Space Invaders (17 page)

“You are my guide,” he said. Then his wonderful thick, dark eyelashes lowered over his neon blue eyes. “I would enjoy my guide.”

I rubbed my palms against my thighs, heart pounding.

He dropped the T-shirt and cupped my cheek before fitting his mouth confidently over mine.

I am an experienced kisser. I liked to stroke a guy with a curl of my tongue, setting in for a long, hot and heavy make out session. Thing is, most guys wanted to get on with it but I loved foreplay. I loved…someone’s arms around me.

Frey pulled me against him, not subtle about how he wanted to hold me, wanted me in his arms. I was engulfed by his scent, which was leather and wood smoke. I forgot that my best friend was watching us and whimpered as he took my mouth.

His tongue penetrated me like a…hell, like a conquering Viking. The way he held me, I felt like a prize of war.

Frey lifted me so my feet left the ground. “
Seiðmaðr
,” he whispered.

I wrapped my legs around his hips.

“Holy—” Candy gasped.

“
Shit!
” I smacked Frey’s shoulders. He didn’t stop nibbling my bottom lip, sucking it into his mouth. “Frey!”

Frey pulled back. He was breathing hard and his eyes were tightly closed. He shuddered as he lowered me to the ground.

“You are not unwilling to be my woman,” he told me.

His woman? Abruptly I realised he meant the role in a more literal sense and my cheeks flamed. “Shut the fuck up!” I choked.

“Oh, I’d be willing,” Candy said. “If Bailey doesn’t want to be your woman, I mean.”

I started pacing to try to work off the hard-on. I knew Candy was joking…wasn’t she?

Candy watched me with wide eyes, as if she’d never seen me before, as if I’d suddenly surprised her by doing a magic trick or something. Perspiration dotted her forehead. “It’s really hot in here,” she said. I knew she really meant, ‘
You and your Viking were really hot when you kissed’.

Yeah, it was hot in here. Steamy. “Go take care of his hair,” I muttered.

“Huh?”

“You said you wanted to condition his hair.”

“Oh!” She looked at Frey. “I’ll take care of your hair.”

Frey took her hand as if it was entirely natural someone would care for him like a servant.

When they disappeared into the bathroom I bent over Jared’s desk, palms flat on the surface, my cock so hard and pulsing I thought I wouldn’t be able to stand it.

Eventually the discomfort eased.

I heard splashing and laughter coming from the bathroom. I had to leave. Now. I had to go and study for this midterm. I was not going to let myself be charmed by the weirdo I’d woken up with this morning…

When I looked in the bathroom, Candy was cutting Frey’s hair. I watched the scissors snip a long blade of damp blond hair, saw my giant’s posture was hunched and anxious.

“It’s all right,” I said. “It doesn’t look bad, it’s down to the length of your shoulder blades.”

“Guide,” Frey said. He reached out and drew me closer with one of his big hands.

“Big baby,” Candy muttered. “I give good haircuts.”

“She does,” I told Frey. “That’s how she makes extra cash.”

“I put a purple streak in Marla’s hair yesterday,” Candy said.

“Purple streak?” Frey repeated.

“Do you want one?”

“No,” I answered for Frey. His hair was beautiful the way it was. “I’m your guide, right?”

“Yes.”

“No purple streaks.”

“Oh, all right!” Candy pouted.

“Stay,” Frey ordered me. “I am hungry. I have not eaten since…” His eyes hazed, clouds over the blue. “There was a feast in my honour.”

“Right, roasted boar and all that,” I said.

His brow furrowed. “I do not remember. I am the guardian. I go where I am summoned to fight.”

“Well, I don’t remember what I ate for breakfast yesterday so it’s no big deal if you can’t remember this feast,” I said, wanting to ease his sudden tension. His hand gripped mine tightly.

He looked at me, letting out a breath as Candy paused. His hair was now an even line, drying to a rich honey I wanted to tangle my fingers in. I’d done that this morning, while listening to the slow beat of his heart.

I dropped his hand.

“I have to go.”

“No,” Frey said, getting to his feet off the john.

“Hey, working here!” Candy huffed. “I haven’t finished.”

“I’m leaving.”

“All right, quit freaking out,” Candy said. “You always freak out when you like a guy, just waiting for him to stab you through the heart.” She swallowed. “And when it happens I ask myself if it’s because you expect it to happen, you know?”

“I’m not freaking out.” I looked away. “Let go of my hand, Frey,” I told him coldly. “Let go now.”

He prowled to me, caged me by the sink with his arms. He was still naked, and his lusty armpit hair looked oddly primitive. I could see him easily in ancient dress. Maybe some kind of heavy circlet around his neck—what did they call those? A torque. And a cloak that rippled behind him like his hair.

“Guide,” he said. “You must not forsake me.”

I looked up into his eyes, feeling myself getting lost again.

“I have my life,” I told him. “I have dinner with Mom whenever she’s in town. Classes. Stuff.” I ducked under his arm, closing the bathroom door behind me.

I heard him roar, heard something hit the bathroom floor, but by then I was in the hallway.

Chapter Three

“Huh?” I looked up into vivid blue eyes for the second time today. Misty from my nap, I smiled. “Pretty,” I said.

The blue eyes widened. “So having a nap takes precedence over Celtic influences on modern society?” Professor Dunbar asked me in a sugary voice. “I am so pleased to hear that.”

Shit. Those were not Frey’s pretty blue eyes. Those were the frosty ones belonging to my professor, who kind of resembled a pissed-off Helen Mirren. I looked around the room, seeing it was deserted. I took the exam I’d been using as a pillow and handed it to her. I think I’d drooled on it.

“At least you didn’t go over the time limit, since I’m pretty sure I heard you snoring for the past half hour,” she noted dryly.

Professor Dunbar was one of the best teachers in our Seattle school. She had gone to Yale for her degrees and I enjoyed how she challenged me in a history class I hadn’t initially been sure was going to do me much good, since I was more interested in graphic design.

She delved into magic and druids and shit. Very New Age compared to other teachers. She also taught a warrior yoga class that I took with my Mom when I had the time.

“Sorry! I, uh, got a strange start this morning.”

Now she looked amused. “You’re a student. You’re supposed to have strange mornings.”

“Yeah, pretty sure this one falls into the bizarre category,” I said. I had a headache from sleeping so hard and then waking up again suddenly. I needed some caffeine. Frey had taken my fix. Thinking of Frey, my chest tightened.

“Are you all right?” she asked, sitting in the seat next to mine.

“Sure.”

She studied me.

“I met this guy.”

Her lips quirked. “Uh huh.”

“I mean I met him in a kind of odd way.”

“Online?”

“Nope. And anyway, online isn’t an odd way to hook up anymore,” I told her.

“It was in my day.” More humour lit her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, that was ages ago.” She’d gone to school with my Mom. “So what qualifies as odd?”

“He was in my bed when I woke up.” I rubbed my palms against my desk. “He was just…there. I don’t know how since the door was locked, the windows shut. I guess it was a really good gag, since it’s my birthday.”

“Hmmm.” Her eyes went opaque behind her glasses.

“And there was this smell…and he has a shirt dyed with madder and a pitted metal sword.”

She stiffened. An expression I couldn’t read flashed across her face. “Was the smell like something burned?”

“I…yeah! How did you know that?”

“Remember I lent you those Celtic engravings as a reference, Bailey?” Now she looked stern. “You didn’t by any chance…alter the designs for your art projects?”

“Sure I did.” I had them in my messenger bag, so I dug them out, including the slightly burnt one. “I wanted to give them a twist, update them to the now, you know.”

“I warned you
not
to do that,” she said, then muttered, “but what were the chances you’d stumble on creating something with real power?” She ruffled through my art work. “Oh, my.”

“What?” I was having trouble following her, especially after my unusual morning. Maybe my quota for weird was full. All I knew was I wanted to get back to Candy and check on Frey…and what was I going to do with him? He had to have a home, people, and yet he seemed so lost.

“This one.” Sure enough, she tapped the burnt one I’d remade into a circle with ravens and eagles.

“I finished that one last night,” I told her, pleased with it. It was the best one yet, a symbol I liked so much I was thinking of using it as a signature for my future work.

“It’s the symbol for ‘sanctuary’.” She blew out a breath. “Holy green apples! Do you know what this can do?”

“Um.”

“This is a powerful summoning, a door that you opened into this world!” Her eyes were very intense. I felt sweat break out on the back of my neck.

“I’ll have to make some calls,” she snapped, taking my piece and putting it into her briefcase. “That man from your bedroom, is he somewhere safe?”

“Yeah, he’s with Candy. We’re going to meet at the Bono Cafe for lattes.” Anxiety was eating my heart. I didn’t follow what Professor Dunbar was talking about but there was no doubt she was really alarmed.

By my artwork.

The day was just getting stranger.

“What you need to remember is things happen in
threes,
” she said. “Your man friend won’t be the only thing that came through the door you opened.”

I swallowed, my throat muscles working drily together. I snatched my messenger bag. “I’m going to the cafe,” I said.

“Do that.” She nodded. “I’ll hold onto this power symbol. It can attract…things you’d never want to attract. It’ll have to be disabled.” She hurried off before I could ask her what she meant.

Could my graphic really somehow be connected to Frey showing up in my bed?

As I crossed the rose garden on campus, it started to rain again, so I decided to stop by residence for my woollen hoodie. My Mom had knitted it and it was a bit bright for my tastes, with hand-spun reds and fuchsias she’d picked up in Guatemala, but it was warm, and it looked like I’d need it today.

I looked up at the windows of my residence and saw a shadow move. Was Frey still there? My heartbeat picked up.

I reached the top of the stairs. My broken door made me remember I’d have to take care of it. I caught the smell—sweet and wet and rotting. Holy shit!

A pool of dark liquid seeped from under the battered door.

“Look, dude, I know it’s your birthday, but we’ve all got midterms right now,” Amber Beatty said. She was in the room next to the one I shared with my friends. “First your door gets wrecked by some berserker hottie and now this.”

A damp puff of air that smelt like a dirty urinal lifted my hair through the open gaps in the door. I absolutely did not want to go in there.

“Anything happen while I was taking my midterm?”

Amber frowned at me. “My window shattered about fifteen minutes ago. Just…imploded. I opened my door and it stinks! You need to mop that shit up.”

“I’ll get right on that,” I said, even though there was no way I was going into my room. I took out my BlackBerry and called Professor Dunbar’s number. When I got her voicemail, I left her a message to call me back right away.

Things happen in threes.

“It might be a good idea if you finished up studying in the library,” I told Amber. She nodded and I noticed other students leaving in a hurry. Apparently the smell—gah, it was fucking
awful
!—was enough to encourage people to leave.

It was pouring when I got back outside, but it was a hell of a lot better than the stench inside my building. I needed to get to Candy and Frey. I remembered Frey’s face when he’d said I must not forsake him.

But I hadn’t forsaken him, damn it. I just… I’d needed to get away from him and how focused he seemed on me. I couldn’t be who he thought I was.

I caught the smell of burnt cookies, sharp in the cool, misty air. I was almost at the cafe, where they must be roasting coffee beans this afternoon. I dashed into the campus knot garden of ragged evergreen shrubs, dripping with heavy, cold drops that spattered against the back of my neck, soaking my hair to my skin.

Even though the cafe was close by, inside the walls of shrubbery I felt like Alice lost in another world. I tripped, my ankle giving way so I fell into a freshly dug hole in the ground. It was like something a golden retriever would dig in a backyard. “Fuck!”

The gully was brim full of icy water, the rain coming down too hard for it to be absorbed into the earth. Shuddering with chill, I tried to get to my feet, the mud slippery under my sneakers. Great, I was going to arrive for coffee looking like I’d done a round of mud wrestling.

I caught the smell first, that sweet, rotting scent that overlaid the clean, cool wetness. I choked on my own saliva, the stinky bathroom aroma making my eyes sting.

Something silvery flashed, scoring through my T-shirt to rip flesh. I screamed, my voice high and panicked. Blood dripped like pink, diluted tears from my wound.
This isn’t happening.

My attacker wasn’t some kind of manic groundskeeper out to settle the score or a crazed student with a Japanese hand rake. It was… Red eyes, burning like the tips of hot pokers. A snarl exposing razor teeth in a pointed muzzle.

It smiled at me.

I fell on my ass, skittering away on my palms and feet, heart thudding like hail. I’d watched enough episodes of the
X-Files
as a kid to know I was doomed.

A heavy broadsword swung, connecting with the creature in a solid smack, like a batter hitting a home run. The thing screeched and tumbled into the greenery. I caught the flash of angry red eyes, a slash of teeth.