by Lisa Olsen
“But who says I get along with her?” Lee teased with a broad wink, heading straight for the fridge to get a beer.
Nelleke shook her head. “Thank you for the offering, but my place is with Maeja.”
“Well, if you ever change your mind, you know where to find me.”
“And you will be finding me in the bubbles bath.”
“Again? That girl must be part fish,” Rob scowled.
“Never get between a girl and her bathtub, I’m pretty sure that’s a law, right Maggie?” I said, trying to draw her out. Ever since Marcus’ death she’d been as quiet as The Gentlemen. She managed a faint smile, but didn’t reply. “I guess maybe I’ll go take a bath myself.”
“Where do you think you’re going?” Rob said, catching the loop of my jeans with a single finger and pulling me backwards. “Back to work until you get it right.”
But it was obvious I was hopeless. It wasn’t like sparring where I’d learned how not to pull my punches with him. Despite the knowledge that he’d heal any wound I inflicted, I was too chicken to be brutal when I needed to be. It was pretty much a bust and that highlighted for me that I wouldn’t be able to face Lodinn head on. I’d have to be sneakier than that.
*
Finally, I got the text I needed from Laveda later that night. Alright, alright, I’m here. You don’t got to wear m’phone out.
Did you find out what I need to know? I sent, not daring to risk an actual phone call.
Yeah, but I don’t see why you’d want to ass around with something like this.
Can you help me or not? I don’t have much time. There was a long pause and I wasn’t sure if I’d offended her or not, but then she responded.
I ain’t no witch. Bitch maybe…
Laveda, please. I wouldn’t ask you to do this if it wasn’t crazy important. I’d get down on my knees and beg if I had to, I needed her to set things in motion.
Yeah, count me in.
Shiny, meet me there just after dawn.
I still think you should bring Rob in on this.
I cocked my head, listening for the sound of his gravelly voice. He was in the kitchen with Lee and Nell, arguing over whether throwing daggers or close-in fighting knives were the best way to take out an opponent. Are you kidding me? He’d kill me if he knew what I was planning.
Maybe he’s got the right of it? This idea is bollocks. If this don’t work out as planned you got no protection against him.
She was right, but it didn’t change things. If this doesn’t work out as planned it won’t matter because we’ll all be dead or worse. I’ll see you at dawn.
*
When it was done, I dragged myself back to the apartment, peeling off the scarf and hat I’d used to cover most of my exposed skin from the damaging rays of the sun. I was dead tired, but hadn’t wanted to take any stims so I could be sure to get a good day’s sleep once I got home. I did my best to ignore Lee’s stern disapproval as I passed him in the hall; I wasn’t in the mood for a lecture, I knew what I was doing.
“Tell Nelleke to be ready to go tonight,” I said in passing, shuffling my way to the room I shared with Rob. “We’ll leave as soon as the sun goes down.”
“You sure you know what you’re doin’?”
“We’ll find out, won’t we?”
Wearily, I climbed into bed and curled myself up around Rob’s sleeping form, taking comfort in his quiet strength. “We’ll find out,” I whispered, letting the sweet oblivion of sleep overtake me.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Nervous? Boy howdy, was I a bundle of nerves when I rose the next night. Dressing swiftly in jeans and a pretty, pink shirt, I pulled my hair back into a sleek pony tail to get it up and out of the way. I avoided looking at Rob, who slumbered on, oblivious to my preparations. It was the only way.
On the way to find my shoes I stopped by Nelleke’s bedroom door, glad to see her already up and about. She was in the process of strapping several knives to her body that I had to wonder how she’d gotten through customs.
“Hey, Nell? You don’t mind if I call you Nell, do you?”
“No, I am liking it,” she replied, tugging her pants leg down over another knife strapped to her boot.
“You’re going to be meeting Jakob today and if all goes well, you’ll probably have the occasion to talk to him.”
An unreadable emotion registered across her face but it was gone before I could interpret it. “Yes, I would say so.”
“So um… I think it’s safe to say that he’s a very jealous guy.”
“Yes, Maeja is saying this before. Why you are telling me this now?” Her forehead bunched with worry.
“I’m hoping you can understand why I wouldn’t want you to mention anything private you might’ve seen or heard about my relationship with Rob. It could prove disastrous for both of us.”
“I am no tattles tale. It is no business of his who you are loving.”
“Thanks, Nell, I’m very glad to hear that,” I replied, suppressing a smile over her choice of words.
“Would you like if I braid your hair for battle?” Her own hair was braided back from each temple to pull the hair away from her face, secured with thin leather ties that ended behind her ears.
I found the gesture touching and wished I could take her up on it. “Ordinarily I would, and I appreciate the offer, but today we’re going for subterfuge. I want to look like the least threatening thing possible.”
“Take off this then,” she said, brushing her fingers through my pony tail and I reached up and pulled it free. Nell made a point of arranging my hair around my shoulders, tucking it behind one ear. Her hands slid down the front of my top next, boldly tugging the neckline lower and pushing my breasts up for a deeper display of cleavage. “There, you look like a puff of cream. Good enough for eating.”
I’d seen that look before but it was usually accompanied by a fang or two. Nell wasn’t a vampire, so I had to wonder what part of me looked especially tasty to her. “Thanks. I think,” I said with an awkward smile. “We’d better go see if Lee is ready.” Without waiting for a response, I got out of her bedroom and rapped on Lee’s door. “Time to go.”
Lee emerged a moment later, his shaggy gray hair pulled back on top with a black hair tie. I guess we were all dressed for battle in our own way. “Does he know we’re coming?” he asked.
“Yes, I sent him a text, he’ll be ready.”
“You got the juice?”
“Yep, I’m all set and ready as I’ll ever be.”
Lee fixed me with a paternal stare that could’ve put my father to shame. “You could be a mite readier if you waited an hour or so for Rob to come with.”
“Don’t start that again, Lee.” I walked away into the living room, patting my pockets to make sure I absolutely did have everything I needed.
“You’re the one startin’ to make a habit of this,” he muttered following along behind me.
“I know. He’s gonna kill me when I get back, but at least he’ll be alive.”
“Don’t exactly build trust between the two of you.”
I stopped and turned around to face him. “What would you do if you were me? Be honest.”
Lee chewed on his bottom lip for a moment, thumbs hooking into his belt. “I reckon I’d protect the woman I loved, same as you, then let her yell at me until she was ready to be kissed into submission.”
I smiled, buoyed by the response. “Does that usually work?”
“Eventually, yeah,” he grinned with fond recollection.
“You are doing the right thing,” Nell approved. “Lodinn can be cruel and sadistic. This is why Maeja is turning her back on him. He will betray you in any opportunity. He killed their mother in cold blood.
“Wait…” There had to be a language gap in there somewhere or maybe I’d heard her wrong. “Lodinn and Maeja are brother and sister?”
“Yes. You are not knowing this?”
“Shut the front door!”
“Th
e doors are closed.” Her gaze flicked to the front entrance, not understanding what I meant. “I thought this is common knowledge, like the spear.”
“No, it’s not. Actually, most of us didn’t know anything about Maeja or the spear of Odin. Times have changed, people don’t pay as much attention to mythology as they used to. So Maeja wants her own brother dead?”
“To repay his crimes, she will see him made to ashes. This is her chance at freedom. Too long has she been at the mercy of other Ellri, hunted for her blood. You cannot be knowing what this means to her.”
“Stuck under the Ellri’s thumb? Yes, actually, I kind of do. Don’t worry, Nell. If everything goes to plan, we’ll all get what we want.”
Nelleke hugged the box containing the spear tighter. “Yes, if all goes to plan.”
“Sun’s down,” Lee reported, tugging on his denim jacket.
“We’d better get a move on then.”
Maggie stepped up, her face twisted with worry. “What shall I tell him when he wakes?”
There was so much… in the end it was too much. “Tell him that I love him and that’s all that matters.”
We marched down the hall together and I had the theme music from Firefly going through my mind. I was done letting people take things from me. Maybe we’d go down, but we’d go down fighting.
The elevator doors slid open as we got to the end of the hall and Bishop stood there, dressed in his tactical best. “Somebody order a mutiny?” he grinned.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I stared at him in dumbfounded silence while Lee and Nell bristled, not having met Bishop yet.
“Time to step aside, sonny, we got places to be.” Lee started to move toward him, but I stopped him with a single touch.
“You guys go on down, I’ll be there in a minute.”
Lee and Nelleke both relaxed once they realized I knew who Bishop was. “Take all the time you need. Maybe you can talk some sense into her,” Lee muttered, stepping into the elevator.
“What are you doing here?” I asked as mildly as I could, considering my nerves were still recovering from the shock of seeing him in Jakob’s building.
Bishop gave a half shrug. “I was in the neighborhood, thought I’d stop by.”
I couldn’t stand around and chit chat like this, I had to get out of there before Rob woke up and figured out what was going down. “I can’t talk to you right now, Bishop, I have somewhere to be.” I turned to the stair exit. If he wanted to talk, he could do it moving.
“I know.”
I didn’t bother to stop. “How could you possibly know?”
“It’s my job, remember? To know things,” he insisted, following me into the stairwell. “Jakob called me.”
“He did?” That didn’t make sense. “Why on Earth would he do that?”
“He asked me to take care of you if he should fail to survive your meeting.”
That merited him a look back over my shoulder. “You’re kidding.”
“Why would I kid about something like that?”
“I don’t know, you’re the one trying to have a sense of humor tonight,” I muttered, continuing my descent. “How did he even know you were here?”
“He didn’t, he thought he was calling me in Rome.”
“Why are you here in the first place then and not in Rome?”
“I’m here for you.” Bishop grabbed me by the arm, jogging ahead of me to block my way when I didn’t stop. “Don’t you get it? If you died… that’d be it for me. There wouldn’t be anything else to go on for.”
“Don’t say that.” I didn’t want to be that for him. I couldn’t.
“It’s true.”
“It shouldn’t be. Bishop, I can’t be your something to live for. I don’t want to be what Carys was for you.” I side stepped him, continuing on my way down to keep from looking into those deep, green eyes. “You were right before when you said it wasn’t healthy to get so wrapped up in someone. You can’t pin all your hopes and dreams on one person, it isn’t right. I can’t be that for you and I can’t let you live for maybes. I’m with Rob now, maybe not openly, but in my heart…”
“It doesn’t matter,” he interrupted, chasing after me and I frowned, shaking off his light hold.
“Of course it matters.”
“No…” Bishop darted around me in a burst of speed, blocking my way. Two steps above him I couldn’t avoid that magnetic gaze any longer. “I mean it doesn’t matter who you’re with right now, I have faith that we belong together. You’re still looking at this through human eyes. I spent over a hundred years chasing after Carys. In that time she’d run hot and cold, sometimes spanning years, but she always came back to me.”
My brows drew together in frustration. I was tired of being compared to Carys. “I’m nothing like her.”
“And I’m not saying you are.” His hands came up in a supplicating gesture, his voice dropping to a soothing pitch. “I’m saying what I learned is that some things change, but the important things don’t. No matter what captured her day to day interests, I know she loved me deep down.” He rose up to the next step, closing the space between us. “I have faith deep down that we’ll end up together, I can feel it when we kiss,” he said, his gaze dropping to my lips, his voice little more than a rumble I could feel in my chest. “It’s like we’re touching souls.”
It was maybe one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do, but I backed up a step, and then another, putting that much needed cushion of space between us, drawing in a shaky breath. “Bishop, I’m not trying to hurt you, but you have to understand that I love Rob.”
“You love me too,” he said with absolute conviction.
“I love him more.”
“Today,” he allowed with a faint smile. “But someday that will change. You’ll change. He’ll change…”
“I can’t imagine changing that much.”
“No?” His brows rose a fraction. “Think of how much you’ve changed since you first became a vampire.”
He had me there.
“I believe things happen for a reason. There’s a reason I was there for you when you first turned, there’s a reason why I spared you that had nothing to do with compulsion and everything to do with our connection. I’m sorry I was such an ass that I couldn’t see it before, but maybe it wasn’t our time yet. You’ve said it time and again, forever is a long time. I love you now, but I’m even more excited to see the person you become tomorrow and the year after that, and the decade after that and the century next. I have faith that we’ll be together someday the way we deserve to be, and when it happens…” His face broke into a glorious smile, and God, he almost had me.
I never expected such a beautiful sentiment to come out of my hard bitten vampire cop. No, not mine… Yes, mine. In a way he was right, he’d be mine until the end of time, just like I’d be his. But I couldn’t live for the future, there were far too many important things now and I’d already made my decision.
“Bishop, I…”
He silenced me with a single touch. “It’s okay, I get it. A lot of things will come between us, that’s the way life is. Just remember that I love you, and I’ll try to always be here for you when you need me the most. I’m not saying I won’t screw things up from time to time, because let’s face it, I’m my own worst enemy sometimes.” His head dipped in a self deprecating smile that I couldn’t help but share.
“You really are,” I agreed.
Bishop drew himself up, squaring his shoulders. “But that’s why I’m coming with you today. Because we both deserve a shot at getting it right someday and that won’t happen if you die by Lodinn’s hand. Love me or not, you need me, and I can help you, even if it’s only to be by your side.”
He was right, I did need him, even though I wasn’t willing to look too deeply into how much of the rest of that spiel he’d gotten right. “Fine, you can come.”
“That’s my girl.” His smile stretched wider again. “Alright, what’s the play?”<
br />
*
“Shouldn’t we call in Mason?” Bishop asked as we pulled in front of my house. “I know he’s sitting on pins and needles to get Hanna away from that guy.”
My eyes did a brief scan of the darkened neighborhood, but nothing looked amiss. “No, he’s too emotionally involved.”
“And you ain’t?” Lee snorted, his hands gripping the steering wheel with uncharacteristic tension.
“I don’t have a choice, I’m the shieldmaiden, remember?”
“I’m sure Nelleke is up to the task if you want to hand it over to her. Ain’t you, honey?” Lee prompted when she didn’t answer. Nell sat in the back seat, gripping the box tightly to her chest, her light eyes fixed on the house. “Nelly?”
“I am not ready,” she said, barely above a whisper. “I can’t do this.”
“Whoa, what’s the matter, honey?” Lee turned around in his seat as we all stared at her with growing concern.
“I can not be seeing him yet, I am not ready.”
“It’s okay, Nell, you don’t have to go inside if you don’t want to. This isn’t your fight.” She might look like she could skin Lodinn in thirty seconds flat, but I could definitely understand her trepidation in going up against an Ellri. “You can wait out here if you want or take off and go back to the apartment.”
“I will wait. Here…” Nell thrust the box at me, scooting as far away from the door as possible. I accepted the box, taking a quick peek to make sure the spear head was still in there before latching it tight again.
“Now, does everyone know what to do?” The guys traded somber nods. “Then let’s do this.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Jakob’s eyes were bright, his excitement high as we entered the house, his gaze immediately falling to the box in my hands until he was distracted by Bishop’s presence. “I hadn’t thought to see you here, Ulrik.”
“I took you at your word,” Bishop shrugged. “I’m here to make sure there are no surprises.”
“I am honored to have you fight by my side,” Jakob beamed, clasping hands with a visibly surprised Bishop and Lee before he turned his attention to me. “Do you have Gungnir?”
