Dragonslayer (Twilight of the Gods Book 3) (7 page)

She froze and turned her head to look at him. “How do you know me?”

A simple magic no better than a parlor trick, and that was what impressed her.

“You say you know who I am—what I am—and you can ask me that?” He shook his head. “My reputation must have faded in the years of my absence.”

Her expression darkened. “What you did will never be forgotten. Nor will it be forgiven.”

He couldn’t help but laugh at that. The woman shivered at the sound and wrapped her arms around her torso. As soon as she realized what she’d done, she let her hands fall to her sides and straightened her back.

“I only want one thing from you,” he said.

“What is it?”

“Don’t come back here again. This is as forgiving as I am willing to be. Now go. This can’t remain open any longer.”

She didn’t need to be told twice. Pressing her hand to her injured side, she slipped through the portal. To the human eye, it would appear that she simply disappeared between one step and the next. He could, at the very edge of his vision, see the glimmer of light that was the magic enfolding her. As far as he could tell, she cast no spell of her own to counteract Odin’s curse. Kamis could still feel the old magic coiling to life, responding to his nearness even though he remained a good distance from the portal. The woman passed easily through the portal without triggering the spell. He’d hoped to learn more. Perhaps she’d bound herself to a jötunn. Perhaps she had some trace of Æsir blood. It was a mystery he would have to work out later.

With a simple tug of the weave, he collapsed the portal behind her. It would be up to her to make it through to Asgard. Turning his back on the fault, he started down the path that would take him to Aiden’s home.

An explanation would be demanded. He didn’t know how much of the truth it was safe to give.

Chapter Eight

It seemed strangely normal, sitting on a stool at the island in Christian’s house and watching the morning sun spill through the big front window to cast patterns on the carpet. Jacey helped herself to a glass of orange juice, because it felt presumptuous to rifle through the cabinets for coffee supplies while her host was still sleeping. Then she turned on the big TV in the living room to watch the news, half expecting to see footage of leather-skinned monsters invading the farmlands of the Midwest. Instead, it was all about weather systems and business reports. In fact, everything around her seemed so incredibly normal that she started to second-guess herself. Maybe she’d gotten food poisoning and her memory of last night was all some weird-ass fever dream.

She’d woken up in a strange bed, that was for sure, without any of her things, except for her cell phone sitting on the nightstand.
Alone
in a strange bed, because Christian’s house had a large, comfortable guest room with an attached bathroom, a sealed toothbrush waiting for her on the counter and a stack of freshly laundered towels in the closet. It was actually far nicer than the motel she’d been staying at, so it had that going for it. No reason she couldn’t be comfortable while she was losing her mind.

At the sound of footsteps, she lifted her head to see Christian come down the hall. He wore a loose pair of black workout pants and a T-shirt that was just thin enough to cling to his well-muscled torso. She’d found him attractive before, but the sight of a sleep-rumpled Christian did funny things to her head.

“Sorry for being such a crappy host,” he said, running a hand through his tousled hair to straighten it. “I didn’t mean to sleep so late.”

“You’re not a crappy host. You saved my life, had your doctor friend fix me up and gave me a safe place to sleep. You’re doing pretty good, I think.” A memory of that monster flashed through her head again, and her smile faded. “It was real, wasn’t it? That all really did happen last night.”

He studied her face as if he half expected her to fall apart. “Afraid so.”

She nodded, accepting it, even though she’d rather not. She’d had a lot of practice accepting things she didn’t like but couldn’t change. Might as well put her experience to good use. “Thank you for all of that. I don’t remember…I don’t think I told you that yet, but thank you.”

“It was nothing.”

She could tell by the way he said it that he meant that. Like he killed monsters every day, had saved so many damsels in distress that the magnitude of it didn’t even register with him anymore. He moved into the kitchen, and she watched as he started the coffee.

“Eggs?”

When she said yes, he grabbed a frying pan from one of the lower cabinets and then moved to the refrigerator. Eggs, cheese, butter. He glanced over his shoulder at her and gave her an assessing look. “If you’re feeling up to it, I have pepper and onion you can dice.”

“You’re the one with all the experience with sharp pointy things.”

Christian smiled, expertly cracking two eggs one-handed and dumping them into the bowl before reaching for more. “My sword is back at Aiden’s, all locked up. Besides, it would be a desecration to use Skimstrok to cut veggies.”

“Skimstrok…that was the glowing metal?”

“From Asgard. It’s very rare even there, but nothing cuts through demon hide better.”

Pleasant thought. Pushing it aside, she climbed to her feet. “Point me toward the knives. I’m crap against demons, but I suppose I can handle peppers and onions.”

He did, and she set to work. It was good to get her mind off monsters for a while and focus on something normal. The knife in her hand and the familiar domestic task settled her. By the time she was done, some of the nervous tension that’d plagued her all morning had started to fade away. She had a feeling Christian would have understood that, and it was likely why he’d put her to work in the first place. He had a bit of a manipulative streak. She’d have to watch out for that.

Once the omelets were finished, they settled back to their seats and started eating. The news channel had moved on from the weather, and the announcer was running down the price of corn and hogs.

“I have a few questions for you.”

Christian smiled. “I bet.”

Where to start? “First of all…this place. It’s such a small town. How do you keep what you are a secret?”

He popped a bite of egg into his mouth and swallowed. “The whole town is Æsir. Everyone who lives here is of the blood to one degree or another. We were all born to it.”

“What if someone wanted to move in?”

“Thinking about staying already?”

“Heck no.”

He grinned. “If someone came house hunting, they’d be strongly encouraged to move on. That rarely happens, though. There aren’t a lot of jobs out here. No bigger towns within easy driving distance. We make sure the land is passed on through family lines. And that’s not so unusual in the Midwest that it raises any eyebrows. No one moves out unless it’s to join another clan. We’re tied to the magic of Asgard, which means we have to live near a fault or else we get sick. Full-blooded Æsir can get about as far as McGuire’s without a problem. The ones with Midgardian blood can get further depending on how strong their ties are to Earth.”

“You’ve…ah, interbred with humans in the past, then.”

“We used to intermarry pretty regularly, but now that we’re one uploaded video away from discovery, it’s made us more cautious about who we invite in.”

Which was why Aiden was so unhappy about her presence here. She supposed she should feel honored that they hadn’t wiped her memories and sent her off, but she felt more unsettled than anything else. She couldn’t help but wonder just how far they’d go to keep their secrets. Pretty far, she guessed, since no one knew about them yet.

“You’re full-blooded Æsir?”

He nodded, and her stomach sank. “So you won’t be able to help me track this thing down.”

“I can leave town for short periods of time as needed, but our plan was to draw the creature to the fault,” he said. “That’s still the best way forward. Raquel and Kamis have been working on a spell to accomplish that since before you left town the first time around.”

“There wasn’t ever a feral dog, was there?”

He set his cup aside. “We could have produced one if it came to that, but no. We intended to take care of the problem for you. It would have been easier if you’d left town.”

“I wondered why you called to ask me to breakfast.” She looked down at the last of her eggs, quickly growing cold. “I should’ve listened to my gut when it told me something was off.”

“Why would me asking you to breakfast have made you suspicious?”

“Seriously?” She looked up into his bright blue eyes, curiously intent. He seemed genuinely confused by her comment. “You have to know that you’re… That I’m…” She shook her head. “This is the closest thing I’ve had to a date since the taxidermist in Winterset invited me to view his personal collection. Strange, attractive men don’t usually hit on me when I’m doing my job.”

“I bet you wouldn’t notice if they did.”

“I’m sure I would.”

He got up to pour another cup of coffee. When he sat back down, he asked, “Any more questions?”

“A million of them.”

He smiled. “Pick one.”

“Okay, the…jötunn?” He nodded at her pronunciation, and she continued, “You said last night that you didn’t think those creatures were behind the reports we received. How can you be sure of that? From what I saw, they look exactly like the kinds of things that might snack on small pets.”

He leaned back in his chair. “The whole purpose of the hunt is to keep the jötnar contained. They can only cross from Asgard during a magic surge that happens during the full and new moon. The fault opens a natural portal large enough for them to break through into this world. And we know it. We can feel it coming. When the jötnar cross over, we’re there waiting for them. None of them escape.”

“None of them?” She raised her brows. “Not a single one has ever slipped through at any other time?”

The flinch at the corner of his eyes was answer enough, but he spoke anyway. “It’s happened. When our wards were failing, we had a few problems, but that’s resolved now. Aiden thinks a rogue jötunn has to be behind it. He
wants
to believe that because it would be the easiest problem to fix. What I think is that we need to keep an open mind.”

“What makes you think otherwise?”

He paused for a long moment. When he finally spoke, his words were measured, as if he were working things out in his own mind as he went along. “The jötnar are ensorcelled to hunt Æsir. They wouldn’t be able to avoid us even if it was in their best interest, not for an extended period of time. They cross worlds chasing
our
blood, not because they have a craving for chicken. If it was a jötunn, it might run from the hunt initially, but it would circle back around, slip into town and try to pick off the weaker members of the clan.”

His gaze was intent, as if he were willing her to believe in him. She still didn’t know enough about what she’d gotten herself into to pick a side. Even so, she very badly wanted to agree with him. She trusted him. He had that effect on her. She
wanted
to be on his side, and that could be a dangerous impulse under the circumstances.

“What else do you think it could be?”

His mouth set in a grim line. “I don’t know, but I intend to find out.”

There was a knock at the front door. Before Christian could get up, the door opened and a woman’s voice called out a hello from the entrance.

Christian answered and then met her startled gaze. “It’s Raquel. Do you remember her from last night?”

“Don’t you lock your doors?”

“What for?”

She stared at him, not sure if he was joking with her or not. There were monsters out there.

“It’s okay,” he said. “You’re safe. Everyone who lives here is clan, and no one gets into town without an alarm being raised.”

Raquel stepped into the kitchen and stopped when she saw them sitting there. She looked briefly at Jacey to nod a greeting, and then all of her attention fixed on Christian. “Why are you not answering your phone?”

He winced. “My mother called last night. I must have forgotten to plug the phone back in. I’ve been busy.”

Raquel gave Jacey a longer, assessing look and then leaned on the counter. “Well, we have a problem. Kamis went missing again last night.”

Christian groaned. “I know you don’t want to hear this, Raquel, but it’s time. It’s past time for you to tell Aiden the geis isn’t working right.”

Raquel shook her head and snagged a piece of Christian’s toast from his plate. “Aiden already knows. That’s what I came to tell you. Kamis showed up on his doorstep within a half-hour of the breach. I woke up when he opened a portal, along with all the other witches in town.”

“Shit,” Christian breathed.

Raquel nodded. “Yeah, exactly. I woke Fen up, told him everything, and we were on our way out to the fault when Aiden called to say he had Kamis at his house and everything was okay. He told us to go home and go back to sleep, that we’d meet to discuss it in the morning. Like I could sleep after that. Since we couldn’t get a hold of you, we decided to just meet here. Everyone’s on their way. I thought you deserved a warning, especially since Aiden’s pissed we didn’t tell him the geis isn’t working correctly.”

“We?”

Raquel grimaced. “I let it slip you knew. I’m so sorry.”

Muttering something under his breath, Christian stood and started gathering up dishes.

Raquel claimed his vacated seat. “Grace got back this morning.”

Christian looked up from loading the dishwasher. “She wrapped up her case?”

Raquel nodded. “They tracked the kid to Canada. He’s with a family member and there’s a lot of red tape involved in getting him back. Nothing else that she could do.” She hesitated. “Aiden isn’t particularly happy about it.”

“He wouldn’t be,” Christian said.

Jacey set down her coffee cup and said, “I’m sorry. Who is Grace?”

Christian shot her an apologetic look. “Grace is Aiden’s wife. She’s only half Æsir, so she’s one of the few people in the clan who can leave town for extended trips. She’ll be able to help you. She’s a good tracker.”

“Then why would Aiden be upset about that? It’s a good thing, right?”

“For the clan.” Christian took her plate and scraped it into the waste bin. “Not for Aiden. He won’t be happy about sending Grace out there alone to track this thing down.”

Except Grace wouldn’t be alone, because Jacey would be out there too. What Christian meant was that he didn’t think Jacey could get the job done, at least not on her own, and that stung. Pushing that aside, she picked up her empty mug and carried it to the sink. Christian took it from her and put it in the dishwasher.

“If you want, you can head up and take a shower,” Christian said absently. “There’s no reason you need to come to this meeting. It’ll mostly be the people you met yesterday, plus Grace. Get some rest. We’ll figure out what needs to be done and I can fill you in on everything later.”