Benny wiped his forehead off with one arm. “Shit, yeah. She’s hot. Why? Does she want me?”
Jesus. Ivar barely kept his seat. “No, she doesn’t want you. But do you feel a compunction to be near her? Like she’s, I don’t know, drawing you in some way?”
Benny exhaled and bent over, stretching his back. His gaze sobered. “Yes. Figured I was just being an asshole. Has it been obvious?”
“No.” Ivar looked toward Ronan and Faith’s cabin. He most likely knew the answer, but might as well confirm. “Hey, Ronan,” he yelled, waiting until Ronan had walked outside, munching on what looked like a ham sandwich. “Are you drawn to Promise in any way?”
Ronan finished chewing and swallowed. “Huh?”
Yeah. That’s what Ivar had figured. “So anybody who can teleport is drawn to her.” He was drawn to her too, but he couldn’t teleport. So he won. His attraction to Promise was not based on her enhancement. “All right.” He chewed on the facts, reconsidering thoughts he’d earlier discarded. “If you’re all drawn to her, maybe others have been too. Maybe those other headaches happened to her because demons or fairies were drawn temporarily to her in public?”
Adare exhaled, his entire body relaxing into the chair. “Thank God. I felt like such a dick.” He grinned. “It’s not attraction. It’s something else.” He lifted a hand. “Not that she’s not attractive, because she is. Very pretty.”
Ivar rolled his eyes. “Thanks.”
Mercy tapped him on the arm. “Hey. So. Since she’s a draw to us and can identify people able to teleport, and since you’ve lost your ability, do you think mating her would help you get it back faster?”
He wanted to pretend that the thought hadn’t dawned on him. “I don’t know. Mates usually acquire each other’s abilities, so I’d gain hers, and yeah, that might strengthen mine.” How could he consider mating a woman and leaving her as soon as possible? He’d already made a vow to Quade. He couldn’t make an opposing one now. Except Promise had brought up the subject before he had.
Adare pulled his burning boots back finally. “If you mate her, she’ll be able to shield her mind better.”
How practical. Ivar ground his palm into his right eye to combat the tension headache attacking him. If he brought the subject up with Promise, she’d probably agree as a logical matter. She wanted immortality, and right now, she didn’t care if she was alone for eternity.
But she was selling herself short. She was a woman who needed warmth, love, and protection. She just didn’t know it.
* * * *
After a second morning of working on equations, Promise stood back and studied her latest model. This wasn’t good. Not at all. Building from Einstein’s theory of relativity, she’d been theorizing about dark matter and the effect time and gravity had on each other.
To give her brain a break, she looked over at the computer running searches of hell worlds and then snorted. A couple of posters for B movies scrolled across the screen followed by a series of books, including Clive Barker’s. She let the screen computer continue its search. Just in case.
“Shield yourself, lady,” Mercy chirped from outside.
Promise mentally tugged shields into place. “Come on in.”
Mercy slipped inside, and pain boomeranged into Promise’s head. She gasped, her eyes tearing, and imagined the shield growing. The pain lessened. Slightly.
“Um, all right. You’re pale. Good try. We’ll try again later.” Mercy began to back out and paused, her gaze stopping on the computer conducting the searches. “What is that?”
Promise blinked water from her eyes and focused. “I’m searching human popular culture for anything on hell dimensions. That’s a book.” She squinted. “No. Painting. Wow. Several of them. Those are beautiful.”
Mercy leaned to the side. “Modern art by Haven Daly.”
Promise stepped closer to the screen to watch the stunning landscapes go by. There wasn’t one she recognized. A couple looked alien. The woman must have a fantastic imagination. An image came into focus; this one much different than the others. She tilted her head, studying it.
“What is that?” Mercy whispered.
Promise bit her lip and squinted, barely able to discern the outline of a human brain camouflaged by trees and bushes that were unfamiliar to her. Waves cascaded out from the middle, darkening each level of forest until the final trees lay dead on the ground. “If I had to guess, that’s some sort of brain attack.” Oddly beautiful and ominous.
Mercy took a step back. “Um, yeah. That’s what I see, too.” Her lips looked bright pink against her pale skin.
“Everything okay?” The pressure against Promise’s temples increased, and she winced. Shielding her brain wasn’t easy.
“No.” Mercy retreated for the doorway and took her phone from her back pocket. Her eyes were round and her mind obviously spinning.
Promise wanted to follow the woman, but her head was about to explode. “Are you all right?”
“Yep. Just have work to do.” Mercy shut the door and disappeared from sight.
The pain stopped completely. Promise let out breath she hadn’t realized she’d trapped inside her lungs. With one last look at the stunning oil paintings still sliding across her computer monitor, she returned to her equations.
After about an hour, heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs outside. The door slowly opened.
“It’s about lunchtime, and I think Mercy is cooking. She was on the phone for an hour with her people and now seems like she’s in a snit about something. So we might die by tomorrow anyway if we eat her cooking. How’s it going?” Ivar stepped into the room, stress lines fanning out from his eyes. Even though the last two nights had been sensational, he appeared to be getting more and more cranky.
How could she tell him? She didn’t even have a conclusion yet, and considering he’d been in a mood ever since she’d talked to Dayne, this probably wasn’t the time. But the truth was the truth. “This will take years. For now, as far as we can tell, although Ronan’s world burst, the other two have remained intact.”
“Yes,” Ivar said. “For now.”
“Newton’s first law of motion,” she murmured, glancing down at the different marker colors all over her hand. She hadn’t even noticed.
Ivar came up behind her, bringing warmth and an electricity that heated her skin. “Meaning what?”
“It’s too early for me to say anything definitive,” she said. “But since there hasn’t been another event, we can assume the two remaining worlds have found a balance. Maybe with other worlds, perhaps in a void. There’s no way to know.”
He was quiet for a moment, but tension spiraled from him. “We will find out.”
She bit her lip. “I want to tell you what you want to hear, but the math is going in a different direction.” In other words, it’d be a mistake to try to affect Quade’s world ever again. “I think when the Seven bound those three worlds together, they used gravity in a way that messed with time. Or vice versa. Or they used a dimensional tool I can’t even imagine yet and haven’t discovered.” Her stomach cramped just like that time she’d brought home an A-. “The composition of these created worlds now might end this one.” And many others.
He looked at the covered boards. “But you’re postulating. I mean, you don’t know for sure, do you?”
“Newton on a cracker, not even close,” she admitted easily. “Like I said, problems like this take centuries and many different minds to solve.” She turned toward him so suddenly, his body tensed. “I want centuries.” She winced. That wasn’t smooth at all.
His chin lifted, and his eyelids dropped to half-mast. “Now isn’t the time.”
But the idea was in her head, so she had to push it. “It is the time. Exactly the time.”
His gaze hardened. “You want to mate.”
She swallowed, deliberately ignoring t
he warning in his tone. “Marriages of convenience are statistically stronger than those founded on chemicals in the body. On love. I can’t imagine that matings would be any different.” The memory of him biting her the night before threatened her reasonable line of thought. Her nipples hardened, and she glanced down to make sure her bra was doing its job. It was.
“You don’t understand.” He stood his ground, but his gaze darted to the doorway and back. His biceps bunched, and he shoved his hands in the front pockets of his soldier cargo pants, as if to keep them occupied.
“I do understand.” She turned more fully toward him. When the equation was solved, she wanted to be there. To protect the world, if nothing else. The science at play was deadly. “You need to be rational about this.”
He changed in front of her eyes. Something barely held together snapped. Nothing obvious, and nothing she could identify, but she felt his control shred. He grasped her arms and hauled her body against his, shocking the oxygen from her lungs. His face set in brutal lines, tension ripping from him, he leaned down and trapped her gaze. His dark eyes glittered with a need even she could identify. Primal fury darkened his face, proving he was nowhere near human. “You think hybrids have survived this world by using logic?” he rasped.
She shivered and slapped at his chest, trying to push him away. It was too late for that, and deep down, she knew it. Sparks arced through her body, firing nerves, arousal shocking her even more than his unrelenting hold. “Ivar.”
“A name. Just a name I gave up in hell. I’m a demon, I’m a vampire, I’m a fucking Viking.” His breath burned her mouth, while his anger overwhelmed the atmosphere around them. “We don’t sign a nice contract for life ever after, Professor. We fuck hard, bite deep, and take.” His hold tightened, and he pulled her up on her toes. “You want to be mine? Make sure you damn well understand what that means.”
She stared up at him, a buzzing sounding between her ears. What had she said to bring this on? What was this? “I...I don’t—”
“No. You don’t.”
“I—”
He cut off her next word by slamming his mouth down on hers, stepping into her and lifting her onto the table in one smooth motion. She fell back to her elbows, and pain tingled through her skin. He kept her there, barely stable, kissing her so hard she couldn’t breathe.
His tongue slipped inside her mouth, warm and demanding. Her eyelids closed, and she opened her mouth wider, taking more of him. Wanting all of him.
A groan rippled up his throat, and he dug his hand into the back of her hair, twisting and taking control. His other hand banded at her hip, drawing her closer to him and forcing her legs to widen and make room for his hips. He caressed her butt, partially lifted her against his hard groin, his hand spread across both buttocks, his mouth furiously working hers.
Then he stopped, releasing her lips. Holding her against him with one hand, he twisted the other and pulled her head back. She was helpless in his grip, a shocking hunger burning through her lower body. He lowered his chin, and his eyes blazed a furious metallic green with that raw blue border. “This is me. This is what you get if you want to mate.” He kissed her hard, his eyes remaining open. “No logical agreement. No rational partnership. You get the real me, the one still bound to hell. I’ll take, and then I’ll take some more. And if you agree, you’ll fucking give me everything.”
She shuddered, and it wasn’t from fright. Well, not completely. The craving for him shooting through her obfuscated every other feeling. Every other thought.
“I’ll mate you. Without question, if that’s what you decide.” His nostrils flared, giving him the look of a hunter finding prey. “You want it, and you want me right now. Make sure you can live with the decision in the cold dawn of morning when you’re not hot and so ready to be taken.”
With that, he released her.
Her butt smacked the table, and she shoved off her elbows to regain her balance and sit up. She blinked, trying to regain control of herself.
He turned on his heel and strode out the door, his steps deliberate and sure.
She touched her bruised mouth, desire still raging through her. For the last few days, Ivar had worn a facade. Of a humanesque, handsome, and almost easygoing soldier who wanted to sacrifice himself for his brother. He wasn’t human. He’d tried to tell her, and she hadn’t comprehended the difference. Additional chromosomal pairs didn’t result in an evolved species. He was more animal than human.
She’d just met the real Ivar the Viking.
Worse yet, she wanted him. Immensely.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Ivar stormed out of the research cabin, already at a jog. By the time he hit the dirt road, he was running full out. His breath panted. It took him several heartbeats to realize a pint-sized fairy was running right behind him. He looked over his shoulder. “I thought you were making lunch.”
“I started the kitchen on fire. Again.” She increased her pace to his.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
Mercy’s dark red hair bobbed behind her in a ponytail, and her small white tennis shoes easily found purchase as she matched his pace to run up alongside him. “You looked like you were bent on destruction. Thought you might need backup.”
He didn’t want to smile. He didn’t want to feel any amusement, but a slight amount slid through him anyway. The idea that the small stockbroker could back him up was cute; it warmed something inside him. “You’re the younger sister I never, ever ever ever, wanted.”
She grinned, her one blue eye and one green eye lighting up. “I get that a lot.”
He took in her stride to make sure he wasn’t overtaxing her; if anything, she looked fine. Fairies must be good runners. Figured. They probably had to run away from blown-up buildings often. “You okay?” he asked.
“No, but I don’t want to discuss it yet. Not until Logan has a spare moment to talk,” she murmured. “What’s up with you?”
“I think I just scared Promise,” he admitted, jumping over a pothole.
Mercy nodded. “Did ya get all grrrr?”
Ivar’s eyebrows lifted. “Huh?”
Mercy ran around a downed batch of pine tree branches and returned to his side. “You know. I’m all immortal and fanged and dominant. Grrrr. I will take you back to my cave and have my way with you. Grrrr. This is how I kiss when I really want to.”
“Grrrr?” Ivar asked.
“Yep.” Mercy spit out a piece of a leaf.
His shoulders hunched, slowing his pace. So he straightened them. “Yes. I believe that’s an accurate description.”
“Oh, don’t go back to being a tightass,” she muttered, plucking a pine needle out of her hair. “You’re a vampire-demon hybrid who has survived torture most of us can’t even imagine. To survive, you sucked deep for that animal that lives in all of you, and he isn’t going anywhere now. Either she gets it or she doesn’t. You can’t think of mating her unless she can accept and deal with all of you.” Mercy rubbed her nose. “And you shouldn’t have to hold yourself back and be somebody you’re not. Even if the real you isn’t exactly politically correct. Or at all.”
Ivar increased his pace, not surprised when the fairy easily did the same. Her legs had to move twice as fast as his to keep up, but pleasure bloomed across her pixie-like face. “Where’s your mate, anyway?” he asked.
“He and Garrett are teleconferencing with the Realm,” she said, her arms pumping. “Bo—ring.”
Ivar smiled. “No kidding.” He used to enjoy that kind of work, but now he’d rather run or hit something.
She gracefully jumped over a mudpuddle. “Has your lady figured anything out yet? About dimensions?”
“Yes.” Well, maybe. Ivar told Mercy about Promise’s theory concerning the brain and teleporting abilities. Since he’d noticed Faith slipping into the research room right after he’d left, no
doubt they were coming up with a plan for MRIs at the moment. “It’s an exciting theory.”
Mercy was quiet for about a mile, her mind obviously working through the issue. “If Promise is correct, and demons and the Fae actually draw on different talents to do something similar, you know what we could really use?”
“A demon-fairy hybrid,” Ivar joked. The fairies only numbered about sixty, and twenty of those had been created in test tubes a quarter of a century ago, with Mercy being one of them. “Can you imagine?”
She stumbled and quickly righted herself, splashing mud on his boots.
Everything inside him stilled, even as he kept pace. “Mercy?”
She lowered her head and started to run faster.
He quickened his strides, his mind rioting. Wait a minute. No way in hell. “Mercy?”
She slowed to a stop, her chest panting, her head down. “All right. So this just happened, and I’m a little torn. Your lady found paintings on the internet by somebody who has seen what I’ve seen somehow—while moving through dimensions. Except this artist also drew, or rather painted, what looks like a demon mind attack. Well, it’s an attack from the brain, and that wouldn’t have freaked me out so much, except this terrain around the brain is a place I’ve actually teleported to a few times. A place nowhere near the earth.”
Ivar ran through the entire monologue. “Then it’s probably just a painting from a fairy who’s been to that place.” The entire immortal world knew about demon mind attacks, so maybe the artist was just playing around.
“Yeah, that’d make sense, except I’ve never heard of the artist. And I know every fairy alive right now.”
Okay. Good point. “So there’s a fairy you might not know? Maybe one from eons ago who’s still on earth.” Ivar started jogging again.
“Maybe. I got to thinking and called the president,” Mercy said, running around the puddle.
“Of the US?” he asked.
She snorted. “No. Of the Fae. Our president. Turns out she wasn’t shocked by my revelation. Well, not completely, anyway.”
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