Mom got ready for work in stealth mode. I roused a few times with lids and limbs too weighted to lift. Heavy whispers rose up the steps before the front door snapped shut and the Bronco outside rumbled to life. The creak of floorboards against silence startled me. Exhaustion clung to my bones. I cracked one eye open. The room around me was dark and foreign. Sluggish thoughts ebbed and fell. “Is someone there?” My ears pounded with effort. Someone was near. I pulled both eyes open.
“How are you feeling?” Victoria folded socks in the dark. My piles of clothes were arranged in stacks by category. Jeans. T-shirts. Sweaters. Hoodies.
I pulled the comforter up to my chin. “Fine. Better. What are you doing? Are you cleaning my room?”
“Your mother asked me to sit with you while you slept.” She stacked clothes on my rocking chair and dusted her palms together. “Your room is atrocious. How can you find anything?”
“I have questions.”
She raised a perfect eyebrow.
“You’re a woman.” My sleep-riddled brain scrambled for articulation. I needed answers before my opportunity disappeared.
“Yes.” She turned to face me with hands curved over her tiny waist.
“But you aren’t a Viking.”
“No.”
“How do you know so much about them?” Was she a human in love with Mason as I suspected?
“I’ve been with the Hales a very long time.”
I chewed my lips before asking my next question, the one that kept me up some nights. Vikings were pure testosterone. On crack. Amplified. Extreme. Carnal in a mythological demigod way.
“Liam says they’re stronger when they satisfy their need to compete and fight. He said exerting themselves is fuel for them.”
“Yes.”
“He also said relationships fail them either because another Viking takes the woman or she questions the nature of their feelings until she leaves.”
“Many times. Yes.” Her wide grey eyes settled on me in understanding. Sincerity changed her expression from amused to troubled as she seemed to make a decision.
“Liam asked me not to share something with you, but I’m deciding to overrule him.”
I smiled.
“Liam is stronger with a counterpart. I know what you’re asking in your over-complicated way. You want to know about physical love. The act of love, like other human challenges and feats of bravery, strengthens him.”
My smile fell. “You mean sex.”
“I mean love.”
“But having lots of sex would strengthen him,” I challenged.
“Yes. That’s true, too, but love is much more than physical, especially if they find their true mate. There’s an undeniable cosmic connection between a Viking and his mate. As powerful as Liam is, with love in his heart, he becomes unstoppable because he would stop at nothing to protect his true love. It’s true for them all, of course.”
Hope rose in my chest. I could help Liam by loving him. “So, I’m not helpless. I love Liam. You should see Allison and Oliver. They’re adorable together. Allison and Oliver. You and Mason. Liam and me.”
Victoria’s gaze drifted a moment. “You love him?”
My heart skittered. “Yes.” The undeniable truth lifted me.
She nodded. “Your love changes things. It’s a blessing in many ways. I can leave now.”
“Where are you going?”
Victoria crossed the room and squeezed my hand. “Home. All will be well. Liam’s here.”
Ding dong.
I stumbled down the steps on rubber legs and pulled the door open. Liam stood in the cold with a bouquet. “Do you like flowers?”
I threw my arms around his neck. Victoria slid through the doorway, pulling a scarf over her chin. “Good-bye.”
“Are you here to babysit me now?” I danced on icy wooden porch planks in bare feet. “Come inside.”
“Thank you. How do you feel?”
Tired of that question. “Can I get you something from the kitchen?”
“No. I thought I could help you with your Ohio History paper. I’ve been a terrible partner.”
I laced my fingers in his and pulled him up the steps to my dark room. I snapped the light switch on. When did it get so dark? “Don’t worry about it. I finished the paper yesterday. Oh! I missed the memorial.”
“No one expected you to be there. A few people saw you ride to school with me and assumed I bewitched you. Others think you’re anorexic or pregnant.”
“Jeez. Did anyone talk about Kristy at her memorial or just me?” I flopped onto my bed. Nerves popped and sizzled under my skin. I was probably the last girl in my senior class who couldn’t be pregnant, this side of Immaculate Conception.
Liam chuckled. He walked in a slow circle around the room, touching everything with long, steady fingers. Swim trophies. Pictures of Justin and me on four wheelers. Me on my dad’s shoulders in kindergarten. Liam laid the bouquet on the dresser. “This is your dad? Do you miss him?”
“Yeah. Sometimes I miss him. Other times, it helps to tell myself he wasn’t my dad. He didn’t owe me anything. It hurts that he betrayed Mom though.”
“What do you mean he’s not your dad?” The bed sunk beneath his weight, but my heart flew.
“Um.” After my talk with Victoria about powering Liam up, too many wild thoughts invaded the conversation.
“Your mom had another husband?”
“No. Oh, no. Nothing like that. Mom adopted me, unofficially, the night I was born. She helped my biological mother deliver me. Bio Mom didn’t want me and she was beat up pretty bad, so my mom said she’d keep me. Bio Mom never came back to sign paperwork or make it official, so it’s a weird situation. My folks used to worry she’d come back and take me away one day. I used to worry she’d come back and not want me.”
“They kept you? Is that legal?”
“It’s not official. No one ever asked to see the papers. If they did, I suspect Dad could’ve fabricated something. No one tried to claim me and Mom and Dad couldn’t have a baby on their own.” I blushed at the implication and hurried on. “The timing worked out and here I am.”
I pulled my legs onto the covers and caught Liam’s wrist in my fingers. “I’ve been reading at night about mythology and I found a story about two ravens.”
“You mean Huginn and Muninn? Odin’s birds?”
“I think they’ve been following me since the day you moved here. I saw them for the first time on the night I learned about your family’s return.”
His puzzled expression worried me.
I tugged his hand. “What? What are you thinking?”
“It’s nothing. Why don’t you rest?” Liam pulled his wrist back. I didn’t let go.
“I slept all day. I don’t believe it’s nothing. Those birds are everywhere. What do they mean? What’s Odin looking for?”
Liam’s mouth fell open. “You’ve done your homework.”
I lifted both eyebrows in a challenge. “Talk.”
“I think maybe he’s looking at warriors for Valhalla. He’s probably awaiting our leader, like the rest of us. Hopefully, he’s keeping an eye on the clans.”
“The Stians?”
Liam’s eyes flashed green. His jaw stilled. The pulse in his neck jumped.
“Liam. Answer.”
“Other clans are coming. They’re uniting to move against the Stians. The other girls, the Wells students, belonged to men in two different clans. Those clans called brothers in other clans. Allies around the globe who, too, have suffered loss at the hands of the Stians want retribution.”
“A ‘move against them’? Like a war? Will they win?” Maybe this was the answer. The Viking masses would demand balance in their world. “Could this battle restore the balance?”
“It could destroy what’s left of the balance if the Stians win. They’re outnumbered, but they won’t back down and they won’t lose honorably. There are likely to be many human casualties in your town.”
“My town?” I gasped. “Why here?”
“The marked one will rise here.”
“See. You keep saying that. What does it mean? What will happen to Justin when the change comes? Will it hurt? Will he have to leave? What about his parents?”
“You love him.”
“Yes. Answer. Now.”
Liam looked away for a few beats before returning his gaze to mine. “The change isn’t painful. If we’re right and he’s the true Viking leader, he can do as he pleases, only traveling as needed to settle skirmishes when they grow out of hand. He can stay where he chooses.”
“King Justin.” The craziness.
“Justin will become the earthly leader. He’ll have great responsibilities, but he will answer to Odin. He will be revered but challenged at every turn. Leadership of our kind isn’t something I envy him.”
“You shouldn’t envy anything about him.”
Liam inched closer, captivating me with his flashing green eyes. “I envy what he has with you.”
“Don’t.” I pulled on the sleeves of Liam’s coat until he tossed it on the floor. “He and I don’t have this.” I brought his lips to mine, pulling his massive chest down to me as I moved to the center of my bed.
He trailed his tongue slowly over my parted lips. “Never this?”
“No.”
Liam growled, transforming in the space of a heartbeat. The Viking of my dreams pulled his shirt over his head and pressed his lips to my collarbone. The fact I’d considered touching Justin this way seemed surreal. No one belonged with me like this. No one but Liam.
“Wait.” I gripped his head as it dipped to kiss my tummy. He held his position without relenting.
“I don’t understand why you don’t do something to hurry things along with Justin. If you think he’s the one you’re waiting for and a war is brewing… He’s right here. Do something.”
“We can’t.”
“Why?” I inched up onto my elbows and Liam settled into his usual frown.
“It doesn’t work like that. We can’t make it happen and we can’t take the chance. What if we’re wrong?”
I hadn’t considered they could be wrong. Everyone seemed to agree. The Fates. The Hales. The Stians. “What’s the big deal? Besides, if you don’t hurry things along, the Stians might kill him.”
Liam smiled. “They wouldn’t.”
“Why not? If they’re right and he’s destined to lead them, eliminating him would be ideal.”
“Killing him wouldn’t eliminate him. It would only increase their problem. Death transforms us. We must die to become eternal.”
Justin had to die. A strangled noise escaped me.
Liam moved away, regaining himself. “You see now? We can’t kill him to force the change. If we’re wrong, we’re murderers.”
The contents spoiled in my tummy. I couldn’t let Justin die. I didn’t care what he would become afterward.
“I’m sorry to bring you the news. I didn’t want you involved. I knew the first night. When I saw you in the cemetery with your dog, I knew you’d get under my skin if I let you. I knew it. I knew it and still I let it happen.”
“Stop it.”
He sat straight and defiant. He turned his face away.
I straddled his lap and placed my hands on his temples like the blinders on Justin’s horses.
He gripped my hips. “What are you doing?”
“I’m keeping your attention. You told me there’s about to be a Viking apocalypse in my town. People will die and one of them is my best friend. You don’t get to brood right now.”
He looked at my chin.
“I’m in this already, whether you stand with me or not.”
“I will always stand with you.”
“Good. We need to catch one of those ravens. Do they talk?”
Liam’s gaze jumped to mine. “No. Why would they talk?” His face bunched in disbelief.
“Right. Because that’s unbelievable. Fine. Never mind the ravens. All the ghost stories and suicides at Hale Manor were founded in truth then. The ghosts were people who rose again as Vikings. People from town didn’t understand what happened. The suicides were men hoping to change and embrace the bloodline.”
“Yes. Mary-Catherine hanged herself in the hopes of transforming. She knew it was in her blood and times were hard. If she became Viking, she’d save her family fortune and keep her children from starving. She took a chance.”
“Sad.”
“Immeasurably.”
“Her children didn’t starve, but they did have to live wondering why their mom abandoned them.” My heart clenched. “The other Vikings seem random. What is it about your family tree?”
“We’re direct descendants. You can trace the lineage. Other bloodlines are broken and convoluted. Centuries of brethren can do that. When you live forever, there’s time for many human wives.”
I shook the idea out of my mind. My skin tingled and snapped. “Do I still have your attention?”
Liam nodded. His fingers tightened on my skin. He readjusted me on his lap. “Yes.”
“We have hours before my mom comes home.”
He placed a chaste kiss on my cheek. “This is how you respond to the horror we’re discussing?”
“This”—I kissed him with more purpose—“is how I respond to a Viking in my bed.”
In a move so fast I didn’t feel the motion, my back pressed against the blanket and shirtless, brooding, Liam, pressed his body to mine.
His frown deepened. “If I ever hear of another in your bed, I’ll kill him.”
I smiled. “Good to know.”