Perfekt Match (The Ære Saga Book 4) Page 11

  “He’ll be okay,” Henrik said softly.

  I shot him a look, my eyes saying the words my lips didn’t dare speak.

  Would he?

  I shivered. Tyr was more than just our friend—he was the leader of our army; a key member of Odin’s cabinet; and the last line of defense between the order of Asgard and absolute Chaos. As his bodyguard, Henrik had one of the most important jobs a warrior could have.

  I placed my hand on Henrik’s shoulder. “Be careful out there. I don’t know what I’d do if anything ever happened to you.”

  “Oh, sötnos.” He wrapped thick arms around me. “You don’t have anything to worry about. I’m the best at what I do. Remember?”

  “Ja. But this is Ragnarok,” I reminded him. “Rules don’t apply anymore.”

  “I know,” Henrik murmured. “But when it comes to you and me, Brynnie, there’s one rule that’s never going to change.”

  “What’s that?”

  Henrik pulled back to plant a light kiss on the tip of my nose. “I’m your perfekt match, remember? Whether it’s in these realms or Valhalla, we’re a team. And nothing, not even the mother of all battles, can separate us.”

  “I love you,” I whispered fiercely before pulling Henrik in for a desperate kiss. Since I didn’t know how many more moments we’d have together, I intended to take full advantage of this one.

  But much too soon, Henrik withdrew his lips from mine and turned my shoulders toward the door. Duty called.

  It always did.

  “I love you too. Now get your cute butt downstairs and start allocating the garage tech. I’ll drop the bags we’ve finished at the front door, and be right behind you.” Henrik slapped my behind. I turned around and took a mental picture of his playful grin, knowing I’d need something happy to hold on to in the days that followed.

  Odin willing those days actually came to pass.

  **

  When we reconvened in the living room, the air was thick with anxiety. Freya, Elsa, and I were lined up on the couch, a trifecta of barely contained panic. Lornara hovered beside the arm of the sectional, her sparkly wings fluttering as she shifted from foot to foot. Tyr paced in front of the fireplace, hands clasped behind his back. And Henrik and Forse were positioned in front of the window, their arms crossed. We’d rushed to comfort Forse the minute he and Elsa stepped into the house, but he’d brushed our sympathy off in a rare display of sternness. I got it—he couldn’t afford to break down with Ragnarok underway, and shutting us out was the only way he knew to keep it together. But I’d caught a fleeting glance between him and Elsa, and the complete brokenness in his eyes nearly tore me apart. Forse was one of the kindest souls I’d ever had the pleasure of knowing. He, of all gods, shouldn’t have to experience loss on this level. He deserved joy. And light. And love.

  He deserved everything.

  Elsa would be there to pick him up when the dust settled and he was finally allowed to grieve—we all would. But for now, she sat beside me on the couch, careful not to look at her fiancé… though we all knew she was sending him whatever healer vibes were keeping him from completely breaking down.

  I was so grateful they had each other.

  Henrik winced at Mia’s frustrated shout. He glanced over his shoulder, peering toward the porch where the Ahlströms were having it out. Through the window, I heard snatches of what sounded like an increasingly heated conversation. Yikes.

  “How’s it going out there?” I leaned over so I could whisper in Elsa’s ear.

  “Not great,” she admitted. “Jason’s worked through denial, and now he’s angry Mia wasn’t honest with him from the beginning.”

  “I think he’s moved past anger and is just hurt she didn’t trust him to protect her,” Lornara said.

  “Mmm. That may be,” Elsa agreed.

  “Is he angry with me, too?” Freya asked quietly from her corner of the couch. With her knees tucked to her chest and her arms wrapped around her shins, she looked more like a forlorn schoolgirl than the commander of a legion of elite warriors. Everything about Freya broke my heart.

  “He’s not angry with you.” Elsa reached over me to place a loving hand atop Freya’s. “And if he acts that way, remember—anger’s not real. It’s just a mask for a deeper, more vulnerable emotion.”

  “Ja,” Freya muttered into her knees.

  “Jason cares for you a great deal,” Lornara chimed in. “But this is a lot for him to take in. Especially now.”

  Right. Now that the worlds were ending, we’d decided to throw Mia’s brother into the ring. Not our kindest call, but what choice did we have? Freya needed protecting. And the rest of us had our own roles to play.

  Roles that might buy us a one-way ticket to Valhalla.

  Don’t go there, Aksel.

  “Listen up.” Tyr stopped pacing. He folded his arms so his biceps popped against his T-shirt.

  “We’re listening,” Henrik growled.

  I glanced to the window, where he and Forse still stood. The pair mirrored Tyr’s pose, down to the matching scowls. There was a very high likelihood I might drown in the whirlpool of testosterone.

  “Odin’s report was not good,” Tyr summarized. “Fenrir’s escaped. He’s planning to kill Odin and Frigga. They’ve been relocated to a secure facility while Odin strategizes his next steps, but I’m going to send a few members of the Elite Team into the palace to take Fenrir down once and for all.”

  “Tyr.” Elsa exhaled softly. “I’m sorry.”

  “Me too. Guess nothing I did was ever going to change who he was born to be.”

  Poor guy. Fenrir had been Tyr’s pet once upon a time. The two of them had been inseparable, taking the kinds of adventures only a jotun-bred wolf and a giant-born god could conceive. Fenrir had had a bad start to life, but Tyr had truly believed he could teach the wolf a different way…until the day Fenrir killed Mr. and Mrs. Fredriksen. Since then, Tyr had worried that there was no overcoming destiny—that because his birth father, Hymir, was a monster, that one day Tyr, too, would give into some pre-programmed evil framework.

  “You and Fenrir are not the same,” Elsa reminded him. Again. “He chose his path; you chose yours.”

  “Here’s hoping.” Tyr moved on. “I’m sending a second team after the snake. Jörmungandr intends to put a hit on Thor, so he and Sif are also on the move. They can take care of themselves, but I’m sending backup anyway.”

  “Do you want us to take on the snake?” Forse offered.

  “No. Elite Team can handle that, too. You and Henrik are going to take on Naglfar with me.”

  “Naglfar?” Elsa shot Forse a worried look. “What kind of monster is Naglfar?”

  “A boat,” Tyr answered.

  “A boat?” Elsa wrinkled her nose. “What’s so scary about a boat?”

  Tyr eyed his sister. “This one’s made entirely of toenails.”

  Oh, ew!

  “Naglfar’s a trigger. If it sails, it has the ability to open the sky, which initiates a sequence that will give it direct access to the Bifrost. According to Odin, once Naglfar crosses the Bifrost, the bridge will break under its weight. That cuts Asgard off from the realms and leaves it isolated, so our enemies can attack. A certain giant volunteered to sail the ship. Any guesses as to who that might be?”

  “Hymir?” I whispered.

  “None other,” Tyr confirmed.

  Oh, gods.

  “That’s a lot of elements moving together,” I said. “Who’s orchestrating them all?”

  “Loki.”

  “Skit.” Henrik, Forse, and I swore in unison. The God of Mischief hadn’t been on his uppers like we’d hoped—he’d been plotting the demise of the entire cosmos while we’d been focused on Tyr’s crazy birth father. Double skit.

  “At least Hymir’s daughter is still locked up.” I clung to the one positive I could find. “Do you think Runa might finally want to help us? Give us intel on Hymir in exchange for…whatever passes for currency in prison these days?
”

  “Highly doubtful,” Tyr said, “Seeing as how she escaped with Fenrir and is, in all likelihood, fighting for the other side.”

  Forse let loose with a string of curse words I’d never heard from his gentlemanly mouth.

  “Once all the players are in place and they’ve executed their attacks…” The vein in Tyr’s neck bulged. “They’re going to burn the earth and swallow the sky.”

  “The prophesy,” Freya whispered.

  Gods, it was. The Ragnarok prophesy ended with fire consuming the earth and darkness swallowing the sky. Nobody, god or mortal, would survive.

  Nobody.

  But I didn’t feel like dying today.

  “Okay.” I clapped my hands together. “Tyr, Henrik and Forse are taking Hymir down. Where does that leave the rest of us?”

  Tyr rubbed his jaw. “Elsa, I want you and Mia as far from the action as possible. And preferably in a secure location. Can you set up scanners from the man cave and work your Unifier magic from here?”

  “I suppose,” Elsa hemmed. “But as High Healer, I’ll need to be in the field.”

  “I’ll take care of the field,” Lornara offered. “I have a strong team of healers on Alfheim. I’ll retrieve them and go wherever the casualties are. Tyr, can you put someone in communication with me?”

  “Absolutely. Thanks, Lornara.”

  “Of course.” Lornara offered a tense smile.

  Tyr continued. “Freya’s going to stay here and focus on getting well as quickly as possible so she can return to active duty. Or at least, resume commanding her warriors remotely.” Tyr jutted his chin at the window, where raised voices let us know the Ahlström siblings were still discussing things. “Jason will stay here and look after Freya.”

  Freya winced. Before Helheim, she’d been the most formidable warrior I’d ever met. She had to hate Tyr saying she needed looking after.

  “What about me?” I glanced between Freya and Tyr. Freya was technically my commanding officer, but if she was out of commission I supposed I answered directly to Tyr.

  “You…” Tyr lifted a hand to Freya. “You tell her.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “You’re going to lead the valkyries in my place.” Freya raised her chin. It trembled.

  “What?” I blurted. “Freya, I’m not a leader.”

  “Yes, you are,” she countered. “You’ve guided Mia into the fold beautifully. You almost singlehandedly orchestrated my extraction from Helheim—with a little help from Henrik and Tyr, of course.”

  “Freya, I—”

  “You can do this,” Freya assured. “There’s nobody else I’d trust to stand in my place. I believe in you. Now you need to believe in yourself.”

  My heart swelled, both with love for Freya and pride at her words. “I won’t let you down,” I promised. I shot a panicked look at Henrik, whose reassuring gaze all but screamed You got this, sötnos. Gods, I hoped he was right.

  “Brynn, you’ll catch the Bifrost to Asgard with me, Henrik, and Forse. You can head to the valkyrie compound and take command from there. We’ll stay in contact through our coms—Henrik, do you still have any of the transparent ones we used on Svartalfheim? I’d rather switch over to those in case any of us get captured.”

  “I tossed enough for all of us in my backpack. Even you, Lornara,” Henrik confirmed.

  “Takk,” she said.

  “Hand them out, and we’ll move out in ten.” Tyr drew an unsteady breath. “I just want you all to know that…” He exhaled forcefully. “It’s been a pleasure serving Asgard with each and every one of you. And if, Odin forbid, this is the last time we’re all together—”

  “Don’t talk like that!” Elsa admonished.

  “I just want you all to know that I…that I love you,” he said gruffly. “And it will be my honor to fight alongside you in Valhalla.”

  Oh, gods. Even Tyr thought we were all going to die. On the list of epic pep talks, this one landed firmly the bottom. Somebody had to step it up.

  Somebody.

  Anybody?

  I guessed that somebody was me.

  “Enough goodbyes.” I jumped to my feet. “We’ve got to get moving. Let’s eliminate these perps and prove the Norns wrong. Screw their stupid prophecy. I still have a lot I want to accomplish. And not from some stuffy seat in Valhalla.”

  “You and me both, Brynnie,” Henrik chimed in. With a wink, he turned to face our friends. “You heard the lady. Let’s go kick some bad guy butt.”

  I raised my palm and Henrik slapped it in a determined high-five. We gathered up our weapons, holstered our swords, pulled the less stable pieces of tech from the locked weapons closet in the hall, and handed our friends the bags filled with the best technology we’d developed in our time together. Once everyone was loaded up, we shouldered our own tech-laden packs.

  And once again, we set off to save the worlds from imminent destruction.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  FREYA

  THE BRILLIANTLY HUED FLASH signaled my friends’ departure. My right foot scuffed against the area rug at the front window—the spot from which I’d watched the first Bifrost shoot Lornara to Alfheim, and Tyr, Henrik, Forse, and Brynn to Asgard. Odin only knew what Jason had thought of our rainbow transport; he and Mia were still working things out on the porch. With everything they had to talk through, I wasn’t about to interrupt them.

  Elsa closed the front door with a firm click before hastening up the stairs. “Send Mia to the man cave when she’s finished with Jason. I’m going to convert the space so we can start Unifying from there.”

  “Else—” I bit down on my bottom lip. “What do I do?”

  Elsa turned on one ballet flat. Her sky blue eyes turned down at the corners as she apprised me sadly. “Can you open your heart to Jason?”

  A vise squeezed my chest, constricting my breath. “It would be horribly unfair of me to do that. You know what it would cost him.”

  “We don’t know for sure. It’s Ragnarok—the Norns have to release you. They just have to. And if they do…things could go differently this time.”

  “Or they could go exactly the same.” I wrung my fingers together. “And then where would we be?”

  Elsa cast a pointed look out the window. “As it stands, we’re on the brink of inter-realm annihilation. Things can’t get a lot worse than they already are. And I’m sorry to bring this up, but we stand a much better chance of survival if we have our love goddess fully operational.”

  Ice shot through my chest. Elsa never would have spoken the words, but we were both aware there was nobody left to do my job for me. Nanna was gone—dead from a broken heart because she’d been fulfilling my title instead of protecting the husband she couldn’t live without. And though I had absolute faith in Brynn’s ability to command my warriors, I couldn’t ask anyone else to pick up the mantel of Love in my place. Still, opening my heart to Jason—and releasing the hurt of my past—might be the fastest path to my own healing, but it would no doubt be the end of him. It would be my life for his, no matter how hard I tried to prevent it.

  And love wasn’t that selfish.

  Elsa frowned. “I understand.”

  “I’ll do my job,” I vowed. “But I can’t sentence Jason to death. I…I care about him too much. And I care about Mia and Tyr too much. Losing Jason would destroy her—which would destroy him.” So much destruction…

  “You really are the embodiment of love, Freya,” Elsa said softly. “We’ll figure it out. Send Mia up when she comes in, have whatever talk you need to with Jason, and then join us upstairs. We’ll find a way to maximize your love reserves, and you can direct them where we’re Unifying.”

  “Thanks,” I whispered. “For understanding.”

  Elsa shrugged. “I wouldn’t be able to hurt someone I loved either.”

  With that she ran up the stairs, leaving me to wonder what exactly she meant. “You mean Mia and Tyr, right? Not Jason?”

  “You tell me,” she call
ed over her shoulder. She disappeared around the corner, a blur of blond waves, pale blue chiffon, and ivory capris.

  Wait. What?

  Elsa clearly suffered from Ragnarok-induced delusions. I’d admitted I cared for Jason, but no way did I love him. I barely knew him. Love built slowly, over years of friendship and shared experiences and united dreams. It didn’t just pop into your house for a visit, challenge you to a game of pool, and boom, worm its way into your heart. Love—true love—was more meticulous…more methodical.

  And as Goddess of Love, I should know.

  “None of this is okay!” Jason shouted from the porch.

  Uh-oh. I stepped closer to the front door.

  “Jason, I’m really sorry. But you have to understand why I kept this from you.” Mia’s harried voice carried through the wood. There was an edge to her tone that bordered on hysteria. Her family was everything to her—and if Jason was as angry as he sounded…I had to step in. None of this was Mia’s fault.

  “Mia?” I opened the door and poked my head outside. Poor Mia sat on the porch swing, her arms wrapped around her knees and her chestnut tresses covering her face. Jason paced angrily on the far end of the porch. An intervention was definitely in order. “Sorry to interrupt, but Elsa needs you upstairs. It’s time.”

  Mia lifted her head to shoot me a panicked look. “We’re not done talking.”

  I stepped onto the porch and offered a sympathetic smile. “I’ll take it from here. You were keeping our secret—it’s only fair that I bear some of the fallout.”

  “You’re not my sister,” Jason ground out. “You’re not the one I’ve spent my entire life looking out for. You’re not the one I’m upset with.”

  “No,” I admitted. “But Mia was only doing what we asked her to. She was protecting us. If there’s anyone you should be mad at, it’s me. Or Tyr, but he’s a lot bigger than you, so I’d go with me.”

  “If you think for one minute that—”