His shoulders slumped. “I can honestly say that now that I’ve seen you again, I want you more than I’ve wanted anything in all the centuries of my life.” He turned around, his face showing a little of the agony that leached into the room from within him. “But I can’t feed from you. Not yet. Please try to understand.”

I looked at him, this man who I hadn’t wanted, who bossed me around, and drove me insane with both desire and an almost overwhelming urge to walk away once again from the pain he’d caused me. He had crushed my heart. He said he wanted me, but didn’t want to be with me. He craved my blood and the bond it would bring, but refused it nonetheless.

I should have told him I couldn’t trust someone who kept secrets from me.

I should have told him to hit the road.

I should have thrown him out of my life once and for all.

“What do you want me to do?” was all I asked.

“Trust me.” He stood there watching me with eyes that were now the color of mahogany, so handsome it almost hurt, everything I ever wanted in a man, everything I had ever dreamed about, as dark as sin, and twice as dangerous.

He didn’t love me. I had asked him, and bound to tell me the truth as he was, he hadn’t said he did. Could I trust him, given that we might have no future together? What if we simply ended up together, my chemical makeup reacting to his, two people who were physically meant to be together, but lacking the emotional bond that I knew I could not live without?

He had given me time when I needed it; surely I could return the favor. Hadn’t I gained enough insight into myself in the last twenty-four hours to grant him what he asked? I pulled up the blankets. “Good night, Ben.”

He said nothing, just gave me a look that left me tingling to the tips of my toes, and left.

I lay awake in the darkness for a long time after that, thinking about what he said, half asleep, rousing only for a few minutes when the low rumble of masculine voices outside the door woke me. I kept still and silent as the door was opened just a smidgen, allowing a thin finger of light to spill across the edge of the bed.

“Is the goddess—” I heard Isleif ask.

“Still a virgin,” Eirik answered in a satisfied tone, carefully closing the door. “She has not been touched by the Dark One.”

Was that a prophecy, or merely wishful thinking?

Chapter 8

I didn’t see Ben at all the following morning, but I didn’t expect to, given that sunlight was not his friend. Instead I spent a fruitless six hours with the Vikings as we searched the town of Brustwarze for signs of either Loki or the man the Vikings claimed was his son.

“You’re sure you saw him yesterday?” I asked them as we stopped for a quick lunch at an out-of-the-way café.

“I am sure it was Nori,” Eirik said with a stubborn set to his chin.

“But you didn’t see him later on, after I went back to the Faire?”

“No.” He scowled at the waiter who brought our food, the latter hurrying away quickly when Eirik fingered his (still thankfully ammo-less) Walther P38. “We searched most diligently until it was time for our rape.”

I blinked at the word, thinking I must have misheard. “Your what?”

“Our rape. We went to a rape last night.” Eirik’s expression lightened when the waiter hastily brought him another mammoth stein of beer. “The music was loud and horrible. There were bright lights and much ale. We enjoyed it greatly, did we not?”

“You went to a . . . Oh dear goddess, you mean a rave, not a rape.”

Eirik shrugged. “It was good, no matter what you call it. There were many women. Finnvid rutted with five of them.”

My jaw sagged as I looked in horror at Finnvid, who smiled smugly and cocked a jaunty eyebrow at Eirik. “You had sex with five women in the same night?” I finally managed to ask in a stunned whisper.

“Aye. Not at the same time, of course.”

“Of course,” I said, shaking my head at the mental image that rose.

“Finnvid has always been more in favor of quantity rather than quality,” Eirik said, draining his gallon of ale. “I prefer women who desire a man more for his skill at planting than the size of his plow.”

“As do I,” Isleif said and nodded.

Both men looked at Finnvid, who smiled at me. “Can I help it if women love me for my rod, virgin goddess?”

“I suppose not, although you know, women today pretty much go with the whole idea of size doesn’t really matter.”

“Of course it matters,” Finnvid said, scoffing, and before I could change the subject, he rolled down the top half of the swimmer’s body suit that he wore and looked with pride at his groin. “Look upon my rod and tell me that it wouldn’t please any woman.”

I swear my eyes just about bugged out as my gaze, drawn against my will, took in all that there was to see. Quickly I rallied my wits and looked away, but not before I dredged up a memory of a time Ben was in the shower, and in a mentally sharing mood. I was somewhat relieved to note that he had nothing about which to feel insignificant, and changed the subject with a rapidity that I suspected fooled no one. “Put yourself back in your pants, Finnvid, before you get arrested. Right, so let’s go over the game plan for this afternoon. We searched north and west of the town this morning, so if we split up into two groups, we can cover the south and east sides. Then after that, we can . . .”

I stopped, realizing that the expressions the three Vikings wore matched my own dismal mood.

“What is it you wish us to do?” Isleif prompted.

I shook my head, staring glumly down at my plate of sausage. “We’re not going to find him by searching, are we?”

“No,” Eirik answered. “Loki is the trickster, virgin goddess. His son is the same and will not so easily be found. You must use cunning and wiles to bring Loki forth.”

“Then why did you let me spend half the day searching the town?” I asked, exasperated, and immediately contrite because I was snapping at Eirik. “I’m sorry. I have no right to be mad at you.”

“You wished to search the town, so we searched the town,” he said, making an indifferent gesture. “It is not for us to contradict you.”

“You want me to use the valknut, don’t you?” I asked, unhappiness filling my stomach. I pushed away my plate, absently noting that a few days spent with the Vikings might just lessen my resemblance to a line-backer.

“Aye, it would be best.”

“I’ll have to get it from Imogen.” I slumped against the back of the chair. “I guess I have no other choice. I had hoped that we could find some trace of my mother or Loki without it, but I guess you were right when you said I’d have to use it.”

“It is your Vikingahärta,” Isleif said, stroking the long braids of his beard. “Why do you not wish to use it?”

I was silent a moment, trying to put into words the feeling that the Vikingahärta brought me. “When I used it before to summon Loki, he swore revenge against me. I didn’t realize that because the Vikingahärta had been his, and was imbued with his powers, using it left me vulnerable to him.”

“Ah,” Eirik said, enlightenment dawning in his pale blue eyes. “You are worried about what curse he will lay upon you if you use it again.”

I flinched at the word “curse.” Those were nothing to mess around with.

“You have nothing to worry about,” Finnvid said, puffing himself up. “We will protect you from the god Loki.”

“Aye,” both Eirik and Isleif said.

I was touched by their devotion. “Thanks. It means a lot to me that you’re willing to stand by me when I need you. I guess I’d better stop wasting everyone’s time and go get it. If you guys are done, we can go back to the Faire.”

“You go back,” Eirik said, waving an airy hand. “We must locate a bowyer. The man at the ninja shop said that he thought there was one in Munich. We will take the train there to locate the Walther cross bolts.”

I was about to tell them it was a waste of time, but figured a little trip would be a good way to get them out of my hair. It wasn’t the Vikings I needed to help me use the Vikingahärta. . . . It was an ebony-headed vampire who I knew would keep me safe while I was forcing Loki into either giving up my mother—assuming it was he or his son who had seduced her—or banishing him so that I could focus on finding my mother’s love nest.

We agreed to meet up the next morning, and after I made sure they remembered the rules regarding pillaging and other forms of violence, I took a cab back to the Faire.

Imogen wasn’t in her trailer when I arrived to ask her for my Vikingahärta. I did a quick check for her in the common area, but didn’t see her there, either. I chatted briefly with some of the people I remembered from my time at the Faire, spending a little time with a Gypsy medium named Tallulah who both intimidated me and left me wishing that I had just a smidgen of her self-possession.

“I’m so sorry to hear about Wennie’s passing,” I said as I left her trailer after a quick cup of tea. “But I do appreciate you taking in Davide for Mom. I’d be happy to take charge of him again if you’re tired of his fussy ways.”

The cat in question sat on the top step of the trailer, his tail wrapped around his feet, giving me the most jaded look a cat could give.

“Not at all. He is a comfort to me,” Tallulah said, her hand making a little fluttering motion. For the first time I noticed tiny little age spots on the graceful hands. Other than that, she looked the same, her black hair with its white stripe lending dignity to an austere countenance that misled the casual observer to believe she was a hard, emotionless woman. “Sir Edward tells me I should look for a new dog, but I do not feel myself able to do that.”

“I’ve never known Sir Edward to be wrong, but I know how you feel. When I was fourteen, my old Lab died, and it took me years to get over her. In fact, it wasn’t until I got Tesla that I even thought about having a pet. Not that you can call a horse a pet.”