Dark Deceit (27 page)

Korvain saw her hand was tangled up in her sister’s hair, petting it,
stroking it. There were white feathers strewn all over the place; bloody and
broken. As he moved closer, he could see Kristy wasn’t breathing.

To Eir’s right was another doorway. Korvain thought the thought and
faded into it, already knowing that’s where he would find Bryn.

What he saw made his knees buckle. He hit the floor, the shadows
that clung to his body melting away as his concentration dropped. The last time
he had seen her, she was unharmed, but now her face was black and blue, bloody
smears covered her face from the fresh cuts to her lips. The cheek bone under
her left eye socket looked as if it had been smashed, a thousand pieces of bone
floating around her face. Both eyes were black, hiding behind her blood-caked
hair.

There were knife wounds to her body. They looked shallow; wounds
intended to torture, but not kill. A trickle of blood flowed from beneath the
collar around her neck; the nasty piece of hardware hitting under her jaw, tilting
her head back at an awkward angle. It finished at the top of her shoulders, the
metal pushing into her collarbones until they were bloody, too.

Korvain inched closer to Bryn, touching her face gently, trying to
stroke her hair. She didn’t even whimper. Before he screamed his frustrations,
he began looking at the links that bound her. The protection rune was carved
into each one preventing her from fading from this place.

Korvain picked up the padlock, ready to break it with his bare hands
when he heard the door slide open. He called his shadows to him in an instant, retreating
and pressing himself against the wall of Bryn’s cell.

Loki was back and he looked as pissed as Hel. Anger rolled off his
body in great waves; so great even Korvain had trouble breathing. The air had
thickened that much. Loki undid the cuffs on Bryn’s ankles and dragged her
still body from the room.

Korvain had to swallow his growl. He blinked and saw red. Nobody
touched Bryn like that. He stalked out after Loki, his hands clenched into
tight fists. The god had unceremoniously dropped Bryn onto a metal slab of a
table, tying up her arms and ankles again so she was spread-eagled on top of
the metal platform. At least he had removed her collar.

Loki’s eyes and fingers lingered over her neck, but when the god
touched Bryn’s neck, Korvain couldn’t stop the word
motherfucker
from
escaping his throat. Loki’s head jerked around, his eyes narrowing and after a
few heart beats, he shook his head and bent down to pick up a bucket of water
Korvain hadn’t noticed when he’d first come in.

He threw the water onto her face, bringing Bryn around
instantaneously. She gasped loudly, her body trying to bring her into a sitting
position, but the bonds on her wrists and ankles stopped her. Now that she was
awake, Korvain could see her left eye wasn’t working; it was sealed shut with
the swelling.

‘Tell me where it is,’ Loki demanded. His voice seemed to split into
two or three different sounds; the effect amplifying them.

Bryn jerked away when the god took a step closer to her, fresh blood
tainting the air and making Korvain’s fangs throb.

‘Tell me where your cloak is, Bryn, and I will set Eir free.’

‘Don’t tell him!’ Eir screamed. Korvain’s gaze flipped to hers. Her
eyes were wild as they darted between Loki and Bryn. Her hand didn’t stop
stroking her sister’s hair though. Loki growled and struck the other Valkyrie.
Eir slumped forward at an awkward angle, the collar stopping her chin from rolling
forward. Bryn had screamed out just as Loki’s hand had struck Eir, but it
sounded as if she was screaming from the end of a long tunnel.

Loki turned back around, his jade green eyes looking over Bryn’s
body. His fingers drove into one of the shallow cuts on her side. Bryn remained
quiet though, pressing her lips together, breathing hard through her nostrils
to beat back the pain.

‘Tell. Me,’ Loki repeated, thrusting his fingers in deeper until
Bryn’s anguished scream filled the small room. Loki smiled and rubbed her own
blood onto her cheeks.

When Bryn actually spoke, she sounded broken. ‘Why are you doing
this?’

Korvain listened as Loki explained Odin and Bryn’s connection. They
were soul-bound, the strongest bond a god could forge with a human. He watched
as Bryn smiled a broken, lopsided smile at the god.

Loki growled and cuffed her. ‘What’s so damn funny?’ he demanded.
Korvain’s hand felt for the handle of his karambit, letting his anger cloud his
judgement for just a moment. Letting out a breath, he released his hold,
bunching his hands into fists instead.

Bryn laughed then coughed violently, spraying droplets of blood over
her chin. ‘You can’t kill me,’ she spat the words at Loki.

In less than a second, Loki had pulled a Glock from somewhere Korvain
hadn’t seen and had it pointed at Eir’s head. ‘Eir will die in ten seconds if
you don’t tell me where your cloak is.’

The laughter died in Bryn’s throat, her eyes going wide, as he
flipped the safety off. ‘No!’ Bryn screamed, bucking against the chains, pulling
and twisting her body around.

‘Ten.’

‘Fuck you!’

He smiled. ‘Nine.’

She actually spat in his face this time.

Wiping it away, he said, ‘Eight.’

‘You bastard! You fucking bastard!’

‘Seven...’

Korvain moved silently, pulling his garrotte wire out and wrapping
it around Loki’s neck from behind. Loki’s fingers scrambled to relieve the
pressure, but Korvain pulled back further, dropping to his knees and taking
Loki with him. Korvain knew this wouldn’t kill Loki. He was too powerful to simply
be killed by strangulation. But if Korvain could subdue him for a moment then he
could get Bryn and Eir away from this place.

The god’s legs scrambled on the concrete floor, kicking up some
bloody feathers and flailing while choking sounds tore free from his throat. Korvain
held on as his body bucked. He was breathing heavily through his nose, his eyes
bulging from their sockets. Bryn watched on with her one functioning eye,
confused. To her, it would have simply looked like Loki struggling with nothing
on the floor. He shook the shadows from his body and watched her eyes widen
from over the god’s shoulder.

‘Korvain?’ she asked.

‘Hi Cupcake,’ he drawled back with a lazy smile he hoped hid his
relief. Loki had just gone limp in his arms and he released his hold. He was waiting
for Bryn to verbally kick his ass again, but when he approached the slab, he
saw tears dribbling down her blood-encrusted face.

He should have said something like ‘Don’t cry’ or ‘It’s okay’ but he
knew they were lies. They weren’t out of the woods yet—not by a long shot. Even
though it killed him, he ignored her until he got her hands free of the bonds.

She sat up—wincing as she did—and tried to work one ankle while he
did the other. She turned to look at him for a moment when he felt the air move
behind him. Loki was up and moving again.

He whirled around to face him, an ugly snarl on his almost angelic
face. Loki roared and charged toward Korvain. He readied himself, pulling his
karambit free from the holster and holding it in a downward position.

‘Duck,’ Bryn breathed in his ear. He didn’t think. He just reacted.
Korvain hit the floor. An arc of gold flashed. The air seemed to tingle with
magic and Loki dropped to the ground in front of him.

Korvain stood up to continue the fight when he felt Bryn’s hand on
his shoulder. ‘He’s dead,’ she breathed, blinking rapidly as if she were about
to...

Pass out.

Bryn slumped back onto the table, her head hitting the metal slab with
a loud crack before he could stop it. In her hand, Bryn held her golden sword,
Loki’s blood glistening on it. Korvain looked down at the god. Cautiously, he
rolled him over to find the smallest hole in his jacket, a bare puncture in his
skin. It shouldn’t have been a kill. Korvain glanced back at the sword in
Bryn’s hand.

What the fuck had just happened?

B
ryn woke up
feeling like her head was stuffed with wet newspaper. Everything hurt, even
blinking. Through barely cracked eyelids, she looked around the room, terror
filling her for a moment before she realized she wasn’t in that tunnel anymore.
Loki wasn’t there to torture her. She was home.

Her whole body relaxed into the familiarity of it all.

She was home.

There was a gentle knocking on the door. Rolling her head toward the
sound, she rasped, ‘Come in.’ Bryn cleared her throat and tried again.

The door opened and Korvain slid inside. His broad shoulders held
her attention first, as they always did. She looked away, sinking her teeth
into her bottom lip. She still felt this burning attraction to him even when
she’d been angry with him.

‘How are you feeling?’ he asked, his voice all gravel and doing
something to the lower half of her body.

‘Sore.’ Her voice didn’t sound much better. She felt him sit on the
side of her bed, not touching her even though her body cried out for it. She
rolled her head to look at him.

‘Would you mind telling me what happened?’

His dark eyebrows rose over his black as pitch eyes. ‘You don’t
remember?’

Bryn tried to wiggle into a sitting position.

‘Let me help you,’ Korvain murmured, his strong arm sliding behind
her back and helping her become vertical. Her nose ended up in the space
between his neck and shoulders. Bryn inhaled deeply, committing his scent to
memory. He had saved her. He was going to bail on her as soon as he’d seen she
was okay. She knew this because she had told him to get out of her life. What
reason did he have to hang around now?

He chuckled. ‘Did you just sniff me?’ he asked playfully. How gently
he treated her was at odds with his nature. His
true
nature. She could
laugh. He was one of the most feared beings in her whole world. Yet when he was
with her, she didn’t feel threatened. She felt...safe. Protected. Even loved.

Bryn pulled away from him, shaking her head, looking into his eyes
so suddenly filled with joy. ‘No...maybe...’ she threw her hands into the air
stiffly. ‘Okay. Yeah, I did.’ She looked at him from the corner of her eye only
to see him smiling at her, a smile that revealed all his teeth, including his
incredibly sharp fangs.

That sobered her. ‘I’m still pissed off with you,’ she muttered. More
like she was pissed off with herself.

‘For what?’

‘For lying to me about who and what you really are.’

She expected him to blow her off, but he held her eyes, studying her
face. ‘I’m sorry about that. Truly.’

Her eyes narrowed on his handsomely arrogant face. She knew she
couldn’t stay angry at him. He had rescued her and Eir when she wasn’t able. ‘I
guess you’re forgiven then.’

‘I am?’ he asked.

‘You don’t have to be so damn smug about it,’ she retorted sharply.

He chuckled softly, his low, rough voice making her watch his mouth
with a longing she had felt ever since she’d dreamed of him coming to her.
Korvain saw she was staring. ‘I’m going to kiss you now.’ It was an
announcement, not requesting permission. And even then, that didn’t bother her
because that was what she wanted, too. Korvain leaned into her, his lips less
than an inch from her mouth when she laid a hand on his chest. She practically
melted at the touch.

‘Wait. You said before that you can enter people’s dreams. Is that
how you found me in the tunnels?’

‘Yes.’

She licked her lips and looked at her hand planted firmly on his
chest. He felt so real. She dug her nails into his skin, drawing a hiss from
his throat. She looked into his hooded eyes, the question she needed answering
sitting on the tip of her tongue.

‘In my other dreams, you came to me. Was what I felt then real, or
did you make me think I wanted you?’

He pulled back from her, frowning. His eyes had dropped to somewhere
in the region of her shoulder.

‘Korvain?’

He blinked at her. ‘Would you like to find out if the feelings were
real?’

She nodded.

‘Close your eyes then.’

Bryn did as she was told. A minute passed then maybe two. She kept
her eyes shut, wondering what Korvain was doing. She couldn’t smell his
familiar spices anymore, but she hadn’t felt him move, or heard him leave
either.

Her door opened again, and she opened her eyes. Gods, everything
still hurt. She moaned as her palm hit her bruised cheekbone. That’s right. One
had been shattered. Hadn’t she already gone through all of this?

‘Bryn,’ Korvain said, stepping into the room and closing the door
behind him. ‘Bryn, don’t touch it. Eir healed you the best she could, but there
was still some swelling left behind.’

Korvain stilled her arm, sending a jolt of electricity down into the
rest of her body. She hadn’t felt that before. She blinked at him, silently
asking him what was going on. Releasing her arm, he eased down onto the bed
beside her.

He gave her a crooked smile. ‘You wanted to see if the feelings were
real.’

‘That was a dream before? When you came into my room?’

He nodded, his eyes sliding down her chest. She jerked the sheet
back into position, feeling the heat of her blush on her cheeks. ‘Every time
I’ve come to you has been in your dreams.’

‘But they weren’t real, were they?’

He touched the side of her face gently, stroking the skin along her
undamaged cheek bone. ‘Everything you felt in them was real. It’s true I can
manipulate the dream, but everything you felt was real.’

So he had actually rejected her before, after he’d made her come so
spectacularly? She turned away from his feather caresses, ashamed with herself.

‘Bryn? What is it?’

She threw out the one word men hated to hear from a woman’s mouth in
response to that question. ‘Nothing.’

A low growl trickled from his throat. ‘Tell me. You were thinking
about something just then. I saw the look on your face. What was it?’

She turned back toward him. ‘So the rejection was real. That I
felt.’ She wanted her words to wound him like a dagger through the heart.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘The last time you came to me, after Eir had been brought here
unconscious, you...’ she flushed even thinking about it. ‘You stopped before
you...’ Gods, why was it so hard to talk about this?

‘I brought you and then did not take you?’ he asked gently, once
more stroking her skin. He had moved onto her neck.

She nodded.

‘You told me you were a virgin. I didn’t want to have your first
time like that. I wanted you to know that everything that happened between us
was real.’

He had taken to tucking strands of hair behind her ear now. The soft
repetitive movements made her eyes droop.

‘I’ll let you sleep,’ Korvain announced. He was just getting off the
bed when Bryn gripped his wrist. He looked down at her, a question in his dark
eyes.

‘Please don’t go yet. Stay with me a while?’

She didn’t understand why she needed him close. Maybe it was because
he was the one who had rescued her. Maybe it was because he was going to
disappear from her life after this. She didn’t want him to go. She realized
just how precious life was, how much she had wasted worrying about what Odin
thought of her.

In the corner of her room was one of the dining room chairs that
must have been brought in by whoever had kept vigil. Korvain reached for it.

‘No.’ She moved over to one side with a wince. ‘Lie with me?’

He hesitated.

‘Please?’

He nodded and began lowering his body down onto the bed. His
muscle-heavy weight dipped the mattress, forcing her to either hike up the
other side, or simply roll into his warmth. She chose to let herself just be
next to him.

His body was hard. He was all muscle, not an inch of fat on his
frame. His familiar spicy, masculine scent saturated her, drawing her in. She
was on her side, him on his back. She felt the long hot line of him against
her, but craved more.

She wouldn’t ask for it though. He seemed almost afraid to touch her
any more than a feather’s caress. Putting the thought out of her head, she
closed her eyes and began drifting off. Korvain woke her when he grunted,
shifting his weight on the mattress.

‘What are you doing?’ she mumbled; her voice already sleep affected.

‘Trying to get comfortable.’

He had slipped out of bed, and when she peered around, she saw him
stripping off a weapons harness she hadn’t noticed. He pulled his snug tee up
over his head too, and Bryn’s eyes sank to drink him all in. Embarrassed she
was just ogling him, she looked away to give him some privacy.

There were some more sounds: shoes coming off, and clothes being
pulled away from his warm body. When he slid back into the bed, his heat was
instant. She could feel his pecs and abdominal muscles molding against her spine.

He threw an arm over her waist and dragged her back into his chest,
holding her there with his muscular arm. She was blanketed by him now, caged in
by his warmth. With him there, she felt as if she could finally sleep safely.  

* * *

K
orvain finally
had his woman where he wanted her; pressed against his chest, her hair in his
face, her gardenia scent entangling in his nostrils and imprinting on his
brain. When he’d first come into the room after stepping out of her dream,
she’d looked so fragile.

Eir had done her best to heal the damage from the beatings she’d
endured under Loki’s hand, and she was healing. Just thinking about that
bastard made his hands curl into fists. But half of that anger was with
himself. He had taken her cloak to protect her. He may have protected her, but
he had made her suffer for it first.

His arm tightened around her waist, dragging her even closer into the
line of his body. There wasn’t a place on their bodies they weren’t touching.

‘Fuck,’ he muttered under his breath quietly. Bryn was trying to
recuperate and he was as fucking hard as a rock. Korvain angled his hips away
from her ass and thought about mundane things like the weather and football.
Fuck.

Bryn’s breathing had finally eased off a few minutes ago which was
just where he wanted her to be. She needed her rest. He didn’t know the reason
she had asked him to stay with her, but he didn’t care.

His cock throbbed between his legs, so he let his thoughts wander to
distract himself. He couldn’t sleep. He wouldn’t sleep while Bryn was relying on
him to keep her safe. It was very caveman of him, but the instinct was there,
screaming at him.

Taer was in the other room—the room where Eir was also set up. The Valkyries
had healed Tay’s injuries, but she would forever have a scar across the front
of her throat. Korvain heard a rumbling through the room and realized it was
him. Darrion was going to pay for killing his best friend and maiming his
little sister.

Adrian had asked him once, that if for whatever reason he wasn’t
there, Korvain would look out for Taer, to keep up with her training and
protect her from Darrion. He’d sworn he would until he drew his last breath,
and goddammit he was going to keep his promise. Adrian deserved that at least.

After bringing Bryn and Eir back to the other remaining Valkyries,
Korvain had told them all he could about what had happened, and also about the
bodies of the other Valkyries. They’d wanted to return straight away, but
Korvain had his own body to collect.

He returned to the house he had shared with his best friend only to
find it going up in flames. The human authorities were crawling all over the place;
police, ambulance and fire fighters. Korvain had remained hidden, but managed
to hear snippets of information coming out. There had been a body found in the
house, but there was a helluva large pool of blood in the garage. They assumed it
had been the kill site and the body had been moved inside. The house had then
been set alight by the perp to cover their tracks.

Darrion, that motherfucking bastard had done it as one final
fuck-you to Korvain. He didn’t even get to bury his brother after everything
they’d been through together.

Korvain waited until all the flames were extinguished before moving
in for a closer look. There was nothing but charred wood and a few barely recognizable
pieces of furniture left behind. He picked through it all until he found what
he believed was his room.

Everything was gone, but as he shifted the rubble around, he
discovered what he’d been hoping was still there. His gun safe was charred, but
he got it open and took out the small arsenal, strapping it to his body. He’d
returned to the club to check on Taer, and had fallen asleep in the chair
beside her bed.

Bryn wiggled closer to his body drawing him out of his dark
thoughts. He pulled her even closer, despite the heat radiating from her body,
despite how uncomfortable he was getting.

His body still raged for her. Goddammit, he was a perverted bastard
for wanting her like this, but the message between the logical part of his
brain and the primitive part had shorted out and he could only see her, smell
her. Fuck, he wanted to taste her again. When he’d taken her into his mouth,
he’d drunk her down, savoring her gardenia flavor. Being here now, he wanted her again.

Leaning forward just a little, he placed his lips onto the skin at
the back of her neck. She sighed gently, but did not wake. Now that he had her
taste on his lips, he needed more. He needed all of her.