Space Invaders (16 page)

Haldir or Elderade, or whatever he called himself, bellowed again. I winced. Lucky my roommates were off on some kind of anthropological camping thing. Hopefully no one in the building would complain. Late night noise was tolerated. Early mornings, not so much.

“Bailey!” Candy was waiting for me. “We’re going to be late!”

My best friend, Candy Drake, gave me a scandalised look out of large, soul-heavy brown eyes. Candy lived life as if she were a Regency romance heroine, with rules and etiquette. I’d had to get her drunk the night she’d got her first parking ticket. She was not a rebel at heart. Conformity was her thing.

Fortunately I understood her, since Candy and I had the same taste in reading. Growing up, we’d read all kinds. Candy’s favourites were romantic suspense while mine were paranormal romances. We could spend hours talking about our favourite heroes.

“We won’t be late. You have to factor in the time it takes for everyone to sit.” I had it down to a science because I am not remotely a morning person. I just hit my stride by 2am.

Behind us, the door shook as if the mighty Thor had struck it with his hammer. Candy’s mouth gaped. “Wow, did one of your roommates run out of coffee?”

Damn, there were actually splinters and a
hole
in my door!

“As if you don’t know!” I flashed. I figured Candy had to be part of this. Today was my birthday. So she’d given me a Viking, like one of the demanding Alpha males in a Johanna Lindsey romance—except this guy took his role-playing a little too seriously.

Candy shoved back her long dark hair, her face so pale her freckles stood out like flecks of sawdust on cream. “Bailey!” she squeaked, much as I had earlier that morning.

She squeaked because the door exploded like a cannonball had fired through it.

And there he was, Gundar the Invincible, completely and magnificently naked except for his mighty sword, which had two crescent moon shapes on either side of a pommel, the metal beaten. Wow, it looked really authentic to my untrained eye. I was surprised he’d used it on my door when it must have set him back quite a bit of dough, a reproduction weapon like that.

He gave me an outraged look, as if I’d been the one to smash the freaking door.

All down the hallway of my residence, half-dressed students with blurry eyes and bed hair appeared. They poked their heads out, staring open-mouthed at Gundar the Destroyer’s amazing ripped body.

“Bailey?” Candy gasped.

Gundar reached out one giant fist and snagged my T-shirt, dragging me to him.

“You will do your duty by me,” he growled and shook me, like a puppy that had piddled on the rug.

“Stop!” Candy was hitting Gundar’s free arm with her fists. His jewel-blue eyes widened and he glowered at me. “I have no wish to hurt your wench,” he said.

I grabbed Candy’s arms, not wanting my wench to get hurt either. “Candy, it’s all right. He’s, ah, mine,” I said.

Gundar looked down at me with a half-smile.

“Yours?” Her eyes were accusing. “Bailey Moore, you have a new boyfriend and you didn’t tell me?” She looked Thor over. “I want to know everything.” Her voice had a sudden dreamy quality.

I blushed. “It’s a joke!” I raised my voice for the other students. “My birthday. Ha ha.”

I had two sudden epiphanies hit me. One, we were most definitely going to be late to class this morning. The second was that we couldn’t stand in the hallway with half the building lusting over my Viking warrior. And, okay, a third one hit me. I needed coffee. Now.

“Come on.” I tugged Gundar’s arm. He didn’t move, looking down at my grip on his tree trunk of an arm with something like amusement. It pissed me off. I wasn’t built like Gundar, but I wasn’t totally skinny. My arms had some definition from push ups.

“We will go,” he announced in a gracious tone and allowed me to herd him and Candy through my beat-up door. Oh, man. How was I going to tell my roommates? I’d have to get it replaced pronto. Maybe we could swing by the recycled building supply store, where I could find a new one. That and some paint and I should be able to switch it out quick.

Which was going to eat up most of the day.

But first things first. Coffee.

“Oh no,” Candy groaned as I got out the instant.

“Sorry, no Starbucks barista handy. You could always ask Thor here if he can make us coffee with the power of his magical sword,” I said, slicing my Viking a look. He was pacing the room, sword thankfully lax at his side, studying the kitchen and couch area with some interest.

“I am not Thor,” he boomed. “I have told you my name.”

“I forgot it,” I said.

He frowned thunderously. “You did not.”

“Okay, I didn’t.” I looked at Candy who was sitting on my couch and watching my visitor. “It’s Frey-er something.”

“Freyr,” my Viking supplied calmly. Then he pointed his broadsword at me, his fuck-up of a servant boy. “You will not forget.”

I shook my head, reluctantly impressed. Frey certainly stayed in character.

“It smells like seriously burned toast in here,” Candy said, wrinkling her nose.

“It must be the wiring in one of the walls,” I said. “It smelt like that when I woke up.”

“When you woke up with, um, Frey-ur,” she said, running avid eyes over Frey’s backside, which was on display as he bent down and picked up one of Jared’s T-shirts. He studied it, even lifted it to his nose and sniffed.

“This does not smell of you,” he told me, frowning.

“You can
smell
that?” I shook my head. For a second his reaction seemed so real… I was falling for his game. “Right, you have trained senses from hunting boar or whatever, right?”

“Yes,” Frey said, as if he hadn’t caught on I was being sarcastic. “I hunt.”

I needed coffee. “Okay, water’s boiled.”

Candy reluctantly took a cup with instant milk whipped by my spoon, tons of sugar, cinnamon, coffee crystals and hot water. Her expression smoothed out after she tasted some. It sounds like junk, but I can make really good instant lattes.

“So what is going on?” she demanded, eyes half-slitted with pleasure.

Frey studied her, cocking his head. Then he gave me an imperious look.

“I’m already making you some,” I grumbled. “Your Lordship.”

He nodded firmly. “Yes.”

I rolled my eyes before giving Candy the goods. “I woke up. He was in bed with me. End of story.”

“You woke up with a Viking in your bed and you don’t think that’s a little strange?”

“Candy, it’s my birthday.”

“I know that!”

“So Jared, Miles… This has to be their doing. They hired Lord of the Rings here to give me a thrill.” And what a thrill it had been with that warm mouth on my sweet spot and that hard body plastering me into the mattress. But I didn’t have to share that with Candy. From the way she was looking at Frey, she’d probably figured it out.

Candy bit her lip as I finished making Frey’s coffee. He didn’t come and take the mug. I had to take it to him. Geez, he was annoying.

“But Bailey…” She put her mug down and got to her feet, hesitantly approaching Frey.

He took a sip of the coffee and then held it away from himself, looking shocked by the taste. Maybe he didn’t think I could work such magic with instant.

“How do you explain this?” She was stroking his arm. I felt a rush of jealousy, which was stupid.

“Explain what?”

“These scars…” She looked up into Frey’s eyes. “They’re real.”

Chapter Two

I took a closer look, of course. One shiny scar wrapped around his hip like a snake. It looked a bit like an appendix scar…except it was in the wrong place. “Uh.” I scratched my chin.

“And there’s one big one on his shoulder.” Candy was behind our mysterious giant, hands tracing one mother of a puckered mark.

“Car accident?” I mused, feeling reluctant sympathy tighten my gut.

“Spear,” Frey said, taking another meditative sip of his coffee. “This drink is most strange for
dagmál
, but pleasing.”

“Spear?” I repeated. “Hokay, time for more coffee.” I went back to making a mug for myself.

“That’s it, that’s all you have to say?” Candy gave me a disgusted look, hands on her hips.

“What do you want me to say?” I asked. “‘Spear’ is kind of a conversational non-starter, unless we’re talking medieval jousting re-enactments.” I gave Frey a look. “Which we probably are. Geez, looks like fake jousting is way more brutal than rugby.”

“What if he’s real?” Candy said in a very, very soft voice.

I slammed my mug down and strode to her, tugging her by the arm into the little hallway. “Don’t say that,” I hissed.

“Why not? Your place smells funky, he appears mysteriously and he’s…cute but weird, like an alien. His hair is long and gorgeous, but it’s seriously in need of conditioner and it looks like someone cut it with a knife. And those scars!”

“Wait, he’s an ancient Viking who somehow popped into my room based on the fact he needs conditioner?” I widened my eyes at Candy and she flushed. “The only thing weird is
him.
” I jerked my head in Frey’s direction. “He lacks any sense of perspective. He’s not even a funny joke.”

She screwed up her face at me, looking a bit like a pissed off Bichon, but because she was my best friend I refrained from mentioning that. “Well, I think he’s funny,” Candy said.

“Funny like the guy in an elevator who talks to imaginary ants.”

“He hasn’t done that!”

“He sliced and diced my door with a broadsword!”

“Well, it
is
your birthday,” she said. “So this year, you got something truly unique.”

We panted, nose to nose.

Then she wrinkled her face and grinned at me, that grin I hadn’t been able to resist since the third grade when bullies had chased her home and I’d defended her. I’d got a bleeding lip and a black eye, but we’d been friends ever since.

“Truly unique I have,” I sighed.

“Aw. Damn you, Bailey.” She hugged me. “I’m sorry I didn’t get you a cool Viking warrior. I got you Sherrilyn Kenyon’s entire Dark Hunter series instead.”

“Wow, really?” I could see myself losing some study time.

“I want more!” Frey bellowed, holding out his mug.

Gracious he was not.

“I know I’m going to regret this, but just what is
dagmál
?” I asked.

“It is the day meal,” he said. “How is it you do not know this, guide?”

Right. I wondered which fantasy novel featured it.
I sighed and poured my finished coffee into Frey’s mug. Apparently he didn’t get jittery from caffeine, possibly because he was already crazy.

“What am I going to do with you?” I asked him.

His blue eyes took on a certain gleam.

I cleared my throat.

Candy blushed again.

“Let me rephrase—how about some clothing?”

Frey looked down at his naked body and then back at me. He shrugged.

I had to agree. If you looked like him, why would you wear anything? Unfortunately, that would not get him safely out of my room. Somehow I felt responsible for the big lug. Maybe he was brain damaged from the same terrible car accident which had given him those odd scars. It was a theory I was warming up to.

What I didn’t want was him flashing students and faculty and winding up in jail. That would not exactly put the candles on my birthday cake.

“So I take it your only clothing was that smouldering pile in my room?” How had he sneaked in here dressed like that in the first place? I mean, my birthday was nowhere close to Hallowe’en. Come to think of it, how had he got into my room? The outer door had still been locked when I’d left this morning and our windows were not accessible from the ground.

But thinking about how he’d got in here led to ideas that could make my ears bleed, so I left it. “You’ll have to borrow some clothing.”

“You are small,” he pointed out.

“Not my clothes, Jared’s. He’s not quite as big as you are, but we’ll have to make do.”

“Why does he have to wear anything?” Candy asked.

“Not helping!” But I couldn’t help but laugh. She wasn’t my best friend for nothing. We had the same taste in men. And Frey was… I sighed, looking at all that tanned muscle we were going to cover up, those oak trunks for legs, that wide, defined chest. He definitely was the most amazing gift I’d ever received.

“I would speak with you,” he said. “You are my guide in this world.”

“I don’t think so. Look, I’m missing class right now and I have a midterm at one.” I was also pretty sure the kind of guide he needed wore a long white coat.

Frey and Candy followed me into Jared’s jumble of a room. I noticed Candy looking around curiously. She had a thing for Jair she thought no one knew about, but I did. My roommate was hot, but I was protective of Candy. Jair had a lot of women on a string. I think Candy pictured Jared in the role of Mr Darcy, which was a fatal weakness.

As a young, gay man I’d learnt that the romance I found in books didn’t exist in real life. It was better never to look for it.

I scrounged a purple tie-dye T-shirt with a vivid fuchsia heart in the centre, cannoning it to Frey.

Frey held the T-shirt up like it was a dead carcass. “I will not wear this.”

“You’ll wear it,” I told him, looking around for pants and underwear that would fit him. I found some boxers with the solar system on them and some Malibu shorts. He could wear some of Jair’s sandals on his massive feet.

“Wait, we have to condition his hair!” Candy said.

“I don’t have time to give him the Queer Eye treatment. I have a midterm,” I reminded her.

“I can style Frey-ur’s hair while you take it.”

“Frey,” I corrected her. “It’s easier.”

“Frey,” she repeated. “Yeah, that’s easier than, um…whatever his name was.”

“I will not wear this!” Frey thundered, shaking the tie-dye in one mighty fist. I was surprised the walls didn’t crumble at the force of his rage.

I stepped into his space, hands on my hips. “Yeah, you will, because if you don’t, you’re going to wind up in jail.”

“Jail is bad?”

I sighed. “Jail is very bad. I’m your guide, remember.” I shoved the shirt against his broad chest with a satisfying thud. He looked pleased by this show of strength on my part, smiling approvingly. Apparently if I thumped him it was a turn on.