by Dena Christy
“I think this attack was meant as a message for me. Whoever is behind it wants to show me their power and prove to me that they can get to me and my people any time they want.”
“So no one was killed then? At least something good came out of this whole mess,” she said.
Cadric hesitated, not wanting to tell her about Bern. He was relatively new to the Order, and he didn’t know if Samara knew him that well, but she would definitely know Roger, since he’d been a fixture at Order headquarters for years. But Cadric should have known that he couldn’t hide anything from her.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“Bern’s dead,” he said quietly as he reached out for her hand.
“Oh no,” she said sadly as she squeezed his hand. “Roger must be devastated.”
“He is. I’ve promised him that I will sort this out and find out who’s responsible, and I’m making you the same promise. Whoever did this will live to regret it.”
“Good,” Eric said as he walked back into the room. “Now, you’ve visited and you can go.”
Cadric nodded to the wolf as he stood protectively at his woman’s side. Eric’s tone bordered on surly, but Cadric had grown used to him. He rarely tolerated being spoken to in such a way, but he could see the love and devotion Eric had for Samara, and that gave him some leeway in his behavior.
Cadric leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Samara’s forehead.
“I meant what I said,” Cadric said as he straightened and looked at Eric. “I swear I will find out who did this to your woman and your children, and they will pay.”
Cadric turned on his heel and left the room. It hadn’t occurred to him until he’d said it to Samara, but he could see now that this attack had been a message, otherwise there would have been a lot more casualties. That Bern was the only one killed seemed like pay back for his interference in Nan’s attack. Someone was playing with him, but who?
* * *
Nan picked at her food as she sat alone in her husband’s home. Days had passed since the attack, and she’d seen little of Baldr. He spent most of his time at headquarters. The more time he spent away from her, the more she thought repairing their marriage was a dream destined to remain unfulfilled. How could they repair anything if he was never here?
She shoved her plate away, her appetite gone. She knew Loki was behind the attack, and guilt ate her insides when she remembered how Roger had fallen apart at the death of his brother. She longed to tell Baldr the truth, but the knowledge of Odin’s wrath kept her mouth shut, just as Loki had predicted it would.
She got up and scraped the remains of her dinner in the garbage and set her plate in the sink. She kept telling herself that her husband was a smart man, and that he would figure out that Loki was behind everything that was happening. She only hoped no one else had to die before her husband learned the truth.
The front door opened and Baldr walked in, exhaustion carved in every line of his body and face. He walked over to the sofa and collapsed on it, tilting his head back and closing his eyes. She swallowed the guilt inside her. She could relieve his exhaustion with a few simple words, but she could not bring herself to do it.
“I’m guessing today wasn’t a good day?” she asked as she went over to sit beside him. “Are you any closer to finding who was responsible?”
“No,” he growled. His head remained resting against the back of the sofa and he left his eyes shut.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” she asked. Perhaps if he let her in, she may steer him in Loki’s direction without telling him directly. It was a risk, since Loki would see to it she was punished, but she couldn’t go on watching her husband grow further away from her. Perhaps if she became more involved with his work, it would give them some much needed time together.
“You can’t help,” he said flatly as he lifted his head off the back of the sofa and stared straight ahead. “I need to work through this myself.”
“Maybe a new perspective would shed some light on the situation,” Nan said as her heart sank down into her belly. She knew by the stubborn look on his face that he would not let her in. She curled her hands on her lap until her nails bit into the flesh of her palms.
“I have all the help I need. Hadria and I are working on this, but thanks for the offer.” He looked over at her, and offered her a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, as if that would soften the blow. Her mouth twisted, and he noticed and pressed his own lips together. “Don’t look like that. How many times do I have to tell you that nothing is going on between Hadria and I? I thought we’d reached an understanding about this?”
“I’d thought we’d reached an understanding about several things, but evidently not. You said you wanted to give our marriage a chance, but that was a load of shit. I know Hadria isn’t the one I should be jealous of. It’s the Order itself. You devote yourself to it like it’s a lover.”
“That’s ridiculous,” he said as he reached out to put his hand on her arm.
She moved away and stood up. She needed to make him understand what his refusal to let her in was doing to her, and she wouldn’t be able to do that if he touched her. He’d done that years ago when any discussion had strayed to a topic he didn’t want to discuss. He’d touch her and she would be lost. It would not happen this time. She swallowed hard and took a deep breath.
“It’s not ridiculous,” she said as she shook her head. She swallowed again as tears prickled at the back of her throat. She had to keep it together long enough to tell him what she needed to say. “I was foolish to leave Asgard. I should have known that this wouldn’t work. I guess I didn’t get the message when you abandon me and our son all those years ago. You wouldn’t let me in then, and you aren’t letting me in now.”
He opened his mouth to speak, but she held her hand up to stop him. Her chest felt like a heavy weight was pressing on it when she realized how stupid she’d been. She’d risked her eternity for a man who wasn’t ready to make room in his life for her. She shook her head again as she pressed her trembling lips together, turned on her heel and walked away from him.
Chapter 11
Cadric watched her go, and he sagged back against the couch and sighed. He scrubbed his hand over his face as guilt lay heavily in his gut. His intentions to work on his marriage had fallen aside very quickly once he was in the throes of the investigation. While he didn’t really want to deal with his troubled marriage on top of everything else that was happening, he could see that he’d neglected his wife for far too long. He hadn’t had to make anything but the Order a priority for so long that he struggled to find balance.
He’d meant it when he told her that he wanted to make this marriage work, but he’d done little to prove it. Where was he supposed to start? He’d left her in the cruelest way possible, and he didn’t know how he would ever make up for that. To keep her here and neglect her was inexcusable, and he stood. They needed to talk, and he needed to be more open with her. Her patience was being tested. He didn’t know if he could put her first, but maybe if he talked to her, told her why she couldn’t help him, perhaps she would understand. Perhaps she would give him a little more time to sort things out with the Order.
He walked to her bedroom and knocked on the door. Silence greeted him, and he opened the door a little. She sat on the bed, facing away from him. He pushed the door open further, and she remained where she was, and refused to look at him.
“I’m sorry that I’ve upset you,” he said softly as he walked into the room. “I don’t want to hurt you. That has never been my intention, either now or in the past. What can I do to help us get past this?”
He approached the bed and put his hand on her shoulder. She stayed where she was, but he was offered hope when she didn’t pull away from his touch like she had in the living room.
“Tell me why the Order is so important to you. If I knew why, maybe I could understand why you put it before everything,” she said and she turned her head to look at him. His gut cle
nched when he saw the tracks her tears had made upon her cheeks. The last thing he wanted to do was make her cry, but it seemed he’d hurt her, despite his intentions to the contrary.
“At first it was a distraction for me. Something I could focus on, to help me push away the pain of leaving you and Forseti. I know you don’t want to believe it, but leaving you both was not something I did lightly. When I told my father I had dreamt of my death, he saw it as his chance to deal with Loki once and for all. I didn’t want to leave you and our boy, but Odin is persuasive. I finally agreed, but it wasn’t until the trap was set and I left that he informed me that I couldn’t return.”
A look of surprise came over her face.
“You mean you intended to come back?”
“When I first agreed to it, I foolishly thought I could come back eventually, but I failed to make that part of my bargain with Odin. He believes that if I come back to Asgard, it will bring Ragnarok.”
Nan rolled her eyes. “Your father has used the threat of Ragnarok as an excuse to get his way since the dawn of time. Surely you don’t believe that nonsense?”
“What matters is he believes it, and he won’t allow me to come back. Once I was here, knowing that I could never go home, I needed something. I needed a reason to justify what I’d done to you, and to our son. I made a start by focusing on my mother’s people, the humans. It started small, just me in fact. I would go to villages that were being targeted by supernatural creatures, and I would help and protect them. I made a difference to those people’s lives, and I was good at it. If I’m being perfectly honest I did it to help atone for the guilt I felt over what I’d done to Loki,” he said as he looked at her.
A funny look came over her face at the mention of Loki’s name.
“Go on,” she said as her face smoothed out. “You were helping the humans and then what?”
“Eventually others wanted to join me, wanted to do more with their lives than cling to the shadows and hunt humans. It was out of that desire to help that the Order of Odin was born. The Order became everything to me. It’s my purpose in life, and every member has become my family. Someone is trying to take that away from me and I have to find out who. That’s why this is so important to me. I’m responsible for all the people I’ve recruited and I can’t let them down.”
“Please Baldr, I can help,” she said as she looked up at him. Her eyes were so deep and blue and he was tempted to give her what she wanted if she would continue to look at him like that. He shook his head, saw the disappointment come over her face, and he looked away.
“I’m sorry, I know you want to helpand believe you can, but I have to say no.”
“It can’t be because I’m a woman, because you rely on Hadria. Why her and not me?”
“Hadria doesn’t stir me inside. I don’t look at her and lose track of every thought in my head. I don’t catch myself fantasizing about her,” he said as he raked his hand through his hair. “You can’t help me because I won’t be able to keep the Order if I don’t keep my eye on the prize. You get under my skin, and I can’t focus. You should be flattered that I want her help and not yours.”
Nan let out a bitter laugh, and he knew that last bit was the wrong thing to say.
“I don’t find it flattering that my husband puts me last. It’s become very clear that I will never be first in your life, and I don’t know if I ever was,” she said as she got up off the bed and walked toward the window.
“That’s not true. When we were together before you were everything to me,” he said, but he could tell by her face that she wasn’t convinced. And if he was honest with himself, he knew that his devotion to her had been sacrificed the moment he thought he could please his father. “This situation with the Order won’t last forever, I’ll catch the one responsible, and I will be all yours.”
“Until the next crisis comes along,” she said as she walked past him and went to the bedroom door. She put her hand on the knob and paused. “Why Baldr?”
Cadric’s brows drew together.
“I already told you,” he said. What on earth did she want from him?
“No, tell me why your relationships are always what you sacrifice?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. He wasn’t sacrificing their relationship, he needed a little more time to sort out his work life, and then he would be the husband she wanted.
“That’s the problem Baldr, you don’t know what I’m talking about,” she said as she opened the door and walked from the room.
He was tempted to call her back, but didn’t think it would do much good. She needed to calm down. He needed a little more time to devote to the Order. It wasn’t like he was asking her to wait forever, just a few more days.

Nan walked out of Baldr’s house and made it as far as the tree line before she realized she had nowhere to go. Her steps slowed and she leaned against a tree as her shoulders sagged. She should never have come here. If she had stayed in Asgard, at least she could fool herself into thinking that she was more important to Baldr than she was. For all his talk of time, she knew that he would always find something else, some other reason to keep her dangling on a string. Coming here had shown her that she was at the bottom of Baldr’s list.
“Mother.”
Nan let out a startled gasp when her son spoke from behind her. She spun and bit her lip when she saw him. He must want her to go back with him, and her head told her that she should go back with her son, and forget Baldr was still alive. Her mouth twisted. When had she ever listened to her head?
“Have you done what you came here to do?” he asked as he reached out and took her hands. She gave them a squeeze before letting them drop away from her.
“Your father needs me,” she said. It was her heart speaking those words, and she desperately wanted to believe them. She knew it for the lie it was and wondered for a moment why she wanted to delude herself. Baldr didn't need her, and she was a fool for thinking so. As much as she wanted to tell her son that she was ready to go, she couldn’t. If nothing else, she owed Baldr a goodbye.
“You can’t stay here for much longer. Odin is getting impatient, and I can’t forestall him forever.”
“I need a little more time,” she said. She would give Baldr one last chance and if he pushed her away she would go back to Asgard knowing that she’d tried everything to save her marriage.
Forseti turned his face toward his father’s house.
“I don’t know why you want to stay,” he said as he looked back at her. “If you haven’t convinced him by now that he needs you in his life, I doubt you are ever going to.”
Her son’s words lanced through her, and while she suspected he was right, it still hurt to hear it said out loud. She looked down at the ground, to hide the pain coursing through her, and she heard him sigh.
“I didn’t mean that,” he said as he pulled her to him and hugged her. “I can give you a little more time. I’ll stall Odin.”
“I don’t want you to incur Odin’s wrath.”
“Don’t worry, I can buy you a little more time,” he said as he pulled back. He reached into his pocket and pull out a talisman on a long silver chain. It felt heavy and warm when he placed it in her hand, and the elaborate silver scroll work seemed to glow when it touched her skin. “Use that to call me when you’re ready to come home. Don’t take too long to clean up your business. Odin’s patience will last only so long.”
She stood up on her toes and kissed her son on the cheek. She didn’t like that he expected her to fail with his father and go back to Asgard. While she wanted to tell him that he was wrong, that she wouldn’t be going back because she was going to stay with Baldr, in her heart she knew that the outcome was far from certain. She may very well have to call him back.
“Thank you,” she said as she sank back on her heels.
“He doesn’t deserve you,” her son said before he turned and disappeared. She suspected her son was right, and that
she should have gone with him.
She turned back toward the house and tucked the talisman in her pocket. If she was wasting her time she would know in a matter of minutes. It was time for her to stop banging her head against a wall and find out once and for all if she was the only one interested in saving this marriage. If her husband wanted to devote himself to the Order only, then it would be better to know now.
She walked back into the house with a heavy feeling growing in the pit of her stomach. She told herself that no matter the outcome of this final talk with Baldr, she would accept it like a mature woman. No more impulsive acts, it was time she grew up.
Her husband was nowhere to be seen, and she had a feeling he’d retreated to his office. Her hunch was correct, and she saw him sitting at his desk with a distant look on his face. She could see the weight of the events of the past few days weighing on him, and she would give anything to help ease his load. That was an impossibility unless he let her in.
He must have heard her because he looked up to see her standing there, and a wary look came over his face.
“I’m not here to fight with you,” she said as she stepped into his office and approached his desk. She reached out and smoothed the hair from his face and took a deep breath. Perhaps the best thing she could do to help him was to step away from his life and leave.
“I left Asgard without permission.”
“I know,” he said as he reached for her hand and held it.
“Your father wants me to return, and I think it’s best if I go. Like you said, you are fighting for your professional life and I distract you. I don’t want you to get caught up in my mess with your father, and I think it’s best if we put an end to this charade,” she said, her voice soft and she felt no anger toward him. “Our marriage ended a thousand years ago, and I think it’s time that I accepted that. Goodbye Baldr.”