Page 44 of Last Thrall of Asgard

While the hot spring I was in was part of the landscape, the room wasn’t in any cave system, or at least this part wasn’t underground. There was stone and wood around me to enclose the bathing hut, with bowls and soaps like the one I’d come from, and small tables covered with lit candles. Torchlight from outside added further illumination, but not so much that it dulled the stars. It was practically romantic.

If only Loki was in here with me.

“Thordidlook ravishing in a dress,” he eventually said, cool and even toned, “but I did convince him to go along with the suggestion because I enjoy making people laugh.”

“Sounds like he didn’t need much convincing.”

“No.” Loki chuckled. “But we made a good show of it for the others.”

“So he said. Plus, by doing so, you gave him an excuse to exist in a way he couldn’t admit he enjoys.”

“I suppose I did.”

“And you had fun with him andThrymlater, apparently.”

Loki didn’t comment at that. Of course he didn’t.

“You said to me, when we first met, that you prefer a man’s cock. What did you think of Thor’s back then?”

“Overrated.” Loki returned to flippant. “Youmust have enjoyed it, given you went back for seconds.”

“You didn’t retrieve me. And how could I pass up two gods at once? You’re hardly the prudish type to judge. You’ve fucked and been fucked more than any of the gods, with possibly the most children because of it.”

“Yes. What a deviant that makes me.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“You are helping the others as agreed,” Loki said. He wasn’t flippant now, or cooly detached. He sounded angry, while trying to hide it behind clenched teeth. “Splendidly so, in fact. Above and beyond! You are fulfilling your end of the bargain, meaning you are well on your way to being free of me.”

I splashed some of the steaming water. Maybe Icouldn’twork with him like this. I kept saying and doing the wrong things, and whenever I thought I knew what he wanted, or at least how to get him to admit what he wanted, I angered him instead. “Do you want to be free of me?”

“Why wouldn’t I? I hardly know you.”

“I know you.”

“You think—”

“I. Know. You,” I repeated. “Far more about you, honestly, than I could say about anyone else in my life, gods or otherwise. But you don’t know much about me. You’re right. You didn’t even know I’m not a farm boy.”

“Just a stable hand?” Loki taunted.

“Among other things.”

“I know what ‘other’ usually entails for you, Oli.”

Wasthis jealousy? It seemed so, but also resentful in a way I didn’t quite get.

Why would Loki resent me? Maybe because he didn’t understand me.

“You know a little about me but not enough. Like how I cried for a week after my mother was sold,” I said, and once I’d started down a path of truths, more came easily. “How the first time Thorsten fucked me, I thought I loved him. Then the first time he fucked me calling methrallinstead of by my name, part of me hated him and has ever since.

“How I stitched the most beautiful garment belonging to Thorsten’s mother. She thinks one of the maidens did it. Every time she wears it, I want to say that it is beautiful because I made it beautiful. But I don’t. What would be the point? Even if she praised me, it would just be words. I’d still be her slave.

“I have grown more bitter every year since I was fifteen and realized my lot in life would never change. Maybe I’m still bitter, even believing there might be an end in sight. But the strange thing, the pathetic thing, is that even with Thorsten, I liked having made someone happier when they left me than they were when they found me. I liked it. I really did. At least that part. I just hated that it was always as a thrall and never my choice.”

“Because it felt like fate was beyond your control?” Loki asked, eerily calm again.

“Isn’t that the nature of fate? Perhaps I would be a tailor or an artist more than a stable hand if I was free to choose my fate. The idea of having that choice still baffles me and doesn’t feel real.”

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