FROST- Jotun Chronicles #1

The Story of Loki - Part 2

Out here there was only the mountains, to see me. Only the air to surround me, the biting cold to assault me. Sylvi couldn't get her claws into me anymore.

And when I got home, I resolved, after this was all over, whatever happened, I wouldn't let her do it again. I wouldn't play her mind games. No longer would I give in. She could cry her crocodile tears all she wished, they wouldn't work on me anymore.

After all, I knew what she was like.

Gods, I knew what she was like going into it. What her family was like.

But I fancied myself above all that. I was the charmer, the trickster, the player. Not someone who could be played, nor tricked. You can't trick a trickster.

Only apparently you could. You can.

More the fool I.

But never mind all that. I pushed it out of my thoughts, concentrating on the brisk wind winding icy fingers through my hair, watching the spiral of my breath collect in clouds above my head. The rhythm of the horse, the slope of the path as we made our way down the mountain. Nearly out of sight of the castle now, with its black rocks and its red flags.

Away from my father, who was surely displeased with me.

I knew the kind of fight we would have when I got back. Both of us bellowing, him with a goblet of mead clutched in one hand—doomed to crash against the wall at one point or another—and me pacing back and forth. Both of us red in the face. Of course, that will only be after we've driven one another to the brink. Until he has growled and grumped at me, and I have prodded and teased him, until he finally loses his temper and I lose mine.

But for now, only the path ahead, and whatever it brings me.

I watched the human school for four hours

It was unspeakably boring.

The humans were so predictable. Going in and out with bags and sacks, smoking on the steps around the back where they clearly thought no one could see them. Some of them sat in their cars at lunch, heads bent over their cell phones.

I rented a car from a local dealer, a rusty old pickup truck. They tried to give me something far more ridiculous, a shiny black car without a spot on it. I insisted on the rust bucket I saw sitting in the garage instead. The pickup truck had character, it was quirky. And by quirky I meant it had one tire flat on the back left side, I was fairly certain.

I didn't care though, I liked it.

And it was a damn good thing I picked it, because the truck blended in with all the other vehicles in town. Not like the ridiculous black town car the frost giants had picked out.

I knew it was them because they were completely conspicuous. Idiots.

That's how frost giants did things. All flash, no common sense.

Of course, I'd figured on them being there, but it didn't mean I was happy about it. When Rankin had briefed me that morning he'd mentioned them. They had a task force on it, a small team sent to retrieve all the girls they'd experimented on. And since this girl was Amora they'd put their best guy on it, their elite commander.