Dark Deceit

by Lauren Dawes

  Cursing, she bent down to pick it up, but ended up getting real close and personal with the carpet instead. The rest of her body tumbled after her, leaving her in a heap. The pile scratched the side of her face, but her limbs felt so heavy she couldn’t move no matter how hard she tried. The only saving grace would be that Eir was just in her room and would have heard the noise.

  ‘Bryn?’

  And right on cue.

  ‘Eir.’ Gods, was that her voice? She sounded as if she’d drunk ten bottles of vodka instead of one. ‘Help...me.’ The words dribbled out of her mouth, spilling out onto the floor with her.

  Softly tread footsteps whispered across the floor. Eir’s angelic face dropped into view. ‘I’m sorry I had to do that to you, Bryn, but you really left me with no choice. I can’t let you exchange yourself for my twin.’

  And with that, she stood up and retreated from her view. Bryn tried to scream at her to come back, but Eir was gone.

  Bryn tried to fight against whatever Eir had slipped into her drink, but her mind was thick like trying to wade through mud. She could feel the pull of sleep, the weighing down of her body and mind. She tried to rebel, but the drug washed over her completely.

  Bryn’s eyes slid shut while her mind screamed out for help. Eir was going to die right alongside Kristy now, and Bryn was powerless to stop it.

  * * *

  Eir pulled Bryn’s bedroom door closed and rested her forehead against the cool wood. Bryn had passed out a lot faster than she’d thought, leaving Eir to drag her limp body into her bedroom. Somehow she had managed to get her into her bed, too, although how she couldn’t say.

  Eir couldn’t stop shaking. As a healer and nurse, she understood the why of it, yet couldn’t stop it. The combination of adrenalin and fear shot through her body, hobbling her. She snuck out the back door of the club, propping a loose brick in the jamb to keep it ajar.

  The hotel Loki had mentioned was only a block away from Mass Gen. She had even been to a conference or two there, so she knew the layout well enough to fade directly there.

  Thinking the thought, she rematerialized in the underground parking garage attached to the hotel. Her body was still shaking. Taking a moment to collect herself, she pressed the side of her body up against the cold concrete garage wall.

  Across her shoulder was a fabric tote bag holding the ash box containing her cloak. She shifted it around onto the other shoulder to avoid getting gouged in her ribs. She sucked in a few deep, cleansing breaths to steady her already shot nerves.

  She could do this.

  She had to do this.

  Lifting her chin, she strode forward toward the entry, stepping directly into the lobby of the hotel from the garage. Her soft-soled shoes barely registered on the grey and white granite tiles covering the lobby’s floor. The dark wood registration counters took up one length of wall, while an almost oriental-style blocked wall partitioned the other half into a lounge.

  There were a few couples sitting together, wine glasses in their hands, quiet chatter filling the space with an unusually calming melody. She turned her body around in a tight circle, her eyes always scanning for the Aesirean god who held her sister captive.

  A strong hand settled around the base of her neck, the fingers tightening. Eir stiffened and tried to step away. ‘Shh, don’t make a scene,’ a male voice warned.

  With a tremble in her lips, she looked over her shoulder at Loki. She had only seen him once or twice before, and always from a distance. Odin had never wanted any of them to associate with him.

  Having him this close, she noted the feral look in his eyes. She had seen that look many times before when mentally unstable people were admitted to the hospital for a variety of reasons from self-harm or actual harm to others.

  His responding smile skewed his face, cutting it in half with a sinister cast. ‘Remind me again of your name, elskling.’

  She shivered at the familiar term. ‘I’m not your darling,’ she spat back at him, unsure of where the fire had come from.

  Something sharp bit into the small of her back causing pain to sear through her. ‘Your name, Valkyrie,’ Loki hissed, his fingernails digging into the delicate skin of her neck.

  ‘Eir.’ Gods, she felt light-headed. She weaved on her feet, but a strong hand around her waist stopped her from colliding with the nearby wall. She was vaguely aware that people were staring at her—not Loki—her.

  Lifting her head was laborious, but she managed it. She blinked, seeing double. Loki’s almost harmless sounding laugh rang in her ears.

  ‘My wife,’ he announced, throwing one of her arms across his shoulders, or at least tried to. Loki was nearly six inches taller than her six feet two. One of his shoulders dropped to pull her up, the hand on her wrist squeezing tight.

  ‘What...have...you...’ she slurred.

  ‘Shut your mouth,’ he hissed under his breath. ‘She’s simply had too much to drink.’ He raised his voice to say the second part of the sentence so his voice would carry across the busy foyer. ‘Let’s get you to bed.’ Loki announced happily, loudly—too loudly. His words seemed to bang around in her skull. She winced.

  With his other arm securely wrapped around Eir’s waist, he dragged her toward the bank of elevators. The tiles gave way to thick red carpets that hindered their movements even more. At least he couldn’t fade with her. Their combined weights would have been too much.

  They paused and the next thing she knew, she felt the familiar vibrations of travelling with just a thought. The room they appeared in looked well lived in. It smelled like it was well lived in, too.

  Eir’s head rolled on top of her shoulders like an unhinged gate, but she got her eyes focused enough to take in the rumpled comforter, the trays of food with dulling stainless steel covers on them.

  ‘Where’s...my...’

  ‘Sister?’ Loki asked, dropped her sideways onto the bed. Her tote was on the side of her body that hit the bed. It should have hurt when she landed on it, but strangely her body felt numb. She had felt this before.

  ‘What...drug...’ The words were formed in her head, but her mouth, tongue and lips didn’t want to make the leap from there. Whatever he had injected into her body was working quickly.

  Loki’s face was suddenly all she could see. ‘Your sister is in the bathroom and heroin.’

  Eir’s eyes widened, causing a smile to form on Loki’s lips. He disappeared again, but Eir watched his shadows move around the room.

  ‘Now,’ he said, rolling her over onto her back. He snatched the tote from her shoulder and flung it onto the floor. ‘Where’s Bryn? Did she think sending you in instead would be enough?’ As he talked, he took a rope and bound her hands and ankles.

  When Eir kept her mouth shut, more out of necessity than will, he frowned. ‘It doesn’t matter. I was going to kill your sister anyway. Now, I get two Valkyries to kill in front of Bryn.’

  Eir’s chest squeezed tight at the revelation. Not only had she damned her sister’s life, but hers as well, and if Bryn did come—which of course she would—her life, too. Tears stung the corners of her eyes, gliding down her temples and soaking the messy sheets beneath her.

  She had condemned them all.

  Eir blinked up at the ceiling fixture, her lids getting heavier. She blinked more rapidly, hoping to fight off the feeling, but that only made it worse. She was lying out on a beach with the tide coming in.

  Waves of darkness lapped at her feet, her calves, her hips.

  Eventually the waves would take over and crush her. She blinked again, her eyelids taking forever to flip back open. She tried to remain lucid, in control, but she could not win this battle.

  The darkness finally swamped her and dragged her into the undertow.

  Chapter Thirty

  I took off my ash-tree pendant today. Odin had given it to me on my eighteenth birthday. I don’t want to have anything to do with him anymore.

  *

  Korvain had a plan. Granted, it was not a
very good one, but it was a plan all the same. He’d come to the conclusion that no matter how much Bryn pushed him away, he would push back. Thinking she could take on Loki alone was insane. He’d seen firsthand how powerful the god was. If she thought she could defeat him without getting help from anyone else, she was delusional.

  So here he was at the club, a crazy look in his eye that had everything to do with wanting to protect his woman. He wouldn’t let her walk into the trap with her eyes closed so tightly. He just hoped he wasn’t too late, that she hadn’t received the phone call telling her exactly where the exchange was going to happen.

  He approached the rear door carefully, his eyes always swivelling around for danger. He was well cloaked with shadows, but he never let his guard down.

  Ever.

  He was prepared to threaten his way inside, but when he arrived, there was a chunk of brick holding the door ajar. Kicking it away, he slid inside and shut the door firmly behind himself. The hallway was a tight squeeze for him, but he made his way down to the elevator and hit the dimly lit button on the side.

  As he rode it up, he went through all the arguments he’d prepared to fight Bryn with. He was going to appeal to her intense loyalty to her Valkyries, tell her that if she somehow got herself killed, there would be no one to look after the club and the other women.

  He rubbed at his chest, aching with the thought of Bryn getting killed. He didn’t like it. Not one bit. He would fight for his woman into the deepest bowels of Niflheim if he had to.

  The doors opened slowly onto the hallway that held half a dozen doors. Korvain moved to Bryn’s and tried the handle. It was also unlocked. Slipping inside, he scanned the immediate area for anything unusual. Bryn’s delicate scent was everywhere in the room, and he took just a second to breathe her in, hold her in his lungs before getting down to work.

  He stalked toward her room knowing that that was where her cloak would have been. He let out a breath and cracked open the door. He could see Bryn on the bed, her back to him. Her breathing was deep and even.

  Even if she was deeply asleep, Korvain wrapped more shadows around his body, padding his steel-toed boots so he made absolutely no sound whatsoever.

  Walking over to her closet, he pulled open the door and began looking over the shelves and racks. His plan was to steal Bryn’s cloak away from her so she wouldn’t be able to go to the exchange. A mature approach? Probably not, but there was no way in Hel he was going to let her go without him there to protect her.

  So. Yeah. He’d turned into a caveman.

  Whatever.

  Korvain started pushing the clothes hanging on the racks around, first wrapping them with the shadows swamping the small space. He couldn’t chance Bryn waking up while he was stealing her most treasured possession.

  He searched her closet for near on a quarter of an hour and found absolutely nothing. Frustrated, he turned back to the room and scanned the furniture. Bryn seemed to take the idea of Spartan living to the extreme. The only furniture she had in the room was a bed, a dresser and a long cheval mirror.

  He looked over the top of her dresser expecting to find trinkets and jewellery like other women kept. But the only things to adorn the top of hers were the two bloody feathers Eir must have given her.

  Quickly and quietly, he looked through the drawers, but the ash box wasn’t in there either. He even got onto his hands and knees and looked under her bed. He stood back up, dusting the knees of his cargoes, playing with the shadowing in his hands like it was a pool of trapped water. He watched some of the shadow fall, dripping through his fingers.

  It sank to the floor and disappeared between the floorboards. He dropped to his knees and repeated the action. The same thing happened again. Pressing gently against the boards, Korvain heard a soft creak.

  Prying the loose board off, he found a small compartment. It was filled with dust, having probably being unopened for decades. Reaching inside, he felt around until his fingers brushed against something cool and hard.

  He pulled the box free, popping it open on its hinges. Even though there was no light to speak of, the feathers of her cloak gleamed brightly as if backlit from within. Reverently, he stroked one of the feathers, and Bryn moaned. He withdrew his hand quickly and shut the box.

  With Bryn’s ash box firmly in his hand, he turned to leave.

  * * *

  Bryn groaned and rolled over. When her face mashed up against something soft rather than coarse, she knew she wasn’t still passed out on the living room floor. Her mouth felt dry as if all the moisture had been syphoned out of it. Licking her lips, they felt like sandpaper.

  She rubbed at the headache already throbbing in her frontal lobe, focusing her eyes on the clock on her bedside table and rolling into a sitting position. The movement was too fast; another wave of what felt like daggers through her skull erupted all over, pulling a whimper from her dry lips.

  She’d been unconscious for just over five hours. She had to go. She had to stop Eir from doing something stupid and crazy. Bryn looked toward the door and willed her body to move on her command.

  She managed to stand, but once she was upright a roll of nausea swelled and overflowed in her body, threatening to spill over.

  ‘Fuck,’ she hissed, her hand going to her stomach as if that was going to hold anything in. Sweat broke out on her brow, small beads clinging to her clammy skin. Whatever Eir had spiked her drink with, it had been strong.

  Eir.

  Bryn growled in frustration. She was going to kill that woman when she got her hands on her. Didn’t she realize just how dangerous it was? Didn’t she know she could get killed? The only way to get her and her sister back now was to trade herself for them both. She just hoped she wasn’t too late.

  She staggered around to the other side of her bed, her eyes fixed on the false floor about one foot wide and one foot long. She grunted, dropping to her knees as the message between her feet and her brain shorted out.

  Bryn flipped open the section of floor and reached inside. The movement forward made her head swim unexpectedly, forcing her to sit back on her heels before she tried it again.

  With her equilibrium back, Bryn tried again. Coldness kissed her fingers as they searched for her ash box—the box that contained her feather cloak. She was up to her elbow now, half her arm buried under the floorboards while the other half of her started to panic. Back and forth, she swept the area, touching only dust. Desperately, she lowered herself to the ground and tried to look inside the cavity.

  Empty.

  It was empty.

  Her cloak was gone.

  She staggered to her feet, pitching to one side and catching herself on the side of the bed. How could someone have taken her cloak? Nobody knew where she kept it. Not even the other Valkyries.

  Blinking, black roses began blooming in front of her eyes. She whirled around and made for the door. She had to get to Eir, cloak or no cloak. She could worry about where it had gone later.

  She staggered from her apartment, using the wall as support, swaying and fighting the combined waves of nausea and head spins as she went. Bile twisted menacingly up her throat. Bryn doubled over and vomited in the hall, no more than a few feet from her destination—the elevator.

  Wiping the back of her hand across her mouth, she smeared vomit along her cheek, but was too focused on getting to Eir to care.

  Once inside, she leaned heavily on the side of the elevator as she rode down to the lower level of her club. It opened with its trademark ding and she stepped out, throwing her hands out to break her fall as her legs gave out from under her.

  Sprawled on the cold ground, reality seeped in. Eir was going to die because of her—just like every other Valkyrie who had died in the past week. It was all because of her.

  Lifting her head, she looked down the length of the dim hallway. A flicker of anger ignited into something more when she thought about giving up. Just because the situation was hopeless didn’t mean there was nothing she could
do about it. Even though it hurt, she pushed herself up until she was leaning against the wall, her eyes still fixed on the exit.

  All she had to do was get there.

  All she had to do after that was fade to the hotel.

  She didn’t worry about what happened after that. She knew what was going to happen. Loki was going to set the other two women free and she was going to surrender herself. She was going to sacrifice herself for her girls like Odin should have done for all of them.

  Pitching forward, Bryn lifted herself off the ground and started down the hallway again. Staggering, she managed to reach the door without falling over, which was an achievement because the world seemed to be tilting to her.

  A blast of cool air hit her in the face and chased down her neck, clearing her head just a little. It was only a little, but it was enough for her to focus her thoughts on fading. There was a familiar vibration, and then she was there.

  Bryn had faded into the parking garage next to a Honda Civic. Walking to the cool cement wall, she pressed her palms against it, resting her forehead there while breathing in slowly. Her breath misted a little in front of her mouth. Dragging her brain out of the fog it was still swimming in, she made her way to the door leading through to the lobby.

  She twisted the handle and pulled open the door. A rush of warm air, low chatter and glasses clinking together greeted her. Moving among the humans, Bryn wondered how she was supposed to find Loki.

  But in the end, it was Loki that found her.

  His hand landed on her shoulder, his fingers gripping tight, crippling her. If they hadn’t been surrounded by humans, Bryn would have drawn her sword. She was about to ignore the fact they were there at all when Loki’s almost melodic voice drifting languidly into her ear.

  ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you.’

  She turned her head just a little to see his profile. ‘I’m here,’ she managed to say, swallowing back more bile. ‘Now let the others go.’

  Loki started walking her out of the lobby, out of the hotel. Where were they going?