Dark Deceit Read Online Free PDF Page A

her voice low, tempting. The demi-god lifted
his eyes to her, the violet appearing through his fall of black hair.
    ‘My queen.’
    ‘Have you found the location?’
    He nodded, a smile stretching out his mouth and revealing perfectly
straight white teeth. ‘I have.’
    ‘Tell me where he is. Tell me where I can find him.’ Frigg had been
searching for this place for nearly one hundred years—ever since Odin discarded
her love like it was nothing more than cheap rags.
    ‘New Mexico.’
    She could feel the smile curl her upper lip. ‘Fulla! I need a map.
Now!’ The handmaiden returned with an atlas, dropping into a low curtsey after
giving it to Frigg. Frigg spread the book wide in front of Raven. 
    ‘ Where in New Mexico?’ she demanded.
    The male’s eyes danced over the country, finally landing on a
location near the Texan border. ‘There.’ His finger pointed at a set of
mountain ranges hemmed in by arid ground and sparse woods. Frigg leaned in
closer. There was only one place where there were accessible caves in that
area.
    ‘Carlsbad Caverns,’ she muttered, reading the name beside the dot. Her
eyes traced a path from there back to Boston. She smiled to herself.
    Close.
    So close now.
    ‘Fulla, some clothes! Now!’
    The woman rushed to her closet and pulled out a deep blue gown that
brought out Frigg’s eyes along with a corset.
    ‘The gown will get ruined. Get me something easier, simpler!’ she
snapped, irritated by the stupidity of the girl.
    Fulla blushed, nodded and reappeared with a basic t-shirt, a pair of
dark blue jeans and hiking boots. ‘Will this be sufficient, my queen?’ she
asked breathlessly.
    ‘Yes, yes, fine. Give them to me.’
    Frigg slipped the robe from her slender shoulders, not caring
whether Raven saw her flesh. Time was of the essence. She got dressed quickly, finally
placing her feet into the ugly brown leather hiking boots and fading from her house,
travelling only a couple of hundred miles at a time. By the time she reached
the caverns, the temperature was near freezing.
    She wrapped her arms around herself and headed toward the mouth of
the cavern.
    ‘My queen?’
    Frigg turned suddenly. Tiki and Vali were waiting a few feet behind
her. ‘Did you follow me?’ she snapped.
    ‘Yes,’ Vali replied.
    ‘We cannot leave you unprotected.’ This came from Tiki. His cool
grey eyes were unapologetic.
    ‘Fine.’ She spun around once more, stepping over a shallow railing
and onto the cold limestone floor.
    Both men clicked on torches, illuminating the way. As she walked,
her two bodyguards remained silent except for the shuffle of their feet on
stone. Frigg’s breath puffed out in front of her face, a reminder of just how
cold it really was. Walking deeper into the cavern, the hairs at the back of
her neck began to prickle.
    But she could not turn back. She was so close. Now that Darrion was
in her pocket to remove one obstacle, she needed someone else as a failsafe.
She needed to know that if Darrion somehow failed, Odin would still die. And
there was only one person in all of the Nine Worlds who had hated Odin more
than Darrion and herself combined.
    They walked until her back ached and her calves burned. They walked
into the blackness of that cave until she was sure they would end up in another
part of the country when they finally made it back out again. They walked until
there was a blind corner where the struggles of a god possessed could be heard.
    She had found him.
    She had found Loki.
    * * *
    K orvain had faded
to an address in Southie, keeping to the shadows of the house on the opposite
side of the street. It was a piece of shit neighborhood,
no stranger to the red-and-blues.
    The houses there looked stretched out and stuck together; sometimes
there was a little laneway separating them. They were like conjoined twins in a
way; identical but wanting their independence all the same.
    The lights of the house he’d been watching finally flicked off, the
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