Embrace of the Damned

by Bast, Anya

  She shifted on her feet. “Yes. I assume Broder told you my name. Is he here?”

  He shook his head. “He had to go out.”

  “When is he expected back?”

  “Soon.” The man looked at the front door. “Going somewhere?”

  She glanced at the door and shouldered her bag a little more securely. “I don’t know. I guess I’m still deciding.”

  “You can leave if you choose, but that wouldn’t be a good move. You’re being targeted by forces you can’t control.”

  “Yeah, I kind of figured that out last night.”

  “My name is Tyr.”

  She made a face. “Tyr?” Then she realized that had been rude. “I’m sorry. It’s just an odd name.”

  “It’s a very old name.”

  Interesting. That had been almost the same explanation that Broder had given. There was something really peculiar about these men. Of course, it didn’t get any more peculiar than supernatural strength, healing through touch, and the ability to put someone to sleep with the brush of a hand.

  He motioned to her. “Come with me.”

  “Why?” she asked, suspicion clear in her voice.

  Tyr smiled and spread his hands. “Because I want to keep you from leaving, if I can. It’s a dangerous world out there for a woman on the demon hit list.”

  With that smile, even though it didn’t quite reach the man’s eyes, he really set himself apart from Broder. She couldn’t even imagine a smile on that man’s face. His skin would probably break apart if he tried.

  He walked into the room from which she’d heard all the male voices, leaving her alone with the front door. Should she take door number one, which may lead to demons, or door number two, which led to … well, the verdict was still out.

  She hesitated for a moment, then walked over to door number two and peered into the room. Within, ranged on various chairs and couches, was an endless array of men, all of them with their gazes focused on her. They’d gone silent in her presence.

  Some of them were pretty, some weren’t pretty, but all of them were compelling. All of them were muscular, either leanly or more of the beefcake variety. It was a festival for the eyes and female senses. All of them seemed intent on her, though it wasn’t in a physically appraising or sexual way. Their regard seemed dangerous on some level that spoke to her primal, lizard brain and told her to flee before she was crushed like a bug.

  Jessa took a step backward. Door number one was looking better right now. “What is this place and who are all of you?”

  Tyr leaned against the wall and slid a hand into his pocket. “Broder hasn’t told you?”

  “No.”

  “He will.”

  She counted to five and did her best to control her temper. “Why don’t you tell me?”

  “Not my place.”

  “Whatever.” She took another step backward. This was just weird. What were all these men doing in this house? She glanced at the door. “I think it’s time I took my chances on my own.”

  “Do that and you’ll probably die.”

  Her lips curled back from her lips as she edged toward the door. “I have more resources than you might think.” She did. Strange, new ones that she shouldn’t have, yet which were there anyway. All she needed to do was remember to use them when they were called for. “See you around, Tyr.”

  She opened the heavy front door and found Broder on the other side. He looked unsurprised to find her fleeing.

  Glancing at her tote bag, he drawled, “Where do you think you’re going?”

  FOUR

  “I’m leaving. You have a whole house filled with beefcake and no explanation for it.”

  He narrowed his eyes and tilted his head to the side a little. “So you’re fleeing because of beefcake?”

  “No. I’m fleeing strange, inexplicable beefcake in a big fancy house because every last one of you gives off a don’t-fuck-with-me vibe. So here I am, obeying the vibe. As in, leaving. Right now.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.”

  She glanced back into the foyer, where Tyr was still standing, arms crossed over his broad chest and his full lips twisted as though enjoying the show. “He said I could leave whenever I want.”

  “He’s not your protector. I am.”

  “Protector? What the hell is this, the Middle fucking Ages? What era are you from, anyway?”

  Broder didn’t answer right away and suddenly she wondered if she’d hit upon something she might not want to know. “We’re from the era in which we guarded the lives of women with our own.” His lips peeled back to show sharp white teeth. “Was I the only one in the cab last night?”

  “I know that I’m in trouble. It’s just that I’m not sure I’m in less trouble by staying here.”

  He stared at her for a long moment, his jaw clenched. She stared back, her will strong. “Go back inside,” he said finally. “You can get something to eat. I’ll introduce you to the … beefcake.” He paused. “More importantly, I’ll tell you exactly who is trying to kill you. Useful information, no?”

  Her stomach growled at the thought of food, but it was the offer of knowledge that hooked her. “Fine.” She backed away, into the foyer.

  Broder led her back into the room with all the men.

  They were still ranged across the room in various displays of beefy goodness, all still focused on her with eerie intensity. Jessa folded her arms across her chest and scowled, determined not to be affected. The testosterone in here was a little too much to take.

  “You’ve already met Tyr.” He motioned to the tawny-haired man on her right. She nodded at him, shifting uncomfortably on her feet.

  Broder motioned toward a dark-haired man slouched in a chair who sported a vicious-looking scar down one side of a brutally good-looking face … good-looking if it hadn’t been for the glower. “That’s Grimm.”

  She tried a smile. “Of course you are.”

  “Over there is Stig.” Broder pointed at a leanly muscled man with sandy hair and green eyes who wore a duster a lot like Broder’s. Many of them, she now noticed, wore similar items of clothing. “And that’s Dag, Leif, and Keir.”

  She glanced at all the men Broder indicated. “May I just say that you all have very unique names.”

  “They’re Norwegian,” said Tyr.

  One of the men, Leif, she thought his name was, shifted on his chair and she caught sight of a sheathed blade.

  “Unique way of … dressing, too,” she added, clearing her throat. She’d make a bet all these men were armed. She’d make another bet there was a reason for the propensity toward longer coats in their fashion decisions.

  Broder nodded at a godlike man who seemed to take up more space in the room than the others even though he really wasn’t any more muscular than the rest. She’d noticed him before, but had purposefully skated her attention over him. Of all the men in the room, even Broder, this one seemed the most threatening. “And that’s Erik, the oldest of us and our leader.”

  She examined the man in question. He didn’t look old at all. In fact, he looked about the same age as Broder. “He looks very young for the way you speak of him.”

  “He was the first of us. Perhaps that’s a better way to put it.”

  That just confused her more.

  Erik stood from where he sat on the edge of a polished desk. He nodded at her. “We’re pleased to have you among us,” he said in that same odd accent. “You are safe here. Never doubt that.”

  Oddly enough, when a dangerous-looking muscle-bound man told her she could trust him, it didn’t automatically put her at ease.

  “Hungry?” asked Broder.

  She was too uneasy to be concerned with food, but she nodded anyway. She just wanted to get out of this room and away from all these mysterious men.

  Broder led her out of the room, and she cast a final suspicious look over her shoulder, wondering like crazy what the hell was going on in this place. Was it a halfway house for waywa
rd underwear models? Some secret organization of crime-fighting superheroes? Oh, crap, the set of a Norwegian porn movie?

  He led her into a huge industrial-style kitchen. She could probably fit her entire bedroom into the enormous stainless-steel refrigerator alone. She guessed she shouldn’t be all that surprised. After all, men as built as these guys must need to consume a lot of calories.

  Broder set some bread, jam, and butter on the table, then went for silverware and plates.

  She eased onto a chair at the center island. “Are you an Olympic sports team of some kind?”

  He returned to the island and set a plate in front of her. “Is that what you think? Do you always pair bobsledding with vicious monsters that move like snakes, have irises that turn jet-black, and sprout retractable fangs?”

  She gave up her attempt to make rational sense of it all. Swallowing hard, she pushed the plate away, suddenly not very hungry anymore. “So you’re saying those things and the men in this house are connected?”

  “Blight.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The fanged monsters, they’re called the Blight. Yes, we fight them.”

  She digested that. “So this is like some kind of superhero club.”

  He frowned at her. “Super to a human, maybe. Definitely not heroes.”

  “Blight are demons. Correct?”

  He nodded. “Spawned from the depths of icy Hel, which holds the same name of the goddess who keeps that realm. Hel is Loki’s daughter and she’s imprisoned there. You could say she and Loki have a troubled relationship.”

  “You mentioned Loki before. I remember him from my mythology class at school. He’s a Norwegian god, right? A trickster god. Kind of a prick?”

  “You sum him up nicely.”

  “So the Blight are trying to kill me.” She chewed on that for a moment, breathing deep and trying to remain calm. Apparently demons and Norwegian gods were real. Shock was keeping her from running around the room, holding her head in her hands. “So what do they want? Why are they here?”

  Broder selected a piece of bread and began to butter it. “The mission of the Blight is to bring about Ragnarök.” He glanced up at her. “Sort of like the Christians’ version of Armageddon. Ragnarök is an apocalypse for the gods.”

  “Apocalypse for the gods,” she repeated numbly. This just got weirder and weirder.

  “Yes.”

  “Do we care if the gods have an apocalypse?”

  Broder shrugged. “I hate all the gods I’ve ever met, so I don’t care if they live or die. However, their war would be bad for the world. There would be a series of natural disasters that would result in the destruction of the planet. Basically, Hel is trying to kill her father. Humanity is in the way.”

  A little puff of air escaped Jessa. She gave him a slow blink. “Are you fucking crazy?”

  “I wish I was. I also wish I didn’t have to tell you this next part, which is likely to blow your little human mind.”

  “My little hum—wait a minute, you’re trying to make me angry, aren’t you? Well, forget it. You can’t. Tell me the rest of your whacked-out story.”

  He set the butter aside and moved on to the jam. When he was finished with that, he folded over his piece of bread and calmly dipped it into his glass of milk. “We are the Brotherhood of the Damned, a group of men who committed brutal acts in our days as Vikings and have been punished by the god Loki to an immortal life battling the Blight.”

  Jessa stared.

  Broder took a bite of his bread. “Why aren’t you freaking out right now?” he asked around the mouthful.

  “I’m freaking out on the inside.” At least now she knew why her mojo hadn’t worked on him. He wasn’t even human … if he was telling the truth.

  He cocked his head to the side. “You don’t look like you believe me.”

  “You have to admit it’s a little hard to swallow.”

  “So you didn’t see the two agents of the Blight last night? You missed the bloodthirsty fangs, the freezing touch, the huge cobra mouth, all that stuff?”

  “Yes, but you’re telling me that the god Loki is real and that you’re over a thousand years old. You’re saying that you’re some kind of … prison inmate for life, but instead of making license plates, you’re forced to fight demons. You’re also telling me that Loki and his daughter, Hel, are locked in some epic family squabble and the fate of the world hangs in the balance. Gee, what’s not to believe? By the way”—she gave him a head-to-toe sweep—“for a thousand, you’re looking really good.”

  He bit into his jam sandwich, unfazed. “Humans,” he said after he’d swallowed, “never believe anything outside their tiny, limited sphere of experience.”

  “You’re not human, then? So I was right.”

  “I was, once. Then Loki stabbed me with a sliver of Blight and I became something else.” He paused. “Brotherhood.”

  “So everyone in this house is suffering from the same mass delusion. Perhaps something happened to each of you in your past, something in which you felt out of control or helpless, so you decided to give yourself special powers and immortality”—she made air quotes around the words—“so you would never feel out of control or helpless again. I get it.” She pushed from her chair. “But I don’t want any part of it.” She turned and went for the door. Nothing was going to stop her from getting the hell out of here this time.

  “I know you don’t want to believe this, but walk out that door and you will die, I guarantee it. I don’t know why the Blight want you dead, but they do. You don’t stand a chance against them.”

  She halted, clenching her hands at her sides. “Why does everyone presume I’m so helpless?”

  “Because you’re human.”

  “That doesn’t mean I’m stupid.”

  “You’re not stupid; you’re just not prepared. Don’t you remember last night? In the cab? All you did was flail and scream.”

  She whirled. “I killed that thing!”

  “With my dagger, yes. You don’t have my dagger any longer.”

  That was a good point.

  She put a hand on her hip. “Prove to me that you’re everything you just said you were. I want honest-to-god, irrefutable evidence that you’re not delusional and insane.”

  “More proof than demons?”

  “Okay, maybe I need proof I’m not delusional and insane.”

  He set his bread down and rounded the island to walk over to her. He stood so close, she could feel the warmth of his body radiating out and enveloping her. He smelled good, like leather and the faintest whisper of cologne. Reaching down, he picked up her hand, his strong, broad fingers closing around it, and pressed it palm-first to his chest.

  Her breath caught at the feel of his strong chest under his shirt and the warmth of his skin. He was hard beneath the soft skin, all muscle.

  “Close your eyes and reach out with your mind to the center of me,” he said.

  After shooting him a look that clearly conveyed how futile she thought this exercise, she closed her eyes and sought the “center of him,” whatever that meant.

  She expected to find nothing, but it hit her almost immediately. In her mind’s eye a long sliver of blue pulsed. She knew without a shadow of a doubt that it was lodged in Broder’s soul. It gave off a pulse of danger, of darkness, that made her want to back away from him, but she stood her ground.

  Suddenly she was whooshed away to some building she didn’t recognize. She understood this was happening in her mind, but it seemed completely real. The chill in the room dissolved into her bones; the shift and rustle of material filled her ears.

  Gasping, her eyes open, she turned in a circle, taking in the scene. Strong, big men, all in the clothing of Vikings, ranged around her. She recognized a few of them from the room downstairs. All of them were being addressed by a sleek, handsome man dressed in a suit—Loki? She could hear nothing, but she sensed that all the men in the room possessed pulsing slivers of darkness in their souls. />
  As soon as the vision had engulfed her, it spit her back out. She stumbled backward, disoriented, her hand going to her head. Nausea filled her. “What was that?”

  “I shared with you one of my earliest Brotherhood memories. Proof that I am what I say I am.”

  She took another step back, the world going fuzzy. Her breath came in short, panicky little pants and her chest was tight. She turned in a dizzy circle, eyes wide, wanting this awful feeling to pass.