Ragnarok

Odin

The woman on her knees between my legs was beautiful by mortal standards.

Blonde hair spilled over my thighs like silk as she worked me with her mouth, lips stretched wide, eyes half-lidded with a hunger that looked almost genuine. Her manicured nails dug into the expensive fabric of my trousers, and she made soft, wet sounds that echoed in the quiet of my office—eager little noises meant to prove how much she wanted this—wanted me.

She thought she did, anyway.

I sat back in the black leather chair behind my desk, one hand loose around the crystal tumbler of whiskey I’d stopped tasting an hour ago, the other tangled in her hair because she’d guided it there herself, pressing my palm against her scalp like she needed to feel owned.

The amber light from the wall sconces cut through the dark of the room, catching the gold in the runes carved into the beams overhead, the black marble floors, and the gleam of the city through the towering windows beyond my shoulder.

Her tongue traced the length of me, slow and deliberate, and she moaned like the taste alone was enough to make her wet.

Maybe it was.

Her thighs were pressed together beneath the bunched silk of her dress, and I could see the subtle rock of her hips, the way she was grinding against nothing, chasing her own pleasure while she serviced mine. Her perfume—something expensive and cloying, all jasmine and musk—mixed with the salt of her skin and the faint sweetness of whatever lipstick she’d worn before it smeared across my cock.

She pulled back just enough to gasp, her breath hot and ragged, lips swollen and glistening. “God, you taste so good,” she whispered, voice thick with need.

I said nothing.

Just watched her with my one good eye as she licked her lips and took me deep again, throat working, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes from the effort. She wanted to impress me. Wanted to be the one who made the untouchable man lose control.

She wouldn’t be.

Below us, Ragnarok breathed. Music pounded through the bones of the building. Mortals danced under lights they did not understand, drank beside creatures they would call nightmares if they ever saw them clearly, and laughed in the face of gods hidden in tailored suits and expensive sin.

And none of it held my attention.

Not even the woman choking herself on my cock like it was an act of devotion.

I pulled her off me by her hair—not gently—and she gasped, a string of saliva connecting her bruised lips to my shaft. Her pupils were blown wide, chest heaving beneath the low neckline of her dress, nipples hard and visible through the thin fabric.

“Stand up,” I said.

She obeyed immediately, rising on shaky legs, and I turned her to face the desk. My hands found her hips, dragging her back against me, and she whimpered when she felt how hard I still was, pressing against the curve of her ass through the silk.

“Please,” she breathed, already arching into me. “Please, I need—”

I shoved the dress up over her hips in one rough motion.

No panties.

Of course not.

She’d come here prepared, skin bare and already slick when my fingers slid between her thighs. She was soaked, swollen, her cunt hot and desperate under my touch. I dragged two fingers through her wetness, slow and deliberate, and she made a broken sound that might have been my name.

Or the name I used here, anyway.

“You’re dripping,” I observed, voice flat.

“For you,” she panted, grinding back against my hand. “God, please, I’ve been wet since I walked in here—”

I pushed two fingers inside her without warning.

She cried out, hands slamming down on the desk to brace herself, and her inner walls clenched tight around the intrusion. I worked her open with clinical precision, curling my fingers to find the spot that made her legs shake, thumb circling her clit in steady, relentless strokes.

She was babbling now, a stream of breathless pleas and curses, her hips rocking back to meet each thrust of my hand. “Yes, yes, fuck, right there, please don’t stop—”

I stopped.

She whined in protest, a desperate, needy sound, and I withdrew my fingers slowly, watching the way her body tried to hold onto them. Her arousal coated my hand, glistening in the low light, and I wiped it carelessly on the silk bunched at her waist.

Then I freed myself fully from my trousers and lined up behind her.

The head of my cock pressed against her entrance, and she went still, breath caught, every muscle in her body taut with anticipation.

“Please,” she whispered again, and this time it sounded like prayer.

I pushed inside in one long, brutal stroke.

She screamed.

Not in pain—though I was not gentle, and she was tight enough that the stretch must have burned—but in relief, in pleasure, in the overwhelming satisfaction of finally being filled. Her cunt gripped me like a vice, hot and wet and perfect, and she pushed back against me greedily, taking me to the hilt.

“Oh god, oh fuck, you’re so big—”

I pulled out almost completely and slammed back in.

She sobbed, fingers scrabbling for purchase on the polished wood, and I set a punishing rhythm, each thrust deep and hard enough to rock the desk forward. The sound of skin meeting skin filled the office, obscene and wet, punctuated by her increasingly incoherent cries.

She was close already.

I could feel it in the way her walls fluttered around me, in the pitch of her moans, in the desperate way she was pushing back to meet each thrust. One of my hands slid up her spine, fisting in her hair again, and I yanked her head back, forcing her spine to arch.

“Come,” I commanded.

And she did.

Her orgasm hit her like a breaking wave, her entire body going rigid before dissolving into shudders, cunt clenching rhythmically around my cock as she wailed her pleasure to the ceiling. I felt the gush of her release, slick and hot, coating my shaft and dripping down her thighs.

I kept fucking her through it.

She was oversensitive now, each thrust drawing gasping whimpers, but she didn’t pull away. Didn’t ask me to stop. Just took it, pliant and willing, her body a warm, wet sleeve for my use.

And I felt nothing.

No hunger.

No satisfaction.

No heat.

Just the mechanical pleasure of friction, the distant awareness of a body responding to stimulus. I watched her in the reflection of the dark window—blonde hair tangled in my fist, back arched, breasts swaying with each impact—and catalogued it all with the same detachment I’d give a business report.

My mind wandered.

To reports of unrest in my eastern territory.

To a whisper Loki had dropped in my ear three nights ago with a smile too sharp to trust.

To Baldr, and the wrongness I’d felt in him lately, bright and rotten beneath all that golden beauty.

The woman came again, smaller this time, a helpless flutter around my cock and a broken moan.

I pulled out.

She made a confused sound of protest, turning to look at me over her shoulder with dazed, glassy eyes. Her makeup was ruined, mascara tracking down her flushed cheeks, lipstick smeared across her chin.

“Turn around,” I said. “On your knees.”

She dropped immediately, eager even in her exhaustion, and opened her mouth without being told. I stroked myself twice, watching her watch me, and then I came across her tongue, her lips, her face, marking her with the same indifference I’d fucked her with.

She swallowed what landed in her mouth and licked her lips, looking up at me like she’d won something.

She hadn’t.

I was already tucking myself away, straightening my clothes, reaching for the whiskey on my desk.

She stayed on her knees, catching her breath, waiting for something. Praise, maybe. Affection. An invitation to stay.

I gave her nothing.

Just took a slow swallow of whiskey and turned my attention to the security monitors on the wall.

That was when I felt it.

A sensation hit me so violently it was almost a blow.

Not pain.

Not exactly.

Something colder. Sharper. Older.

Magic.

Ancient, instinctive power surged through the floorboards and up the spine of the tower like a blade drawn across bone. Every rune in my office flared hot beneath the walls. The ravens perched on the iron stand beside the fireplace snapped upright at once, black wings twitching, their eyes burning bright in the dim.

The woman said something behind me, a confused little protest as she finally stood on shaky legs.

I ignored her.

Because there it was again.

A pulse.

Not god-magic. Not seiðr. Not anything born of Asgard or blood sacrifice or the old runes etched into the foundations of this city.

This was different.

Soft at first, almost drowned by the press of bodies and noise below us, but unmistakable once it found its way under my skin—a living current of spirit and death and mercy and ruin all tangled together in one impossible thread.

My good eye narrowed.

No.

Not impossible.

Rare.

My ravens shifted restlessly. Huginn let out a low croak, feathers puffing. Muninn scraped his beak against the iron perch, agitated.

They felt it too.

The woman was trying to fix her dress now, smoothing the wrinkled silk over her hips, wiping at her face with trembling fingers. “Was it something I did?” she asked, voice small.

I looked at her as if I’d forgotten she was there.

In truth, I had.

She was still flushed and thoroughly used, my release drying on her skin, her hair a mess from my hands. Pretty. Eager. Disposable. A mortal who would walk out of here tonight thinking she had almost had my attention.

Almost.

“Get dressed,” I said.

Her brows knit. “Excuse me?”

“Now.”

The word cracked through the room like a command given on a battlefield. The softness vanished from her face, replaced by a flash of wounded pride, but even mortals knew instinctively when not to push me. She snatched up her clutch from the couch and glared.

“You know, you could at least pretend not to be an asshole.”

I reached for the whiskey on my desk and took a slow swallow, my gaze already on the security feed glowing across the wall monitor behind her.

The main floor of Ragnarok flickered into focus.

A hundred bodies moved under gold and crimson light. Mortals in cocktail dresses and designer suits. Creatures wearing glamour like a second skin. Waitresses weaving through tables with trays of liquor. Smoke, music, heat.

And there.

Near the center of the club, half-shadowed by a pillar carved with old runes, stood a woman in simple jeans and a pale long-sleeved top, blonde hair falling in soft waves over her shoulders, blue eyes too wide for the room she’d stepped into.

She looked like she’d wandered into the mouth of a wolf and hadn’t yet realized the teeth were closing.

Human.

Soft-faced. Curvy. Pretty in a way that wasn’t polished enough for my club, as if she belonged somewhere gentler than this. Somewhere with daylight and quiet and living things small enough to cradle in careful hands.

And yet every supernatural creature within ten feet of her was turning.

Watching.

Feeling what I felt.

That power.

The air around her shimmered with it, nearly invisible to mortal sight. But I saw it clearly—the pale silver edge of something ancient brushing against her skin like moonlight over water. Spirits crowded the veil around her, pressing close. Not attacking.

Drawn.

The woman in my office kept talking, some insult or complaint I no longer cared enough to hear.

Down below, the blonde took another cautious step into the club, and a drunken man stumbled hard into her shoulder.

The moment his skin touched hers, the world in the monitor seemed to lurch.

The man froze.

The blonde froze.

And then the spirit latched to his back—a thin, starving thing I’d been meaning to have removed from the club for weeks—reeled back as if burned.

My fingers tightened around the tumbler.

The blonde jerked, eyes going wide. Not frightened.

Knowing.

No mortal should have seen it.

No mortal should have felt it.

But she did.

She looked straight at the spirit clinging to the man’s shoulders, lips parting in shock, and the dead thing hissed.

The sound came through the office speakers in a burst of static and rot.

Interesting.

Very interesting.

I set my glass down with deliberate care.

The mortal woman in my office finally seemed to realize I was no longer listening. She made a disgusted noise, muttered something sharp under her breath, and stormed for the door in a click of heels and offended vanity. I let her go without a second glance.

The second the door slammed shut behind her, I rose.

At full height, the office seemed to shrink around me. The shadows deepened. My suit jacket lay abandoned over the back of the chair, so I reached for it and shrugged it on, fingers deft despite the tension humming through my blood. Huginn launched from his perch to my shoulder, claws biting lightly through black fabric. Muninn landed on the carved back of the chair, watching me with bright, knowing eyes.

“Stay,” I told him.

He ignored me.

Of course he did.

My gaze stayed fixed on the monitor.

The blonde had moved farther into the room now, looking deeply out of place among the predators and polished sinners of Ragnarok. But there was nothing weak about the way she held herself. Nervous, yes. Cautious. Gentle in a way this world would chew up if given the chance. Yet there was a steadiness beneath it, something soft that had learned how to survive being mishandled.

The spirit lunged for her.

Every rune in the office flared white.

The blonde lifted a hand on instinct, palm out, and the thing slammed backward as if struck by a force no one else in the room could see.

The entire club went still.

Even through the monitor, I felt the impact of her power.

Spirit.

Soul.

Veil.

Judgment.

A medium.

No. More than that.

Something old lived in her blood. Something the dead recognized and the gods would kill to possess.

Slowly, I smiled.

Not because I was pleased.

Because, after centuries of sameness, of politics and war and boredom and women who left no mark—women I’d just fucked into screaming oblivion while feeling absolutely nothing—something impossible had just walked into my club wearing denim and a frightened expression.

And for the first time in a very long while, I was no longer numb.

I was interested.

Very, very interested.

I headed for the door.

Below me, the blonde stood in the middle of Ragnarok with her breath caught in her throat and a dead thing writhing at her feet, and she had no idea that every monster in the room had just taken notice.

No idea that I had.

No idea that whatever life she’d been living before she stepped through my doors had just ended.

The corner of my mouth pulled into something dark as I descended toward the club.

“Let’s see what you are, little medium.”