Perfekt Control (The Ære Saga Book 2) (3 page)

Henrik leaned close enough that his beachy
smell enveloped my space. Fresh air, and sunshine, and a tang of
lime. “Brynnie.” He frowned. “I worked my butt off perfecting her
Meemaw’s recipe.”

“And I’m sure Tyr will thank you in the
morning,” I whispered back. I raised an eyebrow at our friend, who
had one hand on his plate and one hand on his girlfriend’s behind.
The look in his eyes was undeniably possessive.

“Fair enough.” Henrik sighed.

“Sorry your sister couldn’t make it, Tyr.”
Charlotte looked up from her cake. “I was looking forward to
meeting her.”

“You still haven’t met Elsa?” Mia shook her
head. “You’re going to love her. Her friend Forse, too.”

“They’re still just friends, huh?” I
asked.

“Apparently.” Tyr shrugged.

“Yeah, we’ve got a whole lot of stubborn
people around here.” Mia shot me a pointed look. I snorted. My
dating life was not mine to control. Not yet, anyway.

We ate in contented silence, and when the
last fork scraped the last crumb of red velvet, Tyr shifted Mia in
his lap. “Well,
mitt hjårta
, looks like your birthday is
drawing to a close. And I have a gift for you that’s not fit for
public viewing.”

I buried my face in Henrik’s chest to stifle
my laughter. Beside us, Heather let out a muffled guffaw.

“Well, it’s getting late. We’d better get
home.” Charlotte took Tyr’s hint. She stood, carried her plate to
the kitchen, and stared at Heather until she did the same.

“Uh, right.” Heather scurried to the kitchen
and back, then grabbed two jackets from the hall closet. She threw
one at Charlotte, then stuffed her arms through the other.
“Homework waits for no woman.”

“Y’all don’t have to go.” Mia gave Tyr a
pointed look. She gently removed his hand from her backside and
stood up. “We have more cake. Anybody want seconds?”

Heather looked like she was about to say yes,
but Charlotte grabbed her by the arm and dragged her toward the
front door. Mia followed. “Thanks, Mia, but we really should let
you, erm,
enjoy
the rest of your birthday. Come
on
,
Heather.”

As Heather begrudgingly followed her roommate
out the front door, she turned with a sparkle in her eye. “Glad to
see you finally
glowing
, Mia.” With a naughty wink, Heather
closed the door behind her, leaving Mia standing in the hallway
with flaming red cheeks and a gaping mouth. She stayed very still
as the lights of the girls’ car flashed through the windows,
sweeping across the drive. After a long moment, she pivoted on one
riding boot, and returned to the living area. Her eyes darted
around the room as she bit her bottom lip.

“Yep. We heard it.” Henrik let out a hoot,
and I hit him over the head with a couch pillow. His glasses fell
off, and he picked them up and set them on the coffee table. “What?
We’re all thinking it. You want us to clear out so you two can have
the house to yourselves?”

“Henrik!” Mia shrieked.

Tyr looked like he was considering the
offer.

“No.” Mia glared at Tyr. “No, we do not.”

Tyr chuckled as he stood and crossed to Mia.
He pulled her into his arms and nibbled on her crimson ear. “You’re
hot when you’re embarrassed.”

“Hush your mouth, Fredriksen,” Mia protested.
But after a minute she leaned into his touch.

“Before you get too into this,” I
interrupted, “we need to talk about the time freezer.”

“Now?” Mia wrinkled her brow. “Is everything
okay?”

“Not sure.” I paused as Elsa and Forse opened
the front door.

“Sorry we’re late. Happy birthday, Mia!” Elsa
ran to Mia and threw her arms around our friend. Mia beamed, while
Tyr tousled his sister’s blond waves. Hers were smooth and loose,
and not the least bit unruly. Mine took a half-hour to blow-dry
straight, and even then they frizzed at the slightest sign of
moisture.

Some goddesses got all the luck.

“
Hei,
Elsa. Forse.” Tyr held out a
fist. Forse closed the front door, before walking into the living
room and bumping Tyr’s knuckles in the universal male sign of
greeting. “You’re late.”

“Don’t be rude.” Mia swatted Tyr’s shoulder
and pointed to the coffee table. “We’ve got plenty of cake left.
Would you like some?”

Forse ran a hand through his hair while Elsa
wrung her fingers together.

“What’s going on?” Henrik rested his arm on
the back of the couch as he studied Forse’s face. “It’s never good
when your jaw twitches.”

“Wait.” Elsa held up her hand. “First we need
to wish Mia a happy birthday. Forse?”

“Right.” Forse pulled a small wrapped package
out of his back pocket and handed it to Mia. She took it with a
smile.

“You didn’t have to get me a present.”

“Of course we did. You’re a part of the crew
now. And we want to bribe you not to leave us. Odin knows we’re a
lot to put up with.” Forse crossed his arms and tilted his head at
Tyr. “Especially this
kille
.”

“Shove it, Justice.” Tyr growled at Forse,
using our nickname for the peacekeeping god. Forse just
laughed.

“Open it.” Elsa clapped her hands. With a
grin, Mia tore open the paper.

“You guys!” Mia squealed, holding up the
sporting store gift card. “Thank you! I totally need new running
shoes. How’d you know?”

“Hmm, maybe because my brother literally runs
you into the ground?” Elsa tossed her hair over her shoulder. “How
many miles do you two cover in a week, anyway?”

Mia glanced up at Tyr. “I don’t know. Maybe
thirty?”

“Closer to forty.” Tyr rested his hand on
Mia’s lower back.

“Mother Frigga.” Elsa shook her head. “Cut
her a break, will you Tyr?”

“It’s me,” Mia corrected. “I don’t want to be
the helpless human you guys lock in the house if something attacks
us. Again.” She shot me a pointed look.

“I didn’t lock you in anywhere!” I
protested.

“No, but your boss did. And she’s not here,
so I’m blaming you.” Mia looked around. “Where is Freya, anyway? I
saved her a piece of cake with extra frosting.”

I couldn’t help but smile. Mia and Freya got
off to a rocky start, since Mia was under the misconception that
Freya and Tyr were an item. But the girl and the goddess spent a
chunk of time together on our last lockdown at the safe house, and
they bonded over their shared loves of fashion and cooking. Now Mia
was just as enamored with the Goddess of Love as the rest of us
were… and the feeling was mutual.

“That’s why we’re late.” Elsa rubbed her
hands on her leggings, nervously. “There’s a teensy situation at
the portal.”

Every god in the room snapped to immediate
attention. The mortal simply stopped breathing.

“What do you mean ‘a situation?’” Henrik
pushed off the couch and stepped slightly in front of me. I jumped
up and moved around him so we stood side by side.

“What’s happening?” I asked.

“We’re not exactly sure.” A
V
formed
between Forse’s brows. “It’s been sparking for the last hour. Tiny
electric currents are shooting off the outline of the portal,
traveling roughly three meters on due south, then disappearing
before they hit the ground. We don’t understand what’s absorbing
the energy. We would have come over sooner, but we didn’t want to
ruin the party.”

“Disappearing?” Henrik’s frown matched
Forse’s. “That’s not right. If the portal’s being activated, the
current should flow to the dirt and ground itself. At least, that’s
what it did last time.”

“I know. I wouldn’t believe it unless I saw
it.” Forse shifted in the entryway.

I tapped Henrik’s exceedingly firm shoulder.
Great Odin’s ravens, how much was he benching these days? “Um,
could your blocker be doing it?”

“Huh? Oh! Right.” Recognition dawned in
Henrik’s eyes. “I installed the prototype of a new blocker that
should provide an extra level of security.” Henrik glanced at Tyr.
“But I haven’t locked down the tech. Maybe it’s short circuiting
because of the rain?”

“It’s not raining yet,” Elsa countered.
“Forecast says tomorrow. You sure that’s it?”

“No.” Henrik paused. “We should go check it
out.”

The front door burst open, knocking Forse out
of the way. He caught his footing and turned, shielding Elsa with
his body. Tyr, Henrik and I leapt into action. I threw myself in
front of Mia and herded her back into the living room, while Henrik
opened the weapons closet and threw a sword at Tyr. Tyr plucked it
out of the air and stood
en garde
, while Henrik aimed the
crossbow he’d chosen at the intruder.

Oh, skit. Here we go again.

“
YOU’LL NEED THE WEAPONS
. But not for
me.” The Goddess of Love burst into the hallway in a whirl of
strawberry-blond and freesia. Freya’s eyes were wide as her
ponytail whipped back and forth. “There’s a new portal next to the
original one, and something’s on the other side. We have to
move.”

“Brynn. Follow protocol,” Tyr barked.

“On it. Mia, upstairs. Now.” I wrapped my
fingers around my charge’s wrist and dragged her away from the
door.

She dug in her heels. “You are
not
locking me up again. You know I’m a better shot than all
y’all.”

“Not the time, love.” Tyr placed his hands on
her shoulders and stared her in the eyes. Her rigid posture relaxed
at his touch. “I have no doubt that you’ll fight at my side at some
point, but today is not the day.”

With that he kissed the top of Mia’s forehead
and gave me a nod. I tugged her up the stairs while Henrik flung
weapons at Forse and Freya. “Move out. Brynn, Elsa, if we don’t
report back in ten, call the big guy to send backup.”

“Odin’s on speed dial, got it. Elsa will send
the bird. Henrik, grab your earpiece. We’ll run communication.” I
caught Henrik’s eye as he tucked a nano-molecular particle
accelerator in his back pocket. It looked like a regular gun, but
our innovative—and slightly unorthodox—minds had tweaked the
technology to create the perfect implosive.

We
so
worked well together.

“Consider it done.” Henrik grabbed another
small item from the closet and pocketed it.

“You might want to take one of the vacuums,
too. Just in case you need to contain the dark matter,” I
suggested.

Henrik nodded. He reached into the closet one
more time and pulled out a small metal box, depositing it in the
side pocket of his cargos.

Be careful
, I mouthed.

You too
, he mouthed back. And with a
nod, he followed Tyr, Freya, and Forse outside, closing the door
behind him.

Elsa locked the door and followed me up the
stairs. “Let’s go to the man cave,” she suggested. “I can get a
feed from there.”

“A feed for what?” Mia questioned. A shout
from outside prompted me to nudge her ahead of me. “Stop pushing
me, Brynn!”

“Sorry,” I said, not sorry. “You know the
protocol.”

Mia recited Tyr’s rule as I hurried her along
the upstairs hall. “In the event of an attack, secure the mortal in
the panic room. Or, as we refer to it in front of company, the man
cave.”

“Asgardians believe in efficiency.” I
shrugged. “No reason one room can’t have multiple functions.”

“True,” Elsa agreed as she followed us into
the Arcata cabin’s technologically endowed hideaway. “But would it
kill you guys to decorate it a little? I get that the boys need a
place for their surveillance equipment, and that the
Brynnrik
mini-lab lives over there.” She gestured to the
cluttered workspace while I snorted at our friends’ nickname for
the tech-oriented brain they claimed Henrik and I shared. “But the
rest of the house is so nice. This is just… sparse. And it’s such a
big room, you could put some paintings on that empty wall, or maybe
hang some curtains…”

She wasn’t exactly wrong. Our technological
paradise might have looked bland from a decorator’s standpoint, but
functionally it was a work of art. We’d taken down a wall that
separated two large bedrooms, portioning one section off for
surveillance equipment, video screens, gadgets, and the requisite
lounger and gaming system, and leaving the remainder of the work
space for tables littered with beakers, burners, soldering irons,
robotics gear, and the odds and ends we needed to develop our
occasionally unorthodox tech. We kept any tools we couldn’t fit
upstairs in our larger lab space out in the garage

“I’ll let you approach Tyr with your plans
for a man cave makeover.” I closed the door once the three of us
were safely ensconced in the room and slid the deadbolt across the
jam. I keyed the code into the pad on the wall, and heavy black
shutters slid over the bulletproof windows. The alloy was fire
resistant, bomb resistant, and most importantly, deflected every
form of magic Henrik and I had thrown at it during beta tests, dark
magic included. We’d recently insulated the house itself with the
same material, ensuring that in the event of an attack, nothing,
not even a homicidal devil-spawn wolf, could get through.

Tyr wasn’t taking
any
chances with
Mia.

“Hold on.” Mia walked to the blacked-out
window. “If you do that, how are we going to see what’s
happening?”

“A little birdie will show us. Elsa?” I
crossed to a flat screen and turned it on. Elsa closed her eyes and
held out her hands, one facing the window and one facing the TV.
After a minute, the screen flickered to life, showing a high-def
image of the tracking party.

“That’s you? You’re a… a
human video
camera
? How is that even possible?” Mia’s voice was high enough
to make me check the windows. Good thing Henrik insisted we
reinforce them. Mia had a set of lungs that could rival a
berserker.

“Technically, I’m a
goddess
video
camera, not a human one.” Elsa’s voice carried the joy of a
thousand pinwheels. She absolutely oozed calm, even under the most
stressful circumstance. “I’m telekinetically manipulating a
pre-positioned mobile visual recorder, and transmitting its feed to
a surveillance station—in this case, to the man cave.”