Perfekt Order (The Ære Saga Book 1) (46 page)

“Thank you, Henrik.” I stuck my tongue out at
Tyr. “Henrik says I can cook.”

“Your cooking’s fine. It’s the baking you’re
lousy at.” Henrik pulled his arm away and moved to inspect the
oven. When his back was to us, Tyr turned to me with a smirk.

“Shut up, Tyr.” I scowled as I shoved him.
Hard.

“Well, there’s your problem.” Henrik adjusted
the dial on the stove. “Your temperature’s off.”

Tyr’s brow furrowed as he scrutinized the box
on the counter. “No, it’s not. The thingy’s at three hundred and
fifty. The directions say three hundred and fifty.”

“
Ja
.” Henrik walked to the sink and
washed his hands. “But you’ve got the broiler turned on. It’s
overriding the temperature control and frying your cake.” He turned
off the water and dried his hands. “You want to keep at it alone,
or do you want some help? I don’t mind pitching in, but if I’m
doing this we’re chucking that lousy cake mix and doing it from
scratch.”

A small wrinkle appeared between Tyr’s
eyebrows as he weighed his options. Mia would be home from class
soon. He’d obviously started early enough, judging by the sea of
slaughtered cakes, but now he was down to the wire. He let out a
long-suffering sigh. “I’ll take the help,” Tyr acquiesced. “But I
am decorating it myself.”

“Whatever you say,
kille
.” Henrik
pulled milk, flour, cocoa powder and sugar onto the counter.
Without even glancing at a recipe, he added ingredients to the
standing mixer. “Brynn, grab me the red food coloring, would
you?”

“Um, sure.” I glanced around the kitchen, my
eyes darting from cabinet to cabinet until they fell on Tyr. He
gave me a wicked grin.

“You wanted to help, remember?” Tyr said.

“Oh, like you know where it is, Captain Cake
Killer.” I glared.

“To the left of the stove, just above the
spice rack,” Henrik offered without turning around. His back flexed
as he reached for the oil, the corded muscles straining against his
thin grey T-shirt. I sighed. Loudly.

“Uh, okay. Thanks.” I crossed to the cabinet,
wishing I could wipe the smirk off Tyr’s face. My indiscreet ogling
hadn’t escaped his notice.

It never did.

I handed the food coloring to Henrik then
situated myself next to Tyr. Backs against the stove, arms across
our chests, we kept ourselves safely out of Henrik’s path. It was
better for everyone this way.

It was particularly better for Mia’s birthday
cake.

“Anything we can do?” Tyr asked.

“Somebody want to flour the pan?” Henrik
glanced over his shoulder. Tyr and I stared blankly. “Wipe the cake
pan with butter,” Henrik explained slowly, as if he were talking to
a pair of preschoolers, “then dust it lightly with flour. You two
master chefs think you can pull that off?”

It took an enormous deal of self-control to
not
roll my eyes as I picked up the butter. “Sometimes you
can be a real know-it-all, Henrik Andersson.”

“Ah, you love me, Brynnie.” Henrik shot me a
wink and turned off the mixer. My overworked heart clattered
violently against my ribcage.
Bounce, bounce, bounce
. Henrik
pulled the bowl from the stand and raised an eyebrow. “Where’s my
pan?”

Oh. Right. Tyr grabbed the butter out of my
hands and rubbed a generous amount into each of the cake pans. I
snatched a handful of flour and sprinkled it over the tops. “How’d
we do?”

“
Perfekt.
” Henrik gave his easy smile
as he divided the batter between the pans. He placed them in the
oven and checked the temperature controls. “Now we wait. If we put
them into the fridge when they’re done, they should be cool enough
to decorate about an hour after Mia gets home.”

“Not soon enough.” Tyr frowned. “I wanted to
give it to her when she walked in the door.”

“We’ll do our best.” Henrik patted Tyr’s arm.
“But a cake needs to cool
completely
before you layer it, or
decorate it. So it’ll probably be good to go by—”

“It’s her birthday.” Tyr glared.

“Then you should have asked for my help
sooner.” Henrik shrugged. “Now if you two can stay out of trouble
for the next hour or so, I’ve got a stabilizer I need to reattach
to some grounding cords.

“What are you working on now?” I followed
Henrik out of the kitchen.

“There’s been some weird activity in the
portal behind Elsa’s cottage.”

“Oh my gods, why didn’t you say anything?” I
skidded to a stop. “The one Fenrir got in through?”

“One and the same.” Henrik kept walking, so I
forced my feet to move.

“Why aren’t we out there right now making
sure nothing gets through?”

“Because I only just noticed it this
afternoon. Don’t worry, I’m already on it. I’ve got a halter lock
in place, but I’m working on a little something extra to make sure
the portal’s dog proof. Not that Fenrir could come back or
anything; a certain shiny pink ribbon and a little thing called the
prison chamber have him on lockdown. This will just be a little
bonus security—an early Christmas present for our prince of
preparedness.” Henrik cocked his finger toward the kitchen.

“Much as I love to make fun of Tyr, this
isn’t a good time, Henrik.” I grabbed him by the arm and spun him
around. His biceps were hard against my palm. “Wh-wha…” I stamped
my foot and forced myself to focus. “What are we going to do if
Hymir or one of his minions get through? We all know he’s madder
than a wet fire giant that we captured Fenrir. And with that
vindictive streak, Odin only knows what he’s plotting as his
revenge.” I tightened my grip around Henrik’s muscles. “And what
about Loki? He’s been awfully quiet lately. Hasn’t delivered any of
us to the jotuns or stolen a treasure in a really long time. Isn’t
it about time he had an episode?”

“That’s the thing.” Henrik scratched his
chin, where a smattering of stubble testified to his long hours in
his upstairs lab—a technological paradise I called the man cave.
“Loki hasn’t created a disturbance in… it’s been a few decades now.
It’s possible everything’s hunky-dory with him.”

“Mia’s little sayings rubbing off on you,
too?” I snickered.

“They are catchy.” Henrik paused at the
bottom of the stairs with a chuckle. The noise resonated along the
hallway, and the space filled with his easy laughter. My lips
curved up at the contagious sound. “Point is, whatever he’s up to,
if it’s anything at all, he’s not showing his hand. And Hymir’s
been quiet since Fenrir’s capture. If he’s got anything to do with
the disturbance around the Arcata portal, he’s doing it behind the
scenes. We just have to make sure whoever’s working for him doesn’t
develop better tech than we do.”

“Nobody develops better tech than we do.
We’re the
perfekt
team.” The words were out of my mouth
before I realized how they sounded. Henrik’s mercifully dense
Y
-chromosome kept him from picking up on my double meaning.
“I mean, our technology’s
perfekt
—always way ahead of the
game. ’Cause we’re so smart. Um, yeah. Listen, if you need
anything, I have some of that titanium alloy left over from the
robotics backup we started in case Fred didn’t perform to specs. If
we combined it with some of the
älva
dust we’ve got left
over, we might be able to develop an auto-return glitch to attach
to the portal.”

“We’re out of
älva
dust; used the last
of it on Fred,” Henrik reminded me.

“Oh. Right.”

“We’ll figure something out
, sötnos
.
I’ll give a holler if I get stuck. You might not be able to bake,
but you’re one Helheim of an engineering mastermind.” Henrik
pinched the tip of my braid, and my breath caught. I was having a
really
hard time controlling myself today. Muspelheim must
be in retrograde.
Stay calm, Brynn. He’s just a guy…

Liar.
Henrik Andersson had never been
just a guy to me. And he probably never would be. I’d been head
over heels for the boy next door since he defended my honor in the
kindergarten playground roughly six hundred years ago, and my
feelings hadn’t changed in… ever. But it didn’t matter. Asgard had
survived for millennia thanks to an unchallenged system of rules
and structure. Henrik was a seasoned warrior, and I was a junior
valkyrie. And our sole priority, for as long as Odin commanded it,
was to protect Asgard’s first line of defense—the God of War. And
on
his
order, we were to protect Tyr’s girlfriend, Mia.
Personal feelings, and even more so a relationship, would be an
enormous liability, notwithstanding the fact that Valkyrie code
stipulated I wasn’t allowed to date until I made captain rank.
Besides, my seat in Henrik’s life was planted firmly in the friend
zone. I was his colleague, his little brother’s classmate, and
while we were stationed in Arcata, his occasional flat mate. That
was as far as our relationship could go.

It didn’t stop the uninvited battalion of
butterflies springing to attention every time he looked at me. I
might have been an immortal battle goddess, but I was still a
girl.

Henrik let go of my hair, and turned around
with a small smile. He jogged up to the second floor. The muscles
of his backside flexed as he ran, and I permitted myself a solitary
inward sigh as I watched pure denim-clad perfection ascend the
staircase. When I tore my eyes away from the spot where Henrik had
disappeared, I noticed the six-foot, six-inch deity smirking in the
kitchen doorway.

“Shut up, Tyr.” I grabbed my keys off the key
hook Mia had installed in the entry, and ripped the front door
open. “If anyone needs me, I’m going to the gym.”

“You forgot your yoga mat.” Tyr chuckled from
inside.

“You know I don’t do yoga.” I glared at my
insufferable friend. “There’s a kickboxing class in ten minutes,
and my gym bag’s in the car. And I need some
space
from
this
.” I waved my hands in front of me, outlining Tyr’s
irritating form.

“Don’t be late for Mia’s birthday dinner,”
Tyr warned.

My glare softened. “I wouldn’t miss it. She’s
my friend, too, remember?”

“She’s special to all of us,” Henrik called
as he ran down the stairs and out to the garage. He returned
seconds later with a small transistor. “Forgot this.” Before we
could comment, he’d blurred up the stairs in a display of Asgardian
speed.

Tyr nodded to the door. “Have a good workout
then.” He glanced up the stairs with a half-smile. “I’d imagine you
have a lot of frustration to work off.”

“Shut
up!
” My glare returned in full
force, and I slammed the front door behind me. He might have been
my charge, and one of my oldest friends, but if Tyr Fredriksen made
one more innuendo about my feelings for Henrik, I might have to
kill the jotun-face.

****

“Happy birthday dear Mia, happy birthday to
you!”

Tyr’s adorable mortal girlfriend grinned, her
blush spreading to the roots of her chocolate brown hair. She
tucked one loose lock behind her ear and leaned over the coffee
table to blow out eighteen symmetrically placed birthday candles.
Tyr was as predictable as he was bossy; and he conducted his life
with the control typical of most warriors, from his impeccable
housekeeping habits to his perfectly organized garage. I, on the
other hand, could barely wrangle my nightmare hair into submission,
never mind keeping my room clean.

“What did you wish for? More time with your
favorite
roommates?” Henrik slung an arm around my shoulder
and pulled me back onto the couch. Benefit number one of the friend
zone: Henrik didn’t think twice about physical contact. I honestly
believed he forgot I was a girl.

So long as he kept on touching me, I was
totally
okay with that.

“Watch it, Henrik,” Heather warned. “If you
guys didn’t have Captain Beefcake all up in here, you know Mia
would spend more time at her ‘official’ residence—you know, the one
her mail still goes to. I doubt
you’re
sticking to her
cleaning schedule.”

Mia’s blush deepened.

“Captain Beefcake, eh?” Tyr scratched the
stubble along his jawline. “I could get on board with that. What do
you say,
prinsessa
? Want to call me that from now on?”

Charlotte patted Mia’s flaming cheek, then
turned to Tyr. “Sorry about Heather. We don’t let her out much
these days. Her internship’s keeping her busy.”

“How’s it going at the clinic?” Mia diverted
the subject as she cut the cake. Heather passed out slices, and I
tried not to be too obvious about sniffing Henrik’s chest as I
turned to watch her.
Mmm. Laundry detergent and sunshine and
calm…

“It’s okay. I’m having a hard time balancing
this unit’s Chemistry load with the volunteer hours, though. I
might need you to tweak my study schedule.” Heather handed plates
to Henrik and me. I reluctantly sat up, breaking the blissful
contact.

“Consider it done. Anything for my roomie.”
Mia sliced the final pieces of cake, and curled up on the loveseat
with Tyr. She handed him a plate before digging into her own
frosting. “Mmm.” She licked the cream cheese icing off her fork
with a contented moan. “Meemaw’s Red Velvet. Tyr, you made it just
right!”

Henrik pushed his fake eyeglasses up his
nose. Asgardians had
perfekt
eyesight, but he liked to wear
the glasses around mortals. He thought it made him blend in.
Snort
. I guessed he wore them for Charlotte and Heather’s
benefit tonight. “Actually,” Henrik began. But he stopped short
when I elbowed him in the stomach. Hard.

“Let him have this one,” I hissed, trying to
erase the mental picture of Henrik’s pristine abdomen walking
shirtless to the shower
every single weekend
. Why couldn’t
his room have an en suite bathroom?