Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80439 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80439 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
“What other name could she have?” Freya murmurs. “It could have destroyed us both, but it brought her to me. Brenna.”
She’s right. This all happened in the way important things do, with the sense that good or bad, it could never have ever happened any other way.
“I’m still hungry,” Freya says.
“I’ll get you something to eat,” I say. The hospital has a restaurant, because it is a civilized place where people need to eat. I should be able to get her a hot meal.
I go down and I order what I know to be her favorite. Herring pie. Freya has always been particularly fond of it.
“We’re just baking a fresh one,” the lady behind the counter says. “It will be about fifteen minutes.”
“No problem. I’ll go for a walk and come back,” I say.
I need a walk. I need to clear my head. A few hours ago, I was going out for bread. Now I am an aunt again, and my ancestral home, or what would have become an ancestral home if not for a very strange fire, is gone. I was already feeling quite unmoored in this world, and now it feels like the last physical anchor has been taken. I am going to float away, and there is nothing I can do about it. Fate has her hand on me just as surely as she has on Freya.
Just as I have that thought, a big hand wraps around my wrist and I am turned around in the hall.
I am surprised to see Thor, the firefighter again. He is the intrepid hero who ran into the burning building to save my sister. I owe him a debt I can never repay. I am more grateful to him than I have ever been to anyone in my life. Also, he needs to stop grabbing me out of nowhere if he wants to keep his hands.
“Don’t fucking touch me,” I say, snatching my arm away.
“You’ve got a lot of attitude for a little wench,” he says.
I didn’t appreciate how tall he was when the house was burning down, or when we argued outside the hospital. It must be the fact that he’s indoors and the ceiling is just barely tall enough to contain him.
He is massive. 6′7 at least. Maybe taller. It’s hard to tell from down here.
“My sister is alive,” I tell him. “And she wanted me. And she’s had a baby, and the baby is alive. So I guess you saved two lives.”
“Why do you sound annoyed about that?”
“Because you’re all…” I gesture up and down his body. “And I know I have to be grateful, and you’ll probably ask me to get some mead, and then you’ll ask me to a flower dance. Because you believe in stupid mating rituals like being chosen and other nonsense. I’m not interested. Do you understand? I don’t care if my family owes you a debt we’ll never be able to repay…”
“The only place I’d take a sassy thing like you is over my knee,” he growls.
“Excuse me?”
“You obviously haven’t been spanked enough.”
I stare at him, shocked. I can’t believe he has the absolute fucking nerve to talk to me that way. Spanked enough? What barbaric bullshit talk is that?
“You haven’t been punched in the teeth enough. Bend down and let me do it.”
“You bend over first,” he grins. “And we’ll see if you still feel like punching me when I’m done with you.”
I flash hot for reasons I can’t explain and don’t really want to start trying to understand. This man is trying to, I don’t know, dominate me, and he can fuck all the way off.
“C’mere,” he says.
This time he doesn’t grab me. He beckons for me to follow, and like the curious idiot I am, I do. He’s managed to unlock my greatest weakness. I don’t like being told what to do, but I do love finding out what’s going to happen next.
We go into a supply closet.
“What are we doing? You need some bleach?”
He turns around and looks down at me, and in that moment I have the very visceral realization that I have chosen to put myself in a confined space with a powerful creature twice my size. I reach back for the door, but he shakes his head.
“You’re not scared, are you? Brave little thing like you?”
Oh, an appeal to my ego. That’s going to work way better than I want it to.
“I’m not scared,” I say. “I’m just not here for… whatever this is.”
He smirks at me, and he’s so handsome all thought of resistance goes out of my head immediately. To hell with it. He can do whatever he wants with me. I don’t care.
I try to snap myself back into some kind of reality, but my brain isn’t interested for the moment.
“I like you,” he says, making heat flush through me.