“I think the trick now will be to keep either of us from being shot before someone recognizes you,” Tyr said, his voice low as he leaned towards her and gave her a kiss. “I had hoped surveillance would be less on this floor, as it is not, technically, the residence,” he added, glancing around as he straightened back to his full height.
Still checking the corners, he headed swiftly for the room’s main door.
He cocked his head, listening, then glanced at her again.
“Also,” he said, giving her a look that verged on embarrassed. “You should know, if I fear for your life, or fear I cannot keep you safe in my current form, there is some chance my wings could reappear on their own.”
He paused, gauging her expression, his mouth still set in that grim line.
“That would be bad, I think,” he added, apologetic. “If your father were to see me that way. Even if there is no surveillance to capture it on camera.”
“My father?” she frowned. “Why would it matter if––”
“I don’t mean to worry you,” Tyr broke in. “I just didn’t wish you to be taken aback, if you were to see my wings in some kind of violent confrontation.”
There was a silence.
In it, Tyr appeared to be once more listening at the door.
Letting the other thing go, Marion walked up to him, pressing against his now suit-clad side and listening along with him. She could hear commotion outside the door, and what sounded like a distant alarm. Footsteps were running up and down the hall.
Some of them ran directly in front of their room.
“I am waiting for it to be slightly quieter,” he murmured. “But we cannot stay here long. We must go soon. Be ready to follow me.”
“Wouldn’t they have seen you outside?” Marion whispered, back to thinking about his wings. “On the promenade?”
Still looking at the door, Tyr shrugged, shaking his head.
“I cannot be sure,” he admitted. “I came in fast, in part to avoid this, and I blocked the cameras as well as I was able, using my wings… at least until I managed to break those pointed in our direction. There will be questions, yes, but I do not think there will be enough to prove anything.”
He looked over his shoulder at her from his position at the door, his mouth hard.
“I am much more concerned for you,” he said grimly. “I am concerned you could be injured if they aren’t able to identify you quickly enough. Also, it may seem a trivial thing to you, but I would prefer if your father did not see me in a… compromised position.”
“Compromised?” Marion’s lips pursed. “Meaning what?”
Again, Tyr shrugged.
“I would also prefer not to have to hurt many Earth humans in the process of delivering you to him safely,” Tyr added. “Regardless of his final conclusions as to my intentions.”
Marion frowned.
She opened her mouth, wanting to ask.
Then, realizing this really wasn’t the place, and definitely not the time, she closed it again.
She found herself craving a shot of something.
And kind of wishing she’d taken Tyr up on that offer of espresso before they left.
“Okay,” he said, gripping the handle. “We will go now.”
Before Marion could let out so much as a breath, the god was already opening the door.
21
No Separations
V oices erupted around them, the instant the door opened.
Then they all seemed to be saying the same thing.
“HERE! HE’S HERE!”
One of them directed their words to Tyr.
“SHOW YOUR HANDS!” the agent shouted, a Latino man Marion recognized, and the first one she laid eyes on. “COME OUT OF THERE! RIGHT NOW! SHOW US YOUR HANDS! DROP ANY WEAPONS!”
Marion saw a familiar face behind him, then.
“MIKE!” she shouted, coming out into the hall, stepping in front of Tyr. “MIKE ROSTROE! IT’S ME! MARION! MARION RAVENSCROFT!”
The corridor went dead silent.
Marion held up both of her hands.
Glancing behind her, she jerked her chin at Tyr to indicate for him to raise his hands as well. After a bare hesitation, the tall god did as she indicated, raising his hands and arms slowly until they were head-level.
Jerking her eyes off Tyr in the expensive-looking suit that appeared to fit his broad shoulders and chest perfectly, she glanced behind him down the corridor.
She saw at least five more agents there, in the hallway, enough to know someone must have seen them dart into the guest bedroom.
That, or surveillance in the room picked them up.
Or they’d already been in that area of the third floor.
She looked back at Mike, and saw two more agents stumble into the Central Hall, coming from the direction of the solarium. From the beat-up look of the first guy, he was probably the one Tyr kicked through the solarium’s glass wall. The agent had nicks and cuts all over his thirty-something face, and he glared at the two of them, his hand on his sidearm.
“Marion?”
Mike Rostroe called out her name, and Marion’s eyes jerked to meet his.
“Marion!” The blond agent with the crew-cut slowly lowered his weapon, an unabashed look of relief on his rugged face. “Marion. My god. Is that really you? We’ve been looking for you everywhere!”
Mike’s blue eyes darted to Tyr then, and immediately grew suspicious.
“Who’s this?” the Marine said, nodding towards Tyr.
He didn’t raise the gun, but he held it differently as he looked Tyr over, his two-handed grip on the weapon tightening.
“Is he with you? Is this piece of shit the reason you disappeared?”
Marion lowered her hands, but only to hold them out towards Mike and the rest of the agents, her palms outstretched.
“He’s okay!” Marion said. “Everyone can calm down! He’s with me!”
“Wait!” Another voice rose across the corridor. “I recognize that guy.”
Marion turned, and blinked in bewilderment at the face of Don Gerald, the other half of her two-person security detail on St. Barts that night.
Don wore a dark gray suit with a white shirt, looking like he’d just come back from an expensive night out, but he held his gun with the same tension in his arms and hands as Mike.
He looked just as ready to use that gun, too.
“Remember him, Mike?” Don called out, nodding towards Tyr. “He was in St. Barts. He’s that huge guy who threw in with the scuffle when they tried to take Mari. He showed up in the middle of everything, and knocked that bald guy on his ass. Then two more of those assholes jumped him, and he just about killed them, too––”
“Trying to save me,” Marion cut in angrily, her hands back up in the air.
Despite her surrender posture, she glared between the two men, frustrated.
“You didn’t see them hit me with a syringe in the neck?” she said. “If it hadn’t been for Tyr, I’d be dead. He got me away from those guys. And he’s been trying to help me get back here, to Dad, ever since!”
There was another silence.
Then the man in front, the one who’d first told Tyr to raise his hands up in the air, spoke into a microphone in his sleeve.
Once he had, guns started to lower, even as hard eyes continued to appraise Tyr from both sides of the corridor.
Marion still had her hands up when Mike walked forward.
His voice shifted to a crisper, more business-like tone.
“You can lower your hands, Ms. Ravenscroft,” he said politely.
Marion lowered her hands slowly.
She turned around as agents approached Tyr, only to find him watching her, a wary look on his face. When it occurred to Marion that he was still more worried about her than he was about himself, she was torn between wanting to laugh, and wanting to yell at him.
The god was slowly lowering his own hands when voices barked at him.
“NOT YOU!”
Mike growled at him, holding up his gun and aiming it at Tyr. “UP!” he growled, pointing the gun at Tyr’s chest. “Keep them up!”
Marion frowned, turning to scowl openly at Mike, who gave her a faintly apologetic look, even as he continued to approach Tyr.
“We have to check him out, Marion,” he said. “You have to know we’d need to check him out. Especially since we have absolutely no idea how either of you gained access to the grounds… much less the building… much less the upstairs residence.”
Marion shut her mouth, again glancing at Tyr as agents approached him.
Don spoke to Tyr a little more diplomatically when he reached them.
“Keep them up, big guy,” the burly agent said. “If you are what she says you are, you got nothing to worry about. We just need to take you for a little walk, and clear you before we can let you back in here…”
Marion met Tyr’s gaze.
The god was looking at her.
He obviously didn’t want to leave her alone.
At the same time, Marion could still feel it wasn’t worry for his own wellbeing. He was worried about her, even now, with five gun-holding agents walking in his direction.
Tyr didn’t trust the agents any more than they trusted him.
It hit Marion, looking at him, that Tyr believed some of the Syndicate’s people were likely inside the White House, even now. Remembering what happened when she tried to use the dedicated line to call her father, she realized he might be right.
“He needs to stay with me,” she said, meeting Tyr’s gaze before she looked at Mike. “If you have to question him elsewhere, I’m coming along. We can’t be separated. There are good reasons for this, Mike,” she added when he gave her a sharp look.
“We have reason to believe the security team here has been compromised,” she added, looking between him and Don. “I tried using the dedicated number. We tried to call, to get you to come for us… and I couldn’t get through. The number got re-routed. My call got picked up by the same people who tried to abduct me in St. Barts.”
Silence returned to the corridor.
It was deeper that time.
Marion watched a few of the agents exchange looks, especially Mike and Don, and Mike and the guy who appeared to be in charge, the one who’d first yelled out to Tyr when he appeared in the corridor.
Marion recognized him, too.
A tall, Latino man, she knew him as Diego Torres.
He joked that his friends called him “Dave,” but Marion had never heard anyone in the Service call him anything but Torres. Torres was ex-military, like Mike and Don, but Marion wasn’t sure which branch.
Unlike Mike and Don, he was disarmingly slim in build.
He dressed in the normal uniform of the Secret Service with a dark suit, white shirt, nondescript haircut and a silver, military-style watch. His deep brown eyes looked from Tyr to Marion and back.
Seeming to make up his mind, he pointed down the corridor.
“Take the big guy to one of the bedrooms,” he began, motioning at Tyr.
Marion started to shake her head, opening her mouth to protest, but Torres looked directly at her.
“We have to check him out, Marion,” he said calmly, raising a hand. “Mike and Don will stay with you. All right? I’ll go in to talk to your mysterious savior, here. But we have to check him out before we can let him in the same room as the President… and they’re bringing your father up now. He knows you’re here and he’s demanding to see you. He’s not going to take kindly to me asking him to wait.”
Marion frowned.
She looked at Tyr, who looked back at her.
The God of War still looked wary.
Marion could tell he was worried about her, though, which frustrated her.
She was a hell of a lot more worried about him.
“No,” she began, shaking her head. “Dad can wait. He can wait five minutes––”
“Marion.” Tyr broke into her words quietly, pulling her eyes back to his. “It’s all right. I’ll be close by. Go to your father.”
She scowled at him.
Then, not wanting to fight with him, too, in addition to the rest of them, she clenched her jaw. She looked from Don to Mike, and back again. She more or less trusted them. Before all of this happened, Marion had trusted both of them implicitly.
They’d been on her detail since her dad got elected.
But now, given everything, how could she be absolutely sure?
How could she be absolutely sure about any of them?
“Tell my dad to come up here,” Marion said, turning back to stare at Tyr.
Her eyes shifted to Torres next, her jaw hard.
“He’ll have all his agents around him, right?” she said. “He’ll be perfectly safe. You take Tyr to the next room and frisk him for any bombs or guns or whatever else you need to do to reassure yourselves he isn’t a threat. I stay on this floor. My dad and I can talk up here. When you’ve made sure Tyr’s not carrying any weapons or poisons or whatever else you’re worried about, bring him out to where I can see him.”
She looked between Torres and Mike, her voice cold.
“Is there any reason you’d have a problem with that?” she said. “Any reason that isn’t going to convince me you’re a part of this conspiracy?”
Torres glanced at Mike, who returned his look with a grim look of his own.
Then slowly, Torres nodded to whatever he saw in Mike Rostroe’s eyes.
“All right, Marion,” he said. “I’ll talk to your father’s detail.”
Speaking into his sleeve, he motioned to Mike and Don.
“You stay here, with her,” he told the two agents sternly. “If anything happens… and I mean anything… I want you to move her. Fast. Same protocols as her father.”
Mike nodded, stepping closer to Marion.
Don approached on her other side.
Four other agents, in the meantime, had surrounded Tyr and were leading him back to one of the bedrooms on the top floor.
Marion watched them go, catching Tyr’s dark eyes a last time.
When their gazes met, she found herself understanding him again, despite his silence.
If anything happens, his look said. I’m coming for you Marion.
She nodded perceptibly.
She tried to feel reassured, but no part of her relaxed.
22
Almost Everything
H er father came up the stairs completely surrounded by agents.
Marion could see him through the group, in part because he was taller than most of them.
She saw the exact instant his blue eyes found her.
She saw relief there, so much relief, so much feeling, she felt her throat close.
Instantly, she felt a dozen years younger than she actually was.
Her dad, President Alan Ravenscroft, sped up his steps, inserting himself through the line of agents surrounding him and walking towards her with rapid strides of his long legs. One of the agents made a motion as if to stop him, but another, older agent with gray hair at the temples and hawk-like dark eyes stopped his hand, shaking his head to warn him off.
If her dad noticed any of that, Marion didn’t see it.
He looked only at her.
“Mari!” he cried out, holding out his arms. “You’re here!”
She walked up to him, slowly, hesitantly at first, then speeding her steps when he burst out in a huge smile. She walked straight up to him and hugged him, hard, remembering what those cowards and criminals called him in the tape.
That scarred asshole, Taggert, called him a “Boy Scout.”
She’d never felt such a fierce pride of him before, for those two words.
Still gripping her around the shoulders, her father led her back towards the solarium, which Marion was shocked to see was now filling with morning light.
She looked for the pile of broken glass and shattered dirt pots from where Tyr kicked the agent through the glass wall, but someon
e on staff had already cleaned up most of it.
She guessed in a matter of hours, the glass would be replaced.
As it was, whoever cleaned up had hung thick, clear plastic over the hole in the glass wall, and moved some of the plants out of the way, likely to keep them out of the worst of the cold air coming in through the missing panes.
If there was cold air, Marion couldn’t feel it.
She was too warm in the wool coat she wore, and she could feel heat blasting through the vents, warming the glass-encased solarium against the winter air.
She let her father lead her to the far corner of the room.
A cluster of sunshine-yellow chairs stood there, with a matching loveseat and a full-sized couch, all with white frames and surrounded by tropical plants and low glass tables. The sitting area lived on the opposite end of the solarium from where plastic covered the hole in the wall, and something about the furniture and plants gave it a feeling of cozy privacy.
Then again, maybe the feeling of privacy was based on something else.
Marion glanced over her shoulder, noting that all the Secret Service agents remained outside, in the carpeted hallway on the other side of the glass.
Directly behind the yellow couches and chairs lived an opaque wall, rather than glass. Marion realized it belonged to one of the bedrooms, maybe even the same bedroom where they were questioning Tyr.
Maybe the same bedroom where Tyr had recently gotten dressed.
Finding a spot on the full-sized couch, Marion sighed, feeling a sudden wave of utter exhaustion. Given everything that had happened over the past twenty-four hours, it struck her as a near-miracle she was still on her feet, and not dead asleep in a corner somewhere.
She gazed out at a view of the South Lawn through the glass walls of the solarium, noting that the sun had risen higher in the sky, turning it a darker blue.
She glanced back over her shoulder a second time, noting the location of the two agents guarding the door, and two more just beyond them. She recognized the agent who’d been thrown through the solarium’s glass wall by Tyr, talking to Torres.
Gods on Earth: Complete Series (Books 1-3): Paranormal Romances with Norse Gods, Tricksters, and Fated Mates Page 48