Tro (Elsker Saga Book 3) (18 page)

“What. Did. You. Do?” Loki screamed as he ground his heel, flattening my left arm and producing a sickening crack. The bones were shattered, and blood seeped from beneath his boot. When he lifted the heel, a stream of red shot skyward from my wrist. He’d ruptured a major vein.

“Kristia!” Ull’s shout rang through the woods.

The trees above me spun in a dizzying pattern. The effect reminded me of the carnival ride Ardis and I took in Seaside during a fifth-grade field trip. She’d gotten sick and lost her ice cream. Being of a stronger constitution, I’d been luckier.

But today was a different story. As the trees tottered dangerously close to my face then rose back to the sky, I leaned over my one good arm and threw up. My stomach heaved, constricting every time I caught sight of the stream of blood shooting from my wrist.

“What’s the matter, poppet? Can’t handle a little fight? Didn’t anybody teach you how?” Loki glared down at me, fire sparking out of his venomous eyes. Specks of my blood covered his right cheek. “So the almighty
human
is a weakling after all. Pity. And I had so looked forward to a fair fight.”

He eyed me levelly, then bent to pick something up. My vision blurred and the trees swam closer again. I turned my head to the side. The earth was bathed in a pool of red. I was losing so much blood. And from the feel of it, my consciousness wasn’t long for this world. I focused on the trees again—anything to take away the picture of my very essence spurting from my compromised vein. The branches swayed back and forth. The evergreens reminded me of the trees back in Nehalem. They were kind of beautiful. They waved at me, almost like they were trying to speak.
Hello, Kristia. Sorry about the way you’re going to die. Guess immortality isn’t set in stone, huh?

No, wait. They were waving forcefully from left to right. Left to right. Left to…what was to my right again? I turned to see what they were pointing to and a small smile formed on my lips. Ull was finally on his feet. He shot into the sky like a beautiful airborne superhero, and as he landed in a low crouch a few feet behind Loki he locked eyes with me. I breathed a sigh of relief; Ull was going to be okay. I lost him as my lids lowered, consciousness escaping, and when I managed to lift them again Loki had darted into my line of vision. He held a fractured tree branch just over my heart: the perfect weapon.

“Goodbye, Kristia.” He raised his arms and I squeezed my eyes shut, preparing for the blow. In my final moment I sent out one last thought.

I love you, Ull
.

“NO!” THE AGONIZED CRY
filled the clearing. Ull’s grief cut to my core, but I couldn’t help him. I couldn’t help anyone.

I heard the stick connect but I didn’t feel the pain. My consciousness floated toward the trees, their rich green needles getting closer with each breath of wind. My arms were limp at my side; my shattered wrist no longer throbbed. My eyes zeroed in on the pale blue of the sky, dotted with cotton-candy clouds. I sucked air deep into my chest and a mist filled my head. It swirled gently, clearing all residual discomfort with my exhale. I felt only peace, calm, and absolute serenity.

But the peace was short-lived.

“No!” Ull’s cry broke through my calm. He thundered to my side and dropped to the ground. He ripped the branch from my chest. And he murmured something I couldn’t understand.

Then came the pressure. Strong hands pumped the center of my sternum. One, two, three, four, five. Moist lips covered mine and a breath of air inflated my lungs. Another. Then the pressure on my chest bone again. It was uncomfortable. And it pulled my consciousness back into my body, where every nerve was exploding with pain.

“Come on, baby. Stay with me.” Ull’s voice cracked. He resumed his compressions, this time pumping at double speed. “Do not go anywhere.”

“You can’t save her.” Loki’s voice came from my right. “And if you did, I’d just kill her again.”

“You,” Ull growled. He scooped me up and started to run. I knew he was trying to protect me from the jotun, but the jarring motion awakened the handful of nerve endings that weren’t already on fire. I wanted to scream at him to stop moving. But I couldn’t even open my mouth.

“You will be safe here.” Ull laid me gently on a hard surface.

“Are you sure about that?” Loki called from across the clearing. The earth shook and I used every bit of strength I had to drag one eyelid open. An enormous boulder crashed just two feet east of my face.

“Enough!” Ull stood directly in front of me. He glanced down. His shoulders dropped and his fists unclenched when he took in my partly opened eye. I must have looked like I’d crossed the fighting end of an angry grizzly, but at least I was alive.

I forced my other eye open and saw Ull turning his head from me to Loki and back. He didn’t want to leave my side, but Loki would take us both out if Ull didn’t stop him first.

“What’s the matter, Ull? Asgard’s prince too weak to protect himself?” The earth shook again and another boulder landed just in front of Ull. “Those were my warning shots. I won’t miss her next time.”

Ull’s battle cry rang through the woods. He launched himself at Loki, arms outstretched and legs trailing behind. He was fierce. Lethal. And absolutely terrifying.

Loki didn’t have time to move before Ull was on top of him. Ull delivered one brutal blow to Loki’s head before pulling his arm back and opening his palm. Loki’s eyes widened in fear as a beam shot from Ull’s hand, and in the next instant, Loki was frozen. I watched him lie on the ground and I waited for his body to go limp. Nothing happened. He was stunned, not dead.

But before Ull delivered his final shot, Loki had gotten one off of his own. As Loki had fallen to the dirt, a spark sailed from his hand to the tree directly above me. It had compromised the tree’s stability, and now I heard a loud crack as a heavy limb broke free. I was too weak to move out of its way—I could only watch in horror as it fell.

It took Ull one second to cross the clearing and reach for the branch, but as he caught it the limb managed to hit my abdomen. The air rushed out of my lungs, and a dull ache spread from my stomach to my chest, then settled in my head. I stared at Ull’s face, just inches from mine. It was perfect: the strong lines of his jaw, the planes of his cheeks, the absolutely endless blue eyes. The image blurred until there were two Ulls, then they merged back together.

Ull’s brows framed that little
V
he so often wore. I tried to reach up to smooth the wrinkle away but I couldn’t move my arm. I’d lost massive amounts of blood. Everything hurt so badly. I closed my eyes against the pain. It was too much.

“It will be okay, sweetheart.” I felt Ull stroke my hair. “We will make you well.”

I opened my eyes a fraction of an inch to look at my love. The dull ache turned to numbness, and within seconds it overtook my entire body. I forced myself to breathe. I only managed two shallow intakes before my lungs gave up.

And then the peace came back.

“No!” One forceful syllable kept me from drifting away. Ull pried my mouth open. Two warm breaths pushed down my throat. Then Ull leaned into my chest, pumping hard. One, two, three…My consciousness shifted, and I saw the scene from outside my body. Ull’s brow furrowed and his eyes stared unseeingly at the ground. After thirty counts he resumed the breaths. Then pumps.
Breaths. Pumps. Breaths. Pumps
. He broke out in a sweat. The adorable flop of blond hair that normally fell over one eye was so soaked it stuck to his forehead.
Breaths. Pumps. Breaths. Pumps
. The cycle went on and on. He should have been exhausted, but the more time that passed the more frantic he became.

It’s okay. Let me go
.

The gut-wrenching sob tore at my soul. Ull wept. I could see each individual tear falling from his eyes. They came slowly at first, each easily distinguished from the others, but soon they flowed in a torrent, binding together in a shimmery mist. The mist began to sparkle, and it moved toward my body, sealing me in a luminous shell. Ull’s shoulders shook. He hunched over my torso in a heartbreaking display. He lifted my head into his lap, cradling me in his forearms and kissing my forehead, as if sheer willpower could bring me back.

Oh, Ull
.

I wanted to touch him, to comfort him. To let him know I wasn’t hurting, that it would all be okay. But I didn’t know that. What would happen to our family? Ardis? Inga and Gunnar? Had Tyr and Odin stopped the ship? Were our realms on a collision course set for complete and total destruction?

“Kristia,” Ull moaned as he squeezed my shoulders. “Baby.” Each syllable came as a gasp. Ull’s silvery tears now encased my entire corpse—he must have cried a full gallon of them.

As I marveled at my poor husband’s shimmering tears, they started to vibrate. Slowly at first, and then with the speed of one of Inga’s beloved racecars, they shook just above my skin. My fingers and toes tingled as the tears started to bounce off each other like drops of water on a hot skillet. My arms and legs regained feeling, and warmth filled my chest. The sparkling liquid continued its dance until the warmth spread from the top of my head all the way down to my feet, and it leaped off my body and pooled onto the ground just as I drew an enormous breath.

“Kristia!”

I heard Ull’s joyful shout before I could exhale. He cradled me and pressed warm kisses to my forehead and cheeks before claiming my mouth.

“Oh, sweetheart!” He pulled me to his chest so tight I could feel his heart beating. The rapid thrumming betrayed the terror he must have felt. “I thought you left me.”

He lowered his head to mine again, crushing my lips against his. His tongue parted my lips almost forcefully, and as he pushed against me I melted into his embrace. How could he think I would willingly go anywhere without him?

“Ull,” I murmured. I ran my fingers through his hair, pushing the sopping strands off his sweat-stained forehead. “I love you so much.”

I felt an ache in my left wrist but I didn’t care. I pulled Ull close again and he kissed me with abandon, seeming to forget that I was battered, bruised, and had recently been staked by a madman. He rolled so he hovered lightly over my torso.

“Do not ever leave me again.” It was an order, and I nodded weakly.

“Okay.”

I reached up with my good arm and pulled him on top of me. The weight of the enormous god resting directly on my injuries hurt like the dickens, but I was too relieved to think straight. All I could register was the feel of Ull’s lips, his body on mine, and the absolutely heavenly smell that was my husband.

Until I heard the pop.

“Ull?” I looked up.

“Run. Now!” He jumped to his feet and lifted me alongside him. He pointed me away from the trees and gave a shove that sent me stumbling across the clearing. When he saw me safely sprawled at the base of a boulder, Ull charged in the opposite direction.

It took me a moment to clear the ringing from my ears, and by the time I could stand unsupported, the battle was underway. Ull’s stunning spell had worn off and Loki was on the attack. The two gods were only forty yards away from my rock shelter—far enough that I was safe from the flying fists, but near enough that I could hear every sickening blow. Loki wrenched his bicep out of Ull’s grasp and darted to the base of an evergreen. Ull pivoted to face his foe, lowered his head, and charged. He threw himself at Loki.

I’d never seen anything like it. They were unmatched physically, Loki tall and wiry, and Ull taller and brawnier. If it had been a fistfight the outcome would have been clear, but while Ull came at Loki with physical attacks, Loki responded by casting spells. They sent Ull reeling as no punch from Loki’s thin frame could. My heart lurched each time he was struck. Seeing Ull under fire tore at my soul.

I knew that Ull was just as skilled a magician as Loki, probably more so, but his anger marred any logical attack. He charged again, a terrifying battle cry erupting from his throat, barreling down on the half-jotun like a bull in a fight. It might have been beautiful if it weren’t so scary. Loki’s eyes betrayed his fear, but he muttered an incantation and with a wave of his arms sent Ull flying high in the air, legs flailing, before a sturdy tree stopped his trajectory. The tree cracked and fell to the ground but Ull landed on his feet unscathed. Anger seethed from every inch of his magnificent being and he lowered his head to attack.

“Are you all right, Kristia?” For the first time I realized I wasn’t alone in my corner of the woods.

“Sif?” I looked around, wondering just how many of my brain cells had been sacrificed in my brush with death. “I thought you were fighting the wolf and the snake.”

“I am trying.” Sif gritted her teeth. “But it has not been going so well since Odin called for Thor. We thought this would be such an easy fight; that one of us could handle it. We were wrong.” Greenish-blue bruises marred her otherwise perfect body. She looked as if she’d had a run-in with the wrong end of a hungry mountain lion.

“What? Thor isn’t here?” I looked around and saw we were in a familiar landscape. The English lavender was missing, but in every other way it was the battlefield from my nightmares. The place I’d been killed a thousand different ways by two terrifying monsters. Oh, jeez. How many times was I going to have to cheat death today?

“Sif? Are we in Asgard’s battlefield?”

“We are. You. Me. My son. That monster Loki.” She jutted her chin to her right. “And a giant wolf and serpent who have been playing cat and mouse with me all afternoon.”

“You haven’t killed them yet.” My heart sank.

“No. And I only have the one sword, so there’s not much I can ask you to do to help me.” She squinted. I followed her sightline and my insides churned. My breath came in jagged gasps as I saw the demons circling in the distance, making their way toward us. “The best you can do is stay behind me and hope they do not attack from opposite sides.”

“I can do more than that.” I spoke through gritted teeth. Planting myself a few feet away from my mother-in-law, I held my fingers together and closed my eyes. An uncomfortable pressure built behind my lids as I sent my energy to the center of my frontal lobe. Ignoring the pain, I pushed the pressure down my neck, along my arm and to my fingertips. They began to burn from the cold, and when I opened my eyes a blue cloud swirled against my palm. With more care than I’d ever exercised, I opened my fingers. I had one, maybe two shots at slowing these things down, and misfiring was
not
an option.