Perfekt Order (The Ære Saga Book 1) (21 page)

“Oh. Right. So now you’re doing the job your
dad and this Odin guy had?”

“I oversee all major threats to my… country,
and I protect its most sought-after treasures. If they fell into
the wrong hands, it would absolutely devastate the peace we’ve
worked to build.”

Tyr’s statement raised a cluster of concerns.
What was Sweden doing entrusting it’s national security to a guy
who was barely old enough to vote? And why had they given him time
off to come to the States? I studied Tyr’s face as he frowned. “Are
you okay?”

“I’m fine.” He raised my wrist to his lips.
He sucked softly on the sensitive skin, and I let out a quiet sigh,
my laundry-list of questions momentarily forgotten. Blood pooled
deep in my belly, and my cheeks tingled with prolonged
anticipation. When Tyr spoke again, the movement of his lips
resonated against my arm. “I’m hungry.”

Oh. My. God.

The waitress chose that moment to appear with
our food. She dropped my plate in front of me with such force a
french fry bounced onto the table. But she placed Tyr’s carefully
in front of him, lowering herself slowly so her cleavage was
positioned as close to his face as decency would allow. “Anything
else I can bring you?” she drawled.

“Mia?” Tyr raised one eyebrow.

“We’re good, thanks.” I shot her my
sugary-sweet smile. She glared at me and stomped off.

“I do
not
think she likes you very
much.” Tyr chuckled as he pushed his plate toward me. “Here. Trade.
I don’t want to know what she did to yours.”

“You don’t have to eat it,” I protested. But
he held up a hand.

“Take the cheeseburger, woman.”

I slid my plate in front of him, gratefully.
“Thank you.”

“All in the name of romance,
prinsessa
.”

“You’re not half bad at the romance bit,
Fredriksen.”

“So I hear.” He chuckled. He picked up a fry
and took a bite. The intensity in his eyes while he chewed made me
pause. There was obviously more to Tyr Fredriksen than I might ever
know. As I bit into my burger, I ran through every possible
scenario. He was a mutated super-warrior. He could predict stock
trends and print his own money—it would certainly explain the fancy
house and designer furnishings. He was a superhero. The ideas
continued as we talked and ate, and even as Tyr paid the bill and
we walked to the motorcycle, each possibility increasingly more
bizarre than the last. But my obsessive train derailed completely
when I again climbed onto the motorcycle and wrapped my arms around
Tyr. It was on the back of that bike, my arms wrapped around my
date, that my mind jumped onto an entirely different track. And it
didn’t shift focus until after Tyr dropped me off, with a long,
lingering, front-porch kiss.

****

That Friday night date was the start of my
new normal—my somewhat bizarre, definitely unexpected, ridiculously
fabulous, normal. The next week, Tyr picked me up when I finished
at the engineering lab, and we headed to his place with Henrik and
Brynn to cook dinner together. It became our Tuesday and Thursday
night tradition, and we’d alternate my heartier Southern meals with
Henrik’s lighter Scandinavian ones. Weekends were for hiking,
watching movies, or hitting the beach. We’d bring picnic dinners
over to Elsa’s, who seemed to respond to the company; several times
when I was there, her vitals spiked with marked improvement, and
once I even saw her mouth twitch in a smile. Her condition was
improving steadily, and there had been no mention of any more
dangerous sightings in the woods. I was no closer to figuring out
exactly what Tyr’s job entailed, but the upside of spending so much
time with him was that his secrecy didn’t bother me as much as it
used to. He was letting me into his life as much as he was able,
and I was learning to make peace with the fact that his mysteries
would unravel themselves in due time.

At least, I seriously hoped they would.

On a Friday afternoon in late October,
Henrik, Brynn and I were pulling an extra session in the lab.
Henrik bent the prosthesis’ finger back and forth and grinned at
me.

“What?” I handed him the solvent and he
poured some over a swab before wiping down the robot.

“I’m just glad Tyr got over himself and
started dating you. He’s been decidedly less obnoxious since you
came into the picture.”

“You said it.” Brynn looked up from her
notebook, where she’d made great headway on the algorithm. “Dating
you has brought out a kinder, gentler, less irritable Tyr.”

Brynn and Henrik looked at each other and
burst into laughter.

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

“Can’t explain. But if you’d known him all
your life like we have…” Brynn gave in to a fresh bout of
hysteria.

“Sorry.” Henrik wiped his eyes. “Hand me that
wrench, would you?”

I did as instructed and tried not to feel
left out.

“And speak of the devil.” Henrik winked. “Tyr
says you guys have plans tonight.”

“He said to dress warm. Any idea where he’s
taking me?”

“Yep. I helped him pack up.”

“Pack up? Are we going away?” I tried not to
panic. I wasn’t sure if I was ready for a sleepover. Tyr had been
opening up more about his life before Arcata, and he was sexy as
sin, but I still didn’t know if I was ready to sleep with him. I
wanted
to, I wasn’t made of stone, but he had this whole
secret world with his sister and his job that I couldn’t begin to
understand. How could I let him in on that level without
understanding exactly what made him tick?

“You wish you were going away,” Brynn teased.
“Tyr’s hot. Soooo hot.”

“He’s okay.” Henrik muttered.

“He’s more than okay. You’re hot, too. But
you’re an intellectual hot. The brains, the wild hair, the
glasses—definitely a bookish hot.” Brynn conceded.

“Which is sometimes better than the
non-bookish hot,” I offered, relieved I still had some time to
decide whether I wanted Tyr to be my first… well, my first
everything.

“Charity will get you nowhere. Work harder,
ladies. Fred isn’t going to finish himself.” Henrik adjusted his
glasses and attached a tiny screw to the arm.

“We’re still calling it Fred, are we?” I
exhaled, relieved the focus was off me.

Henrik bristled. “Yes, we are. Fred was a
very special dog.”

“Okay. Truce.” I held out my hand, and he
took it.

“Truce. Oh, and Mia? You’re welcome for the
marshmallows.”

He grinned as I blinked. What the heck did
that mean?

“
YOU LOOK AMAZING,
PRINSESSA
.”

Tyr stood on my porch with a handful of
purple peonies. He was perfection in fitted jeans, a grey Henley,
and his leather jacket. He let his eyes linger over the neckline of
my tight sweater before holding out the bouquet. Score one,
LaPerla.

“Thank you.” I took the flowers. “These smell
great.”

“So do you.” Tyr wrapped his arm around my
waist and dipped me back, planting a feather-light kiss on my lips.
My head spun as he pulled me up. He eyed me levelly. “You gonna
make it?”

I laughed. “You’re trouble.”

“You have no idea.”

“Let me just go put these in water.” I darted
into the kitchen, and put the peonies in a slim vase. It would have
made sense to have a vase waiting at the door; Tyr rarely showed up
empty-handed. Still, it took me by surprise that the bad boy who
employed a team of armed guards for protection was sweet enough to
bring me flowers. Tyr wasn’t turning out to be at all what I’d
expected. He was much more thoughtful than he wanted people to
believe, at least from what I’d seen during the last few months.
Something told me I’d only scratched the surface.

As I walked back through the front door, Tyr
held out his arm. He walked me to the street where the gleaming
black motorcycle waited.

We made it to town in record time, and by the
time Tyr slowed to the speed limit, my heart was pounding a beat
worthy of a college-bowl-game halftime show. He must have felt it
through his jacket, because he reached around and pressed me
against him with one hand, then slid the same hand slowly down to
my behind. He gave a firm squeeze and returned his hand to the
handlebar.

Oh, hot bejeebus
.

We kept our speed low as we moved through
downtown. The little shops lining the quaint street were
picturesque in the cool night. Couples strolled casually in and out
of the diner, and I wondered if we were going to one of the three
restaurants in town, but when the light turned green, the bike
revved again.

We passed through the main hub, and Tyr took
the road that led down to the beach.
The beach!
Now his
suggestion to dress warm made sense. The shores of northern
California were downright chilly at night.

Tyr brought the bike to a stop and swung a
long leg over the side. He wrapped his fingers around my arms and
guided me off the seat. When he pulled off his helmet, his grin lit
up the whole beach. It would have been buzz kill to mention my legs
were the consistency of Jell-O.

“Thought I was going to lose you for a minute
back there.” He lifted my helmet from my head and hooked it to the
seat. I fluffed my hair while his back was turned.

“Uh-huh.” I straightened up. “And you thought
you’d secure me by fondling my tush?”

“Kept you on the bike, didn’t it?” Tyr
winked. He pivoted with his shoulders pulled back, his eyes combing
the beach so intently, he could have memorized the specs on each
grain of sand. Although his back was to me, I heard the low rumble
of his voice a half-second before I saw the light. It appeared
overhead, then whirled around in a blur, encasing the beach in a
pale green bubble. My squeal echoed across the sand as the illusion
disappeared.

“What in the name of all that’s good and holy
was that?” I blurted.

Tyr turned around. “What?”

“That!” My finger jabbed at the air. “That…
crazy light thing?” Tyr’s litany of cryptic comments ran through my
mind like a newsfeed on fast forward. “Hold on. You mumbled
something just before it happened. Did you do… whatever that
was?”

“What are you talking about?” Tyr furrowed
his brow.

My words tumbled out. “Did you do that?”

Tyr placed his hands on my shoulders and
squeezed. “Baby, if you saw some crazy light thing, it was probably
the meteor shower. It starts tonight, remember?”

“This didn’t look like a meteor shower. It
looked like a Northern Lights thing. Like what you guys get in
Scandinavia.”

Tyr shook his head. “Arcata’s not far enough
north for that kind of atmospheric phenomenon.”

“You’re avoiding the question.” I waited.

Tyr sighed. “Listen, baby. I need to make
sure the guy hunting my sister doesn’t come after you. Henrik
thinks he saw him in the woods again today, so we’re being extra
careful. That’s all you need to know.”

“Why can’t you tell me what I saw?” Ignoring
the shiver that crept up my spine, I let irritation at Tyr’s
secrecy trump my fear at Elsa’s attacker being close. Again.

“Because it would take too long, and dinner
would get cold. Come on.” Tyr grabbed a bag off the back of the
bike and slung it over his shoulder. He laced his fingers through
mine and tugged me toward the sand.

My mind swam with questions, percolating to
the point of being overwhelming. If the light hadn’t been a bad
thing, why wouldn’t Tyr just tell me what I’d seen? Did he have
some hidden flare gun, or illegal fireworks? How would either of
those keep Elsa’s would-be killer away? And why did so much of his
life still have to be such a big secret?

“Tyr.” I broke our silence as we rounded an
outcropping of rocks and entered a small cove. “Do you trust
me?”

“Implicitly,” he swore.

“Then why won’t you tell me what just
happened?”

Tyr sighed, and pulled a small plastic tube
out of his pocket. It looked like a lighter. “Because I don’t want
you to laugh at me. I know you think I’m overprotective. I haven’t
forgotten our first run together.”

“You
are
overprotective. This is not
news.”

“Regardless.” He held up the lighter. “Henrik
designed this. It’s a kind of refractor. It bends light in a
fifty-yard circumference around the spot it’s activated, so anyone
outside
its reach can’t see what’s happening
inside
its reach. Meaning if Henrik really did see the guy hunting my
sister today, we don’t have to worry about him seeing you with me
right now.”

“Seriously? Henrik made that?” I stared at
the device. “He’s a genius.”

“He likes to think so.” Tyr shrugged, putting
the refractor back in his pocket. “So that’s it. I trust you.
Henrik’s a nerd. We’re safe from the bad guy in here. Now can we
please eat dinner?”

“Of course.”
Thank God
. My imagination
had started to come up with some pretty unbelievable explanations
for Tyr’s strange behavior, none of which were all that comforting.
Leave it to the Math Club and Henrik’s obsession with technology to
set order to my mental chaos.

“Good.” Tyr tossed his bag on the sand, then
pulled out two blankets and an array of food. He laid one blanket
on the sand and started unpacking dinner: focaccia sandwiches with
turkey, avocado, and cheese, and a steaming foil container, plates,
forks and napkins.

“What’s in the foil?” I sat on the
blanket.

He lifted a corner of the lid and I breathed
in the scent. “Mmm, mac and cheese.” It wasn’t the boxed variety.
This looked as if it had been made from scratch. It even had
breadcrumbs on top. “Is that… bacon?”

Tyr winked.

Oh, yum.

Tyr sat next to me and held out the second
blanket. He wrapped it around my shoulders before handing me a
plate. He piled food on top and passed me a bottle of sparkling
water, then filled a second plate for himself and raised his own
bottle to mine. “
Skål
. Cheers.”