A hand rested on his shoulder, heavy and hard, and squeezed.
Asher made himself look up, blinking at the harsh overhead light as it stabbed at his eyes with silvered splinters. Roar stood beside his table, in jeans and a suede jacket, his honey-blond hair falling over his face and casting a shadow over his eyes. “You look like you’re in the wrong mood to be drinking alone, brother.” He was using English.
Asher leaned back in his chair and pushed the one opposite him out with his foot and waved to it. “Did Eric call for reinforcements?”
“Because you decided the bottom of the mead barrel looked enticing?” Roar stepped over the seat of the chair and lowered himself into it. “That isn’t nearly unusual enough to call out the troops.”
He was a big man. Half an inch taller than Asher. Roar often drew attention when he was out in public. There were three young women in one of the booths against the wall eyeing him up now and whispering to each other.
But there was also a table of Einherjar by the fire, and they were also leaning in and talking while shooting glances at Roar. His brother had been recognized. It was one of the reasons why Roar rarely left the hall. Wherever he went, he tended to stir waves of consternation and interest in a way that would make humans curious about who he was, especially here in New York, where fame was nearly as much a city-wide pastime as in Los Angeles.
Aliko placed a shot glass in front of Roar and filled it in front of him.
“You are a kind and considerate host, Aliko. My thanks,” Roar told him. “How much has my brother had?”
“That mug in front of him is the eighth.” Aliko grinned at Asher. “I expected him to pass out two mugs ago.”
Asher shrugged.
“He has a hard head.” Roar picked up the glass, his big fingers making it look miniscule. “Runs in the family.” He hefted the glass in an informal salute and knocked it back with a grimace. “The good stuff. One more, please, Aliko.”
Aliko filled the glass once more and went back to his bar.
Asher watched Roar. “Come to take me home?”
“I imagine I will be pouring you into a bed somewhere tonight, yes. But that’s not why I’m here.” He was running his finger up and down the short length of the shot glass. “I expected you to have company. From what you’re wearing, I’m guessing you were out somewhere earlier, probably with the same company.”
Asher snorted and drank some more. He was starting to lose his taste for the stuff, a good sign he’d had enough for the night. But it wasn’t shutting down his thoughts the way it usually did. “Good to know your spy system is working efficiently.”
“I’ve heard from several different people that you’ve been here a lot over the last year or so. Usually in the company of a redhead, and they describe her in endless detail.” Roar grinned. “I’d be jealous of my brother and this world-stopping beauty he’s been seen with, except that she’s not here now and you look like you always do when you’re into the deep end of your ‘I hate the world’ phase.”
“Is that what you think this is?” Asher asked. “The mood of the season?”
“The redhead. Is she the girl you helped ten, twelve years ago? She would be a grown woman now.”
“If you’re going to keep talking about her, use her name.”
“I don’t remember her name.”
“Charlee.” Asher gripped his mug tighter. “Charlotte Montgomery.”
Roar’s blue eyes, the midnight blue, drilled into him. “Did she spit in your eye, Askr? Is that why you’re here?”
“What, are you here to help me mend my broken heart?” Asher laughed.
“Is it broken?” Roar asked curiously. But his gaze wouldn’t let Asher go.
Asher had always had trouble lying to him. Damn it. He looked down into the contents of his mug. Half-empty. Half-full, he corrected himself. And who gave a damn, anyway? He sat up straight, jerking himself upright, aware that he was sprawling across the table. He looked Roar in the eye. “I’m fine.” He said the words carefully, without slurring them.
Roar shook his head. “No, I don’t think you are.”
“Doctor Big Brother.” He laughed again, but it didn’t sound funny even to him. “Why are you here, anyway?”
“You already asked me that.”
“What was your answer?”
Roar leaned forward and dropped his voice. “Tell me you haven’t lost your head over her, Askr. Tell me you haven’t fallen in love with a human.”
Asher sat up again. In between mouthfuls he had fallen back into his sprawl. “I am not in love with her.” He enunciated it perfectly. Then he clutched the table, as the room shifted around him. Roar was the only thing that was staying still. Asher focused on him fiercely, fighting to keep it together. Roar was doing that watching thing again, and he wasn’t smiling. “I won’t make your mistake,” Asher added. “I’m not that shoo…stupid.”
Roar’s expression shadowed briefly. His jaw moved. “Yes, you are,” he said softly with something that sounded a lot like pity, except that couldn’t be it, because Roar was usually angry at him and sometimes amused. But he didn’t pity him. Pity would make Asher…what? Pathetic?
Roar stood and came around the table and picked up Asher’s arm. “Come on, little brother. Time for you to lie down.”
“I’m fine.”
“Yes, you’re fine. You’re also so drunk you can’t stand on your own. C’mon.” He tugged on his arm again.
“Can, too.” Asher pushed himself to his feet, which took a degree of effort that surprised him. He stood up and looked Roar in the eye. Then the floor swayed like the deck of a ship and he reached out blindly for support.
Roar grabbed his arms and held him upright. “Yes, you absolutely can,” he agreed dryly.
“Don’t love her,” Asher muttered. It seemed important he make this point, that Roar understand it completely. It was important because…why? He couldn’t remember.
Roar nodded. “Sure. Let’s just get you home.”
* * * * *
After their first argument, which Charlee figured had been a long time coming, Asher stopped making his abrupt appearances. By the time the winter solstice approached, when Ylva’s entire household was thrown deep into the meticulous and extended preparations for the feast day, which Ylva celebrated instead of Christmas, Charlee’s stout assurances to herself that he would eventually show up again were starting to wear down, like a pestle ground against a mortar for too long.
She had apologized almost the next day, sending the apology by text, hoping it would bring him to the house. Then she could sit him down and talk it over. Above all, she wanted to talk it out. It was all sitting inside her chest, a hard mass of feelings and emotions.
But mostly, she wanted to assure herself that she hadn’t damaged their odd relationship. As the weeks rolled on without Asher, though, her confidence weakened and doubts began to gnaw. Her sleep grew sporadic, and worst, she began to make mistakes with her work.
She had graduated to the top tables in the store and was now also the sole keeper of the wild birds that visited, seeing that they were fed and if any of them were hurt, caring for them until they were healed. Any other animals in the household tended to be brought to her when they were in need, too, so she often found herself nursing kittens and puppies, dog and cats, rabbits, chickens, and the household goat that lived in a pen on the roof.
In addition, she had been given gardening privileges, a role she took nearly as much delight in as caring for the birds. Some of her most peaceful hours were spent tending the big rooftop raised garden beds, learning how to shepherd plants along to fruition and harvesting them. It gave her a vested interest in finding out what happened to the produce after harvest, and she volunteered for canning and pickling and all the other preservation techniques used to store the food long term.
As a result, she was always busy and with Asher gone, she found it easier to bury herself in her work, learning everything she could.
> Grimmer was the household guard dog, a lumbering cross-breed that was part Great Dane and a lot of Husky, for he had the barrel chest of that breed but was exceptionally tall and light on his feet. He was as well-trained as Torger but easier to fool. Charlee liked to take him for walks in Central Park to get him out of the house, which sometimes seemed to be too small to contain him.
Early in December, she snapped on Grimmer’s lead and he danced around her in delight as she led him across the road and into the park itself. His energy and enthusiasm made her feel guilty. It had been too long since she had stretched his legs.
The sky was iron grey and it felt cold enough for snow, but there wasn’t the crisp coldness in the air that usually came with it. Charlee enjoyed the coolness and the way it cleared out the park. Besides, a lot of people were out Christmas shopping.
Grimmer pulled on the lead, eager to sniff trees and benches and that twig over there, and wait, is that a squirrel? He led her deeper along the path toward the pond, and all Charlee’s attention was on keeping him on the path and hauling on the lead so he wouldn’t take off. He was usually well-behaved and totally obedient, but this was his vacation time and he took full advantage of it. It made Charlee laugh to see how much puppy was still inside such a large dog.
When he spotted the smaller dog ahead, sniffing one of the green garbage containers, he stiffened and Charlee hurried to catch up with him. “Grimmer, behind me,” she said with a snap in her voice. She waited until Grimmer obeyed, then checked to see what the other dog was doing.
It was Torger.
Her heart dropping in a weightless nosedive, Charlee looked to Torger’s owner at the other end of the lead.
It was a blonde woman, petite and dressed in a fur coat and designer sunglasses. Her boots were leather with spiked heels and she had a leather clutch in her other hand, the hand not holding Torger’s lead.
Charlee’s heart lurched sickly. She stared at the woman, not understanding. Not able to put it together.
The woman stared right back. Then her gaze dropped to Charlee’s own sensibly heeled boots. “Does he know you?” she asked in a haughty voice.
Torger was jumping around her feet, trying to scrabble at her knees, whining loudly. Grimmer was growling deep in his throat, but staying obediently behind her. She blessed him, for two dogs trying to take each other on right now would be the least of her problems.
“Torger, sit,” she told him.
Torger sat, his tongue wagging.
“Good boy,” Charlee told him.
“I’ve never seen anyone able to do that with him. The thing is a beast,” the blonde said and stepped closer, rolling up the leash. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”
“No, we haven’t.” Charlee could barely speak the words. “Why do you have Torger? Where is Asher?”
There was a crunch of dried leaves, inside the trees that lined the path and hung over them with bare branches. The blonde looked that way. “There,” she said simply.
Asher stepped out onto the path, lifting up the green tennis ball that Torger liked to chase. “It rolled a long way—” His gaze fell on Charlee.
Charlee could barely breathe as the truth started to finally jell in her mind. The two of them together. A beautiful blonde. Another beautiful blonde.
“I guess you’ve moved on from being mad at me, then.” Her voice came out shaky. Not good, she told herself. Not good at all, crying in front of him.
So she turned and ran out of the park and away from Asher.
Grimmer thought it was great fun.
* * * * *
The garden beds were fallow, ready for winter. Nevertheless, Charlee picked at the soil, removing tiny weeds and working it over with a trowel, just to give her hands something to do and to give her an excuse to keep her head down and not talk to anyone, including Billy in his enclosure, who stood watching her as he slowly chewed mouthfuls of straw, his little goatee flapping contentedly.
That was where Asher found her. He slammed the door to the roof shut and halted, his hand still flat against it. The long leather coat swung around his knees, hanging open. Of course, he didn’t think this kind of weather was cold. “For Odin’s sake, didn’t you hear me calling you?”
Charlee kept her head down. “You don’t owe me an explanation.”
“It’s not what you think.”
“It doesn’t matter what I think.”
“Damn it to hell, Charlee, of course it matters!” He was suddenly there, his hand around her elbow, hauling her to her feet.
She looked up at him, glad that her tears had dried. “It would have mattered if it was the day after I texted you. It would have mattered a week after that. Even a month. But not now. Your silence was eloquent. I understood.”
She tried to turn back to the garden, but he held her still. “No. You listen to me, Charlee—”
“Let me go!”
“Not until you hear me out.”
“You don’t deserve a hearing!” she screamed, her fury suddenly huge and all-enveloping. She was hot with it, pulsing with it. She wanted to hurt him, even a little bit, for the last three months of misery and wondering, while he had been out enjoying himself to the hilt.
Asher’s mouth dropped open and he let her go, just like that.
She staggered, found her balance and straightened up.
“You’re still pissed at me?” he asked, sounding bewildered.
“I’m pissed at you all over again! I beggared myself, Asher! I apologized for being a bitch that night, and you didn’t even acknowledge it. Two words! That’s all it would have taken to let me know the score. Dear Charlee, it’s over. But you couldn’t even do that!”
“Goddamn it, Charlee, I was pissed at you, too!” He threw out his hands. “What do you want from me? I screwed up. I couldn’t figure out how to face you after I packed you off in the cab.”
Charlee stared at him. “You don’t make mistakes,” she said slowly, feeling her heart in her throat, hearing it in her ears. “You’re a superhero.”
Asher threw back his head, looked up at the sky and swore, long and hard. Then he looked at her once more. “I make just as many mistakes as any other man,” he said flatly. “More, even.”
“The blonde in the Barneys fur. Was she your next mistake?”
His jaw rippled. “She’s the wife of one of my bank board members. I was walking her through the park so her husband could pick her up on Eighth Avenue.” He gave her a small smile. “You didn’t see the wedding ring on her finger while you were critiquing her clothes?”
“She was wearing gloves.” Charlee tried to breathe. She was feeling suddenly weightless.
“So she was. I barely noticed.” He took a step toward her. “I’m sorry Charlee.”
“About today?”
“About all of it. The whole last three months. Can we…would you agree to just forgetting about them? Pretend this didn’t happen?”
“Only if you forgive me.”
“For what?” He shook his head. “It didn’t happen. We just agreed on it.”
Charlee threw her arms around his neck and held him tightly. Her breath caught as his arms came around her and she was squeezed back. Ah! His scent tickled her senses and she sighed.
* * * * *
They stayed on the roof for another two hours, sitting on the concrete cinder blocks that made up the edge of the raised beds. Charlee was cold, all except for the side of her leg and her shoulder, which were next to Asher, but she would slit her own throat before saying anything out loud, for Asher was talking. Really talking.
He sat with his hands on his thighs, the big fingers loosely curled and relaxed, and told her about the last three months. How he had got drunk and how his brother had hauled him out of Heidrun and dumped him on his sofa with a bucket next to him and zero sympathy for his self-induced state.
“What’s your brother’s name?” Charlee had asked, holding back her amazement that he had a brother in the first place. He had never s
poken of him before. Not once. And now, an older brother.
Asher hesitated. It was the first and last time in those few hours when he did. “I can’t tell you everything. After all this time, you understand that, yes?”
“Whatever you want to tell me is fine,” she assured him.
His gaze caught hers. “Are you sure?” And there seemed to be a warning in that look.
She really did understand. She knew that this was a point where they could turn back and remain superficial friends. Or she could go forward into a future that was still unknown to her, although after her time in Ylva’s house, she was beginning to see the raw shape of it.
“Tell me about your brother,” she urged Asher.
Asher sighed. And for a long moment he said nothing, but simply stared down at his hands. Then he began to speak. She learned about his brother, Roar. “It’s really Hroar,” Asher told her, then spelled it out, “but without exception, everyone trips over either the spelling or how to pronounce it if they see it written down. Roar figured dropping the ‘h’ would make life a lot simpler.”
He told her about the last three months spent working like a slave, which kept him occupied and to a degree, contained any thoughts about anything else in his life.
Me, Charlee realized. He didn’t want to think about me.
“I felt like such a fool after the opera,” he confessed, staring down at his toes. “I can’t remember the last time I felt so stupid. When I was a child, I think. A long time ago.”
Charlee leaned forward so that she could see his face, for it was turned from her. “Are you feeling foolish right now?” she asked.
“Why?”
“You’ve stopped looking at me. You’re staring at the ground.”
His gaze flickered toward her and he drew a deep breath. “I’m not used to talking.” He said it like it was a highly embarrassing confession.
Charlee frowned. “But…”
“Not like this,” he amended. “Not personal details.”
“Not ever?” she asked, appalled. “But you’ve had girlfriends and dates and relationships that lasted longer than a week. I know you have, I watched you. What did you talk about with them, if you didn’t give them personal details?”
The Branded Rose Prophecy Page 36
