Dragonslayer (Twilight of the Gods Book 3) (10 page)

“It was more than a contract. You built that house for a family. I helped you decorate, remember? And you can’t tell me it’s not what you wanted then. A man who was only doing his duty wouldn’t have picked out a rocking chair for the room he planned to use as a nursery.”

“Leave it alone, Elin.”

“I don’t understand. I know what you want, and yet you do your best to sabotage every opportunity you have to make it a reality. Is it cold feet? Because you don’t have anything to worry about. Your father was a difficult man, but you’ll make a great husband and a good father.”

This wasn’t a conversation he should be having with an ex-lover. No matter how deeply he cared about Elin, no matter what their history, she was crossing a line.

“Elin…”

“I don’t want a mate or children.” She pointed at him. “But you do. I get it, I do. She’s pretty and exactly your type.”

“Don’t patronize me. If nothing else, I know what I am—my strengths and my weaknesses. I know my own mind.”

“Do you?”

“Yes. And I know Jacey’s
not
my type. You don’t have to worry about me fucking her because it’s not going to happen.”

The horrified look that crossed Elin’s face registered only a beat before he heard the door close behind him. Slowly, he turned in his chair to see Jacey start across the room, her arms loaded with books, her cheeks bright and her eyes very carefully averted from him. He felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“Jacey…”

“I pulled these from the shelves upstairs but thought I’d read through them down here so we could keep all the research in one place.” She set the books down in a pile on the table and lifted a sheaf of paper from the top. “Here’s the list of the people I’ve already spoken with.” She handed the paper to Elin. Elin took it from her hands without meeting her gaze. Good. She should be embarrassed at pushing where she didn’t belong.

“Jacey…” He leaned forward in an attempt to catch her eye.

She ignored him, passing another piece of paper to Elin and then clearing her throat. “My notes. There’s not much, but there truly wasn’t much to note. If you have questions about anything, just let me know.”

She glanced at him, but her gaze slid right off. He couldn’t tell how hurt she’d been by his words. He hadn’t meant them as an insult, but she couldn’t know that. And Jacey…she seemed uncertain of her appeal. He thought that was why she hid herself in ugly clothes and didn’t even bother to try to tame her crazy hair. She didn’t wear makeup and she was awful at flirting, but that wasn’t why she wasn’t his type. He didn’t care about her clothes. Her awkwardness only made him feel uncomfortably protective of her, and he liked her hair.

She wasn’t his type because she was Midgardian and off limits. Even if she’d been Æsir, he’d probably have tried to keep his distance. Her heart was too damned soft. She cared about things too easily and too deeply. A good thing for the sake of his clan, because it meant she wouldn’t betray them if it could be helped. A bad thing for her. Maybe Elin was right. Maybe he was worried about scraped knees, but he didn’t like to see people get hurt. It wasn’t such an awful thing, was it?

“I’m going back to the house for… I’m going back to the house.” She gathered up her bag and was halfway to the door before he was out of his seat.

He moved to follow her, but turned back when Elin called his name. “What is it?”

Elin stared at him, her dark eyes intent. “Let her go.”

“I can’t do that.”

He took the stairs two at a time. Even so, there was no sign of Jacey in the library. He pushed through the glass doors and spotted her already halfway across the parking lot. He had to jog to catch up.

Still a step behind, he said, “About what you heard in there…”

She waved a hand in dismissal, not even slowing down. “We don’t need to talk about that.”

“We do.”

She stopped walking so abruptly that he nearly ran into her. And suddenly she was in his arms, the feel of her warm, feminine and so shockingly right that it took him a second too long to find the sense to let her go. She turned in his arms and stepped away.

“I didn’t ask you to sleep with me.”

“I know that.”

“Did I somehow give you the impression that I even wanted that?”

“Elin doesn’t know you. She only knows me.”

She didn’t comment on that. Instead, she turned her head to frown at the library.

“She’s an old friend who was worried,” he said, softening his voice. “When she heard you were staying at my house, she misunderstood the circumstances. I was just setting her straight.”

She looked at him. Her eyes were still stormy, but at least she was listening. “Why would she think anything was going on? We met two days ago.”

He ran a hand through his hair, mentally cursing Elin for bringing this up. “It’s complicated.”

“Does she have a reason to worry? Do I need to be worried about staying with you?” She shook her head. “Why am I asking you this? I’m going back to the motel.”

She started to move away, and he caught her arm. “I would never hurt you. You know I would never hurt you. You were right to trust your instincts there.”

She looked pointedly at his hand on her arm, and he released her immediately. Instead of running, as he’d expected, she turned to face him. “Explain it to me, then.”

She deserved an explanation, and Aiden would be pissed if he let Jacey take off now, angry as she was. Still, he hesitated. She sighed impatiently, forcing the words from his mouth.

“This time last year I was only a few weeks away from marrying Raquel because our parents signed a contract arranging our betrothal.”

“Fen’s wife?”

He nodded. “When the contract was arranged, I was a baby and Raquel was still in the womb. We didn’t meet until a few weeks before the ceremony. The same day she met Fen.”

Her brows twitched up. “You’d never met?”

“No.”

“That’s barbaric.”

“My doing. I insisted on sticking to the letter of the contract. We weren’t going to be married until she turned twenty-five, and I wanted my life to be my own until then.”

It hadn’t been. He’d been fooling himself, but he hadn’t seen that at the time. A small rebellion, a way of holding on to his soul when so much had been promised away.

“I dated other women, which is how I know there’s no one living in Ragnarok I want to marry. Or who wants to marry me. Elin thinks I should be off courting another bride so I can breed new hunters to protect the clan. That I should stay away from you because you’re not Æsir. What you heard was me reassuring her that I wasn’t interested in you in that way.”

Jacey studied his face for a moment, and then gave a sharp nod. She shoved her hands in her pockets, and the way her shoulders hunched forward reminded him of a turtle retreating into its shell.

“Jacey.” When she didn’t look up, he touched her jaw and lifted her face. Wide eyes, delicate features, fragile skin. “Not that I wouldn’t be interested in you under other circumstances. It doesn’t have anything to do with who you are. You’re lovely and sweet.” He smiled bitterly. “I
can’t
be interested in you, not in that way.”

She made a funny noise but didn’t pull away. “You don’t have to worry. I was never confused about where I stand with you.”

“No?”

“We have a common problem and you have a spare room. That’s about the size of it, right?”

He hesitated, torn between honesty and self-preservation. He swept his thumb across the crest of her cheek. Her skin was cool compared to the sudden blaze in her eyes.

“Nothing about it is right,” he said. “But that doesn’t change the fact that you don’t belong here.”

She pulled away. He shoved his hands in his pockets before he could do something truly stupid, like gather her into his arms. Kiss her. Toss her over his shoulder and drag her off to bed. It wouldn’t end well, not for either of them. He didn’t need one of the counselor crows to tell him that.

“Is the door unlocked?”

“It is.”

“Good.” She turned on her heel and headed back toward his house. This time, he didn’t follow.

Chapter Ten

“Jacey, wake up.” A warm hand smoothed over her back and shook her gently. She curled away from it, burrowing deeper into the covers.

“Jacey.”

The voice became more insistent, closer this time, and when the hand shook her harder, she swatted at it. She was having the loveliest dream. Christian dressed in armor holding that blue glowing sword and chasing away the monsters. She had a sword too, even bigger than his. She was barbarian queen Jacey, lopping off heads left and right. When Christian fell and the demons swarmed over him, she pulled him out.

“Go away,” she said, but the words came out garbled and muffled by the pillow.

“You sleep like the dead.”

No, she didn’t. The dead got to sleep in peace.

The blanket covering her tugged free, and a wash of cool air touched her skin. She curled into a ball, and it was only the feeling of a warm, very masculine hand on her bare thigh that finally brought her awake.

Christian in her bed…

Christian was in her bed.

She pushed herself up, opening her eyes and squinting at the dark shadow of a man backlit by the light from the open door.

“Christian?”

“Finally.” He stood up, and the mattress shifted as his weight was removed.

She reached for the blanket, pulling it over her exposed legs. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Something’s happened.” He started for the door. “Get dressed and meet me downstairs. I’m leaving in five minutes. You can stay here if you want.”

The hell she would. Scrambling out of bed, she threw on the clothes she’d borrowed from Grace. Cursed when she stubbed her toe on the nightstand and had to run back into the room to grab her phone. She pulled her hair into a ponytail as she jogged down the stairs, and even then she barely caught Christian on his way out the door.

“What happened?”

“One of the hounds on patrol—Hagan—saw something out in the woods by the lake. Aiden’s called in the hunt.”

She followed him out the door and climbed into the car. As he backed out of the driveway, she asked, “What is it?”

“We don’t know yet. It’s holed up in a small cave. He’s waiting to flush it out until everyone gets there.”

Christian broke a few speed laws on the way out to Aiden’s place, but the roads were empty until they got closer. They caught up to Fen’s truck as they pulled onto the gravel road leading to Aiden’s farm. Their headlights swept over the barren, frost-covered fields, and Jacey bent to tighten the laces on her boots. When she went to put on her work gloves, she realized she’d grabbed her mittens by mistake and…
damn
.

“I forgot my gun.”

Christian didn’t turn from the road. “You won’t need it. Can you ride?”

“I can ride.” Her friend Jess’s family had horses, and Jacey had spent a lot of time there when her mother first got sick. The horses, learning how to take care of them and how to ride—Jess’s big family had helped her through some pretty rough times.

“Okay, good.” Christian threw the car into park and cut the engine. Turning to face her, he said, “You’ll need to stay back and listen to what I tell you to do.”

He paused as if expecting an argument, but she held her tongue. She wasn’t going to give him an excuse to leave her behind. Once they were out there, well…then she’d decide what needed to be done. She nodded.

He searched her face, blue eyes piercing. “Aiden won’t be happy I brought you along. Let me deal with him.”

“No argument there.” Aiden kind of scared her. But it made her wonder why Christian had brought her along if it was going to cause him trouble. He could have slipped out without her knowing about it. She’d have slept right through this. “Why did you wake me up?”

He reached for the door, and the overhead light flashed on. “Come on. They’re almost ready to leave.”

She scrambled out of the car after him, slamming the door closed behind. She still had to jog to catch up. He was right. Most of the hunt were already mounted on horses whose breed she didn’t recognize. They were as graceful as Arabians, but bigger. They stood waiting, eerily still.

Her steps slowed, and then stopped altogether as an enormous black-furred dog stepped into her path. Sucking in a breath of freezing air, she went absolutely still. Christian kept walking toward Aiden. The dog—it wasn’t a dog—
wolf
stepped closer. It moved silently, like a ghost, its paws hardly seeming to touch the ground. Yellow eyes glowed in the dim light. Oversized canine teeth peeked from the corners of its mouth. It wasn’t a wolf either. The shape of its head was all wrong and its frame was too wide.

Christian glanced over his shoulder, saw that she’d stopped moving and frowned. “Fen. Leave her alone.”

“Fen?”

Hound. Christian had mentioned hounds when he spoke of the hunt, but she’d thought he meant… She shook her head. She didn’t know what she’d thought, but it wasn’t this. She held out a trembling hand and Fen—God, it really was Fen—gently closed his mouth around her fingers. He could have just touched his nose to her skin or let her graze his fur with her fingertips. Instead, he let her feel his teeth. Just a suggestion of the crushing pressure he could exert if he wished, and then he released her, stepping aside to let her pass. Her breath released in a rush. Okay. Message received. He wouldn’t hurt her.

Christian was talking to Aiden, but before she could join them, a woman intercepted her. She was tall, with an athletic build and long hair braided back from her face. Introducing herself as Beth, she led Jacey to a waiting horse. Christian had returned by the time she was settled. He swung into the saddle with practiced ease and then directed his horse to come alongside hers. He leaned in close as the hounds let out a long, wavering howl and the hunt started to move forward.

“Remember,” he said, “you promised to stay close.”

She hadn’t exactly promised that, but she wasn’t about to argue the point. Right now it made perfect sense to stay close to the man with the sword.

As they moved away from the yard and into the open field, the night closed around them. The moon had already set and the sunrise, though not far away, was barely a blush on the horizon. There were a million stars glittering cold and bright above, but it was very dark down here. She could barely see Christian’s face, let alone the other members of the hunt. They were dark shadows passing before and beside her. She could only differentiate between the horses and hounds by the way they moved.

When they passed the break created by a line of old pine trees, the wind hit her full in the face. She pulled the scarf over her mouth. Fleece. She’d left her scarf behind in the library. This one she’d borrowed from Christian, and it carried the scent of his cologne—rich, sexy and warm. For some reason, that irritated her. His smell. The way he looked, all perfect and manly. There was something awful about being attracted to a man who thought you were too far beneath him to be of interest.

If all went well, maybe they could wrap things up tonight and she could go home, back to her normal life, and forget all about this place.

They crossed fields still covered in debris from the fall harvest before entering the woods. The hunt slowed as they reached the trail, though it was wide enough for them to ride by twos and threes. The hounds disappeared into the trees.

The dip in the land and the trees cut most of the wind, and Jacey’s eyes finally began to adjust to the dark. No. That wasn’t it. The hunt was beginning to glow, as if touched by moonlight, though there was no moon in the sky. A faint blue fairy light wrapped about the horses’ hooves and spiraled up their delicate legs like growing vines. She could see the hounds too. Dark shadows slipping through the trees, their fur caught the ghost light and reflected it with a silky sheen. When she looked at Christian, she was almost relieved to find that his face was still in shadow.

“Where’s the light coming from?”

“Aiden must’ve decided he didn’t want anyone to stumble over a branch or a hound. Stealth isn’t an issue. Hagan has the thing cornered. There’s no reason we need to go in blind.”

She noticed that Aiden hadn’t triggered the spell until they reached the woods, so no one who happened to be driving by his house would have been able to see them.

“The horses,” she said. “They’re not…”

“Normal?” Christian asked, a thread of amusement in his tone. “They’re Æsir bred.”

Even if she’d never ridden a horse, she could have managed this one. She needed very little direction and seemed to respond to Jacey’s commands with tolerance rather than obedience. A thought occurred to her. “They’re not”—she lowered her voice—“
people
, are they?”

Christian laughed. “Of course not.”

Of course nothing. “It was a legitimate question. You didn’t tell me about your hounds.”

He shrugged. “I thought you understood.”

“Elin and Rane?”

He pointed at the sky. “They’ve flown ahead to look for trouble.”

He’d referred to the twins as crows, counselor crows, but then he’d also called Aiden “the Odin.” She’d thought they were all just funny little titles. She hadn’t actually expected Fen to grow fur and fangs.

But, okay, she’d deal with it. Deal with all of it. One step at a time, just like she’d dealt with her mother’s long illness. Focus on the problem right in front of her and let the rest keep until tomorrow.

Christian pointed. “See that hill ahead? That’s where we’re going. There’s a cliff overlooking the lake. The hounds are running ahead to come across the ice but the fastest way down is the path from the top. Are you up for it?”

“I’m up for it.”

“Good.”

They stopped in a small clearing. She dismounted, and when she went to tie off the horse, Christian touched her hand. “Just shorten the reins so they don’t catch on anything. She’ll come when called.”

She did as asked, and smiled when the horse dipped its head. Jacey placed a hand on the mare’s finely arched neck and then turned to follow Christian to the edge of the cliff. She’d never liked heights much. Living in Iowa, it’d never been much of a problem. The ledge was about forty feet above the frozen lake. During the day, the view would have been stunning. Now, she could only see the dark sheen of the lake. The black line of the trees. Blue light below where some of the hunt had already gathered. The cave must be directly beneath their feet. Christian’s path was a nearly vertical drop with occasional handholds.

She fisted her hands in an attempt to force warmth back into fingers. Christian turned to her, taking her arm and turning her toward the notch in the ledge where several of the huntsmen were already making their way down. “Ready?”

“Yeah. I think—”

Before she could finish the thought, a shout went up from below. They both turned back to the edge of the cliff and leaned forward. She couldn’t see anything. A beat after that thought came the realization that she
should
be able to see something, at least the ghost light reflecting off the frozen lake. But the light was gone. Blocked out by a dark shape rushing toward them. Christian wrapped his arms about her waist and jerked her back, away from the cliff. Swinging her around, he set her on her feet and then gave her a push toward the trail. “Run for the trees. Find a horse and get back to the house.”

She hesitated. “What is it?”

“Go.
Now
.”

He drew his sword and turned away. She cursed, scanning the skies, but she couldn’t see a thing. Whatever spell Aiden had cast to summon the light had been extinguished. The sky was slightly paler than it had been when they’d left Aiden’s, but the sun had yet to rise.

She crouched down, waiting a moment to give her eyes time to adjust. She didn’t want to risk running straight into that thing, or worse, getting turned around and tripping over the side of the cliff.

Below, she heard movement and muffled voices as the hunters who’d descended worked to make their way back up. A hound called out, low and mournful. It sounded hurt. Most of the hounds were below. Most of the hunters too. She and Christian had been among the last to arrive. Stragglers. He’d probably thought he was keeping her safe.

Christian she could make out, barely. There was just enough light to catch the gleam of reflected light from his blade. She knew it was Christian by the set of his shoulders and the size of his body. He stood about dozen feet away, between her and the edge of the cliff. Giving her a chance to escape into the trees. Only…there was no sign of the animal—the
winged
animal—that’d swooped up the side of the cliff. It could be anywhere, miles distant. Directly overhead. Or hiding somewhere in the woods.

A snarl sounded from the base of the cliff, followed by the sharp crack of ice.

She’d never thought of herself as much of a coward, but at the sound, she instinctively started to run in the opposite direction. Halfway to the tree line, she stumbled over a rock and dropped to her knees. She scrambled up and made it another dozen feet before a gust of wind touched her cheek. A heartbeat later, a shadow slid through across the sky just above the top branches of the trees ahead. Black on black, its shape indistinct. She stopped running and then slowly backed away, trying to follow the movement. She lost sight of it as it descended. Its wing dipped and it circled around like a hawk who’d spotted a nice, juicy mouse.