by Jane Cousins
Erik lifted his hand to study it, clenching his fist, the skin felt tight but he didn’t think he’d broken any bones. He’d live, he decided. Closing the lid on the first aid kit he picked it up and walked over to put it back under the sink next to Locke’s clearly labelled emergency rations, storm gear and survival pack. Ah, his brother, Goddess love him, he was anal.
“I don’t suppose you’d just settle for the one word explanation?” He checked on the large frozen pizza heating up in the oven, a few more minutes he decided, heading to the fridge to grab the open bottle of wine and pick up two fresh wine glasses.
Cara watched as Erik placed the glasses on the table and filled them. “Let me guess? Magic.”
“Got it in one.” Erik resumed his seat and took a sip of wine. He couldn’t believe after the last few hours of terror, being tied up and helpless to protect Cara that he was sitting across from her now, chatting and drinking wine. He felt boneless with relief and at the same time incredibly turned on.
That outfit she had on was all kinds of sexy, the bare feet, the plunging neckline of the gaping open shirt. He felt a stab of jealously race through him for a split second as he realised the shirt had to belong to Locke. But then sanity returned, knowing his brother’s penchant for clothes it was doubtful he’d ever had a chance to wear that shirt. And that glorious mane of wild red gold ringlets that framed her adorable face, fuck, he was half way in love with this girl.
“No, I’m sorry. I’m going to need the longer explanation.” Cara took a small sip of her wine. Her throat was still slightly raw and the cool liquid felt heavenly going down. “I’ve told you about my chaos whammy, time for you to spill your guts.”
Who could resist those inquisitive sapphire eyes brimming with curiosity? Not him, that was for sure. “Okay, I’m a Natural Elements Mage.”
Cara rolled her eyes at him, did he seriously think that was the long explanation?
“Which means that I can change the structure of my body to mimic any naturally occurring solid or processed natural element produced by the earth. So when I get struck by metal, my skin becomes metal, same goes for anything else mined and processed such as bricks, mortar, glass, minerals. Plastic is not my friend, but in a nutshell, that’s basically what it means to be a Natural Elements Mage.”
It took a moment for Cara to close her mouth, how seriously cool was Erik’s magic. “Did you just know one day what you could do, or is there some sort of classification and training centre at the Sanctuary?”
Erik chuffed a laugh. “Nothing so clinical. I, like all my siblings, relatives and friends, found out about my powers the hard way. Or in my case, when I was about thirteen and my grandfather Odin was showing off with one of his knife tricks. The next thing you know a dagger is flying right at my face and bam, I bent that sucker damn near in half. Odie didn’t know whether to weep over the destruction of his favourite knife or crow for joy at discovering what he considered a secret weapon in the family.” The corners of Erik’s mouth kicked up in a wry smile.
“Secret weapon?”
“Prior to that I’d been sort of half-assing the whole warrior training thing. I mean, it was okay as an extra-curricular activity but why would I take it seriously? I wasn’t very good at it, no killer instinct, not like my sister. Ever since I could remember, all I wanted to do was be a sculptor, work with stone, marble, wood… iron, anything that I could bend, break, or shape.”
“What happened?”
“My father and Odie tripled my training scheduled, they thought my powers signalled that I was going to be the next Valhalla champion… which of course ticked off all my cousins who were taking the training seriously and burned to wear the title of Valhalla warrior.”
Cara was captivated by Erik’s story. “And, what happened?”
Erik shrugged. “What followed was six months of pure hell. Training sessions morning, noon and night. But no matter how much I trained, my offence skills failed to improve even though I kept winning my sparring matches, mainly because my opponents would generally drop from exhaustion. Finally came the day I was facing off against Hadleigh…”
“But isn’t she like your little sister?”
“She was about eight or nine at the time but no one has ever accused Hadleigh of being little. Anyway, so in the course of our bout she struck me with one of her favourite swords, snapping it in two… she went nuts. Threw away the broken sword and came after me with her bare fists. She had kind of a temper back then. Ten seconds later she’s busted my nose and two of my ribs, best thing that could have ever happened to me.” Erik was smiling in remembrance.
Cara looked on bemused. “Funny definition.”
“Nah, it was great. I got demoted back to grunt level half-ass training again and everyone’s aspirations of me being the next big thing on the battlefield evaporated in an instant. You have no idea how relieved I was.” Erik got to his feet as the oven timer buzzed.
Cara re-filled both their wine glasses as she watched him pull out the pizza and gather plates and napkins. Funny, Erik was so solid and capable, she forgot that essentially he was an artist. A wave of guilt washed through her at the thought of all the trouble she’d caused him, the danger he’d faced, because of her.
“I hope you like prawn, feta and chilli pizza.” Erik placed the divine smelling dish down in the middle of the table before handing Cara a napkin. “Locke has a tendency to only buy things with the word gourmet on the packaging, so sometimes things can get a little high-brow.”
“On no.” Cara took a slice, inhaling deeply. “It smells wonderful and besides, I’m starving for some reason.”
“Not surprising, you’re forgetting the time difference, we’ve missed breakfast and lunch.”
“Explains why I feel so wide awake, well, probably that and the adrenalin buzz.” Cara took a couple of quick bites, she was hungry. “I’m really sorry about everything… dragging you away from the Sanctuary. You getting caught up in this whole mess. My shitty relatives trying to kill you.” She blinked back tears of anger as she allowed herself to think about Sek and Mot. Shitty was a good definition. Willing to kill her so they could enact their grand master plan of devouring their father’s Chi and ruling the world. It was just too super villain surreal to take in.
“I’m fine, Cara. I’m glad I could be there for you tonight. What those shit heads said about your mother… I’m so sorry. Maat’s warriors will make them pay.”
Cara nodded, straightening her spine, focusing on her pizza for a few more bites. Wiping her fingers on her napkin she picked up her wine and took a large sip. “I just can’t get over how they’ve been manipulating me all along, the so called genetic disease, the blood to feed Apep’s husk… Oh, God, the blood! Those poor little babies.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve already sent Marcus an email, he’s the high-tech beefcake… err, super solider. He’ll track them down and make sure the babies and their families are safe.”
“That’s a relief. At least they won’t have to be worried about taking on the chaos focus crown for this century, looks like I’m the not-so-lucky winner of that particular cream pie in the face.”
“You mentioned something about a funeral?” Erik reached over and grabbed another large slice of pizza.
Cara glanced down at her plate, she’d managed two slices but she didn’t think she could stomach anything more. Pushing her plate away she concentrated on her wine glass. “It’s so obvious now, how they manipulated me. At the funeral home on the day of my mother’s… viewing, there was just one mix up after another. At first they couldn’t even find her body, then the casket was wrong, the music wouldn’t play, a large vase of flowers tipped over drenching several people. It felt like I was being hammered constantly on all sides… like being in the very centre of a storm, where the only thing I knew for certain was that my mother was dead and I was all alone in the world.”
“Oh, Angel.” Erik’s voice came out rough and low. He pushed his chair back abruptly, reache
d over, grabbed Cara’s wrist, pulling her onto his lap, uncaring of the few drops of wine that spilled across his chest and shirt from her glass. “What happened next?”
Cara stared hard at Erik’s bare throat, the skin there looked slightly red and irritated from where the sand monster had almost throttled him, without thinking she reached out to run a finger gently over his roughened skin as if to soothe it. The man was impervious to so much, but he could still get hurt. She needed to remember that.
She tried to swallow but found her throat too dry, swallowing the last of her wine she placed the glass down on the table. “One of the funeral home attendants was drunk… weaving drunk… when he dropped the coffin, something inside of me… just went off… like a firecracker on the fourth. Something passed through me… out of me. The next second an air-conditioner unit plunged through the ceiling narrowly missing some people. In the stampede for the exit more flowers were knocked over, splashing an electrical socket so the lights all went out… in a funeral home, can you imagine? So now there is screaming and general hysteria. The overhead sprinklers switched on… people were running, falling… and through it all, the only thing I could think of was bring it on, the worst you’ve got, my mother’s dead, none of this matters anymore. And it was like I had wished it or something, the back of the funeral home collapsed into the basement where they kept the bodies. And I just knew… in that moment, that somehow I had been responsible for it all. That every last bit of that disastrous day was my fault.”
“What did you do?”
Cara chuffed an unamused laugh. “I ran. I couldn’t face anyone. I packed up my very, very small life, jumped in my car and I just started driving. A week went by, I was starting to believe I had imagined it all. That was when I had my first panic attack. There was this roiling, this heat, some kind of power unmistakably emanating out of me… of course I didn’t know what it was exactly, just that disaster and chaos seemed to happen around me when I got upset and panicked. I blew out all four tires on a truck that was driving erratically and tailgating other drivers dangerously close on the freeway.” She let out a long slow breath, she’d never told anyone that story before, it felt kind of nice to get it out. But now she had to see the damage she had done, lifting her gaze from the pulse beating in the side of his throat she met Erik’s solid cobalt blue gaze. No judgement or pity lingered there, just sympathy and…simmering heat. Merda, she did not understand this man.
“Why are you frowning?” He asked, tempted to reach up and steal her glasses.
“Why aren’t you staring down my shirt, talking to my breasts or trying to cop a feel?”
“Are you complaining?”
“No! I’m just trying to figure you out. Why are you being so nice to me?”
“As compared to being what exactly?”
“A jerk.” Cara tried to get up off Erik’s lap but the arm he had around her waist felt like it was made of steel. “You’ve definitely been… less jerky lately. And I want to know what’s going on?” Cara gave up on the futile struggle for freedom but kept her back ramrod straight, she was dangerously close to melting into the heat of his touch.
“Less jerky? Excellent, that was exactly what I was aiming for.” Erik mused, laughter lacing his voice.
Oh no, she could feel the pulse between her legs start to spin and throb as Erik’s deep voice caused shivers to run down her spine. Eek, leaving a mess for Locke Valhalla to clean up was one thing, but destroying his lovely apartment just because she couldn’t control her libido or her powers would be beyond embarrassing. “I want to know what’s going on with you Erik. Hot… cold. Rude… nice. Leering at my breasts… making me mac n cheese.”
Erik smiled. “I surrender.”
“To whom?” Cara looked around confused.
Erik shrugged, his hard muscles flexing and rippling under her touch. “To the universe, to fate, to you.”
“To me? You surrender to me?”
“I give in. Trying to scare you off didn’t work and trying to fight my attraction to you is obviously futile so I’m waving the white flag. Cara Devigne, you win.” He breathed in deeply the scent that was her, leaning forward slightly to nuzzle his nose behind her exceedingly dainty ear. “Do with me what you will.”
Cara was having no problems keeping her body stiff and unyielding in Erik’s arms now. “Are you honestly trying to tell me that you’ve been acting like a… acting like a jerk, to keep me at a distance?”
Hmmm, Erik paused mid-nuzzle, when she said it out loud like that it did sound a rather immature plan. “Um… yes.”
Cara glared at him. “What, like I was going to throw myself at you, tie you up and demand you satisfy me or something?”
Erik found himself grinning, all of what she said sounded highly doable and kind of fun.
“Stop smiling like that.” Cara punched him high in the chest with a closed fist. “Why? Why couldn’t you have just been coolly polite an indifferent like you were with all those women in your art class? Why go the extra mile with me? What makes me so special that you had to pull out all the stops and go the asshole route?”
Erik stopped smiling. “Because none of them were a threat to me like you were. From the moment we first met, that day on the footpath, when I fell off the ladder and you knocked yourself out, I think we both knew… I’m pretty sure that’s why you tried to kill me and haven’t stopped trying ever since.”
“Excuse me?” Cara found strength she didn’t know she had to wrench herself out of Erik’s arms and off his lap. Moving across the room to stand by the kitchen bench, her arms wrapped around her upper body tight. “Are you saying I’ve deliberately been trying to hurt you?”
Erik picked up his wine to take a sip, damn, he liked the high colour in her cheeks and the flash in her sapphire eyes when she was mad. The woman was volatile… passionate. She hid it well under all that camouflage, the modest clothes, the demure shy act but he knew what buttons to press to reveal the real Cara Devigne. “You’ve been fighting your attraction to me just like I’ve been battling mine to you. Though I haven’t been whacking you over the head with wrought iron signs or mega ton hanging pot plants to scare you off.”
Cara shook her head. “I can’t control my powers. They just sort of….” She waved her hands in the air for emphasis. “…boom, disaster, chaos.”
“But you said it yourself, ever since you arrived in Haven Bay your powers are different, and what’s the unifying factor at every event that’s occurred so far?”
“You.” Cara said softly.
“Me.” Erik was still sitting, relaxed, drinking his wine. “When I get too close, when I piss you off, when I make you nervous, excited… jealous.”
“I was not jealous of that bony-assed Saffron and her tofu surprise.” Cara started to pace.
“Not even a little bit?” Erik enquired, a teasing smile lifting the corners of his mouth. “Come on Cara, admit it, you like me. You’re attracted to me. I’ve kissed you remember, twice, your lips don’t lie.”
Cara refused to admit to anything in regards to her feelings on the grounds she might say something to incriminate herself. “Let me get this straight, you acted like a jerk to scare me off, and you think I’ve been sub-consciously trying to… kill you with my powers, to frighten you off?”
“A-huh.” Erik drained the last of his wine.
Cara was shaking her head again. “That makes no sense.”
“We both panicked I guess.” Erik mused. “The moment I saw you… lying there on the pavement. Goddess, it was a bloody strong feeling that swept through me… not just attraction… but rightness. Scared the bejeesus out of me.”
Cara ignored the hot thrill that raced through her body to centre between her legs. “I did not panic.”
“Sure you did. You’d been on the run for eighteen months, alone, you didn’t know who to trust. You’d just learnt that magic was real, and that you could… wield it. That you’re related to a God and that your only living shithead relative
s want you dead because of that connection. The last thing you wanted or needed was a man in your life complicating things even further.” Erik stood up and stretched.
“What are you doing? Where are you going?” Cara studied him wide eyed.
“I’m going to bed… in the guest suite.”
“You’re going to bed? Now?”
He hit her with all these accusations and he was just going to saunter off for a lie down, the man really was beyond infuriating. The stem of her empty wine glass, abandoned on the table, abruptly and for no reason snapped in two.
Erik looked down at it and smiled. “Remind me to get Locke some new wine glasses for Christmas. So, like I said, I’m off to bed… and you’re more than welcome to join me. The next move is up to you Cara.”
“The next move?”
Erik’s cobalt blue eyes twinkled. “As I see it, the only way for the two of us, and this apartment block to survive intact is for you to take full ownership of your feelings, stop running and decide to own your actions… quit panicking about all the what ifs and maybes and just come have some fun… the next move is all yours but I’d really, I’m not sure I can express adequately in words, really like it if you would join me. But you have to be the one to make that decision. Night.”
Cara’s mouth dropped open in shock as she watched Erik saunter out of the kitchen. Honestly, the man really was a first class jerk.
Chapter Seventeen
Fun? Come have some fun!
Cara scowled at her reflection in the bathroom mirror as she brushed her teeth with a guest toothbrush she’d found in a drawer. Damn Erik Valhalla, he made it sound all so easy. He wouldn’t be laughing when the bedroom ceiling collapsed on top of their heads, or something equally dramatic, and probably no doubt highly embarrassing happened.
If her powers went off uncontrollably then the humiliation factor promised to be off the scales. The very idea of her getting naked in front of Erik held untold promise for mortification. He was… those muscles… that chest… those arms, eyes, silky dark chocolate hair, sensuous lips and she was… Cara spat out toothpaste and rinsed her mouth, taking a careful catalogue of her good and bad points.
