One by one, bombs detonated, to the north and west, until the God of Chaos was a small shadowy sphere and pretty much everything else was dead. A final explosion sent a small contingent of elves south, toward the underground walkways.
With an audible pop, Fen cracked his neck and rose. “I’m up. See you soon.” Vanishing, Freyr raised the binoculars just in time to watch him reform at the mouth of the walkway, his hulking, lupine form filling the entire opening. Freyr swung the glasses over to the circle.
Tentatively, the Orobus began moving toward the tunnel, and Fen roared into the faces of the elves, picked one up and tore him in half, spitting the carcass at the feet of the others before loping into the murky mouth of lower street level. The elves and the Orobus followed him, vanishing into the dark.
“Mir, time to get her in there.”
Mir appeared inside the circle, Sydney in his arms. The moment he released her, a shimmer encased the entire site, and Freyr watched the redhead move from stone to stone, Mir right on her heels. Although he couldn’t see a thing, he hoped she knew what she was doing.
Swinging the glasses to his right, he checked his Cartier watch, counted down the seconds, and hit the next switch. A hollow, distant boom echoed down the corridor of buildings a heartbeat later. And for the next half hour, that became his world.
Check Sydney’s progress, hit the switch.
Hope and pray Fen was staying a few steps ahead of the Orobus.
When Syd was halfway through, Celine’s tense voice crackled in his ear. “How many more, Freyr?” She had to be beside herself, worried for Fen.
“Three. We’re doing good, Celine.”
In fact, he had no idea how they were doing. It was all guesswork from where he stood. Sydney’s magic should be sealing the doorways shut. Svartlheim was the most crucial because that’s where the vast majority of the elvish armies were stashed. But the other doors hid horrors far deadlier, though in fewer numbers. Squinting through the glasses, Freyr watched Mir throw him a thumbs up.
“Three down, three to go,” he muttered to himself.
Sydney wasn’t planning on touching the biggest one, moved between the remaining three, then detonated the third to last bomb. With any luck, Fen was out of the lower street levels now and ghosting his way back. Leaving the Dark Elves and the Orobus trapped below when Freyr set off the final charge.
None of them were foolish enough to believe the collapsed rubble of the street would hold him, but they could hope for some delays. “Morgane, Celine, it’s time to get you home.” Thor and Vali would transport them to the Tower, then ghost back here for reinforcements. Mir would get Syd out of the circle, the second she was finished sealing the last portal.
Or the second the Orobus reappeared.
The binoculars pressed to his face, Freyr continued to scan the scene, finger on the trigger, one eye on his watch. Sydney was almost to the next stone when Fen limped out into the rubble field, his huge body smoking, shiny with blood. To the south, the Orobus came barreling out of the tunnel, making a beeline for the stones, dragging a trail of shadow and spume behind him as Fen roared a warning.
“Get out of there. Get the fuck out,” Freyr screamed into the com, measuring the distance, the impossible odds as Mir lunged forward, tackled Sydney, and they both vanished just as the Orobus collided with the stones, striking them with such force the impact created a sound wave that threw Freyr backward.
When he raised the glasses again, the creature was moving from stone to stone, a confused, contorted dance of dark smoke, circling, probing, his movements increasingly frenetic. No sign of Fen anywhere.
“He’s already looking for a way to open them back up.” Mir spoke from behind him, lowering Syd to the floor, her eyes wide and frantic. “Shit, that was close.”
“I missed one.” Sydney told them, miserable. “I couldn’t get the final one closed, damn it.”
“But you sealed the ones where his armies are, Syd,” Freyr pointed out. “And that’s what matters right now. Let’s get out of here before things get ugly.” Sure enough, below them the dark god was losing his shit. Now he was working on them all at once, his desperation building, the center of his form rising as he rotated, encompassing the circle, obscuring them from sight while a keening noise filled the air. Around them, the wind picked up, and tore at Sydney’s hair.
Mir gathered Sydney in his arms and vanished, Freyr following right behind.
37
Waking up, Hunter reached out and found Tyr beside her, felt that familiar spark she always sensed when she was close to him, and a sense of calm swept through her.
There was a newness to this thing between them, a fragility. Yet it was strong, and it was growing. Maybe she could crash against him for a thousand more years, and he would always catch her. She liked to think this was true. Even all those years apart, all those miles apart, time and distance didn’t matter. And maybe, they never had. Not when it came to the two of them.
When Tyr opened those eyes of his, she met them with a soft smile and no words, for she had none that seemed right or fitting or compelling enough, so she kept her mouth shut while he stared, watching her face.
Finally, she had to say something. “First, I thought I was dying, then I had that crazy dream. But it’s fuzzy, now. Something about a woman…and some promise. But I feel good. Better, even.”
His brown eyes just…gazed at her adoringly. “Better? Or the same as before?”
It took her a moment to realize what he asked. “Better. Definitely better.” The absence of the evil within her, and the peace she felt in its wake was…lovely.
A bit more of the almost-reverent consideration as he looked straight at her.
“What did you do, Tyr?” Because the last she remembered, she’d barely made it back to the Tower, practically passed out in the hallway. Now she was…fine.
He fixed her with a penetrating stare. “Why would you assume I’ve done anything at all? Mir used his magic on you, and it worked.”
For a moment she considered this, a perfectly reasonable explanation. Except something didn’t sit right. For one thing, she couldn’t account for some missing hours. Quite a few, in fact. For another, there was an unsettling feeling of wrongness about those dreams she couldn’t shake.
“And what about the power the Orobus drew out of me? When he took it back, I felt like I was being sucked dry. I think I was dying. And things are fuzzy.” For a second, the room turned blurry, and she realized she was tearing up.
She heard Tyr’s gentle plea, “Stop crying, Hunter.” Then even softer, “For gods’ sake woman, stop with the crying, you’ll undo me.” She began shaking. He didn’t deny it. “Am I dying, Tyr? That’s what’s happening, isn’t it? I’m dying.”
“No.” He told her flatly. “You are not dying.”
“You sound pretty sure of that fact.”
“I am.” Tyr folded her against him, his big body comforting, solid. “I am because there is no way I’ll allow anyone to take you away from me. Not now.” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head, pulling her in tighter. “Not ever.”
“What did you do?” The words tore out of her, a desperate fear beginning to build. “I didn’t go from near death to feeling great in a matter of hours…” She stopped, a horrifying thought occurring to her. “You did it again, didn’t you? You used your magic on me?”
“No, I did not.” He let her go, and she began pacing the room. “I wouldn’t do that again, Hunter. Not with how things ended last time. You know me better than that.”
“Do I?” she snapped. “Do I?”
“I did not heal you. Mir did. I wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.” Tyr groaned in frustration. “Look, after the monster took back his power, you were close to dying, Hunter. But not dead. Mir used his magic to heal you, it’s what he does. He healed me, Freyr, Morgane…”
“What happened to Morgane and Freyr?”
“Explosion downtown that went wrong,” Tyr explained slowly.
“It was a bad night. For a lot of us. But you did not die. I did not use my magic on you. I swear to the gods.” His dark brown eyes met hers steadily, no trace of dishonesty in them.
Yet. There was something wrong about this.
Hunter knew it. Her gut tingled, which meant something was off.
But Tyr’s face was clear, and in truth, she felt lighter, better than she’d felt in eons. The evil was truly gone, and for once, she felt clean without its suffocating presence eating her from the inside.
“I’m sorry, I just feel…strange. And I don’t have an explanation for why.” Scowling, she settled back beside him. “Maybe I’m still exhausted.”
“You lost a part of yourself.” Tyr held out a hand to quell her protest. “Even though you never wanted it, still, a part of yourself was stolen away. I expect it will take some getting used to.”
“Perhaps,” she murmured, settling against him once more. “But this feels like more than that.”
“For once, Hunter, stop thinking.” Tyr pulled the covers up around them, cocooning them together. “Just sleep.”
And for once in her life, she did just that.
Over the next few days, Hunter wondered at the change in Tyr. Days were spent sending out scouting parties, intent on eradicating the remaining clusters of Grim and elves roaming the city. Fen spent three miserable days in the infirmary, his pride hurt at being outmaneuvered by the Orobus, his flesh shredded by the thing’s dark magic. Celine never once left his side.
Through it all, Tyr seemed disconnected, somehow.
Add to that, her dreams were troubled.
She tried to remember them and came away with vague impressions of bargains badly made. And the woman. There was a disturbing familiarity about her, as if she’d once known her but just couldn’t quite recall her face.
She carried the dream around with her for days. And the memory of it tugged at her at the most inopportune times. When Mir asked for input on cordoning off the stone circle. When Tyr asked if she was feeling all right. When Celine asked her if she was sleeping. Those occasions, the image of the woman would slip seamlessly into her mind, like a reminder of something she couldn’t quite grasp. Or didn’t quite want to.
But Tyr.
He was constantly touching her, always right beside her as if he couldn’t bear to let her out of his sight. It was wonderful, comforting, and a bit unnerving. And his approach to the Orobus problem? Almost as if he didn’t want the problem solved at all. When Freyr proposed his strategy to eradicate the rest of the elves in one fell swoop, using Sydney’s magic, Tyr waved his hand, dismissing the idea. When the newly serious Freyr demanded he at least consider the idea, he shut him down quick.
It was almost as if he didn’t want to fight anymore.
At night, he rushed through whatever dinner had been cobbled together, then herded her into their bedroom, and kept his hands and his mouth on her until morning. Nights were quickly becoming her favorite part of the day.
Those were the hours of her life that felt right, as if their worlds finally fell into alignment and were rotating in the same orbits. It was everything else that seemed out of place. As if she’d gone to sleep and woken up in a topsy-turvy world.
Pausing at the door of the War Room, she observed yet another meeting going nowhere. Meeting Tyr’s eyes, she stopped him from leaving with a shake of her head. He was needed, whether he realized it or not, and he had to stop stalling. Steam was practically coming out of Freyr’s ears, with Thor methodically pounding on the table, a sure sign of impending implosion. She got her feet moving and headed toward the kitchen, hoping to find Syd or Celine, any friendly face to help her pass the next few hours.
Ava was sitting alone, as was usual, in front of the huge triple windows that had once fronted the banquet hall. Hunter stopped, debating. Even the woman’s demeanor sprouted thorns, a sure sign of leave me alone sticking out all over her. But instead of turning tail and leaving, Hunter’s usual approach to anything involving humans, she moved forward. Before she knew it, she was alongside the brunette, staring out over the lake. She had to admit, there was a certain symmetry to the flat plane of water, which differed from the chaos churning inside herself.
“I’ve been waiting a long time to talk to you, Hunter.” Ava’s voice was soft yet hard, tinged with a bitterness born of terrible things. Hunter wished she’d found out more about her before sidling up next to the woman. “It’s difficult, isn’t it?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“To be one thing inside, yet another on the outside. To have such a lovely façade, yet never truly show yourself. You’ve been having a dream. It’s bothering you.”
Not a question. And something only Tyr knew about. And not even he knew the full truth of it. “Yes.”
Ava’s midnight-blue gaze slid over, and Hunter stilled her gasp. There was power lurking inside those eyes. The same power that had once brewed so fiercely within herself.
“When the Fates decide, when they weave your fortunes, their magic creates something unique. A place in the universe made just for you. A future from which there is no escape.” Something shifted in the navy depths. “You become the gutter ball, and there is no getting out of it.”
Hunter didn’t believe in the concept of Fate. “I believe in free will.”
“You mean you believed in free will?”
“No, I believe in it. As in present tense. Nobody determines my future except for me. My life is made up of my own choices.”
“That may have been what you believed. That may have even once been true. But your world changed a week ago. Your life ended on a tarmac when your power was stolen from you. You know this. You feel it.”
A chill went down Hunter’s spine. Now she knew why this woman sat alone. However Ava knew, whatever she knew, prompted Hunter to ask, “First of all, I never wanted that power. But it’s true, I feel different. Except I don’t know why. Or how.”
“But you know who?” A tilt of her head had those extraordinary eyes swimming into crystal clear focus, as if the answers lay somewhere in their depths.
Hunter shuddered. “I glimpsed a woman in my dreams. She seems familiar, but I can’t place her. Black hair, blacker than black eyes. She was kind. She led me out of that terrible place. She told me…something about Tyr, but I can’t remember.”
“There’s a reason she’s in your dreams. Perhaps, she’s come to you for a purpose.” Ava smiled, and in that smile, Hunter saw sadness and something like regret. “Perhaps, it’s a sign. You know, often we make promises we should never make. Sometimes we’re willing to do anything for love. Even if it’s for the wrong reasons.
And everyone…everyone has something to lose. And there comes a time when they must make a terrible choice. How much are they willing to sacrifice for love?”
“What are you trying to tell me, Ava?”
“You woke a week ago, alive and well. Yet the last thing you remember is dying at the hands of the Orobus. There is no god on this world, nor any other, who can give life.”
Oh God.
Hunter froze as things began to fall into place. The dreams, the strange woman, this overall feeling of wrongness. “So I was dying.”
“You were dying,” Ava agreed.
“And Tyr did something to save me. Something that had a cost attached to it.” Which was why he wouldn’t let her out of his sight or his bed. Why he seemed determined to keep her within arm’s reach at all times.
“That he did.”
“If you know… What’s the price?” Because there was always a price.
“He made a deal with the only creatures who could change your fate. And they asked for something in return. A trade you suggested, from the very moment you arrived,” Ava reminded her quietly. “A life for a life.”
The particulars of the oath she’d forced on Tyr came back to her in stark detail as everything fell into place. “Of course. How could I have been so stupid?” Hunter groaned. “And yes, yes, I know I propos
ed the idea in the first place. And I well remember the why of it. I was exhausted. And I didn’t see the point of going on, anymore. Except now…
“Everything’s changed?”
“Everything’s changed,” Hunter agreed. Everything was different. They were finally happy. “Oh God.” Hunter exclaimed as another, awful thought struck her. “That’s why Tyr won’t finish this war with the Orobus. Once he does, it means he’ll have to…” She couldn’t even bear to say it.
“Yes, he will.” Ava nodded, an equally sober look pasted on her face. “And that will do things to him that would be worse than death. Think of it, Hunter. You may have orchestrated the perfect murder. Life, in its perfect, profane little circle. Him, sacrificing all to save the world for you. You, giving up that which has kept you alive to save a man you hated for centuries.
And so. Here you both are. Shoe’s on the other foot, this time around. If the Fates get their way, he’ll be alone for an eternity, knowing all the while you loved him and wanted to live.”
Hunter only heard one, single word in that big, long, complicated diatribe. Because there was really only one word that mattered. “What do you mean…if?”
“Seriously. That’s your take away from everything I just said?” Ava leaned back with a ghost of a smile playing across her face. “Well, let’s just say that the Fates have always had a twisted sense of vengeance. Did you know they wanted something from Tyr, something he was unwilling to give them?”
“What would that have been?”
“Something you have been enjoying rather a lot of these days.”
Hunter blushed, then felt the heat of something else blow through her as her hands curled into fists. Jealousy.
“Hold up there, girl. Not so fast. He turned them down flat. Loyal to a fault, that one is.” Ava leaned back until her spine curved against the glass, cutting a dark profile against the sparkling brightness of the lake. “Since he refused them, this was their way of getting even.”
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