Perfekt Control (The Ære Saga Book 2) (14 page)

I did as instructed, and wiped giant blood
from my face as Henrik sawed through the oversized limb pinning my
calf to the dirt. When he’d severed the offending body part, he
rolled it to the side and lifted me gingerly in his arms. I held on
to his neck and tried not to look overly affected. The guy had just
sawed off a monster’s limb for me. It was kind of a moment.

“You saved me.” Henrik stared.

“Yeah, well.” I shrugged. “You cut that giant
leg off me. We’re partners. It’s what we do.”

Henrik lifted me from the carnage while I
tried not to think about the pain shooting through my crushed limb.
The way our bodies healed, it would reset itself within a minute or
two. But for now, it was undeniably agonizing. The pain prevented
me from jumping out of Henrik’s arms and putting a healthy distance
between us.
Looks like I found my new mantra
—
distance
makes the heart grow ambivalent-er.
Or something like
that.

“
Takk, sötnos,
” Henrik said.

“No problem.”

Henrik held my gaze. “Listen, Brynnie. We
need to talk about what happened in Alfheim.”

“We really don’t,” I pleaded. “I said we
could drop it.” If memory served correctly, I’d actually
begged
him to drop it. The universe was
not
giving me
what I wanted today.

“Yeah, well, that doesn’t work for me. I need
you to know that nothing happened between Finnea and me after you
left. I offered her a deal, and she took it.”

I broke eye contact. “You paid her back for
the dust. You don’t have to tell me the details.”

“No.” Henrik spoke so fiercely I looked up.
“I offered her a trade.
Älva
experience heightened powers
when they’re involved with an Aesir. It’s what made our arrangement
symbiotic, and it’s why she’s been reluctant to break off our, uh,
our thing. I told her if she’d continue to supply my team with the
älva
dust we need to develop our defense systems, I’d let
her take her pick of this year’s graduating Academy class. There’s
a line of warriors a kilometer long who’d give up their immortality
to enter into a relationship with an actual fairy. They’ve been
under lock and key for the duration of their studies, you
know?”

“Wait.” My brows scrunched. “You’re saying
you
didn’t
sleep with Finnea after you sent me back to
Tyr?”

“I haven’t slept with Finnea since you joined
our team.” Henrik stared at me intently.

I blinked. Then my face scrunched up as a
wave of pain ripped through the lower half of my body.

“What’s wrong?” Henrik’s voice dripped with
anxiety.

“Just an after pain. I should be good in
another minute.” If I willed it, it would come true. “Put me down
so I can get the blood flowing again.”

Henrik set me gently on my feet and I tested
my weight. It felt uncomfortably tender, but I’d felt worse.

“You okay to move or do you need me to carry
you?”

“I should be okay soon.”

“We need to put as much space as possible
between us and these guys before the next group catches up.” Henrik
held out his arms to lift me, but I shook my head.

“What do you mean the next group?”

A wave of thunder rolled over the forest. The
ground shook, and Muspelheim’s bizarre truck-sized birds evacuated
their treetop perches with loud cries of protest. In the distance,
at least three squadrons of fire giants raced through the forest. I
couldn’t make out their features, but I saw a minimum of ten
distinct streams of fire shoot through the air, incinerating trees
and clearing their path. At this rate, they’d be on top of us in
under a minute.

Healing time was over.

“Where’s the bribe?” I ripped my backpack off
my back and dug through it.

“What bribe? What are you doing? We have to
go,
now.
” Henrik urged, as a fresh stream of fire lit up the
sky.

I dumped the contents of the black satchel
into my palm and shared half with Henrik. “Here. The rubies. Tyr
gave them to me to pay off the scout, but he gave me extra to use
as bait—he says they’ll buy us time with the fire breathers. The
giants might want our blood, but they’ll want the rubies more.
Scatter a few of them around, it should buy us enough time to…” To
what, exactly? We still hadn’t found Hyro, and Tyr wouldn’t be
happy if we called for the Bifrost to bring us back without the
intel we came for.

’Course, Elsa wouldn’t be happy if we came
home with charred limbs. With the amount of dark energy emanating
from the fire giants, burnt arms could take days for her to
heal.

“Throw all of the rubies and run, Brynn.
We’ll figure out how to pay off the scout later.” Henrik flung his
gems in a wide arc, and I followed suit. Then we took off. I
ignored the searing pain in my right leg as we raced through the
forest without any idea of what we were running toward.

Gods, I hoped we weren’t heading straight
into a trap.

“
TYR SAID THEY COULD
be bought off
with rubies!” My words came in short gasps. Henrik and I had been
running a good five minutes, and we still hadn’t put enough
distance between us and our pursuers to outmaneuver them. These
were
not
the fire giants I’d seen on my tours of duty.

“Yeah, well, we also thought they were
slow of movement and thought.
” Henrik’s voice parroted what
Professor Mikstram had taught us in high school. “Apparently
they’ve evolved.” Even though he was running every bit as fast as I
was, he barely sounded winded—which was totally unfair, given I
worked out twice as hard as he did.
Stupid injury. Finish
healing, already.

“Apparently.” I pumped my burning legs
harder, springing off the tips of my toes to lengthen my strides as
we sprinted through yet
another
elderwood grove. Great Odin,
how many of these things were we going to run through? I made a
sharp right turn and called to Henrik. “This way!” I bolted in the
direction of Muspelheim’s sole saltwater lake, knowing we could
power-swim across and summon the Bifrost before the iodine-averse
fire giants caught up. Forget finding Forse’s contact; we needed to
get out of here. And no way was I asking Heimdall to open up the
bridge until we’d put some distance between those freakishly fast
beasts and us. We couldn’t chance porting one of them back to the
safe house.

“Get in here. Quick,” a scratchy voice
beckoned from up ahead. It sounded as if it came from behind the
arch of boulders twenty-five meters away. “Back here. Before they
catch you.”

Henrik raised an eyebrow and I blinked, not
breaking my run. On the one hand, it was suicide to trust
anyone
in Muspelheim. The odds were good whoever was behind
that rock wanted to maim us, grill us, or turn us over to Surtr in
exchange for… well, whatever fire giants found valuable these days,
since apparently the value of rubies had plummeted. The price for
two Asgardian heads must have gone up.

On the other hand, the streams of flame
shooting at us were only getting closer. And if my visual
assessment was accurate, the fire-breathing mutants were no more
than fifteen meters behind us, twenty tops. If we didn’t lose them,
and fast, we wouldn’t be heading back to Midgard without some
serious blisters… or worse. Chances were the monsters would be more
than happy to serve up flambéed Asgardian for tea.

“What do you think?” I tipped my head toward
the boulder arch. We were only ten meters away.

Henrik shook his head. “My gut says no. But
if we don’t take cover, they’re going to roast us. Do you see any
other options?”

I scanned the grove. There was nothing but
trees in any direction. A glance over my shoulder proved Henrik was
right—a thick billow of smoke crawled through the foliage like
Freya’s forest cats stalking a reindeer. The giants spouted fire
with each exhale, incinerating trees on contact. There was no way
we’d make it if they got even ten feet closer.

“That arch is the only break in the tree zone
I can see. Climbing the elderwood is out, since the whole trunk
seems go up in smoke the minute the base is charred.” I squared my
shoulders and darted to the right. “Do it.”

Henrik followed me without question, flinging
his body over mine as we dove through the small opening in the
arch. He wrapped his arms around my chest and tucked his legs
against me, rotating so his body bore the impact of our fall. His
back made a dull thud as it struck the hard dirt. My landing was
slightly less uncomfortable, thanks to the thick layer of muscle
adorning Henrik’s chest, which I
so
didn’t think about
because I was erecting
extremely major
boundaries today.
Boundaries that
totally
didn’t include committing the
sensation of Henrik’s body wrapped around mine to memory
,
because I
absolutely
was not going to relive this moment
every night from here to forever.

That would have been pathetic, after all.

We skidded another meter, Henrik gripping me
tightly and my hands locked around his thick forearms for the sole
reason of not flying off and hitting my head and being an
ineffective partner.
That
would have been irresponsible.
Then we came to a stop and leapt to our feet, backs close
together—but not actually touching because, boundaries—in a
defensive stance.

The cave was too dark to see anything at
first, but our pursuers’ peculiar breathing habits were quick to
remedy that. We heard the thundering of their footsteps right
before our shelter was illuminated with the thick, hot light of
fire breath. The light shot right past the opening of the arch and
faded as the fire giants drove forward into the grove, decimating
the fauna and sparing us.

When I finally permitted myself to breathe,
the smell of burnt wood overwhelmed my nasal cavity. It stung at
the back of my throat, and made my eyes feel like they’d been
scrubbed with sandpaper and rinsed with alcohol.
What the
Helheim?

“You okay, Brynn?” Henrik punctuated each
whispered word with a muffled cough. No doubt the black smoke
affected him too. I didn’t have to see through my burning eyeballs
to know his sword was drawn.

“Yeah. I can’t see so great though.” I rubbed
the back of one hand against each of my eyes in turn. The other
pulled my dagger out of my boot and held it steady. This situation
wasn’t ideal, but it wouldn’t be the first time I’d fought
blind.

“You don’t need your weapons in here.” The
scratchy voice came from my left, and I whirled around, blade at
chest level.

“Identify yourself,” Henrik barked.

“Chill out. I’m Hyro. Your friend Forse’s…
eh…acquaintance?” The scratchy voice rose on the last word, and for
the first time I realized its owner was female.

“Prove it. Because we are having one
skit
-tastic day, and the only faces I want to see right now
are friendly ones.” Henrik guided me behind him with one hand. He
was giving me time to clear my vision, and I rubbed frantically at
my eyes, making the most of the lull in the action. Things could
get heated fast around here.
Ha!

Apparently, smoke inhalation made me think I
was funny.

“Fine.” The voice sighed, affecting a tone of
long-suffering patience. “You’re here because somebody stole your
love goddess. You’re afraid of the chaos that will envelop the
realms. You’re looking for a scout that knows something about a
portal and a bound female.” My vision
finally
returned and I
squinted through the darkness to see a curvy girl who didn’t look
much older than seventeen in mortal years, twirling her cherry-red
hair as if she was bored. “Did I pass?”

“I think we’re good,” I whispered to Henrik.
“I can see now. And I can totally take her if it comes to it.”

The girl’s bulbous nose scrunched up. “That
was rude,”

“Sorry. But like he said, we’re having a
lousy day.” I stepped around Henrik and held out my hand. “I’m
Brynn. This is Henrik. You’re Hyro?”

“Yep.”

Henrik stepped to my side and lowered his
sword to shake her hand. “
Hei
Hyro
.
Huh. Your name
rhymes with pyro. Your parents must have a wicked sense of
humor.”

Hyro blinked at him.

“You know,” Henrik explained. “Because you’re
a fire giant. Pyro… Hyro…”

“Real original.” Hyro rolled her eyes. She
tilted her head back and exhaled violently, shooting a stream of
flame out of her nose. Henrik and I both ducked, but the flame shot
well over our heads, lighting a sconce hanging on the rocky wall.
She repeated the movement three more times, until a flaming wall
sconce lit each corner of the tiny room. Hyro leaned back against
the grey wall of the cave, her arms wrapped around her waist, with
one black boot crossed over her ankle in a pose that screamed
defiant teenager
way more than it screamed
formidable
fire giant
. “I thought you might want to be able to see stuff,”
Hyro offered by way of explanation.

“Thanks.” Henrik rubbed his free hand over
the back of his neck. “Wait. If you’re a fire giant, why are you
so… well… short?”

I jabbed him in the ribs with my elbow, and
he rubbed his side. “Ow, Brynn!”

“Sorry about him. He doesn’t get out
much.”

“No, he’s right.” Hyro pushed herself off the
wall so she stood at her full height. “I’m four feet, eight inches.
I don’t exactly fit the mold.”

“Maybe not,” I admitted. “But that doesn’t
give the foreigner an excuse to be rude.” I shot Henrik the stink
eye, and he had the decency to look embarrassed.

“Sorry, Hyro. Last rude thing out of my
mouth. Scout’s honor.” Henrik held up his fingers in a webbed trio,
and the laugh escaped my mouth before I could stop it.