14. BINGO CARD OF DEATH

14

BINGO CARD OF DEATH

" Y ou happy now?" I yelled as we raced through the swamp, a herd of ravenous trolls thundering along behind us. There were enough of them that they repeatedly sent waves of water sloshing forward with their giant legs and the momentum they had going on.

"Not really. Being right in this particular situation isn't a great feeling!" Bebe clung to my backpack for dear life, crouched low. Which was smart.

Even as a buoyant retriever, I had gone under the waves twice already. Havoc and Han were ahead, moving easily, dodging the worst of the onslaught from behind, even with Havoc's injury. To be fair, the trolls were throwing trees that went over my head and landed closer to the brothers.

"I didn't want this on my bingo card!" Bebe shrieked as we hit a firm patch of ground, only to have a croc-a-gator snap at us from our left.

I didn't have more breath to spare an answer.

"Hurry, get to the doorway!" Han barked.

Han. The guy who'd been trying to kill me all along was now telling me to hurry up so I'd survive, and it was freaking me out.

But he was pointing at safety, or at least what I hoped was safety. Just ahead of us was a massive mangrove tree, bigger than any other tree I'd seen in the swamp so far. The middle of the tree had been split open, a narrow ‘doorway' that yawned with darkness and flickered with lightning.

Lightning, inside the tree? It screamed magic.

"This is going to hurt," I muttered.

"Not worse than being eaten alive," Bebe yelped back.

Havoc disappeared through the tree first, a crack of thunder ripping through the air, and a howl followed it. I picked up speed, took a step and pain lanced through me, my right hind leg caught on something, jerking me to a stop.

Before I could catch my breath, I was yanked underwater and rolled. A scaley-dilly had caught me, not a log. Right at the finish line. Son of a bitch, I hoped no one had been betting on me making it.

My body was thrashed as the beast rolled, spinning me so fast I would have no idea what was up or down, even if it had let me go. I scrabbled and tried to fight, kicking with my free leg at the croc's face, trying to hit an eyeball.

Lungs burning, the need to grab a breath of air clawing at me. What if I shifted? Would I be able to use my hands to claw at its eyes? Frantic, the idea was all I had. I shifted to two legs and pain erupted up my shin bone as the croc bit down deeper. My human legs were thicker than my golden…I screamed underwater, unable to stop myself from letting out the precious air.

I was going to die.

In a swamp, drowned by a croc while trolls trampled my friend.

Bebe. I had to get the sun to her.

I was going to miss her so damn much. I hoped she got away. That was my last thought as I prepared to drink in the swamp. I couldn't hold my breath any longer.

The croc let me go, and the release was so sudden that I didn't move at first.

Hands grabbed at me, yanking me upward and then I was in someone's arms, my head hanging, throwing up swamp water to the side.

"More, more, more! I'm hungry ungry grungry!" The bellow of the troll's leader was so close, I could smell his breath, and it was no better than the smell of their camp, shitty and full of rot .

How many bits of flesh were trapped in his teeth? How long had they been there?

"Not the time!" Havoc snarled as he tightened his hold on me.

Had I asked the questions out loud?

Wait. Havoc had me in his arms? Why not just let me die?

The trolls threw something big, the whistle of it in the air like a missile aimed straight for us, crashing at our feet as we fell through the tree's doorway.

We were thrown through, falling down, down into icy cold water. We hit it together and I jerked out of Havoc's arms, realizing just how fucking close to death I was. My feet found the bottom of what felt like a river, and I pushed off to the surface with my good leg. The leg the croc-a-gator had bitten throbbed, and I was sure it was broken, but the pain was distant.

I gasped as I broke the surface.

"DON'T DO THAT TO ME!" Bebe screeched. "You…you…how could you do that? I had to go through the doorway on my own and get one of these idiots to run back for you, and Han wouldn't, but Havoc would, and I didn't know if he was going to kill you!"

I spun slowly in the water to face the shoreline. "Thanks, Bebe. You're the best. As always."

She huffed and glared at me, bedraggled, looking very much like a drowned rat, but the mud was gone at least. I doubted I looked much better. The river water washed away the worst of the swamp.

Gritting my teeth, I swam to the shoreline.

"Cin."

Havoc's voice turned me around. His eyes were no longer filled with hate, with death… "You're hurt."

"Yup, par for the course. Thanks for the rescue back there. You going to try and kill me?"

He ran his hands over his head. "Loki was right. The spell is dampened here. I can fight it off."

"Why is that? Not that we're complaining, but explain it to me like I'm a child?" Bebe asked.

"You are a child compared to us." Han sat on the edge of the clear flowing river. "Spells cast in a specific realm, stay in that specific realm. Sven would have to cast the spell here too, for it to be effective. I doubt he thought any of us would step out of Midgard. Pardon me, Earth."

Havoc stayed in the deeper water. His injury bled and the water turned pink around him. To be fair, the water was pink around me too.

"How far are the Norns?" I asked.

Both brothers huffed like I'd asked a hilarious question, which did not leave me with a great deal of confidence.

"Hard to say." Havoc took a step toward me and when I didn't retreat, he kept moving, slowly, carefully. " The Norns could be three days from this place, or three hundred."

The tree does not have three hundred days. You must hurry, the spirit of the tree of life whispered through me, urgency pushing me.

"We need it to be closer."

"You need to heal," Havoc said.

"Pot meet kettle." I pointed at his side. "How long before you're healed?"

His eyebrows shot up. "Twelve hours. Faster if there is food in that pack Loki sent."

I slid out of the straps and threw it out onto the shoreline. Han scooped it and started to rifle through it. "Lots of stuff. Clothes, food, medical supplies."

Havoc was so close now, I could have reached out and touched him, but I wasn't going to be stupid—I couldn't afford to be stupid. His memories meant something, but we were in the thick of this still. "So, if we make it out of here and go back to earth, that spell of Sven's will kick back in?"

"Yes. Sven would have to die for this spell to be removed, as I doubt he will lift it on his own." Damn, just a few words and I was shivering as if he'd touched me.

I had it bad.

I was going to be stupid.

I held a hand to him, and he wrapped his fingers around mine, warmth suffusing my skin where he was touching me.

He took another step and grimaced as a fresh burst of pink water swirled around his middle. He bent to pick me up and I shook my head as I moved away from him. "You can't lift me out. And I can't walk out on my own. That croc-a-gator did a number on my leg."

"Fuck," Han snapped. "I'll pick you up, but it's the last time."

As if he'd picked me up before. I wasn't quite sure what he was referring to, but I let go of Havoc as Han flipped off his coat and strode out into the river.

As he reached me, a flare of annoyance crossed his features, and he scooped me up. Carefully. Was he actually worried about causing me pain? Why?

The mate bond between us flared as his bare arm touched the back of my legs. Well shit, that explained things then, didn't it? Only for me, the bond was an irritant.

For him it was making him…gentle.

Even with Han being as cautious as he was being, I couldn't help the hiss of pain that ripped through my clenched teeth. My leg dangled and the bones ground and bit against one another in a most unpleasant way.

Havoc snarled. "Be careful with her."

Han closed his eyes. "Sorry."

I blinked and stared at him, then looked at Bebe. "Did I hear…right? "

"Yeah, that's fucking weird," Bebe said.

"It's the mate bond," Han growled. "With Sven's spell fully gone…the mate bond is…ramping up. It's why I sought you out in Alaska. To see if what I was feeling was real."

I might have agreed with him, only I wasn't feeling shit on my end toward him. I kept my mouth shut as he walked us out and carefully, damn near gently, lowered me onto where he'd dropped his coat.

Havoc followed us out of the river, and I took a moment to look away from him because it was too much. In large part because there was nothing tying us together anymore. He'd sliced it clean through.

I could have been offended, even hurt by that fact except that I was pretty sure I knew why he'd done it.

To keep me safe, one last effort to keep me alive.

And even with that…his memories had come to me.

"Here, put something on." Bebe dragged the backpack to me. "You look cold. Or at least your nipples do."

I sighed and dug around in the bag, pulling out a sports bra, underwear, jeans and a plain black shirt. Nothing fancy, but it would do. I got the bra and shirt on no problem, everything else would have to wait.

Han grumbled under his breath. "I hate this shit. I'm starting a fire."

Again, I wasn't sure what shit he was referring to. The fact that we were here, maybe? That he'd agreed to help? Or that he could feel the mate bond and it was making him nice?

Option number three was my guess.

Havoc groaned as he lowered himself beside me. He didn't say anything, just sat there at my side. I finally allowed myself to look around the space we were in, to distract myself from the throbbing in my leg, and the urge to reach for Havoc.

We had bigger problems than what lay between us. I knew that. He knew that.

Didn't mean I didn't want to crawl on top of him and let him hold me.

Bebe sat next to me, grooming herself dry, silent except for low level muttering.

The river was clear as a crystal, visibility easy all the way to the bottom. It gurgled and rolled over a few rocks here and there, but really it was a gentle current. The weird thing was it spilled out of a hole in the wall about ten feet up, as if the water were coming from the swamp. But the water wasn't dark or murky, it was beautifully clear, without a single drop of troll shit in it. When I took a deep breath, I realized that none of us smelled.

"Like a giant filtration system," I muttered.

"Something like that," Havoc said.

I kept up my perusal of the place. We were on a shoreline that was grass all the way to the edge of the river, short cropped like someone had mowed it. All around us were walls of rock that rose well over our heads into a cavern that I couldn't see the top of, further out it looked like a forest grew inside a massive cave system. There was light, but I couldn't tell where the source of it was.

"Are we safe here?"

"For the moment," Han said. I twisted around. He'd gotten a fire going and was headed toward me.

His eyes drifted over me and…they fucking softened. I pointed a finger at him. "Not a chance. Pull your mate bond away if you have to, but you're the one who said it and I agree. We don't do mother-daughter duos."

His smile was sudden and sharp, his eyes flaring with anger. "Fuck you too."

"Not if my life depended on it."

He leaned in. "But what if saving the world depended on it? That's why you fucked my brother, isn't it?"

Havoc grunted. "Maybe it's just because I'm better in bed."

My eyes popped wide, and Han shot a look at Havoc. "I doubt that. She'd have to fuck us both and give us a rating."

"I'm not?—"

Havoc laughed. "I'm not doing that again."

How the hell could he laugh? It was like…like they we re really acting like brothers again, arguing and comparing their dick sizes as they fought over a girl.

"That's messed up. Boys are messed up," Bebe said.

I agreed with her, but there was nothing I could do about spending time with the both of them. "You going to carry me to the fire, or make me crawl?"

"You don't want the mate bond, you can crawl." Han stood and walked away.

Ahhh, there he was. Nice guy number one.

"Don't be a dick, Han," Bebe said. "We saved your fucking bacon, you pick her up right now or I'll claw your tiny dick off myself."

Han whipped around. "My tiny dick? You mean the one you ogled and talked about riding until you screamed?"

Bebe shrugged. "I've seen bigger since."

Havoc choked on a laugh.

Han stared at her. "You must have been a real ball buster."

She arched her back and did a long downward dog stretch. "You have no idea."

Han stared at her. "You sure you aren't a Norse deity stuck in a cat's body?"

Bebe sighed. "I wish. You think I would allow all this shit to happen to me and my girl if I were a Norse anything?"

I didn't like that the two brothers answered together .

"Yes."

She huffed. "Well, I'm not. I fucked around with Loki. Petunia turned me into this. What do you want, a fucking medal for telling me that I'm nothing?"

Bebe turned and trotted toward the fire, still cursing and snapping at the two of them. Han bent and picked me up.

"I think your friend has been lying to you."

I shook my head. "I don't. I think you've just been lied to so much, that you don't know how to tell the truth even when it wants to claw your balls and dick off."

His arms tensed but then he relaxed and shrugged. "Well, when she tells you who she really is, whoever that might be, don't complain to me. Because I told you so."