Dark Deceit (22 page)

Eir’s chest squeezed tight at the revelation. Not only had she
damned her sister’s life, but hers as well, and if Bryn did come—which of
course she would—her life, too. Tears stung the corners of her eyes, gliding
down her temples and soaking the messy sheets beneath her.

She had condemned them all.

Eir blinked up at the ceiling fixture, her lids getting heavier. She
blinked more rapidly, hoping to fight off the feeling, but that only made it
worse. She was lying out on a beach with the tide coming in.

Waves of darkness lapped at her feet, her calves, her hips.

Eventually the waves would take over and crush her. She blinked
again, her eyelids taking forever to flip back open. She tried to remain lucid,
in control, but she could not win this battle.

The darkness finally swamped her and dragged her into the undertow.

K
orvain had a
plan. Granted, it was not a very good one, but it was a plan all the same. He’d
come to the conclusion that no matter how much Bryn pushed him away, he would
push back. Thinking she could take on Loki alone was insane. He’d seen
firsthand how powerful the god was. If she thought she could defeat him without
getting help from anyone else, she was delusional.

So here he was at the club, a crazy look in his eye that had
everything to do with wanting to protect his woman. He wouldn’t let her walk
into the trap with her eyes closed so tightly. He just hoped he wasn’t too
late, that she hadn’t received the phone call telling her exactly where the
exchange was going to happen.

He approached the rear door carefully, his eyes always swivelling
around for danger. He was well cloaked with shadows, but he never let his guard
down.

Ever.

He was prepared to threaten his way inside, but when he arrived,
there was a chunk of brick holding the door ajar. Kicking it away, he slid
inside and shut the door firmly behind himself. The hallway was a tight squeeze
for him, but he made his way down to the elevator and hit the dimly lit button
on the side.

As he rode it up, he went through all the arguments he’d prepared to
fight Bryn with. He was going to appeal to her intense loyalty to her Valkyries,
tell her that if she somehow got herself killed, there would be no one to look
after the club and the other women.

He rubbed at his chest, aching with the thought of Bryn getting
killed. He didn’t like it. Not one bit. He would fight for his woman into the
deepest bowels of Niflheim if he had to.

The doors opened slowly onto the hallway that held half a dozen
doors. Korvain moved to Bryn’s and tried the handle. It was also unlocked.
Slipping inside, he scanned the immediate area for anything unusual. Bryn’s
delicate scent was everywhere in the room, and he took just a second to breathe
her in, hold her in his lungs before getting down to work.

He stalked toward her room knowing that that was where her cloak
would have been. He let out a breath and cracked open the door. He could see
Bryn on the bed, her back to him. Her breathing was deep and even.

Even if she was deeply asleep, Korvain wrapped more shadows around
his body, padding his steel-toed boots so he made absolutely no sound
whatsoever.

Walking over to her closet, he pulled open the door and began
looking over the shelves and racks. His plan was to steal Bryn’s cloak away
from her so she wouldn’t be able to go to the exchange. A mature approach?
Probably not, but there was no way in Hel he was going to let her go without
him there to protect her.

So. Yeah. He’d turned into a caveman.

Whatever.

Korvain started pushing the clothes hanging on the racks around,
first wrapping them with the shadows swamping the small space. He couldn’t
chance Bryn waking up while he was stealing her most treasured possession.

He searched her closet for near on a quarter of an hour and found
absolutely nothing. Frustrated, he turned back to the room and scanned the
furniture. Bryn seemed to take the idea of Spartan living to the extreme. The
only furniture she had in the room was a bed, a dresser and a long cheval
mirror.

He looked over the top of her dresser expecting to find trinkets and
jewellery like other women kept. But the only things to adorn the top of hers
were the two bloody feathers Eir must have given her.

Quickly and quietly, he looked through the drawers, but the ash box
wasn’t in there either. He even got onto his hands and knees and looked under
her bed. He stood back up, dusting the knees of his cargoes, playing with the
shadowing in his hands like it was a pool of trapped water. He watched some of
the shadow fall, dripping through his fingers.

It sank to the floor and disappeared between the floorboards. He
dropped to his knees and repeated the action. The same thing happened again.
Pressing gently against the boards, Korvain heard a soft creak.

Prying the loose board off, he found a small compartment. It was
filled with dust, having probably being unopened for decades. Reaching inside,
he felt around until his fingers brushed against something cool and hard.

He pulled the box free, popping it open on its hinges. Even though
there was no light to speak of, the feathers of her cloak gleamed brightly as
if backlit from within. Reverently, he stroked one of the feathers, and Bryn
moaned. He withdrew his hand quickly and shut the box.

With Bryn’s ash box firmly in his hand, he turned to leave.

* * *

B
ryn groaned and
rolled over. When her face mashed up against something soft rather than coarse,
she knew she wasn’t still passed out on the living room floor. Her mouth felt
dry as if all the moisture had been syphoned out of it. Licking her lips, they
felt like sandpaper.

She rubbed at the headache already throbbing in her frontal lobe, focusing
her eyes on the clock on her bedside table and rolling into a sitting position.
The movement was too fast; another wave of what felt like daggers through her skull
erupted all over, pulling a whimper from her dry lips.

She’d been unconscious for just over five hours. She had to go. She
had to stop Eir from doing something stupid and crazy. Bryn looked toward the
door and willed her body to move on her command.

She managed to stand, but once she was upright a roll of nausea
swelled and overflowed in her body, threatening to spill over.

‘Fuck,’ she hissed, her hand going to her stomach as if that was
going to hold anything in. Sweat broke out on her brow, small beads clinging to
her clammy skin. Whatever Eir had spiked her drink with, it had been strong.

Eir.

Bryn growled in frustration. She was going to kill that woman when
she got her hands on her. Didn’t she realize just how dangerous it was? Didn’t
she know she could get killed? The only way to get her and her sister back now
was to trade herself for them both. She just hoped she wasn’t too late.

She staggered around to the other side of her bed, her eyes fixed on
the false floor about one foot wide and one foot long. She grunted, dropping to
her knees as the message between her feet and her brain shorted out.

Bryn flipped open the section of floor and reached inside. The
movement forward made her head swim unexpectedly, forcing her to sit back on
her heels before she tried it again.

With her equilibrium back, Bryn tried again. Coldness kissed her
fingers as they searched for her ash box—the box that contained her feather
cloak. She was up to her elbow now, half her arm buried under the floorboards
while the other half of her started to panic. Back and forth, she swept the
area, touching only dust. Desperately, she lowered herself to the ground and
tried to look inside the cavity.

Empty.

It was empty.

Her cloak was gone.

She staggered to her feet, pitching to one side and catching herself
on the side of the bed. How could someone have taken her cloak? Nobody knew where
she kept it. Not even the other Valkyries.

Blinking, black roses began blooming in front of her eyes. She
whirled around and made for the door. She had to get to Eir, cloak or no cloak.
She could worry about
where
it had gone later.

She staggered from her apartment, using the wall as support, swaying
and fighting the combined waves of nausea and head spins as she went. Bile
twisted menacingly up her throat. Bryn doubled over and vomited in the hall, no
more than a few feet from her destination—the elevator.

Wiping the back of her hand across her mouth, she smeared vomit
along her cheek, but was too focused on getting to Eir to care.

Once inside, she leaned heavily on the side of the elevator as she
rode down to the lower level of her club. It opened with its trademark
ding
and she stepped out, throwing her hands out to break her fall as her legs gave
out from under her.

Sprawled on the cold ground, reality seeped in. Eir was going to die
because of her—just like every other Valkyrie who had died in the past week. It
was all because of her.

Lifting her head, she looked down the length of the dim hallway. A
flicker of anger ignited into something more when she thought about giving up.
Just because the situation was hopeless didn’t mean there was nothing she could
do about it. Even though it hurt, she pushed herself up until she was leaning
against the wall, her eyes still fixed on the exit.

All she had to do was get there.

All she had to do after that was fade to the hotel.

She didn’t worry about what happened after that. She knew what was
going to happen. Loki was going to set the other two women free and she was
going to surrender herself. She was going to sacrifice herself for her girls
like Odin should have done for all of them.

Pitching forward, Bryn lifted herself off the ground and started
down the hallway again. Staggering, she managed to reach the door without
falling over, which was an achievement because the world seemed to be tilting
to her.

A blast of cool air hit her in the face and chased down her neck,
clearing her head just a little. It was only a little, but it was enough for
her to focus her thoughts on fading. There was a familiar vibration, and then
she was there.

Bryn had faded into the parking garage next to a Honda Civic. Walking
to the cool cement wall, she pressed her palms against it, resting her forehead
there while breathing in slowly. Her breath misted a little in front of her
mouth. Dragging her brain out of the fog it was still swimming in, she made her
way to the door leading through to the lobby.

She twisted the handle and pulled open the door. A rush of warm air,
low chatter and glasses clinking together greeted her. Moving among the humans,
Bryn wondered how she was supposed to find Loki.

But in the end, it was Loki that found her.

His hand landed on her shoulder, his fingers gripping tight,
crippling her. If they hadn’t been surrounded by humans, Bryn would have drawn
her sword. She was about to ignore the fact they were there at all when Loki’s
almost melodic voice drifting languidly into her ear.

‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you.’

She turned her head just a little to see his profile. ‘I’m here,’
she managed to say, swallowing back more bile. ‘Now let the others go.’

Loki started walking her out of the lobby, out of the hotel. Where
were they going?

‘Others?’ he asked innocently.

If it wasn’t for Loki’s arm now tucked securely around her waist,
she would have gone sprawling. ‘I know...Eir came to save her...’ she swallowed
again, ‘sister.’

‘That she did, that she did,’ Loki replied. They had come to a stop
beside the bordered up fence of a construction site across the road. He smiled
at her again almost benignly. She would have believed his innocence if it
wasn’t for the feral glaze in his eyes.  

‘Where...is she?’

‘I’m taking you to her. Hold on tight,’ he replied in that same
saccharine tone. Bryn felt the vibration as Loki faded them both to a new
location. She hadn’t thought it was possible for him to do that. Only Odin had
that kind of power.

Bryn set aside the whys of it for a minute to take in her new
surroundings. Loki had faded them to what looked like an underground cavern. Water
dripped somewhere, echoing around what must have been a huge space.

She turned her head slightly to look behind her. A giant rubble wall
was at her back, which meant the only way to go now was forward.

‘I feel I must warn you, Brynhildr. If you reach for your sword, I
will have to sedate you.’ Loki’s voice was calm, uninflected.

Honestly, it was just plain creepy.

But she knew she couldn’t risk pissing him off. If her girls were
somewhere down here, he was the only one who knew where.

Loki shoved her gently in the back, forcing her to walk ahead of him.
The ground beneath her feet was littered with small chunks of rock that tripped
her up. Her head was still fuzzy from the drug yet to leave her system, so on
more than one occasion she tripped and fell.

Her palms were cut, her jeans ripped and knees bleeding. Loki hooked
his hand under her arm and hauled her to her feet once more. He stared at her,
cocking his head to one side as he did. She could feel the beads of sweat
beginning to form. She didn’t want him to know just how fucked she was from
whatever cocktail Eir had brewed.

To distract him, she asked, ‘So where are we?’

Loki was quiet for a long minute before dropping the eye-fuck
routine. ‘Take a look around. You tell me.’

Bryn did look, but all she could see were huge pylons rising from the
ground and smooth concrete walls. She knew they were underground; she could
feel the dampness seeping into her bones. Looking up, she saw insulated pipes
running along the walls, held up and together with large metal brackets.

‘I don’t know.’

Loki smiled and prodded her again, keeping her moving at a pace just
this side of too fast for her still scrambled brain. Bryn didn’t know how long
they had been walking for. Honestly, she was having a hard enough time just walking
in a straight line. So when Loki took her arm and hauled her to a stop, at
first she didn’t see why.

Turning to his left, he pulled on a handle in the middle of the
wall. The wall wasn’t a wall after all. It was a door that swung open on rusty
hinges. The smell that poured out had Bryn holding the back of her hand against
her nose. The fetid smell of death and decay rolled out of the room, clawing at
her senses.

Loki, however, seemed unaffected, moving behind her and giving her a
little shove. Bryn stepped over the raised lip and into the corridor. Her head
throbbed painfully. She wanted to cradle her head in her hands, to massage away
some of the pain, but as she lifted her arms, she felt something sharp pierce
her skin.