Page 60 of Thor's Unexpected Mate

Without a second glance back, I headed down the tunnel with the gun held at my side. I hoped that wherever the tunnel let out in the house was private because the last thing I wanted to do was come up right through the living room floor where anyone could see me. But I didn’t have time to second guess myself. I only had two minutes left.

I practically ran down the tunnel, following its gentle curve until I reached a set of stairs. There I stopped for just a moment, listening intently.

Voices. Muffled, but after a moment I recognized it as Tyr’s. He was talking to Nana or himself. I wasn't sure. But he didn't sound close to the trapdoor.

Thirty seconds left.

I tried the trapdoor and it lifted easily. Pushing it up with careful hands, I stuck my head above the lip of the floor. I was in Nana's bedroom in the far corner. A small chair sat in front of the door, blocking it from view. I pulled myself up and through quickly, careful to make sure I didn't make any noise. Leaving the door open, I crept to the doorway, gun held shakily in my hands.

“Well,” Tyr said with a click of his tongue. “Time’s up granny. It looks like your precious grandson isn't coming to save you.”

“Think again!” I shouted, thrusting myself around the doorframe with the gun pointed directly at Tyr's head.

He spun on his heel, gave me one good look, and began to laugh.

Chapter Twenty-Five: Flynn

I stared down the laughing Tyr, no idea what had caused him to erupt. I thought it might be a trick, so I held the gun high, my arms still shaking.

“By the gods!” he wheezed, his hands on his knees. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

“Let my Nana go, Tyr,” I growled. “I'm the one you want.”

He glanced back at my tied up and gagged Nana, still cackling. “I was doing the whole big bad wolf bit to be funny!” He pointed back at me, wiping the tears from his eyes. “But I never expected him to show up with ginger hair and a red hoodie!” He let out a few more laughs, clearly mad with amusement. “Please tell me you had to cross a river on the way here. Or maybe there was a handsome woodsman on the way? Got any bread in that back pocket of yours?”

“You're fucking crazy,” I muttered, not lowering the gun. “But that doesn't mean I won't shoot you.”

“Oh please.” He waved me off in dismissal. “If you were gonna shoot me, you wouldn't have announced yourself.” He gave me one good look up and down, sobering up at last. “I can tell just from the way you're holding that thing that you have no idea what you're doing. Clearly your Nana here never trained you.”

“I don’t need to be trained to pull a trigger.”

“Yes, actually, you do.” He glared my direction, clearly no longer amused with my standing up to him. “Your Nana and her husband went through years of training to learn how to kill werewolves. I have no doubt both of them had taken down dozens of them before they finally retired. If anyone could tell you how difficult it is to take one of us down, it would be her.” He leaned close. “She’s a cold-blooded killer.”

“I don’t believe you,” I snapped back. “Nana would never do anything like that!”

“How can you be so blind?”

“I’m not blind just because I don’t believe you! You tried to kill my mother, and you killed my grandfather! If anyone here is a killer, it’s you!”

“Well, you’re definitely right about that.” He took a few steps closer. “And I can see that you are not a killer. Takes one to know one, right?” He sighed. “You don’t have the stuff, kid.”

He was right, and I knew that. But it didn’t mean I couldn’t wound him if I needed to.

“Let Nana go,” I ordered.

He laughed. “No.”

I tilted the gun toward his shoulder, clenched my eyes shut, and pulled the trigger, bracing myself for the blast.

But there was only a dull click as the slide snapped backward and stayed there. Tyr looked me dead in the eye, a cruel smile curling over his lips as he clicked his tongue.

“Good try,” he said, shooting out a hand and ripping the gun from my grip.

But the moment it touched his hand he let out a yelp and tossed it to the ground where it slid into a corner. He stared down at his hand, his skin shiny and burned where he’d touched the gun.

“Silver?!” he growled.

I expected the skin to heal over quickly. I’d seen simple scratches on Thor close up in seconds. The night he’d given me a drop of his blood to help me heal faster, the wound closed in less than a minute. It should’ve already been healing.

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