“I didn’t leave,” she whispered and stared at me with unseeing eyes.
“What happened?”
“I’d like to scream now,” she said, speaking so calmly it was spooky.
“Okay.” I remembered I was only in my jockstrap and grabbed the nearest towel. It was wet and cold, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t control the way my body responded to her, and she didn’t need to know that.
She marched to the bed, grabbed a pillow, and buried her face in it. Muffled sounds came as she screamed and screamed. Concern for her chased everything from my head. I hated seeing her like this.
Was her magic weakening? Was that why she couldn’t leave?
She looked up and our eyes met. The anger was gone, and in its place was hopelessness. My chest hurt as though she’d reached out, grabbed my heart, and squeezed it. The instinct to hold her and comfort her took over.
I extended my arms. “Come here.”
“No.” She shook her head, locks of her hair covering her face. She tucked a lock behind her ear, and there was a noticeable tremor on that hand.
My concern increased. If I pushed for answers, she’d only grow more agitated, so I decided to do the unexpected.
“You know you want one of my hugs, Dimples,” I said and took a step toward her, arms stretched. “How can you possibly resist all this? I’m shirtless.”
Her jaw dropped. Then she snapped it closed and glared. “Douche.”
I moved closer. “Oh come on, you know you’re dying for some of this.”
“If you touch me, I will knee you so hard you won’t walk for a week.”
She wouldn’t dare. She lifted her chin, a gleam in her blue eyes. Okay, maybe she would.
“I’ll chance it.”
She moved back and I followed. She raised the pillow clenched in her hand. “One more step and I will hurt you, Eirik.”
“Really? A pillow fight. That’s the best a powerful Witch like you can come up with?”
Her chin trembled. “Some powerful Witch. Soul-napped and trapped in this desolate realm.”
“Soul-napped?”
“Yeah, so I can help you. As if I haven’t already done enough.”
She wasn’t making sense. “Help me with what?”
“How the hell do I know?” Her voice rose and her eyes grew brighter as though she was fighting tears. The next second, she started to frown, her eyes going to my towel as though she’d finally noticed it. Pink tinged her cheeks. “Why are you prancing around in a towel?”
I hadn’t expected an audience. Instead of stating the obvious, I planted my hands on my hips and cocked my eyebrow. “What? Can’t handle this?”
She blinked as though surprised by my response, then she chuckled derisively. “Oh, please.”
“Then wipe the drool off your face.”
The pink on her cheeks spread. “I don’t drool and definitely not over you, Eirik Baldurson.”
“Could have fooled me. My body is off limits, so get your mind out of the gutter and tell me what happened. It’s been three days.”
“What? I just left.” She moaned. “It’s Tuesday now? My father must be going nuts. She warped time. No, everything in that place is magical. The cave. The fire. The food. No wonder every time I woke up, I couldn’t remember anything, yet everything seemed familiar. I was doing the same thing over and over.”
I gripped her arm and stopped her. “Okay, I’m trying to keep up with you, but you lost me at warped time and magical cave and fire.”
“Magic. Maybe that’s what she meant,” she mumbled, picking up her coat and hat from where she’d dropped them on the floor and throwing them on the bed.
“What who meant?”
“Your guardian angel.”
“I thought you were my guardian angel.”
She threw me another annoyed look and went back to pacing. “The person… The giantess in the cave. I threatened her, and for the first time, she communicated with me.”
“What are you talking about? What giantess?”
“The one deliberately keeping me here. She soul-napped me from home, and she’s not letting me leave, until you are ready. Ready for what? I don’t know. She doesn’t talk. She hums. Soul-napping bitch. I hate her.” Celestia stopped and chewed on her lower lip. “Bottom line is she wants me to help you. Maybe I’m supposed to help you learn magic. It’s the only thing you suck at and I’m good at.”
I had plenty of magic. Being a berserker was serious business, and no god, except Odin, had that ability. I went to the duffel bag, found the bag of toiletries, and out of habit, grabbed the deodorant and applied. Then I pulled out a sweater and slipped it on. I got a pair of jeans and boxers, and pulled them on, then turned to find Celestia gawking at me.
What was her problem now? I cocked an eyebrow in question then realized why she was staring. I had changed right in front of her.
“You didn’t have to look,” I said and lifted the Nikon, flipped the switch to open the aperture, and snapped several pictures of her. “You look cute when shocked, like a Kewpie.”
She made a face. “Ew. Where did that come from?”
“Rhys brought it back along with my things.”
She blinked. “Did you talk to him about Hayden?”
“Yes. Your friend is safe.” I threw the camera back inside the bag. “Start from the beginning.” I sat on the table. When she remained standing, I gripped her waist and nudged her to the bed. She was so tiny I could pick her up without breaking a sweat. Funny, I hadn’t noticed it since she was such a take-charge kind of person. Her eyes flashed. “What?”
“Don’t treat me like I’m helpless.”
“I wouldn’t dare. I’m sorry someone is keeping you here against your will because of me. If I could wave a wand and whisk you home, I would. In fact, if my mother wasn’t so obsessed with keeping me here and turning me into a model son, I’d personally escort you home.”
She nodded. Her expression said she believed me. She was too trusting. Sure, I felt bad she couldn’t go home, but I liked having her around. I’d missed her these past three days. “Talk to me.”
“It starts with how I got here.” She explained her first arrival in Hel, which she’d concluded wasn’t really due to an astral projection. “I yelled that I had to come back and help you that first time. It was why she let me project out of the cave. Someone out there cares about you.”
The more she talked about what happened to her in the cave the first time, the more I was amazed at her bravery. When her narration reached her latest reappearance there, my heart dropped.
“What did you say?” I asked.
“I threatened to throw myself into the ravine if she didn’t let me go home.”
“Jeez. Why would you do that? I don’t care how frustrated you are or how much you want to go home. Don’t ever think of harming yourself.”
She crossed her arms and glared. “I’m not going to tell you another word if you don’t stop yelling at me.”
“I’m not yelling.”
“And FYI, your royal godliness, if I want to jump, there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.”
“Damn it, Dimples.”
“I will do whatever it takes to go home, and next time, she’s not stopping me.” Her eyes gleamed with determination. “No one is stopping me from leaving.”
Jump? Over my dead body. I was going to find the cave and deal with the person doing this to her.
~*~
CELESTIA
“We need to find the cave. Can you describe it?” Eirik asked.
I did. “What difference does that make? I’m supposed to help you before I can leave. That’s what she wants.”
“Screw what she wants. If someone is keeping you here against your will, then I’m stopping her.” He stopped pacing and scowled. “Can I be honest with you?”
“Sure.”
“I like having you here, but I’d rather you stay because you want to, not because you’ve been kidnapped.”
>
If I hadn’t thought he was hero material before, that there would have cinched it. I felt a little better about coming back. And bad about yelling at him. Maybe he would get me home after all.
“Soul-napped,” I said. “Not the same thing.”
“I stand corrected. Let’s find Litr. If anyone knows about caves around here it’s a Dwarf. Hopefully he is with my father, which reminds me. He wants to meet you.”
My stomach hollowed out. “Why?”
“Because he wants to and no one denies my father anything.”
How could I meet his father looking like this? I touched my hair. I had not brushed it in three days. No, four days. I had no makeup or gloss, and I’d worn the same clothes and slept in them since I got here on Friday. They probably stunk.
“He’s a god, isn’t he?”
Eirik continued to rummage through his things. “He was a god. The God of Love, Peace, and Forgiveness. He was also God of Light and Purity. It’s interesting if you really think about it. He is opposite to my mother in every way. She is dark and revels in being twisted; he is open and strives for perfection. Yet once he arrived here, they fell in love. Goes to show you that opposites attract. Then they had me and my… and now I’m caught in their power play. My father wants me to do one thing, and my mother wants me to do the other. Makes life interesting.” He straightened and held two sweaters, one black with red patterns and the other blue. Blue was my favorite color. “Which one would you like to borrow?”
“What? Oh. The blue one, thanks. So if your father came here, that means… Ooh, he died. So souls can…” Dang, I couldn’t seem to finish a sentence because his eyes had gradually warmed. Then he smiled.
Holy smokes. It wasn’t a smirk, but a full-blown, lips-curling-at-the corners, amber-eyes-twinkling, hot-damn-he-is-sexy smile.
“Yes, Dimples,” he said, eyes going to my lips to drive home the point. “Souls can have sex and make babies here.”
I swallowed and heat crawled up my face.
“You smiled,” I said in awe and wanted to slap myself.
“A few days ago a certain Witch ordered me to smile more often because I scared people. I’ve been practicing.”
I wasn’t sure whether I could handle this new Eirik. He was a little less angry. Cocky. More playful. He gave me a sheepish smile, part sad and part filled with longing.
“As for my father,” he continued, “the story of his death is chronicled on the walls of Asgard. Baldur, son of Odin, killed by his blind brother Hodr with an arrow created by Loki. So technically, my grandfather killed my father.” A self-deprecating smile curled his lips. “My family would make a killing on reality TV.” He dangled a hairbrush my way. “I might find the tussled, just-got-out-of-bed look sexy on you, but I don’t think my father will.”
I blinked. He found me sexy? Wait. Breathe and focus on the important issue. Baldur was his father? I had called him Baldurson, but I’d been so focused on getting home it never crossed my mind to connect Eirik and Odin’s dead son. On the other hand, I hadn’t known souls could have babies. So when Eirik had said Odin and Frigg had wanted to meet him, he’d meant his grandparents?
Seriously, I’d never met a guy who downplayed his importance.
I wanted to lecture him about not telling me he was Odin’s grandson, but the look on his face stopped me. He might be nonchalant about his family, but he was hurting. His eyes didn’t lie. My heart ached for him.
“You know what would make me feel better?” he asked.
“What?” I mumbled.
“If you’d meet my father and get it over with,” he said, but I had a feeling he’d meant to say something else. “He suspects you are not your run-of-the-mill soul. Too mouthy. Apparently, souls don’t talk so soon after dying, and they are never chatty around my mother. So to maintain our lie, you’ve been dead for three months and you liked to sneak from wherever they stash souls around here and haunt the place, until you stumbled into my cell and fell madly in love with me.” He tilted his head to the side. “I’m happy to have you back.”
“I’m not.”
He smirked. “I know it’s only temporary, but I’m happy you are.” Then he pulled me into his arms before I could guess his intentions.
I rested my cheek against his sweater. Nice sweater. Soft. Expensive. He had some serious taste. He smelled nice, too. Had he been in high school before coming here? No boys at my school smelled like him. He lifted my chin and studied me so intently I wondered what was going on in his head.
He dropped a kiss on my forehead and stepped back. “Now be a good girl and change. I’ll wait outside.”
I waited until he left the room and closed the door before I reached up to wipe my forehead. A peck on the forehead was the kiss of death. It said friends, cute like a cousin or baby sister. Bet he reserved lip-locking for what’s-her-face. Cora.
Okay, I was officially nuts. My concern should be about getting home, not kissing Eirik. The sooner I found a way to get out of here, the faster I’d get back to my life. Three days I’d been in that cave, yet it had seemed like a day.
“Done?” Eirik called from outside the door.
“No. What did you mean by wherever they stash souls? Don’t you know?”
“I told you this was my first visit here. I wasn’t given the grand tour. My homecoming was a party my father threw, then a trip down here.”
“What have you been doing for the last three days?”
“Working out. Eating.”
“Why didn’t you escape when you had the chance?” There was silence. I removed my filthy sweater and pulled on his. It smelled clean. It swallowed me, reaching my mid-thighs, the sleeves dangling past my fingers. “Eirik?”
“How much did Trudy tell you?” He sounded worried.
“That you could have left, but chose not to. Don’t worry. I don’t think she’s told anyone. She said nothing happens around here without her knowledge. So why didn’t you?”
“Because I belong here. Viggo didn’t.”
Viggo. Where had I heard that name? Wait, that was the guy his mother was torturing. On my first trip here, he’d asked her to release Viggo. I studied myself in the mirror. I never really considered myself short until now. I rolled up the sleeves and brushed them against my cheek. So this is what cashmere feels like.
“Are you done?”
“Hold your horses.”
I grabbed the brush and tried to tame my hair. Three days without brushing had left knots. Last, I picked up the deodorant he’d used and applied some, too. Now, I smelled like him.
Gah, I was becoming that girl. The one that thought everything to do with her man was hot, except Eirik wasn’t mine. Not in the usual sense. He was my responsibility. My case. He belonged to Cora and Raine, and a slew of girls he’d known before he came to Hel. In most high schools, the rich jocks often got the pretty girls, and Eirik had jock written all over his handsome face. And jocks, rich or otherwise, never wanted to be seen with Witches where I came from.
I opened the door and he looked up. He wasn’t alone. The Dwarf who’d brought my bath water was with him.
“Look at you, Dimples,” Eirik said, walking toward me. “You make that ugly sweater look sexy.”
My cheeks warmed at the compliment, but my eyes drifted to the grinning Dwarf who was nodding as though agreeing with Eirik. I ignored Eirik, walked straight to the Dwarf, and offered him my hand. He was so adorable with reddish hair and a bulbous nose.
“I’m Celestia Devereaux.”
“Litr Rockson. Nice to make your acquaintance.” He took my hand and dropped a kiss on my knuckles.
I grinned. “The pleasure is all mine.”
“No hogging her attention, Litr. Or kissing her. She’s mine.” Eirik cocked his arm. “Ready?”
I ignored the mine part. Something must have happened while I was gone because he was a lot more, I don’t know, chatty.
“Promise you won’t embarrass me,” I whispered, taking his arm.
“Only a fool would believe I fell for you,” I whispered. “You are not my ty…”
The rest of my words got stuck in my throat because Litr had just opened a portal into a room so beautiful and bright I couldn’t help smiling. Concerns about being trapped in this realm melted away as I stepped into the room and my senses soaked everything in.
Baldur might live in Hel, but he’d brought a little Asgard with him
CHAPTER 13. FAMILY BONDING?
CELESTIA
The scent of fresh flowers filled the air. White chairs and carpet, golden curtains and tables with gilded edges, and white columns with vertical hollows and gold motifs. There was no way this was part of Hel’s Hall.
Eirik smiled at my reaction and I closed my mouth. The floor plan was open, the living room area with its flowers on tables and gorgeous crystal chandeliers on the arched, vaulted ceilings flowing into the dining room separated by columns. To the left was a balcony overlooking a waterfall. No, not a balcony, I noticed as we moved closer. It was a 3-D floor-to-ceiling mural. To our right was another 3-D mural of columns and a hallway, adding to the illusion that the room was part of a huge hall. I’d seen pictures of Asgard online that looked just like that.
The man who walked in through the only archway looked so much like Eirik I gawked. No one could ever doubt they were father and son. Their hair, features, and the eye color were the same. The only difference was in their clothes. Baldur wore white pants and a tunic with a gold sash and matching sandals, his outfit ancient and timeless. Godly. Eirik’s looked like any smoking hot young man back at home in a black sweater and jeans. Jeans and a sweater he’d changed into in front of me. I still couldn’t believe he’d done that. He had no shame.
I tried to imagine Baldur as Goddess Hel’s husband and failed. She was so, I don’t know, cold, while he radiated warmth. The corners of his eyes crinkled when he smiled.
“Celestia, my dear. Welcome to my home,” he said.
I didn’t know whether to curtsey, offer him my hand, or bow. So I did all, or variations of them, and prayed I didn’t fall flat on my face.
Demons (Eirik Book 1) Page 19