by PJ Friel
“DG.” I nodded, but small talk was beyond me right now. A hand on my arm stopped me in my tracks. I glared down at it and he released me. “Did you want something?’
“I want to know what’s wrong with Bryn.”
I snorted. I could give him a whole goddamn list, but I needed to report to Mordechai first. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
“I sent her a message after I took her friend home. She never answered me. Were you over there fucking her or something?”
The hair stood up on the back of my neck and my nail beds itched. The Monster stood up from its blissed-out little corner and bared its teeth. I clamped down on my control, but it didn’t keep me from growling an order at him. “Stay away from her.”
“Did you forget who you’re talking to?”
He shoved me, knocking me back against the elevator. The air crackled with tension. I curled my fists, about to bash his fucking face in.
“Trygg, meditation room. Now,” Mordechai said, his voice carrying from down the hallway. “DG, you should join us.”
“Saved by your master,” DG whispered to me. “No, Dad. I’m going out for the day.”
“You haven’t been getting in as many sessions as you should. I would like it if you would join me soon.”
“Actually, I’ve been meditating in my room. I prefer the solitude, but if you’d like me to join you tomorrow, I’ll see if I can make that happen.” DG leaned in and pushed the call button on the elevator, whispering to me as he did. “We’ll finish this later, puppet.”
“Love to,” I snarled back, bristling at the intimation that I was anything other than my own man. I hadn’t bowed at Odin’s feet and I certainly wasn’t kneeling at Mordechai’s. I served him because I chose to. Period.
The elevator doors opened and DG walked in, flipping me the bird once he was out of daddy’s sight. DG was such an asshole, but he never crossed Mordechai and neither did I. Him out of fear. Me out of respect.
We’d been ordered early on to get along, so we kept our dislike of each other mostly under wraps. This little spat couldn’t go anywhere and we both knew it. We were two betas eternally circling each other under the watchful eye of the alpha.
“Trygg, let’s go.”
“Yes, sir.” I jogged after Mordechai. “Mind if I change into some more comfortable clothes?”
“This won’t be a long session. You should be fine. After you give me your report on Ms. Ullman, I’d like to know what that spat with DG was about.”
Well, fuck. That’s what I both admired and hated about Mordechai. He never missed anything. I considered blaming the altercation on our natural dislike of each other. It wasn’t out of the realm of belief that we’d snap and snarl at each other for no other reason than we were both breathing the same air.
“I would be very disappointed if you lied to me.” Mordechai gave me a hard look as he opened the door of the meditation room, forcing a nod out of me.
Sandalwood incense torpedoed my nostrils as soon as I walked in. “Shit.” I pinched my nose closed. “Mind if I…” I motioned towards the windows.
“As you please. I’ve asked Mist to air out the room after she’s finished using it, but you know how she is.”
I nodded, but kept my mouth shut. I did indeed know how Mist was. A gigantic pain in the ass. I had no idea why Mordechai put up with her. She’d only been with him for six months and already she’d sunk her claws deeper than any woman I’d seen him with in the past four years and there had been quite a few.
As I opened the windows to clear out most of the overwhelming spicy, earthy scent of the sandalwood, Mordechai effortlessly assumed a lotus pose on one of the mats.
I’d seen him do that every day, sometimes more than once a day, since I’d started living here. It was always impressive how quickly the tension washed away from his body. One minute he was giving orders and looking formidable, the next he could pass for a Buddhist monk.
That wasn’t something that would normally be said of a Jotun. Our ancestry was filled with violence and bad luck. The Jotun hamingja, or ancestral luck as some referred to it, was tainted by our many lost battles with Odin and the other Aesir and Vanir. From the day of our birth, we were operating under a deficit, fighting against a rage that emanated from our very core.
And if I didn’t have reason enough to despise the Allfather, my father’s hamingja was particularly “blessed” by personal battles between the two. My mother told me everything she knew about my father and Odin’s animosity. It was enough to turn me off both of them. And even though I’d never met my father, the abuse he put my mother through told me exactly what he was.
A monster.
Of course, that was the pot calling the kettle black. The thing that lived in the back of my head was no white knight. I was convinced that it was Odin’s personal fuck you to my father. What better revenge than to turn his enemy’s son into his vassal.
Joke was on Odin. I hadn’t taken a knee to him yet.
Not that my berserker hadn’t tried to force me to. Unlike most Jotun, I’d never had to battle my hamingja. The berserker had cowed it and nearly driven me insane the past three hundred years. Until I met Mordechai. He helped me find the balance I needed by caging the berserker. Controlling my hamingja was child’s play after that.
I glanced at Mordechai. Sometimes, I wondered how I would have turned out if Mordechai had been my father. DG didn’t realize how lucky he had it.
Strange that I thought of the man across the room as a father figure, considering he was three hundred years my junior, but Mordechai Hinterland was a unique individual. Wise beyond his years, he flouted the ways of past Devourer leaders and sought to bring his people peace instead of constant war.
Back on Jotunheim, the two factions—Devourer and Enlightened—battled constantly. Chaos versus order. Violence versus peace. The two sides refused to find common ground.
Hostilities were forbidden on Earth. Both sides risked Odin’s wrath if their war spilled over onto the humans. The Enlightened acquiesced, but the Devourers were incompatible with submission. Their population suffered the consequences.
Then Mordechai took the reins. Prior to his leadership, the only way to control the hamingja of a Devourer Jotun was to provide regular doses of combat or to use the drugs of the Enlightened clan to sedate the warrior within. Neither solution was conducive to life on modern Earth. Devourers became gang members, drug addicts, or as most Enlighteneds were, commune dwellers, where the environment was completely controlled and stripped of any tensions that might set off its inhabitants.
Mordechai had shown his people a different way. One based on reflection and meditation. Amazingly, it worked. The Devourers in Akron were drug-free and violent outbreaks were a thing of the past. Under Mordechai’s leadership, we were less mob—as outsiders called us—and more family. We prospered.
I guess Mordechai was actually a father to us all.
When the air in the room had finally stopped punching me in the face, I echoed Mordechai’s pose. I was just as limber as he was. Years of combat training had taught me that keeping my muscles loose and my movements fluid was just as key to living to fight another day as punching, shooting, and wielding a sword. However, dropping into a meditative state as effortlessly as my boss was not a skill I’d acquired.
Once I’d situated myself, Mordechai held up both hands, chest level with his palms out towards me. I placed mine on his and closed my eyes.
“We are walking along the beach,” Mordechai began the guided meditation he used with me when he sensed I was off balance.
We hadn’t done this in a while and my cheeks burned because I needed it now. Bryn Ullman had done a number on me.
His voice was deep and soothing, and it didn’t take long for the outside world to fade. I loved meditating with my mentor, had come to depend on it. This was the only time where the presence of the Monster completely faded away. If only I could stay in this state forever.
Deep
into the meditation, Mordechai finally asked, “Let’s discuss what you’ve learned from Ms. Ullman.”
“Of course.”
I agreed, but the last thing I wanted to do was discuss Bryn. A wisp of sandalwood tickled my nose and I began to breathe through my mouth, clinging to the meditation in spite of the chaos that woman wrought in me.
More than anything I wanted to tell him everything that had happened this morning, but all I heard was the agitated pacing of the Monster in my head. Spicy apple filled my lungs and I did something I’d never done with my mentor.
I lied.
“She hasn’t made the connection between Gideon and the men who tried to kill you. I doubt she ever will. She’s not very bright.”
Really, really lied.
“That’s not the impression that I got from her.”
I could hear the frown in Mordechai’s voice even though I couldn’t see it. He wasn’t buying my story and I needed him to. I couldn’t take the chance that he’d force me to spend more time with her.
“She’s a good actress and you saw her on the security tapes. She knows how to use her assets to her advantage,” I said, using his male chauvinism to my advantage. “No doubt she slept her way into the police department’s good graces.”
Lied until I felt slimy.
“I see. How disappointing. Although, I shouldn’t be surprised. That’s often the way with women.”
“That’s why I refuse to get attached to them.” The Monster snarled in the back of my head. Alarmed, I jerked my hands away from Mordechai’s and scrambled to my feet. “Thank you for the meditation. I need to check with the men. I’m increasing your security until I get to the bottom of all this.”
“Trygg.” His voice stopped me before I could bolt through the door.
“Yes, sir?” I froze, but didn’t face him.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” He paused for me to answer, but I refused to hang myself by volunteering anything. He sighed. “You and DG.”
“Oh. That was nothing. Just guy talk.”
“About Ms. Ullman?”
I nodded.
“Is he interested in pursuing her?”
The thought of DG and Bryn together made me want to punch something. Instead, I kept my voice calm and stared at the door, wishing it was a portal to another world. “I think so.”
“Hmm. Would that be a problem for you?”
Would that be a problem for me? I almost laughed. Everything to do with that woman was a problem for me, but I couldn’t admit that to Mordechai either.
“No. I won’t be going back for seconds.”
“All right, then.”
I didn’t stick around for any more questions. It was imperative that I get the fuck out of there before I screwed myself even more. Mordechai wasn’t the only person I was lying to and I didn’t think he believed me any more than I believed myself.
CHAPTER 16
BRYN
I sped along on my Kawasaki Ninja, heading to David’s house to interview him and his wife, Abigail. The sun shone bright in the sky and the stop lights cooperated like I was the goddess of traffic. I should have been focused and eager to start the investigation that would help my friend.
Instead I felt scattered and ready to give up before I’d even started. It had been nearly twenty-four hours since the incident with Trygg, and I couldn’t get these words out of my head.
It’s a terrible tragedy for a parent to lose a child.
When he’d spoken them, I thought they were just a kind platitude. How wrong I was. The three hours’ worth of semi-conscious, dream-filled sleep that I’d eked out near dawn hadn’t changed my mind about that either.
I was exhausted and my hands wouldn’t stop shaking. If I was a liar, I’d blame it all on lack of sleep, but this situation called for a dose of my old friend Radical Honesty.
I was trying to justify what I’d done to Trygg, and so far, it wasn’t going well. The words that Trygg had spoken at the crime scene on Friday, along with the heartless accusations of the woman from my vision, wrestled with each other inside my head.
If only I had talked to him yesterday, he might have voluntarily told me about his loss, made me understand that he had nothing to do with Gideon’s death. Instead, I had ripped that knowledge from him, violated his mind.
So, mentally raping me wasn’t enough for you.
Shame heated my cheeks and sickened my stomach. While I was connected to him, I’d felt the kind of man he was, felt the unconditional love he was capable of giving, and felt his pain at having that love stripped from him. Trygg Mackenzie was an extraordinary man.
And even knowing all that, I’d kicked him while he was down and threw him out of my office like trash. Just GTFO, dude. Don’t let the door hit ya. That’s what I’d given Trygg instead of basic human kindness. Why?
That’s because you’re not human.
I gunned the motor a little faster, leaning over the tank and letting the bike eat up the miles.
Trygg should have hit me, but unlike me, violence wasn’t his go-to response for problems. That wasn’t who Trygg Mackenzie was.
The comparison between him and me was extremely unflattering. I presented myself to the world as a private investigator specializing in finding missing and kidnapped people, especially children, but I was no hero. The blood that ran through my veins was tainted and even a million successfully solved cases could never change that.
Slowing down, I watched for David’s house number. We’d been casual friends since before I’d taken over Simmons Investigations, yet I’d never been to his house nor he to mine. Guess that was changing today. Too bad it took the death of his son to bring it about.
I pulled onto the short driveway where a small gray SUV sat. David drove a navy sedan, so the SUV was probably Abigail’s. Here’s hoping that things went smoothly. With my track record, I’d likely end up battering David’s ex-wife.
I knocked and David answered immediately. Red-rimmed eyes and deep grooves around his mouth telegraphed his lack of sleep, his pain. “Bryn. Thanks for coming this morning.”
I reached out and hugged him. “Of course. Nowhere else I’d be right now.”
In the living room a pale woman sat in one of the leather chairs beside the couch. Her back was ramrod straight and she stared at the wall like she could laser cut an escape hatch in it.
“This is my wife—”
“Ex-wife. I’m Gideon’s mother, Abigail,” the woman said. She neither stood nor offered me her hand.
Blue and green swirled through her aura, revealing the source of Gideon’s Outlander blood. I was surprised to discover that she was part human.
“I’m Bryn Ullman. So sorry for your loss, Abigail.”
She nodded sharply.
“Want to do this in the kitchen? Have a cup of coffee while we talk?” David’s voice lacked even a hint of his usual energy.
“I prefer to stay here,” Abigail said. “Can we get started?”
David sighed and shuffled over to the chair opposite her. It wasn’t until he met her gaze that a tiny spark showed in his eyes. Unfortunately, what I saw wasn’t compassion or a gentle caring for a past love. Instead, David looked like a gut-shot soldier preparing for his final stand against the enemy.
And I sat on the couch between them—the bystander about to be collateral damage. The tension smothered me. I could only imagine how their son had felt.
“Can you tell me about your son, Abigail?” I began my interview.
# # #
Twenty minutes later, I hadn’t learned anything useful. Gideon was a typical young man. He’d lived with his mother and had visited his father on weekends, those visits becoming sporadic and then not at all in the past three years.
He’d liked sports and cars, gotten decent grades in high school, and had been trying to decide what to do with his life. Neither parent knew of a girlfriend and Abigail snarled at me when I suggested the possibility of a boyfriend.
It al
so came out that the last time anyone saw Gideon was after he left his father’s house the day before he was found in the river. They’d fought about Gideon going to college. David thought Gideon was registered for classes at Akron University, but he wasn’t.
“Did Gideon lie to you often?” I asked.
“No more than any other teenager.” David shrugged.
“Can you be more specific? You know my thoughts on that subject,” I said.
“What do you mean by that?” Abigail pounced.
Mentally, I groaned. The last thing I wanted to get into was my personal philosophy about truth and lies. Most people thought I was off my nut when I explained what radical honesty was. Undoubtedly, Abby would be the same. I wasn’t quite as radical as I used to be with my honesty, but lies were something I avoided as much as possible.
Covering my annoyance, I pasted on a smile. “I’m not a fan of lies.”
Abigail’s posture stiffened. “Gideon wasn’t a habitual liar, but he tried to avoid arguments with his father if at all possible...which wasn’t very often...so, he wasn’t as honest with David as he wanted to be.”
“Avoidance. That’s what this family is best at,” David muttered.
“In case you haven’t noticed, there’s no family left,” she snapped.
“Of course I’ve—”
“David, I could really use a cup of coffee. Do you mind?”
He gave me a look that said ‘I know what you’re doing.’
Of course he did. David was a smart cop. That was exactly the reason he was going to leave me alone with Abigail so I could play good cop to his bad cop. Unfortunately, bad cop was more my forte.
He rose from his chair. “Sure, I’ll make a fresh pot.”
“Thanks.”
“So.” I leaned forward and spoke softly. “Does David know what you are, Abigail?”
She recoiled. “What do you mean by that?”
“You’re Jotun.” She blanched. “Don’t bother denying it. You’re part human, part Jotun.”
“How do you know that? You’re not Jotun. You shouldn’t know what I am!”
“It doesn’t matter how I know, just that I do. By your reaction, I’m assuming David doesn’t.”
