by PJ Friel
She shook her head and glanced towards the kitchen.
I’d gotten a baseline on her body language in the past twenty minutes, so now I was ready to start asking the really hard questions.
“Did Gideon know?”
“Of course. I would never keep his heritage from him.”
Time for my imitation of a really bad cop.
“I saw your son the day before he died.” Her gaze narrowed. “He was committing a crime with another man who was also part Jotun and part human.”
She sat still as a boulder as she said, “My son did nothing wrong.”
Interesting choice of words. She didn’t ask what he’d done or suggest that he would never commit a crime. No, she wanted it on the record that what Gideon had done wasn’t wrong.
“Did you help him plan it?”
“No. I didn’t.”
Her body language screamed regret. So, she hadn’t planned it, but maybe she knew who else was involved.
“Do you know who his partner was?”
“No.”
Truth.
“Do you have any idea who would have put him up to robbing Mordechai Hinterland?”
Micro-expression of contempt, spike in her aura. “Never heard of the guy.”
I scoffed. “We both know that’s a lie, but you very obviously don’t like him.”
“I’m not discussing Jotun politics with a human.”
I didn’t correct her assumption about me. It wouldn’t make a difference that I wasn’t human, because I also wasn’t Jotun. That’s all that mattered to her. Besides, no sense in outing myself if I didn’t have to.
“Not even if someone in your community was involved in Gideon’s death?”
“This discussion is over.” She shot to her feet, but not before I saw a flash of fear.
I jumped up and reached for her wrist. I only needed one lead, one hint about where to go from here. Just because Trygg wasn’t responsible for Gideon’s death, it didn’t mean that someone else in Mordechai’s organization hadn’t carried out the hit. If Abigail wouldn’t tell me what she knew, I’d dig it out of her memories.
She jerked away and out of my reach. A puff of icy breath curled from her lips. “If you touch me, I’ll ice you.”
That was one hundred percent true, too. If I moved on her, she’d introduce me to the Jotun defense mechanism. All Outlanders had at least one, which is what made them so dangerous. I was fast, but one breath from her would freeze me in place, literally. Could possibly even kill me if she froze my body, instead of my shoes, to the floor. I was surprised that she had the ability considering she was part human.
I glanced across the room towards the kitchen. “You’d take the chance of David finding out about us?”
“Us?” Her smile challenged me.
Crap. I’d outed myself after all. Oh well. I shrugged.
“Would you take the chance, Ms. Ullman?”
She had me. I’d never bring David into the Outlander world.
“Abby, you want coffee?” David asked from the kitchen doorway. He frowned when he saw us both standing. “What’s going on?”
“I’ve answered enough questions. I’m leaving,” Abigail said.
“You’re finished, Bryn?”
“Yeah, I have everything I need for now.” I attempted what I hoped was a convincing smile. “Abigail is tired and you look exhausted, too. You should get some rest, David.”
“Right.” His tone said ‘not happening.’ “We’re not going to go over everything?”
“Later.” I crossed the room and patted his shoulder. “Seriously. Get some rest. Call me if you need anything.”
“Goodbye, David,” Abigail said over her shoulder as she rushed out of the door.
“I forgot to give her my contact information in case she remembers anything. See ya.” I sprinted after his tight-lipped ex-wife.
Abigail reached for the door on her SUV right as I got to her. I slammed my hand against it, keeping a friendly look on my face. I didn’t want to alarm David if he was watching from a window. “Answer me one thing. Are you part of the Enlightened?”
“A muted life is no life at all for true Jotun.” Her lip curled in disgust and she yanked the door open. “Any leader who asks that of his people should be removed by any means necessary. Hinterland would do well to remember that.”
Well, then. So much for not having heard of Mordechai. For not wanting to discuss Jotun politics with non-Jotun, Abigail had certainly given me an interesting nugget of information. I wondered if Mordechai knew that there was a group that wanted him removed from leadership and probably dead? Pretty sure his head of security would want to know about it.
Good old Radical Honesty poked me between the eyes and challenged my motives for wanting to see the overly confident and devastatingly handsome Outlander. I told it to shut up. I had more important things to do than examine my feelings. I needed to stop by my apartment and change my clothes.
With a little luck and the right dress, Trygg might not kill the messenger.
CHAPTER 17
TRYGG
I was going to kill her. Only yesterday I’d told Mordechai that I wasn’t dating her and here she was showing up at my work in the middle of the day, asking for me, and telling the front office that she had clothes of mine that she needed to return.
Bryn might as well have called me a liar to Mordechai’s face because there was no way he wouldn’t hear about this.
I stormed over to the Dance Stage, and came to a complete halt. Goddamn the woman! It was like hitting a time warp and traveling backwards to Friday night. Bryn sat on the same stool, chatting with Jack and drinking what looked like a Long Island. She even wore that same red dress…with my jacket draped over her shoulders.
The one I’d draped over her shoulders after I’d kissed her.
My dick perked up at the thought and I barely resisted looking at my crotch and snarling. Good thing, because she picked that second to turn around and look at me.
Fuck me. She was beautiful.
“Hi. I was just returning your suit jacket,” she said, her gaze skimming over my body.
I cracked my neck instead of wringing hers.
“When you borrow clothes, it’s customary to return them to the owner in clean condition.”
Those gorgeous lips of hers curled into a grin. “I’ll remember that for next time.”
Jack winked at me. “Somebody’s gettin’ lucky.”
He got a glare for his trouble. “Bring me a shot of Jameson, then go do your fucking job elsewhere.”
“Sheesh. Better make it a double,” he quipped, then flounced off to do my bidding.
“Trygg, there’s no reason to yell at—”
“I’m barely refraining from snapping your neck right now, so I wouldn’t chastise me if I were you.”
Jack slapped a glass down in front of me and poured what looked like a triple. “That neck is way too pretty to snap. Nibble maybe, but not snap.”
I jabbed a finger at him. “You stay out of this. You don’t even like women.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t know a pretty neck when I see one,” Jack said, winking at Bryn this time. “And I like women just fine. I make a great GBF.”
I slammed back the shot and snarled at him.
“Whatever, Mac.” He sighed and patted Bryn on the hand. “Good luck, honey. You’re gonna need it.”
Bryn laughed. “Thanks, Jack.”
I loomed beside her, vacillating between the need to choke her or kiss her. First I needed to know what her play was. Returning my jacket was an excuse to get to me, of that I was sure.
She stared at me for several long moments then gestured to the stool beside her. “Please, sit down.”
“I’m fine right here. Talk.”
I kept a wary eye on her. I’d give anything to be wearing fatigues right now, maybe head-to-toe Kevlar or a suit of armor. No, actually what I wanted, for the second time in less than twenty-four hours, was to
have never met Bryn Ullman.
“I promise I won’t touch you.” she said.
Her pitying look curdled my stomach. I widened my stance and leaned forward. “You’re goddamn right you won’t. Stop stalling.”
Bryn sighed and toyed with the glass in front of her. I could almost hear her wheels turning, trying to decide what to say since using her sex appeal wasn’t working...for the most part. What the hell was she doing here?
“Don’t even think about lying to me. Just tell me what you want,” I said.
“I have some information for you that involves Mordechai, but first I owe you an explanation about what happened yesterday.”
I almost told her that I wasn’t interested in her explanation, but I wanted to know how she’d pulled that memory out of me. Powers like that were unusual. There were berserkers who could read thoughts and even communicate telepathically, but actually making someone experience a memory...that was a new one.
“You have two minutes. Don’t waste them.”
“From everything I’ve researched, I believe the scientific explanation is that I have a type of extrasensory perception in the psychometry category. It’s called retrocognition.”
“Retro what?”
“Retrocognition. It means is that I can touch people and things and get information about their past.”
“You did more than get information about my past. You made me relive it.” I disguised my shudder by shifting position, leaning against the bar. No way was I showing this woman any more weakness.
“It’s different with people.” She looked up at me. “When it happens with a person, I see their past and they relive it.”
I narrowed my gaze, studying her. “I only relived a small piece of my past. Did you see my entire life?”
“No. God, no. That would be terrible for everyone involved. I only saw what you saw. I should have said that I relive it with you. It’s like I become you for just that brief moment of time when I’m touching you. I feel what you feel, see what you see, hear what you hear, smell what you smell. Mostly external stimuli. I don’t really pick up internal thoughts. More impressions and emotions.”
I clenched my jaw, hating the invasion of my privacy. The only justice was that she’d felt my pain and that had to have been excruciating. I wouldn’t have wished that moment on anyone. There was only one other moment where I’d felt as alone and helpless and devastated as I had that day. Caitlin had been responsible for that one, too, and I didn’t want to think about it ever again either.
“I’m sorry you had to feel that,” I said.
She cocked her head at me and gave me a hopeful look. “You are?”
“Not really, no.” I shrugged.
“I don’t blame you for being angry at me, Trygg.”
“I wouldn’t care if you did.”
“I deserve that.”
“Better believe you do.”
Several long moments passed, both of us just breathing.
“Why didn’t you believe me?” I asked.
She blew out a breath, ruffling her bangs. I remembered how soft her hair had felt in my hands two nights ago, when I’d kissed the fuck out of her in the parking garage. I never thought that moment would lead me to this one.
“They found a t-shirt at the crime scene. David confirmed that it was Gideon’s. It was the same t-shirt that one of the gunmen from the warehouse was wearing. Gideon is part Jotun and part human...the same as those two guys. Didn’t take a genius to connect the dots.”
“And you just automatically assumed that I killed him.”
“You work for a mob boss, the same mob boss that Gideon tried to rob.”
I opened my mouth to defend Mordechai. Yes, he was the head of the Devourer mob, but he wasn’t some goddamn Al Capone. However, I couldn’t deny that she wasn’t far off the mark in her assumption. If I’d been able to track Gideon and his accomplice down, there was a better than even chance that someone would have died and it wouldn’t have been me.
“Fine. You have a valid point, but I didn’t kill Gideon. I went looking, but I never found him or his accomplice. I told you that right here in this bar. And even if I did find them, I wouldn’t have done that.”
“I know.” She nodded her head. “I believe you.”
“Now.”
She winced. “I really am sorry.”
I sucked in a deep breath instead of lashing out at her again. We had a past that I didn’t want her discovering and I needed to know how to keep her from doing so.
“So, how long have you had that...what did you call it?”
“Retrocognition. I was eighteen when I had my first episode. It was a complete accident the first time and after that, it took me a while to learn how to control it. I used to wear gloves and avoid touching people because I never knew when it was going to hit me.”
I imagined an eighteen-year-old Bryn trying to deal with this unwanted power. I felt a tiny bit of pity for her. She’d been through a lot of shit in her short life. It was no wonder she didn’t trust anyone.
“That must have been hard on you. What happened that first time? Did you tell your parents?”
I was curious about her parents. I knew her father wasn’t here on Earth, but I wasn’t sure about her mother. What had it been like growing up as Aesir-Svartalf royalty? Why was she working as a PI, running a business that her best friend’s dead father had left her?
“It happened on my graduation day. I didn’t have to tell my adoptive parents about it. They experienced it firsthand.”
Wait. What? Where the hell was her Aesir mother? Prue Thordatter had been alive when I rescued Bryn. Had King Alvis’s people killed Bryn’s mother? Or had the woman deserted her daughter when she needed her the most?
“Adoptive parents?”
“Yeah. I don’t want to talk about them.”
“Do you know who your birth parents are? That might explain your powers.”
Being the great-granddaughter of Odin actually could explain her powers.
“I don’t want to talk about them either.” She shrugged off my jacket and held it out to me. “Might as well give you this before I forget.”
I couldn’t force my hand to move. What if I accidently touched her skin and she ripped more memories out of me? A pained expression crossed her face and she laid the jacket on the bar.
To hell with this. I’d never been a coward before. I wasn’t going to start today. And damned if I didn’t hate watching the clouds gather in her beautiful eyes.
One of her spaghetti straps had slid off her. I reached out and pushed it back in place, letting my fingers linger on her skin. She gasped and turned those gorgeous blue eyes on me. Her pupils dilated and her lips parted. The last of my fear washed away on a wave of desire.
“Mind if I sit down?” I motioned towards the barstool beside her.
Her smile was so bright it singed my soul. “I’d like that.”
How many people had rejected her after an accidental brush with her abilities? Did they call her freak? I knew what that felt like and I hoped she didn’t.
“You don’t wear gloves now.” I sat down and traced a single finger over the back of her hand. “Why did you stop?”
She shivered. “Dezi. She has zero concept of personal space or privacy. We were roommates...um, you know, in college. It was less than a week before she came home after a date and caught me coming out of the shower. She dragged me, by the hand, into her room to tell me how her night went.”
“Uh, oh,” I said, smiling.
“Yeah. I got to relive her first penis-induced orgasm with her.”
I chuckled.
Bryn groaned. “Go ahead. Laugh it up. She hasn’t stopped sharing her sex life with me ever since.”
“Oh, really?” I said, wiggling my brows.
“Not like that, perv.” Bryn laughed and bumped my shoulder with hers. “But anyway, after we both got up off the floor—”
I snickered again and earned myself a thwack in th
e chest.
“Dezi reenacted the Spanish Inquisition and I answered all the questions I could. Together, we did more research and a lot of experiments until I was finally able to control it. Now, it’s very unusual for me to pick up any memories unless I actively reach for them.”
“Like you did with me.” The arch of my brow spoke volumes.
“I really am sorry.”
“I know.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “Listen, feeling what I felt that day, the day Aidan died...I really wouldn’t want anyone to feel that.”
That was as much forgiveness as I was willing to give her right now.
“What happened with your son, if you don’t mind me asking?”
I did mind. Apparently, Bryn hadn’t realized that the memory she’d seen was hundreds of years in the past and for that I was grateful. She knew I was an Outlander, but I didn’t want her to know that I was immortal. And I really didn’t want her to know that I was a berserker, not until I was certain that she wasn’t in contact with Odin. He’d left me alone all this time and I wanted to keep it that way.
Damage control time. If she did a background check on me, she’d find no wife or son, step or otherwise, so I needed to explain away Caitlin and Aidan without actually opening a dialogue.
“Your apology is accepted, but I’m not talking about my girlfriend and her son. Ever.”
That was as close as I could get to saying that Aidan wasn’t my son without actually saying those words. I don’t think I could get that statement past my lips. I’d loved Aidan too much to deny him.
“I understand, Trygg. Forget I asked.”
“Forgotten. And just to be clear, if you ever do that to me again…” I left the threat open because as angry as I had been, I knew I’d never be able to hurt her.
The gods help me...in spite of everything, I still wanted her. I should be putting distance between us, but she’d claimed to have information about Mordechai and I needed to know what that was.
I wasn’t even going to acknowledge what my cock wanted or what the monster rattling around in my head was saying. All I could do was focus on my job and if that happened to play to my other needs, well that was a win win for everyone.
