“Again, chosen by mortals and not the Gods. Why is that different from the way the uppskera is chosen?”
“The Order believes it is to give the uppskera a choice, since they weren’t given one in the matter of becoming the uppskera. And also because they don’t believe Odin counted on the madness that can come with being the uppskera.”
A guarded expression came over her. “Is that why you went to the temple?”
“Yes, but there is so much about the Order that is secret.”
“Yeah, I’m starting to see that,” she mumbled.
Huge droplets of water started to splat on the windshield, forcing me to focus harder on driving. While neither of us could die very easily in a crash, I didn’t want to ruin Ayra’s motorcycle, or my truck. The smell of wet vegetation and asphalt flowed into the vents. Within moments the droplets became so numerous I had to turn on the wipers. Ayra sat up straighter, the hint of a smile starting to work at her lips. Her power surged with something close to joy. I smiled. The rain always had the opposite effect on Ayra than most people. She rolled her window down, breathed deep, and leaned out into it.
After less than half a mile, she turned to me with a radiant smile. “Pull over, I want to get out,” she said.
Though I shook my head, I started keeping an eye out for side roads leading off into the trees. “You still like to dance in the rain?” I asked, knowing the answer. Memories of dancing in the rain with her as kids flooded back. Gods, how she had looked, laughing, happy, so beautiful. I shook my head. Thinking like that would lead down a path I had taken an oath not to travel. Besides, she clearly wanted nothing to do with me. Which was exactly why I had to do whatever I could to make her happy.
A half-smile broke through her carefully crafted mask. The joy in her eyes as she watched the rain streak down the windshield said volumes.
I could deny her nothing when she was like this. Helheimr, who was I kidding? I couldn’t deny her anything any time. I turned down the next dirt road off to the right. The headlights reflected off tall grass that grew between the ruts. At least that was a good sign no one was likely to be down this road. But then, we were in the middle of nowhere in Montana. It wasn’t likely there would be anyone anywhere out here. Such was part of the beauty and allure of Montana, especially for our kind.
After a few twists and turns, I pulled off to the left in a spot where the trees gave way to a meadow. I slid open the back window of the truck while Ayra clicked through the stations on my satellite radio. Kaleo soon bellowed through my truck’s speakers about being no good, an irony I’m certain wasn’t by accident. Ayra loved irony. But it was good music, so I wasn’t about to fault her. Not that I ever would anyway. She cranked up the volume and leaped out of the truck. Unable to suppress a smile, I opened my door and stepped out into the pouring rain.
Before I took two steps my shirt was soaked through and my shorts were well on their way. I peeled it off and draped it over the tailgate. As a varúlfur, I had an aversion to any more clothes than was absolutely necessary anyway. It hindered shifting. The shorts, though, those were very necessary at the moment. Being naked would be a bad idea. Watching Ayra gyrate and sway to the music only solidified that thought.
Thankfully, my vow of celibacy only extended to the time she chose a verndari. A little insurance by the Order that a potential verndari wouldn’t try to influence the uppskera’s decision with great sex—or worse, tying them together as mates. Insurance that came with the highest cost imaginable. Anyone that broke the vow during the time of Impression would be hunted down and killed. So until she chose, I couldn’t cross that bridge. And Gods, how I wanted to cross that bridge. And then there was the matter of earning her forgiveness first.
Barefoot in the grass, she moved with the grace and abandonment of one who felt completely at home in nature. Neither the dark nor the rain hindered her. By the time I reached her, her hair flew about her in wet clusters. Her blue half-shirt with the gold W symbol from one of her favorite comic book heroines had plastered against her pale skin. I loved that she still wore vintage comic book T-shirts like I did. It made the distance that had separated us for so long feel a little less solid. Even if she did cut half of the shirts off. The sight of her bare midriff made me rethink that. Especially since she cut them in half.
She looked like a creature born of moonlight, all pale, beautiful, and utterly haunting. And the way she moved, oh gods, it made my mind go to nasty places. Places it had no right going to. Odin forgive me for coveting the chosen one. But damn, I wanted to covet, caress, and please her in so many ways. More importantly, I wanted her to choose me so I would always be close to her. I wanted to help her fight back the darkness. I wanted to help her keep her sanity, her sense of self in all the crazy of being the uppskera. And though I knew it was a stupid instinct considering what she was, I wanted to protect her. If she married Elí, I still wanted to be her verndari, even if I could never be with her the way I wanted.
Smiling with the same abandon she had when we were kids, she twirled with her hands held high, delighting in the storm.
“Thank you, Thor, for this storm!” she said.
The joy in her voice grabbed at something deep in me. This was the happiest I’d seen her since I’d been back. I swayed to the music with her, trying not to focus on the enticing way her hips moved. She didn’t move away from me. I took that as progress.
“You’ve developed some serious skills since we were kids,” I said, having to raise my voice over the patter of rain on the truck.
She shrugged and twirled away a bit.
Her wet T-shirt clung to her breasts. I closed my eyes and moved to the music. Her power was like a gentle pressure pulling and pushing at me, telling me where every part of her body was without needing to see. Normally smell would tell me all of that, but the rain dampened things too much. Thankfully, it also worked a bit like a cool shower. If only we could be a guy and a woman instead of the uppskera and her potential verndari. My eyes opened, a mistake considering how tremendously hot she looked with her arms above her head, her body gyrating perfectly in rhythm to the song.
“Clearly. You’ve developed mad skills, and here I am swaying like the geek at the junior high dance,” I said with a laugh. I couldn’t help it; my brain and my mouth weren’t connecting. It had always been like that with her. Part of me had expected that to change after four years. But she still had that effect on me.
Laughing, she literally danced a circle around me while I swayed like an idiot. “I always thought your dancing was cute.” The storm was getting to her, draining her anger, intoxicating her.
It wasn’t right for me to enjoy her company like this, when she was in the throes of storm ecstasy. I hadn’t earned her forgiveness yet. But if felt so good to be this close to her without the pressure of anger holding us apart.
The glow of the truck’s interior lights that seeped around her motorcycle highlighted her high cheekbones and deep dimples as she smiled. My heart skipped, forcing me to delve into some serious—and no doubt hilarious—dance moves to cover it. Proving me right, Ayra laughed so hard she had to pause and bend over to hold her stomach. Hearing her bell-like laughter was worth it. A few songs later, the music slowed. Taking her hand, I spun her in and placed a hand on her hip in an old-fashioned dance position my grandmother would have approved of.
Rain and darkness combined to obscure her from me slightly, creating a mist of water bouncing back up around her that gave her an otherworldly look. My breath caught in my throat.
“Thank you. I haven’t laughed like that in a long time,” she said.
I drew back, giving her a wide-eyed mock look of hurt. “Wait, what are you saying? My dance moves are laughable? I beg your pardon, dear lady, but I have mad skills.”
She nodded. “Mad, yes.”
We both laughed as we spun in a mockery of a waltz. The cool grass beneath my feet and the warm woman in my arms felt like the closest to Valhalla I might ever get. And it wa
s close enough. Not knowing how few moments she might get to dance and laugh, I wasn’t about to cut any of them short for my own gain.
My eyes drew to where she tugged her bottom lip in between her teeth, worrying at it. Her power flared hot against me, and yet I wanted to be closer, needed to be, had to be. Though my oaths and everything I’d learned at the temple screamed at me not to, I started to bend down toward her. Eyes closing, she rose up on her toes, her chin titling up to me.
Lightning crackled overhead. The taste and scent of metal filled the air. Ayra grinned and threw her head back, eyes closing against the onslaught of rain. Her power began to pop and crackle. The sensation pulled at my own, making it flare up. My hands went to her waist as she reached her arms up to the sky. Thunder shook the ground beneath us. Lightning flashed in jagged lines across the sky not half a mile away.
“Maybe this isn’t a good idea,” I said.
Her radiant smile took my breath away. “The best ones never are. But maybe you should get back,” she said.
She took a step back. I held tight to her waist, my hands feeling freakishly big as they all but encircled her. Again lightning lit up the sky, closer still. The hair on the back of my neck started to rise. A prickling sensation traveled from it down my spine. Ayra’s eyes widened and she tugged back harder against my arms. The strength in her little body surprised me. I got the feeling she could pull away if she really wanted to.
“I don’t want you to get hurt,” she said.
The concern in her voice got me. I smiled. “Not to worry, I’ve been working on my tolerance,” I said.
Her pale brows rose high. “How exactly? By grabbing hold of live wires?” she asked.
I shrugged. She wasn’t far off.
Eyes going wide, she smacked my chest.
Lightning crackled again, closer this time, the bolt longer, as if reaching toward us. No, not us, toward her. She pushed at me, tensing to pull away. Experience told me I should let go and step back like she suggested. But part of me wanted to test what I’d been secretly working on. I drew my power up from my core, raising it like a shield around me. Then the world exploded with a crackle. Ayra lit up like an LED, energy from within making her so bright looking at her felt like looking at the sun. Her skin almost seemed translucent. The expression on her face became something close to euphoria.
It felt like I held a live wire in my arms, pulsing with endless energy. Pain flowed through me, working at the edges of the shield of power I had built up around myself. Like I had practiced with electricity, I worked as an insulator, helping Ayra hold the lightning. The pain started to wear thin spots in my shield. Breathing grew difficult. Just when I thought I was about to lose my shield altogether, Ayra threw her hands up in the air and directed the lightning back into the sky. It erupted from her outstretched fingers, cutting through the dark clouds in two jagged lines of ultra-white light.
My head sagged and my knees started to tremble. Ayra peeled my hands from her waist, put a shoulder under one of my arms, and started to lead me to the truck. The world swayed with each step. Though I was weak, nothing felt damaged. Before I could make any useless protests, she had the tailgate down and was pushing me back onto it.
“Are you crazy? You should have let go! What hurts? How can I help?” Questions flowed out of her in a rush.
All I could think about was how she hadn’t let go of my hands yet. Gods, she looked beautiful all charged up from the lightning, like a star that was almost too bright to look at. The concern pinching her features together ruined the look a little. She moved in closer, stepping between my legs.
“Vidar, talk to me! Are you all right?” she demanded.
Power flowed around me, squeezing, trying to make me comply, make me submit. She didn’t do it consciously, I could tell by her wide eyes and the frazzled feel of the power. If she had, I wasn’t entirely sure I’d have been able to resist if I’d wanted to. She had become that powerful. That realization stirred my desire back to life.
I nodded slowly so the world didn’t spin too much. “I’m fine, just weak. Nothing hurts,” I said, each word a struggle to get out.
She straightened a little, eyes growing wider. “Are you really sure? The last time you did that you had internal bleeding.”
Delicate fingers danced all across my bare chest. If I wasn’t so exhausted I would have gotten one hell of a hard-on. As it was, my body was getting there, just much slower than it normally would have.
I smiled, for more reasons than one. “That was four years ago. Like I said, I’ve been working on insulating myself from electricity.”
She stopped touching me to cross her arms beneath her breasts. The outline of her hard nipples beneath her thin, wet, cotton shirt distracted me.
“Why?” she asked.
Wait, what was it she was asking why about? Oh yeah… “Because there has to be a reason you can channel lightning, and there has to be a reason I can withstand it better than anyone. I figured what I can do is like insulating, like helping to direct the flow. So I wanted to get better at it, just in case. I think verndari were meant to do more than help keep an uppskera from going full on wolf,” I explained.
“Can others of the Order insulate electricity like you can?”
I shook my head. “No. Resistance to electricity seems to be something unique to my family.”
Her hands moved to her small hips. “You still think its part of Odin’s plan for me? Now you think maybe its part of his plan for us?”
“More than ever. Ayra, you healed the leitar using the lightning.”
“Helped.”
I put a hand over one of hers. “That proves Odin has a greater plan for you both than just hunting down newly bitten and dealing with them.”
“But you said they didn’t know anything about my ability to channel lightning at the temple,” she said, voice filled with doubt. “Maybe it’s just a weird genetic quirk.” She sounded disappointed, like maybe she liked the idea of me being part of the equation and didn’t want to discount it. Naw, that had to just be wishful thinking.
“That combined with my ability to create a shield that insulates it would be far too big of a coincidence.”
She rolled her eyes a bit and nodded. “And we don’t believe in coincidences,” she repeated our old saying.
Thunder shook the night again. Ayra spun away, my hand sliding right off her rain-slick skin. Arms out to her sides, palms up to catch the rain, she spun in a circle. Part of me wanted to go to her. I needed to keep working on my insulating. But, I wasn’t so sure I could take another hit of lightning so soon after the first. If her ability was anything like it had been when we were kids, she could do this all night. And I had a feeling her ability had grown along with her.
The minute light from the dash in the truck was more than enough for my varúlfur eyes to make out every sexy detail of her wet silhouette. For now, I’d just watch the show. But what shot down out of the sky at her wasn’t lightning this time; it was a bird. The monstrous thing had a wingspan of easily over six feet. A surprised yelp sounded from Ayra. Pale limbs flailed as feathers pounded the air. The distinctive screech of an eagle pierced the night.
“Shit!” I exclaimed as I leaped from the tailgate and ran to her.
Careful not to use full strength so I didn’t hurt it, I knocked the bird aside. It barely touched the ground before it was back in the air again, flying toward us. Wrapping Ayra in my arms, I shielded her body with my own. Talons raked down my back in hot lines. My flesh gave way enough to sting like Helheimr, but thankfully not nearly as much as a human’s would have.
“Don’t hurt it! Please, don’t hurt it!” Ayra said.
Clutching her tighter, I encompassed her body with my own as completely as I could. I’d comply with her request only so long as I could keep the raptor from harming her. If it meant taking a bit of abuse, I could deal with that. All life was precious. That, and she’d never forgive me if I hurt it. After a few more painful rakes acros
s my back, the eagle retreated. The edges of the wounds tingled, not from rain, but from my power rising up and beginning to heal me. Already the raw pain of damaged nerve endings began to fade. Deep as some of the gouges felt, it would take until tomorrow to heal completely.
A glance over my shoulder revealed nothing but a multitude of rain droplets sparkling in the glow from the truck’s interior. The night brightened momentarily as lightning crackled high up in the clouds. Suddenly I was very grateful Ayra could only channel lightning, not call it. If the eagle got hurt because of her, she’d never forgive herself. In a move too quick for me to counter, she dropped down out of my arms and dashed away. Her head turned this way and that as she searched for the bird.
The rain rendered our keen sense of smell almost useless. Using some of the training I’d received at the temple, I dampened my other senses down until hearing took the forefront. The cacophony of rain on the truck and even my own skin distracted me. I focused harder, listening for any hint of rustling feathers or a small, rapid heartbeat. Ayra turned to her right, gaze going straight to a tall fir tree. It should have been impossible for her locate it before I did. The training I had undergone was like no other, making me unique even among varúlfur. But then, she was the uppskera. Not even the best training the Gods had to offer could compare to her natural ability.
Just as she tensed to walk toward the tree, I grabbed hold of her arm. I toned my hearing back down before speaking. “We should leave it be. It was probably protecting its nest. We should go,” I said.
While all of that could be true, it wasn’t what made me want to leave. Something about the entire encounter with the eagle had felt off. Sure, other predators were a bit more aggressive and territorial around our kind, but only with posturing. They never attacked. Animals were too smart to pick a fight they wouldn’t win. Well, most were.
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