“I’m feeling a little left out,” he says.
“You have to come back to visit sometimes,” Gideon says. “Your father’s an advisor to the President now.”
“Just because of my connection to Liz,” Dad mutters. He hugs me again abruptly, and he whispers. “I know your mom’s made some mistakes, but try to keep her safe.”
I don’t tell my dad that Thunar’s my worst nightmare, and that I wish he was dead. I don’t need to, because Mom’s right there again, bonded to a dragon I hate. “I’ll try,” I say. The main difference is that this time, it’s her fault.
I know we’re in for a miserable time with that bond. Gideon and Dad have just disappeared when I hear a very strange sound, like a car that’s backfiring.
And Thunar shrinks down into his human form, a burly, large, and brutal form. He looks like every motorcycle club guy wishes he looked, but sans tattoos.
And it’s a form that I’ve seen before.
Stupid Freya showed me this guy in a dream—a nightmare—in the volcano. Thunar was the man who was whipping Azar bloody as I begged him to shift.
“What?” Thunar asks.
“Nothing,” I whisper.
But Azar can sense something’s wrong. What’s wrong? What happened?
He was—I saw him in the volcano. Freya forced me to make choices, and in the dream-state she threw me into, he was beating you badly with a whip. I shudder.
“Am I an ugly human?” Thunar asks. “Is that it?”
“Yes,” I say at the same time Coral says it.
He grunts. “As if that matters.” He’s smiling when he shifts back into his flame dragon form, and then he launches into the sky, presumably to go and eat.
He didn’t kill your mother, Azar says. That alone is a miracle.
He’s probably making sure he can eat before he does, I say.
But he doesn’t come back, at least not for the rest of the day. Mom follows the kids to bed that night and sleeps in Sammy’s room. It’s weird having her here. I know she was trying to help me, but I can’t help feeling bad about being back in this place where I can’t keep her safe, no matter what I do. It’s like we haven’t learned anything in months and months of dealing with the dragons.
But we have.
I have.
This time will be different.
Or at least, I really, really hope it will.
Chapter 20
Gullveig
Odin’s gone away to war again.
The vanir won’t quit coming, and no matter how many we kill, there are always more later. They massacre humans. They control others. They take and take and take, and nothing ever changes, even with the heart in our possession.
In fact, the heart hasn’t brought us much luck that I can see. I carefully open the door, relieved to see that Freya’s in her earth child form.
Or I’m relieved until I see that she’s laid another egg.
That always sets her off.
“Wow, that one’s stunning,” I say. “May I look at it?”
