Perfekt Control (The Ære Saga Book 2) (7 page)

But it wouldn’t happen again.

“You ready?” I held out my hand, and Henrik
took it. His familiar grip was reassuring. Wherever this journey
took us, he’d be right there at my side. And so far, there hadn’t
been an obstacle we couldn’t tase, implode, or outsmart into
submission.

We really were the
perfekt
team.

“Let’s do this. Heimdall, to Alfheim.” Henrik
gave a gentle squeeze, and I matched the pressure.

“To Alfheim,” I echoed.

Maybe it was my anxiety over the transport,
or maybe it was just a trick of the
extremely
intense light,
but I could have sworn Henrik paled as he named our destination.
Before I could study him further, Heimdall sent us rocketing
through the realms and across the rainbow bridge that served as
Asgard’s private highway through the cosmos. The familiar sensation
of bones being sucked tight against flesh made me queasy, and
Henrik’s clenched jaw made me wonder if he was really upset about
Freya… or if there was something more going on.

Either way, he’d have to put a lock on
whatever he felt. If the light wasn’t playing tricks on me, it
looked like Heimdall was about to drop us right smack dab into a
field filled with meadow elves. And from the looks of things, they
weren’t expecting company.

“
MY SISTERS, RAISE YOUR
hearts to the
sun. Raise your consciousness to Mother Goddess, She who nourishes
the spirit and encompasses the being.” The white-clad woman opened
her arms to the sky, her eyes closed in blissful rapture. A
half-dozen identically dressed meadow elves formed a circle around
her, mirroring her movements, like a sea of land-dwelling anemone
shifting lyrically in the breeze. Asgardian schooling was heavy on
the linguistics, so translating the elf’s words was easy enough.
Understanding why she was saying them, however, was another matter.
Raised consciousness?
“There She is. I can feel Her light
glowing brighter. Can you feel the elements warming in gratitude?
They welcome our worship. They thrive with our blessing. Only
through giving your mind, body, and spirit to Mother Goddess can we
truly
see
what is meant to be
seen
. Can you
feel
how much brighter the sun shines on us as we give Her
our praise?”

The Bifrost retracted above us while I
focused on staying upright. As he always did, Henrik held out his
forearm so I had something to hold on to while I gathered my
bearings. He rested his other hand on the middle of my back, and I
drew on his relaxed energy while I willed my stomach to settle.
Henrik knew I hated having a weakness so we never discussed my
travel sickness. He just kept us cloaked and let me hold his arm
until I stopped heaving.

Gods, he was romantic. It was
so
unfair the valkyrie code prohibited me from dating until I reached
the rank of captain. Right then all I wanted to do was jump into
Henrik’s spectacular arms, lace my fingers through his hair
and—

“Now elevate your consciousness further, up,
up, up until you touch the very beams Mother Goddess sends down.
Beams of love that envelop the soul in a welcoming embrace.”

My eyebrows shot up at the meadow elf’s
words. Mother Goddess? Soul envelop? These ladies were nuttier than
the fruitcake Mia baked at Halloween. They made Midgard’s hippies
seem unfortunately uptight.

“Here, put this on.” Henrik pulled a bracelet
out of his backpack and shoved it at me. At the same time, he
pushed one over his own wrist. “It’s a charm blocker. Keeps them
from getting to you.”

“
Takk
,” I whispered gratefully. It’d
been a while since my last trip to Alfheim, but I remembered
finding myself skipping through the meadow, picking daisies to
offer Mother Goddess. Elves had exceptional powers of
suggestion.

“Sorry, ladies. It’s not Mother Sun. The
light was just our ride.” Henrik removed our cloak and slipped
easily into the elves’ language. He held out his hands and walked
calmly toward the circle. I watched his cargo-clad posterior flex
with each step, the tight muscles moving back and forth beneath the
snugly fitted fabric in a hypnotic pattern.
Sigh
. “Heimdall
must have thought this clearing was empty when he dropped us in.
Didn’t mean to disturb your, eh, worship.”

The circle of meadow elves erupted into
positively giddy giggles. The girls bounced up and down, their eyes
fixated on Henrik like he was the second coming of their Mother
Goddess in a deliciously exquisite, masculine form.
And they
haven’t even checked out his butt. Good luck, elves.

“Did you say Heimdall sent you here? That
would make you members of the Aesir. My apologies, Asgardians. You
must have traveled very far to join us.” The woman in the center
bowed, and the rest of the elves stopped giggling and followed
suit. Up close I could see why the woman acted as the leader—wisdom
lined her wrinkled face, and an air of authority emanated from the
top of her greying hair all the way down to her bare feet. She must
have had a few centuries on the maidens who gathered around her.
They looked like the equivalent of Midgardian high-schoolers, with
their glossy curls, sparkling eyes, and smooth skin that shone in
the early morning light.

“No worries.” Henrik gave an easy smile, and
the giggles erupted again. I wanted to roll my eyes, but honestly,
I couldn’t blame them. When Henrik smiled, he tended to get what he
wanted. Popping that dimple was simply unfair.

The sun was just rising on Alfheim, and the
meadow we’d touched down in was dusted with dew. A circle of
weeping willows stood like sentinels on the field’s border,
guarding a plethora of purple and yellow wildflowers, lavender
hyacinths, and those tiny white flowery puffs that looked like
snowballs—I could never remember their name. The sky reflected a
dusty rose-pink as the sun slowly peeked over the grass-covered
mountain. And immediately in front of me, seven meadow elves hiked
up their flowing white dresses that didn’t have so much as a hint
of a grass stain, and skipped gleefully toward Henrik.

“You poor thing,” one clucked in a tone so
lilting, for a minute I thought she was singing. “You must be
exhausted
from traveling.”

“Come with us.” Another beckoned. “Let Mother
Goddess
nourish
your energy. Your levels must be low after
your journey from Asgard.”

I pushed myself closer to Henrik. If his
charm blocker failed, I wanted to be right there to pull him out. I
had a good idea how the elfster wanted to “nourish” his energy. And
if anyone was going to provide that particular service for him, it
would be
me.
Someday. Gods,
please
, someday
.
“Why do they assume we came here from Asgard?”

“We told them Heimdall dropped us in here, so
I guess they connected the dots about where we’re from. It wouldn’t
occur to them that we were spending time in the mortals’ realm.
Most light elves avoid the place, unless they’re low on… uh,
reproductive options.”

That made sense. Alfheim only hosted races of
light elves, most of whom were female. This meant they occasionally
sought out non-natives to re-populate their species. Beyond
biological purposes, the elves tended to avoid outside contact with
anyone who wasn’t from Alfheim or Asgard. It was a tactical choice
designed to preserve the realm’s security. Not that they needed
additional security—Alfheim was rarely under threat, thanks to its
residents’ alluring attributes.

When the light elves swore off violence
centuries ago, Odin gifted each race with an entrancing power
designed for defense. Their enchantments came from their physical
attributes. Meadow elves neutralized an attacker by tossing their
hair. The ripples of the movement caused their follicles to emit a
hallucinogenic chemical that caused a recipient to feel dizzy. This
would slow a pursuer enough that the elves could enchant them into
a sleep before running away. Water elves could induce inebriation
by flicking their tails at their victim—a particularly dangerous
power since it was performed near a body of water and often led to
accidental drowning. Solar elves refracted the sun’s rays to
distract an enemy, though they rarely needed to—as the second most
beautiful residents of Alfheim, male pursuers were, as a rule, so
enthralled with the vision of a solar elf, they very rarely
attacked.

But the most dangerous residents of Alfheim
were the fairies—the
älva
. Though non-violent like the rest
of the realm, they were devastatingly beautiful, and terrifyingly
cunning. They might not cut out the throat of a victim, but they
wouldn’t hesitate to lay claim to his heart.
Älva
considered
all male visitors to the realm fair game. They only had to breathe
on a victim to claim complete and total control of his devotion for
a few years.

Or so I’d read in my textbooks. As a junior
valkyrie, my visits here had been brief and void of any drama.

Until today.

“Come with us, sir.” One of the younger
meadow elves took Henrik by the elbow and pulled him toward her. I
reached out and gripped his hand, anchoring him to me. The young
elf pinched her lips into a thin line.

“No sir here.” Henrik laughed. “I’m just a
bodyguard. And so is she.” Henrik tilted his head in my
direction.

“Hi.” I raised my free hand in a small wave.
“I’m Brynn. This is Henrik. We’re looking for, uh… who exactly are
we looking for?” Henrik never told me the name of his
älva
dust supplier. In fact, he’d only brought home one batch since I’d
joined Tyr’s team two years back.

Henrik looked at the gaggle of elves shooting
him goo-goo eyes. “We’re looking for Finnea,” Henrik offered. “Do
you guys know where we can find her?”

The cluster dispersed as the girls scampered
behind their leader. The older woman lifted her chin and met
Henrik’s gaze. “Are you sure you wish to see Finnea? Perhaps your
soul
would be better served from engaging in worship with
us
.” She stressed the last word.

“Yeah, my soul would be better off doing a
lot
of things besides tracking down Finnea. But orders are
orders. Have you seen her?” The twinkle left Henrik’s eyes. He met
the leader’s stare with steely focus.

“She usually convenes at the waterfall alone.
She does not have many friends.” The woman’s mouth turned down in
disapproval.

“Don’t I know it.” Henrik ran his free hand
through his hair. “The waterfall’s that way,
ja
?” He jutted
his chin to the right.

“You are correct.” The woman walked forward
and placed her hand on Henrik’s shoulder. “May the peace, and love,
and strength of Mother Goddess be with you on your journey. And
should you find yourself in need of
nourishment…
you are
always welcome to return to us.” She tossed her long grey hair, and
I held my breath. A wave of what I could only describe as love
blanketed the grove, enveloping Henrik and me in its warmth. I
cringed as I waited for the inevitable pull toward the woman—the
one that would bind me under her spell. But the only pull I felt
was on my hand, as Henrik led me away from the meadow elves and in
the direction of the waterfall.

“That’s really generous of you, ladies.
Takk
—Brynn and I appreciate the hospitality.” With a jaunty
wave, Henrik dropped my hand and we broke into a light jog. We
moved across the meadow, through the oak trees, and onto a
clover-lined path I presumed led to the waterfall.

“You don’t want to go back?” I asked in
confusion. The enchantment hadn’t worked on me, but maybe it was
because I was a girl. Elves had little use for female visitors from
a reproductive standpoint.

“Nope.” Henrik held up his wrist and my eyes
fell on the bracelet.

“Oh. Oh!” My mouth fell open. “It worked! The
charm blocker worked!”

“Of course it worked.” Henrik rolled his eyes
without breaking his run. “When has a piece of my tech ever
not
worked?”

Now was probably
not
the time to
remind him about our initial model for the nano-molecular particle
accelerators. Odin’s pear orchard stood as testimony to our failed
attempt at advancing implosive technology.

“Henrik Andersson.” I ran at his side. “You
are, quite simply, the most brilliant scientific mind of our day.
Nobody
is immune to elf charms. Nobody. I’m not even going
to ask what you put into these things.”

“Yeah, don’t.” Henrik slowed to a walk. I
followed suit. He wrapped long fingers around my wrist, circling
the bracelet. My eyelids fluttered.
Stop it, Brynn
. “Take
this thing off the minute we Bifrost out of here. I didn’t have
time to study the long-term effects.”

“Fair enough.” Goosebumps still peppered my
skin where he touched me. I let out an involuntary shiver, and
Henrik ran his other hand over my arm.

“You cold,
sötnos
?” He pulled me
closer and slipped his arms around my back. It was a comforting
gesture, one intended to create warmth. And it did create warmth.
Just not the kind my elf-magnet
friend
probably
intended.

“I’m okay.” I rested my cheek on the board
that was his chest and let my mind wander as Henrik slowly moved
his thumbs along the muscles of my back. The motion smoothed the
knots that had tripled in size since Freya’s disappearance.

Freya’s disappearance…

My mind tried to push out the mental pictures
of the last time this happened—the waiting, the searching, the
gut-wrenching terror as we prepared for the inevitable, and
finally, shortly after Freya was returned, the official visit from
Odin’s guard. His announcement of what we’d lost nearly ripped my
soul in two, with a tear so deep there was no question of it ever
fully healing—mitigation was the best I could hope for. I’d
silenced all thoughts of those hellish weeks in the aftermath where
I’d struggled to stay afloat; when I’d accepted there would be hole
in my heart from then to eternity. I’d buried that agony deep in
the emotional vault to be lost forever. But as I rested my head
against Henrik’s torso and allowed myself to relax in his embrace,
a jolt of pain struck my gut.
Get it together, Aksel. Now.
I
jumped out of Henrik’s arms, slamming the door against the flood of
memories that threatened to undo my
perfekt
control. It was
the blessing and the curse of being immortal—I had all the time in
the world to understand
why
things had to happen the way
they did, but I’d drive myself to madness if I allowed the sheer
weight of centuries of memories to pull too heavily on my
consciousness. I was
really
good at letting things go.
Really good. But every once in a while, a figment from my past came
back to haunt me.