Perfekt Control (The Ære Saga Book 2) (10 page)

My mind weighed the pros and cons of using
defensive technology to delete mortifying personal memories of one
overly busty
älva
with a really stupid nickname.
Probably
not the most judicious use of limited tech, Aksel.
But maybe if
I only used one of them…

“Are you sure you want see Barney?” Tyr
repeated.

“
Ja
,” I murmured distractedly,
releasing the forgetters and zipping the backpack shut. Apparently
I’d be living with my humiliation for years to come. “Wait, who’s
Barney? Did you guys get a cat?”

“No. No cats.” Mia’s voice was muffled by the
thick refrigerator door. She pulled bread, cheese, meat, mustard
and pickles out and deposited them on the counter, and set to work
making one of her famous triple decker sandwiches.

My mood lifted infinitesimally as my friend
moved around the kitchen. Gods, I was
so
glad Tyr got over
himself and started dating her.

“Thanks for this. So who’s Barney, if he’s
not a cat?” I asked.

“Well, we have Fred.” She gestured to Tyr’s
prosthetic arm, which now bore all the realism of his original arm,
thanks to that stupid
älva
dust. “We had to call the time
freezer something, didn’t we? Fred needed his best friend.”

I stared blankly.

“Barney,” she said slowly, as if talking to a
small child. “You know, Fred and Barney?”

“Huh. Oh! Ha!” It was a pity laugh, and she
knew it. “Sorry, long day. I’m not exactly running on all
cylinders.”

“Please.” Mia picked up the plate, now
teeming with food, and carried it to the table. She studied me with
concern, and I lifted the sandwich to my lips to ease her worry.
Mia was raised to believe a good meal could heal any injury, and
since I had a black box of a Band-Aid on mine at the moment, I
wasn’t about to turn down
anything
my friend cooked. Ever.
“You on your worst day are still better than the rest of us at our
intellectual peak.”

“Speak for yourself.” Tyr winked at Mia and
reached for the pickle on my plate.

“Hey!” I swatted his hand. “So what did you
guys do to Barney?”

“Not what we did,” Tyr corrected. “This was
all Mia. She reconfigured the wiring so the circuits would stop
overheating. She just moved this here”—he pointed—“to here, and
added a neutralizing thermo-layer.”

“You came up with that? That’s brilliant.” I
bit into my sandwich.
Yum.

“You don’t have to sound so surprised,” Mia
said drily.

“It’s not that. It’s just that Henrik’s been
playing with this design a lot lately, and he never thought of
doing it that way.” I shook my head. Saying Henrik’s name made the
black box rattle.
Bury it, Brynn
. I drew air through my
nose, then exhaled on a slow breath. I repeated the action,
visualizing myself being anchored to the earth, to the present, to
this
moment in
this
kitchen with
these
two
people. Asgardian Proverb #67: The past and the future were beyond
my reach. The only moment I could control was the present.

“Well sometimes all you need is a fresh
perspective to make you realize what you need has been sitting
right in front of you all along.” Mia tilted her head and gave me a
significant look.

I bit into my sandwich again, forcing myself
to focus on the texture of the bread. Grainy. “This is really good.
Where do you get the spicy mustard?”

“I think it comes from England. I’m not sure.
One of your people dropped in on one of those flying horses with a
fresh shipment this morning.” Mia played with her necklace.

“The flying horses are pegasuses,” I reminded
her. “Who’d you get for your domestic valkyrie?” I took another
bite and concentrated on the taste of each ingredient. Spicy
mustard and peppered turkey danced a fiery tango in my mouth, and
the weight in my chest lifted. There. I’d done it.
Perfekt
control. I rocked at this.

“Mist.” Tyr eyed my pickle with longing, so I
picked it up and took a bite.

“Delicious. Get your own lunch, Captain
Klepto.” I bit again.

“You’re mean when you’re hungry.” Tyr pushed
his chair back and stood.

“You want a sandwich, baby? I’ll make it for
you.” Mia put her hands on the table and started to rise.

“Sit. Relax. You and Brynn need to catch up.”
Tyr kissed the top of her head as she sat. “I’ll be upstairs in the
study if you need me.” He picked up Barney and the
älva
dust
and walked toward the stairs, and I fought the urge to throw my
sandwich at him
.
If he left, how was I going to fend off
Mia’s Henrik-related questions?
Get back here, War. For the love
of Odin,
please
don’t leave me alone with the mortal
inquisition.
On the second step, Tyr turned turned around, and
my heart soared.
He’s staying. Thank gods.

Tyr opened his mouth and squashed my hopes
flat. “
Takk
for securing the
älva
dust, Brynn. I’ll
talk to Forse and we’ll get the coordinates for your next
destination squared away with Heimdall.”

“How long do I have?” I stifled my glare.
“Henrik told me to retrieve him if he wasn’t back in three
hours.”

“I’ll send you back within two. I want to
speak with Odin to make sure nobody else has seen anything, and try
to move Barney into beta phase. Now that we’ve got the dust, I can
use my magic to implant it. But I don’t anticipate the device being
fully operational any time today. We have a few kinks to work out.
We’ll get you and Henrik rerouted and bring you back to base when
you pick up more intel.”

My fingers touched my forehead in mock
salute. “Aye, aye.”

Tyr rolled his eyes at me and took another
step. Then he paused, and looked at me with an unreadable
expression on his face. “Henrik okay out there?”

“He’s taking one for the team,” I said with
false brightness. I bit down on my molars, sending a searing pain
through my jaw. The black box exploded in my chest, and before I
could stop myself I blurted, “Why didn’t you tell me he had a
girlfriend?”

Mia sucked in a breath. “Butter my flapjacks…
Henrik has a girlfriend? I thought he liked Brynn!”

I snorted.

“He
had
a girlfriend,” Tyr corrected.
“And I didn’t tell you because it wasn’t relevant. He hasn’t seen
Nea-Nea in almost two years.”

“Nea-Nea?” Mia covered her mouth with her
manicured hand. “Please tell me her parents didn’t name her
that.”

“They named her Finnea, but Henrik called her
Nea-Nea. Once,” I spat out. “And she’s pure
älva
. Gorgeous,
generous with her, eh,
dust
, and as you’d say Mia, warm as
snow pudding.”

“I say that?” Mia tilted her head.

“I don’t know. Something like that. Point is,
she’s a jerk.”

“Brynn. Be nice.” Tyr bit back a smile.
“She’s done a lot to help us over the years.”

“Yeah, well, Henrik’s leveling the playing
field on whatever debt you think we owe her.” I dropped my head in
my hands. What happened to my control? Oh, right. The guy I’d loved
forever
was doing Odin-knew-what with some big-breasted
fairy, and all I could do about it was bring her stupid dust back
to Tyr so we could save the Goddess of Love from whoever kidnapped
her—the same Goddess of Love who might
never
lift her
embargo on my going on an actual date—and stop the realms from
falling into complete and total chaos. Again.

Sometimes being a valkyrie was unfathomably
awful.

I drew a breath and tried not to sound
bitter. “Henrik’s holding up his end of whatever bargain he has
with her right now. He sent me back here to get me out of the way.
Oh, and to pass on the dust.”

“I’m sure it’s not as bad as you think. This
bargain, I mean.” Mia reached across the table and touched my
hand.

I rolled my head to the side so my cheek was
flush with my arm. “I get that she’s hot. I get that she’s got that
magic stupid
älva
charm. What I don’t get is how the
smartest guy I know could choose to be with someone so…”

“Thick? Dim witted? Vapid?” Tyr offered from
the stairs.

“You see it too?” I trilled.

“Tyr! You just told Brynn to be nice!” Mia
scolded.

“I know.” Tyr frowned. “But Finnea’s always
irritated me. She’s hot, I’ll give her that, but that’s about the
only good thing I can say about her. The thing about
älva
is
that they’ve got this weird ability to draw men in. The way she
used to get under Henrik’s skin… ugh.” He shuddered. “I was glad
when he decided to stop going to Alfheim.”

“How long has it been since he’s seen her?”
Mia asked.

As Tyr shifted his gaze to me, one corner of
his mouth turned up in his signature smirk. “His last visit was
exactly one week after Brynn was assigned to our team. We’ve been
rationing our
älva
dust since then. If you hadn’t used the
last of it on Fred here, he sure as Helheim wouldn’t be there right
now. That’s the honest-to-Odin truth.”

I raised an eyebrow at Tyr’s implication. In
no universe would
any
guy, much less Henrik Andersson, stop
seeing an actual
älva
who looked like
that
on account
of five-foot, two-inch, crazy-haired me. We just hadn’t needed any
älva
dust since a week after I joined the team, that was
all.

“Really?” Mia wound her hands together and
leaned forward on her elbows. “Interesting. Brynn, how do you feel
about that?”

“It doesn’t matter.” I picked at my
fingernails. “Even if Tyr wasn’t hallucinating, I’m not allowed to
date until I make captain. The way Freya promotes, that could be
decades away. And Henrik seems pretty happy with the bird in hand,
at the moment.”

“Henrik knows the rules.” Tyr started up the
stairs again. Now he spoke over his shoulder. “But I’ll tell you
this. He hasn’t been on a single date with anyone since you showed
up on our team.”

The sound of Tyr’s office door clicking into
place was punctuated by the popping of my jaw as it fell open. At
this rate, I was going to need to see Elsa about healing my poor
face joint. But still.
No. Freaking. Way.

“So, you were saying?” Mia rested her cheeks
on her fists. “You’re worried about some girl stealing your
man?”

“He’s not my man.” I picked up my sandwich
and finished it in hurried bites. “And besides,” I mumbled through
a mouthful of meat and cheese, “Finnea’s got her
älva
paws
all over him right now.”

“Are his paws all over
her
?” Mia asked
pointedly.

“Doesn’t matter.” I gave myself a second to
finish chewing as I ran through images of purring and cooing my
immortal eyes could never unsee. “He was giving off really weird
vibes. But he’s definitely
not
into me.”

“Hmm.” Mia ran her hands along the white
tablecloth, smoothing out the wrinkles. “Look, I don’t know exactly
what happened in Alfheim, but I do know Henrik likes you. It’s
obvious to everyone. He’s probably just holding back because he’s
following that rule. It’s stupid that you’re not allowed to date.
You’re, like, a million years old,” she teased.

“You’re telling me.” Bitterness threatened to
overtake me. I frowned. This wasn’t like me. I was the queen of
compartmentalization. I’d literally gotten an award for it as a
junior valkyrie. Why was I letting Henrik’s rebuff affect me so
much?

Oh.
Oh
.

“Mia, how long have you been here at the
beach house?” I asked.

“We got in sometime in the middle of the
night, same time you left for Alfheim. And it’s almost noon, so… I
don’t know. Ten hours? Twelve?”

“That’s it?” I adjusted my ponytail. I was
used to spending a lot of time with Freya, but half a day without
her shouldn’t have been long enough for her absence to affect me.
Unless her captors took her straight to a dark realm. If that were
the case, and the clock was already ticking…

This was
so
not good.

As Goddess of Love, Freya naturally emitted a
signal that could be felt throughout the realms. It cast a soothing
glow over the residents of the light realms—Asgard, Vanaheim,
Midgard, Alfheim, and the friendly pockets of the dwarves’ realm.
But if Freya entered a dark realm, that realm’s boundary would act
like a cage, keeping Freya’s love from penetrating the atmosphere
and illuminating the light worlds. The lack of love would create a
blackness in the souls who depended on Freya’s warmth to guide
them. It would create unease in gods, mortals, and elves, and its
effects would grip the valkyries especially hard, because of our
close relationship with Freya. It would inevitably bring about
desolation and destruction, just like it had when…

I sighed. We needed to get Freya back. For a
lot of reasons.

“Do me a favor, will you?” My fingertips
brushed the tablecloth. “Keep in touch with Heather and Charlotte
and your brother and your parents. Give me a read on the human
world when I check in with you.”

“Sure. But why?” Mia asked.

“Because there’s going to come a tipping
point where Freya’s absence starts to affect the mortals. And we’re
going to need to run interference with the humans so they don’t
hurt themselves if it comes to that.”

Mia raised one perfectly sculpted eyebrow.
“Fair enough. Now I adore you, Brynn. You know I do. But you look
like you’ve been to hell and back. Can I do your makeup before Tyr
sends you back to Elfheim?”

“It’s Alfheim.” I smiled. “And why not?”

Because it doesn’t matter
what
you
look like. Henrik’s just not that into you
.

Shut up, brain.

Mia ran upstairs and returned to the table
with her makeup bag faster than I could finish off a dark elf. She
pulled out a cleansing cloth and wiped the grime off my face, then
got to work.