Master of Umbra (The Valhalla Series) (15 page)

“
But I'm Ewan's girl.”

“
No, you're not. You're mine. Ask him if you don't believe me.”

I make to move but my legs are too unstable to hold me. My hand throbs as if he burned it with his own.

“Why is this happening?”

“
Give it a few minutes, Deliah. You can't bond to another's soul without giving your body time to adjust.”

Who are you and what the hell did you do with Gunn?

He's giving me a bone melting smile, the kind that strips a girl naked and rolls her over a barrel for a good fucking, not stopping until the cask froths over from the stimulation.

As if to illustrate his point he lifts his own left hand, licking the palm that just held mine.

My sex clenches and my body heats and spasms with instantaneous effect. Gasping a breathless orgasm into his face, the scars on his chest blur when shame hits me hard.

This is not happening.

He twists his hand, showing me the mark tattooed on his palm. That wasn't there two minutes ago. I know, I've wrestled and sparred this man for the past hour and I've seen his hands.

He lifts my palm for me and holds it like a mirror in front of my face. I have the same spiral on mine.

“How did you do that?” I ask, my voice coming out all sex kitten gushy.

“
It's the union of soulmates, baby. I swear an oath to you that no man will ever hurt you again.”

But you just did!

Chapter 23

He looked through the hole in the Odin Stone and wished that he might get the power of seeing Hildaland.

- Orkney tale of Eynfree

Deliah:

Desperate to talk to Ewan, I manage to give Gunn the slip with excuses about needing to feed Bella and grab a shower, then rushed to the chief's quarters.

My heart is racing with alarm at the sudden rift in my status quo and I stop abruptly when I spy Ewan dressed all in black, a thick cape on his shoulders and a hood covering his head to obscure his face, striding toward me with purpose and urgency.

“
Ewan?”

“
Liah, your timing is appalling darling.”

“
Where are you going?” He looks geared for a perilous covert mission.

“
I'm off to gather my people. You'll be fine here, I won't be gone long.”

“
You have more people?” I blurt, trying to understand the spider's web I'm stuck in.

“
I do. In fact, if you hurry you can accompany me. It's not every day I get to take a lady home to meet the extended family,” he says, looking seductive when he smiles invitation and temptation at me.

“
Where are we going?”

“
Ness Sten, to the ring of Brodgar.”

Right, that really clears it up for me then. I feel like a foreigner on an alien world.

Ewan gives me the provocative once over perusal, muttering, “Hang on, I think I have a cloak that will fit you.”

Going to his tip of a closet, he rummages and rifles until a muffled 'here we go' crows from the recesses of chaos. Stalking the three giant steps back to me, he billows out a thick pelt of heavy material onto my shoulders, clasping it for me, “A trueborn you are. I'm beginning to get the deep soul-feeling there's more than fate and destiny in the winds today.”

Touching the midnight purple-black material, it's soft and furry beneath my palm, like brushed velvet crossed with suede.

“
What's it made from?” I ask, fascinated by the insulating mantle.

“
Selkie pelt.” Nodding his satisfaction, he grips a hold of my hand, “Come on sweetling, we're leaving the secret way.”

“
Who did it belong to? It's way too small for you,” I babble, vastly sidetracked from my purpose.

Moving us swiftly in an almost dreamlike speed, up a stygian obsidian tunnel behind his bathroom doorway, he answers, “My mother.”

Oh my god, he must have it for me bad if he's letting me wear the heirlooms. In days of old to cover a woman with your cloak was as good as a marriage proposal, and fuck all to do with chivalry. My mind is reeling with the sub-texts to this thoughtful gesture from our chieftan. He's managing to make me feel cherished and important, two things a lady finds as addictive as books.

Leaving the Blackmount forest he takes me directly to the Ring of Brodgar by planting his glowing sword in the ground, igniting an iridescent bridge across the sky from our lofty mountain lair.

Somber clouds scurry overhead, obscuring the sky's sunny hearth with atramentous oppression, making the day as dark as the moment Odin bequeathed his eye for insight. The wind thrusts nebulosity with turgid speed, driving the murky brume with the ferocity of a baron scattering the illegitimate from the firstborns.

“
Quickly sweetheart, the gata only lasts long enough for us to transport.”

“
But we'll fall through it! A rainbow is nothing more substantial than vapor,” I object, my stomach doing the heave ho at how high we are. “What's gata?” I shriek belatedly, wobbling on the cliff's precipice.

“
Gata is olde Norse for road, this is the gata of bifrost, which means the road of light to god. It's called faith in the gods for a reason, poppet. Trust me, Liah. I'll never let harm befall you.” He takes a firm hold of my hand, pulling me forcefully with him onto the coruscating colors of the sevenfold firmament.

It yanks us, barreling us across the sky in a time warp hallucination, the only sound an eerie whistling of dirge-like keening.

Deposited directly into the middle of a wide flat henge surrounded with frosted heather, a clock of rugged slabs salute the sky, aside a loch so moody it mirrors the eyes of scrying hags on every pique in the choppy water. My heart is hiccuping when I turn to see the rainbow flickering out of existence.

“
What the fuck, Ewan?”

“
I'm Odin's grandson. This is nothing, wait until you meet my cousins.”

“
I thought all those men back in the Umbra catacombs were your kin?” I argue, my head reeling to keep up with this weirdness.

He gives me a ravishing grin, “I am a complex man of many talents, Liah. I am the modern equivalent of Odin, there's much within my power to execute. This is your reality now, this is your heritage and your birthright. You'll learn these talents yourself in the following months.”

“So, why are we here?” I ask, looking at the infinite ring of craggy bones.

“
This is where we knock to enter. Then we have a quick stop-off at my sire's stones, and then we go calling on the draugr.”

Abandoning me, he circles deosil, along the inside of the ring of stone, touching each jagged tooth with that strange sword of his which glows with stellar mystery; the blade dancing with starbursts within its boundaries, as if it encapsulates nuclear fission and China's horde of exploding fireworks.

Returning to my side, he plants the point of the sword in the earth at our feet and a new rainbow arcs across the ominous sky, unveiling a new Asgardian way to travel. I wonder if he gets frequent flier credits for this? The next location is so close I merge into the blur as a new henge zooms at us from just across the way.

Accelerating through a warp to a point outside a much tighter circle of stones I recognize what they call the watchstone, the sentry protecting the inner circle. Water flows either side of us, roiling with secrets and dark tides.

Walking silently side by side, huge menhirs rise out of the misty wraiths like a citadel for death dreamers. The specters stand erect and desolate, glistening wet with hazed breath, wearing enigmatic shrouds of tenebrous fog.

Ewan wraps his arm around me, saying softly, “These are the standing stones of Stenness.”

“Stane-is?” I whisper back, looking at the looming monstrosities.

“
It comes from the Norse words meaning
stone headland
. Be careful of the ditch, here let me help you over.” Strong hands circle my waist and he lifts me as easily as a child, putting my feet down on the grass next to the towering slab. “We enter on the north side, come poppet,” he says, taking hold of my hand and leading me around the ghostly circle. “One thing few people know about the geology sketch map of ancient Orkney, is that the monuments when they have a line drawn from one to the next mirrors the constellation Serpentarius and Serpens. It's an ancient oath of our holiest, a celestial and landlocked effigy of the almighty subduing the toxic influence of the sly.”

“
Why are we here?” I ask, keeping my voice low. This is like walking into a holy library, the atmosphere bidding me to subconsciously show reverence.

“
To look through the Odin stone. I want to show you my original home.”

Careful not to trip, I match his stride, walking with him into the sacrosanct inner caim of the ancient monument. He pulls me with him, walking right through the creepy dolmen, the ground beneath us moving faster than us, as if we are skipping through a portal of acceleration. Approximately a hundred and fifty yards beyond the standing stones he halts at a pair of shimmering monoliths, both with a hole through its lower half.

“This is a spirit stone, it stands on the cusp of two dimensions. You can only see this because I have chosen to reveal it to you,” he says, with pride embroidering his tone. “Take a look through the all seeing eye.”

“
Why?” I whisper, feeling jittery.

“
It is Odin's stone, it is a magical eyescope to view Finfolkaheem.”

Curious, I crouch, looking through the hole which is big enough for my face. Staring through the open channel, the low fog and gloom of the dark day vanishes, exposing a sunny green landscape buried in a gossamer veil of aurora borealis. They glisten and shimmer like pellucid ribbons encasing the fair isle, ethereal wisps wrapping their wishes around the first maypole.

“Wow,” I hush, amazed by this arcane spy-hole into another realm. “And this one next to it?”

“
That is his wife's stone, the eye of Skadi. They stood here for millennia until the ferrylouper Mackay smashed them down in the eighteen hundreds. Now they exist between realms, available to a select few.”

I stare at the two diaphanous slabs, tall and slender like rugged piano keys planted in the ground.

“Liah...” he says, his voice so velvet rich it makes me stand up and face him with my heart pounding.

“
Yes?”

“
I would like the honor of handfasting with you the ancient way. Clasping our hands through Odin's all seeing eye.” He's smiling affection at me, giving me the tryst stare, his wildfire irises lustrous with desire.

The fulgent passion displayed so candidly flays my heart with acrid bitterness

“I can't,” I mutter, ready to cry.

“
Why can't you?” he says, sounding surprised by my refusal.

With my hopes splintering in my ankles, causing fragments to slice my insides all the way up to my chest, I turn my hand over to show him the palm.

This entanglement is a tawdry dilemma for my simple mind.

He ambles slowly toward me until he's so close his breath warms my cold cheeks. In freeze-frame increments he takes my hand, staring at the spiral of the galaxy imprinted inside my skin, tracing it with a callused fingertip.

“And when... how... did this happen?”

Swallowing the lump of anxiety lodged in my throat, I answer into the ravaging gale, “He saw my scars. He told me he ended Dias... that I owed him... explanations. When he saw the damage he vowed to make it right, speaking riddles about running from the fate he was chosen for, it all making sense...”

I let my words peter out, my sorrow too great to maintain a steady tone, saying in emotional huskiness, “What does it mean?”

“
It means he has chosen you as his soulmate, his lover, his everything, the one he'd die to protect.” Ewan drops my hand, looking over my head while expelling a dramatic sigh. “How do you feel about being his chosen?”

He doesn't even make eye contact, staring far away into the distance, his voice deadpan, and in that inflection revealing his wretchedness.

Tears gather storms in my eyes, rushing to drown my grief in sudden death. “I... I don't know him, I don't trust him. He's supercilious at best. I need your succor, Ewan. Help me understand why... why him?”

“
The mist gave you the choice. It is
meant
to be your choice, him or me. Did he give you the choice?” This time he glances down, giving me enough of a glimpse of the torment clenched in his visage to answer my sorrow with a resounding gong of resonance. “Deliah,
tell me
. Did he give you a fucking choice in the matter? Was he man enough to ask you, to give you the option of declining his proposal?”

I shake my head, desperate to find my voice, managing to squeak through the tight constriction in my throat, “He said I was his. That you told him so. He said if I didn't believe him to ask you.”

Ewan twists, giving me his side while he stares at the ground, his silhouette as bitter as the weather. “Tell me your heart's desire, Liah. If you could choose a handfasting partner, who would you choose, if any?”

The tears are overwhelming me, my nose blistering as the waterworks turn on full blast, trembling my soul in bottomless dejection. Sitting down with suddenly weak legs, I fidget with the vibrant grass under my calves, mumbling through shuddering inhalations, “You, no doubt, none.”

He crouches in front of me, offering me a handkerchief, “Do not cry, sweetheart. He's a big boy, he'll get over the infraction.”

I shake my head, my mouth wrestling to pin my lips into a frown, taking the hanky and wiping my eyes, clutching to it as if he just handed me his heart for safekeeping.

“Deliah, do you understand? I can sever the handfasting with my authority. You are destined to choose, it is not our role to choose on your behalf. Now you have an offer from both your ordained choices. You are a catch my darling, we are lucky to have the option to handfast with you at all.”

Laughing caustic scorn under my breath, my throat burns as if I've been screaming at a rock concert. “Why? I'm as drab as the clouds above us. I'm not pretty and desirable like Emma. I wish I could turn into a swan too, like she has with her magical eye and sultry voice. She's fucking perfect.”