Master of Umbra (The Valhalla Series) (9 page)

Crimson words flicker in the mist in front of me, and this time I can read them even though I know it's a language I've never been exposed to.

It's like a user's manual for a warrior. No Norse descendant's sword or weapon can harm you if you are not an enemy, even if it strikes you. Odin ensures we remain unharmed even when armed.

He controls our minds in battle, guiding our strikes, we are a channel for his power and we manifest his will for him. A hand presses my right shoulder and a lady whispers in my ear words of power, bravery, courage.

Equal in everything, life and death, love and hate. No matter how big the man we have the power to smite, to adjust the balance, to destroy all who harm, the blackhearts, the soulless, the ones chosen by the female squadron who...
look like me!
Oh my god they look like me! More than half of them have my dark hair and eyes, their shoulders wide, their arms muscular and powerful, but they have the faces of angels, brandishing swords of light.

The vision fades away and I'm staring straight into Ewan's sunlight eyes.

“Liah? Baby? You okay?”

Closing my eyes against the hallucinogenic voice, I reach out, pulling the man's head closer, whispering across his mouth, “I'm high.”

“And how do you know you're high?” murmurs back, liquid sex thrumming up and down my legs until my hairs stand on end.

“
Because your voice is making me horny.”

“
Good thing you have bandy legs or I'd dislocate your hips if I scratched that itch for you,” whispers back, giving me a shiver as if he just rubbed his stubble down my nape to plant a hot wet kiss between my shoulder blades.

“
This is a trip right? All just my imagination...” I smile, reopening my eyes to see his luminescent, his left palm glowing yellow again.

“
No, you are really having this conversation with me. Maybe I shouldn't let you go drinking with the boys.”

“
How do you do that? How do you make your voice reach inside me like that?” I shudder as the live wire inside my body reacts.

“
It's in my blood. I am half finfolk, and that's why I'm the clan chieftan because like a siren calling to a sailor I can bend anyone to my will by using a certain tone of voice.”

“
That's cheating,” I giggle, feeling just like I do when I've had four margaritas too many with vodka jello chasers.

I think I'm dreaming and he's just a vision in my dream.

“You're not dreaming. You are wide awake, and when I pull away you will come out of it,” whispers in that dark and demonic midnight voice, which makes me want to maul the man and bite the inside of his thigh to mark him as mine.

“
You've already bitten me, one scar from you a day is enough thank you.”

Blinking, staring at him standing in the middle of the room, I sit up from my slump. Bella's curled up sleeping next to me, which means I was far away in my maniacal illusion for a lot longer than it felt.

“Ewan?” I ask, disconcerted. I feel like I'm waking up. “Did I doze off?”

He shakes his head, strolling closer, “You were ether surfing with your kindred. Welcome back.”

“How long? Adam's waiting. Shit!” Wiping my hair off my face, I feel lousy that I've left the poor guy hanging.

Ewan cocks his head in the direction of the entrance, “Go, I'll babysit Bella for you. You can get her from my quarters when you go to bed.”

“You sure?” I check, giving my baby a tender stroke to rouse her from her own dream.

He reaches out, taking Bella, cuddling the sleepy kitty to his chest, softly scrolling his finger from her nose to the back of her head so she tilts it back to wrinkle her nose at him with that tractor purr.

Devilishly grinning at me, he pivots to walk away, saying, “Your pussy likes me.”

It makes me think half the things I was dreaming I said out loud. Oh wait! He heard it!

Fuck! There needs to be a visitation clause on his telepathic gift.

Stretching, feeling like I've been sleeping for an age, I step down off the vision platform and its deep chair, trying to get my head in the mood for beer with bandits.

Walking down the gloomy corridor my senses prickle and sting. Slowing so my footfalls silence, I go into stealth mode. My scalp is crawling, the hairs in my nape rigid, danger instinctively slicing my path with dire warnings of imminent jeopardy.

When something grips my shoulder I duck, dropping reflexively, swooping into an attack pivot, deflecting the hold and bruising my wrist with the vicious contact.

Shoved back, I trip on an obstruction which wasn't there two seconds ago, falling hard enough to jar the bones in my behind I catch my fall with an elbow staked on indomitable rock.

I don't stick around for the next blow, shimmying across cold dust. My breath is accelerated, my ears blocking with the panicked gush of blood, ruining my ability to intuit the next attack with all my senses. Rolling away into a crouch, I boost off the floor as tension unleashes, anger flaring my vision into unholy glimpses of hell.

Fingers hook inside my shirt and I go ballistic, punching, striking, smashing, stepping into the attack to bash my heel down a shin and onto the arch of a foot. Writhing in his hold I elbow below sternum, finger strike into armpit, grunting with effort as I double over to unbalance my assailant, wriggling under his arm to back strike my knuckles where I guess his face would be.

My fist connects and I dance down again, sweeping briefly across the darkness and double punching in fast succession to where I gauge a giant's crotch to be.

“For fuck's sake woman!”

The dimness briefly illuminates hair and I see success in sight, lifting my knee as I thrust my elbow down in violent momentum, impacting my assailant in a double whammy.

I'm smug enough to feel victorious, but an arm jams my waist and I'm hefted into the air, hoisted and dropped with such force my head explodes with red throbbing. Blinking rapidly I make to roll away when a knee grinds into my pelvis and I'm nailed to the floor.

Fuck!

The shudder of crunching rock flecks dirt into my ear and I yank away, mutilating my spine in the process.

“
Pathetic,” hisses at me. “You couldn't find your own tail in a snowstorm.”

This isn't a fair fight, I don't even have my weapons with me.

“If that's the best you can do, you're doomed,” he says with a gloaty holier than thou tone.

Blinking against the choking dust he's agitated, I tilt my head, listening to the voice.

I'm wrenched off the floor, shunted back onto my feet and dusted off with such force it hurts. I feel like the slapping dummy.

“
I'm taking over your training. You have the skill of a retarded ball of spaghetti.”

I'm delighted and terrified. Recognizing his voice I speak to the hulking shadow, “What did you want, Gunn? Just testing my reflexes, or did you have a reason for accosting me?”

“I didn't accost you! You're the cretin who attacked me when all I did was touch your shoulder to get your attention. Don't daydream, Deliah. It's the difference between life and death.”

“
I wasn't–”

He leans down to hiss in my face, “Do you like suffering? You're on a way one slide to the jaws of despair. Wake up or I will slap sense into you.”

“Fuck you–”

I'm shut up when he tackles me, ramming me into the cavern wall, winding me and slashing my equilibrium with pain. It's enough to incapacitate me, my hands refusing to flex as I go into shock.

He laughs, the fucker
laughs
when he picks me up and tosses me over his shoulder, stalking the black passages like a hellhound hunting for virgins.

Stomping through the temple of carnage, it feels like a long way down as I stare at the floor. His sanity is clearly cracked and the albumin leaked out and left him a bit scabbed. He's not firing in every chamber because if he was he'd not be such a class A snotball. He thinks he's so badass you'd swear he had vipers for shoelaces and venom for eyedrops. But from this angle all I can see is a super hot arse in perfectly sexy jeans.

Jeez, what the hell is wrong with me? Every two seconds I'm craving nookie.

I'm flicked back over, my feet planted outside my bedroom door, and the grumpy man says, “I just wanted to apologize for earlier. I'll see you tomorrow morning at oh-eight hundred hours outside the dining hall.”

And with that proclamation mister arrogant goes sauntering the way we came.

His apologies suck as badly as his handshakes. What is his problem?

“Thanks! I was right close to where I was headed and now you've doubled my walk!” I yell after him.

Tosser!

A tosser who fills those jeans really well.

Annoyed, I stomp into my bedroom. If I'm going to meet the men of the clan I intend to have a little help. High heels are in order so I have an underestimated weapon on my feet which also gives me a better height advantage. I'm fed up with feeling short.

Yeah, why not, look pretty for a change, and all that. Adam's waited this long, he can wait another five minutes.

Then I remember the words... 
If he throws you over his shoulder, it's a done deal. Mark my words.

Adam can consider that myth busted!

*

Ewan:

Slinking back behind my entrance, I watch as Gunn stalks off, leaving Liah staring after him.

She's ovulating and it's becoming horrendously obvious. One of us had better shake her hand and mark her before her hormones catch her ending up in someone else's bed.

He's been single for so long he doesn't recognize the signs. She was fawning at him with lusty eyes and a tone so sublime it injects the manmuscle with a titanium rod, and yet Gunn doesn't see it, walking away while she watches his butt the entire duration until he's out of sight.

Her brain argues, but female hormones are a law unto themselves. I'd better have a word with Adam about keeping her unmolested tonight. I'm making him personally responsible. No matter whose leg she decides to dry hump, hands off!

Looking up, I grumble, “Odin, what did my men do to deserve this? You owe me big time Old Man.”

The last thing I want is for Deliah to be a service provider who's more widely spread than DHL.

Chapter 14

Much have I to laud

The ancient-made (though little)

Liquor of the valiant

~ Skáldskaparmal

Deliah:

Why does he hate me? Seriously, does he think he's so Dench that he can't share the affections of Ewan with me?

Is he some ponce favorite douche who holds Ewan's balls out the way every time he needs to take a piss or something? The male version of a BFF, or fucking what? What?

With a liver pickled in dutch courage I toddle … that way. Time for a stand off. Face to face, man to man. Not that I can arm wrestle for Ewan, but then I wouldn't want to. Ewan's an acquired taste, a bit like capers and peanut butter with shrimp cocktail. Know what I mean?

Yeah, exactly, he's the kind of guy I half expect to blow his nose on his used sweaty socks. Akshly, that might account for the undefined scent that lingers in his stubble.

But this is it, no more of this mexican stand-off shit with Gunn. He always gives me that stare that suggests he would fart in my face if my eyebrows were on fire. Just to fan the flames of course. And then he'd tell me not to take it personally to cover his own arse.

Well mister haughty, it's time we buried the hatchet. In the middle of your chest.

Jeez, the shadows slipped in 'the wave' there. Woooo! Pompoms baby and we'd be ready to par-tay.

What? No! No party; it's time to tell that man his dick doesn't reach to his knees so he can stop walking like a cowboy. His come hither stance looks more like he forgot the lube last night.

I should have brought the besom with me so he can prop his chin up on it with his signature sneer and give his neck a rest. It must get cramps from looking down his nose at everyone. We can use the besom after, to sweep his shattered ego into a tidy pile under his bed. Now which room is his? I know it's here somewhere.

I'm creeping now, in the careful steps of someone doing their best to avoid tripwire, because I damn well do want to sneak up on him and test the resilience of his heart medication.

Arrogant jerk. I bet he's sitting on a mirror popping the pimples on his hairy arse so he can look good for his hoss.

There! I found you! And you said I couldn't find my own tail in a snowstorm, well bite me! I so managed this,
with
half my logic stuck at the bottom of my beer pitcher.

Ha!

Strolling into the room with the launcher propped inside the threshold, I'm stuck to the wall. It must be magnetic which is forcing the iron in my blood to gravitate thataway, or something. I can't seem to manage forwards without the prop.

That's okay, I got this. I'll just make it look cool.

Raising an eyebrow in my 'we're going to have a talk' stare, I clear my throat loudly, summoning the pompous ambot from the recesses of his room. I do it again when I get no response, only to choke on it, coughing with my head spinning and my eyes watering.

Stepping back I lean nonchalantly against the wall. It's a wee bit hot in here. If he's in the sauna I will lock him in to roast his bad attitude.

“Gunn?” I call, pushing off the wall to stagger four paces … er, that way. Yeah why not, what's to lose? Let's see what's down here. Down, gawd, if he's going down on Ewan I will fucking hurl chunky!

Sauntering down the dark passage to the next room, my ears stuck in residual buzzing from the noise in the beer hall, I'm launched left, shunted right over a dark obstruction, doing my spastic gymnast routine as I tumble and flip, landing splayed on the floor and perfectly propped against the wall. Leaning back I try and make out like I planned it.

“You're a bit paranoid. Do you always attack people calling your name?” I say to the dark.
No wonder you're single.

He's there somewhere. What a freak! I bet he keeps a real big gun under his pillow which he strokes to go to sleep. Who needs a teddy bear when you have twelve inches of solid metal.

Ohmigod! Hahahaha, fuck, shut up Liah, he's going to get pissed!

Nothing happens, so I stand,
carefully
, making sure to keep a steadying hand on my new bestie, the hard stern wall that witnesses everything in these catacombs.

Stepping blindly, hands forward to feel my way, I step on something soft, the falsetto expletive makes me backstep too fast, whirling the world around again.

Looking in the vague direction of the 'man in pain' noise, I goad, “You auditioning to join the Bee Gees? You are so in if you are.”

“
You impaled your high heel right in my fucking foot!”

“
You fuck with your foot? I'm going to need a diagram.”

“
What do you want?” he snaps in that impatient drawl.

“
Er... I can't get confrontational in the dark,” I mumble, losing courage.

“
I bet you're plenty confrontational in the dark.” Gripping my arm in the 'master is not pleased' grind, he marches me deeper into the darkness, muttering, “Dressed like that only reinforces the image.”

“
What's wrong with the way I'm dressed?” I argue, wishing he'd slow down already.

He laughs, and it's cold, “Sweetie, it looks like you're either going to put me over your knee, or beg me to put you over mine.”

“Oh go get knotted–”

“
Did you leave any beer in the vat when you finished sucking it dry?
Ulfhednar
head is white and frothy, just the way you like it.”

“
I did not–”

“
You're more baked than clay and you're going to be just as dehydrated come sunup. What the hell were you thinking?” he chastises, hauling me into a grotto ready to raise the dead. Candles and steam haunt the room like old lovers getting nostalgic.

“
What the hell was I thinking?” Now you've done it mister twat. “I was thinking you require trepanning so you can deflate your fucking ego.”

He turns to scowl down at me, his chest embroidered with white scars which map bridges over his extreme musculature. I'm trying very hard not to gawk, but bleedin' heck, he looks like an action man who grew up on a uranium farm, except of course for the tortured gaze he pegs me with when he folds his arms and bursts veins out in wild rivulets. They ridge in the flickering candlelight, shadowing his bulk with a net of strength.

What was he doing here exactly, in just his baggies?

Fuck! Was he expecting his date to show up and I walked in where I'm not welcome?

Second guessing the drunken wisdom of facing off with this man, my ears are humming when he berates me, “You have to be ready for war tomorrow. You clearly can't hold your liquor and now you're going to be useless to me come morning.”

“
I'm not your bitch so why don't you just back off! It was a homecoming celebration where I felt welcome for once, and then you have to piss on my parade like the fucking lord of the tempest.”

“
What do you want with me?” he says, his tone so quiet that it's threatening.

“
I.. came to... uhm, call you out. To confront you. Why don't you like me? I don't even know you, yet you look at me like I screwed up your life and you have vengeance on your mind.”

This was a bad idea. I'm inebriated, I can hardly walk on my own two feet and for some ungodly reason I chose
now
to corner the most dangerous man in these caves. This is not my finest hour.

“
Because you
have
screwed up my life. Now get out unless you intend to prepare with me.”

Screwing up my eyes with my sarcastic face on, I cock my head, “Excuse me? How the hell did I screw up your life?”

“For shit's sake, you're one of those old bags who badgers until your men are broken, aintcha? Would you like me to clasp your hand and just get it done?” Stepping closer to me, unfolding his massive arms, he leers down to glare at me nose to nose, “Be warned woman, if you make me miserable I will return the hardship.”

“
Clasp my hand? Is this about the handshake? You're the one who shakes hands like I rubbed feces all over my palm. It was Ewan's idea, not mine. Why don't you take your immature grudge and stick it up your arse.”

Smokey thundercloud irises peer into mine interminably, the tension getting so dense I want to scream with frustration.

“I will not bond with you,” he hisses, as if he just planted the biggest insult of the century on my big toe.

“
I didn't come here for you to 'bond with me'. Grief! And in case you assume all women drool at you, we
know
you're gay. You don't fool me and you won't fool anyone else. If you have such a stiffy for Ewan why don't you just tell him and get it over and done with.”

“
I am not gay–”

“
Yes, you clearly are. For crying in a tornado Gunn, we're not living in the dark ages, there's no shame in it.”

In a blink I'm viced in giant hands, his grip crushing my skull when he rams his mouth on mine and he gives me the most pathetic Hollywood lip mash ever not caught on camera. I bet he practices by kissing his pillow when he thinks no one will catch him.

Shoving, stomping, I finally get the stupid wanker to let go. Now I'm short on breath, and much to my chagrin a little turned on. “You kiss like a ten year old,” I sneer, wiping my mouth.

Boom! The ego rips out of the insulted hulk and he lifts me up before I can say 'whose your aunty', crammed against the uneven wall and have a hot tongue rummaging around in my mouth for loose change.

But... oh god... no don't do that... the world eddies in a ninety-degree plummet when he sucks me into his mouth and nibbles the tip of my tongue, my butt cheeks fitting perfectly into his hands as if I'm Tinkerbell and not the abnormal anomaly of the female race, and his chest is crushing my boobs in their push-up bra. It provokes my dormant wild child who loves it a little crazy. I wasn't drawn to murderers without a damn fine reason. Nothing fucks you harder than hate, and I love it when it hurts a little, sometimes I love it when it hurts a lot.

He's doing a bang up job of agitating my lunatic hormones.

Nibbling, sucking, licking, frenzied lip sex swirls desire right down to the heat he has pushing up against me. Squeezing my eyes shut I'm trying like Kali to resist, to not be turned on, to not enjoy it, but my pulse refuses to remain impassive, pumping crazy-juice up and down every one of my veins, forcing me to the precipice of digging in my hold, to explore the shoulders poised in front of me, blocking me in like a damn barricade.

Just as suddenly he releases me, boring through me with a gloating stare, his smirk triumphant.

“I'm not gay, Deliah,” he says thickly. “I simply refuse to shake hands with a woman who can't fight like the
Úlfhéðnar of Lewis. My family come from that Isle and I will not handfast down. I have standards and
you
don't meet them.”

Is he wiccan? He's implying marriage here! He's out of his musclebound mind!

“Handfast?! Whoa cowboy, rein in that overactive ego of yours. And for the record you can kiss and bonk as many girls as you like, it still doesn't prove you're not gay. You hate me because Ewan has taken me under his wing and I'm so close to his bedroom I've stunted your midnight fuckfest.”

Anger burns hot patches into both of his cheeks, giving his pale face a touch of color, the candlelight painting the rest of his canvas with the warmth of a masterpiece. It smoothes his skin with a gilding of temptation.

“You want to know how you've fucked up my life? I don't need a woman. I don't need the fucking hassle of worrying about some stupid cow who can't tie her own shoelaces without losing her balance. I don't need the baggage distracting me when I head out on the battlefield, and I don't have the fucking inclination to cover your arse
and
my own. I do not want this. You go back and tell Ewan that! Tell him to take you as I don't need a delinquent for a dependent. I am impervious to fire and steel, and I am impervious to you, so piss off. And Deliah, the next time you bring a childish tantrum into my sanctuary I will put you over my knee and spank your bottom until it's so swollen you won't be able to sit for a week.”

Ending the discussion he turns his back on me, stomping rippling width to the centre of his séance ring, and sitting down in the middle of the steam and flickering flames, assuming a zen pose.

Stoically ignoring me, he just sits there while I try to find my voice, an argument, a way to comprehend all the stupid crap he just spewed at me. None of this makes sense.

Sidling around to stare at his silhouette because I'm still feeling argumentative, I watch while steam adheres to his hair and eyelashes, glistening him with a polished sheen as he subjects himself to some kind of purification ritual.

His eyes are closed and I do believe he's effectively shut me out of his mind and thoughts.