by Laurie Dubay
He pressed his hands to the sides of my head, his thumbs smoothing over my cheekbones. “Are you alright?”
I nodded, Fenrir’s anxious growls clearing my head. As I turned to look down at him, Frieda and Dag stepped up on either side of me. I hadn’t heard any of them approach. When Frieda grasped my hand and pulled me behind them, Bren pivoted toward Loki, slowly, his expression murderous. He took two steps, bringing them within a foot of each other, and glared into Loki’s midnight eyes.
Fenrir bristled by Loki’s side, his head low, his growl an unbroken roll through his razor-sharp snarl.
“What are you doing here?” Bren’s voice was thunder.
I heard an icy crush and then Val was over Bren’s shoulder. When I glanced back, Frey was there, Dag’s arm held out across Frey’s chest to restrain him.
Loki remained still for a moment, the muscles in his jaw flexed, then his lips curved into a devious grin. He spread his arms, glancing around him.
“Can’t a guy go on vacation?” He said.
“Who released you?” Bren lowered his head and glared, fearsome in his stillness.
“Why don’t you return and find out? Exact your terrible wrath upon the offender.”
When Bren leaned forward, Loki took a brisk step back, holding his grin. Fenrir tensed. Val reached out and pressed his fingers into Bren’s shoulder.
Loki glanced around again. “I like this place,” he said. “It’s less …ostentatious… than I’d have imagined. Cozier. Although I can’t see how these hills could possibly satisfy you. Or perhaps you’ve developed new appetites.” His eyes flicked to me and I held back a shudder.
“Look at her again,” Bren said, “and I will destroy you.” And there was a sharp eagerness in his voice now. A last crack of thunder before the torrent.
“What are you waiting for? Do it.” It was Frey. He pushed against Dag’s arm like a bull in a pen. Frieda squeezed my hand.
Loki’s focus was firm on Bren, but his smile was gone. “That would make you a monster, wouldn’t it? A criminal. A murderer.” He said this last word in a long, rough whisper, his eyes widening for a moment and then narrowing again. I felt tension hit my body from the outside, smacking into me like waves. It had Bren’s mark on it, his scent, the way he felt when he was close to me, and mixed with this was a restrained rage that was not my own. I gasped with the weight of it.
Loki took another step back. He touched his fingers to his temple the way he had before, then twirled his hand twice in a graceful tumble. His eyes swept over the group – all but me – and then he turned and walked back into the shadows, Fenrir, his huge, muscular shoulders rolling, exactly one pace behind.
Chapter 21
“We should’ve nailed that bastard,” Dag said, dropping down onto the couch.
“And found out nothing about his release. Nothing about his presence here.” Val said.
I walked to the closet to hang Val’s jacket, and he nodded his thanks when I returned.
“We can’t just let him roam around here loose.” Frieda said. “It’s not safe.” She turned to me. “Why the heck didn’t you text one of us that you were coming?”
Bren glared at me and waited for an answer.
I closed my eyes. I had been so busy sneaking out and thinking up excuses for Sydney that I’d forgotten to let them know I was leaving.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I forgot.”
Bren opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again and shook his head. After a long pause, he pressed his hands into his hips. “Where’s Skye?” He glanced at the sliders.
“Here.” Skye stepped into the apartment and closed the door behind her. Her cheeks were rosy against her pale skin.
Bren spun on her. “Where have you been? I told you I don’t want you --”
“And I told you,” she broke in, “that I will not be ordered around like some minion. It’s bad enough to have to work wherever we go --”
“This is not about authority. You’re putting everyone in jeopardy --”
“I knew the second he was here.”
“And arrived too late.” The tone of Bren’s voice had remained even, but she did not answer back. Instead, she walked to the couch and threw herself down. She crossed her legs and folded her arms over her chest.
Frey dragged a chair out from under the kitchen table and sat down, slumping, his legs stretched out wide in front of him. “Hell, why don’t we just go get him? Make him tell us what’s up?”
“If we give it some thought,” Val said, pulling out a second chair and leaning on the back of it, “we may be able to find a way to do that without tearing up the place.”
“There’s six of us and one of him.”
“That’s not the point,” Val said, staring down at Frey. “He’ll know we’re coming. And he’ll be prepared. He does not care for this place as we do, and we know what he is capable of.”
Bren nodded. “We’ll wait.”
He put his hand on the small of my back and motioned toward the hallway. I stared up at him, my stomach clenching. At first I thought it was embarrassment at the thought of everyone watching us walk up to his bedroom together, but when they started to talk to each other, speculating, ignoring us completely, I realized that I was seeing him differently. I had felt his overwhelming anger at Loki, watched everyone in his family defer to him instantly, heard him threaten to destroy a dangerous criminal with no hesitation. I could not imagine being alone with him. He would fill the room, crush me.
His expression softened and in that moment I was sure he knew my thoughts. He let his hand drop and motioned up the hall again. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s talk.”
I kept my breath even as I made my way up toward his room and stepped over the threshold. He closed the door behind us. The window was open, the icy breeze rattling the blinds. Bren quickly stepped around me to close it.
“Frey is big on fresh air,” he said. “Your coat is still here if you need it.” He motioned to where my coat hung on the corner of the closet door. I shook my head. He took a step toward me and stopped at about arm’s length. We faced each other in the center of the room.
“I don’t want you to be afraid of me,” he said.
“I didn’t say I was…” he smiled and I let my words go.
“I know none of this has been easy for you. I’m sorry if I scared you. There’s no other way to deal with Loki.”
“He just didn’t seem that…threatening. He seemed so…”
“Charming. Polite.”
“Sad.”
“What?”
“When I looked at him. Into his eyes. I felt …sad.”
Bren shook his head. “It’s a trick. He’ll manipulate you if you let him.” He took a step closer, but kept his hands by his sides. “What did he say to you?”
I tried to remember. Somehow, my whole experience of Loki seemed foggy. “I think we just talked about the dog, mostly. And then you came.”
“That’s no dog.”
“What do you mean?”
“Fenrir is an Asgardian wolf.”
“A wolf? But he was so sweet.”
Bren stuffed his hands into the pockets of his sweatshirt and peered down into my face. “Jenna, Fenrir is a monster. He mauls and maims and kills. During Ragnarok, he attacks one of the most powerful gods in Asgard and swallows him like a scrap of meat.”
I felt the blood drain from my face as I thought of the wolf’s muzzle against my waist, my hands in his fur.
“Why didn’t he hurt me?”
Bren shook his head.
We stood like that for a moment, the silence filling in around us. I stared at the black fleece of his sweatshirt, letting its soft comfort envelop my imagination and blur the events of the evening in my mind. Finally, he stepped close to me, slid his hands from his pockets and grasped my shoulders. His hands were warm through the cotton of my t-shirt, and warmer still as they slipped down the bare skin of my arms.
“I’m sorry I scared you,
” he said again. “When I saw him so close to you, looking at you like that, like he…” he closed his eyes and took a deep breath before returning his gaze to mine.
I touched his hair, the strands soft between my fingers, then pressed my palms into his chest. He peeled his sweatshirt off his shoulders and then yanked it from his arms, letting it fall to the floor as he pulled me against him.
“You have to stay.” He said into my hair. “I can’t let you go back. Not after this.”
“You know I have to be back before my mother wakes up,” I said, and part of me wished that I was like the rest of them, so that he could order me to stay and I could plop down on the bed and pout.
“Jenna this is serious.”
“I know it is.” I let my hands move up over his collarbone, traced the lines of muscle in his shoulders. “But you have to understand that I live in a world outside of all this. I can’t just decide what I think is best and then do it. My mother doesn’t know and wouldn’t understand what’s going on here, and I still have to follow her rules. If I don’t, things will get so much worse.”
“We can take care of all that. Skye can…”
“No.” I said. “I won’t let my mom be manipulated like that.”
He stared down at me for a long time and I wondered if he was angry.
Finally, he said: “It’s too soon. Isn’t it?”
“Too soon for what?” My imagination ran to the worst. Too soon to have a fight. Too soon to break up. Too soon to realize he’d made a mistake with a stupid girl.
“Too soon to say I love you.”
I stared back at him, sure he must be joking, and when I saw the honesty in his face I let out a long, trembling sigh that was part relief, part amazement at my own luck.
“Not if I say it, too.” I said.
He grinned. “So, now do I have the right to tell you that you aren’t going anywhere?”
“No.” I said. “Do you want to take it back?”
“No.” He said. “I want to hold you while you go to sleep, and figure out how I am going to protect you while you’re at school and when I’m at work.”
“I could say I’m sick and stay home,” I suggested.
“No,” he said. “He’s staying here. You’re probably safer off the property. And I’ll know if he leaves.”
“Aren’t you usually on shift when I get home from school?”
Instead of answering, he broke away from me, strode over to the door, opened it and stuck his head out.
“Skye.” He called. The talking in the living room stopped.
“Yes.” She said.
“Please let us know about half an hour before Jenna’s mother wakes up.”
“Whatever.”
He came back, yanked off his boots, and threw himself onto his bed, flicking his fingers for me to follow. I pulled off my own boots and sat on the edge, looking down at him.
“Yeah, but we won’t all be on shift at once.” He said in answer to my last question.
“I’m not getting babysat every free minute of my day.”
“Jenna, I’m not playing around here.” He sat up again.
“I’m not going to let this guy rule my life.”
He grabbed at his hair, his jaw clenched. “Jenna, I know you’re a smart girl. But you really aren’t grasping this situation.”
I stared down at him. He stared back for a moment, then let himself fall onto the pillow and flung his gaze to the ceiling.
“Just make sure to stay around people when you get home,” he said. “I don’t think he’ll try anything in a public place. There’s a reason he’s here, and he won’t want to screw things up by making a freak of himself. Stick to the lodge or the deck, anyplace busy. Wait for one of us if you need to go up to your place. And for Gods’ sake...” he stretched his hand toward me. “Come here.”
I grinned through my irritation and let myself fall into him, my head on his chest and my arm curled around his waist. He wrapped his arms around me and sighed.
Chapter 22
Bren walked me home in the dusky hours of morning, when the air was still and cold and the moon hung bright in the sky. I was reminded of a dawn not long ago when I had crept out onto the deck and lifted my eyes to a false sun rising over the mountain. Now it warmed my hand as we walked together, the boughs of the evergreens whispering as we brushed by them on our way past.
We stopped before rounding the corner of the deck.
I gazed up at Bren, my eyelids still heavy from sleep, and he kissed me before I could speak. My blood stirred as he pulled me closer. I was desperate to hold onto him, panicked now that the time had come to walk away. When we broke apart, I saw the panic in his own eyes.
“Out here or in the lodge,” he said. “Nowhere else.”
“I know. It’s going to be fine.”
“My shift ends at six. I’ll see you right after.”
I nodded. I didn’t want to wait that long.
“I’ll have my phone if you need me. Keep yours on. I don’t care about school policies. If I call and you don’t answer I’m going to come looking for you.”
I smiled. “Don’t worry.”
He kissed me once more. Then I turned to face a day in a world where I was slowly losing my balance. It was like stepping out onto solid ground from the spinning barrel of a funhouse.
The school day went by in a slow blur. I stared at my teachers as they lectured, my focus on mental images of Loki’s calm blue gaze as he stood in the hail, Fenrir’s glittering coat and razor teeth, Bren’s eyes blazing in the night. Brianna glowered at me all through lunch from her new perch on Brian’s knee, but Tyler didn’t glance at me once, or try to speak to me again. By the time the day was over, I was buzzing with anxiousness to get home, to catch a glimpse of Bren on the trails and make sure that he was okay.
My mother drove maddeningly slow, and as she stopped at a yellow light I scratched at my head in frustration.
“Jenna,” she said as the light turned red. “I know you don’t want to discuss this, but I just…I feel I have to say something and we don’t seem to get the time to talk anymore.”
“What?” I turned to her, momentarily pulled from my mania. “What is it?”
“Well. Your relationship with Bren. I don’t know how far it’s gone, but…”
“Mom.”
“No, Jenna. We need to do this.”
“Now?”
“Yes, now.” Her voice was firm, so I waited for her to continue. The light turned green and she pressed on the gas, still creeping along at the speed limit.
“As I said, I don’t know how far things have gone, but given your age, I can imagine you’ve considered having sex with this boy.”
“God,” I whispered, propping my elbow on the edge of the window and dropping my head into my hand.
“And I want you to know that I don’t want you to have sex. I don’t feel you’re ready, and it can complicate your life in ways you can’t imagine.”
“I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do, Jenna. I don’t think anyone your age knows until they get pregnant or end up hurt in some other way. But regardless…”
“I get it.”
“Regardless. If you choose to have sex with this boy despite my feelings on the subject, I want you to be safe. I want you to see a doctor, and I want you to use birth control.”
“It’s not like that, okay?”
We were silent for a moment. I watched her chest rise and then she paused, her breath suspended.
“You’re wearing your jacket.” She said.
I lifted my head. “What?”
“Last night, you told me you left your jacket at Frieda’s. But you’re wearing it today.”
My body went cold. I’d told her about my jacket before Frieda and I went upstairs to the suite, and then as far as she knew, I’d been in for the night. I thought about telling her Bren had run it over while I was walking Frieda downstairs, but it would have seemed too contrived, too
convenient. Neither of us spoke until she pulled into her space at the hotel.
“I’ll make you an appointment,” she said. And then we opened our doors and went our separate ways.
I dropped my backpack behind the reception desk and went out onto the deck, surveying the mountain for Bren. After about fifteen minutes, I gave up and broke the rules, running up to the suite to grab my boots. My board was still in the rack where I’d left it the night before, and I thought I’d practice a little to kill some time. For one moment, I considered taking the lift up the big mountain. I’d been to the summit with Bren and had made my way down just fine, turns and all, but the thought of going alone drew all kinds of crazy ‘what ifs’ into my head, like breaking my leg as I tried to get off the lift, falling against a rock and knocking myself unconscious, getting lost on a trail or stuck on a black diamond. Instead, I trudged to the top of the bunny hill, stood there with my board as I scanned down and back up for a glimpse of red, then buckled in and took my first run.
It was better than I thought it would be. My turns were improving and I was able to accumulate some speed, skirting and coasting past most of the beginners on the hill. I was still afraid of falling every second, but it felt good to be ignored a little instead of gawked at by other skiers and boarders, who, I imagined, took bets on how many seconds would lapse before I crashed, and in which direction I would bounce. After my fourth tumble-free run, I stopped at the bottom of the slope to unbuckle my boot and rotate my ankle. It was almost healed from the pull, but there was still a twinge of unexpected weakness every now and then.
The sun brightened as a thin cloud cleared its surface, and I tilted my head and closed my eyes, allowing it to shower me with a false sense of normality. I knew it couldn’t last, but I let that and every other thought drift away as the rays warmed my face.
“The days are short, the sun a spark, hung thin between the dark and dark.”