.”
“How romantic,” Ailsa mumbled.
Thrym glared at her. “This object we take must be precious to them. Something they cannot live without.”
Vali shrugged. “Like what? Their mirrors?”
The giants crowding the room delighted in his response, but Drieger shook his head. A flicker of excitement flashed against red eyes. “Not mirrors, Vali. Mjolnir.”
It was Vali’s turn to laugh now, and he did so like the heartless monster he was. “You want me to steal Thor’shammer? I’m pretty sure he sleeps with the damned thing.”
“Then wait until he bathes! Do what you must, Vali. Only gods can cross the Bifrost. You are one of Odin’s sons, are you not? You alone, out of all of us, have access.”
Vali paced the floor and passed a hand through his hair. Ailsa watched helplessly as he attempted to think of a better plan, but the giants were right. He alone could enter Asgard, and he alone had the ability to steal Mjolnir. And even he could not fight this many giants alone, no matter how much anger fueled the power in his veins.
“Asgard is a two-day journey there and back. How will you assure me Ailsa remains safe while I am away?” The way the giants looked at her, he didn’t trust them for a second. An odd territorial feeling rose within him, despite his lack of claim on her.
Thrym thought for a moment before responding. “We will lock her in the dungeon and give you the only key that opens it. There is a slat we can pass her food through and a bucket she can waste in.”
“Odin’s fucking eye,” Ailsa cursed at the very thought.
Vali’s gaze softened on her. She was a hostage being used against him, forced to be a prisoner among strangers while he left her to travel a world away. He turned to Drieger. “May I speak with her about this? In private.”
“This is all my fault,”he muttered when the giant’s footsteps slipped out of hearing range, leaving them alone in the underground prison. “I shouldn’t have left you alone for a moment in Jotunheim. Gods below, will I ever stop being an idiot?”
Ailsa snatched his elbow to cease his pacing. “Probably not,” she said with a small grin. “I’m jesting, of course. You are not an idiot, Vali; you have the entire Nine Realms working against you. Something bad is bound to happen eventually.”
“How are you so calm about this? You’re going to be alone in a giant’s dungeon!”
She placed her hands on top of his shoulders. “Relax. It wouldn’t be the first time I was kidnapped by strange men. I will be fine. It isyouwho I am worried for.”
He shook his head. “I do not deserve your concerns.”
“You still have them. Are Ivor and Seela still waiting at Drieger’s?”
He nodded. Her hands shifted from his shoulders to the back of his neck, and his hands ached with the need to touch her back. “You looked like you were going to murder every giant in that room just now.”
“And I would have if they hurt you. Still considering it, actually.”
Her lips pressed into a hard line and her eyes sparkled like sapphires in the low torchlight. He wished he could see inside her mind. To know what she was thinking. She probably still thought him a monster, a man with bloodlust dominating his every impulse. “That seems a bit excessive, Vali.”
“I will not apologize for keeping you safe—”
“Then don’t.” She interrupted him. Her eyes lowered nearly as much as her voice—a lush and sultry pitch. Her pretty upper lip curling over her teeth. “Because I liked it.”
The sharp insert of his breath prompted her to look at him again, and her cheeks colored a lovely shade of pink. She spoke again before he could appease her embarrassment. “And I know it’s only because you’re protecting what’s inside me, but I still appreciate what you’ve done and what you will be forced to do in Asgard.”
It is not the only reason.The thought was intuitive. But he locked away the words behind the seal of his lips, only nodding in reply.
“Be careful,” she whispered. “The days will be dark without you,Sólskin.”
Hearing her name for him broke the fragile plane of his willpower, and he wrapped his arms around her thin waist while burying his face into her neck. She smelled like her oils, like the forest—a dangerous essence of earth and wildflowers matching her stallion spirit.
“The nights will be dull without you,Stiarna.” Starlight, he called her, for reasons still unknown to him. All he knew was it fit her, and it made her smile against his cheek. He pulled back to gaze into her eyes, to make sure she heeded his words. “Take this time to rest,” he said. “Remember what you carry. The giants are equal to the gods in their power, and I would not wish foryouto fall into their manipulating hands. Do you understand?”
“Aye,” she said. Their faces lingered in a space too comfortable for enemies, too close for friends. Her cheeks glistened in the dull torchlight, wet from tears she wiped away with a stealthy swipe. “Now go. The sooner you leave, the sooner you come back.” She dropped her gaze to his lips for a heartbeat before looking away, focusing on the single cot on the floor. “But Vali?”
“Yes?”