When Eric had dismounted, they walked the horses to cool them, enjoying the sounds of birdsong and rustling leaves in companionable silence. Then they returned the animals to the stable boy, who took them into the paddock for a rubdown.
“I won,” Eric said, as they headed back to their cars. “Now I get to claim my prize.”
Suddenly Mist was wary again. She kept her distance from Eric and faced him squarely, prepared to ward him away.
“Hey,” he said softly. “Don’t give me that look. I’m not going to ask for much.”
“What do you want?” she asked.
He took a long step, cupped his hand behind her neck, and kissed her. The next moment he was on the ground, shaking his head as if his brains had been rattled by her very measured blow.
“Was that really necessary?” he said, sitting up and brushing dirt and last autumn’s leaves from his shirt.
“You didn’t warn me,” Mist said, reaching down and pulling him to his feet.
“Yeah. I don’t think I’ll try that again.” He slapped at his pants, gazing almost mournfully at the dirt ground into the khakis. “Was it really that bad?”
The terrible fact, Mist thought, was that it had been good. Very good. In those few seconds of contact, her body had come alive, remembering what it had been like to share a bed with a man and enjoy his body as he did hers.
And Eric was, as they said, hot. She’d tried to ignore that in the beginning, but it wasn’t possible now.
“No,” she said, meeting his gaze. “But mutual agreement would be nice.”
“Then you’d consider trying it again?”
“Maybe. If the circumstances are right.”
“A candlelit dinner? A walk in Golden Gate Park?”
“Don’t push me, Eric,” she said. “I haven’t done this in a while.”
He frowned, an unusual expression on his handsome face. “I don’t get it. You should have guys after you in droves.” He rubbed his jaw. “Then again, maybe not.”
She couldn’t help but laugh, though it was something she’d long been unaccustomed to. “I promise I won’t do that again if you ask next time,” she said.
“Oh, I will.” His usual good humor returned. “You ready to go back to San Francisco?”
“And then what?”
“We take it at your pace. If you want to keep going.”
“I…” Mist swallowed, thinking how great a step she was about to take. “I do.”
“Great.” He beamed at her. “I do like a woman who can throw me to the ground.”
But there was no more throwing. Since Eric was in one of his month-off periods, they were able to spent a few days walking in the park, shopping—for Eric, who was a bit of a clotheshorse—and talking over coffee and dinner. Little by little, Eric, who seemed to have all the playfulness and cheer Mist had lost, won her over.
At the end of the first week, she offered to show Eric her weapons.
He walked into the loft as if he were entering a temple, solemn and quiet. Kirby and Lee were waiting at the kitchen entrance. They puffed up when they saw Eric, but he spoke to them in a low voice, as if he’d known them since they were kittens. They quickly settled again and began meowing for their supper.
With a brief apology, Mist fed the cats and then led Eric to the weapons room, chanting a quick spell under her breath to release the Rune-wards drawn over the door.
“Wow,” he said, coming to a stop before the glass-doored cases. “You really made all these?”
“Yes.” Mist felt deeply self-conscious, though she knew she had no reason to be. Eric obviously admired her work, and didn’t think there was anything strange about a woman swordsmith.
“Can I hold one of them?” he said, pointing to a fairly simple knife in one of the cases.
“That’s a seax,” Mist said. “Common Anglo-Saxon knife often used by the Vikings.”
“Fascinating,” he said, waiting expectantly.
Mist hesitated. Hidden among the knives was one very special weapon, one she’d barely touched since she’d left Norway in 1942.
But Eric would never know what it was. No mortal could. It looked like the other knives, less decorative than many, and only a spell could bring it to its true length and size.
Only a week ago she’d been thinking of dumping it into the Pacific Ocean.
She withdrew the seax and handed it hilt-first to Eric.
“It’s sharp,” she said. “Be careful.”
He studied it intently, handling the wooden-handled knife with respect. “Single edge,” he said.
“That’s right,” Mist said, glad he hadn’t tried to test it on his thumb.
“Beautiful,” he said.
“You can have it, if you want,” she said, looking down at the floor.
“Really?” He continued to admire it as Mist removed the leather sheath that had hung beside it. “You’re giving me this?”
“Yes.”
His stare burned into her forehead, and she was forced to meet his gaze.
“I’ll treasure this always,” he said, sheathing the knife and tucking it under his jacket. “I, uh, I have something for you, too. It’s nothing like this. Just a joke, really.”
Mist hadn’t received any kind of gift in a very long time. “What is it?” she asked.
Eric pulled a small, wrapped box from inside his jacket. “Open it,” he said, handing the box to her.
Holding it as gingerly as any blade, Mist took it into the kitchen. She set the box down on the table, unwrapped it, and opened the lid.
The first thing she saw was a mass of plastic blond hair. She pulled it out and laughed.
It was an image of the comic-book Thor, a huge head bobbing on a much smaller body, hammer in hand.
“It’s a bobblehead,” he said. “Saw it in a comics store and couldn’t resist.”
Mist set it back on the table and tapped the head with her finger. It shook furiously, as if Thor were in one of his rages.
Wouldn’t he hate it. If he were alive.
“I love it,” she said, looking up. “It’s perfect.”
She leaned forward and kissed him.
That night they shared a bed for the first time. It was the best sex Mist had had in decades. The only sex she’d had since Geir, when they’d huddled together in the temporary shelter of abandoned cabins, hiding from the Nazis and sharing their warmth. In every way.
When she fell asleep in Eric’s arms, she dreamed. Of Odin, and her oath, and Fate. She dreamed of Kettlingr in her hand again. She dreamed of holding to her duty, because it no longer seemed such a burden now. It couldn’t pull her into the past, because the past grew dimmer with every passing moment.
When she woke, Eric was sitting up in bed, gazing down at her.
“You were talking in your sleep,” he said, stroking her loose hair away from her forehead.
Loki’s piss, she thought. “What did I say?” she asked, her stomach roiling with panic as she looked into his eyes.
“I only heard one word clearly,” he said. “What’s Gungnir?”
Copyright (C) 2013 by Susan Krinard
Art copyright (C) 2013 by Goñi Montes
Midgard 01 - Freeze Warning Page 3