Loki Read online

  LOKI

  Gods on Earth #2

  JC Andrijeski

  Copyright © 2021 by JC Andrijeski

  Published by White Sun Press

  Cover Art & Design by Sylvia Frost of The Book Brander (2020)

  Ebook Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please visit an official vendor for the work and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

  Contents

  Free Box Set!

  A Quick Reminder Blurb

  1. Thief

  2. Lia

  3. The One Ring

  4. Just A Taste

  5. Airport Shopping

  6. Changeling

  7. Disembarking

  8. A Little Bad

  9. Sisters

  10. Distraction

  11. Brothers

  12. Trading In The Car

  13. Belonging

  14. Never Trust A Trickster God

  15. God-Brothers

  16. Peace Offering

  17. Father Of Mischief

  What to read next

  Join the Light Brigade!

  Reviews are Author Hugs

  Sample Pages

  1 / The Meeting

  List of Book Titles

  About the Author

  A Quick Reminder Blurb

  I won. I, Loki, stole the magical ring right out from under Odin’s and Thor’s noses. Right before a little minx stole it from me.

  I outsmarted them all. I tricked my brother and father, and even my water-dragon son, sending them on a ridiculous chase while I slipped out the back door. I nearly got caught––twice––but in the end, I possessed the prize––the magical Andvaranaut, a god’s ring that allows me to hide out on Earth as long as I wish.

  Then she came along.

  That little human thief took it right off me, in broad daylight, in the bustling markets of Nepal, without me feeling an Asgardian thing. I’m onto her now though, hot on her trail and closing in. I’ll get that deliciously devilish girl if it’s the last thing I do.

  Even if that means punishing her in ways both of us might enjoy. Perhaps especially if it means that, now that I’ve gotten a good look at the little minx.

  The more I learn about this Lia Winchester, professional thief, proficient liar, brilliant escape artist, and unbelievably sexy mortal, the more I find myself wanting to draw out this chase, to savor it… perhaps to even partner with her on a heist of our own.

  It’s been a long time since anyone’s managed to surprise me.

  I think it’s only right that I return the favor.

  LOKI is book #2 in Gods on Earth, a fun paranormal romance and urban fantasy series, ideal for people who want a light romp to Asgard, mischievous gods falling for unwitting humans and battling over magical objects, not to mention dragons, magical wolves, grumpy witches, and a dose of wicked trickster games.

  1

  Thief

  He barely noticed the nudge.

  The physical contact slid past his awareness without him registering more than a faint brush of fingers, hardly unusual in a crowded market in this part of the world.

  Kathmandu, Nepal, with its surrounding Himalayan mountain range, endless temples and shrines for multiple religions and sects, lax borders, bribe-able officials, and crowded streets, tons of outdoor markets and side alleys and tucked-away restaurants and coffee gardens, was a mass of discordant humanity, in all of its fetid, colorful, chaotic glory.

  Loki came here to disappear.

  For the same reason, he was far more concerned someone might recognize him than he was about any other person who might be trying to move through the crowd unseen.

  Then he noticed his hands.

  One hand, in particular.

  “Odin’s hairy asshole… what in the seven hells!” The god sputtered the words in the Asgardian tongue, earning him a few puzzled looks, but no comprehension.

  Loki scarcely favored them with a glance.

  He spun around where he stood, using his significant height to scan the crowd, even as he rolled back his god’s photographic memory, looking for the exact moment, the precise touch or brush of fingers from the exact person or persons standing or walking anywhere near him in the period directly before he noticed his ring missing.

  He found the instant he felt that bare nudge, that feather-like brush of fingers.

  He saw her, in his mind’s eye.

  Her appearance paralyzed him briefly.

  One might even say it shocked him.

  Long, thick blond hair, full, pert lips, green, cat-like eyes, a calf-length coat made of dark green leather that matched those eyes, a turquoise pendant around her neck next to an older, beat-up, silver ring looped around the same chain. Furred boots. A leather satchel worn crosswise over her body. Big tits. Small waist. Long, muscular legs.

  High cheekbones. Intelligent eyes.

  If he’d been in a different world, he might have thought her an elf.

  A dickish elf.

  A very hot, sexy, dickish elf.

  One he very much intended to find.

  Once he’d nailed down the physical ID, he pulled himself out of his recollection and scanned the crowd a second time, looking for the woman he’d seen behind his eyes.

  Luckily, in this part of the world, blond hair still stood out.

  His elfin thief hadn’t worn a hat, so he was able to spot her, even as she was about to turn the corner into a side alley.

  Loki pushed his way through the crowd, fighting a clear path through the street lined on both sides with market stalls, about half of them selling crap, maybe a third selling food, and the rest selling things that could actually be considered of worth, from a human standpoint, at least. He came close to knocking over two locals in his haste, one carrying an enormous pack filled with hand-woven blankets, and the other pushing a cart filled with bread, cheeses, and what looked like small sausages.

  Loki barely gave them a look as they each yelled at him in their local tongue, complaining and cursing loudly as they shook their fists.

  He threw a coin at the one with the bread, since he knocked down a few loafs, muttering a few words in Nepalese as he passed.

  “Tut-tut, gentleman… lady… but I’m faced with a far more important errand than either of you. One where your own, small, petty human world may very well hang in the balance. Truly, your destinies might currently reside in the sticky, greedy hands of a sexy, dickish elf with stunning eyes and absolutely enormous tits…”

  Loki darted between and around thickly-dressed bodies, their clothes and shopping bags and wheeled carts filling the narrow street, along with rusted motorcycles, pastel-colored scooters, auto-rickshaws, the occasional car, the occasional cow, the occasional monkey.

  Loki didn’t let himself get distracted.

  His eyes remained transfixed on the mouth of the alley where he’d last seen her.

  He remained so focused on his destination, he didn’t pay enough attention to closer by and plowed into a lowing ox being ushered down the street by a small, impossibly-ancient Tibetan woman, who dressed the ox in colorful blankets and jangly head-gear.

  Loki managed to get around the domestic creature only to be nearly struck down a second time by a kid on a battered moped, who cursed at him in Hindi and flipped the god off for his trouble.

  Loki didn’t bother to return the insult.

  He reached the mouth of the alley a few seconds later, and skidded sideways at the mouth before regaini
ng his traction and darting inside.

  He came to a dead stop, looking around with a frown when it was empty.

  The alley snaked in a curving path, a path made of cobblestones and packed dirt. Baskets hung outside one of the homes, with hanging tapestries in the doors of others, a kind of make-shift screen used to air out houses in this part of the world, and keep some of the bugs at bay.

  Loki jogged warily down the passage, listening to sounds from the dwellings on either side. He saw birds in cages outside several doors, laundry hanging in the cold sunshine, a boy toddler playing in a basin of water with only a T-shirt and no pants, his tiny penis flopping up and down as he jumped and splashed in delight.

  No blond thief.

  No green leather coat.

  No satchel likely containing his ring.

  A ring he worked far too hard to come into possession of.

  That same ring formed a good chunk of the reason he was stuck in this hell-hole in the first place. And the irony was, the ring, apart from being a pretty bauble, was entirely useless to the human who’d stolen it.

  It only held real value for an immortal, like him.

  Loki finally conceded defeat after he’d traversed a few hundred yards down the alley.

  Coming to another dead stop, he looked back and forth in either direction.

  The minx had given him the slip.

  He would have to find her another way.

  He poured out a handful of coins on top of the donation plate, his pale, new-leaf-colored eyes boring into the old man’s dark brown ones.

  After he’d dumped out the money, Loki tossed down a drawing he’d done by hand, using his god’s memory, a ball-point pen he’d purchased for a few Nepalese rupees, and a skill he’d acquired through years of boredom in Asgardian cells. He placed the blue-ink sketch on top of the money, which was three times what the old monk usually charged.

  Loki was a god.

  He knew which of these creatures were charlatans, and which genuinely had the sight.

  He’d walked down the back alleys of the monk’s areas near the largest temple, poking his head in doorways until he found one of these chanters who could actually see something. This man had the strongest sight of the three Loki found with any vision at all.

  Now he sat cross-legged on the floor of the man’s tiny apartments, surrounded by the thick smell of burning incense, small altars dedicated to various teachers and devas, a large one devoted to Chenrezig Bodhisattva, copper cups of water and fruit, small postcards showing animal and water spirits next to floating Buddhas in the clouds.

  Loki winked at an image of the Green Tara, then aimed his gaze at the old monk.

  “Find her for me.” The Trickster God didn’t voice it as a question, or a request. “Do it quickly, and I’ll give you double what is there, old man.”

  The old monk looked at him warily, almost like he could see Loki for who he was.

  “Who is she?” the monk asked.

  Wooden prayer beads wound around one of his hands and wrists. He looked Loki over even more carefully after he voiced his question, seeming to note every aspect of his physical appearance: his long, half-braided, black and auburn hair, his pale eyes, his dark complexion, the smirk on his full lips, the open shirt with the runic tattoos over the top of his chest.

  Whatever the old man saw, it didn’t reassure him.

  The monk’s voice grew faintly worried.

  “You do not intend to hurt her?” he said. “If I help you find her?”

  Loki gave the bald, Nepalese monk in his burgundy and gold robes a wry smile.

  “What do you care what I do with her? She’s a foreigner. And a thief. I’d bet you wheelbarrows-full of your worthless money she’s not a Buddhist… or a very, very bad one.”

  The monk’s mouth grew pinched. “Yes. Perhaps. But you will not––”

  “I won’t hurt her, old man,” Loki said, exhaling his impatience. “I don’t kick dogs. I don’t hurt dumb beasts. I don’t beat on little, blond elves with sticky fingers. She stole something from me. I simply want it back. She’s a foreigner, so for all I know she could hop on some rickety, shit-smelling bus with a bunch of other stupid animals, and I’d have to go looking for her in Rishikesh or Agra or Delhi or Varanasi… or some other den of crapulence to the south I’d rather not visit presently. I want to catch her here. I want my belonging back in my possession before I leave Nepal. Then I will let the little elf go wherever she wishes. Maybe with an imprint of my hand on her ass as a reminder that it’s not nice to steal from gods…”

  The old monk continued to frown at him, but the worst of his alarm seemed to fade from his eyes. Loki had no idea what conclusions the monk drew from what Loki just said, nor did he care, as long as the monk found his thief.

  The old man closed his eyes while Loki watched.

  Smoke from incense coiled around the two of them, marking thin, snaking patterns through the already-pungent air.

  Loki held himself perfectly still, watching the oracle’s face.

  He did not have the sight himself, although he could occasionally read minds, like any of the gods. If a connection existed between himself and the mind he intended to read, Loki could at least pick up emotions and intent, if not actual words.

  He had no connection to this monk, but something about the process of the human using his gifts allowed Loki to feel a whisper of when it began to work.

  Maybe he was simply close enough to pick up a smattering of the images soaked up by the old monk’s aura.

  Whatever the case, he wasn’t surprised when the monk opened his eyes a few beats later.

  “You were right to be concerned,” the monk said, his voice losing all of its worry and uncertainty, instead sounding resolutely certain. “She is at the airport right now, friend.”

  “The airport!”

  Loki leapt to his feet.

  Pausing only long enough to empty more of the rupees in his pockets onto the donation plate of the old monk, he ran out through the hanging tapestry of the multi-headed bodhisattva that fluttered over the monk’s front door. Dashing out into the street, Loki looked in either direction frantically before he made out a taxi and waved it down, putting his fingers to his lips and whistling––loudly––to get the driver’s attention.

  The sound was so piercing, the taxi skidded to a stop.

  The driver looked over at him in bewilderment.

  Several other humans nearby also winced at the sound, and now stared at Loki as he darted through traffic, making his way to the battered cab painted all over with the Buddha’s eyes of compassion, and an image of Ganesha, the Elephant God.

  Ah, Nepal.

  Loki did not wait to be invited, but yanked open the back door of the cab.

  He dove inside, already speaking to the wide-eyed driver.

  “To the airport,” Loki demanded, jabbing a finger in the air. “Now. This very instant! And quickly! Drive very fast… dangerously fast, my good man. Safety last, is what I’m saying. I will reward you handsomely if you get me there in an inhumanly quick amount of time. I will give you a tongue-lashing the entire way there if I don’t feel perilously close to dying due to your speed and risk-taking on the road…”

  The Nepalese taxi driver didn’t need any more than that.

  There was nothing a Nepalese taxi driver loved better than a promise of money and a dare to get somewhere quicker than any of his brothers.

  Smashing his sandaled foot down on the gas pedal, he darted out into the mid-afternoon traffic, leaving a cloud of diesel fumes in his wake.

  2

  Lia

  Lia sighed, sinking into her assigned airplane seat and tossing her battered leather satchel down on the floor by her feet.

  She’d asked for a window seat on her flight back to Los Angeles, and they’d given her one, at least for this first leg of the journey, which would take her to Bangkok, Thailand for a few hours before she boarded the second leg of the flight to California.

&
nbsp; Leaning her head back on the cloth seat, she stared up at the small round vents blowing air on her, frowning a little as she reached up to turn them off. She never understood why anyone would want a bunch of freezing cold, stale air blowing on them while they sat on a plane surrounded by strangers.

  Finding her seatbelt ends on either side, including the half that was under her butt, she pulled them out and clicked the metal ends together, sighing as she adjusted her back in the cushion. She couldn’t always sleep on flights, but she would this time.

  Thank goodness for valerian root… and melatonin.

  And wine.

  Some delicate balancing of the three nearly always did the trick, knocking her out cold for at least five or six hours. She’d turned catching sleep in the odd-hours and minutes into a near art-form in the months she’d been traveling in Asia, which seemed to be happening more and more often lately, since her boss, Gregor Farago, decided to expand his business east.

  He’d probably be sending her out here even more in the coming months.

  This trip had more been laying the groundwork for that, and for Gregor’s negotiations with a particular fat cat operating out of China.

  Gregor had been trying to penetrate the guy’s inner circle for months, and thanks to Lia, he might finally have enough leverage to do it.

  Not like Lia much cared.

  She went where she was told. She stole what she was told to steal.