“Do you think I care what her name is?” I pushed Tore again, and again. Finally, he reached up to wrap long fingers around my wrists. He lowered my hands to my sides with gentle strength and held them there despite what felt like a herculean attempt by me to straight up punch him in the stomach. God, I hate this god. Demigod. Whatever the hell he is.
“You should care about Nott.” Tore kept his voice level, but I could see it took tremendous effort for him not to yell back at me. His nostrils flared with each inhale, and the vein over his jaw pulsed.
“Well, I don’t. And I don’t particularly care about you, or your brand of crazy. Do you seriously expect me to take in all of that information and just deal with it?” My tone could have shattered glass. At a minimum, it should have brought Tore’s roommates out of hiding. But nobody emerged from the kitchen. Maybe the guys were afraid of the screaming match taking place in their living room. They probably figured they couldn’t handle me right now. Good call, boys. I was definitely going into town tomorrow and buying four more cans of pepper spray—one with each of their names on it.
“Yes, that’s my advice.” Tore bent down, so his calm voice spoke into my ear. It was doing weird things to my belly. Knock it off, belly. “That’s my advice because that’s what we do in Asgard. We god up. And the sooner you figure that out, the better.”
“I don’t want to god up.” I tried to pull away from Tore, but he held me close to him. Thick muscles pressed against my chest, sending a heated pulse through my energy centers. The sensation was anything but unpleasant. No, Allie. You do not like this jerk. You don’t.
Said jerk lowered his head so his lips brushed against my ear. “Listen, Pepper.”
“Pepper?” Was he still holding on to the pepper spraying incident?
“Listen, Pepper,” he repeated. “I know what it’s like to want to walk away from all of this. But demis don’t have that option. Take tonight and grieve the loss of your old life, because, believe me, life as you knew it is over. Then in the morning, get up, and start preparing to save this world with the rest of us.”
“Is this your idea of a pep talk?” I asked. “It seriously sucks, and unless you want to have to regrow your man parts, you need to let me go. Now.”
“I don’t do pep talks.” Tore dismissed my threat. “What I do is solve problems. At the moment, Midgard has a demon-sized problem named Nott. Eir’s healing energy is the only thing that can keep Midgard alive, but Eir needs someone to god up and wake her from the Night Sleep. And for reasons I’ll never understand, the Alf?dr wants you to do the job. Which means I have to train someone who’s for all intents and purposes a human,” he spat out the word, “to do a god’s job. Or this world, and an indeterminable number of additional light realms, will die.” Tore’s chest tightened again, the muscles across his torso flexing with the movement as he released my wrists. “So, like I said, deal with it.”
“How do I know you guys didn’t make all of this up? That Bodie’s little vision bubble wasn’t some kind of, what did you call it in class, an energy manipulation?”
Tore took another deep breath, so his chest pressed even closer to mine. Even though he had let go of my wrists, neither of us backed away. I stared at the buttons of his fitted grey Henley, totally not appreciating the way they picked up on the grey flecks in his azure eyes. It was a universal joke that the jerks were always the hottest ones. Stupid universe.
“You think I’m manipulating you?” Tore asked. I looked up to find his eyes narrowed in irritation.
“What would you think if you were in my place?” I argued.
I expected Tore’s jaw vein to pulse, or a darkness to cloud his eyes. But instead of anger, sympathy returned. His gaze softened, and the tension in his brow ebbed. The thin lines of his lips became pale pink pillows, and he raked his bottom lip between his teeth in a movement I normally characterized with hesitation. Also, hotness. Tore’s teeth on his lips were all kinds of hot. No, they’re not, Allie. Jerk, remember?
“Allie,” Tore murmured. He shook his head. “You can’t see because you haven’t seen.”
“That makes zero sense,” I pointed out, trying valiantly to cease my lip ogling.
“I understand, now.” Tore spun me gently around. He placed a hand on my lower back and steered me toward the hallway. He grabbed a beanie from the table by the entryway, tucking it into his back pocket as he walked. “We expected you to be okay with something that could never make sense to a human. And we didn’t take into account that in your view, you are a human. Which was part of the plan, but still—”
“Start making sense, buddy, or the regrowing of man parts will commence very, very soon.”
“I’m going to show you, in a way that Bodie couldn’t, exactly what you have to fight for.” Tore opened the front door, pausing at the threshold to stare at me. “And what you have to live for.”
The look in his eyes was half invitation, half challenge, with a dash of hope thrown in for good measure. He was asking my permission, in his extremely convoluted way, and I knew it was the best I was going to get from him.
“Fine.” I stormed onto the porch after him. If I had to meet him halfway, I was doing it on my terms. I called over my shoulder as I stomped. “Mack, Bodie, Johann, apparently, Tore and I will be on the porch.”
“Not exactly.” Tore stepped outside and closed the front door behind him. “We’re going a little further than the porch.”
“Where then, exactly?” I was over the cryptic messaging.
Tore walked down the steps and stood in the clearing. He put his beanie on before extending his hands. With a hearty eye-roll, I made my way to his side.
“Where?” I repeated.
“Allie Rydell.” His expression was deadly serious. “I’m taking you to Asgard.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“WHAT? ARE YOU INSANE?” I backed hurriedly away from what was clearly one loony guy. Said loony reached out to grab my hand. He had me at his side before I’d registered what was happening.
“Heimdall. Open the Bifrost!” he shouted. He scooped me into his arms so I was cradled against a chest that smelled irritatingly sexy. Like sandalwood and winter and guy, all mixed up in one. Yum. No, not yum. He’s crazy.
A fierce wind accompanied the blinding light that shot into the clearing. I blinked against the influx of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. And my freak-out shot from level eleven to level bajillion.
“Heimdall, take us to Asgard.” Tore stepped into the light, carrying me with him like some insipid damsel in distress.