Perfekt Order (The Ære Saga Book 1) (35 page)

“What’s this made of?” I asked in my most
academic voice. It was hard to focus when he was standing so
close.

“A titanium hybrid native to Svartalfheim.
The prototype was iron, but it was too dense.”

“Density matters in this gun?” These were the
first things I’d ever actually seen with the technology to make
something implode.

“Tremendously. There’s a detonator that’s
activated with a magic capsule Henrik embedded in the chamber. The
magic was creating too much reverb in the heavier model, and a few
of the, eh, test subjects had some unfortunate injuries. This is
the fifth model.” Tyr raised my arms to eye level, and placed his
knee between mine. Heat leapt through the fabric of my jeans as a
warm burn moved slowly up my leg. Tyr shifted his knee slightly and
the heat moved up several inches. I sucked in a sharp breath, and
leaned into the touch. I had no idea where he was going with this,
but I
really
wanted to find out.

“Maybe tonight,
prinsessa
. If you’re
lucky.” Tyr chuckled.

“You said you wouldn’t read my mind,” I
hissed.

Tyr stepped back and doubled over. “Just
promise me you’ll never play poker. You’re entirely too
transparent.”

Oh.
My cheeks burned. “Are you going
to teach me to use this thing or not?” I grumbled.

“Sorry.” Tyr wiped his eye as he stood. “So
this one shoots like a regular handgun, but it’s got a killer
kickback. I was
trying
to open up your stance; you’re going
to need as stable a base as possible in order to stay on your
feet.”

Right. That was why my lower half felt as
shaky as if I’d just finished a two-mile downhill course.

“This good enough?” I set my feet
shoulder-width apart, with the right set slightly back.

“Wider.”

“This?” I stepped back another few
inches.

“Spread your legs wider, baby.”

I caught the twinkle in his eye, and shook my
head. “You are incorrigible.”

“I’ve heard worse. But another six inches
will stabilize you more. Try it.”

Trying not to blush, I set my stance. Tyr
came back to stand behind me, with one leg between mine, and his
chest pressed firmly against my back. He leaned over so he spoke
into my ear.

“I’m going to fire it with you the first
time. I’m not kidding about the kickback. Remember whatever you
shoot at will implode, so try to pick something small and far away
but still inside the protection.” He nodded at the shimmering
bubble encasing our property. It stretched around the cabin, all
the way to Elsa’s cottage, keeping Fenrir, and whatever crowd he
hung with, out. “The fire will be silent, but the implosion most
definitely will not. So try not to jump. Are you ready?”

I nodded. “Let’s do this.”

“What are we shooting?” Tyr asked.

I let my eyes roam the woods until I found a
small stump roughly thirty yards away—what was left of a fallen
tree. “How about that?”

“Looks good. One. Two.” He squeezed my hands
around the trigger.

“Three.” I fired, sending a beam of white
light into the stump. The act made the gun jump in my hands, and if
Tyr hadn’t locked my elbows in place with his arms, the sudden
burst of energy would have left me eating titanium.

“Get ready,” Tyr whispered. We stared at the
stump as it emitted a puff of smoke and appeared to collapse on
itself, before sending shards of wood flying in all directions. Tyr
wrapped himself around me, bending at the waist to tuck me against
his massive form. I felt the impact of the wood chips hitting his
arms, and when he released me, I scanned his body for injuries.

“That was intense. Are you hurt?” I held the
gun in one hand, and touched his forearm with the other. “Didn’t
the wood hit you here?”

“Our skin’s pretty much impervious to injury
from organic substances,” Tyr explained. “They have to hit us
pretty hard.” He pointed to a cut on his bicep. It was deep,
crimson, and oozing a thin trail of blood, but it was also knitting
itself back together. In the time it took my jaw to drop, the
injury had healed itself. Only the red residue remained.

“What just happened?” I blinked.

“When we are injured,
usually
we’re
able to heal ourselves. Me especially. I inherited the healing gene
with my title.”

Of course he did.

“Are there any injuries you can’t heal
yourself from?” I asked.

“Yes. If a wound comes from a non-organic
substance, like a manufactured poison, or if a weapon has been
infused with dark magic, I’m out of luck. And if an organic weapon
is infused with dark magic, and it delivers a deep enough
injury—punctures an organ, severs a limb… there’s very little
chance I’d survive. We can heal, but we can’t completely
regenerate.”

“Fenrir?” I shivered.

“Fenrir or his siblings could kill me, if
they had enough dark magic in them.” Tyr nodded. “But we don’t need
to go there. We’re safe enough in our little bubble for now, and
Odin forbid he breaks through, you’ll just shoot him down with that
thing, right?”

I fingered the gun in my hand. “Um, yeah.
Maybe we’d better practice again.”

“Fair enough.” Tyr took a step back. “On your
own this time.”

A tremor danced along my spine, but I found a
small shrub thirty yards away and took aim. I set my legs apart,
locked my elbows, and pulled the trigger. The gun pushed back hard,
sending a jolt into my elbows, but I held them firm and my shot
fired straight. The white beam raced for the shrub, and in seconds
green leaves flew in the air, resulting in a snowstorm of emerald
shrubbery.

“Well played, baby.” Tyr clapped his
approval.

I tucked a leg behind me and bent in a low
curtsy. “I figured leaves were a lot easier to take a hit from than
boulder shards or another tree. You can thank me some other
time.”

“Oh, I plan to.” Tyr’s eyes grazed my
denim-clad backside, and I shot him a grin. He caught me smiling
and raised an eyebrow. “Ready to go in so soon?”

“Not on your life. How many rounds can this
thing do?” I held up the gun.

“The magic will sustain six shots total, then
you need to load up a new cartridge. They’re stocked in the hall
closet, so be sure to grab extras if you ever need to take your gun
out.” Tyr raised his arms over his head in a stretch. “Why don’t
you finish that one out, and then we’ll move on to crossbows?”

“That sounds good.” The back of my neck grew
hot, and I ducked my head so Tyr wouldn’t see me blush.

Tyr Fredriksen wielding a crossbow. This was
turning out to be our hottest date yet.

****

That night I lay in Tyr’s bed, pretending to
read
All’s Well That Ends Well
. It was impossible to process
Shakespeare’s prose when a Norse deity was brushing his teeth half
a room away. I could see the outline of his arm through the open
bathroom door, the muscles of his bicep flexing with each tiny
stroke. How could Tyr manage to make dental hygiene sexy? Maybe it
was the intimacy of it all. So domestic.

When I heard Tyr rinse his brush and put it
in the holder, I gave up and put my book on the nightstand. He came
out of the bathroom wearing grey sweatpants and no shirt. His
lightly tanned skin stretched so beautifully across a sea of smooth
muscles, I nearly forgot what I’d wanted to talk to him about. He
yawned and dropped onto the bed, face first.

“Tired?” I stroked his back with my
fingertips. Poor thing hadn’t slowed down since he’d got back from
Asgard. He’d run me through gun training, then taught me how to
fire a crossbow, then brought out the second gun and ran me through
the paces again. By the time we were done, my arms shook from the
effort of stabilizing the space gun. And if the bags under Tyr’s
eyes as we ate dinner were any indication, he was even more
exhausted than I was. It was the first time I’d seen him with dark
circles. “You were gone almost thirty-six hours. Did you get any
sleep in Asgard?”

“None. But I’ve gone longer on less, so it’s
not a huge deal.” Tyr’s pillow distorted his voice. He hadn’t
moved.

“Can I ask you a question?” I hedged.

“Shoot,” came the muffled reply.

“Would you ever consider, eh, retiring? Or
taking a desk job or something?” I bit my lower lip and waited.

“Why would I want to do that? I like my job.”
Tyr turned his head just enough to peek at me with one eye.

“Well, what happens if you have a family or
something someday? You’re not going to keep doing this, are
you?”

Tyr stared at me. “If I were lucky enough to
have a family, I’d fight even harder to protect them from the
monsters hunting our worlds.”

“But couldn’t you do that from inside an
office, or something? Surely Odin has strategist roles?” The inside
of my lip grew raw. I stopped chewing.

“What are you really saying?”

“I’m saying”—I closed my eyes—“I’m saying
your job scares me. I don’t want you to get hurt. And I want to
know that if we end up staying together, I won’t have to spend
forever wondering if this is going to be the day you won’t come
home.”

Tyr tensed beside me. “You want me to quit my
job?”

“No. Maybe. I don’t know.” I threw a hand
over my face and opened my eyes. “It’s just really scary to think
about all the things that can hurt you. And to know you go out
looking
for them. I have no idea where things with us are
going, or whether we’d even be able to have a long-term future
together, since you’re a god and I’m, well, me. But if we
did
end up together in a few years, and things were serious,
would you ever, I don’t know, be God of Nature, or something?”

“Then who would do my job?” Tyr propped
himself up on one elbow.

“Another god?” I asked hopefully.

“That’s not how it works, Mia. We’re born
into our titles. Most of us live indefinitely, but in the rare
circumstance a god is killed, his son or daughter is eligible to
inherit his post. The Norns selected us for our predispositions to
fulfill our duties. I have no desire to relinquish my title, and
since I don’t have any children, I wouldn’t have anyone to pass it
on to even if I wanted to.”

“What about Elsa?” I ventured.

“She has her own role to fulfill,” Tyr
reminded me. “And I wouldn’t wish this life on my sister. Would
you?”

“No,” I whispered. My stomach fell. “So
you’re saying you and your future son, are the only gods of war
Asgard’s got? Isn’t there any way to change that?”

“Even if there was, would you want me to give
up what I am?” The look Tyr gave me was devastating. His mouth was
turned down in sadness, his brow furrowed in confusion, and his
eyes downcast, searching mine with a plea. “Am I not enough for
you?”

That was the problem. He
was
enough
for me. More than enough. I was terrified the universe was going to
take him away. And sending him off into the path of homicidal, dark
magic-wielding animals seemed likely to increase the odds of my
fear coming true.

“I just don’t want to lose you,” I whispered.
“I’m scared.”

“Oh,
prinsessa
.” Tyr pulled me to his
side of the bed. He lifted my head and slid an arm under my neck so
my cheek lay on his bare shoulder. He palmed my bottom with one
hand, and stroked the side of my face with the other. “This is who
I am. Believe me, doing
this
job is a lot more palatable
than what I’d be doing if my dad hadn’t adopted me.”

“Yeah, but—”

Tyr pressed a finger against my lips. “I get
that I’m a lot to take on. And I understand if you don’t want to
sign up for a life of worrying about me. You aren’t the first girl
to ask me to quit my job, you know.”

“I’m not?” I blinked.
Stupid, Mia. He’s a
thousand years’ old. You’re not his first
anything.

“No.” Tyr stroked my cheek again. “You’re
not. Being with me is hard. I know that. But I promise if you stick
around, I’ll make it worth your while.”

He kissed me soundly, the hard, demanding
kind of kiss that reminded me how very much in control of himself
he was, in every possible situation. His hand wrapped around my
head and pulled me closer, and he pressed his palm to the small of
my back, driving my hips into his. Blood pooled just below my
navel, and I shimmied against him, wanting to close even the
tiniest gap between us. As I did, Tyr pulled his head back and
looked down at me.

“What do you say? Think you can hang in there
with me?”

I took a shaky breath. “I don’t know,” I
answered honestly. “The harder I fall for you, the harder it’s
going to be to lose you.”

“You’re not losing me, baby. Get that through
your analytical little head. You’re stuck with me so long as you
want to keep me.” Tyr kissed my forehead and rolled onto his back,
tucking me against him in the process.

“I want to keep you,” I whispered. “I just
don’t know how to
not
worry about you.”

“Then we’re even.” Tyr turned his head to
look me in the eye. “I don’t know how to
not
worry about
you. Let’s take life one day at a time together,
ja
?”

I tucked my head into Tyr’s chest and
breathed deeply. “Okay.”

It was the only thing we could do. Who knew
what tomorrow would bring?

****

On Friday, Tyr and Henrik went to the
shooting range while Charlotte, Heather and Brynn joined me at
Tyr’s house for dinner. I’d promised them Meemaw’s chicken
parmigiana, and Heather sat at the kitchen table and tucked her
napkin over her lap before I’d even uncovered the dish.

“Hungry?” I teased.

“For this, yes. It’s my favorite of your
dinners, and I haven’t had it in forever.” Heather picked up her
fork as I served us up.

“I know I haven’t been home in a week, but
it’s not really
that
long.” I smiled.