Chapter 21.

"We should've nailed that bastard," Dag said, dropping down onto the couch.

"And found out nothing about his release. Nothing about his presence here." Val said.

I walked to the closet to hang Val's jacket, and he nodded his thanks when I returned.

"We can't just let him roam around here loose." Frieda said. "It's not safe." She turned to me. "Why the heck didn't you text one of us that you were coming?"

Bren glared at me and waited for an answer.

I closed my eyes. I had been so busy sneaking out and thinking up excuses for Sydney that I'd forgotten to let them know I was leaving.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I forgot."

Bren opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again and shook his head. After a long pause, he pressed his hands into his hips. "Where's Skye?" He glanced at the sliders.

"Here." Skye stepped into the apartment and closed the door behind her. Her cheeks were rosy against her pale skin.

Bren spun on her. "Where have you been? I told you I don't want you --"

"And I told you," she broke in, "that I will not be ordered around like some minion. It's bad enough to have to work wherever we go --"

"This is not about authority. You're putting everyone in jeopardy --"

"I knew the second he was here."

"And arrived too late." The tone of Bren's voice had remained even, but she did not answer back. Instead, she walked to the couch and threw herself down. She crossed her legs and folded her arms over her chest.

Frey dragged a chair out from under the kitchen table and sat down, slumping, his legs stretched out wide in front of him. "Hell, why don't we just go get him? Make him tell us what's up?"

"If we give it some thought," Val said, pulling out a second chair and leaning on the back of it, "we may be able to find a way to do that without tearing up the place."

"There's six of us and one of him."

"That's not the point," Val said, staring down at Frey. "He'll know we're coming. And he'll be prepared. He does not care for this place as we do, and we know what he is capable of."

Bren nodded. "We'll wait."

He put his hand on the small of my back and motioned toward the hallway. I stared up at him, my stomach clenching. At first I thought it was embarrassment at the thought of everyone watching us walk up to his bedroom together, but when they started to talk to each other, speculating, ignoring us completely, I realized that I was seeing him differently. I had felt his overwhelming anger at Loki, watched everyone in his family defer to him instantly, heard him threaten to destroy a dangerous criminal with no hesitation. I could not imagine being alone with him. He would fill the room, crush me.

His expression softened and in that moment I was sure he knew my thoughts. He let his hand drop and motioned up the hall again. "Come on," he said. "Let's talk."

I kept my breath even as I made my way up toward his room and stepped over the threshold. He closed the door behind us. The window was open, the icy breeze rattling the blinds. Bren quickly stepped around me to close it.

"Frey is big on fresh air," he said. "Your coat is still here if you need it." He motioned to where my coat hung on the corner of the closet door. I shook my head. He took a step toward me and stopped at about arm's length. We faced each other in the center of the room.

"I don't want you to be afraid of me," he said.

"I didn't say I wasa" he smiled and I let my words go.

"I know none of this has been easy for you. I'm sorry if I scared you. There's no other way to deal with Loki."

"He just didn't seem thatathreatening. He seemed soa"

"Charming. Polite."

"Sad."

"What?"

"When I looked at him. Into his eyes. I felt asad."

Bren shook his head. "It's a trick. He'll manipulate you if you let him." He took a step closer, but kept his hands by his sides. "What did he say to you?"

I tried to remember. Somehow, my whole experience of Loki seemed foggy. "I think we just talked about the dog, mostly. And then you came."

"That's no dog."

"What do you mean?"

"Fenrir is an Asgardian wolf."

"A wolf? But he was so sweet."

Bren stuffed his hands into the pockets of his sweatshirt and peered down into my face. "Jenna, Fenrir is a monster. He mauls and maims and kills. During Ragnarok, he attacks one of the most powerful gods in Asgard and swallows him like a scrap of meat."

I felt the blood drain from my face as I thought of the wolf's muzzle against my waist, my hands in his fur.

"Why didn't he hurt me?"

Bren shook his head.

We stood like that for a moment, the silence filling in around us. I stared at the black fleece of his sweatshirt, letting its soft comfort envelop my imagination and blur the events of the evening in my mind. Finally, he stepped close to me, slid his hands from his pockets and grasped my shoulders. His hands were warm through the cotton of my t-shirt, and warmer still as they slipped down the bare skin of my arms.

"I'm sorry I scared you," he said again. "When I saw him so close to you, looking at you like that, like hea" he closed his eyes and took a deep breath before returning his gaze to mine.

I touched his hair, the strands soft between my fingers, then pressed my palms into his chest. He peeled his sweatshirt off his shoulders and then yanked it from his arms, letting it fall to the floor as he pulled me against him.

"You have to stay." He said into my hair. "I can't let you go back. Not after this."

"You know I have to be back before my mother wakes up," I said, and part of me wished that I was like the rest of them, so that he could order me to stay and I could plop down on the bed and pout.

"Jenna this is serious."

"I know it is." I let my hands move up over his collarbone, traced the lines of muscle in his shoulders. "But you have to understand that I live in a world outside of all this. I can't just decide what I think is best and then do it. My mother doesn't know and wouldn't understand what's going on here, and I still have to follow her rules. If I don't, things will get so much worse."

"We can take care of all that. Skye cana"

"No." I said. "I won't let my mom be manipulated like that."

He stared down at me for a long time and I wondered if he was angry.

Finally, he said: "It's too soon. Isn't it?"

"Too soon for what?" My imagination ran to the worst. Too soon to have a fight. Too soon to break up. Too soon to realize he'd made a mistake with a stupid girl.

"Too soon to say I love you."

I stared back at him, sure he must be joking, and when I saw the honesty in his face I let out a long, trembling sigh that was part relief, part amazement at my own luck.

"Not if I say it, too." I said.

He grinned. "So, now do I have the right to tell you that you aren't going anywhere?"

"No." I said. "Do you want to take it back?"

"No." He said. "I want to hold you while you go to sleep, and figure out how I am going to protect you while you're at school and when I'm at work."

"I could say I'm sick and stay home," I suggested.

"No," he said. "He's staying here. You're probably safer off the property. And I'll know if he leaves."

"Aren't you usually on shift when I get home from school?"

Instead of answering, he broke away from me, strode over to the door, opened it and stuck his head out.

"Skye." He called. The talking in the living room stopped.

"Yes." She said.

"Please let us know about half an hour before Jenna's mother wakes up."

"Whatever."

He came back, yanked off his boots, and threw himself onto his bed, flicking his fingers for me to follow. I pulled off my own boots and sat on the edge, looking down at him.

"Yeah, but we won't all be on shift at once." He said in answer to my last question.

"I'm not getting babysat every free minute of my day."

"Jenna, I'm not playing around here." He sat up again.

"I'm not going to let this guy rule my life."

He grabbed at his hair, his jaw clenched. "Jenna, I know you're a smart girl. But you really aren't grasping this situation."

I stared down at him. He stared back for a moment, then let himself fall onto the pillow and flung his gaze to the ceiling.

"Just make sure to stay around people when you get home," he said. "I don't think he'll try anything in a public place. There's a reason he's here, and he won't want to screw things up by making a freak of himself. Stick to the lodge or the deck, anyplace busy. Wait for one of us if you need to go up to your place. And for Gods' sake..." he stretched his hand toward me. "Come here."

I grinned through my irritation and let myself fall into him, my head on his chest and my arm curled around his waist. He wrapped his arms around me and sighed.

Chapter 22.

Bren walked me home in the dusky hours of morning, when the air was still and cold and the moon hung bright in the sky. I was reminded of a dawn not long ago when I had crept out onto the deck and lifted my eyes to a false sun rising over the mountain. Now it warmed my hand as we walked together, the boughs of the evergreens whispering as we brushed by them on our way past.

We stopped before rounding the corner of the deck.

I gazed up at Bren, my eyelids still heavy from sleep, and he kissed me before I could speak. My blood stirred as he pulled me closer. I was desperate to hold onto him, panicked now that the time had come to walk away. When we broke apart, I saw the panic in his own eyes.

"Out here or in the lodge," he said. "Nowhere else."

"I know. It's going to be fine."

"My shift ends at six. I'll see you right after."

I nodded. I didn't want to wait that long.

"I'll have my phone if you need me. Keep yours on. I don't care about school policies. If I call and you don't answer I'm going to come looking for you."

I smiled. "Don't worry."

He kissed me once more. Then I turned to face a day in a world where I was slowly losing my balance. It was like stepping out onto solid ground from the spinning barrel of a funhouse.

The school day went by in a slow blur. I stared at my teachers as they lectured, my focus on mental images of Loki's calm blue gaze as he stood in the hail, Fenrir's glittering coat and razor teeth, Bren's eyes blazing in the night. Brianna glowered at me all through lunch from her new perch on Brian's knee, but Tyler didn't glance at me once, or try to speak to me again. By the time the day was over, I was buzzing with anxiousness to get home, to catch a glimpse of Bren on the trails and make sure that he was okay.

My mother drove maddeningly slow, and as she stopped at a yellow light I scratched at my head in frustration.

"Jenna," she said as the light turned red. "I know you don't want to discuss this, but I justaI feel I have to say something and we don't seem to get the time to talk anymore."

"What?" I turned to her, momentarily pulled from my mania. "What is it?"

"Well. Your relationship with Bren. I don't know how far it's gone, buta"

"Mom."

"No, Jenna. We need to do this."