Witch Bound totg-2

by Eleri Stone

  Oh, there were still obstacles to overcome, but for tonight, she would just be happy that the first hurdle was out of the way.

  Smiling at her mother as she passed, she walked down the corridor to the ladies’ room. It was quiet down here—the hum of conversation muffled and distant. The exit light above the fire door flickered once, then steadied. She heard the murmur of masculine voices coming from the men’s room a few feet away.

  The ladies’ room was empty. Raquel latched the door to the last stall and nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard Christian’s voice. Slightly muffled with a tinny quality to it, but definitely Christian. She froze for a second in indecision before shrugging and going about her business.

  She wasn’t doing anything wrong. It wasn’t her fault that she could hear Christian’s and then Aiden’s voice even more clearly through the vents in here. Doing her best to block out the sound, she froze with her hand on the latch when she heard her name. Until then, they’d been speaking about Lois, their clan witch, and something to do with checking the wards.

  But what rooted her feet to the tile was when Aiden asked, “Why aren’t you with your bride?”

  “She’s fine. She’s at the table, eating.”

  “Alone?” Even muffled, she could hear the disapproval in the Odin’s tone. He was definitely the Odin now, rebuking one of the members of his hunt. She half wanted to stand on the toilet and rap her knuckles against the vent to defend Christian.

  At least, she did until Christian said, “Back off, Aiden. You know how I feel about this.”

  “I know you wanted out of the contract, but—”

  “But you need your witch,” Christian finished for him. “Regardless of my feelings about the contract, I will honor it. I’ve told you that.”

  “Honor it how?”

  “By binding myself to a girl I met less than three hours ago.”

  “I saw the way she looked at you when she came through the portal. She’s half in love with you already.”

  “She’s in love with an idea and a face. She doesn’t know me.”

  Raquel winced and stared at the brown-and-tan pattern on the tile as Aiden continued. “She had as little choice in this as you, remember that. It’s up to both of you to make this work.”

  “I know my duty,” Christian said. There was a twist to the last word that made her heart ache. “You sure as hell don’t need to remind me of that.”

  There was a pause and Raquel could hear water pass through the pipes behind the wall that separated them. Aiden’s voice dropped low enough that she couldn’t hear his next words, but Christian’s response was crystal clear.

  “Look, the clan needs a witch and I’m giving you a witch. I won’t hurt her feelings if I can help it. Raquel, her family, the rest of the town can dress this up in satin and roses, but when it comes down to it, it’s about a contract I never signed. It’s about duty. Let’s not pretend any differently.”

  Feeling light-headed, Raquel was aware she was holding her breath but couldn’t seem to force her lungs to draw air. The door opened and swung closed. She listened to Christian’s footsteps pass down the corridor and then Aiden’s.

  “Damn,” she whispered, dropping her fist to the cool metal door and resting her forehead against it. “Damn.”

  Chapter Two

  Christian’s bride was a little mouse. Dark blond hair with a hint of red. Pale blue eyes. Fair, freckled skin. A hunted look to her. He wondered what had put that expression on her face. Not Christian, that was for damn sure. Everyone else, Christian hunted. This one he was treating as if she was made of porcelain—hovering at her side at the receiving line, which Fen had avoided, then placing her on that raised dais at the main table. She was younger than he’d expected. Oh, the contract demanded she be twenty-five at the time of the joining but she seemed younger than that, more innocent. Vulnerable.

  “Christian will eat her alive,” he said to Grace, hooking the chair beside her with his foot and nudging it aside so he could set his plate down.

  Grace barely glanced his way. “She seemed so happy earlier. I want to know what happened.”

  “Are your Spidey senses tingling?”

  This time she glared at him. That was a Norn for you, couldn’t take a joke. “Aiden sees it too.”

  “Oh, well if Aiden sees it, then it must be so. As sensitive as the head of a hammer, our Odin.”

  Her eyes softened. “He has his moments.”

  Fen shifted his attention to his meal. Personally, he much preferred arranged marriages to the love matches. He didn’t know if he could handle another pair like the Odin and his new wife. As much as he liked Aiden and Grace as individuals, it was...painful to be around them when they were together.

  Grace sighed and sipped at her coffee. “It’s probably nothing. I can’t imagine what it must be like to not meet the man you’re promised to marry until only a few weeks before the wedding. I’d be a wreck too.” She shot him a sharp look. “I can’t believe you people still arrange marriages.”

  He held up his fork. “Us people? You’re one of us now, lady, and this was not my idea. I was three years old when this deal was done.”

  She didn’t argue. Arranged marriages were sometimes a necessity for the Æsir. Trust in clan, magic and the gods. But...there was a lot of distance between the gods’ will and the reality of Midgard. Their clan only had one living witch powerful enough to deserve the title, Lois. Usually the clan magic would provide them with the appropriate replacement to keep the clan functioning but every once in a while, they were short. Who knew why? Maybe their intended witch had turned runner or died young. Whatever the reason, if it was an important role, the clan needed to look elsewhere to fill it.

  Colorado already had a young witch but needed a healer. The Norns were consulted. They identified a compatible match, and the prophecy was recorded. All of the contracts were drawn up and signed before the woman sitting next to Christian was even born. Voila, instant bride. Fen, for one, appreciated the simplicity of it. It was, after all, far better than the dilemma his kind faced. He would have embraced an arranged marriage, but no one was willing to curse their daughter by promising her to a hound.

  And it was stupid to ponder such things in the presence of his psychic friend whose Spidey senses were very definitely tingling now as she watched him with those big brown eyes practically oozing with sympathy.

  “Do you think that’ll ever be you up there?”

  He set his sandwich down and took a long pull from the bottle of beer before setting it aside. “You can ask me that?”

  “Some things are worth the risk,” she said quietly.

  He reminded himself that she wasn’t being purposefully cruel. She hadn’t been raised clan and had lived here for less than two years. So he forced a smile. “It’s not for me, Grace. You know, always a bridesmaid...”

  She didn’t buy it, but she played along and settled back in her chair to pick Christian apart instead. “Has he said anything to you?”

  “About her? No. He’s mentioned her maybe a half-dozen times in the last twenty years. He’s not going to run if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “There’s been speculation.”

  “From people who don’t know him as well as they should. They think he’s unreliable because he dates a lot of women.” Fen grinned when her eyebrows shot up at his overly diplomatic description. “Okay...because he’s screwed every single woman in town. But all of those women knew about this. If any of them were stupid enough to think they had a chance of holding him, they’d have deserved the dishonorable bastard they ended up with.”

  Grace’s lips twitched. “So Christian’s not a dishonorable bastard.”

  “He’s not dishonorable. If his parents ever did anything as impulsive as screwing before marriage, then I’m a jötunn. Duty has always been everything to him. The most important thing.”

  Grace didn’t look entirely convinced, and he tried to think of a way to make her understand. It
would be a disaster if she took it into her head to meddle in this. Christian would be furious and poor Aiden would have to step in to restore the peace, which would suck because if Grace interfered, she would be the one disciplined.

  “You’d have to have known Christian’s parents,” he said. “Especially his father. Alan Jager was a rigid son of a bitch, but he was also the kind of man you couldn’t help but respect. He wasn’t pretending to be good. He was good. And he expected everyone else to be able to live the same way, particularly his son. Christian has that same sense of honor but without all the self-righteousness that went with it.”

  “Do you think he likes her?”

  He looked at her askance. How the hell should he know? Christian probably didn’t know that yet. “What difference does it make?”

  Grace rolled her eyes so hard, it was a wonder they didn’t pop from their sockets and go bouncing along the floor. “That’s the exact same thing Aiden said.”

  He took another swig of his beer. “Well, there you go.”

  No wonder Aiden was off working the room. Fen loved Grace to death, but she was like a terrier with a rat when she hooked her teeth into something that bugged her. It made her a fine private investigator, but he had no interest in psychoanalyzing his friends. His gaze swept the room, seeing who was there, checking for escape routes. Neat rows of tables, folding chairs of metal and white plastic, most of them filled. Grace and Aiden were feeding the whole town.

  Apparently, Fen was the only hound who’d showed. Crowds were often difficult for them, at least when they were expected to behave, wait in orderly lines and sit quietly, make small talk with the normal people in town. He was happy for Christian, but he hated these things. He’d rather be at McGuire’s or home on his laptop finishing up that design he’d had to abandon the other night for the hunt. Work. Chasing demons. Staring at his navel while he pondered the mysteries of the universe. Plenty of things he’d rather be doing than sitting here watching the town prepare for another wedding. His knee tapped the bottom of the table, making it shake. Grace gave him a funny look and he forced himself still.

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” he told Grace, giving her a quick peck to the cheek to make her stop scowling. A breath of air. Then he’d make another half hour before taking off. He was the best man. He couldn’t leave quite yet. “Don’t worry so much. I haven’t met a woman yet that Christian wasn’t able to charm the pants off.”

  She didn’t look remotely reassured by that, but he didn’t pause to address it. The best thing they could all do for Christian and his little mouse was to give them space to get to know each other. He slid through the crowd, avoiding Lois and her coven of hedge witches along the back wall. Elin, one of their twin pair of counselor crows, was arguing with Aiden in the hallway and he gave them a wide berth too. No way was he getting sucked into that argument, especially not when he saw Christian get up from the head table to walk toward them. Sometime while Fen had been talking to Grace, the mouse had disappeared. Grace was right. Christian’s bride hadn’t looked happy. Something had happened to upset her. There was more of a chance that she’d back out than Christian, if he didn’t miss his guess.

  Again. It wasn’t his problem.

  Pushing open the metal door, he almost whimpered in relief when the cold, fresh air washed over him. The door closed with a heavy clank, muffling the noise battering his eardrums. The smell of food and bodies cleared from his nose. His eyes quickly adjusted to the lack of light. The heightened senses that came with being a hound were a bitch sometimes, especially in closed spaces. Outside, in the cool, quiet dark, it was another story.

  Hunching his shoulders against the chill air, he made his way around the corner in case anybody came out to smoke and wanted to chat. Once there, he leaned against the brick and looked up, feeling some of the tension ease from his body.

  Nothing like a November sky in Iowa, when the weather was cold and cloudless and the moon wasn’t up yet. There was no light on this side of the building at the edge of town, just a field stretching out toward the lake, grass weighted down by frost. He could shift and run. If anyone even noticed that he left the party, they wouldn’t comment. For the most part, they understood his trouble with crowds and made allowances.

  The water wasn’t frozen yet. The night after a hunt was usually the quietest. Animals were still spooked and everyone else was too exhausted from the ride to be out wandering. He could be alone.

  A soft noise brought his attention back to his surroundings. Like a sigh or a whisper just out of hearing. He’d have thought it the wind if it hadn’t gone still just at that moment.

  The Dumpster was a few feet away, set on a concrete slab at the corner of the back lot, and he took a cautious step in that direction. Could be a raccoon or cat, but the noise didn’t sound like the furtive nocturnal scratching of a scavenger. He inhaled deeply, but the garbage messed with his sense of smell. It came again, this time followed by an obvious and very human sniffle. Someone was crying.

  Fuck. He froze, almost to the Dumpster. He could head back inside. Just—

  “I know you’re there.”

  He closed his eyes and considered pretending that he hadn’t heard her speak. But she was a member of his clan now, about to marry his best friend. It would be cowardly to turn away.

  “Christian?”

  Of all the luck... He dragged in a deep breath. “No. Not Christian.”

  “Oh?” He wouldn’t have thought it possible, but she actually sounded more miserable. “Sorry then. Just pretend I’m not here.”

  Yeah, right.

  He crossed the remaining distance. Red, rust-spotted and smelling of old food, the Dumpster created a shelter from the wind. The mouse sat on the curb with her arms wrapped around her legs and her chin on her knees. He was wrong. She wasn’t sniffling because she was crying. She was sniffling because it was twenty degrees outside, and she wasn’t wearing a coat. Pretty little idiot.

  “Someone from Colorado really ought to know better.” When she gave him a questioning look, he said, “You’ll freeze out here without a coat.”

  “I’m fine.”

  No. Clearly, she wasn’t. “I’m Fen.”

  She squinted. He realized that she wouldn’t be able to see him well in the dark with the light behind him, so he stepped down from the curb.

  “You’re the best man.” She didn’t sound particularly pleased to be making his acquaintance. Under the circumstances, he didn’t blame her. “Christian pointed you out when you skipped the receiving line. If you wanted to say hello, why didn’t you do it then?”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not stalking you, if that’s what you mean. I don’t like lines...or crowds.” He sat down and stretched his legs out in front of him. The cold in the cement seeped right through his jeans. “Which is what I’m doing out here.”

  He let it hang there as an invitation to explain what was up if she wanted to. She didn’t, just nodded as if this was the most natural thing in the world, them meeting out here behind the Dumpster. “I’m Raquel.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  He gave her a moment to figure out what she was going to tell him. “Is he looking for me?”

  “I don’t think so. When I came out, he was about to dive into an argument between one of the crows and the Odin.”

  Her eyes widened. “Why on earth would he do that?”

  “Beats the hell out of me.”

  “They weren’t...” Gravel scraped as she shifted. “They weren’t arguing about the wedding were they?”

  “Why? Are you looking for a way out?”

  “No.” But she stared down at the cement when she said it.

  Fen paused. What the hell had Christian done to put that look on her face? Unlike him to be so clumsy, especially where a beautiful woman was concerned. Fen couldn’t talk to her about that, even if he wanted to, but Aiden and Elin’s disagreement...well, that was fair game. She’d find out the reason behind it soon enough anyway, and maybe it
would distract her from her nerves or whatever this was.

  “My best guess is they were arguing about the rogue surges we’ve been having and Christian went over to shut them up until he had a chance to talk to you.”

  “Rogue surges?” She lifted her head from her knees and focused on him. The way she tilted her head suggested intelligence. The way she leaned ever so slightly forward said she was Æsir after all.

  “Last month we had a surge two days before first quarter. The twins wanted to get to the bottom of that before everyone got caught up with the wedding.”

  “I’ve never heard of a surge occurring so close to a quarter.”

  “Our fault’s been unpredictable. The elders say it’s normal fluctuation, but that last one was too strange for even them to ignore. Rane wants to cross over to see if something on the other side’s destabilizing the fault and Aiden won’t let her go.”

  “She would do that—cross into Asgard by herself?”

  Raquel wanted to cross, he could see it in her eyes—a very unmouselike expression of fascination and daring. Oh, there was fear there too, but it was a clean fear unlike the one she’d been wrestling with here behind the Dumpster. “It’s not nearly as exciting as it sounds.”

  “I bet it is—terrifying and exciting. You’ve been there.”

  Not a question, but he nodded anyway. “When Aiden’s daughter was taken. You heard about that?”

  “We heard rumors. That Hallie was taken by demons. That your hunt crossed into Asgard and rescued her even though she’d been missing more than a year.”

  “Time passes differently there. It was only a few days for her—thank the gods.”

  “I guess your Odin wouldn’t be too eager to spread the word about that to the clans. A lot of people would call it reckless.”

  “Are you one of them?”

  Raquel shook her head. “If my daughter was trapped in Asgard, I’d have done the same thing. Just think—you’re the first Æsir to make that crossing in centuries.”

  “It wasn’t a glorious adventure. It was a rescue mission—fast and dirty and bloody.”