Addictive Nightshade (7 page)

“
You're a hopeless idealist.”

Setting the mandolin away from where he can knock it, he stands, offering me his hand, “I'll walk you to bed. I refuse to argue with you until you are brave enough to see yourself without the lenses of a humanity which are purely rooted in keeping each other downtrodden and less than.”

I want to argue but don't have the strength. I am sapped.

He smiles, knowingly, “Need me to carry you?”

Lord above. Surely I can walk on my own two feet.

I shake my head, determined to shuffle with him the three caverns over to the room he said I can use tonight.

“Where will you sleep?” I ask, idly considering the conundrum he's been thrust into.

“
It's not your job to take care of me, it's mine to take care of you.”

Dawdling into his room I flop onto the bed, dead tired. He walks around, snuffing candles until all is dark but his glowing eye.

“If you need me, just call.”

“
Hrumph,” I nod, fighting heavy eyelids.

Cradled in comfort, it makes me smile when I'm lifted, my Chuck's hitting the floor in dull slaps, and a thick duvet is pulled up to my chin.

It reminds me of when I was very young and daddy would tuck me in.

It's such a tender gesture that my heart swells.

My next inhalation delivers oblivion, saturated in the smell of the man who took me into darkest night in his mission to show me inner light.

My god he smells delicious.

Snuggling deeper, stuck in the comfy arms of his male scented bed, my dreams run headlong into mountains and glowing halls where a lone lady stands to fight for justice.

Chapter 10

Macala:

I observe her slumber for an hour, my pulse accelerating when her eyelids light up from within. The l
æraðr is clearly doing its work while she sleeps.

Thank Odin for that.

Smiling, I move back to the exit, stalking down the long quiet tunnel back to the main chamber. It's time to say farewell to the ones leaving.

The clan is gathered, the few of us remaining here is sparse and it tears my heart a little wider each year when the day of harvest comes.

Stooping in front of Inga, I give the frail old lady a hug, “Blessed be your journey, we shall miss you.”

She was once so tall and proud, strong and resilient, but her and Alf know their time is coming and this might be their last opportunity to be swept home.

She smiles, happiness sparkling her bright eyes, “Thank you Macala. One day we'll greet again.”

“
I'll wave,” I grin, knowing it's their moment of reuniting joy, not a goodbye but a simple farewell between her turn and mine.

“
See you next year,” says Alf, thumping my shoulder with the strength of a gnat.

I have no words, the lump in my throat clogging my voice efficiently. Stepping in so he can't read the pain in my eye I give him a big hug. Grandfather to our clan, I feel as if I'm losing a limb with this parting.

Andreas is also leaving tonight. He's not old but he's done waiting for fortune to favor his bereft heart. He nods to me, a sad expression painting his visage, then lifts Inga into his arms bidding me to carry Alf with a nudge of his head.

I am grateful I'll be safe from the harvest as I am finally fully grounded in
Jötunheimr, thanks to Emma. Alf pats my shoulder in thanks when I lift his decrepit body into my arms and walk outside, directly into the path of the incoming wrath.

Standing side by side in the clearing I look into Andreas' face, wishing to say a million things before losing my childhood ally but he shakes his head, staring resolutely at the approaching  storm with tears in his eyes.

It springs sorrow into my own and I swallow hard knowing I'll see his soul next year when the hunt rides through. It's not the end, it's a new beginning.

The spiritual wind gallops across the treetops, whistling haunting breath through the pines, announcing the arrival of Odin's steed Sleipnir. The backdraft sucks debris off the forest floor, riddling the air with dried needles and the earthbound clusters.

Soul-clusters lay in wait in the ground, ready to flee upward as the hunt rides over, lighter than laughter they rise, swept into the gale like shining comets chasing through the boughs.

Knowing time is nigh I snap to look at Andreas one last time, yelling over the volume of the storm, “Carpe noctem!” (Seize the night.)

Smiling widely he nods, “Gripe natten min bror!” (Seize the night my brother.)

Seize the night
is our creed as harii and it's right to bid last greet to him in our brotherhood oath.

Looking up, the wind bearing down in whiplashing tempest, I watch as the forefathers cover the sky with their nebulous breath, harvesting the ready and the lost into their scudding clouds, roiling thunder and lightning across the heavens.

The flitter of sparkles from the hibernating souls join the brilliance of their brethren into celebrating their escape, plasma scorching cheer across the dark as they enter the euphoria of their homecoming. Thunder booms with the uproar overhead, the ascension party in full swing as they scythe through the night in raucous jubilation.

A dark strike earths at my feet, a rare phenomenon known as black lightning. I wave, my chest crushing me with grief, smiling through my tears at Andreas saying his final goodbye, planting a promise at my feet that he'll be back to harvest me when my time is due.

“Odin's strength to Asgard!” I laugh into the violent blasts shuddering bellows after him. The Thurs are raising the roof off the world with the power in this storm, their brilliance so large and inspiring I fall silent watching the magnificent gods recede, dancing their surging lights across the darkest night. That's us up there, full of shadows and light, dichotomous, but how we manifest after harvest as ethereals on an earth plane. My soul longs to be in the arms of my fathers, drinking and eating at the feast of remembrance.

My body physically aches as I watch the Beauties and the Fierce charge across the sky over my head, running fervently with enough force to shake the ground, their ecstasy clear, the celebration a party of wild chaos of the freed gods, the valkyries carrying the weak while they transform, and the exuberant running of the creatures and allies of legend.

This time my eyes fill with awe, humbled by my lineage, proud we still walk this realm as living, with them watching over us and taking us home once a year. Unlike humans we can leave whenever we are ready, we do not have to die to move forward in our journey. Why did Lars not take up their mercy?

I salute a last time at the
Einherjar, the lone warriors, the ones who bear Raven's mark. A creepy silence falls as the wind halts abruptly and the lightning seems too far away to hear the thunder, leaving a dissipating band of the merry dancers lingering in the night sky.

Every year I fight the urge to abandon this earth and fly away with them, but Emma's foretelling has always made me second guess the decision. This is the first year it's been safe for me to stand in the path of the wild hunt,
Åsgårdsreia. The return ride to Asgard.

Raven are allowed in Asgard purely because we have proven our loyalty time and again to Odin.

The silence is deafening. No creature stirs, all paying reverence to their fallen kin moving on to live in the meadows of eternal peace.

Sighing, rubbing my hands down my face to get a grip, I turn, walking slowly back through the rock doors of our cavernous home. Only a giant can open and close the menhirs which are our doors. I must check on Emma, make sure she's undisturbed by the spiritual gloaming holding its breath over our land. The aurora borealis is so bright and beautiful tonight, I'm sure half the reason for that is because my destiny is sleeping in my room for the first time, she is heim (home).

Many will rejoice and many more will cry, not understanding it's natural to move on when the heart has had enough pain for one lifetime, when the struggle to breathe is a mountain crushing the soul in the eyes of the suffering.

Unbuttoning my shirt, getting ready to wash away the woes of the parting, I stop walking at the sight of Arghin standing reading the book, making sure everyone who was meant to go, did. We intervene if anyone was forgotten in the harvest because right now they are at death's door, vulnerable and broken and in dire need of assistance.

He glances at me, pausing just long enough to give me his mischievous smile.

“
What?” I demand, changing trajectory, ambling towards him.

“
Nothing. Go wash up. We'll talk in the morning.”

“
Arghin, what are you hiding?”

He turns to prevent me from seeing the pages, “Mac, go away. If your foresight doesn't see what's coming I refuse to let you see it in the Truth.”

Punching his shoulder, shaking my head, he's the antidote I needed to clear my misery away, “Thanks brother. I'll hold you to that morning chat if it's the last thing I do.”

Laughing under my breath I walk back down the tunnel to my rooms, shedding the shirt and unbuttoning my jeans.

Odin it's been a long night. I am weary.

Walking into my bedroom I remain stealthy until I'm at the foot of the bed, delighted at the sight sleeping in it.

She is becoming. Nothing will wake her now, I can safely shower in my own bathroom. Thank Odin for small mercies.

Sitting down on the chair beyond the bed I take off my boots, laughing out loud at the comparison between them and her discarded Chuck Taylors.

Too damn cute for words.

Slipping to her side I bend down and place a soft kiss on her hair.

“Sweet dreams, Emma.”

Chapter 11

Macala
:

We may be hermits but we still enjoy the conveniences of the modern age. When I place the coffee down on the bedside table the ruffled head doesn't even stir.

Taking mine to the wide chair beyond the bed, I sit, watching her while sipping my coffee. I like it scalding and it's promptly consumed. She rolls onto her back, throwing a dramatic arm over her eyes, exposing the sight I longed to witness.

Yes! It's true then, the drink of the gods is truly a miracle elixir, unleashing the latency in her genes. It's prudent that we do not become our true size when we need to blend in, until it's safe to expose our nature. The gods thought of everything.

Smiling wider I note her palm has healed, her mark now identical to mine. Desperate to test it, I get comfortable, slowly tracing the triangular outline on my own hand, glancing over to her often, greedy for a reaction while her guard is down.

She moves, holding the palm lazily over her heart, mumbling incoherently in deep REM. I apply more pressure to the tracing on my palm and she moans so loud she sits bolt upright in bed as if I just bellowed a foghorn in her ear.

Frozen, I dare not touch the sigil with her staring right at me. “Good morning,” I say as graciously as I can, caught red handed.

She frowns at me, pawing the hair off her face in agitation.

I point at the waiting beverage which should still be hot, “I made you coffee.”

Her grumpy morning face softens as she glances to the waiting mug and then back at me, “Supersized? Am I that grouchy in the morning?”

Grinning at her endless repertoire of quick humor despite only just having woken, I smirk, “We take our coffee seriously.”

“Not with sugar?”

Laughing now, I incline my head, “Touché.”

I love watching her eyes half close seductively every time she hears me speak. It makes my blood go crazy, heating with anticipation.

She squirms up the bed still looking out of sorts, lifting her mug with both hands and holding it carefully for her first sip. Shaking her head she puts it down, “I have to pee.”

“Want me to leave?” I offer, ready to stand.

“
Nah, I'll be quiet,” she laughs, sticking her tongue out at me, oblivious to her arms and legs poking out of the clothes she outgrew in her sleep.

I can't help but grin at her padding across the room in her white socks looking like an imp up to no good, the craving in me growing to examine her eyes after a night of rebirth.

I would stake my life on the certainty that I shall never tire of the woman with straight black hair which shrouds her body, or the elegance of the proportions beneath it. She's heart stopping and I was wise to mark her palm with my own mark before the bachelors got to see her.

*

Emma:

I feel like I'm about to burst. My jeans and tee feel too tight which is how I know if I don't pee I'll end up breaking a zip or popping the button off.

It doesn't happen often but I know the feeling of my clothes becoming restrictive if I eat or drink too much.

Unzipping, I squirm out of my jeans with more difficulty than usual, sitting down on the loo and relieving the bloat in my bladder. Knowing what I'm doing this time I'm confident when I stand, telling the toilet to flush, then attempt to pull up my jeans.

Lordy, why do things always come down easier than than they go back up?

Getting hot and flustered, my chest feels strangled. “Aaargh.”

I grumble, battling with the denim, unable to pull them over my hips. Shaky with the effort I waddle to the sink to wash my hands, pressure squeezing into my chest when I bow over the basin.

It feels like the space shuttle is parked on my ribcage, I am smothered.

Screw it. Taking the hoodie off with ease I stare shocked at my image in the mirror. My tee is suctioned over my torso and chest as if everything I am wearing shrunk last night. No wonder I can't breathe!

Determined to pull it off and just wear the loose hoodie, I grip the bottom, tugging it up to my boobs when it refuses to budge over them. For fuck's sake! Maybe he has a pair of scissors or a razor in here?

Looking in the cupboard, then the shower, I can't locate any such item.

Wheezing with the restriction, overheating because I've been vacuum sealed, I sit down on the toilet lid with my jeans still stuck below my hips. I feel tied up and frustrated with the bondage. Desperate, I grip the neckline of my shirt, yanking for all I'm worth, trying to get the resilient thing to tear.

My heart is pounding and the only result are two hot cheeks radiating my spent energy.

What the fuck happened last night? Who shrunk my clothes to torture me more. Isn't this ordeal enough without adding insult to injury?

“Em?” calls carefully to me. “You okay in there?”

Shit! Triple shit shit shit!

Panting from effort and mild asphyxiation, I wheeze, “Not really.”

“
Do you need me to get you anything?” speaks the vibrato of a man plucking heart strings with his vocal harmonies.

Closing my eyes I wallow in it until I relax. I need a voice like that. It's incredible.

“Mac, do you have scissors?”

“
Why?” Now he sounds all fierce, like he's going to storm in here to battle my demons.

“
I can't breathe!” I yell, instantly lightheaded with the loss of oxygen from being forceful.

“
I'm coming in,” he announces, firm and decisive, immediately filling the doorway. “Hang on,” he smiles, reaching me in a blink, seeing my hands still stuck inside my neckline.

He joins his hands to mine and a searing rip echoes around the stone chamber. Looking down, my boobs are spilling out of the push-up bra, it's cleavage that doesn't belong to me but some pin-up model instead.

It's automatic to fold my arms over them defensively when he looks at my jeans, grabbing hold where the zip joins to yank the seam so hard it quivers the ripping up into my tender bits. Blushing now, I'm stuck in the Macala tornado when he lifts and flips me, supporting me easily while tearing the jeans asunder all the way around from button to back, then flips me back in his gigantic strength, returning me to sitting on the stone toilet lid.

“
Hold tight,” he orders, forcing me to unwrap modesty to hold onto the rock under my tush. He hauls down my jeans, pulling the legs off separately, tugging them in aggressive spurts over my ankles.

My cheeks are burning with humiliation. I'm overexposed through no fault of my own.

With his single minded focus now given flight he looks at me, his serious expression breaking into a pleased smile. “You are growing. Hang on and I'll get you a shirt, we'll go looking for a new wardrobe for you after breakfast.”

Spinning with purpose he goes striding the way he came, leaving me alone with my senses reeling.

Curious, I stand, stalking the bathroom mirror to compare heights to yesterday. It's true. I have to stoop down further to wash my hands.

How the hell did this happen?

Jesus, he stripped me faster than a rapist. It's unsettling. If he wasn't so gallant and had malicious intent, I wouldn't have stood a chance.

The knock on the rock grabs my attention, “Em?”

He's dangling his long arm into the bathroom, holding out a cord, a t-shirt, and sweatpants. I stare at it for a moment, loving the definition caused by the flexing.

“
Thanks,” I mumble, mortification setting in when I take them from the extended hand.

Scrambling back to the safety deeper in, I tug the shirt over my head, snorting at how miniscule I am in it. Scrunching it up over my face I inhale deeply, filling my lungs with his evocative smell. Heat blizzards through my loins and I laugh under my breath.

Shameless.

It makes my cheeks heat up all over again.

I don't even need the pants as the shirt is so long, but pull them on anyway, sitting down to roll the legs up, then fold the elasticated waist down and secure it in place with the cord. They're cozy, fleecy on the inside and perfect for slouching around with a good book.

Exhausted from the drama, I shake my head. This is unbelievable. Still disconcerted I walk into his bedroom, seeing it properly for the first time. At intervals in the ceiling are round hollows that must be vents, light comes from deliberately placed crystals wedges into the roof of the cave, acting like skylights which splinter light in every direction. Rather effective and pretty. It lends a whimsical vibe to an otherwise earthy environment.

It's spacious, bland brown rock, polished on the floor, matching the mud brown of his bed linen and the suede headboard, the chair chocolate dark, and cupboards and drawers fashioned from stone that looks like it could be tiger's eye.

“
Breakfast is waiting,” he says, popping his head around the corner to his private eating nook.

I'm reminded of him as I nod at the pleasant expression aimed my way. I had a good look at his body tensing and bunching while he was stripping me. He's gorgeous in his deep blue t-shirt that molds to his body, and he's also wearing sweatpants on those delectable long legs.

Picking up my coffee I walk around the bed, watching him recline at the table as I advance, tapping it idly, rippling muscles up and down his arm without awareness that my stomach jigs around at the sight.

Sitting opposite him I note he's wearing contact lenses again. He's smiling, gesturing to the waiting wooden board, “Cheese and flatbread okay?”

I  nod, self-conscious, taking a long gulp of coffee to hide my face away in the huge rim of the mug.

“
Emma,” he says in a soft sultry tone, putting a hand on my arm, forcing me to relinquish my barrier and put the mug down.

“
Yes?”

“
Are you okay?” He's looking deeply into my eyes, seeing right through me again, delving into the farthest recesses of my soul.

Every inch of my body tenses in reaction, my pulse pattering a wild throb in my chest, “Yup.”

I roll my lips in, feeling shy under his scrutiny.

Giving me his dashing smile he pats my arm, using the same hand to lift the knife, meticulously slicing the cheese into wedges.

He indicates the jars, “Cloudberry, and lingonberry jam.”

“
What?” Derailed I look at the jar of yellow sweetness, lifting it and giving it an inspecting whiff.

“
That is cloudberry from Norway. We grow it here too because it's nice to keep home close to the heart.”

“
Cloudberry? What a stunning name for it.”

Glancing at me between the slicing of pale cheese, he grins, “We aren't barbaric, Em. We're good guys with poetic minds.”

“Yeah I know, you're the dude who sang to me remember.” I stick my tongue at him again.

This time he looks like the coy one, ducking his head, hiding a chagrined smirk.

“And lingonberry?” I check, lifting up the other jar. It smells and looks like cranberry compote.

He nods, refilling our coffee from a flask, “It grows flat to the ground like a ground cover. It's evergreen and the berries are potent superfood. You need your strength
elskling
.”

Smiling at the endearment I take the offered cracker smeared with cloudberry jam and covered with white cheese.

Tentative, I take a bite, having an instant culinary orgasm at the infusion in my mouth. The cloudberry is ever so faintly tart, the cheese is gouda sweet, and there's definitely a hazelnut, citrus, and honey amalgamation in the flatbread.

“
Gosh, that's fab,” I mumble, chomping like a starving waif.

Leaning back in his chair, spreading the selection of condiments on the crackers, he announces, “I expect you to finish all of this. You need the energy because your dormant genes have been activated by the l
æraðr juice, that... and today I'm taking you to the gym.”

“
What for?” I demand, eager for my next morsel, washing away dryness with another sip of dark roasted coffee beans.

“
I need to test your reflexes, and show you around. We can shower there after we finish training.”

“
Training?” I gasp, looking at his broad shoulders while intimidation polyps my blood vessels. Surveying the bulk sheathed by his shirt and the indelible muscles in his arms, terror robs my legs of stability and I am instantly woozy.

Putting a bunch of assembled crackers on my plate, he nods, pausing long enough to look reassuringly into my eyes, “I am your guide. You need to be able to defend yourself. I'm not taking you there to beat you up, I'm your teacher.”

“Teacher of what?”

His left eye glows with an excited flare and he averts his focus back to his plate, “Emma, judge me after I mess up, not before. I am going to test your karsk, to gauge your reflexes and might. Karsk is agility and strength.”