Читать книгу Goddess of Fate - Alexandra Sokoloff - Страница 11

Chapter 3

The hotel was a lodge, par for the course in a national forest, and the room was really a suite—rustic but elegant. Luke kept the Glock trained on the redhead as he looked around: a big bed, lots of polished wood, burl tables, a cozy conversation area of couch and armchairs in front of a fireplace that was already blazing, and big gleaming windows that afforded a breathtaking view of the moon on the cove.

Very nice. If he’d been kidnapped, at least he couldn’t complain about the accommodations. And only one bed...what a shame. They’d have to share.

Oh, no, you don’t, he ordered himself. Where did that even come from? Focus. You need to figure out what’s going on here.

He looked first to the phone on the bed table. As he limped toward it he got a look at the clock above the fireplace: it said 12:16. That couldn’t be right, though; he’d gotten the call at his flat just after eleven, and it was obviously many hours later.

He picked up the phone...but it didn’t seem to be working, either.

Maybe best not to talk to anyone until I figure more out.

He lowered himself to the bed and willed himself not to bleed out. The redhead was watching him anxiously.

“We’re going to start with you,” he said, “and what you have to do with all of this.” He was beginning to think there was something odd about her. For one thing, she must have been the one who had given him back his gun. Why?

“What’s your name?” he demanded.

“Aurora.”

Pretty. “Aurora what?”

She hesitated. “Aurora.”

Right. Well, they’d get back to that. “Okay, Aurora, what are we doing here? Why did you bring me here?”

“Those people were trying to kill you,” she said.

“So you put me in my car and drove me to the Sequoias? How did you even get me out of there?”

She wasn’t paying any attention to what he was saying at all, it seemed; instead, she was staring at his legs. Or his crotch. Which may have been flattering under different circumstances, but not at the moment.

“I need to take a look at those wounds,” she said.

And somehow she was at his side, gently helping him stand and leading him into the bathroom.

She pushed him gently back against the sink and put her hands on the bottom of his T-shirt to lift it over his head and her fingers touched the flat, hard plane of his stomach. Despite his condition, Luke felt a surge of desire that knocked his breath out of him. She froze and stood with her hands on his skin and he could feel her shaking. In the light she was stunningly beautiful—that creamy skin and sky-blue eyes and a mouth as full and kissable as any man could ever want. And she was completely...soft was the only word he could think of. There was nothing hard or cynical or worldly or guileful about her; she was as fresh and sweet as a rose.

She was looking into his face, and there were spots of color flaming in her cheeks; she was clearly and beautifully as turned on as he was.

Finally she said breathlessly, “I have to...make sure you’re all right.” And she pulled his shirt off.

His sudden nakedness made the heat between them even more intense.

Who is this woman? Luke thought...and then he caught sight of his biceps in the mirror.

There was a large and expert gauze bandage taped to his arm. Blood had oozed through the gauze, but nothing anywhere near lethal.

What the...?

She was suddenly focused on the wound, too, and gently loosened the gauze to look. He was stunned to see that the ripped flesh had been neatly sewn together, with tiny, precise stitches, as expertly as a combat medic would have done.

“You did that?” he said, unnerved.

“I’m good with thread,” she said modestly.

“That’s great, but the bullet’s going to have to come out,” he said, dreading the thought.

“Oh, it’s out,” she assured him, and proceeded to douse the wound with hydrogen peroxide. Which shut him up, but only for a minute.

When he’d stopped cursing, he stared at her through stinging eyes. “You took out the bullet.”

She dipped her head, concentrating on daubing the edges of the wound. “I stopped along the way and fixed you up a little.”

“A little,” he repeated. “You took a bullet out of me?”

“Well, I had to,” she said, as if she did it every day.

Now she glanced down at his thigh. The second bullet had ripped his jeans, and he could see there was more bandage work under the blood-soaked denim.

“Can you...?” she started, and blushed crimson.

He knew what she was asking, but wasn’t about to just go along. “Can I what?” he asked, his voice suddenly rough.

“You need to take off...” She couldn’t even finish.

“Why don’t you?” he said, holding her eyes.

She bit those full lips...and then put her hands on his waistband and unbuttoned the button. He could feel himself thick and hard just under her fingers as she unzipped his jeans, and she was holding her breath... He could smell her, that incredible honey scent.

Her hands skimmed his muscular thighs as she eased his pants down, and he was looking at the pale curve of her throat, just inches away. He was breathing raggedly... In two seconds he was going to be having her against the wall.

Get hold of yourself, he ordered himself. You don’t even know who she is.

With a supreme effort he quelled his raging hormones and felt his hard-on start to subside.

She swallowed and concentrated on the bandage, again gently loosening the gauze to inspect the wound and pouring more peroxide carefully into the trough between the perfectly stitched sutures.

She knows what she’s doing, that’s for sure.

But now that he was thinking with his brain again instead of...other parts of his anatomy, nothing was adding up.

“How did you get me into the car to begin with?” he demanded. Come to think of it, he didn’t think that was even possible without one or even two other people—surely she hadn’t lifted him herself. So someone must have helped her, and that meant there were forces at work he didn’t know about. Luke Mars didn’t like having people know things he didn’t.

“I...” She looked to the left—clear evidence she was about to make up a story. Luke had had all the training: she looked up and to the left, meaning she was accessing her right, creative brain when she spoke. Witnesses who were telling the truth looked to the right, using their left brain to access memory.

“You’re not going to tell me you carried me,” he said curtly.

“No...”

“Not all by yourself, anyway.”

“I didn’t carry you. You walked. Well, ran, really.”

Luke looked down at the gash in his leg. “I ran,” he said. “Like this.”

She faltered under his gaze.

He took her arms and felt her tense with either fear or...something else. “All right, who’s working with you?” he demanded.

“No one,” she protested.

“I know you didn’t get me into that car all by yourself.”

“I only helped you, that’s all.”

He was about to say that with his wounds he couldn’t have walked anywhere, but that brought up a whole slew of uncomfortable questions, like: What was he still doing alive?

He remembered the tunnel of light...and there was another woman in his memory, that vision of the dark woman on the horse.

“She’s not important,” the woman said, as if she’d read his mind.

He stared hard into her face. “Maybe you can tell me why I’m not dead.”

Her eyes locked on his, and she trembled, but lifted her chin. “Because I’m not going to let you die.”

He felt his chest tighten as she said it, as if...almost as if his heart hurt. He couldn’t understand the reaction he was having to this strange, lovely, possibly crazy woman.

Stay focused.

He had to look away from her to get a grip, and as he did he noticed again the stopped clock.

“All right, then, let’s try something simple, like, what time is it?”

“It’s Now.”

Now. He stared at her. Was that her idea of a joke?

“That’s why you’re still here,” she explained. “Alive, I mean. If it weren’t Now, you’d be dead.” He was struck by the earnest seriousness of her face, but he had no idea what she was talking about.

“None of this makes any sense,” he muttered.

“We’re in the Now, and you’re not dead. But only because you’re in the Now.”

He could only stare at her. “Right. Well, I’m getting out, now.”

He stood up from the sink and walked stiff-legged out the bathroom door...but was hit by a wave of dizziness. He stumbled and she caught him, barely. She held him up through a few stumbling steps and then lowered him to the couch, where he sat with his head spinning, nausea welling up. As if she knew, she took his head in her hands and held him gently, murmuring, “It’s all right. I’ll take care of you.” He rested his forehead against her waist and smelled that honey scent...

From the dream...

He jerked his head up.

“Wait a minute. I dreamed...”

“It wasn’t a dream, Luke,” she said.

“And that, there. How do you know my name?”

“I’ve known you forever,” she said, and her eyes were luminous with feeling; he felt his breath catch at the longing in them.

“Who are you?” he said again.

“I’m your Norn,” she said softly.

Of all the weirdness that had happened so far, this was by far the strangest. He was rejecting the thought even as the sense of unreality washed over him. She really is crazy.

It wasn’t that he didn’t know the word; it was that he did. A Norn wasn’t a real thing at all; it was a fairy tale, a story from the Old Country, something his grandmother used to talk about.

Three goddesses assigned to you from the cradle, they were—well, it was hard to say exactly—a combination of fairy godmother, guardian angel...

Bodyguard, she’d said.

And Norns were something harder to define, something to do with fate, the path of a person’s life.

You have a bad Norn, his grandmother used to say.

But whatever Norns were, they weren’t real.

She was watching him, and she looked distressed. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. I’m one of them, anyway. Oh, it’s so hard to explain...”

“I’ve heard of them,” he cut her off. “I didn’t know Norns were in the kidnapping business now.”

She looked shocked. “I haven’t kidnapped you.”

“Then I’m free to go,” he said, and stood—or tried to. He would have collapsed on the floor if she hadn’t lunged forward and caught him.

“You can’t go,” she said into his neck, and he felt himself stir in response to the feel of her breath on his skin, her breasts pressed into his arm.

“I’m a captive, then,” he said, a bit breathlessly.

“No. Yes. I can’t...let you die,” she said, and he could feel her heart racing. He was fully hard now, and he suddenly pulled her against him. He felt her breath stop, feeling him pressing into her.

And then he tightened his hands on her arms and he held her away.

“That’s enough. I’m out of here.”

He started for the door and she flung herself at him with surprising strength. Suddenly they were wrestling, and she wasn’t kidding about it, either; in his wounded state it was all he could do to pick her up and swing her onto the bed. Then he was on top of her, pinning her wrists above her head as she struggled beneath him, and her honey scent was all around him and he was harder than he’d ever been, and fire was racing through his blood.

Despite everything, despite the absurd unreality of the circumstances, he was consumed with the desire to kiss her, more than kiss her, to have her, all of her...

Her eyes widened as she looked up at him and she went still beneath him. He leaned down to her...and she arched her back, lifting her head...

* * *

And Time stopped.

Aurora felt Luke go still on top of her and for a heart-pounding moment she didn’t know what was happening, didn’t know where she was, didn’t care what happened to her; she only wanted him...

And then the moment was broken by her sister’s voice—Val, and she was furious.

“I knew it. You little cheat. You have no right. Give him back this instant.”

Aurora managed to wriggle out from under Luke, who was frozen and unresponsive. She stood from the bed, disheveled, to face her sisters: Val, a dark and fiery siren, and Lena, lovely and calm and blonde. Val was in a blazing fury; Lena just looked sad.

It was no longer even the Now; Val had stopped the clocks entirely. They were in the Eternal. Everything was slightly luminous, the colors more clear and sharp. The Wyrd.

Aurora glanced toward the bed, and her heart twisted at Luke’s stillness, although she knew that he was fine, just suspended. It was only Time that had stopped.

They could do that, the Norns: stop Time. Time was their business. Lena, the Norn of the Past, Aurora, the Norn of the Present and Val, the Norn of the Future. Three Norns just like them were assigned to every mortal at birth, at the cradle, and they wove the past, present and future of each mortal’s destiny. Sometimes called the Fates, sometimes the Moerae, they were guardians capable of helping, or hurting, at the critical junctures of a mortal’s life—especially if the mortal had some awareness of them and a willingness to ask for help and listen for the answers. But there was always one of the three who became the personal Norn of their mortal charge. So when Aurora had said she was Luke’s Norn, it was the truth, but she was also bending the truth a little. Because Val had jumped in and claimed Luke for herself. Which explained why she was ballistic at the moment.

“Look at you. You’ve really done it this time,” Val raged.

“I’m afraid you have,” Lena echoed. “Aurora, you know this is wrong. You must release him.”

“No,” Aurora said.

Her younger sister paced in front of the doors, with the moon shining behind her. “You have no right...” she started.

“You can’t take him,” Aurora said fiercely. “I took him into the Now, you have no power here,” she shot back at her sister.

“Aurora, you can’t keep a mortal in the Now indefinitely,” Lena said reasonably. She glanced at the bed, at Luke’s still form. “They can’t exist like that. He might even go mad.”

Aurora faltered at that. Her older sister was always so right at just the wrong times. “I’m not going to keep him here indefinitely. I’m only trying to keep her from killing him.” She pointed at their younger sister.

“Who said anything about killing?” Val tossed back her hair. “His destiny is to ascend to Valhalla. It’s a glorious future. You have no right to prevent it.”

“You have no right to make him die,” Aurora said murderously, and the two sisters advanced on each other, as if they were children, ready to pull each other’s hair out.

Lena quickly stepped between them. “It’s not up to either of you. We’ve been Summoned.” True to form, Lena kept any hint of blame or reproach out of her voice, but Aurora’s heart plummeted.

“The Eternals?” she asked, her voice trembling. She meant the Goddess Norns who ruled all the rest of the Norns.

Lena nodded.

“You are in such trouble,” Val seethed.

“We’ll see,” Lena said, resigned.

She stepped with her usual grace to the glass doors and pushed lightly; they swept open like breath, with no weight or substance. Beyond the balcony, the moon was high and luminous as pearl; its light poured across the dark water of the bay like a shining arched bridge. Which was exactly what it was: the Bifrost, the bridge across realms.

Lena looked back at her sisters and stepped out onto the balcony, then out onto the moon path, which shimmered under her feet but for their purposes was as solid as stone.

Val stalked after her, and Aurora paused to look back at Luke, so still and peaceful on the bed. Her heart ached for him.

“I’ll take care of you,” she said again softly, and then shivered.

She walked after her sisters, onto the moon bridge.