Dark Deceit

by Lauren Dawes

  ‘Others?’ he asked innocently.

  If it wasn’t for Loki’s arm now tucked securely around her waist, she would have gone sprawling. ‘I know...Eir came to save her...’ she swallowed again, ‘sister.’

  ‘That she did, that she did,’ Loki replied. They had come to a stop beside the bordered up fence of a construction site across the road. He smiled at her again almost benignly. She would have believed his innocence if it wasn’t for the feral glaze in his eyes.

  ‘Where...is she?’

  ‘I’m taking you to her. Hold on tight,’ he replied in that same saccharine tone. Bryn felt the vibration as Loki faded them both to a new location. She hadn’t thought it was possible for him to do that. Only Odin had that kind of power.

  Bryn set aside the whys of it for a minute to take in her new surroundings. Loki had faded them to what looked like an underground cavern. Water dripped somewhere, echoing around what must have been a huge space.

  She turned her head slightly to look behind her. A giant rubble wall was at her back, which meant the only way to go now was forward.

  ‘I feel I must warn you, Brynhildr. If you reach for your sword, I will have to sedate you.’ Loki’s voice was calm, uninflected.

  Honestly, it was just plain creepy.

  But she knew she couldn’t risk pissing him off. If her girls were somewhere down here, he was the only one who knew where.

  Loki shoved her gently in the back, forcing her to walk ahead of him. The ground beneath her feet was littered with small chunks of rock that tripped her up. Her head was still fuzzy from the drug yet to leave her system, so on more than one occasion she tripped and fell.

  Her palms were cut, her jeans ripped and knees bleeding. Loki hooked his hand under her arm and hauled her to her feet once more. He stared at her, cocking his head to one side as he did. She could feel the beads of sweat beginning to form. She didn’t want him to know just how fucked she was from whatever cocktail Eir had brewed.

  To distract him, she asked, ‘So where are we?’

  Loki was quiet for a long minute before dropping the eye-fuck routine. ‘Take a look around. You tell me.’

  Bryn did look, but all she could see were huge pylons rising from the ground and smooth concrete walls. She knew they were underground; she could feel the dampness seeping into her bones. Looking up, she saw insulated pipes running along the walls, held up and together with large metal brackets.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Loki smiled and prodded her again, keeping her moving at a pace just this side of too fast for her still scrambled brain. Bryn didn’t know how long they had been walking for. Honestly, she was having a hard enough time just walking in a straight line. So when Loki took her arm and hauled her to a stop, at first she didn’t see why.

  Turning to his left, he pulled on a handle in the middle of the wall. The wall wasn’t a wall after all. It was a door that swung open on rusty hinges. The smell that poured out had Bryn holding the back of her hand against her nose. The fetid smell of death and decay rolled out of the room, clawing at her senses.

  Loki, however, seemed unaffected, moving behind her and giving her a little shove. Bryn stepped over the raised lip and into the corridor. Her head throbbed painfully. She wanted to cradle her head in her hands, to massage away some of the pain, but as she lifted her arms, she felt something sharp pierce her skin.

  ‘Sweet dreams, Brynhildr.’

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Adrian had been cooped up far too long with nothing to do but fight the urges to kill his best friend. They were getting worse—bad enough he had to physically remove himself from the house just so he could get some peace.

  In the middle of a practice session with Taer, his phone had started ringing. Motioning for Tay to stop, he dropped his training mitts and scooped his phone up from the edge of the weapons rack.

  ‘Adrian? Mason,’ the gravel voice on the other end said.

  ‘Mason, what’s up?’

  ‘Club’s opening tonight. I need you in for your usual shift.’

  He scrubbed a hand down his face. Thank fuck for that.

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Mason replied. Adrian frowned. He must have said that last part out loud.

  ‘Why was it closed?’

  ‘I couldn’t tell you. Bryn’s not even going to be in tonight. Mist just told me to open it up and get everyone in. That includes your buddy. We could use him up on Level Three again.’

  ‘You got it.’

  He ended the call after the requisite goodbyes and ended the training session. Taer looked exhausted anyway. He had been pushing her to the point of breaking nearly every day since Darrion had forced the contract on him.

  ‘Get some sleep. I have to work tonight,’ he told her, bumping her shoulder playfully as he walked through the kitchen, heading for the stairs. At the door at the end of the hall, he knocked.

  ‘Yeah?’ Korvain’s voice rumbled through the wood.

  Adrian stuck his head in the room, his brain already sparking out from being this close to him without a weapon in his hand. He squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the feeling to pass.

  ‘You good, my brother?’ Korvain asked, his dark eyes seeming to suck in the shadows in his dimly lit room. Adrian noticed he had palmed his karambit already. Gods, he was like a goddamn time bomb ticking away.

  ‘Yeah, I’m good. Fighting the good fight.’ He shrugged and Korvain released his hold.

  ‘What can I do for you then?’

  He held up his phone and waved it back and forth. ‘Just got a call to go to work. The Eye has reopened and Mason wants you there.’ He managed a grin. He liked that Korvain had gotten work at the club, too.

  But when he looked over at the other Mare, he didn’t look pumped at all.

  ‘Got something more pressing to attend to?’ Ad asked.

  ‘Think that’s a good idea?’ Korvain asked with a raised brow. ‘You have orders to kill her, and me.’

  He grinned. ‘That’s not going to be an issue. Bryn’s not going to be there tonight, and I’ll ask to swap with someone else so we won’t be on the same floor.’

  Korvain sat forward on the bed, his eyes looking slightly wild. ‘Bryn’s not there? Well, where is she?’

  Ad shrugged casually. ‘I don’t know. Mason said she just isn’t there. So are you coming or what?’

  Korvain stared at the sheets for a moment before nodding. ‘Yeah, I’m coming.’

  * * *

  Korvain had tried to keep the fear from his eyes, but the news that Bryn was gone felt like a noose around his neck. If she was gone, it meant the phone call had come and she was now Loki’s captive.

  Adrian still stood in the doorway to his room, the look of pain as he fought the compulsion plain to see. By threatening Adrian into taking the hit on him, Darrion was getting exactly what he wanted. He wanted them both to suffer, and they both were.

  Korvain fixed his dark eyes on his friend. He knew they would have been swimming in shadows, his hand on his weapon in case Adrian’s control snapped and he had to kill him there and then.

  ‘Get out of here, my brother. There’s no need to torture yourself. I’ll meet you there.’

  Adrian nodded woodenly and disappeared from the doorway. When the door snicked closed behind his best friend, Korvain let the all-out panic surface. Leaping from his bed, he dressed in black slacks and a black tee. Shrugging into the black leather holster that sat over his shoulders, he armed up—his karambit sitting over his heart. He pulled the shadows to it, covering it, making it blend into all the black he wore. Lastly he pulled on his steel-toed boots, lacing them up tight.

  He would go to the club and see what he could find out, but he wanted to see if he could get into her dreams first. Stretching himself out on his bed, he let his mind relax as he probed for Bryn.

  He found the door into her mind, but no matter how hard he pushed, that door just did not open. It seemed to be stuck. With one last great shove, it inched open. He t
ook a quick glance before the door slammed shut. Everything in her mind looked foggy, disoriented.

  He tried to push in again, but it wouldn’t budge. With a growl, he pulled out of her head and returned to his bedroom. That little episode had done absolutely nothing for his already jacked-up nerves. If she was unresponsive, she could be drugged.

  Sliding off his bed, he beat feet downstairs and slid out the back door to fade to the club’s back entrance. He wondered who was manning the office as he pushed the buzzer and looked up into the camera above the door.

  To his surprise, it was Kara.

  She looked at him like he was a lollipop she wanted to suck on long and hard. She leaned onto one leg, shifting her hips in an almost unnatural way. She was wearing a red bustier and micro mini that barely covered her southern assets. The heels she was sporting pushed her closer to six foot six rather than her usual six-two.

  ‘Hi,’ she purred, her eyes looking him over from top to toe. Korvain didn’t appreciate the eye-fuck from her, but kept the warning growl to himself. Hadn’t she taken the fucking hint? He started to push past her, but she maneuvered that killer body of hers directly into his path again so that as he passed, he had no choice but to brush past her.

  She moaned at the connection, reaching out to touch his face. He grabbed her wrist and squeezed.

  ‘Didn’t learn your lesson last time?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, yeah. Of course I did. I think I need to be punished for breaking your rules though.’

  He cursed under his breath and moved away.

  ‘I don’t know why you’re still bothering with her,’ Kara called out angrily.

  Korvain was raging so badly on the inside that when he turned around to face the Valkyrie, he almost reached for his weapon. Instead, he flexed his hands into fists at his side.

  ‘Who?’

  Kara rolled her eyes—the perfect imitation of a teenage girl, and the perfect example of Kara’s mental capacity. ‘Bryn. Who else?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  She made a strange noise at the back of her throat that, at a guess, meant something to the effect of bullshit. ‘I’ve seen the way you fawn all over her.’ She walked up the hallway, her long legs eating up the distance. She was near his eye level with the four-inch heels on, so when she came to stand in front of him, he could see how drug-fucked she really was.

  He growled when her hand cupped what was oh so soft in the front of his pants. It remained that way, too, much to her displeasure. She looked up into his dark eyes no doubt seeing how pissed off he was.

  ‘You mind removing your hand?’ he asked coolly.

  ‘Don’t like what you see?’ she asked with a practiced pout.

  His top lip peeled off his sharpened incisors. ‘No.’

  Kara released her prize, tossing her hair over one shoulder like it was no big deal. The truth was she was going to fall onto the next dick that came along to stroke her ego, to tell herself she was desirable.

  Low self-esteem could be a bitch.

  ‘She’ll never give it up for you,’ she snapped, hostility cooling Kara’s voice to within a tenth of what his voice had sounded like.

  He arched a brow at her, crossing his still fisted hands across his chest.

  ‘Bryn. She’ll never give it up. If you’re after a Valkyrie, I’m the girl for you. I like it rough and bloody.’ Her blue eyes fixed on his mouth before she shook herself like a bird settling its feathers.

  ‘Sorry. Not interested.’

  There was that pout again. Placing her hand on his forearm, she gasped and touched him some more. His eyes dropped to the offending hand then back to her face. She removed her hand and sniffed.

  ‘Whatever. I have money to make.’

  She turned on her large heels and sashayed down the rest of the hallway and out into the main body of the bar.

  Korvain let out a breath and rubbed his head a couple of times. When he was sure the coast was clear, he followed Kara’s path and pushed into The Eye. The music assaulted his eardrums as if it was a physical force working against his body. The place was packed, heaving with people chatting, drinking and grinding against one another.

  Korvain’s eyes scanned the bar, finding Mason’s hazels staring back at him. He approached the other male, offering him his palm.

  Mason took it before resuming his position; hands clasped in front of his hips, a stern look on his face. ‘It’s good to see you again, Korvain.’

  ‘You, too.’

  ‘I need you up on Level Three tonight. You good with that?’

  He nodded. ‘Wherever you need me.’ Mason looked at his face like he was trying to see something that wasn’t really there. ‘You’re staring,’ Korvain added.

  Mason guiltily dropped his eyes, rubbing the back of his head like he was trying to explain why he was caught jerking off in his bedroom. ‘Yeah, sorry my man. It’s just,’ he paused, looked around. When he looked back at Korvain, he said in a lowered voice, ‘Can we talk in the office?’

  Korvain nodded, his interest piqued. Mason led the way, Korvain following at his back. When the office door was shut, Mason turned around and looked like he wanted to be sick.

  ‘You feeling alright?’ Korvain asked.

  Mason’s hand went through his hair again. ‘Yeah, it’s just...’ He looked Korvain square in the eyes. ‘Look, I know about Bryn and the other girls. I know what they are.’

  ‘And what are they?’ Korvain just kept his words neutral even though a snarl was vibrating in his throat.

  The human male pinned Korvain with a hard don’t-fuck-around-with-me look. ‘Valkyries. They’re Valkyries from like the Viking times.’

  Korvain kept his expression disinterested. If he shifted the mask into anything else, he would confirm the human’s suspicions.

  ‘They’re not suspicions,’ Mason snapped.

  Korvain’s eyes narrowed. Did he just read my thoughts? Tightening his mental shields, he didn’t hold back on the snarl this time.

  Mason blanched; the color draining from his face too quickly. ‘And...and I know what you are, and what Adrian is.’

  ‘And what’s that?’ Korvain could feel the temperature drop in the room. Mason shivered.

  ‘You’re both Walkers,’ he said.

  Korvain made a sound at the back of his throat. ‘There’s no such thing as Walkers anymore. Whoever told you they exist was yanking your fucking chain.’

  ‘The only one yanking my chain is you,’ Mason looked him square in the eye as the last word slipped off his tongue. ‘Morier.’

  Mason only had time to blink before Korvain had him pinned to the back of the door, the toes of his steel-capped boots scraping the floor. Korvain slipped his civilized face away, baring his teeth, letting the human see his incisors and letting him know he knew what to do with them. He recognized he was letting his baser instinct have free reign. He recognized he was letting his beast out, but his woman was being held captive and there was not a damn thing he could do about it.

  ‘How do you know about us?’ Fuck. His emotions were all over the place. Mason was gasping for air, gulping it down from around Korvain’s slowly closing fingers. The human raised his hand slowly and tapped his temple three times.

  Korvain spat a nasty curse and let the male go. Mason slumped to the ground, folding in on himself, sucking in the O2.

  ‘I don’t know how to explain it. I can’t do it with everyone—only certain people. I can read their thoughts. I only realized after listening in for a while that the people I could hear were gods—like the gods from our mythology. Bryn and the rest of the girls, I can hear their thoughts. I have to block them out most of the time.’

  ‘Can you hear mine?’ he growled.

  He shook his head. ‘No. Your shields are too strong, but Adrian’s are weaker. Sometimes his thoughts slip through.’

  All those hours of practice had paid off then. Darrion had made him strengthen and restrengthen his mental shields for hours on end�
�until sweat had soaked his shirt and he’d been dehydrated. He’d designed it so his shields looked like an endless ocean at night—black and still.

  ‘You and Adrian have the same...I don’t know how to explain it...the same feel, I guess,’ Mason explained.

  Korvain had backed up a few steps to listen to the human’s words and now that he had stopped, he turned back to Mason. ‘Why did you tell me this?’

  ‘Because I’m worried about Bryn. She never misses a shift. If she’s not in her office, she’s somewhere in the club, or upstairs. But I haven’t seen her, and the other Valkyries don’t know where she is either. They figured she was out talking to a supplier or something. I’m worried something has happened to her. I kept getting snippets of thoughts from the other gods about someone killing Valkyries. I need to know whether this is true or not.’

  Korvain had to put him down. He knew too fucking much.

  ‘If you’re thinking of killing me, please don’t. I won’t say anything to anyone.’

  Korvain growled. ‘How can I know for sure?’

  And then Mason laughed. ‘Do you really think I can tell people I hear the thoughts of gods and people will not think I’m crazy?’ He shook his head. ‘I learned from an early age to keep my trap shut about this shit.’

  Korvain stared at the man—a man who could be an ally. If he could read thoughts, he may be of use to Korvain.

  ‘I’d like to help in any way I can,’ Mason said, somehow picking the thought from his brain. Korvain tightened up his shields. He had become lax around humans, but made a mental note to always do this around Mason.

  ‘It’s because you’re upset. This is the first time I’ve been able to get anything other than a sea of black from you.’

  ‘Fuck you!’ Korvain snarled, getting up into Mason’s face. The human’s eyes softened though.

  ‘You’re upset because you love Bryn. I get that. I love her, too, which is why we need to get her back.’

  Love? Why was that word being thrown around?

  Korvain’s eyes narrowed. ‘There is no we. It’s just me.’

  ‘Please. I want to help. Tell me how I can help.’