Free NocC 006 - Olivia Gates - Immortal, Insatiable, Indomitable - Harleqiuin 2012-01 by Nocturne

too much. That’s why you wanted to die the night I first saw you.”
    A surge of fierce emotion spread inside his chest. He cupped her cheek tenderly. “Seems you do know a lot about me.”
    Her smile was impish, even as her eyes misted. “Told you. I also know that you more than foster the Gifted. You fight other gods’ followers. The night we met they were after your ‘Endowment.’” She suddenly giggled. “Oh, the mental image that brought!”
    He tasted her smiling lips. “They thought they could suck out the part that makes me immortal.”
    She went still. “And that’s not possible, right?”
    “No. Not that it stops goons from trying. But when they’re not coming after us like junkies, they go after our recruits, to prevent Loki from gaining more followers.”
    One eyebrow rose. “What does Loki want with followers, anyway? He sounds like a cool god and the ego trip of amassing worshippers doesn’t suit him.”
    “Followers are not worshippers. Loki is not my god but my lord and general. I swore allegiance to him, and I believe in his goal. For the Gifted to have their rightful place in the world.”
    “Ruling it?”
    He shrugged. “Just leading it where their Gifts make them fittest for the job. Certainly ending discrimination against them. To that end, Loki needs to survive Ragnarok, which is allegedly the Final Fate of the Gods. It’s supposed to be a showdown where all gods end up killing one another and dying. We’re working on making sure Loki walks out of it alive and victorious. And though we remain a tiny minority, with all of us being Gifted, we are a huge threat to the other gods’ masses of worshippers. Even those they Endow are originally Normal and no match for us.”
    “Wow. Just wow.” Her look of wonder gave way to teasing. “And you are a white knight, after all.”
    “Oh, no, I’m not. We Original Lokians take ‘the end justifies the means’ to very dark-gray realms.”
    She grinned at him. “Sounds like my kind of guys.”
    He swung her around, flattened her beneath him, loomed over her menacingly. “Guy. Singular.”
    “You are that.” She wound herself around him, seeking his invasion. “And you are that to me. Now fill me. Singularly.”
    He slid inside her, bottomed out on that single thrust she demanded, swallowed her cry of welcoming shock, shouted with exultation as her flesh enfolded him like it was made to fit him.
    This woman. This flesh. This union. This was what he’d waited an eternity for. A good thing he hadn’t known, though, or he would have gone insane while waiting.
    But now that he’d found her, he wouldn’t lose her again.
    And if reason insisted he would, one day, to mortality, he silenced it.
    For now.

Chapter Seven
    Vidar watched Kara saunter into her loft. He’d entered through the window as usual, observing the secrecy of their relationship. For the past six weeks, it had worked perfectly.
    They did.
    They synchronized their working hours, sharing every minute between. When she had a long shift, he arrived before her to pamper her when she came home. He had her favorite lasagna waiting for her tonight.
    “Mmm.” She inhaled as she approached him with a smile that made his very being tighten. Sensual and wicked, delighted and delighting. “Now what do I devour first?”
    He bent to take her lips. “Food will get cold. I won’t.”
    “Let’s eat fast, then, since you get hotter.”
    He chuckled, swept her off her feet and took her to the table. He sat her down, served her.
    She looked up as he started massaging her stiff shoulders. “Won’t you join me?”
    “I snacked on endless rubbish while on stakeout with Daven.”
    She grinned. “Good thing you have this nuclear metabolism, or Daven and his atrocious eating habits would get you fat over a weekend.”
    She turned her attention to her meal, dug in appreciatively, hungrily, and started telling him about her day. He told her about his, marveling yet again at how she