Perfekt Control (The Ære Saga Book 2) (31 page)

“It doesn’t work like that, and you know it,”
I reminded him.

Forse shrugged. “Fair’s fair.”

“And if the God of Justice says it, it must
be true.”

Forse just winked.

“Are you going to let me do this or not? Odin
knows I need the practice.” I planted my hands on my hips and
blinked at my longtime crush and longer-time friend. It didn’t take
him long to break.

“All right, all right.” Forse held up his
hands. “The big, blue deal-closers win.”

I batted my eyelashes with a smile.

Forse reached up and brushed my temple with
the back of one finger. A wave of goose bumps broke out across my
neck as I leaned into the touch. Seconds after his knuckles grazed
my cheek, Forse pulled his hand back and took a step to the side.
“All right, Miss Unifier, give me your best shot.”

I pressed my lips together and extinguished
the feeling of disappointment. Forse and I had danced this dance
for a few months—longer, if I counted the time before I was stuck
in the coma. Forse liked me . . . or I thought he did, but he
pulled back every time we started to get close. And even though
Odin had gifted me with the ability to read feelings, auras, and
the occasional mind, I couldn’t get a grasp on
why
Forse
wouldn’t let himself fall for me. My normally intuitive brain
picked up on an inkling of fear flashing from somewhere in Forse’s
emotional center, but I couldn’t for the life of me determine its
source.

The God of Justice was proving to be one
irritating wall of hard-headedness. And my supposed
gift
was
completely letting me down.

“Elsa?” Forse waved his hand, and I snapped
back to the present.

“Mmm?” A gust of wind pulled my attention to
the redwood grove outside the window of my tiny house. Another
storm was blowing in—the second one this month, and the sixth since
December. A March shower in Northern California wasn’t unusual . .
. but a winter of snowfalls this close to the ocean sure was.
Better keep an eye on that
.

Forse furrowed his brow in concern. “I lost
you. Do you still want to practice your energy analysis, or do you
need to lie down for a while?”

“I’m good. Let’s get started.”

“It’s only been a few months since you came
out of the coma, and you know there can be residual effects. Maybe
we should—”

“I’m fine, Forse, I swear. I just got
distracted. There’s a lot riding on me getting this right, so
pretty please stand there and let me practice.”

“I would, but—”

“But nothing. You and I both know that if I
don’t get a grip on this ability soon, the realms will be in
serious trouble. Asgard needs a proper Unifier. My mom held the
light realms in balance so well, they’ve kept it together since she
died. But that can’t last much longer, and I don’t even want to
think of how powerful the dark worlds will become if I don’t make
this work.”

Forse shook his head. “I still think it’s too
soon. Fenrir nearly killed you. You—”

I placed my hand on his arm and kept my voice
soft. “I’ve got this.”

Forse and I stared at each other for a
seemingly endless beat. He was the first to blink. “You’ll let me
know if you need a break?”

I ran my fingers along the throw that rested
on my tan sofa. The soft blue fibers matched my new curtains
perfectly. “You have my word. Now let’s go over what we’ve learned
since the Norns named me interim Unifier. Maybe we can avoid
repeating some of our earlier, uh, mistakes.”

“Like the time you accidentally filled my
energy with so much love I very nearly kissed Brynn?” Forse raised
one eyebrow, and my cheeks grew hot. That hadn’t been an accident.
Right after my parents’ deaths, the Norns had named me my mom’s
replacement, and Forse had volunteered to help me practice
unifying—bringing opposing factions together. On my first attempt,
I’d pushed an overwhelming amount of adoring energy into Forse’s
love center, thinking it would make him own up to his feelings for
me. Brynn had walked in at just the wrong moment and almost reaped
the benefit of my misguided work.
Right place, wrong goddess.
Lesson learned.

“Um, yes. Like that.” I stared at the
recessed lights in my living room, willing the blood to drain from
my cheeks. “So we won’t try that one again. Just like we won’t try
to override your consciousness—sorry I ended up making you think
you were a fairy.”

Forse glared at me.

“And we won’t try to mute your sense of
self-preservation—seriously, I did not see the whole ‘handing over
your broadsword and kneeling before my brother’ thing coming.” I
giggled.

Forse glared harder.

“Right.” I covered my mouth. “And we
definitely won’t invoke the guardian spirits from Valhalla. That
did not end well.”

“Thanks for pulling me out before the
inebriated ones tried to decapitate me. Remember, they train during
the
daytime
. Off hours, it’s one giant mead-fest.” Forse
folded his arms across his perfectly sculpted chest. His grey
T-shirt strained against a set of flexed biceps, and his profile
was backlit by the lamp beside the three-quarter-length window,
giving him an almost ethereal glow.
Oh dear gods, he is
beautiful. So beautiful. It’s completely unfair that Odin
would—

“Are you sticking your tongue out at me?”
Forse asked.

Oops!
I hadn’t realized I was licking
my lips. Thank Odin Forse was as dense as a forest. “Erm, just
giving you a hard time. I promise I won’t make those mistakes
again. But you’d think with all the research we’ve done, all the
books we’ve read and the subjects we’ve interviewed, we’d be closer
to understanding
how
my mom did what she did. She made it
look so easy. And it’s just . . . not.”

“That’s the thing about this particular job.”
Forse shrugged. “Unifying’s an intuitive skill. It’s not like Tyr’s
job, where he can look at old war strategies to assess an enemy’s
weakness, or my job, where I can study the legal systems of the
realms to get a handle on how they operate. What you’re trying to
do is a mystery. All of the subjects we interviewed had no idea how
your mom helped them; they just knew that she did. We really don’t
have much of a choice—it’s trial and error or bust here.”

“Fair enough. So today we’re going to . . .”
I blew air out of my lips in a frustrated stream. “Odin’s beard,
what haven’t we tried? We’ve been at this for ages.”

Forse smiled, pale pink lips curving up to
reveal a glimpse at two rows of blinding white teeth. Everything
about him was
perfekt
. “Why don’t we stick with what you
know? You’re an epic High Healer; try scanning my energy centers
for blocks like you would with a regular healing, and if you find
something pull it out. A removed block should make me more open to
befriending thine enemy,
ja
?”

“Something like that.” I smiled back, trying
not to get lost in the beautiful green vortexes of his eyes. “And
if that doesn’t work, I’ll just bang my head against your chest and
cry.”

Ooh, if I cry, maybe he’ll comfort me. Wrap
his arms around me and pull me close so I can—

Not helping!

Forse chuckled, oblivious to my inner
turmoil. “My chest can take the head-butt,” he pointed out. “You
crying, on the other hand, might just break me.”

My cheeks flamed again. “Okay, here we go.
Unifying 101, take nine hundred.” I was going to learn how to bring
spirits together if it was the last thing I did. Not only was it my
Odin-given destiny, at least until I could pass the torch to my
brother’s mortal girlfriend, Mia, but it was a key function of
Asgardian security, therefore vital to the survival of our race and
the realms as we knew them. Plus, there was a smidgeon of a chance
my using Forse as a practice buddy might just open his heart to the
possibility of
finally
dating me. Which, of course, would
just be a pleasant side effect of my education, and not at all the
reason I was working so hard.

I wasn’t
totally
selfish, after
all.

“Let’s do this,” Forse said. He closed his
eyes, and I followed suit, drawing a deep breath. I exhaled and
pressed my palms toward the ground, expelling all foreign energy
from my body. Calling my energy back to me was second nature, and
as I expanded my energetic bubble to nudge against Forse’s space, I
sent a prayer of thanks to my mom for passing on this extremely
useful, albeit highly confusing, gift.

“You’re in now, aren’t you?” Forse sounded
uncomfortable.

“What’s the matter, Justice? Don’t trust
me?”

“I trust you. It’s just . . .”

“It’s okay; I know it’s weird. You can push
me out at any time. You know the drill, just intend to eject my
energy from your space. Your energy will follow your
intention.”

“I’m not going to push you out,” Forse said.
“We’ve got to be getting close to cracking this.”

“It would have been a lot easier if we’d
known I got Mom’s unifying gene,” I whispered. “She could have
explained everything to me before Fenrir . . . well, before.”

Forse’s energy flickered, and an air of
remorse passed through his aura, dimming it a notch. “I’m so sorry
we lost your parents.”

“It’s not your fault. You didn’t sic Fenrir
on them.” I sent a wave of love at him—just enough to be the
equivalent of an energetic hug, definitely
not
enough to
send him off trying to kiss the first girl who walked by. Again.
Lucky Brynn
.

“Yeah, but—”

“But nothing. They’re gone; it’s nobody’s
fault but Fenrir’s . . . well, Fenrir’s and
hers
.” I forced
the image of Fenrir’s accomplice out of my head. “And that devil
woman fled Asgard the day of the attack, so let’s move forward and
give Mom a legacy to be proud of.”

Forse nodded. I knew it was hard for him to
put his worry aside, but he stayed very still and his energy
started to calm. “I’m all yours.”

Gods, I wish.

“I’m going back in,” I declared. “Let’s see
if I can get it right this time.”

Forse nodded again. With the path to his
energy centers clear, I began my assessment.
Analyze each
location. Identify any blocks. Isolate and remove the barrier.
It seemed simple enough. Odin willing, this approach worked.
Between Fenrir’s attacks, Hel’s abduction of our love goddess,
Freya, and this bizarre cold spell in a realm plagued by global
warming, I sensed the
perfekt
balance of our realms was
starting to tip toward the dark side. If I could just hold it
together until my brother got around to marrying his girlfriend,
Mia, then under Asgardian law she’d assume the role of Unifier. I
had every confidence she’d be brilliant at the job. She had an
innate knack for smoothing out emotionally charged situations, and
she somehow managed to make my normally uptight brother calm enough
to see the big picture. Once Mia could take over as Asgard’s
Unifier, I’d get to go back to my
other
full-time job, High
Healer—a calling I was considerably less bad at.

For all our sakes, I hoped Tyr proposed soon.
Like, yesterday, soon.

“Elsa? Are we still doing this?” Forse
interrupted my derailed train of thought.

“Yes. Sorry. I’m really distracted
today.”

Forse chuckled. “Am I that boring on the
inside?”

“Quite the opposite. You’re positively
brilliant on the inside.” He was. His entire being was filled with
a striking golden light. It was a testament to a life lived with
ære
—honor.

“You flatter me,
hjärtat
. Now get to
work.”

“Yes, sir.” I zeroed in on the glowing light
at the base of Forse’s spine. Mortals called the pulsing markers
along the spine chakras, but Asgardians knew them as energy
centers. These tiny orbs contained a blueprint of Forse’s past, and
predicted the choices of his future. Each represented a different
function—for example, Forse’s first center, the one at the base of
his spine, permeated a clear white light. It made sense that the
center reflecting his family of origin would be so pure—Forse’s
dad, Balder, was the God of Light, and his mom, Nanna, was the
Goddess of Warmth—the immortal embodiment of maternal love. Forse’s
childhood had been uncharacteristically secure for an Asgardian,
and he’d maintained a close relationship with his parents and his
brother once he took his own title.

“Your first center’s clear—no blocks there.
How are your parents?” I asked.

“They’re good. Mom wants you to come for
dinner the next time we’re in Asgard. She looked at those pictures
I sent her of you with Mia—she’s convinced you’re not eating
enough, and she wants to fatten you up.” I could hear Forse’s
smile, even with my eyes closed.

“I love your mom.” I grinned back, then
furrowed my brow as I analyzed the next two orbs. “Your second
center’s clear, and your third center is gorgeous—you really know
where you fit in the world, don’t you?”

Forse sighed. “It’s the blessing and the
curse of being of Asgard—when Odin gifts you a title, you kind of
have to stick with it.”

“Tell me about it,” I murmured. “Fourth
center is . . . hmm.”

“What?” Forse asked.

“There’s something in your love center—a
little speck that’s popping against the gold. Would you mind if I
went in deeper?” Asking permission was a requisite of healing; I
assumed the rules were the same for unifying. A god’s spirit was
uniquely theirs, after all.

“You do what you have to do,” Forse agreed.
But the speck grew bigger as he spoke.
Interesting
.

“Okay.” I took a breath and pushed my energy
against Forse’s, making my way through the waves of gold
surrounding his heart until I neared the speck. This close to the
core of the love center, the energy was a muddied brown.
That’s
strange.
I pressed closer, and for the first time I felt a
resistance. With another breath, I ploughed forward. Forse’s energy
pushed back, rejecting my advances. I squared my shoulders and
tried again, and this time the energy parted to let me though. The
moment I caught sight of the iron wall surrounding the center’s
core, the brown energy closed ranks and pushed me back, forcibly
ejecting me from the justice god’s energy field.