by Lu J Whitley
“To sleep in the chair,” he said matter-of-factly, as if the answer was obvious.
“You don't have to.” At his raised eyebrows, she added, “Unless you want to.” He didn't look convinced. “This bed is huge. We're both adults. We can share.” He cast her a quick glance that was very adult and made her think twice about sharing, but he strode quietly to the other side of the bed and climbed in on top of the covers. “You'll get cold,” she scolded, trying to toss the spare length of the comforter over his legs. He hadn't even taken off his boots.
“I haven't been cold in centuries,” he chuffed. “Don't worry about me.”
“Centuries,” she mumbled, her head already getting fuzzy with sleep. “I can't even imagine that.”
He murmured a non-committal “Mm hmm” and rolled to face her, wedging an elbow beneath his head. She pulled the chain that extinguished the bedside lamp and followed suit, just able to make out the planes of his face in the darkness.
“Jami?”
“Hmm?”
“Will you tell me about your Gods?”
He was quiet for a moment, and she thought perhaps she'd crossed some proprietary line, but then he let out a deep breath and asked, “What do you want to know?”
“Anything,” she mumbled, sleep overtaking her vocal chords. “Everything.”
She heard him croon in a soft voice, “Odin is the Allfather. Leader of the Gods and ruler of Asgard...”
★ ★ ★
“...And all the objects in the realm swore not to harm Baldr...” Jami trailed off, listening to Greta's breathing deepen and even out, sleep finally taking hold.
Want, the beast grumbled, getting frustrated that Jami clearly wasn't following orders. It was taking all of his will to keep the thing under wraps. With Greta this close, it wasn't easy. Trying to convince himself he didn't want to give in after seeing the smooth expanse of skin revealed by that towel was even harder. He closed his eyes and tried not to imagine the dusky rose color of her nipples. The tuft of hair formed into the shape of a perfect V at the apex of her thighs. He rolled farther onto his back to take the pressure off his aching groin. WANT!
“I hear you,” Jami hissed, hoping Greta wouldn't be disturbed by the sound. He'd been talking for nearly a solid hour before she'd slipped into a fitful sleep. Luckily, the mythology of his homeland had no lack of long-winded stories.
He pressed his palm into the mattress and rose to his elbow, attempting not to jostle the bed any more than necessary. Greta's lashes fluttered, and he stilled, holding his breath. Not that he'd been breathing much since she'd asked him to join her in the oversized bed. Every time he'd drawn a breath to speak, he'd dragged the scent of her deep into his lungs. That candy sweet combination of strawberry ice cream and powdered sugar and all things that should be sickeningly saccharine, but on her, they were right.
The pale light of mid-morning was peeking in around the blinds that fluttered above an antiquated baseboard heater, the rays just inches from his skin. He'd told Greta the truth, he didn't feel the cold, not like humans did. The beast's influence on his blood made it run too hot. But he'd kicked the thermostat up for her benefit. She'd shivered even with the comforter snuggled up so far, she was only visible from the nose up.
This far north, autumn was much harsher. He'd have to remember to stow some blankets and warmer clothes for the drive ahead. Something he hadn't thought about in... How long? When was the last time he'd worried about a human being enough to care about their comfort?
His boundless memory stretched out in his mind, trying to put an answer to the question. Had he ever cared? Surely his humanity remained intact enough. But as hard as he thought, pushing his brain until his temples throbbed, the last person he could remember caring about across all of those vast centuries was his mother.
He looked down at Greta's scrunched face, her eyes darting back and forth behind her eyelids. A smile bent his lips. She reminded him so much of his mother. Not physically, no. His mother was as fair as they came: white, pale hair and ice blue eyes like his. But he saw a strength in Greta. A fire like a shimmering star. He'd seen that same fire in his mother. She was a razored tongue to scold him. An agile mind to challenge him. And a kind heart to soothe him when the world was too unfair.
He let out a wistful sigh and laid his head back down on the pillow, knowing full well he wasn't going to drag himself out of that bed until he couldn't bear the light any longer. He stretched out on top of the comforter and allowed himself a moment to indulge, something he never did because sometimes the sadness – the disappointment – was just too much to bear. He imagined how things might have been different. If his father hadn't died that day. If he hadn't gone off to war. Been changed.
He would have presented Greta to his parents, as was custom. She and his mother would have gotten along famously no doubt. He would have courted her. Asked her father for her hand. Maybe they would have had children. He would have been a father. They would have grown old together.
Greta let out a sleep-filled moan, tearing him from his daydreams. A fat tear he hadn't known he could still produce fell softly down his cheek. The smile slipped from his face, and he pushed himself up on his palms, moving nimbly over the mattress and planting his feet firmly on the ground.
His beast wailed as he rose from the bed and began to creep silently across the room, Want! Want! Want!
Jami spared a last look at Greta's shape, mounded under a pile of pillowy down. Things could never change. If he hadn’t been changed that day, he wouldn't be here with her now. He wouldn't have the strength he needed to protect her. “We don't always get what we want.”
★Chapter 7
A faint hint of sunlight peeked in around the blinds as Greta opened her eyes. Not quite dark yet. She chuckled to herself, surprised how easy it was to adjust to being nocturnal. Maybe she'd missed her calling. She took a moment to figure out where she was, a habit she was hoping to break any day now. Bead board walls. Four-poster bed. The Collum's cottage. Right.
She was amazed Jami hadn't woken her up yet. He must be itching to get moving. She yawned and took a deep inhale. “Mmmm.” What the hell was that smell? Her empty stomach gurgled, the acid no doubt starting to eat its way through. She didn't even want to think about how long it'd been since she'd last eaten. She threw her legs over the side of the bed, a shivered “brr” escaping as her feet slapped across the cold hardwood. Her wrinkled jeans were waiting for her right where she'd left them, and she walked her way into them on the way to the door, pausing to listen for a minute. Wait. Was that Abba?
She followed the sound of the music. And the deep male voice harmonizing with the Swedish beauties. “We can go dan-cing. We can go wal-king...” Greta stepped through the narrow doorway that led to the kitchen, stepping quietly. Though among the sounds of running water, sizzling bacon, and a catchy chorus, she had little to worry about. “If you change your mind, I’m the first in line...”
She couldn't bite back the shocked bark of laughter that burst from her, causing Jami to whirl mid-groove, gun in hand. Water sloshed over the sink basin, coating the polished tile. Thick bands of muscle tensed in his chest as he breathed. In. Out. “I could've shot you,” he coughed, doing his best to get himself back under control. Crimson light winked across his irises.
Greta threw her hands up between them, palms out. “Sorry. Sorry.” Jami lowered the gun and set it on the counter with a shaky hand. “No sneaking up on Yums. Got it.”
He shook his head and puffed a breath through his nostrils. “You hungry?”
She looked him up and down from the tips of his bare feet, over a loose pair of black jeans, up his bare torso, to his botched hair job. Until she was staring him straight in his expectant eyes. “Um.” What had he said?
“Are. You. Hungry,” he repeated, quirking his lips in a mischievous grin.
She tried not to smile, but failed. “Starving.”
“Good. Pull up a chair.”
Greta grabbed a chair from the dining
room and dragged it over to the breakfast bar that separated the room from the kitchen. A spread of delicious looking goodies covered the granite. Bacon. Eggs. Sausage. Pancakes. Did he go grocery shopping while she was asleep? She glanced at the plastic blinds that covered the kitchen window and saw the light. He couldn't have.
Jami caught the direction of her gaze. “Apparently, there's a grocery delivery service for the cottages. I guess Jacob wanted to make sure I wasn't starving you.” He said the last part with gritted teeth, but she didn't care. She'd have to find a way to make it up to that farmer one day. At least she didn't have to scarf down another candy bar or bag of potato chips.
Greta fetched herself a plate and a set of utensils, wandering around the kitchen on autopilot. “Thanks for breakfast. Um. Dinner. Whatever it is.”
He nodded absentmindedly, scooping a fresh pan of bacon onto a paper towel covered plate. “No problem.”
She parked her butt and dug in, pausing every few minutes when she forgot to come up for air. “Sooo...Abba,” she taunted when he finally turned off the stove and settled into a chair pulled up to the counter across from her.
He looked affronted. “Do not insult the music of my people.”
“Your people?” She giggled. “What you're a senior citizen?”
“Very funny.” He thought about it for a moment, his smile dropping a fraction. “But I suppose I am.”
“Phhhhhtt. No one would peg you for a day over thirty.”
“Thirty!?” Now he really was affronted, which only made her giggle harder. “I barely look twenty-five!” Hardly. Though she kept the thought to herself. Average twenty-five year olds had nothing on him. “What I meant,” he groused, “was that Abba is Swedish. I'm Swedish.”
“Was Sweden even around back before dirt was invented?” She just couldn't help baiting the bear. It was so deliciously normal, and he was so incredibly beautiful when he was frustrated.
“Are you finished,” he groused.
She sighed and nodded, stuffing another syrup soaked piece of pancake in her mouth to keep from blurting out anything stupid. Party pooper. Maybe she needed a little slice of normal here and there. Who could blame her?
“Now you’re angry.”
She huffed a breath and mumbled around a bite of sausage, “I’m not angry.” He shot her a ‘Yeah, right’ look, but didn’t comment. They both stared down at their plates as the tension built up between them like the pressure behind a champagne cork. Pop. “So...Um...Sweden, huh?”
Jami eyed her curiously as he chewed a crisp slice of bacon. Swallowed. “Yes.”
“Hmm. I guess that makes sense.”
“Sense?”
“Well, you being all blonde haired and blue eyed like a Swedish milkmaid.” Greta tried to hide her face, but a grin broke through.
He chuckled and shook his head. “Milkmaid?”
“Mm hmm. So what’s it like?”
He paused thoughtfully. “Can’t say that I remember much that would still be standing. I left right after... Haven’t been back since.”
“That’s sad.” She dabbed at her lips with a napkin, hoping the look he was giving her wasn’t because she had syrup all over her face. “Leaving your home like that, I mean.”
“It’s nothing I haven’t done since and won’t have to do again. Nothing you haven’t done multiple times.”
“But you remember it. I don’t really.” The dishes clacked together as Jami started clearing them from the counter. “I remember little snatches. Pictures. But other than that, Germany might as well have been a dream.”
“What about leaving home this time,” he murmured over his shoulder as the sink filled with sudsy water. “That was hard for you.”
“Well, yeah. Getting driven out of your home by homicidal pod people will do that to a girl.” He gave her a look that saw past all the snark. She didn’t like it one bit. “Plus, we’d been there so long.”
“I meant to ask you about that.” He turned, shutting off the water and drying his hands on a clean towel. “We have no idea how they found you this time. We’d been so careful.”
“I haven’t the foggiest.”
“You’re sure? Nothing you’ve done differently lately? Pictures on the internet? New email? Anything?”
“Nope.” She shook her head and stared down at her hands. “Just boring old Greta. School. Work. Home. That’s it.”
“I don’t think you’re boring.” Her eyes raised to meet his crystal blue gaze. “At all.”
Crazy how one statement can turn the world around. Greta flushed hot from her forehead to her mismatched toenails. Imagining the pink blush would show right through the pale blue and green alternating pattern. “You... You don’t?”
He shook his head and cleared his throat, quickly turning back to the sink and plunging his hands into the soapy water. Well, Hell. She let him retreat because she seemed to be at a loss for words herself.
Trying to look anywhere but at Jami’s bare skin as the corded muscles in his arms worked like he was scrubbing the metal from the pots and pans, Greta caught herself staring at the jagged length of hair that hung against his shoulders. Jesus. It looked like a blind man had taken a weed-whacker to his gorgeous golden locks. She got up and rounded the counter. The junk drawer was the second one on the left. Always had been. Luckily the Collums never changed anything. Under a pack of batteries and a long dead Power Rangers flashlight, Greta found what she was looking for.
Jami turned at the sound of her dragging her chair across the tile. “What are you doing?” He pulled the plug on the sink and dried his hands.
She pulled an old towel out from under the sink and gestured to the chair. “Sit.” He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the counter, his whole body position, saying ‘Make me.’ “Sit,” she repeated. “Please.”
With a dubious eyebrow raise, he did as requested. She draped the towel around his neck and gathered the scissors in her right hand. Jami heard the metal blades snip together and bolted up from the chair. “No. No. No.”
Greta laughed. She couldn’t help it. “It looks like you did that with a hatchet, but you won’t let me near it with a pair of scissors, you big baby?”
His bottom lip jutted out, and he chewed on it nervously. “I’m not a baby.”
“Then sit.”
He harrumphed and parked his beautiful butt on the slatted wood. “I don’t like it short.”
“Well, you kinda don’t have a choice.” He cast her a pouty look over his shoulder. She rolled her eyes and straightened the towel around his neck. “I’m just gonna even it out.”
He didn’t look convinced, but he huffed a breath and turned, shoving his hands up to his armpits. “Fine.”
Greta’s hands shook as she took the first clump of hair between her fingers, slowly evening out the strands. Calm down. It wasn’t like she hadn’t done this a million times before. Mama had always been opposed to beauty salons. She’d thought it was a matter of money, and maybe, in part, it had been. But now, Greta wasn’t so sure. Sad that everything her mother had done in the past, right down to her homespun haircuts, were now in question. Was there anything about her life she knew for sure anymore?
“What are you waiting for?”
“Keep your head still.” She shook her head and took the first snip, not letting her wandering mind get in her way. Muscle memory slowly took over, pulling out the sections and trimming the ends. The lightened tresses starting to curl around her fingers. “I bet you’d have some crazy ringlets if you kept it short.”
He snorted. “Why do you think I don’t like it short?”
She chuckled and moved around to the front, leaning over to check her level. Jami’s eyes stayed fixed on his kneecaps. “I forgot to thank you.”
His gaze finally rose to hers, pausing momentarily at the neckline of her baggy T-shirt. Or his baggy T-shirt rather. She couldn’t bear to take the thing off. “For what?”
She ignored the hot blush rising
to her cheeks, and mercifully, so did he. “For staying with me last night. You didn’t have to do that.”
“Oh.” He busied himself looking at anything but her. “No problem.”
“All done.” She stood and backed away, satisfied with her handiwork. It wasn’t the best she’d ever done, but at least he didn’t look like he’d had a run-in with a wood chipper anymore.
He rose slowly from the chair, the small kitchen giving her nowhere to retreat, and he ended up flush with her body. His furnace-like heat encompassing her like a cloud of steam. “Thank you.”
“No prob.” Greta found her gaze getting lost in those baby blues. Then the moist heat of his lips. And back. If she lived a thousand years, she’d never forget the way those lips had felt, even though she tried to convince herself it couldn’t have been as amazing as she remembered. It was just a kiss. One hot soul searing kiss.
“Right,” he coughed, pushing past her and making a break for the hallway. “I need to hit the shower, and we need to get moving.”
She huffed and deflated, her shoulders falling forward. She was not disappointed. “Right,” she replied to his retreating back. Not disappointed.
She shuffled the hair into a neat pile with her foot and picked it up with the towel, carefully depositing the whole kit and caboodle in the trash can next to the breakfast bar. Eh. The Collums could afford to buy a new towel. With a sigh, she dropped down on a slatted chair, pulling her feet up underneath her and grabbing the folded newspaper sitting on the edge of the counter. “This today’s,” she asked the empty kitchen, but an answer wasn’t necessary. It wasn’t like the paper didn’t have the date on it. Duh Greta. She set her chin in her hands, and stared at the paper like it held the secrets of the universe.
Shit. Was that the date? “Christ,” she yelled so loud, she almost scared herself. “I’m missing nationals,” she groaned. Just once! Once in her college career, her rugby team had made it to nationals, and she wouldn’t be there. She and Jen had carried that damn team. The local paper had even done a story...