by Gwen Rivers
Liam nods. “I suppose I can do that. How do you know a giant from a mortal though?”
“By scent. You know the difference between a wolf and a mortal by scent, right?”
At Liam’s nod, he continues. “So, giants smell like magic. The fey do as well, but only if they have worked magic recently.”
“But if I’ve never smelled magic how do I know what it is?” Liam frowns.
“Take Harmony’s scent.” Aiden tries to verbalize the olfactory patterns that he associates with his sister. “She can wield fire magic. When she does, one can smell the spice, the char of burning. Do you remember how Nic smells?”
Liam nods and Aiden’s wolf doesn’t like the way the other’s eyes alight. “Like winter apples.”
“That crisp whiff of ozone, like a first frost, that is her magic. A giant will smell even more potently of the same sort of things. Many times they smell like freshly churned earth or a dousing of spring rain. In the past, they blended in better, but those sorts of scents often stand out in a city.”
Liam frowns for a moment. “There was an old man who lived down the street from my parents. He always smelled of sawdust and pinesap. I always assumed he worked with wood, like in construction or something.”
“A loner? Kept to himself?”
“How did you know?”
“Giants tend to like their privacy.”
Harmony approaches, bags of clothing in each hand. “Owen says the plane is ready to depart in one hour.”
“That doesn’t give us much time.” Liam looks around at the wolves shifting into human form, some for the first time in years.
Harmony pulls Aiden aside. “Are you sure this is the best course of action?”
He frowns down at her. “You’re the seer. You tell me.”
She stares out into the trees. “I can’t see anything right now. That’s what scares me.”
She’d comforted him so well at that cabin and he wishes to return the favor. “Harmony, you don’t have to come. If you’d like to stay here, or even go back to Freya….”
She holds his gaze. “You’ll let me go?”
Aiden swallows. “If Liam can let his pack make the decision to leave even if they are safer here, I can’t justify keeping you against your will.”
She tilts her head. “Tell me why you dislike Freya as much as you do.”
His jaw clenches. This isn’t a topic he wants to discuss with his sister, but she deserves the truth. “Before father’s punishment, before the wolf, we were…involved for a time. When she brought me to her temple in Asgard, she made it clear that she wanted that involvement to continue.”
Harmony stares at him. “You mean sexually involved? You were still a boy.”
“Age is just a number.” How many times had Freya said that to him as she groped and fondled him? Hollow words to stop his protests when things had moved too quickly.
Anger graces his sister’s face. “Bullshit. She lured you to her bed. What would you have thought if some god had done the same to me?”
The snarl slips past his lips before he can call it in.
“That’s what I thought.” Her gray eyes fill with sympathy. “I will stay with you, brother. While I will always appreciate what the goddess did to save me, I can’t stomach the thought of going back to her now. In fact, if I did go back, I might kill her.”
He lets out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. “We’ll find Nic. And we’ll take back Underhill. Together.”
Salt of the Earth
I’ve fallen into a pattern of sorts. A holding pattern. Get up, breakfast with the crew. Skulk back to my room. Sophie and Garret go check on their properties while I entertain Tate and Jedda. Although usually, they’re the ones entertaining me. Tate is quick and Jedda has a sneaky sense of humor.
Chloe and Angrboda often leave to keep tabs on Hanson and see if they can get any information from beyond the Veil. When they return, we congregate back in the house and pretend like this is a normal way of going on until Chloe or the giantess can catch me up.
I want to scream, to explode. To freaking do something.
I haven’t spied Nightweaver. Is the former Valkyrie hunting for me even now?
Is Underhill?
I have to take her place. To be a prisoner beyond the Veil. The same punishment that has driven her mad and filled her with hate and bile the likes of which the worlds have never seen. What the fuck is wrong with the gods and the Fates, punishing Loki and Pharaildis the way they do? Why not just kill them and be done with it? Did they really think that torturing them for eons would end well?
“Nic? Is everything all right?” Sophie raps lightly on the cracked paint of the wood doorframe.
I look up from the book I wasn’t reading. “Yeah.”
“I’m going to bake some cookies.”
“Okay,” I say slowly, wondering where she is going with this. “Not like you need my permission.”
Her teeth sink into her lower lip. She’s nervous, I realize. “I was wondering if…you want to help.”
I blink in surprise at her suggestion. Usually, when I offer to help, she turns me down, tells me to rest up. “Okay, sure.”
“Good.” She flashes me a quick grin. “Garret took Tate and Jedda out for the afternoon. I figured since we’re the only ones here we could talk.”
Talk. Now, I get her nervousness. Like some serious talk about how long my needy pregnant ass will be holed up in her house.
“If you want me to go,” I begin, even as I wonder where I can go.
Her eyes widen and she blinks. “No, that isn’t what I meant at all. It’s just, do you have a plan?”
“Not exactly.” I get up out of bed. “Let’s go make those cookies. It’s Chloe’s life rule. When in doubt, eat something chocolate.”
She smiles and then proceeds me down the stairs.
I sit at her cozy little table and watch as she extracts chocolate chips, flour, and sugar from a high cabinet. The butter and eggs are already sitting out on the counter. I raise an eyebrow when she pulls out a wooden spoon.
“No electric mixer?”
She shakes her head. “Don’t even own one. Besides, I like mixing by hand. It’s how my grandmother taught me to bake. All the gadgets remove love from the process.”
“They taste as good to me.”
“Just you wait and see.” She smiles in that secretive way.
Once the batter is mixed, I grab a tablespoon and start plopping cookies onto the baking sheet.
“You can trust me, you know.” Sophie’s tone is mild. “Anything you tell me will stay strictly between us.”
I stare at her, this older version of me. Odd to think I will never have the laugh lines around my eyes and mouth the way she does. Or the threads of white that shine a little more brightly under the fluorescent lights than the white-blonde strands.
“I’m waiting,” I say as I plop another cookie onto the tray.
One blonde eyebrow goes up in inquiry. “For?”
“Aiden, mostly. It doesn’t feel right to make plans without him. It’s his baby, too.” I know he has to be out of his head, wondering if I’m all right. If only we’d been able to cement our bond.
She studies me for a time and it’s an effort not to shift under her scrutiny. “Does he know you’re pregnant?”
A sigh escapes. “Not unless someone else told him.”
She turns and places the first tray of cookies in the oven. “It took me a long time to work up the courage to tell Garret about you.”
This surprises me. The two of them seem to have such a close relationship. The kind where partners confide in one another and share all sorts of intimacies. The kind I’ve never understood. “Why?”
She taps her finger idly on the side of the bowl. “Well, for a start, I didn’t think he would stick around. I mean, I’d already done the hard part.”
“You mean giving birth?”
“I mean giving you up.” She shakes her head. “It
felt like I was handing over a piece of myself to strangers and trusting them to do what is right for you. I would lie in bed at night and just…ache. Knowing a part of me was missing.”
Tears sting behind my eyes though I’m not sure why. I can never let this woman know that one of those strangers had left me for dead at six. “You didn’t trust him after he knocked you up? Garret I mean?”
A chuckle escapes. “It’s not as black and white as all that. I didn’t blame him or anything. Neither of us had expected to be more than a summer fling. My dad was still alive and I was stuck here. He had a life, a future at a big fancy school.”
“So, it was shitty timing?” I wonder if the powers that had placed my reincarnated soul inside Sophie knew she would give me up. Had intentionally driven Garret away so she wouldn’t have a choice.
And then I want to kick myself. Of course, they knew, they were the freaking Fates, always dicking with our reality. Even if they hadn’t actively kept Sophie and Garret apart, I had every confidence that Addy had foreseen the outcome.
“You could say that. Garret, well, he’s adjusted now but there was a time where he stuck out like a sore thumb. A tourist and a city boy all in one.”
I was having a hard time picturing Garret walking down a busy city street. Obviously. Sophie knew him better than I did. “So, when did he come back?”
Her lips curve up and her eyes are distant, as though she’s lost in remembering. “About three years after I signed the adoption papers. Garret was relentless in pursuing me. He sold his fancy sports car for a beat-up old truck so he could help me transport fish from my father’s boat to the market. He just wouldn’t go away. We fell into this rhythm that has become our life. Working side by side, taking comfort from each other. And by that point, I was afraid of his reaction when he found out.”
Her face is so easy to read, every feeling she’s experiencing written right there. I can see why Garret couldn’t forget her. No games, no pretense.
It’s easy to let a person like Sophie love you. Easier still to love her back.
Sophie lets out a sigh. “When he asked me to marry him, well, I knew the time had come. I couldn’t spend the rest of my life with the man and not tell him that we already had a child together. Even though I knew I had to tell him, I dreaded his reaction.”
I realized I was holding my breath. “How did he take it?”
She grimaces. “I have never seen him so upset, not before and not since. He went away for a full month and I was sure I would never see him again. And then one day, he came back and offered me this.” She plucks her diamond solitaire out of the lopsided ceramic dish. That must be Tate’s work.
I look at the ring. “So, he got over being mad?”
She shakes her head. “No, he never has.”
I frown. “I don’t understand.”
“Garret is mad at himself. Because he couldn’t protect me.” Her smile is inclusive. “Or you.”
I look away, deciding not to tell her that he’d essentially admitted he would have pushed for an abortion. Let Sophie keep her Prince Charming upon his noble steed. No need for her to wallow in the muck of reality with the rest of us.
“That’s why we waited so long to have Tate. Neither one of us was really sure how to move past what had happened, what we’d missed with you. I guess we just had to get used to each other. And accept that we had changed and grown. That we were growing stronger together.”
A lump forms in my throat. “It was like that for me and Aiden at first, too.” I confide. “He had to convince me he just wanted to be with me. It was hard to accept.”
“But eventually he won you over?”
I nod and then whisper the truth that has been eating me alive. “I’m scared to tell him.”
She doesn’t ask why or pry any further as we fill up the second tray.
I work some cookie batter out from under my nail. “Did you ever think…that is…did it ever occur to you to look into getting me back?”
She lays her hand over mine. “If I thought there was a way, Nic, I would have come for you. I guess what I’m trying to say is that though maybe our timing wasn’t perfect, you were conceived in love. You were wanted very much. You still are.”
This time the tears escape unchecked.
The timer buzzes. Sophie turns away and retrieves the first cookie sheet from the oven, giving me a moment to cobble my wayward emotions back together. Stupid fricking hormones.
When at last I feel like myself again there is a cookie sitting on a paper towel in front of me. A glass of milk standing beside it.
I take a bite and smile even as the melted chocolate burns my tongue. “You’re right. These do taste better.”
Aiden hates cities. Too many people, too many scents comingling. He stares out the window into the little enclave neighborhood that is just commutable enough to DC to make it expensive as hell.
“This is the place.” Liam shuts the engine off and turns to face Aiden. His green eye glows brighter even in full daylight.
“You’re sure?” From her perch in the backseat, Harmony hands him a pair of sunglasses to cover the discrepancy. She pulls the hood of the thick parka up to shield her purple face from any prying mortal eyes.
Beside her sits Autumn, one of Liam’s wolves. She is a silent presence, but less threatening than Gray or any of the other large male wolves, making her perfect backup for this particular mission. “You’re absolutely sure that a giant lives in there?”
“That’s the house. It looks the same as I remember it.” Liam frowns. “Like exactly, even that gutter that’s detached over the garage.”
Aiden risks having his olfactory senses overwhelmed and cracks a window. Inhales and cringes. Garbage, rot, chimney smoke, diesel, someone who didn’t invest in deodorant… there.
“That’s a giant’s scent all right.” He points to a brick ranch that sits by itself at the end of the street. “And glamour so thick it’s shellacked over the place.”
The four of them exit the rented Camry and walk up the slushy drive to the front door.
The glamour ripples but holds.
“Do you think he’ll remember you?” Aiden asks Liam.
Liam shrugs. “We weren’t exactly close.”
“One way to find out.” Aiden raises his knuckles and raps sharply three times.
A pause. He repeats the knock.
“I don’t want any!” A gruff voice calls from inside.
“Friendly, isn’t he?” Harmony’s tone is dry.
“Mr. Carmichael?” Liam calls out.
Bulbous fingers appear around the lace edges of the curtain and one beady bloodshot eye stares out with menace. “Who's asking?”
Liam waves. “I don’t know if you remember me, I used to live in that house over there.” He points to a white Tudor-style.
“And?” The giant doesn’t sound impressed.
“And we need your help,” Aiden cuts in. “We’re trying to get to a pocket realm.”
The hand disappears.
“Too aggressive,” Harmony chastises him. “Giants can’t be pushed around.”
Aiden ignores her and pounds on the door. “Mr. Carmichael!”
A chain rattles and then it’s thrown open.
The full sight is…off-putting. In addition to the rheumy eyes covered by skin that droops like a basset hound, the man’s ears stick out. The obscene features continue with a large, bulbous nose complete with a forest of untrimmed nostril hair peeking out. Scruffy salt and pepper whiskers cover a saggy chin. He’s wearing a stained white t-shirt and denim overalls, with one button unfastened so the look is decidedly off-kilter. His feet are bare despite the cold and his toes are just as ugly as the rest of him.
This is not a being who craves company.
The giant stares at the three of them with displeasure. “And what’s in it for me to help you get to a pocket realm?”
Aiden steps forward. “Whatever you want. Please, it’s important I get there as soon as
possible.”
The giant scratches his liver-spotted scalp. Aiden had to give the beast credit, his glamour is repugnant and impeccable. No one who beheld this creature would ever think he could wield magic.
“I don’t know. My help don’t come cheap.” Something in his tone indicates that they just need to find the right price. Then double it.
“If money is what you’re after, I assure you—” Aiden begins but Harmony puts a hand on his arm.
“He’s not after money. He wants something else. Something of great value.” Her gray eyes narrow.
Holding onto his patience by a fraying thread Aiden says, “Whatever the price.”
“I want a guard wolf.” His eyes go to Autumn with avarice. “To keep the riffraff away and protect my interests. Maybe a pretty buxom one who’ll sleep at the foot of my bed at night.”
Autumn gives him the finger and the giant chuckles.
Liam growls low in his throat. “Get bent, old man.”
“We’re not trading you a living creature.” Aiden forces himself not to snap.
“Too bad. Maybe I’ll call up that nice woman at the FBI and see if she’ll reconsider.” The dirty, scratching nails move down to Carmichael’s chin.
“What woman?” Aiden and Harmony speak as one.
A flash of crooked, yellow teeth. “Oh, so that caught your attention. She offered me a girl, a little Norn, though she didn’t know what the creature actually was. Of course, I have no use for a wise woman. I need someone to help protect my treasure.” Again, his greedy gaze goes to the she-wolf.
Liam growls again but Aiden holds up a hand. “We’re not giving you a wolf, but perhaps I can offer you something better.”
“Better than a pretty red-haired she-wolf?” Carmichael’s bloodshot eyes look skeptical. “Whatcha got in mind?”
Ten minutes later it was done.
“I can’t believe you gave him a dragon’s egg.” Harmony shakes her head. “An egg you stole from Freya no less.”
“Call it compensation for the forced detour.” Aiden holds up the pink potion that Carmichael assured him was the key to the pocket realm in the Outer Banks. “Are the wolves ready to travel?”
