Page 35 of Thor's Unexpected Mate

A hand reached out, clicking on the lamp and my jaw fell open.

I didn’t see blond hair, a beard, and tattoos. Instead, I saw a man with dark hair, a smaller but still intimidating frame, and a familiar pair of bright blue eyes. It was Thor’s brother, Loki, and he looked fucking furious.

“Who the flying fuck are you?” he snapped. “And how the hell do you have a key to this room?!”

“I… uh…”

I knew I couldn’t let him think that Thor and I were together. Loki was the one he seemed the most concerned about. I might be upset with him, but I didn’t want to make his life worse.

“Thor gave it to me,” I replied at last. “He said he wanted to talk to me about… my room accommodations.”

Fuck. Why couldn’t I have thought up a better lie? There had to be some way to make this sound less sketchy.

“And he wanted to tell me about some healing therapy that might help my leg. He said the hot springs had some sort of special property or something?” I shook my head, trying to feign confusion. “Anyway, he wanted me to stop by. Can you tell him I’m here?”

Loki gave me a good once over, one of his eyebrows arched high. Clearly, he didn’t believe me. He sniffed at the air a couple of times and then scoffed.

“Fine,” he snapped. “Wait there and don’t nose around.”

“Why would I do that?”

But he didn’t answer as he disappeared around a corner. Seriously, what a dick. I could see why Thor had such a problem with him. The guy seemed to fly off the handle at just about anything. I’d only met him twice now and each time he was in a pissy mood, like a god snapping at anything that got near him. Someone needed to take the stick out of his ass. Or push it in further, I wasn’t really sure what kind of stuff he was into.

I stood there quietly as a minute passed by and then two. There were voices coming from the other end of the hallway where Thor’s office was, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. At last Loki returned with an exhausted-looking Thor trailing behind. His shoulders were bunched up around his ears, he had dark circles under his eyes, and he looked like he hadn’t gotten a lick of sleep since I’d seen him that morning.

“Make it quick,” Loki said, flopping down in the chair. “We’ve got a meeting tonight.”

“Right,” Thor nodded. He glanced up at me, his expression turning even more haggard. Just the sight of me was enough to exhaust him further. That boded well. “Let’s talk,” he sighed, waving me back out into the hall. He turned back to Loki. “I’ll see you at the meeting.”

With that, we both left Thor’s suite and headed down the hall.

“What do you need?” he asked as we reached the elevator.

“What do I need?” I scoffed. “I thought it would be obvious.”

He let out a deep sigh. “Right. You’re upset. Baldr told me you would be.”

“Sounds like he at least has a little bit of sense,” I snapped back. “Must not run in the family.”

Thor glanced down the hall, lowering his voice. “Look… we… we just can’t, okay? That’s just the way it is.”

“I want an explanation.”

“I… I don’t like you like that…” he said in the most unconvincing tone ever.

“Bullshit.” I reached up, grabbing him by the shirt collar and pulling him down to my level. “You’re going to come down to my room and you’re going to tell me the truth.”

“I don’t have the time–”

“Then make the time,” I growled. “I deserve that much.”

Another sigh. “I… Alright. But I only have an hour. After that you have to go on your way.” It sounded almost painful for him to say those words. “I can’t do this. My… my family needs me right now.”

“Come on.” I gestured for him to get in the elevator as the doors pulled open. “You can explain it downstairs in my new suite. Nobody will overhear you there.”

“Right.”

Thor climbed into the elevator, and I followed suit. I felt a little bad for riding his ass so hard about this, but then again, I was still upset about it. Maybe it was stupid, but I didn’t care. There was some strange feeling still drawing me to him and I needed it gone. Hopefully his explanation would be enough to sever it for good so I could get on with my life.

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