Endre (Elsker Saga Book 2) (7 page)

“They were talking about Elf Man’s plan. Ull, he wants to destroy the gods—all the gods. I think he’s the one orchestrating Ragnarok.”

Ull’s arms tensed under my fingers. I could feel the shallowness of his breaths as he attempted to calm himself. “What did he do to you?” The words were so clipped that I barely understood them.

“He tried to burn me,” I admitted. “My pajamas got singed. But I’m okay—I grabbed my necklace and I came out of the vision. I’m sorry I woke you. I know you’re exhausted, but—”

Ull silenced me with a finger to my lips. “Do not
ever
apologize for coming to me. I will
always
look out for you. Always. It is my duty and my honor.”

I closed my eyes. “I was terrified.”

“I bet you were. But you do not have to be afraid. I am here, and I will take care of you.”

“He’s going to kill everyone we know.” My cheeks flushed as hot tears streamed down my face. “And then the fire giants are going to take over earth and eat us, or make us their slaves, or… I’m not sure. Either way, it’s going to be awful!”

“Shh.” Ull reached up to wipe the tears from my eyes. “I will not let that happen. Any of it. You are safe now.”

“But I’m not!” I tilted my cheek into Ull’s palm and sobbed. “There’s nothing I can do to stop the visions. They just keep coming. And they’re getting scarier and more real, and this time my pants were actually on fire. He’s going to kill me, Ull. One way or another, this guy is going to hunt me down until he finally catches me. And then what am I going to do?”

I gave in to the panic I’d felt in the forest. Sobs wracked my body as I turned to face Ull. I cried until my throat was hoarse and my eyes burned, while Ull stroked my hair. He didn’t try to reassure me, he didn’t tell me to get a grip, and to his credit, he didn’t ask me why I hadn’t used my necklace to exit the vision the minute I’d realized I was in it… even though he’d asked me to do just that on several occasions. Instead he just held me and let me work through my fear.

When it was over, he lifted my chin with one finger. He wiped my eyes with the pads of his thumbs, and lay a gentle kiss on my forehead.

“Stay with me tonight,” he commanded. “But know that we are going to find a way to stop him from getting into your head. And I am never,
never
going to let him hurt you. I vowed to protect you, and nothing is going to stop me from keeping my word.
Nothing
.”

“I’m scared, Ull.”

“I know. I am uncomfortable with what happened tonight. But you are with me now, and I propose you never leave.”

“Okay,” I whispered. I buried my face in his chest. We lay together for a long while, the tension slowly evaporating into the high ceilings.

“I love you.” Ull brushed my forehead with his lips.

“I love you, too.” I kissed him back, my mouth warm on his chest.

In that moment something shifted. Ull brought the palm of his hand up to my bottom. He gave a gentle squeeze, and I lifted my head, curiosity getting the better of me. This wasn’t like him—usually he was King of the Boundaries, and I’d expected our location would make him even more restrained. But the look in his eyes said differently. It was stern, searing, almost overwhelming in its longing.

It was sexy.

I threw myself on top of him and touched the hard muscles of his torso. Thick biceps wrapped around my arms, pinning me firmly in place. Ull’s mouth found my chin for the briefest possible moment. His lips felt hot as he kissed a line down my neck to my shoulder. He nipped at the bone with his teeth, sending me spiraling down the side of a steep hill I hadn’t realized I was standing on. As he kissed a trail to the hollow of my neck I fell faster, harder, adrenaline coursing through my veins and a thousand dormant nerve-endings springing to life. I sighed, giving in to the pulse of hormones pounding a rhythm against my skin. Ull’s mouth found mine, and I lost myself all over again. But as much as my body wanted to stay where I was, my brain’s need for oxygen prevailed; I pulled my head back with a gasp.

Ull stilled. He eyed me levelly, and very gently lifted me off him. He nestled me in the crook of his arm, and turned so he could place one hand on my stomach. He raised the fabric at the bottom of my thin camisole, and stroked soft circles on my belly with his thumb. My eyes rolled closed. Even this tiny touch was almost more than I could handle.

“You are to sleep here tonight. In the morning we will talk to Olaug about these visions. She and Elsker need to figure out how to help you block them. We know you can exit the visions using your necklace, but there must be some way to avoid them completely. I do not ever want you to come to my door crying again.” He raised an eyebrow. “Although I do rather like you in my bed.”

“I like it too,” I confessed. “I feel safe here.”

Ull nipped gently at my ear, once again giving me the not altogether uncomfortable feeling of spiraling out of my body. I inhaled deeply, then rested my cheek against his bare skin. No matter what had happened an hour ago, in this moment I was exactly where I wanted to be.

“Well then, sweetheart. This is where you shall stay.”

A few days later, I’d managed to push my latest nightmare to the back of my mind. Elsker had been less forgiving than Ull—she’d given me quite the lecture when she found out I stayed in the vision, even after I knew Elfie was there. When she stopped her tirade, she instructed me to grip my necklace and say her name
immediately
on entering a vision. I wasn’t to engage the monster again, or listen in on his conversations—even though spying on him could give us valuable Ragnarok insight. For now my only job was to call for her. She promised she would come find me in whatever realm the vision took me to, and get me out. But her extraction would only work if she wasn’t being detained. We both suspected Elf Man was working with a good-sized network of monsters, and in all likelihood any move he made to take me out would be preempted by debilitating my Norn. It was extremely clever. And even more terrifying.

With the visions under some theoretical semblance of control, I decided to blow off some steam with a girl’s day.

“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” Inga’s driving always made me nervous. Ull’s super-hot roommate and second-oldest friend was good at a lot of things: baking, fashion, decorating, pretty much every sport, and keeping Ull’s temper in check, but driving under the speed limit wasn’t one of them. She took the winding turns out of Cardiff way too quickly, settling onto the motorway with a satisfied expression. My mind had finally wrapped itself around the fact that Norse gods were adrenaline junkies. My stomach was going to need more convincing.

“It should take about an hour to get there. I want to show you one of my favorite things about living as a human.”

“I’d like to be a living human when we get there,” I muttered.

“Ha, ha. Don’t worry, I promised Ull I’d bring you home in one piece.”

“Corpses come in one piece.” My grousing fell on deaf ears.

Exactly twenty-seven minutes later we pulled up to a racetrack. “OK, what’s going on?”

“It’s race day!” Inga was giddy. “The F3 series is here.” She stepped out of the car, and I hurriedly followed. My equilibrium couldn’t handle another minute in the passenger’s seat.

“So you like NASCAR?” My knowledge of racing was limited to that movie about Ricky Bobby. And the Disney cartoon about cars.

“It’s not NASCAR.” She rolled her eyes at my ignorance. “It’s Formula 3. Open-wheel racing. It’s like an entry version of your Indy Car.”

“Oh,” I feigned recognition.

“You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”

“Not a clue.”

“You’ll learn.” Inga tossed her hair and walked toward the grandstand. “I have an eternity to teach you.”

We made our way through the concessions line before settling into our seats.

“So you’re, uh, a car fan?”

“Yes.” Inga’s delighted laughter attracted the attention of several men nearby. They eyed her appreciatively. “I love driving, and I’d love to race. But as I’m sure Ull told you, we’re supposed to stay under the radar. We certainly couldn’t enter a competition like this without being noticed. Obviously, we’d take the pole.”

“Of course.” So the prize was a pole. I’d expected something fancier.

“So I just watch. Gunnar and Ull have their rugby and I have this. Besides, now I have the chance to talk to you alone.”

“Shoot.” I sipped my soda.

“Kristia, you’re the Seer! That’s a huge deal. How are you dealing with it?”

I jumped when the cars started their engines on the track, a dozen or so claps of thunder just ten yards away. “It’s fine.”

“Kristia…”

Truthfully, I wasn’t entirely sure what it all meant. “What?”

“You’re the Seer.”

“I know.” I tried not to twitch. “It’s a big to do, my mental problem’s going to get a lot worse, and now I have to have some stupid bodyguard follow me around twenty-four hours a day.”

“Of course you do.” Inga scrunched her impeccably groomed eyebrows together. “You’re the Seer.”

“So?”

“What do you mean, ‘so’? Has anyone explained to you what you are? I mean, really sat you down and explained it to you?”

“I’ve got the general idea.”

“Do you really?”

“Okay, no.”

“Here’s the deal. Yours was the very first prophecy the Three Sisters ever made, before Ragnarok, before the Jotun Rebellion, before any of it. They predicted someone would come with all-powerful sight—the ability to predict the future, see the past, and know everything happening in all the realms in the present. And that person would be able to protect their allies against any attack. Forever.”

“And they decided this person would be a human?” These sisters must not have been the sharpest crayons in the box.

“No. The prophecy wasn’t specific, but we all kind of figured they were talking about an Aesir.”

“An Aesir?”

“The main gods in Asgard: Odin, Balder, Thor… their group.” Inga shrugged.

“Got it.”

“But time went on and nobody fulfilled the prophecy. We didn’t exactly forget about it, but we started to wonder if they’d been wrong. It’s been millennia.”

“Did you ever think to look in another realm?” Though it seemed unlikely the Norns would have chosen a fire giant for a peacekeeping job.

“No. They’ve never given such an important prophecy to someone who wasn’t an Aesir or a Vanir.”

“Vanir?” I asked.

“The next rung of gods. The rest of us.”

“Oh.”

“Thank Odin Ull found you. You have to become a goddess to fulfill your prophecy.”

“Right.” I sighed. “And I get a bodyguard.”

“That’s what’s bugging you? Not being hunted into perpetuity by every enemy of Asgard?”

Well, now that she mentioned it…

“I know you don’t want a guard, but you’re ridiculously valuable. Odin will make sure you’re taken care of.”

“Sure. Some stranger’s going to follow me around twenty-four-seven, know everything I do and report back to management. Fantastic.”

“It’s a lot of change, isn’t it?” Inga squeezed my hand, her soft voice somehow carrying over the thrum of the engines below.

“It’s fine.” I stared at the cars. “So who’s it going to be?”

Inga watched the cars with me. “It was going to be Skadi.”

“What?” I exploded. “Skadi, the girl Thor wanted Ull to marry—that Skadi? Shadowing everything I do?” My feathers were in a full-on fluff.

“Don’t be so dramatic.” Inga rolled her eyes. “I told him that wasn’t going to work. I wouldn’t let my best friend get stuck with a dark troll.”

“You know Skadi?” I asked.

“Of course. I’m her trainer.”

“Like at the gym?”

“No, silly. You know how we all have assignments back in Asgard?” Inga shifted to get a better look at the track.

“Yes.”

“Gunnar’s an assassin, Ull’s God of Winter, and I’m a tactical advisor to the warriors. I orchestrate their fight sequences and train the warriors to execute them.”

“Seriously?” Inga was a tough cookie, but I’d had no idea.

“Yes. I’d rather be a fighter, but it makes Dad too nervous. So he asked Odin to put me in a non-combat position with the warriors.”

“Do you work with Skadi?” I asked.

“Ugh. Skadi’s in my training group, and she is a piece of work.” Inga didn’t take her eyes off the track. One of the cars shifted to pass another and nearly hit the wall as it went by. Jeez.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, besides being ridiculously impressed with herself, she’s madder than a fire giant in Jotunheim.”

“Why?”

“Who knows?” Inga shrugged. “She’s always been crazy. And she’s always had a weird thing for Ull. Don’t worry,” she added when I bristled. “He’s never been into her. Like, ever.”

“Good.” It was hard not to be insecure about the warrior goddess Thor wanted to marry his son.

“But because she’s so uppity and crazy, and because she somehow thinks she’s entitled to Ull, I told Dad she wasn’t a good candidate for your bodyguard position. He thought she’d be perfect, that she could pretend to be a co-ed and go to class with you. Yeah, right. There’s nothing collegiate about that mountain goat.”