“I should kill him.” He stated flatly.
“No, those days are over for you, it’s not worth it, he’s not worth everything you’ve worked towards. I love you, and I am telling you I am okay.” We stared at each other a hard moment while Volund sat there and shook, he didn’t bother to get up. I was glad, I wasn’t entirely sure what Alaric would do if he did. He turned those blazing red eyes on Volund.
“Remember this human, it was Gracelyn’s gentle heart that stayed my hand this night. There will be no repercussions on your part. You will not contact her, you will not punish her by withdrawing funds which you have already pledged to her cause.” He paused, then finished with, “You will retaliate in no way upon her person. To her you are dead, if I find otherwise, I will make you dead for real. And when you reach Hell I will visit more suffering upon you than you could ever have imagined in life. Am I understood?” Alaric’s arms went around me and he pulled me to him, I went gratefully into his embrace and watched the emotions play out over Gunnar Volund’s face, fear, rage, uncertainty, anger then resignation. Finally he gave a hard nod.
“Go.” Alaric commanded and Volund hesitated. Alaric swept me up into his arms and barked the command again. Volund stood and was almost as tall at Alaric, and what he did next, well he sort of impressed me. Rather than run like I probably would have in his position, he dusted off his suit and straightened his cuffs and tie before turning and striding back to the walking path without another word. I let out an explosive breath I hadn’t known I’d been holding. Alaric vibrated beneath me with barely suppressed rage.
“I should have slaughtered him…” he began, and I stopped him.
“Shhhh, I said I’m okay.” Then broke into a wide grin.
“What is so funny?” he asked.
“If I’d have known that was what it would take to get out of my apartment with me I would have done it a long time ago.” I joked and his frown deepened, the furrow in his brow deepening into a canyon.
“I fail to see the humor in this.” He said.
“I have to or I’d start crying.” I said honestly. His expression crumpled into concern.
“I cannot walk with you back to your apartment, I can just go as far as the darkness permits me. Which way?” he looked to me for guidance and I pointed. He strode in that direction. I kicked off my other shoe and let it drop. I was so not going back for the other one. As soon as I was near enough a street I would hail a cab. Thank God I had hung on to my purse for dear life.
“I can’t believe you came… How did you know?” I asked.
“I will always come for you small one, as long as I am able. You are still my charge, I know your feelings.” He brushed a gentle kiss across my forehead and I closed my eyes, cherishing the moment.
“I love you.” I whispered.
“And I you Gracelyn. And I you.”
Chapter 25
Alaric had set me down as close to the street as he could. I could see his eyes watching me from the cover of darkness and smiled back at them as I got into the cab. I don’t think the cabbie even noticed I had no shoes, if he did, he made no comment. Either way I tipped him well. When I unlocked my apartment door about twenty minutes later Alaric had been waiting. Traffic in New York was a bitch, it turned a five minute walk into a twenty minute cab ride but with no shoes it was kind of necessary.
I went into his arms immediately and stayed there for several long moments. Neither of us spoke, neither of us needed to. I was safe. I was safe because Alaric had come for me.
“How in trouble are you?” I asked finally and he shifted slightly but didn’t answer. I swore softly.
“I do not know.” He said honestly, plucking at the pins holding my hair. I looked up at him, searching his face. He was frowning.
“I do not like what you have done with your hair.” He said and I smiled. He was always honest, never sugar coated anything.
“Let me change and you can take it out.” My voice was soft.
“Yes. I want you in my arms.” He reluctantly let me go and followed me into my bedroom where we both set about getting ready for bed, though truth be told, I wasn’t the least bit tired. Still too jazzed on adrenaline I think.
I slipped into my nightgown and hear Alaric growl behind me, but it wasn’t the usual sound he made when wrestling with himself over touching me, this was feral and deep with the thrum of fine burning rage. I turned around.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. He came to me, shirtless and barefoot, black leather covering his powerful legs, moving with him like a second skin. He lightly gripped my shoulders and turned me around.
“Does it hurt?” he asked me and my brow wrinkled in confusion, I sucked in a hissing breath when his fingers lightly trailed across my back following the edge of what promised to be one seriously mighty bruise.
“It does now!” I yelped. Must have been when Volund slammed me into the tree, too much adrenaline, didn’t feel it at the time.
“You should have let me kill him.” His voice was dispassionate and low.
“He wasn’t worth it.” I said.
“He hurt you. He should die.” I turned to face him.
“Things don’t work like that anymore.” I explained gently.
“This is a softer time, while I enjoy it because it made you, this is one time I long for sword and shield and the right to face that worm in combat.” He led me to the bed and we made ourselves comfortable. He was gently plucking pins from my hair when the shaking started.
“I am so just, blessed that you came when you did. I didn’t know what was going to happen to me.” My voice broke and Alaric pulled me back against his warm chest, careful of my bruises. He cradled me to him and murmured gently in a language I didn’t know.
“Better?” he asked when I’d been quiet for a time.
“Better.” I affirmed.
He gently ran his fingers through my unpinned hair and then brushed it until I was as relaxed as I could ever be. I loved it when he brushed my hair almost as much as I loved it when he allowed me to brush his. He spoiled me.
“Do you think you can sleep?” he finally asked.
“Read to me?” I asked and cuddled into his side, laying my head on his chest. He grabbed up the book on the night stand and opened it and began to read, beginning with his favorite, his rich deep voice lulling me into sleep.
“I have been one acquainted with the night…”
Chapter 26
When I woke after the ordeal of the night before I was stiff and sore and it hurt to do anything. A person never truly appreciates how much their back does for them until it’s injured. I whimpered a bit as I pulled myself out of bed and across the hall into my bathroom. I took some ibuprofen from my medicine cabinet and popped two of the pills into my mouth, drinking straight from the bathroom sink’s faucet to get them down. Next I dragged myself into a hot shower and oh that hurt at first but soon the heat did its magic and I was limber enough to try and tackle the rest of my day.
I went in to work, half expecting the whole world to come down around my ears thanks to Gunnar Volund, but was surprised when nothing of the sort happened. I quietly assumed my usual post at my work bench and opened my email. Nothing. Again. I huffed a sigh and went to Jared’s office tapping on the door frame.
“Yes?” He looked up from the papers he’d been reviewing.
“Your Norse language expert is sorta killing me here.” I complained and sat down across from him.
“She was called away, is on a site in the middle of nowhere in Norway. No communications.” He explained.
“How do you know?” I asked. He looked sheepish.
“I’m just as impatient as you are and called her office. One of her student assistants informed me.”
“Blargh. I wish she’d finished before she went gallivanting off to Timbuktu.” He raised an eyebrow at me. So what if Timbuktu was in Africa not Norway? Historical, geographical and scientific accuracy to the bitter end I suppose. I stuck out my tongue
.
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah I do.” He said and grinned.
“How was dinner with Gunnar?” he asked and I sighed, his expression darkened. I told him an abbreviated version of what happened, replacing Alaric with a random Good Samaritan. Jared looked apoplectic by the time I finished.
“Are you all right?” he cried.
“A little sore, a little rundown but I’m okay. I think the big biker guy that came to the rescue scared him really good. All that black leather and he was even bigger than Volund if you can believe that.” I really, really hoped he did.
“You should take the rest of today,” he said judiciously, “Tomorrow too if you need it.”
“Jared, really, I’m okay.” I got up.
“I just really want to go back to work.” I said.
“All right,” he frowned. “I’m still shocked a man like Volund would do such a thing.” His brow wrinkled and he looked at me concerned, then the light bulb went on, you could see it in his eyes.
“It’s okay.” I repeated kindly.
“Oh Gracie I’m so sorry,” he said, “I should have listened to you about giving him your information.” He was genuinely fretting now.
“It’s okay.” I repeated.
“I will make it up to you.” He said.
“You don’t have to Jared,” I chewed my lip, “I wouldn’t expect any more funds from him though, no matter what else we find.” I said.
“I wouldn’t take them anyways. It’s the principle of the thing.” He crossed his arms and scowled darkly.
“Don’t do that.” I snapped, but didn’t mean to.
“Why, when taking them might send the message that it was okay for him to do what he did?” he asked.
“There are a lot of people who depend on those donations and investments to stay employed and Volund is loaded beyond loaded. If he ponies up more cash then you take it but just keep him away from me.” I put my hand on the door handle to his office and pushed my way through before he could argue with me. I hoped like Hell that he wouldn’t say anything to Volund, but knowing Jared he would. I just hoped Volund wouldn’t try anything, that Alaric had put the fear of God into him, or would that be the Devil? I shook my head. The theological tangle was too much to wrap my brain around this early.
I went for the coffee and my work station and buried myself in work for the rest of the day. It was the best thing for me.
Chapter 27
Alaric didn’t come that night, nor did he come the next. I was terrified we’d been caught, pacing the apartment around and around worrying, stilling at every small sound to listen for the familiar rattle of scale or sigh of leather.
Nothing.
Empty.
It is how I was beginning to feel, hollowed out and restless. I wasn’t sleeping, I couldn’t concentrate at work. It was awful. It was too soon, I wasn’t ready to let him go. I would likely never be ready, but still. Was what he had done so bad? I mean, he’d done it to save me from… No I would not think about that. Not now, not ever.
It was the third night and I was pacing my bedroom, doorway to window to doorway to window…
A groan from behind me, I whirled and there he was, but something… something just wasn’t right, he was clutching his side and looked to be in pain. I rushed to his side.
“Alaric! Alaric, what’s wrong?” I asked.
“A battle wound small one. Nothing more.” He grunted and I helped him as best I could.
“Let me see.” I guided him to the bed where he dropped heavily, making a strangled noise of pain. Without thinking I reached for the bedside lamp.
“No Gracelyn! Don’t!” but it was too late. I clicked on the lamp, turned and cried out. Where Alaric had been was a creature that I could hardly describe to you as a man… He was skin and bones, lips blackened and shriveled, teeth jagged, yellow and brown. His hair clung in wisps to his scalp which for the most part was bald and his skin was parchment thin and jaundiced. He looked like a walking corpse. He had a hand up in front of his face, the nails thick and claw-like, jagged and stained brown-red. I bit back a sob when he lowered that hand, his cheeks were so sunken and he had no nose to speak of, just skin covered twin holes. He was covered in scars, every inch of him, some white with age, some deep purple and others pink or red. It made my heart twist and ache to see him this way. I looked into his eyes and they were the same, steady, burning red they had always been.
“Gracelyn…” he said a little helplessly, the same rich timbre of his voice emanating from the twisted mouth. This creature was my Alaric, but how? I gathered my courage. I had been too long distracted from my purpose.
“Easy. I have to look.” I said. I gathered the material of his black shirt at the hem and did what I could to gently ease it over his head. He lay back and I cringed at the yellow staining the snowy white bandage beneath.
“I’ll be right back. Don’t move.” I got up and got every supply I could think of from the bathroom, and a pot of hot water and some clean wash cloths from the kitchen and linen cupboard. I returned to my room and knelt by the bed. I carefully clipped through the bandage with a pair of scissors. He watched me, his alien features stoic, as closed off as ever I had seen someone and it made me cringe inside.
“Explain.” I said and was glad my voice didn’t waver.
“We were out flanked,” he said. “Too many of them broke through our line. We engaged but…” I stopped him.
“Not about that.” I said gently. “I know you fight, I know you take wounds but I also know you heal, you told me so, so why is this different and why do you look like…” I let my sentence die, but it hung between us in a pall of raw emotion.
“The wound was not made by a weapon.” He hissed as I peeled back the bandage and revealed three pus filled angry claw marks. The wounds had been crudely stitched and were weeping I grimaced at the smell of infection.
“Pestilence demon, infection sets in the moment the skin is broken, though we don’t die as we are already dead, we are forced to heal the wound slowly.” He leaned his head back against the pillows and closed his eyes, the bones of his orbital sockets standing out in sharp relief.
“This is gonna suck.” I warned, “Like huge.” I doused a cloth in hydrogen peroxide and swabbed the wounds. He fisted the covers and gritted his teeth. He sucked in huge wheezing breaths and went on.
“As to your other question. It is the direct light, you see me as I truly am now.” He groaned.
“As you truly are?” I asked confused.
“What you saw before, was me as I was… at the point when I passed off the mortal coil.”
“So this is what a thousand years and more of fighting does to a person huh?” I asked.
“Yes.” Was his only reply.
I finished my work in silence and oh did it take a while. Once the three deep cuts were clean they were still puffy around the edges and an angry red. I slathered them in an entire tube of Bacitracin and taped gauze over them piece-meal. The white gauze and tap stood out starkly against his yellowed skin. I couldn’t help but stare.
“Gracelyn…” he sounded wounded and I looked him in the eye. There was such sorrow in his face. I ran gentle fingertips along his jaw and was surprised, his skin felt supple despite its awful appearance.
“Yes?” I asked.
“I never wanted you to see me this way.” He waved a hand over himself.
“Wounded?” I gave him a wry twist of lips, and he closed his eyes and swallowed. This was really troubling him. It was troubling me too but… this was Alaric. I closed my eyes, opened them to find his on me and I smiled. Leaned down, and kissed his shriveled and blackened lips and turned out the lamp. I leaned back and he was back, as he ever was, gorgeous and whole.
“I love you.” I told him, “You, Alaric, whatever form you take, however you look, it doesn’t matter, I. Love. You.” He reached out so quickly and pulled me down against his chest, crushing my head to it, tucked below his chin.
I made a sound of protest, concerned about his wounds but his shaking stopped me. He shook, wracked with giant, silent sobs and the tension eased out of me. I would let him have this. He needed it.
Chapter 28
We lay quietly together, my head on the shoulder opposite the injury, side by side, fingers entwined. Neither of us spoke for a long time, but one burning question refused to remain silent any longer.
“Why did you come, as hurt as you are?” I asked.
“I could not stay away.” He kissed my temple.
“Why?”
“I did not wish for you to worry.” It was sweet and simple but…
“Won’t they noti…”
“Alrekr.” The voice that interrupted me was melodic, a tenor that was sweet and musical to the ear. We both sat up. A man in what appeared to be Roman Era armor, white tunic, bronze breastplate, complete with sandals stood in the doorway to my room.
“Alrekr,” he repeated and the set of Alaric’s shoulders read nothing but defeat. Sorrow constricted my heart and I sucked in a breath.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“I am Hasdiel.” He said quietly and his expression was almost sad, as if he were sorry he had to be here.
“He is the angel of benevolence.” Alaric murmured. I turned back to Hasdiel, a little wide eyed, he stepped a little further into the room and the light of the moon through the window, the great swell of his wings behind his head coming into focus. They were drawn tightly against his back, so as not to knock into anything, and they looked distinctly uncomfortable cramped up against his body the way they were. I couldn’t tell what color they were from here exactly, but they weren’t completely white, but rather white and dusted some other color, I think a golden or bronze color much like a barn owls. His hair was close cropped and brown and his eyes an indistinct color due to the lighting though I could tell you they were light in color.
I wrapped both my arms protectively around the arm nearest me of Alaric’s and swallowed hard. This was it… I had to let him go, but I wasn’t about to without a fight.
Heaven, Hell & the Love In Between Page 11
