Chapter Six Thor

"W olves! HA!" I laughed probably a little too loudly. "There's no wolves on this mountain! You must have been hallucinating from the pain or something!"

Flynn narrowed his eyes for a moment, but finally sighed. "Yeah. You're probably right." He took another sausage link from the plate and munched on it happily. "I bet that hallucination was because of my Nana. She claims there are wolves all over these mountains. Especially the eastern one."

I laughed again, stuffing my mouth full of omelet before I could say anything stupid. Flynn did remember me in wolf form, although thankfully he easily dismissed it. His Nana however, how the hell did she know about the wolves or the eastern mountain? Had the Skoll pack shown themselves to her? She wasn't a witch as far as I knew, but then again, I'd never met her. Maybe she was something else, another type of creature that I didn't know about. It wasn't like werewolves were the only thing living in these hills. It was only two years ago that we had to kick a siren out of the hot springs that kept trying to drown the guests. I didn't even know they could live in freshwater until that happened.

Flynn just shook his head. "Old people! Am I right?"

"They sure are quirky!" I laughed, again maybe a bit too brightly. It was easy to tell Flynn was already suspicious of me on multiple levels. I needed to find something we could do that would get us past this awkwardness. "So… uh… do you want to go down to the hot springs to relax for a bit?"

Flynn lifted an eyebrow. "After I just ate? Aren't I supposed to wait a half hour or something before swimming?"

"The pool is only a couple feet deep at the most. And we have seats installed."

"I mean, I wouldn't mind trying it out. I've never been to a hot spring before."

"You mean to tell me your grandma has been living there her whole life, and she's never brought you up here?"

Flynn's face fell. "My mom didn't let me come out here very often and Nana… well, she's not very well off financially."

"Oh." I glanced down at my plate, pushing a roasted beet around the edges. "I guess this place isn't very cheap, is it?"

"Not really."

"That could explain why our client base has been dwindling for a while now. This place was built as a luxury resort where people stayed for days to weeks. But nowadays we're lucky to get people for a night or two once a year."

"Not a lot of people have those luxuries anymore," Flynn replied. "Especially around here. Anyone that comes here has got to be from pretty far away, right?"

"Mostly Manhattan, Chicago, and Boston."

"That explains all their weird accents." Flynn crinkled up his nose, speaking like he had a severe cold. " They all talk like this! "

I couldn't help a warm smile. For someone who had been through it in the past fourteen hours, he was in pretty good spirits. Baldr's magic had worked wonders on him. But he was also a goof and for some reason, I found that deeply attractive. Maybe it was because I didn't have a lot of guy friends or maybe it was because werewolves were just too damn serious all the time. But there was a severe lack of laughter in my life that Flynn was quickly filling with his charm, wit, and smiles.

"You're funny," I said genuinely, although it came out awkward, anyway.

"Thanks." He took another sausage link before pushing his plate away. "Most people just think I'm sassy because I'm gay."

"You know, I was gonna ask," I started. "I mean, when I called you cute, you didn't even flinch. I figured you couldn't be straight after that, but I didn't want to pry."

"Yeah, I'm a platinum gay."

I cocked my head to the side. "Platinum?"

"I've never touched a vagina in my life." He could see the look of confusion on my face, so he explained. "A gold star gay is one who has never had sex with a woman but was born naturally. A platinum gay is that but born through a c-section. That's me."

"Oh." What an odd thing to label. "Okay."

"And I'm guessing you're straight but curious."

"No actually," I started. But then I paused. "Well, I've been with women before."

"Probably all the time by the looks of you."

"Not as much as you might think. But I've never been curious about men."

"So… what makes me different?"

I couldn't tell him he was my fated mate and we were destined by the moon goddess to be together forever. That would send him running for the hills. Or well, crawling. No, I had to come up with something else that was still honest, but not the truth.

"I can't quite place my finger on it," I said at last. "You're very attractive, you have beautiful eyes, I like your red hair, and you just smell really good."

I froze.

"I smell good?!" Flynn gave me the most horrified look. "How long were you sniffing me while I was passed out?"

"I… that came out wrong," I stammered. "I mean when I carried you back here. It just… I could smell you… I guess. I didn't do it on purpose!"

He gave me some major side eye. "What do I smell like?"

"Uh… well…" I took a deep breath. "Kinda like Mountain Laurel I guess?"

There was a long discerning squint in my direction before he finally spoke. "I guess that's okay. As long as you didn't have your nose buried up my taint or something weird."

The thought instantly made my cock twitch. "No! I would never do that! That's so weird! Ha-ha!"

Again, with the fake laughing. I needed to get a hold of myself.

"To the hot springs then?"

Please say yes. Anything to get me out of here.

He paused for a moment, looking me over one last time before he shrugged. "Sure. As long as you promise not to sniff me on the way down."

I shook my head. "Of course not." I paused. "Uh… do you want me to take you in a wheelchair or… I could… carry you?"

"I think a chair might be better for now," he chuckled. "Unless you have one of those little scooter things."

"We… might? I can call down and ask. Give me a minute."

Excusing myself from the table, I did just that. Picking up my phone once again, I called down to maintenance and had a knee walker brought up from storage in the basement. I was shocked we even had one, but it was better to be prepared for these sorts of things than to be caught off guard. Guests had a tendency to make all sorts of weird requests. And the richer they were, the stranger the request usually.

Helping Flynn get himself situated in the walker, I led him down the hall to the private elevator that only went up to my suite. I scanned my badge and took us down to the main floor where I got him a badge to let him into whatever he wanted in the resort and to comp all his services. From there it was a short walk down to the hot springs.

"This place is really beautiful," he commented as we headed down the long hallways toward the changing rooms. "Did your family build it?"

"A couple generations ago, yeah. My grandfather started it as just a hotel, but it underwent major renovations during my father's reign."

"And the hot springs were always here?"

"As far as we know. It was the reason my family settled in this area so long ago."

"Mountain people tend to stay in one place," he nodded. "My Nana is still furious my mother moved out to the city and left it all behind."

"That's pretty taboo," I grinned. "And I can't imagine why anyone would want to leave this place. It's beautiful." I paused for a moment thinking of my father and what the Skoll pack had done to him. "Well, maybe I can see why. Lots of memories here."

"Yeah. She said she wanted to be more than just some farm girl destined to do nothing else but get married to some idiot mountain man and have babies." Flynn laughed, shaking his head. "So she went to the city, got married, had a baby, and also got a career that eats up all of her time." He glanced up at me. "Personally, I think I could stand a mountain man if it meant I didn't have to spend my whole life in a cubicle."

Was that a hint? Was he hitting on me? My heart skipped a beat, but I tried to play it cool.

"Yeah… I guess there's a couple decent guys out here most likely."

"And you're one of them?"

There was a tone of accusation in his voice, like he was daring me to sell myself to him.

"I don't know if I'll ever be as good as I would hope," I replied truthfully. "But I try."

Flynn sighed. "Better than most guys?"

I couldn't help my curiosity. "Oh? Unlucky with the guys?"

"Getting lucky is easy," he said. "It's getting one to actually care for you, that's the hard part. Everyone just wants a piece of ass, then they leave."

"I care about you," I heard myself say before I could clamp my mouth shut.

He lifted an eyebrow with a look of disbelief. "That's nice of you to say, but you don't know me. You can't care about someone you don't know."

"I–"

"Thor!"

I spun around, that voice sending a cold streak of dread through me. Intense blue eyes, dark hair, and a threatening aura charged my way, his fists balled at his sides. My brother Loki was the last person I wanted to run into while I was out with Flynn.

"Where have you been?" he barked. "I've been looking all over for you!"

"I… uh…" I glanced in Flynn's direction, a plea in my eyes. "I was just helping a guest to the hot springs. If you just wait here, I'll come talk with you once I've got him all set up."

"Oh no you don't," Loki growled. "I've been searching for you all morning." He glared in my direction. "I'll help you with our guest and then we have some important things to discuss."

Christ… the way he talked. Flynn probably thought we were running a damn mafia front.

"I can take myself to the hot spring if you have stuff to do," Flynn offered. "I know my way back to the room."

My heart sank as Loki glared at me. "Right. Of course you do. Just let me get you an assistant or something…"

"I'm fine," Flynn laughed, placing his hand on my shoulder. A small electric shock swept through my body heading straight for my cock. "I'm a big boy. I tie my own flip-flops and everything."

"A-Alright," I stammered. "If you're sure."

"I'm sure."

"Good," Loki said, grabbing my arm and tearing me away from Flynn. "We have some things to discuss."

"I'll check on you later," I called back before I could stop myself.

Loki burned me another dirty look but kept pulling. He managed to drag me through the building to a private meeting room before turning on me with a growl .

"What the fuck was that all about?"

I tried to play stupid. "What do you mean?"

"You're the Alpha of the pack!" Loki hissed. "Stop wasting your time with guests and start focusing on getting revenge on that fucker that killed our father. How can you even bother with some human at a time like this?!"

There were a metric fuck ton of implications in his tone, ones that I knew were against pack law. Flynn's comment made Loki think we were fucking. Of course, I wanted that, more than anything, but even I knew how inappropriate that was. And if anyone found out, my place as Alpha could be challenged. Loki would probably be the one to challenge me too.

"I was just trying to be hospitable," I replied, trying to act innocent.

"You were being soft-hearted again," he barked. "Let the broken human figure out his own life. We have more important things to do. We're wolves, we don't need to cater to this lower species!"

"We need their business to survive," I growled back, not appreciating the way he was speaking to me. "We can't just go live in the woods like the Skoll pack. Do you want to live in a hut and eat squirrels every day, Loki?"

He scoffed, crossing his arms. "Seems better than putting up with all these little assholes trying to give orders all the time. I'm a wolf , not a fucking lap dog."

"Well, I'm the Alpha of the pack and I say we treat our guests well regardless of our own personal feelings about who's higher in the food chain."

"Whatever."

I sighed. There was no getting through to him when he was like this. And baring my teeth would just make it worse. I'd learned that one that hard way. Instead, I just took a deep breath and forced myself to remain calm.

"What did you need, Loki?"

"I came to talk to you about Tyr," he huffed. "He was on the march again last night and he came into our territory."

"I know. Baldr and I were out scouting last night. We saw them coming." I furrowed my brows. "But I didn't know he came into Hati territory."

"You know that's an act of war, right?" Loki snapped. "We need to do something!"

"It was an act of war when he killed our father, Loki. We've been at war the whole time."

"Then why the fuck haven't we killed him yet?!" Loki threw his arms wide. "You're so worried about this fucking resort that you don't do anything! We need to take them out! We need to get revenge!"

"Loki…" I sighed. "You know it's not that simple. I can't just ask our wolves to sacrifice themselves because the Skoll Alpha killed our father. They have families and pups to take care of. We live nearly normal lives here."

"You mean human lives."

"The world is not as big as it used to be, Loki. We have to adapt to survive."

"I suppose next you'll want us all to wear collars and take ourselves on walks?" He jabbed a finger into my chest. "Those wolves lost their Alpha too, you know? Our father was a great leader and you're shaming him by being such a fucking coward."

"Now wait just a minute–"

But he was already gone, storming off across the gardens back toward the hotel. I stood there for a long moment, a mixture of anger and sadness clawing its way through my chest. Loki and I had been such friends as children but since our father died… well, it had hit him the hardest. He'd been fighting me every moment since. I had a feeling he would've made a stronger Alpha than me, but he would have marched us straight into battle. And I just didn't think that was the right way to go.

The Skoll Alpha needed to be punished. But I wasn't going to sacrifice the wolves that followed me to do it. If it ever came to blows, it would be just me and him.

And then I'd tear his throat out.