“Really.”
“I chose you, Vidar Balderson, a long time ago. There has never been, and never will be anyone but you,” I breathed out. A weight as heavy as Thor’s hammer lifted from me.
“As your verndari?”
“My verndari, my mate, my everything.” The words freed me from an arranged marriage I’d never wanted in the first place and liberated me from the last chains of my old life.
A huge goofy smile turned up his full lips. “Then I am released from my vow.”
Shock made me pull back a bit. “What?”
“The vow of celibacy ends when the uppskera chooses her verndari. It was only to make sure the potentials didn’t use mating to influence you. I wasn’t allowed to tell you, under threat of disqualification and death,” he said.
“Let’s make a new vow, right here, right now,” I said, pulling him closer. He lifted a brow in question. I went on. “To each other. That nothing and no one will ever come between us again. And to never have secrets from one another.”
“I vow it,” he said without hesitation.
“I vow it,” I responded.
I rose up on my toes and pressed my lips against his, hard. The way the motion rubbed his erection between us made me light-headed. His mouth opened and our tongues collided in a greedy battle. One of his hands cupped the back of my head, the other encircled my waist, both holding me with a reverent tenderness. But I could feel the depth of his need in his kiss. I knew it matched my own. And I had no patience for tenderness, not when I had waited my entire life for this moment.
He cradled me with one hand and began to lower me to the ground. At the last moment, I twisted and rolled us over so I ended up on top. He let out a surprised laugh as I landed on him. The laugh turned into a hungry sound as I pressed my body along the length of his and rocked up and down against his pinned erection. Something between a growl and a moan slipped from him. The sound made muscles between my legs clench and got me wet. Letting out a hungry sound of my own, I fell to kissing him again. The brush of his pecs beneath me hardened my nipples.
His hands ran down my rain-slick back, over my buttocks, and to my thighs. The sensation of his rough hands against my skin drove me half wild with desire. Maybe more than half. I moaned into his mouth before sealing my lips against his and sucking on his tongue. One arm around my waist, he sat us both halfway up. His other hand reached around my buttocks to fondle my opening. When his finger slid inside me, I wanted to both rock back to it, and press forward to better feel his erection where it tickled at my pubic hair. He made the decision for me, leaning me back against his hand and pushing his finger farther into me.
I broke the kiss, threw my head back, and cried out, but distant thunder swallowed the sound. In several wonderfully long minutes, he brought me screaming in a way nothing battery powered had been able to do. Breathless, I sagged against him. He nuzzled into my neck.
Great as it was, it wasn’t enough. I needed him inside me. The power of that need made me shake.
I reached between my legs and took hold of his erection. He growled against my neck, the sound filled with a need of his own. Gods he was so hard, and big. Much bigger than the vibrator in my drawer at home. I’d have to take it slow was all. The realization filled me with anticipation. I pressed him to my opening and started to work my way down on him. The slow process soon had him flat on his back, writhing in pleasure. Once I had worked him inside me, we found a perfect rhythm, his hips rising as mine descended.
He massaged my breasts, teasing my hard nipples until I leaned into his big hands. One of his hands worked its way up to cup my face. The depth of affection in his eyes washed away any doubts I’d had about him wanting to be with the woman instead of the reaper. He sat up, wrapped an arm tight around me, and kissed me. The chaste, sweet touch wasn’t enough, not with him moving inside me, massaging my deepest, most intimate parts. I parted his lips with my tongue, teasing at the softness and warmth within until his tongue chased mine back into my mouth. As we kissed he gripped my hips, helping to lift and push me down faster and faster.
An amazing pressure built inside me from somewhere deep that he touched. I pushed him down onto his back, hands moving up his chest. My fingers clenched his pectorals so tight my nails dug tiny crescent moons into his flesh. The pressure continued to build, filling every part of me with a buzz not unlike that lightning left behind. Inside me, I felt him swell. Little sparks of intense pleasure started to go off as my muscles clenched around him. As he came screaming my name, I came screaming his. A more perfect storm had never existed.
Chapter Sixteen
Vidar
Morning sunlight filtered through the tent opening and spilled across Ayra’s hair, making it shine like pale silk. Long, pale eyelashes fluttered against her cheeks as she slept in my arms. Her lips were curled up into a smile that suggested only good dreams visited her. While last night had been amazing in an earth-shattering way, this moment felt like perfection. Her naked body pressed the length of mine beneath the sleeping bag had made me wake with a raging hard-on. But I wasn’t about to wake her and ruin her peace for my own needs. There would be plenty of time for more of that later.
I hoped. A small chance existed that she might change her mind when she awoke, and tell me to hit the road. Her desire to protect me and what she thought I deserved and wanted in life was positively heroic. But I hadn’t been kidding about her not being able to get rid of me. I’d follow her to the ends of the earth—and beyond.
A tinkling bell sounded from within our clothes where I’d hung them overhead to dry. It had to be Ayra’s cell phone. She stirred against me. It chimed again and she bolted up into a sitting position.
Damn electronics.
Her head turned in my direction. One hand covered her yawning mouth while the other reached down to stroke my chest. A languid, satisfied look darkened her usually robin’s egg blue eyes to a beautiful sapphire hue. My breath caught. For a long, fantastic moment as she stared at me like I was the center of the world, I thought everything might be all right. Well, as all right as a life hunting murderous werewolves could be. Then her phone rang again.
She reached up into her clothes and dug the device out. Her back went rigid. I’d never hated electronics more. Her power crackled and grew like the pressure before a storm, filling the tent until I could hardly breathe. I pushed my way through it, sat up and put an arm around her.
“What’s wrong?”
She didn’t answer, but she didn’t have to. I read her phone screen over her shoulder.
Calder: It’s not nice to break my toys. You’ll pay for that when I see you in Cannon Beach. Do try and make it in time for the battle this weekend. I’d hate for you to miss it, sister dearest.
I carefully plucked the phone from Ayra’s white fingers before she could crush it.
“Well, I’ve always wanted to visit the Oregon coast,” I said.
“But we have to go to Portland. I can’t let him distract me from that,” she all but growled.
I rubbed her back. She relaxed ever-so-slightly against my hand. Some of the tension drained from her power. “He won’t. We have to go through Portland on our way to the beach.”
She pulled her clothes down from where they hung. “Good. Let’s get going.”
Half-dressed and looking like a tiny raging goddess, she was out the tent before I could protest. Though I knew it was wrong on multiple levels, I prayed for the Gods to damn Calder to the harshest lands on Muspelheimr. Or better yet, let me send him there with my own claws.
…
We rolled into Portland before the sun was even fully up, which was a problem considering draugar sleep during the day. That rumor was true. He was expecting us, but I didn’t want to be rude. The rain coming down in epic sheets didn’t exactly allow any sunlight through the cloud-ridden sky. A draugr could technically walk around in these low-light conditions. But, I didn’t want to chance it. Instead of turning down his street, I took Ayra to
ward the Waterfront Park.
During our drive here she had called Elí and told him she wasn’t going through with the arranged marriage. I’d tried not to listen in, but I couldn’t help it. She hadn’t wavered and he hadn’t begged or asked for a reason. He sounded relieved. The moment she’d hung up, her spirits had lifted. She called Isak immediately after. The alpha had been surprised only about how long it had taken Ayra to break off the arrangement. He even told her she still had a place in his pack should she want it.
As we drew closer to the park I called her through our Bluetooth helmets.
Road noise sounded as a dull roar in the background when she answered. I focused my hearing down to the device tucked near my ear.
“It’s early. Don’t want to be rude,” I said.
“But it’s like ten o’clock or something.”
“Yeah, but he sleeps during the day.”
“For real?” Her tone rose with excitement. It made me smile.
“For real.”
We wove in and out of the insane bumper to bumper traffic for a moment, concentrating on not getting flattened. Superhero like powers or not, a semi at sixty miles an hour versus a motorcycle wouldn’t end well for us. And ninety-nine percent of drivers didn’t see motorcycles. It was part of why I liked to stick to trucks. Big ones. We soon pulled under the cover of a parking garage. As we took our helmets off, the barrage of questions began.
Ayra shook out her gorgeous waist-length hair, stealing my breath. “Well?” she prompted.
“Well what?” I asked, oblivious to anything but the sight of her.
“I asked if they burn up in the sunlight.”
“No.”
“In churches?”
I laughed. “No. I don’t think the modern gods of this world care about their existence. And besides, they aren’t evil, just different.”
She hung her helmet on the nifty little lock she had on her license plate cover. Unfortunately, she left on her nylon motorcycle jacket with the AVV symbol on the back. It wasn’t the symbol that bothered me. From what she said they seemed to have some pretty good ideas about the future for our kind. Rather, it was the amount of clothing covering her. Not fair considering I wore a jacket myself now. But if she would be willing to shed clothing, I certainly would too.
“What’s the plan?” she asked.
Again I had to make myself focus. “Walk to Waterfront Park, do a bit of research.”
The mischievous twinkle in her eyes when she smiled made my heart pound. She took her jacket off and stuffed it into one of the hard side bags on her bike. My heart rate increased. As we started to walk from the parking garage she tucked into my side as if she’d been doing it for years, an arm going around my waist. And here I’d feared things would be awkward. The feel of her petite body against mine made me grow weak in the knees, but pumped adrenalin through my veins at the same time. She was like kryptonite and steroids all at once. The aftereffects made my head spin and I loved it.
“Is there privacy to be found at this park?” she asked in a low, sultry voice that made my blood pump south. I was suddenly very grateful for the stretch ability of my cargo pants.
It struck me that I didn’t have to worry about her seeing my reaction to her, or smelling my arousal. Finally, after all these years. I draped my arm over her shoulders and pulled her close enough that I could smell the river water in her hair.
“Definitely,” I said against her hair.
She made a contented sort of growly sound. We walked faster. A misty, gray haze of a world waited for us outside of the parking garage. Constant rain streaked everything, obscuring the view beyond a few yards. Standing water splashed beneath our feet as we made our way down the sidewalk. The pavement soon dumped us onto a wider walk lined with old-style lampposts and a mixture of deciduous trees. While I couldn’t see it through the haze of rain, I could smell the river not far ahead.
More people than I had expected milled about, and far fewer with umbrellas like I would have thought. Still, in a city of hundreds of thousands, the rain had reduced the foot traffic to just a few determined souls. Ayra withdrew from beneath my arm and took hold of my hand. I had to stretch out my long legs to keep up with her brisk pace down the path that turned along the river. It looked like no more than a wide swath of hazy gray unbroken by tall buildings.
“That’s probably a pretty view when you can see it,” Ayra said.
I shrugged one shoulder. “If you like that sort of thing, a huge body of water cutting through a city.”
The smile on her face made her beam with happiness despite the rain dripping down her porcelain skin. “I do. It reminds me of the indomitable power of nature. All these people are at the mercy of it.”
“I love the way you see it.”
I wasn’t about to ruin it for her by reminding her of how people had polluted this massive river to the point you couldn’t drink the water untreated, and probably didn’t want to swim in it. She was happier than I’d seen her since I got back from Iceland. In fact, I didn’t recall ever seeing her this happy. A fierce determination rose in me to keep her that way. Hand in hand, we walked along the paved riverfront path. Despite the rain and the horrible scents of the city, being at her side with her hand in mine felt surreal, dreamlike, and perfect.
“So why does the Order choose who gets a chance at impressing the uppskera?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
She gestured to herself. “I was born with the mark of the reaper, chosen by Odin himself. Why wouldn’t my verndari be chosen by Odin?”
I smiled, loving that her mind worked just like mine. “That was the first thing I asked the Order. They said because the uppskera has no choice in turning into a reaper of shifters, Frigg—wife of Odin—demanded of him that he give the uppskera that choice.”
A sad, yet lovely, smile crept across her lips. “I like that.”
She pulled me to a bench beneath a cherry tree. I leaned close while she researched Cannon Beach on her phone. One headline in particular jumped out at me. Ayra read it aloud.
“Vice President plans to visit annual Plein Air Festival. Oh no.” She read a bit more before raising wide eyes to me. “The Vice President of the United States. Oh Gods, V, he plans to kill the Vice President.” She stood. “We have to go, now.”
I rose and put an arm around her. “Easy, don’t worry. It’s only Wednesday. The festival doesn’t start until Friday. Even if we get there tomorrow that’s a day early, plenty of time to kick Calder’s ass all the way to Muspelheimr.”
“We can’t risk being late.”
“We won’t be. He will want to kill you before he attacks the VP. He wouldn’t want to risk you stopping him during the festival. He knew you’d figure this out and rush to him, abandoning the council meeting. That way if he doesn’t kill you, another assassin sent by one of them will. We’ll go right after the council meeting tonight. It’s less than an hour drive. Okay?”
Letting out a long breath, she nodded. “Okay.”
We started walking again. Thunder boomed overhead. The few others braving the rain started to dash toward their destinations. Soon, we were the only two people on the path.
At her urging I retold her everything I knew about draugar. The infrequency of her questions made me think she wanted to hear my voice more than what I had to say. I was fine with that. We’d walked less than a half mile when she pulled me off the path into the grassy area thick with deciduous trees. The other pedestrians and bicyclists stuck to the paved path. Once my boots sank into the spongy grass I realized why. But the smile she gave me coupled with the bedroom eyes dark with desire made me ready to roll around in the grass no matter how wet it was. Her long hair did more to cover her curvy body than her wet gray tank top. I wanted more than anything to brush it back from her shoulders, away from where it clung to the roundness of her breasts.
She pulled me behind a red maple tree and pushed me up against the rough bark. Her body pinned me there, the fe
el of her curves immobilizing me in the most fantastic way. Hands around my neck, she pulled me down to her lips. At the first urging of those lips, my mouth opened to her. Her tongue plunged in, exploring, seeking, devouring. The need vibrating through her infused me until I could barely breathe. Hands beneath her butt, I lifted her and spun us around until I had her up against the tree. The low growl of desire that came from her made all the blood in my body rush to my groin.
I kissed and licked a trail down her neck, to her collarbone, then to the top of her breasts where they poked out of her shirt. I shifted her so I could hold her with one hand beneath her butt and caress her breast with the other. Gods, she felt so good, even better than I had always imagined. The barest hint of lilac and soap mixed with a musk that was all hers in an intoxicating combination. But the scent of her desire as she grew wet from my attention pushed me over the top.
I wanted her so bad I ached. Literally. These pants had grown far too tight. And yet…
“Do you want to do this out here?” I asked as I looked around at the rainy park.
She deserved satin sheets in a luxurious hotel and so far all I’d done was take her on the bare ground like we were animals. Okay, maybe she did the taking, but still.
“Hel yes,” she said in a husky voice right before she pulled at my bottom lip with her teeth.
Her hands grabbed my butt and pulled my hips to hers. My erection ground against her pelvis. With a little growl, I plunged my tongue into her mouth. The wet warmth made me hungry for more, only in different ways and different places. Hands reaching for the fly of her jeans, I started to slide down her body. I had to know how she tasted.
From some distance away came a strange whistling sound that made me pause.
A horrible, searing pain like a hot poker stabbed into the back of my shoulder and burned through the front of my chest. I looked down and saw six inches of an arrow shaft jutting from my left pec. The arrowhead barely pierced Ayra in the abdomen. She pushed me back, tearing the metal from her body, and threw us both to the ground. Thankfully, she threw me on my side so it didn’t move the arrow much. But it still hurt like the fires of Muspelheimr. It had to be silver. Two more arrows pierced the tree we’d been up against with loud “thunks”.
Twice Turned Page 21
