Arctic Dawn (The Norse Chronicles Book 2)

by Karissa Laurel

  I raised a sardonic eyebrow. “You see the world through your own Thorin-colored lenses, don’t you?”

  Thorin smirked. “You should give it a try sometime. It’s an exceptional view. But you’re deflecting. Do you trust me or not?”

  “I—” My voice broke. I cleared my throat and tried again. “I don’t follow blindly.”

  “I’m not asking you to do that.”

  I studied Thorin’s face, although the darkness hid most of it. Somehow, he managed to exude an air of surety, confidence, and capability, offering a reassurance I hadn’t realized I wanted until that moment. I bit my bottom lip as the tension built between us. He wouldn’t let the issue go until I gave him an answer.

  “Okay.” I let out a heavy breath. “I trust you.”

  Thorin exhaled and seemed to relax. “Good answer, Sunshine.”

  After our shopping spree, we loaded the SUV with every camping necessity Thorin could think of—packs, a tent, water bottles, food—and returned to the hotel for one last night of luxury. Back in our room, Thorin unloaded his laptop from its carry case while I dug through our purchases, packing things into an honest-to-god long-distance trekking backpack complete with a hip belt, internal frame, and a money-back guarantee if carrying it didn’t result in blisters and a back ache.

  “I’ve got to catch up on a couple of things,” Thorin said. “Can you keep yourself busy and out of trouble for a while?”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “Really? Did you just say that? Because, as I recall, the last person to have their butt in a jam was not me.”

  “There’s no Skyla around to back you up this time.”

  “You said you were going to be all I needed from now on.”

  Thorin cracked a slow grin and arched an eyebrow. I immediately regretted my choice of words. “And anytime you want me to prove it to you”—he glanced toward the bedroom he had claimed for himself—“I’m right down the hall.”

  I set my hands on my hips and jutted my chin. “You also said you have plenty of self-restraint.”

  “I can’t help it if you throw yourself at me.”

  “In your dreams.” I picked up the closest thing at hand, a pillow from the sofa, and chucked it at him.

  Thorin laughed and ducked around the corner, disappearing into his bedroom. I went back to shoving things into my pack so I wouldn’t meditate on how exasperating I found my roommate. After finishing that chore, I dug out the room-service menu and ordered dinner.

  Some time later, Thorin shuffled into the living room, his pale hair hanging loose and unkempt around his face. My fingers flinched in an unconscious urge to smooth the unruly strands.

  “Do I smell pizza?” he asked.

  I motioned toward the box next to me on the coffee table. “Room service just left.”

  “Coffee?” he asked on his way to the kitchenette.

  “No caffeine for me this late, but thanks.”

  After he finished preparing the coffee pot, Thorin returned to the living room and plopped down next to me on the sofa. “Baldur and Val said they’ve had no luck yet, but they’re going to keep looking.”

  “You talked to them?”

  “E-mail.”

  “You take chances with Wi-fi?”

  “Encrypted satellite modem.”

  “You’re awfully tech savvy for such an old dude.”

  A martyred expression crossed his face, and he pressed his hand over his heart. “I’m timeless, not old.”

  “Do you prefer the modern era, or do you wish things were like they used to be?”

  Thorin rubbed his chin and adopted a thinking pose. “Modern conveniences are valuable, but sometimes I miss the old days. Things were simpler then. My place in that world was more certain, and relationships were a hell of a lot easier to figure out.”

  I cleared my throat and said, “What do you mean by that?”

  “It used to be men and women formed symbiotic partnerships that were necessary for survival. It brought them together in a way modern people seem to have trouble achieving although I think they still crave it.”

  “Wow. Relationship perspectives from an immortal. How insightful.”

  Thorin leaned back and raised his eyebrows. “You don’t agree?”

  “I think you’re probably right,” I said. “Any good partnership, romantic or otherwise, is more successful when strengths and weaknesses complement each other. My parents are like that, in their marriage and business. They’ve been successful so far, so there must be something to it.”

  “They’re fortunate, and so are you to have that example.”

  “I guess so. I always took it for granted.”

  Thorin exhaled. “That’s the way of humans.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Such short-lived creatures. You’d think they would value every opportunity, every experience. But they throw so much away.”

  I wanted to defend my race, but my status as human was in limbo, and Thorin’s argument had merit. “I can’t disagree with you, not if I’m being honest with myself.” I had never given the issue serious thought before. “Immortality is pretty incompatible with this realm. You and your kind weren’t really intended for this world, and we certainly weren’t made to sustain you for the long haul.”

  Thorin shifted and leaned an elbow on the armrest. He settled his chin in his palm, looking intrigued.

  I tried to make the best of it and not sound like an idiot. “Short-lived creatures have short memories. From generation to generation, it’s like we’re playing that kid’s telephone game. Do you know the one I mean?”

  Thorin shook his head.

  I explained. “A group of kids line up next to each other. The first one comes up with a random phrase. He whispers it into the next kid’s ear. That kid repeats it to the next kid, and so on until it goes down the line to the last kid, who repeats the phrase out loud. Usually, what the last kid says has little in common with what the first one said.”

  Thorin smiled knowingly.

  I thought he understood my analogy, but I clarified anyway. “Human history has been a lot like that. The things that happened hundreds of years ago got passed down and corrupted over time. The faction in power at the time tells the story the way that suits them best and makes their enemy look worse. The truth of what actually happened is probably a lot different from what we believe. I think that’s how a lot of traditions and cultures died out.”

  “Humans have more reliable methods of making records, now,” Thorin said. “Maybe things won’t be so easily forgotten.”

  I shrugged. “Information and record keeping have become longer lived, but humans have not. Not really. Maybe we’ve gained a few more decades of life expectancy, but what’s an eighty-year life span compared to eternity? We must seem like fruit flies to you.”

  Thorin chuckled. “Fruit flies couldn’t have philosophical discussions, the last time I checked.”

  “You know what I mean. When you live forever, what possible influence can a single mortal being have on you?”

  Thorin stared into me as if he was seeing more than my exterior. I leaned backward, realizing I had unintentionally drifted toward him. Our relationship was frequently like that—him antagonizing me one minute, drawing me in the next. Was his manipulation deliberate or simply an inherent element of his personality?

  Thorin lowered his chin and looked at me through his thick lashes. “More than you could possibly imagine.” He shifted so that a few insubstantial inches separated us, and a current buzzed through all of them. “But if humans have ephemeral emotions, then I assure you that my kind does not. The Aesir’s memories are long and abiding.”

  The coffeemaker chimed, signaling it had finished brewing. Talk about saved by the bell. I jumped up and scurried to the
kitchenette. When I came back to the living room, carrying a mug for Thorin and a water bottle for me, he had moved into one of the club chairs. I wasn’t the only one who needed some space, apparently.

  “How does one go about hunting wolves?” I asked, changing the subject to something less provocative. I passed Thorin his coffee and sat across from him on the sofa. “Especially in such a wide-open space?”

  Thorin sipped from his mug and said, “Normally, you would track their signs, search for dens, feeding and kill sites, carcasses, scat, trails, and prints. I don’t want to waste a lot of time, so we might have to set some traps, put out some bait.”

  “Maybe you could tie me to a cactus, let me hang out until Skoll catches my scent.”

  Thorin cocked his head as if contemplating my suggestion. “It’s not a bad idea.”

  I chucked another pillow at him.

  After demolishing the rest of my dinner, I went to bed and left Thorin alone with the TV and a late-night talk-show host. I showered, slipped into my pajamas, burrowed under the quilts, and fell fast asleep. The dream that woke me that night wasn’t violent but was still plenty disturbing. My heart thumped and my breath heaved, but not from panic or fear. I left the bed, went to the window, and pressed my forehead against the chilly pane, seeking a draft of cool air to chase away the cloying remnants of the dream, to escape the images of bare skin, hands caressing, lips sampling, teeth nibbling.

  Premonition or Freudian expression of latent desires? Either way, I spent most of the night trying to expel Thorin from my thoughts and relax enough to go back to sleep.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Early the next morning, as the sun crested the horizon, Thorin and I stood beside the SUV, gazing over a desert that stretched for miles in every direction.

  “We’ll plan on a two-day hike to start,” Thorin said as we strapped on our packs. “We’ll make a circle and come back to the truck at the end. If we don’t find anything, we’ll restock supplies and go out again, making our path in increasingly wider concentric circles but keeping the truck as the axis.”

  “That sounds like a lot of walking,” I said. “Good thing I’ve been working out.”

  I considered myself a fit person, but Thorin set a pace that discouraged talking. He kept a handheld GPS in his pack’s side pocket and referred to it every so often to keep us on track.

  “How did you do this before?” I asked when we stopped for a water break. “How did you hunt without GPS?”

  “Landmarks, stars, intuition. We knew Asgard like an extension of our bodies.”

  “So what are you doing in Alaska? Why there, of all places?” I had wanted to ask that question for a long time.

  “Alaska is a lot like Asgard: secluded, unpopulated, wild. It reminds me of home.”

  “Val said something about not liking large crowds and urban settings.”

  “Besides the fact that we are more comfortable when we’re closer to the natural world, it’s easier to avoid complicated questions. People notice, after a while, when we don’t age or get sick or have the life span of the average person.”

  Thorin didn’t wait for me to ask more questions. He stowed the GPS in his pack and started off again. The new hiking boots had taken a toll on my toes. I apologized to my aching feet and fell into place behind Thorin. For the first couple of hours, the scenery astounded me: prickly Joshua trees, dry brush, sand dunes, and the Clark Mountains in the distance. My footsteps crunching in sand and loose rock created a numinous rhythm, leading me into a meditative state. I perceived nothing more than my heartbeat, my breathing, and the rocky earth crunching beneath my boots. Like some exercise in transcendentalism, I achieved an altered state of consciousness where grief, fear, and doubt didn’t exist. Okay, so maybe I understand why people like to do this sort of thing, after all.

  I lingered in that introspective trance until Thorin froze in midstep, as still as one of the boulders beside our path. “Look,” he whispered.

  I followed the direction of his pointing finger and saw a pack of deer, nibbling dry brush without a care for the humans invading their terrain. I gasped. “Deer in the desert?”

  “Mule deer. They thrive here.”

  We stood and watched as the herd moved away, blending into the environment until I could no longer distinguish them from the rocks.

  Late in the afternoon, Thorin and I set up camp in a canyon that produced a view worthy of a “Visit the Mojave!” postcard. To prove I wasn’t completely helpless, I pitched my tent by myself, cranked up the butane stove, and set about reconstituting my dinner.

  “You don’t eat much, do you?” I poured boiling water into a bag of freeze-dried tofurkey and rice I had picked up at the camping-supplies store. It weighed next to nothing in my pack and required no refrigeration, which made it perfect for camping. The meal also smelled like old shoes, but I was hungry enough to eat my boots, so the point was moot.

  Thorin shrugged. “Can but usually don’t.”

  “Why?”

  He lounged against a boulder like a model in an advertisement for outdoor wear. L.L. Bean wishes they had a model like him on their cover. He looks good in everything. Probably looks best in nothing at all, if my dream last night was a true indication.

  “Don’t have to,” Thorin said. “I eat when I need to appear human or for pleasure. Food tastes good, but it’s rarely necessary for survival.”

  “Cold and warmth? Does the chilly air bother you?”

  Thorin huffed, and vapor spurted from his nose.

  I shrugged deeper into my insulated jacket and tried not to shiver.

  “I’m not your science experiment, Sunshine. Didn’t your mother tell you it was rude to pry?”

  I rolled my eyes and turned my attention on my dinner. “’Scuse me, Mister Sensitive.”

  “There may come a time when you need to know everything about me…” He sounded vaguely apologetic.

  “But this isn’t it,” I finished for him. “So, if you’re not up for a game of Twenty Personal Questions, what do we do to kill time? Did you bring a pack of cards or anything?”

  “As a matter of fact…” Thorin riffled through his pack and brought out a familiar red-and-white box. “Gin?”

  “Mani taught me how to play. He won that first hand but never another one after that.”

  “Oh yeah?” Thorin shuffled the cards with the skill of a Vegas dealer. He grinned and said, “Put your money where your mouth is.”

  I held out my hands, palms open and empty. “I’m broke.”

  Thorin dealt the cards with imperceptible speed, letting his human façade slip for a moment. “Then we’ll use another currency.”

  “Like what?”

  “Truth.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Lowest deadwood points in each hand gets to ask any question he or she wants, and the loser has to answer with complete honesty. We’ll play to five hundred.”

  I rubbed my hands together and anticipated victory. “I’ll take that bet.”

  In the first round, Thorin knocked with a two of spades and an ace of hearts. I discarded some of my deadwood but still held over ten points in my hand. I sucked my teeth, making a sound of disappointment, and said, “Okay, hit me with your best shot.”

  Thorin stroked his jaw, and intrigue sparkled in his eyes. “Tell me about your dream. The one you had about me.”

  My thoughts went to the vision I’d had the previous night, and a betraying blush erupted on my cheeks. Thorin’s eyes widened, and he blinked, obviously surprised by my response. He reached his knuckles toward my cheek, but I pulled away before he could touch me.

  “What’s all this about?” he asked.

  I took a breath to deny but realized his original question had referred to the premonition I’d had about his death back
at the Aerie. “Th-there isn’t much to tell,” I sputtered. “Tori probably told you everything I know.”

  “I want to hear it from you.”

  I set down my cards, hugged my ankles, and rested my chin on my knees. “There was a spear, but I couldn’t see details. It was deeply buried and covered in blood. I saw it like a freeze-frame image, but I knew it was the beach at the Aerie. You were lying in the sand in a pool of blood, the spear piercing your chest. You were dead.”

  Thorin pressed his lips together and arched a circumspect eyebrow. “You didn’t see who threw it?”

  “It was too foggy, but I assumed it was Helen or one of her minions.”

  He shook his head. “A regular human cannot wield it. They could possibly carry it, but in battle, it would render them impotent. They wouldn’t be able to lift it to use it against one of us.”

  “Maybe it was Helen, then.”

  “It was made for Odin. Only descendants of his bloodline can use his weapons. It’s why only I can use Mjölnir, because I am Thor’s son.”

  While we were in Vegas together, Thorin had mentioned how he and Val had possessed objects of great power but had lost them. Thorin had since recovered Thor’s hammer, but Gungir, the spear, remained elusive—unless Val did have it but was keeping it hidden for some reason. I had often questioned Val’s motives, but keeping the spear a secret after everything that had happened would be a new low, even for him.

  “You have any siblings who survived Ragnarok?” I remembered a conversation with Tori, back at the Aerie. She’d said there were more Aesir than the ones I knew.

  Thorin pointed at the playing cards. “You win the next hand, and I’ll answer that question.”