Dark Deceit

by Lauren Dawes

  Flicking on the light, he dropped his eyes to the ground, searching for the ash box her cloak would have been in. There were shelves stuffed with clothes and shoes, but no box. His gaze drifted up. There. Putting his feet onto a lower shelf, he boosted himself up and dragged the small wooden crate toward him.

  Inside, the white swan feathers gleamed.

  With a smile curling his lips, Loki took his prize back to the Valkyrie in the living room. He kicked her awake, her eyes cracking wide, her breath sucked in on a hiss. Her glassy eyes blinked, trying to focus. The drug was running through her blood, holding her hostage in her own body. Making soft mewling sounds at the back of her throat, the woman tried to move.

  Crouching down, balancing on the balls of his feet, Loki stroked some of the blonde hair from her face and placed a finger over her mouth. ‘Shh. You’ll wake the neighbours.’ Loki’s fingertips dragged to the open skin over her brow. Her eyes watered, her breathing became rapid and irregular.

  Her blood had run into her hair from the cut, cruor decorating the strands like red droplets of water. He could tell she wanted to move away, but the drug held her still.

  Dragging the box closer, he opened it and reached inside. His bloody fingers smudged the feathers as he took the cloak out and looked it over. The Valkyrie’s pitiful protests were the perfect soundtrack as Loki fingered one of the feathers, running it through his fingers softly. If he listened closely, he could hear the soft rasp against his skin.

  He tugged at the feather, pulling it free, watching with morbid delight as the Valkyrie’s skin turned grey. Her body convulsed uncontrollably, doubled-over. In his hands, the cloak wept crimson tears. A well of blood formed where the feather had been plucked, quickly running into a steady stream dropping to the floor with a soft tap, tap, tap.

  The blood polluted the surrounding feathers, turning them pink. When the Valkyrie stopped shuddering, Loki took another feather in between his thumb and index fingers and repeated the action.

  The drug must have been wearing off because she screamed that time. It was wordless, but no less satisfying. Fresh blood welled and joined the steady stream from the cloak. A grin pulled up one corner of his mouth, watching as the blood dripped down his hand, his wrist, his forearm. The scent of her pain flooded the room, the smell of her impending death an even stronger bouquet.

  Two down. Eight to go.

  And Odin was going to get a surprise in the morning.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Today is my eighteenth birthday. My parents have been avoiding my eyes since I opened my first gift; an ash tree pendent. I don’t even know who gave it to me.

  *

  Eir had finished her shift at Massachusetts General Hospital aching and stiff. Working for nearly twenty-eight hours straight in Emergency took it out of her, but she wouldn’t have traded it for anything in the world. Besides, she wasn’t really doing that much—the doctors did more, worked harder. And she was used to it.

  Her natural proclivity to heal had helped her through the years of study, study she had to regularly retrain in. Before modern medicine, a cold could kill someone. Now, there were drugs to help with everything—even the fight against cancer.

  Eir flexed her hands, feeling them still tingling from overuse. Her palms would be sensitive for the next twelve hours or so until she’d healed herself. It was funny how that worked—she could help people to regulate their breathing, or improve their circulation just by laying her hands on them and they would improve almost instantly, but it would always take her longer to heal herself.

  ‘See you tomorrow, Eir!’ Stacy the receptionist called as Eir waved her goodbyes. The double glass doors slid open, a rush of cold air greeting her. She could have faded straight home, but she found the fresh air helped her heal a little faster. Turning left out of the doors, she started walking back toward her house in Beacon Hill.

  Inside the small pocket of her bag, her phone started to ring. She fished it out and held it to her ear with her shoulder. ‘Bryn?’

  ‘Hi Eir. How are you?’

  She checked for traffic before stepping out into the road—even as sparse as it was at this time, there were still idiots driving around. ‘I’m good. How are you?’

  ‘Good.’

  Silence.

  ‘Is something wrong? Has somebody been hurt?’ She glanced at her watch. ‘I’m just leaving work now, I can be at the club in a minute.’

  ‘No, it’s not that. I just wanted to check in on you, see how you’re going.’

  ‘I’m busy with work, but everything else is fine.’

  More silence.

  Bryn never called without good reason. Eir was on Grove walking toward Myrtle, the hush of her soft-soled shoes barely making a sound on the pavement. She drew her purse strap closer up her shoulder. She didn’t have to worry about people mugging her in this neighborhood, but when she glanced up and noticed a huge man propped up against the side of a house, she decided to cross to the other side of the road just in case.

  She glanced back over her shoulder, horrified to see the man had disappeared. The hairs at the back of her neck prickled. She picked up the pace, still holding the phone to her ear. ‘Look, Bryn, I’m sorry, but I have to go. I’m walking home.’

  ‘Fade home now. Call me when you get in so I know you made it back safely.’

  That was an odd request from Bryn. ‘Is something going on?’

  ‘It’s nothing. Call me when you get in.’ The line died. Eir slipped her phone back into its pocket, momentarily taking her eyes off what was going on in front of her.

  As she looked back up, she yelped, slapping her hand against her neck. It felt like she’d just been stung by something, but that was impossible. There weren’t any insects around at night to sting her. Her skin suddenly felt very warm even with the night’s cool caress of the soon-to-be-arriving fall.

  She walked a few more steps until she lost mobility in her limbs, staggering, listing to one side, and catching herself on the side of a building. Her breath began to falter, feeling like she was dragging mud into her lungs. Her head began to swim, her vision coming in and out of focus. Eir tried to fade back to her house, but nothing happened.

  She slumped down onto the ground, her eyelids feeling heavy. A shadow obscured her vision. She sensed it was a man, and he wasn’t human. He crouched down in front of her, two fingers sliding along the side of her neck, feeling for her pulse.

  The world slipped out of focus and she was dumped into a black abyss.

  * * *

  Korvain watched as the Valkyrie passed him. As soon as she’d caught sight of him, her fear began to leak out of her. Crossing the street to distance herself, Korvain pulled the shadows in more tightly, disappearing from view. She glanced over her shoulder to see where he was. She should have been relieved, but he could still smell fear wafting behind her.

  That had to be Eir. He could smell the thick cloying scent of antiseptic on her as she’d passed, and her eyes were unmistakably Valkyrie. Bryn had noted on the list that she was their healer.

  Muffling his footsteps with the shadows, he followed her. She still had her phone pressed to her ear, and Korvain wanted nothing more than for her to fade back to her place instead of doing the social thing.

  ‘Look, Bryn, I’m sorry but I have to go. I’m walking home,’ she said into the phone. A pause punctuated the call before she asked, ‘Is something going on?’ A moment later she hung up and put the phone back in her bag.

  A man appeared from the shadowed doorway of one of the houses when her head was down, stepping out and falling into step behind her, unnoticed. The man raised his arm and struck at her neck. Korvain was too far away to intervene in time.

  She struggled on for a few more steps before collapsing against a red-brick house with black shutters beside the windows. The man crouched down to take her pulse, an empty syringe in his hand. She barely moved as he slid his arms under her legs. Korvain kicked into motion, his long stride eating up the gro
und.

  ‘Hey,’ he yelled, much louder than normal. The man’s head jerked up and around. ‘Get away from her,’ Korvain rumbled. The man’s eyes narrowed, his pale jade eyes glowing. He stood up, their eyes meeting on the same level before his skimmed down Korvain’s body in assessment.

  ‘Stay out of this, morier,’ the man spat. Korvain fucking hated that name, but it also told him two things. First, the fucker knew he was a Walker, and the second, and more important thing, was that he was also a god.

  Korvain pulled his karambit from the shoulder harness. Securing it with his index finger, he stylistically twirled it in his hand before positioning the blade down against his palm, ready. ‘I said leave her alone.’

  The guy smiled and immediately pulled a gun on him, training it at his chest. ‘I’d like to see you make me.’

  Korvain closed the distance immediately, quickly positioning himself just outside the weapon in his hand and close to the god. The other male tried to track his movements with the muzzle of the gun, but Korvain had already hooked the double-edged, talon-shaped blade under and around the guard, cutting his trigger finger.

  The bastard jerked, a loud hiss escaping his lips. Ignoring the tang of blood in the air, Korvain continued his maneuver; his actions fluid, graceful. He trapped the gun against his chest, twisting to release it from the grasp of the god.

  The man squeezed his injured palm into a tight fist, an angry growl vibrating out from between his tightly-pressed lips. Driven by anger and desperation, he lunged toward Korvain’s hand. Korvain circumvented the movement, repositioning himself to drive a sharp knee into the man’s thigh. Howling in pain, he bent over, giving Korvain the opportunity to strike toward the god’s chin with his karambit.

  Blood instantly welled, looking black in the night. Hooking the blade back into the crook of the male’s elbow, Korvain forced the limb to bend inwards and up. The god snarled at him, his eyes glowing.

  Realizing his disadvantage, the god faded from Korvain’s grip even though it shouldn’t have been possible. Korvain looked around, turning when he sensed the other male behind him.

  The gun was wrenched from his grip suddenly, the butt smashing into his head, breaking open the skin above his eye. Korvain grunted, trying to wipe blood away from his eyes with the back of his hand. When he could see again, he swiped at the god again, aiming to cut open his belly.

  There was a pop as he lunged, the coward faded out of reach, but not before slamming his foot into Korvain’s kneecap. His teeth ground together—enamel on enamel. He roared out loud, the blood pounding in his ears, but kept his weapon ready in front of him.

  Silence reigned in the quiet night street, except for the steady breathing of the Valkyrie as she felt the effects of whatever the god had injected into her body. Korvain’s chest was heaving. Blood flowed more freely from the cut above his eye, and his knee screamed each time he put any pressure on it, but at least the girl was safe.

  Staying alert and focused for a few moments more, Korvain finally decided to extract her from the street, and get her to a safe place before the god returned.

  He picked her up carefully, ignoring the pain that shot up his limb. Blood pattered slowly from his hairline, trailing down his forehead, over his eye and along his cheek. It dripped on the Valkyrie in his arms, but there was nothing he could do about it.

  He couldn’t fade with the weight, which left him only one option. Korvain wrapped the shadows around him and the woman in his arms, and started in the direction of the club.

  The sun was beginning to lighten the sky when he finally made it there, the last of his shrouding shadows dripping away with the new day. Eir had started to come around while he’d been walking, mumbling in the drug haze, pushing against his chest. He held her closer, softly murmuring into her ear to calm her down. It had worked for a while, but she was starting to throw off the effects of whatever had been forced into her body and was getting restless.

  Propping her up on her feet, Korvain wrapped his arm around her waist, and began pounding on the back door. He looked up into the camera installed there, and the door clicked open, leaving Korvain to usher the injured Valkyrie inside.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Bryn was in her office, working through some of the invoices that kept coming in even though the club had been closed for three days already. She couldn’t afford to let it continue that way, but she wasn’t ready to face reality yet.

  Her head jerked up when she heard what sounded like a sledge hammer going to work on the back door of the club. Glancing at the monitor to her right, she saw Korvain standing there, looking up at the camera. There was a shape beside him, but she couldn’t make out what it was.

  Bryn buzzed him in and got up from behind her desk, stretching. When she made it out into the hallway, Korvain was holding the door open with his foot and carefully bringing in the shape she’d seen. There was a feminine moan and Bryn ran down the rest of the hallway.

  Eir was limp in his arms, just barely holding onto consciousness. Fuck, what had happened? She’d only spoken to her about a half an hour earlier.

  ‘Korvain, what happened?’ she demanded, feeling for Eir’s pulse. It was weak and thready. She looked into his dark eyes and felt him roll over her body like a giant heated wave. Her body flushed, drowning in the heat his body radiated. Eir moaned again, breaking the connection between them.

  ‘Gods, take her upstairs so we can look her over.’

  Korvain’s muscular shoulders spanned the width of the hallway as he motioned for her to open the door leading to the stairs of the upper levels. She shook her head. ‘Can’t get to the apartments that way. Take the elevator at the end of the hall.’ She led the way past her office door and around a corner. The elevator was only designed to hold two people at a time, and Korvain took up that quota with his height and width alone. He still hadn’t let go of Eir who was tucked up closely to his chest.

  When the doors slammed shut, all Bryn could smell was him; all masculine spices and the faintest hint of cologne. But the scent of blood ruined the effects of his presence. Her eyes drifted down to Eir looking so small in his arms.

  ‘What happened to her?’ she asked, distracting herself from how closely they were standing.

  ‘I was following her home. A man came out of nowhere and injected her with something. I don’t know what. He was going to take her somewhere. I fought him off.’

  For the first time, she noticed the blood oozing down his face. How had she missed that? ‘Did you get hurt?’

  ‘Nothing I can’t handle,’ he replied in a rumbling voice that vibrated through her body and into the marrow in her bones. The elevator lurched to a stop, the doors opening with a soft ping.

  ‘Follow me.’ Bryn stepped out of the elevator and led him to her apartment, feeling a little leery about having Korvain in there. She never brought anyone up there.

  Bryn opened the door wide and ushered them in. ‘Put Eir on the couch.’ As he did that, she set about collecting supplies to clean up Korvain while whatever was in Eir’s system wore off.

  ‘Do you know what she was stuck with?’

  Korvain shook his head, not meeting her eyes. ‘I should probably go.’ He moved toward the door, but Bryn jumped in front of him. Like Hel she was just going to let him walk out of there looking like he did.

  ‘No, you’re not. Sit down.’ He side-stepped her, but she matched it, blocking his way again. ‘Sit. Down,’ she snapped in a tone brooking no argument.

  He finally looked at her. His dark eyes were bottomless. Bryn felt like she could trip and fall into them and never touch the bottom. ‘I’m fine,’ he ground out.

  She saw his fangs for a second. It was unusual to see a half-breed with such large incisors. ‘Well that’s great. But I’m not letting you leave without cleaning you up first.’

  His eyes narrowed and she suddenly felt cold. The moment passed with Korvain turning his huge body around and stalking toward one of the chairs at her small dining
room set.

  He slumped down into the thing like he was completely and utterly exhausted and looked over at Eir. Bryn pulled up a chair and sat in front of him. She couldn’t get close enough with his legs in the way. Being forced to stand up, she loaded a sterile pad with saline and leaned into his body, her legs within the confines of his huge thighs.

  She heard his breath catch in his throat, but she ignored the sound. The cut above his eye was deep, but thankfully it had stopped bleeding. He wouldn’t need to have stitches if his body kept on healing him. His eyes slid shut as she worked.

  His hair was both rough and soft against her palm as she cleaned the wound right on his hair line. ‘What made the cut?’

  ‘The butt of a gun.’

  Ouch. ‘Did you repay the favor?’

  His eyes opened slowly. ‘Yeah.’ She focused again, soaking the wound with saline. He hissed.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he rumbled. She had to lean in a little closer to see if she’d gotten all the blood, but as she did, his huge chest lifted beneath her body then shuddered as he let the breath go.

  Bryn turned to go when Korvain’s hands landed on her hips. They were only resting there gently; there was nothing possessive about it. He looked at her, liquid onyx eyes asking for permission. She stepped back and his hands fell away from her body, hanging at his sides.

  ‘It’s clean enough.’ She cleared her throat, her eyes falling to the ground because she just couldn’t look at him right then. That was when she noticed the small pool of blood on the tile beside the chair leg. It was dripping from the inside of Korvain’s sleeve.

  ‘Take your jacket off,’ she demanded, rifling through the first aid kit again for more gauze. ‘And your shirt.’