Dark Deceit (18 page)

K
orvain faded a
block away from the address on River. He didn’t want to risk being seen by the
god going after Kristy, and the fact that she was Eir’s twin made it all the
more important to get her back. Pulling the shadows around him, he legged it
over to the address.

The little red-bricked was the last house on the street before it
narrowed into  a small walkway, opening up onto a square hemmed in by other
red-bricked houses that were so typical of Boston. He was closing in fast,
seeing the silhouettes of people moving around behind the blinds.

Korvain stopped when the door of the house swung open without
warning. Light spilled out from the hallway; its fingers stopping just short of
revealing him with his foot on the bottom step.

He recognized the god standing on the top step with a sneer on his
lips. It was the man who had tried to drug and kidnap Eir. The god looked
around, his eyes tracking everything before disappearing back into the house
only to reappear with a blonde-haired woman over his shoulder.

He was too late. Korvain shrugged the shadows from him just as the
god faded from view. The guy had to be powerful to pull that kind of fade. Once
any kind of weight was involved, fading was near impossible.

Korvain spat a nasty curse and entered the house. He couldn’t have
saved Kristy, but he had to know if her cloak was still there. Deep down in his
gut, he knew the god had taken it with him, but that didn’t stop him from
checking. Hauling ass up the stairs, he checked every room up there before
stalking around the bottom levels.

There was no box.

He hadn’t even found any blood, or loose feathers, which he could
only take as a good sign. Flicking off the last of the lights, he faded back to
the club to deliver the news to Bryn.

* * *

B
ryn sat back in
her office chair and closed her eyes. She’d come downstairs to clear her head,
to stop herself from thinking about everything that had happened to her in the
last few days. Glancing at the clock, she figured Korvain and Eir wouldn’t be
too much longer either.

Sighing, she got started on the paperwork still begging for her
attention.

The buzzer being hit repeatedly finally drew Bryn’s head up from the
invoice she’d been looking over. Glancing sideways at the monitors, she saw Eir
standing there. Bryn hit the buzzer and stepped into the hallway.

She felt rather than saw the other woman’s distress. It hit her like
an unstoppable wave crashing against her.

‘Eir?’ she asked, starting toward the rear door. Gods, she looked
like Hel. She listed to one side suddenly, catching herself against the wall.
Bryn took her by the shoulder, throwing her arm around her waist, steadying the
woman. Eir’s skin was bleached white, her body trembling finely. In one hand
she held an unzipped sports bag stuffed with clothes, and in the other she
clutched her ash box.

‘Tell me what happened.’ Bryn led her toward her office, afraid she
would pass out before they reached the elevator at the end of the hall. Taking
the bag of clothes from her, Bryn pressed Eir’s shoulders, forcing her into the
chair. Bryn stepped back to face her, her ass resting on the lip of her desk.

Eir still clutched her cloak box firmly to her chest. The trembling
hadn’t gotten any better. If anything, it had gotten worse. Bryn pulled open
her desk drawer and drew out a bottle of vodka.

‘Here. Drink this,’ Bryn told the other woman, unscrewing the cap
and holding the bottle out to her. She expected her to refuse, but when Eir’s
free hand wrapped around the glass, Bryn knew that whatever had happened was
serious.

Eir placed the bottle to her lips and tipped. There was nothing
graceful about what happened next. She choked, spitting the vodka back out all
over herself. While she coughed, Bryn rubbed her back, murmuring softly to her.

When she finally settled, Bryn crouched beside the chair. ‘Tell me
what happened.’

Eir’s royal blue and teal-ringed eyes met hers; wet and red. ‘Sigrun
and Astrid...are...’

Fresh tears welled; Eir’s body seemed to collapse under the weight
of them. Her head dropped, her blonde hair raining down over her shoulders to hide
her face. Bryn had a pretty good idea what the next word out of her mouth was
going to be. Her spine stiffened and she stood up to pace. That was the only
way she would be able to work off the angry energy battering around her body.

‘They’re dead, aren’t they?’ Bryn’s hands had balled into tight
fists. ‘Eir? Tell me.’

Eir nodded slowly, her blonde hair barely moving.

Bryn blinked, seeing red dots. Anger was not a descriptive enough
word for how she was feeling. ‘Where’s Korvain?’

‘He—’ she hiccupped. ‘He went to check on Kristy. He told—’ Hiccup.
‘He told me to come back here.’

At least he did one thing right tonight.

‘He told me to give you these,’ Eir said in a shaky voice. Bryn
looked down at what Eir was offering and staggered back a step, her hand over
her mouth.

Eir lowered her eyes and retracted her hand slowly, her fingers
curling over the two bloody feathers lying against her palm. Bryn reached
across her desk and picked up her phone.

The thing rang for a second before Korvain’s silky voice filled her
ear. ‘Bryn.’

Bryn squeezed her eyes shut, keeping the tears teetering there from
falling. ‘Where are you?’ she demanded, placing the anger filling her into her
voice.

‘The back door.’

Her eyes ratcheted to the CCTV monitor. Korvain’s imposing form
seemed to step from the shadows themselves. She buzzed him in and hung up the
phone. Looking at Eir, she said, ‘Go upstairs now. We’ll figure out a safe
place to put your cloak when I come up in a minute.’

Eir nodded and stood up unsteadily. Bryn watched her walk toward the
elevator. With her bag on one shoulder, she leaned to one side looking like she
would topple over.

When the elevator door had slid shut, Bryn turned and ran directly
into something hard. Throwing her palms up, she dug her fingers into Korvain’s
hard, warm chest and felt herself beginning to fall apart. She looked into his
onyx eyes, wondering—not for the first time—what it was with him that made her
unravel so spectacularly.

His strong fingers cinched shut around her upper arms, his thumbs
stroking softly. ‘Bryn, I’m—’

She pulled away from his body angrily. ‘Don’t say it! Don’t you dare
say you’re sorry!’ she screamed. She marched back into her office, snagging the
bottle of 42 from where Eir had left it. She took a deep pull, feeling it burn
down her throat and into her chest. Roughly, she wiped the back of her hand
over her mouth, ignoring the shake.

Korvain kicked the door shut behind him, resting against it casually
with his arms lightly folded over his muscular chest. Bryn had the strangest
urge to be folded up and held in those arms, but she pushed the feeling away.

‘Eir told you then?’ he asked quietly.

‘Yeah, she told me. What happened? Couldn’t you have saved them?’
Bryn couldn’t stop the sting in her voice. She was just so angry. With herself.
With Odin.

He pushed off the door and stalked toward her. His huge body moved
with a feline grace that seemed impossible to achieve with the combination of
his height and bulk. But somehow he did. He was within touching distance now,
but he kept his hands to himself. Bastard. ‘When we got there they were already
dead—their bodies already taken.’

She finally made herself look him in the face. The usual rough,
I-don’t-give-a-fuck attitude was gone. Instead, there was compassion on his
hard face. This only pissed her off further. She didn’t need his pity. She
needed him to protect her Valkyries.

In one long stride, she was in front of him, her palm raised.
Korvain caught her wrist before the slap to his cheek could be landed. Anger
bubbled and she tried the other hand. He caught that too, holding her arms
above her head.

Her pulse roared to life. ‘Let me go,’ she hissed, struggling.
Korvain pulled her into the heat of his body, trapping her against him. Pushing
off, Bryn tried to land a kick somewhere on his body. She missed, being pushed
up against the wall instead.

With her hands still held above her head, she had no choice but to
breathe in his scent, to drink in the sight of him. Her body betrayed her
first, heating up. Her heart rate increased and liquid heat pooled between her legs.
What he did to her in the dream roared to the front of her mind, stunning her
by how badly she wanted to have his hands on more of her body. Now.

Korvain’s gaze intensified, zeroing in on her throat. She whimpered
when he lowered his head to her collarbone, his lips soft and warm and
addictive. His fingers relaxed around her wrists and her fingers found their
way to the back of his head, sliding through his short hair, massaging his
scalp.

He seemed to purr at the contact, his hips pressing up against hers.
She gasped when his erection pushed against her opening before he pulled away
with a hiss. He finally settled against her stomach. She was struck by how he
felt against her. It was exactly how he’d felt in the dreams.

‘I know you’re angry,’ he murmured, his velvet-soft lips brushing
against her collarbone as he spoke. She shuddered. ‘But there was nothing I
could have done. The god faded before I’d even had the chance to react.’

He pulled back and looked into her eyes.

‘There is something else though.’

Her eyes narrowed to slits, and even though she tried to push him
away, he kept her pinned against the wall with his hips. ‘I went to Kristy’s
house straight after I sent Eir away. I saw him. He had Kristy over his
shoulder. She looked unharmed—probably just drugged out like Eir had been. He
faded before I could do anything to save Kristy.’

‘No, no, no!’ Bryn started pounding on his chest, and he let her. He
took everything she gave him. ‘You bastard!’ she shrieked over and over again
until her voice was hoarse. When she finally slumped against his chest with her
forehead pressed between his collarbones, he started stroking her back, her
hair, soothing her despite everything she’d done and said to him.

‘Shhh,’ he soothed. ‘He kept her alive. That has to mean something,
right?’

‘Not for long,’ she replied, her voice muffled between his pecks.

‘Don’t think that way,’ he said; an edge to his voice. ‘What’s
different with Kristy?’ he asked after a moment.

‘Nothing. Nothing is different. He’s going to pluck the feathers
from her cloak and kill her. It’s the same.’ Defeat had taken over, her voice a
mirror of her deepest fears reflected onto the surface.

‘No, Bryn, it’s not.’ His voice rumbled through his chest, against
her ear. ‘Think about it. Every other kill has happened on site. This time he
took Kristy away. Why?’

She leaned back to look at him. He was right. This was different.
Her heart bounced into her throat. ‘Gods, he’s...he’s going to negotiate.’

Korvain nodded. ‘He knows he can’t get the rest of you. This place
is like Fort Knox. So he has to draw you out.’

The puzzle pieces were falling into place. ‘But how will we know?’

‘He’ll probably call the last dialed person
on her phone,’ Korvain suggested. Bryn didn’t want to think about how he knew
that. ‘Which would mean...’

Their eyes met. Korvain was out the door first. He made it to the
elevator before Bryn, punching the button like he was going to send it through
the wall. Anger writhed like a snake beneath Bryn’s skin. She wanted to punch
the wall, and when she glanced at Korvain she could see he wanted to do the
same thing. There was a dangerous glint in his dark eyes that set the fine
hairs at the base of her neck on end.

The ride up was torturous. They didn’t say a word to each other, but
Bryn could feel Korvain’s malice dripping from him. She was sure he wanted to
kill someone.

When the elevator doors opened, he let her take the lead. She nodded
her acknowledgement and made her way to her apartment door. Eir was sitting on
her love seat looking shell-shocked. Held loosely in her hands was her phone.
Bryn’s stomach dropped.

‘Eir?’ The Valkyrie looked up at her slowly. ‘Eir? What’s wrong?’

Bryn’s eyes fell to her white-knuckle grip.

‘I just...listened to a voicemail I had. It was from Krist.’

Gods. ‘What did it say?’

Eir’s eyes began to water again, the first tear escaping down her
cheek slowly. ‘She was excited we were going to catch a movie tomorrow night.’

The knot in Bryn’s stomach loosened slightly. The god hadn’t called
yet, but she knew in her gut it would only be a matter of time.

T
he doorbell to
Odin’s house rang, the sound booming and echoing around the marble he chose to
surround himself with. Having done away with servants a century ago, he
extricated himself from the powder blue Louis XV armchair in his formal living
room and walked to the door.

He was wearing his favorite smoking jacket and a pair of soft
loafers that hushed quietly across all that stone. He reached out for the
door’s handle carefully, his depth perception still shot after losing his right
eye.

Swinging the door wide, he took in the shaking mess of the young
woman standing before him. She was a classic beauty with pale hair and Aesirean
blue eyes. She was wearing a heavy-looking overcoat more suited to a male than
a female and her feet were bare.

‘Fulla?’

Dropping into a curtsey first, she gasped, ‘Odin—’ Fulla swallowed
convulsively, like whatever she wanted to say had suddenly become lodged in her
throat. She shook her head and tried again. ‘Please, you must come.’

His eyes scanned behind her. The street was quiet except for a few
people ambling along in the park across the street. ‘Why? What’s wrong?’

‘Please,’ she cried, reaching for his hand. ‘You must come with me.
It’s the queen.’

‘Frigg? What’s wrong with her?’

The tears that had sat in the young woman’s eyes were suddenly
streaming down her cheeks. With trembling hands, she pulled open the two sides
of her coat and revealed what was underneath.

Odin felt cold. Numb. Empty. He shifted his balance from one leg to
the other, the only external sign of his uneasiness. Fulla still stood on his small
stoop, her whole body shaking. Beneath the coat, her fine silk dress was
drenched in blood.

Even though he and Frigg were still married, they had not shared a
kind word in nearly one hundred years. She had railed at him for his handling
of the Valkyries, claiming he loved them more than he loved her. The whole idea
was preposterous, of course. He loved his wife—he would until his dying breath,
he suspected—but her jealousy knew no bounds.

The question Odin already knew the answer to stuck to the back of
his tongue. He tried twice to ask what he intended to before giving up.

‘Tell me,’ he finally said, his voice like cool steel.

‘The queen...is...dead.’ Her voice squeaked over the last word, washing
away from her lips with a fresh wave of tears. She was shaking so badly now
that her hand shot out from holding the coat together and clutched at the side
of his door.

He willed his legs to move. Taking Fulla by the wrist, he said, ‘I
need to see this.’

Odin faded to the house Frigg had demanded he buy her in the 1920s.
Nothing much had changed with the outside of the building, but modern plumbing
and electric had gone in when it became accessible to the humans. Fulla opened
the door for him, dropping into a curtsey when he passed by her. Even at a time
like this, the habit of supplication was still deeply ingrained in her.

Not waiting for the handmaiden, Odin took the grand staircase to the
upper floor and navigated his way to the master suite where Frigg would have
slept.

He had never been in there before. The room was opulent. A large
French armoire took up most of the north wall while an equally impressive
canopy bed took up the east. It was drenched in rich burgundy silks, a canopy
of twisted material overhead, crashing down the sides in a waterfall of color.

In the corner was a gilt three-way mirror no doubt worshiped by his
wife on a daily basis. It was true she was the goddess of love, but vanity and
ego nipped at her heels.

Directly across from the bed was the door leading into the bathroom.
That was the only place she could be.

He moved with purpose, determined to see for himself his wife’s
lifeless body.

Someone—Fulla he supposed—had laid her body out on the tile. Her
skin had leeched of color, but that wasn’t what drew his attention. The huge
unnatural smile carved into the front of her throat did. The flesh was smooth,
but gaped like a mocking grin.

One hand was still caught on the lip of the tub like whoever had
pulled her out of the water had done so hastily. He couldn’t see the inside of
the tub until he got a little closer. He forced himself to look at the
blood-stained water. Carefully, he dipped his finger in to test the temperate.

‘It’s still warm,’ he announced, thinking aloud.

‘Yes, All-Father.’ Fulla’s answer came from behind him. Glancing
over his left shoulder, he could see her pressed against the bathroom door,
refusing to come in any further. Her body shook with a fine tremor, but he
shouldn’t have been surprised. The woman had never seen death before, and her
devotion to Frigg was unwavering.

‘Who found her?’

‘I did,’ she whispered, her voice getting softer as she backed out
of the room completely. ‘I came to tell her dinner was ready. When she didn’t
reply straight away, I entered the bathroom to find her submerged.’

‘And you pulled her free, too?’

‘Yes.’

Odin bit back bile to even consider the next question. ‘Did you
leave her alone while she bathed, Fulla?’ She was still fully dressed, which
certainly indicated Fulla hadn’t been with her.

‘I...I...’

‘She was not alone,’ a male voice replied from deep inside the
bedroom. Odin dragged his eyes off Fulla and turned to one of her security
guards. He couldn’t remember if he was Tiki or Vali.

‘Which one are you again?’ he demanded.

The other man’s grey eyes clouded over with rage. ‘Tiki.’

‘Who was with her?’

‘Vali.’

Odin’s skin began to itch. ‘Why?’

Tiki met his gaze full on, unflinchingly. ‘Do I really need to spell
that out for you?’

Odin’s chest rose and fell with the confirmation of his wife’s
infidelity. He hadn’t wanted to believe the rumors, but
perhaps burying his head in the sand hadn’t been the best thing to do. He
turned back around to the queen’s body and crouched beside her head.

Frigg had always accused him of fucking his Valkyries, but he had
never been unfaithful—not once. But she had. He wanted to resurrect her so he
could kill her again, but even that was beyond his power.

He cranked his head back around to Tiki. ‘Where is the bastard?’

Odin’s skin felt like it was burning up from the inside. His fingers
itched to tear skin from bone, to boil the motherfucker’s organs and feed them
to his dogs. He wanted revenge. And there was nothing more dangerous than a god
with revenge on his mind.

‘I don’t know. I can’t find him.’ Tiki’s voice was flat, irreverent.

‘Well find him!’ Odin roared, standing up to his full height,
getting right up into the other guy’s face. He could see his glass eye glowing
in the reflection of the guard’s eyes. ‘Find him and bring him to me!’

Tiki bowed slightly and left the room. Odin squeezed his hands into
tight fists, his knuckles bulging. The desire to lash out was unrestrainable.
With a roar, he punched out the glass in the framed mirror. The sharp shards
rained down on him, slicing shallow gouges into his skin; they healed almost
instantly.

The cacophony of shattering glass filled his ears—a tremendous
reverberation echoing his outpouring of anger mingled with grief and disbelief.

The gentle sobs finally broke through his anger. Fulla was
whimpering in the corner of the room, as far away from him as she could get
without physically leaving the room. She was too shaken to even remain
standing. Odin was still vibrating with rage. Was it the news of her death, of
seeing Frigg’s body, or learning of her infidelity that enraged him so? Perhaps
it was a combination of all three that left him pissed off and ready to put
down the next person who spoke out of turn to him. Nobody did this to
him
.

He collapsed onto the ground beside Frigg, his smoking jacket
fanning out around his body; the knees of his silk pants drawing in the
moisture almost instantly. He looked at his beautiful wife, ignoring the red
slash across her throat, and began to weep for all he had lost.

He didn’t know how long he stayed like that, but when he heard the
whisper of footsteps on carpet, he lifted his head slowly, feeling the true
weight of his grief.

Tiki was back—a grim look on his hard face. He looked at Odin. ‘I
found him in his room, a hole blown into the back of his skull. It looks as if
he killed her then killed himself.’

Odin’s eyes travelled back to Frigg for a moment before fixing back
on the other male. ‘Why? Why would he kill her?’

‘I don’t know,’ Tiki replied, his voice rough. ‘Perhaps she had taken
another lover and he was jealous.’

Another
lover? How many had his darling
wife had? Whatever the reason, she was now dead and she had to be given the
proper burial. He scooped her up in his arms, his eye level dropping so he was
forced to look at her wounds.

But it wasn’t her wounds that gave him pause.

Gently, he repositioned Frigg’s body onto the tile and pulled a
stack of towels that had been stashed under the tub out. Slowly, he pulled a
bloody feather free of the pile.

Odin’s blood ran cold. It was one of his Valkyrie’s feathers, which
meant it hadn’t been Vali who had killed her.

It was Loki.

He stood up unsteadily, his calm demeanor
melting away, his wife’s body forgotten. She was already dead, and he would be,
too, if he didn’t warn Bryn.