He took my arm and led me away from the others. “I’m following a lead, so I’m not coming in, but I’ll drive you to the shop at three.”
“You don’t have to. I’ll be fine.”
“I won’t. Wait for me after school.”
“Torin, I can take care of my—”
He kissed me. When we moved apart, I had completely forgotten why I was arguing with him. Warmth flooded my cheeks when I realized we had an audience. Flustered, I hurried toward the entrance.
“Damn, you two sure know how to stop traffic,” Cora said. “So what’s with the runes?”
“Protection. You know how Torin gets.”
“Yeah, the guy is crazy about you.”
He also had an annoying habit of kissing me when we were in the middle of an argument just to shut me up. So not cool. I followed Cora into the building.
Cora glanced at me and sighed. “Sometimes I wish Echo was a student here.”
I couldn’t see Echo as a fake student. “Have you asked him?”
“No, but he hates it. He doesn’t understand how Torin and Andris can stand it.” She took my arm. “He told me you are the real deal.”
“Define the real deal,” I hedged.
“An all-powerful Seeress. Can you read me?”
I gripped her hand and closed my eyes. “Hmm, you’ll have a big, glamorous wedding with Valkyries and Grimnirs in attendance, live on an island, and have two adorable kids.”
She stopped walking. “Really? Did you really see—?”
I laughed.
“Oh, I hate you.” She bumped me with her shoulder.
“Would you really want to know your future?”
She opened her locker, paused, and pursed her lips. “No. Echo has taught me to appreciate surprises, embrace the unknown.” She cradled her folder. “Would you?”
“No.” Even the thought of being privy to other people’s futures bothered me. I elbowed my locker door and followed her. Kicker and Sondra waved frantically from their lockers.
“See you guys at lunch,” Kicker said. “We want to ask you something.”
“About the junior prom,” Sondra added.
Cora groaned. “Looks like I’ll be on makeup duty. We’re going, right?”
I shrugged.
“We are going if I have to drag you there.” She switched topics. “Can I stop by tonight with my first vlog entry? I want to know what you think.”
“Sure. I should be home by six-thirty.” I was sure I could squeeze her in between dinner and Seeress training. She took off toward her class while I headed upstairs.
“Raine, wait up,” Ingrid called from behind me.
I stood aside to let the other students walk past, Torin’s words flashing in my head. Ingrid had not been vetted. I shook my head. I shouldn’t let his paranoia get to me.
“I didn’t see you at the mansion yesterday,” she said.
“Busy with homework.”
“Torin and Andris were hunched over the computer for hours. Then they disappeared.”
She was fishing for info. “I came over while you were at practice, right after Torin and Andris finished interviewing your new housekeeper.”
“I haven’t met her, but if Andris chose her, she’s probably very beautiful.”
The jealousy in her voice surprised me. “You have nothing to worry about.”
She laughed uneasily. “I’m not worried. I mean, I’m not interested in him that way. He’ll always be Maliina’s. Anyway, see you later.” She and Andris were quite the pair.
Twice in between classes, I heard the haunting Seidr song, and each time I ignored it. Now that I knew someone out there was after me, I wasn’t taking chances.
I texted Femi at lunchtime to check on Dad. Her reply had me racing toward my car. I fished for the key and came up empty. Weird, I had put the key in the back pocket of my jeans. I searched the front. Nothing.
No, he didn’t. That conniving…
I couldn’t believe he’d taken it. I was so going to annihilate him.
I found the nearest bathroom, pulled out my artavus, and etched runes on the mirror. Just as the portal started to open, the door opened and two giggling girls entered the room. A Goth and a brunette who looked sickly. They both stopped and looked around as though they felt my presence. What a thought. Humans couldn’t see us when we engaged our runes.
Carefully, I pressed against the wall to let them pass. Torin was right. I had to be fast. Etching runes on the mirror should have taken me a fraction of a second.
“Do you feel the magic, Gina?” the pale brunette said with a heavy accent.
I froze.
“Yeah.” Gina the Goth sounded surprised. “The air is buzzing with it. If I can feel it, it must be strong.”
The brunette one gave Gina an unworldly smile. “It is. She’s powerful. She must have done a spell in here before she left. That makes two of them. Now that I recognize their energies, I can find them.” She disappeared into one of the stalls.
Gina walked to the mirror and studied her reflection. She was striking. She had black hair with red locks near her forehead, dark lipstick, and dark green eyes. She wore black nail polish, and she had multiple piercing on her ears and nose.
“Hey, Rita,” she called out. “Can you stop singing that awful song now?”
“I can’t. Remember what Mom said? I can’t stop until someone contacts us. We must know who we are dealing with.”
Gina sighed. “What if it makes everyone fall asleep?”
Rita left the stall, looking paler than before. “Remember the spell Mom added to it? Only powerful witches can hear it.”
She stopped in front of the sink and rinsed her hands. She had the same facial structure as Gina, but her hair was a long single braid and she looked frail. Like she’d been sick.
They had to be new at school or I would have noticed them before. They stood out. Throw in the foreign accent and they’d be hard to miss.
I waited until they left the bathroom before I went through the portal.
“Is everything okay?” Femi asked. “I heard voices.”
“Just listening to gossips. Thanks.” I took the tray with my lunch from her hand. “Is he still burning up?”
“Yes. I etched runes on him and he has an IV.”
I entered the den.
“Svana,” Dad whispered, and tears rushed to my eyes. I never thought I sounded like Mom until the first time Dad had a fever and became delirious. He’d kept calling me Svana, and my voice had calmed him down. I put the tray down—my appetite gone—pulled up a chair, and sat by his bed.
“I’m here now.” I stroked his brow. “It’s okay. Everything will be okay.” When he calmed down, I picked up the book we’d been reading and started where we’d left off.
***
I spent the afternoon searching for the two girls I’d seen in the bathroom. They weren’t in my classes or the hallways.
“We’re going to watch a short documentary,” Mr. Finney said, lowering the screen. “Pay attention to details, folks, because you’re going to give me your input.”
He usually started class with a challenging question and a heated debate. When he switched off the lights, I debated whether I should engage my runes, become invisible, and search each class for the two witches. The problem was I’d have to open a portal through the door or a wall. The runes for those portals were super tricky.
Resigned to waiting until after school, I watched the documentary on the Vietnam War and even had a thing or two to say about America’s attitude after the war. But I couldn’t wait for school to be over.
“Missed you at lunch,” Cora said as we headed outside at three.
“Dad had a fever and I had to go home. He gets agitated.”
She frowned. “Is he okay?”
“I calmed him.”
“Good. Let’s talk junior prom.”
“Let’s not. Torin wants us to go to the senior one and he hasn’t decided about the junior
. Until he says yes, don’t include me in your plans.”
“Oh, don’t say that. You have to convince him. We could go on a shopping spree together. We could use the portal and shop anywhere around the world. Maybe take the guys along.”
Like she needed an excuse to shop. She loved fashion. Loved to shop. Me, not so much. We left the building. Students were everywhere. A few were throwing a Frisbee on the lawn to our left. Torin leaned against my car while talking to Andris. He looked like a fallen angel. I was still pissed at him.
“Please. I barely convinced Echo. If Torin is not there, he will be bored out of his mind.”
I sighed. “What are they supposed to do? Pound on each other.”
Cora flipped her hair to one side and hoisted her backpack on her shoulder. “That’s how they bond. It’s a Grimnir-Valkyrie thing. They’re not happy unless they are fighting or solving problems. They came together to protect me and now you.”
“They came to blows.”
Cora stuck out her lower lip in a pout.
“Fine, jeez. I’ll work on Torin.”
She hugged me. “You’re the best. Are we still on for Saturday?”
“He’s doing something during the day, but he should be free by evening.” We reached her car first. She’d parked at the curb.
“Echo is busy, too.” She unlocked the car and threw her backpack inside. “He said he might be gone the rest of the week, so convince your man to stay at school for lunch. I sat with Kicker and the girls, and all they talked about were books.” Cora rolled her eyes. “Which reminds me, I promised to help Dad with his blog. He hates blogging. Can you believe it? The problem is I don’t read his books. What do I tell his fans?”
I laughed. Her father wrote amazing books. I owned all of them. I even got to review advanced copies.
“It’s not funny. Why does he write science fiction? It’s, like, the worst genre ever. Can you help me? You’ve read all his books.”
My life was a hot mess right now. “I can’t. Talk to Andris. He’s read all your father’s books, too.”
Cora thumped her forehead. “How could I forget him? Love you. See you tonight.”
I waved and started across the street. Rita and Gina hurried passed me, talking in whispers. I made eye contact with Rita, but she smiled shyly and looked away. I noticed something I’d missed earlier. They both wore pendants. Part of me wanted to follow them, but I couldn’t do it with Torin and Andris watching me. Talking to them would have to take place away from here. Away from the Valkyries.
“Hey, Andris? What’s cookin’?” I said when I joined them.
He made a face. “Let’s see. I spent half of last night runing the whole damn town for you, then gallivanted all over the world looking for your faceless, nameless nemesis. I need a caramel frappé.”
Sheesh, it was a rhetoric question. “Will a thank you and a hug do for now?”
“Um…” he glanced at Torin.
What? I couldn’t hug other guys without the Earl of Worthington’s permission? I hugged Andris, taking him by surprise. He hesitated for a beat, and then he patted my back awkwardly.
“I’ll buy you a frappé after work.” I turned and studied my boyfriend. He didn’t look too thrilled. He hated being ignored, and I planned to ignore him. I extended my hand. “My keys.”
“Don’t I get a hug, too?”
He smirked, but I saw through it to the Valkyrie he once was before we met. The guy who’d hated himself, his life, and what he’d become. He’d come close to losing his soul. Of course, I couldn’t deny him a simple hug.
I walked into his arms, wrapped my arms around his mid-section, and squeezed. A shudder went through him, reminding me once again that, despite his cockiness and annoying habits, I meant the world to him. Everything that happened to me affected him in ways a regular person wouldn’t understand.
Still, he wasn’t getting off easily. I wiggled out of his arms and pinned him with a glare. “What you did was not cool.”
His brow shot up. “Now you lecture me.”
“Next time I’ll start with the tongue lashing. You don’t take my things without my permission. My father had a fever and needed to be calmed down. What if I couldn’t remember the runes to open a portal?”
He groaned and rubbed my arms. “I’m a jerk.”
“First class.” I extended my hand. “My keys.”
He handed them over, held the car door for me without saying a word, and hurried to the passenger seat. He didn’t say anything and neither did I, although I saw the runes on trees along the road. This was the route I often used to get to the store.
Torin kept glancing at me as though to say, “I did these trees too; aren’t I awesome?” What if there was an accident and I had to take another route? What if there was construction? He couldn’t foresee everything. I had to start training A.S.A.P.
There were a few more cars in the alley behind our store than usual. I parked and grimaced at the runed building, trees, and wooden fence separating our parking lot from the adjacent art center. When he did something, he went all out.
“Try to see this from my point of view, Freckles,” he said.
I studied his handsome face. I was everything to him. I understood that. He meant the world to me, too, but my father was equally important. No one was allowed to mess with my time with him. “I do, but you went too far.”
“I have my reasons. First, I gave your mother my word that nothing would happen to you while she was gone.”
Whatever sympathy I’d felt for him disappeared. “What?”
“Your mother told me to keep an eye on you and vowed to scalp me if anything happened to you while she was gone. I may not know what it feels like to be scalped, but Hawk turned pale when she said it so I believed her.”
Sounded like something Mom would say, but that didn’t mean I liked it.
“Second, think of the mayhem I’d cause to get my revenge if you were hurt. Mortals who’d get caught in the crossfire. This was my way of making sure that didn’t happen.” He reached out and twirled a lock of my hair around his finger. “How about this? I promise never to pull a fast one on you if you promise to work with me. The sooner you can take care of yourself when I’m not around, the better I’ll feel.”
Part of me wanted to hang on to the anger, but another part knew he had a reason to be worried. There are people out there after me, and there was so much I needed to learn to defend myself.
“Maybe I should just use portals. You know, home to school, school to the shop, and shop to home.”
Torin’s eyes narrowed. “No. I don’t want you acting like a prisoner or scared of your shadow because of these bastards. We are all going to act normal, like we don’t know they are after you. The element of surprise will be ours, not theirs.”
Good looks and brilliance, a winning combo in my book. When he jumped out of the car and came to open my door, I hugged him again. He cradled my head.
“I thought you were going to be mad at me the entire evening.”
“It crossed my mind.”
“But you couldn’t resist me for long.” The teasing twinkle in his eyes was cute, but I wasn’t stroking his ego.
“You can’t keep skating on your charm. One day it won’t be enough.” He gave a look that said that would never happen. I made a face. “Let’s go.”
Hawk was waiting inside with a folder in his arms like some supervisor. Seriously, the man needed to smile more. “Hey, Hawk. I’m ready to rock-n’-roll.”
He didn’t even crack a smile. He nodded to Torin as though they were passing acquaintances. “Good afternoon, Raine.”
I waved to Jared, who was with a customer. Several more were browsing. Hopefully no one needed my help. Maybe I should wear a “New Employee” tag, so customers wouldn’t think I was a complete dud when I couldn’t help them.
Hawk set me up at the customer’s service desk with the file, which turned out to be a catalogue of all the items we carried. I texted Cora an
d got to work. I read about frame styles and colors, framing styles, and quotes for custom framing. I memorized terminologies I’d never heard before like aspect ratio, rabbet, and corrugated backing.
My nose was buried in the file when Torin returned with a caramel macchiato and pastries from Café Nikos, Dad’s favorite destination for all things baklava.
He placed them on my desk with a wink. “See you at six.” Then he disappeared in Hawk’s office. No matter how arrogant and aggravating he was, he was one heck of a boyfriend.
After an hour, I got up, walked along the aisles, and checked if I could recognize different frames. When customers glanced my way, I took a detour or pretended to be a browser. One woman, however, wasn’t fooled. But she just wanted to know if we had a public bathroom.
When Torin came back at a quarter to six, I had a serious drool moment. He’d changed into running clothes. Tights. Yummy. The pants hugged his thighs and calves. The light jacket was unzipped, and the thin shirt underneath showed his washboard abs and wide chest.
“Quit undressing me with your eyes,” he teased.
“Quit showing off,” I retorted. Then I remembered where I was and glanced around. Luckily, Jared was busy and Hawk was in the framing room.
“How was it?” he asked as we drove home.
“Great!” I said, faking enthusiasm.
“Liar. Want to quit?” he asked.
I threw him a reprimanding glance. “You don’t have to say it with such glee.”
“Just kidding. You’re not a quitter.”
The man knew me too well. “Damn right. I learned a lot though. We have over twenty frame styles, from traditional to vintage-inspired…” I prattled on until I pulled outside our cul-de-sac.
“You have ten minutes,” Torin said. “Change into running gear.”
***
I checked on Dad first. He was asleep, his fever down. He looked so frail. He used to be a triathlete, and the two of us would run in the summer and do five and ten-K races at local events. Kayville and neighboring towns were big on outdoor events. Tears rushed to my eyes as memories whipped through my head, and I wanted to slap myself.
No more self-pity.
Seeress: Book Three (Runes Series) Page 13
