Dark Deceit (13 page)

B
ryn was in her
office, working through some of the invoices that kept coming in even though
the club had been closed for three days already. She couldn’t afford to let it
continue that way, but she wasn’t ready to face reality yet.

Her head jerked up when she heard what sounded like a sledge hammer
going to work on the back door of the club. Glancing at the monitor to her right,
she saw Korvain standing there, looking up at the camera. There was a shape
beside him, but she couldn’t make out what it was.

Bryn buzzed him in and got up from behind her desk, stretching. When
she made it out into the hallway, Korvain was holding the door open with his
foot and carefully bringing in the shape she’d seen. There was a feminine moan
and Bryn ran down the rest of the hallway.

Eir was limp in his arms, just barely holding onto consciousness. Fuck,
what had happened? She’d only spoken to her about a half an hour earlier.

‘Korvain, what happened?’ she demanded, feeling for Eir’s pulse. It
was weak and thready. She looked into his dark eyes and felt him roll over her
body like a giant heated wave. Her body flushed, drowning in the heat his body
radiated. Eir moaned again, breaking the connection between them.

‘Gods, take her upstairs so we can look her over.’

Korvain’s muscular shoulders spanned the width of the hallway as he
motioned for her to open the door leading to the stairs of the upper levels.
She shook her head. ‘Can’t get to the apartments that way. Take the elevator at
the end of the hall.’ She led the way past her office door and around a corner.
The elevator was only designed to hold two people at a time, and Korvain took
up that quota with his height and width alone. He still hadn’t let go of Eir
who was tucked up closely to his chest.

When the doors slammed shut, all Bryn could smell was him; all masculine
spices and the faintest hint of cologne. But the scent of blood ruined the
effects of his presence. Her eyes drifted down to Eir looking so small in his
arms.

‘What happened to her?’ she asked, distracting herself from how
closely they were standing.

‘I was following her home. A man came out of nowhere and injected
her with something. I don’t know what. He was going to take her somewhere. I
fought him off.’

For the first time, she noticed the blood oozing down his face. How
had she missed that? ‘Did you get hurt?’

‘Nothing I can’t handle,’ he replied in a rumbling voice that vibrated
through her body and into the marrow in her bones. The elevator lurched to a
stop, the doors opening with a soft
ping
.

‘Follow me.’ Bryn stepped out of the elevator and led him to her
apartment, feeling a little leery about having Korvain in there. She never brought
anyone up there.

Bryn opened the door wide and ushered them in. ‘Put Eir on the
couch.’ As he did that, she set about collecting supplies to clean up Korvain
while whatever was in Eir’s system wore off.

‘Do you know what she was stuck with?’

Korvain shook his head, not meeting her eyes. ‘I should probably
go.’ He moved toward the door, but Bryn jumped in front of him. Like Hel she
was just going to let him walk out of there looking like he did.

‘No, you’re not. Sit down.’ He side-stepped her, but she matched it,
blocking his way again. ‘Sit. Down,’ she snapped in a tone brooking no
argument.

He finally looked at her. His dark eyes were bottomless. Bryn felt
like she could trip and fall into them and never touch the bottom. ‘I’m fine,’
he ground out.

She saw his fangs for a second. It was unusual to see a half-breed
with such large incisors. ‘Well that’s great. But I’m not letting you leave
without cleaning you up first.’

His eyes narrowed and she suddenly felt cold. The moment passed with
Korvain turning his huge body around and stalking toward one of the chairs at
her small dining room set.

He slumped down into the thing like he was completely and utterly exhausted
and looked over at Eir. Bryn pulled up a chair and sat in front of him. She
couldn’t get close enough with his legs in the way. Being forced to stand up,
she loaded a sterile pad with saline and leaned into his body, her legs within
the confines of his huge thighs.

She heard his breath catch in his throat, but she ignored the sound.
The cut above his eye was deep, but thankfully it had stopped bleeding. He
wouldn’t need to have stitches if his body kept on healing him. His eyes slid
shut as she worked.

His hair was both rough and soft against her palm as she cleaned the
wound right on his hair line. ‘What made the cut?’

‘The butt of a gun.’

Ouch
. ‘Did you repay the favor?’

His eyes opened slowly. ‘Yeah.’ She focused again, soaking the wound
with saline. He hissed.

‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ he rumbled. She had to lean in a little
closer to see if she’d gotten all the blood, but as she did, his huge chest
lifted beneath her body then shuddered as he let the breath go.

Bryn turned to go when Korvain’s hands landed on her hips. They were
only resting there gently; there was nothing possessive about it. He looked at
her, liquid onyx eyes asking for permission. She stepped back and his hands
fell away from her body, hanging at his sides.

‘It’s clean enough.’ She cleared her throat, her eyes falling to the
ground because she just couldn’t look at him right then. That was when she
noticed the small pool of blood on the tile beside the chair leg. It was
dripping from the inside of Korvain’s sleeve.

‘Take your jacket off,’ she demanded, rifling through the first aid
kit again for more gauze. ‘And your shirt.’

‘What?’

‘Your clothes. Take them off.’

Korvain stood up to his full height, dwarfing Bryn for a moment, and
slid the leather from his upper body. His black tee was stuck to his shoulder,
a small hole through the fabric. She turned around to check on Eir’s breathing
and pulse rate, and when she turned back around again, Korvain had shed the
shirt from his body before planting his ass back down. His weapons harness was
slung over the back of the chair. She frowned. She hadn’t even seen that he’d
had one on.

She looked more closely at the wound. ‘Gods, you’ve been shot.’ Bryn
looked over at Eir again, wishing she would wake up. She was the one qualified
to look after the sick and injured, not Bryn. The Valkyries were once dubbed
the demi-gods of death for a good reason.

Bryn looked through the kit again, pulling tweezers and more gauze
out, lining it up on the table. Leaning in closer to Korvain, she probed the entry
site with her fingers. He hissed again, but didn’t flinch.

‘I’m sorry. I’ll try and be quick.’

‘It’s fine,’ he ground out. ‘Is there an exit wound? It might be a
through and through.’

Bryn pulled him forward, highly aware that his face was trapped
somewhere in her cleavage. Putting that out of her mind, she found the exit
wound by softly pressing the flesh of his shoulder.

‘Through and through,’ she murmured, loading up some gauze with
saline. She pressed one to the front of his shoulder and another on the back.
She stood there putting pressure on the wound, their breaths matched in pace
and depth.

She suddenly felt very self-conscious, painfully aware of how she
felt about this male, about the way her heart fluttered restlessly against her
ribs.

‘Thank you,’ he murmured. The words were barely a whisper, but they
drew her attention back to him. She stared at him, transfixed by his harsh face
and large body, his bare chest. There were scars there, a lot of scars. Her
mind skittered back to how he had comforted her in her office, by how he stroked
her hair. He was such a contradiction.  

With his uninjured arm, he reached up and brushed some stray stands
of hair from her face, tucking them behind her ear. His fingers lingered there,
warm against her already heated skin.

He traced the planes of her jaw, rubbing his thumb across her bottom
lip when he reached her chin. Bryn’s heart pounded in response, her mouth going
dry. Her tongue darted out to moisten her lips, Korvain’s feral eyes watching—waiting.

Keeping the pressure on his shoulder, she leaned in closer until
their faces were less than an inch away.

She felt his warm breath on her cheeks. She could smell only him and
she wanted to taste only him. Their mouths had barely brushed when Eir suddenly
started coughing; great hacking coughs that shook her entire body.

‘I’m going to be sick,’ she moaned. Bryn pulled back, dropping the
gauze and running for a wastepaper basket to park under Eir’s head. Eir threw
up quietly into the container while Bryn stroked her back gently. When she
looked back at Korvain, he was shrugging his jacket back on.

‘I should go.’

Bryn nodded. It was for the best. ‘I still want to—’ she stopped,
pausing at the hungry look in his eyes.

‘Yes?’ he asked in a dark, sensuous tone.

She swallowed the blush. ‘I want to bandage your shoulder up before
you go. Can you wait ten minutes?

’

O
din woke up
feeling like Hel. He sat up, throwing his legs off the side of the bed and
rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand. Staggering up to a stand, he pulled
the blinds up and looked down at Boston Common from his bedroom window.

The humans were swarming around like they always did; phones pressed
to their ears, coffee cups clutched in their hands. It was no wonder they
stopped worshiping him—even the gods who replaced him weren’t being worshiped
as much anymore. They spent all their time worshiping easy communication and a
caffeine rush.

Odin stepped back from the window and set about getting dressed for
the day. After showering, he padded over to his closet filled with designer
suits, all perfectly tailored, all perfectly appropriate for the god he was. He
put on a dove grey single-breasted with matching vest and a blood-red tie.

When he was dressed, Odin stepped out of his building and breathed
in deeply. He had come into the habit of going for a walk in the mornings. He
found it cleared his head of the dreams that were coming with increasing
frequency. Scanning left and right, he stepped off the curb in between the cars
parked outside his house. A strange smell suddenly assaulted his nose. It
smelled faintly of rot with the metallic edge of blood. His eyes narrowed at
the car that had been the source of all the noise last night and peered inside;
past the reflective glare of the sun and the dark tint.

‘Gods,’ he gasped, bringing his hand to his mouth. It was Rota. Rota
was behind the wheel of the car, her head tilted back at a strange angle that
exposed her throat. Her skin was grey, her eyes were still open; staring
unfocused at the roof of the inside of the car.

Glancing around to ensure he at least had some privacy, Odin faded
her bloated body back into his house, forcing himself to calmly walk back
inside, too.

Rota must have been dead for a couple of days at least. A large dark
brown stain bloomed on the front of her chest, and when Odin pulled the side of
her shirt away from her body, there was one bloody feather laid over the hole
where her heart used to be.

Odin sat back on his heels, his mind reeling. It had started. It had
started and he was powerless to stop it. Climbing to his feet unsteadily, Odin
had only one thought and that was to get to Bryn. He faded to the club on
Tremont, slipping down the alleyway. Standing before the giant metal door, he
knocked loudly.

Nothing happened.

With a quiet snarl, he tried again; hammering his fists against the
steel until the skin split over his knuckles.

‘Yeah?’ Bryn’s crackling voice asked. Odin looked at the small box
where the sound had come from.

Pushing the button he said, ‘I need to see you.’

There was an immeasurable amount of silence before the intercom
buzzed back to life. ‘I’ve said all I need to say to you.’

Odin got in close to the box, shielding his words with his body.
‘It’s about Rota.’

Silence dropped between them. Bryn cleared her throat, her voice
angry when she spoke. ‘You better not be fucking around with me here.’

‘I’m not.’

A few seconds later there was a click and Odin stepped inside the
club that bore his name. Bryn was standing in front of her office door, arms
defensively crossed over her chest.

‘I didn’t expect to see you so soon.’

‘Believe me, I wouldn’t have come if it wasn’t important.’

She moved out of the doorway so he could slide inside the room. ‘I
didn’t invite you back here to yak it.’

‘Of course not,’ he replied dryly. Odin unbuttoned his suit jacket
and sat down; legs crossed at the ankle, his black angora socks covering the
distance from his ankle to the end of his trousers.

Bryn had walked around to her side of the desk as he got settled in.
Planting both palms on the top, she leaned in. ‘What about Rota?’

He looked up from his socks, holding her blue gaze. ‘I found her
body.’

Her eyes narrowed on his face. ‘I don’t believe you,’ she spat,
standing up and putting her back to the wall.

‘It’s true. I found her body this morning in a car parked in front
of my house.’

‘How convenient.’

‘Bryn, I swear to you that’s the truth.’

She laughed darkly. ‘You really are the father of lies, aren’t you?’

Odin’s mood darkened. ‘I apologized for that.’

‘No amount of apologizing will make up for what you did to me, to
all of us.’

He bit back the growl sitting at the back of his throat. ‘Bryn, I
need you to come with me.’ He continued despite her disgusted look. ‘I need
you. I don’t think you’re safe here. Not anymore. Come home with me. I can
protect you there.’

Her chin lifted in defiance. ‘I don’t
need
your protection,
Odin. I need protection
from
you.’

‘Bryn.’

‘No! Take your lies and your deceit, and get out of my life. I knew
you were cruel Odin, but not so cruel as to kill your own creations to serve
your agenda.’

Odin tried once more to reach for her, to let her see reason, but
Bryn lashed out.

Her whole body shook as she summoned her golden sword—the sword he
had had crafted just for her hand. Her blade was silky like molten gold and one
of the only things that could mortally wound him. That was the price he had
paid to have them created. Odin stood up quickly, buttoning up his suit jacket.

‘Didn’t I teach you not to draw your weapon unless you planned on
using it?’ he asked callously.

Bryn’s arm was held down by her side, but her knuckles were white
around the hilt. Anger burned in her blue eyes. ‘Yes.’ Her voice was low,
threatening. ‘So I suggest you leave before I do.’

Odin retreated from the room, closing the door behind him. He knew
she wouldn’t have come with him, but he couldn’t tell her the real reason yet.
He had lied to her once about her parents. If he also told her about how
completely they were bound to each other’s fates, she would kill herself just
to spite him.

* * *

B
ryn ran a finger
over the tattoo on her neck, her sword fading from her hand. She hadn’t wanted
to threaten Odin, but if he’d stayed in her office for a minute longer, she was
in very real danger of throttling him. Her whole body was still shaking with
anger. How dare he come in and tell her that he had found Rota’s body. How dare
he use her like that.

Her legs gave out from under her, slamming her back down into her
old office chair. Odin truly was the father of lies, yet deep-down she still wanted
to be by his side. She was like a stray dog kicked to the side, but still
craving a master. She was being ridiculous. She had been the one to leave him,
and she would have done it ten times over again. 

The day he had come for her was so clear in her mind. It was the day
of her eighteenth birthday...

The man who had come to claim Bryn was handsome; as handsome as
Davin—the boy who lived in the next village. Her mother had let him into the
house and sat down; shaking her head saying ‘no, no, no’ over and over again. Bryn
stared at him openly, looking at the shiny black orb next to his remaining
luminescent green eye.

‘Do you know who I am, Brynhildr?’

She shook my head. ‘No, sir, I do not.’

‘I’m here to take you away from this life. I want you to come and
live with me.’

‘Live?’ she laughed. ‘Sir, I live here with my father and mother.’

He sat beside her, turning his body toward hers. She didn’t feel
frightened even though Mother was trembling terribly in front of them. ‘Your
father said you can come with me, and your mother,’ he paused and looked over
at her. Their eyes met, and she wailed, burying her head in her hands. ‘Your
mother also agreed to let you live with me.’

Bryn shook her head. ‘I cannot be your wife, sir. My parents will
not allow me to wed.’

‘I don’t wish to wed you, Brynhildr.’ He took her hand gently. His
fingers were soft. She had never met a man with soft hands before. Her father’s
had been calloused from working hard since she could remember. ‘I wish to give
you a job.’

‘A job, sir?’ She had always wanted a job—to feel useful. ‘What kind
of job?’

‘I want to have a special group of women who I can send out with my
very important messages. They must be very beautiful and very hard-working.’ He
tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘Clearly, you are very beautiful, but
are you hard-working?’

She nodded vigorously. ‘Yes, sir. I work very hard. Just ask Mother.
She can tell you.’

The man didn’t look at Bryn’s mother, but she did. Mother was still holding
her head in her hands, her shoulders shaking violently. Why was she so upset that
Bryn was being offered a job?

‘If you want this job, you must come with me now, Brynhildr.’ The
man said, standing up and offering her his hand.

Bryn glanced from him to her mother. ‘Mother, don’t be upset. I want
to work. I have always wanted to work as Father does. You’ll see! I’ll bring
money home and buy you the best meats and skins and—’

Her mother stood up and drew her close, crushing her to her chest
and suffocating the words on her tongue.

‘It’s time to go,’ the man said, taking her by the wrist and pulling
her away from her Mother. Tears trembled in her eyes. Bryn kissed her on the
cheek.

‘I shall return, Mother.’

She followed the man out the door, stopping him suddenly. ‘Sir, I
know not your name.’

He took her hand, a strange burning sensation passing between them.
It felt as if her body was filling up with white-hot light, burning through her
veins. Bryn gasped, closing her eyes, fighting the wave of nausea, the acrid
taste of bile twisting up her throat. Her eyes flew open once more as if
forced. The world began to shift in front of her, shattering like glass and falling
into a thousand pieces. She screamed out as softly spoken words trickled into her
ears...

hreinasta
blóð
sem
rennur í gegnum
minn
æðar

ég
deila
gjöf
eilífs lífs
með henni

hún
skal
ekki aldur

hún
skal
ekki
visna
og
deyja

hún verður að vera
ódauðlegur

að eilífu
við hlið
mér

Her heart
pounded frantically against her ribs, beating against the prison of bones. When
she opened her eyes again, she feared the world would be awash with flame,
feared it would be changed—shattered—but the world was just as it had been
before. It had not fallen apart. The man stood before her, holding her up with
strong hands.

‘What happened?’ Bryn asked. ‘Who are you?’

He smiled at her, a warmth filling her chest at the sight of it. ‘I
am Odin and you, Brynhildr, are now my daughter. I have just given you your
immortality.’

Bryn hadn’t known
the true meaning of the words he had spoken. But she knew them now.

Purest blood that flows through mine veins,

I share the gift of everlasting life with her,

She shall not age,

She shall not wither and die,

She will be immortal,

Forever at my side.

That had been the
last time she had seen her mother alive. Bryn had been bound to Odin, and told
there was no possible way for her to return to her parents, or her former life.
She had hated him for a long time afterwards, but soon there were other women
who had joined his group of messengers. Bryn had wondered whether Odin had
tricked them, too.

A bitterness grew inside her, a resentment, but her bond to the
All-Father made it impossible for her to truly hate him.