Lachlan began coughing. Skadi shuffled his feet again, but set them wider, thrusting his hips forward. “You like this form. That is good. I will keep it.” I nodded, unsure what to say. But he moved to the fire, snatched an entire side of the roasted tuna faster than my eyes could track, and retreated to the wall furthest from the flames. In minutes, it was gone. “Seal man, I require more sustenance.”
“Of course you do,” Lachlan grumbled, holding out a hand for his sealskin. “I’ll need that back.” For some reason, I growled at him, grabbing the edge of the pelt. That smile transformed Lachlan’s face again. “Please, mate. I’ll find some food for you in the sea and return within the hour.”
I let it go, and Lachlan snatched it up, pressing a quick kiss to my hand, then racing out the door. In his absence, the pain in my middle began to flare again. “Ow,” I said aloud, as I felt something tear inside. Were they literal hooks the fire fucker had set inside me?
Suddenly, the room seemed to grow colder, even with the fire.No more ogling the abductor, I lectured myself.I need to get back to Alexios, get to Pict, and make sure the last of the Omegas there are taken care of.
“Little enemy.” I turned to the ice god, whose expression had grown thunderous, his eyes homing in on my necklace, then dropping to my gut. I scowled back, oddly annoyed he hadn’t stared at my boobs even a little.
“Ice man?” I replied, doing my best to hide the waves of fiery, bloody pain that were quickly growing impossible to ignore.
“Ice god,” he corrected smoothly, turning back and forth and moving his legs like he wasn’t sure how to sit. I sat on my cloak with my legs together, but listed to one side when the hooks began another wave.
“I’m not calling you that. Skadi, right? I’m Rada.”
“Your name doesn’t matter. What matters is that you are carrying the seed of my enemy.”
“Nope, no seed here. I swore off all dicks—human, god, or otherwise—until… five and a half months from now.”
He blinked and shifted again, sitting cross-legged. I didn’t mind. It gave me something to stare at, and I tried to think about the logistics of two knots while the pain fought to drag me under. “You are not pregnant with his physical seed. But he has prepared you for his spawn. That is the fire you feel inside.”
“Fire? There’s actual fire in me?”
He wiggled his head back and forth while I tried not to vomit. “It is metaphysical fire. God fire. The worst kind. Mortal frames cannot bear it for long.”
“Yeah, well, apparently the gods all want to get a piece of this mortal frame.” I almost managed a smile, but inside, I was screaming. This was exactly what I’d been running from. I didn’t want a Goddess or a god inside me.
I just wanted to be me. To sneak around places I wasn’t meant to be, get drunk on potato whiskey and steal secrets and pretty things, maybe get railed by a few well-equipped Alphas and one sweet, sexy Beta, andnotbe some sort of avatar or incubator.
“Fuck.”
“Yes, that is what my brother intends, I am certain.”
I swallowed. “Your what now?”
He didn’t answer for a long moment, deep in thought. About the time I wondered if he’d fallen asleep with his eyes open, he stated, “You are mated with the seal man who serves me. It will kill him when you join with Edan. Hmm. I do not want to lose a good servant.” He scratched his chin, then his chest, then his balls for some reason. Then he leaned up on one leg, scowled, and scratched his ass for a long while.
I cleared my throat. I’d thought there wasn’t anything this guy could do to be unsexy, but here he was, proving me wrong already. “Ah, are you itchy? You have… snow mites or something?”
“The mild discomfort. That is itchy?” I nodded, and he glared past me at the fire. “I do not do well around flames.”
“Huh. I’ve felt that way myself for the past decade or so. So, Edan, you said?” I glanced at the fire. It didn’t flare up or turn dark, and I relaxed. “I’ve heard that name. I had a run-in with your brother when I was younger. He likes to listen in on things.”
“You are his spy, then?” Frost formed on my eyelashes.
“No. I’m the Goddess’s servant, or I was. He’s been hunting me ever since then, but I kept out of his way.”
“How?”
I shrugged. “Went by other names for most of my life. Kept my secrets away from open flames. Made sure I was always ready to run when he found me again. Learned how to hide from anything godlike.”
“You did not hide very well.” He nodded at my abdomen. Not my womb. I refused to think in terms of wombs and seeds.
“I had an off day. A little incident with a pyre and a stake and a crowd who wanted to roast marshmallow candies over my corpse. I had to make a deal. A vow,” I explained when he tilted his head in a very dragon-like mannerism.
“You are the daughter of the Goddess?” I wanted to ask how he knew about Her, but he went on. “If you were Her servant, why did She not rescue you?”
“I may have made a slight miscalculation on that. I cut a deal with Her, too. If She left me alone for ten years so I could do what I needed…” I chewed at my cold lip, trying to make it simple. “I had a task given by my first boss, a general from a country called Rimholt. He sent me away to apprentice in othercountries to become a master spy. But I already had a more important mission, one I’d been doing since I was young.”
