Loki's Gambit, page 219
part #1 of I Bring the Fire Series
“Head toward Split Oak,” says Rayne.
“It isn’t right,” Dare hears Rayne say outside the car.
Dare’s managed to pull himself up into a sitting position, but he is exhausted and his skin itches from his healing burn. Without Penny’s blood, he’d be close to dead. Her blood had given him the strength to touch the magic thrumming through the building. That magic had healed the worst of his burn. That in turn had allowed him to soothe the shock that had probably incited Penny’s blood gift, and to compel her to go with Rayne. The magic in the building had given him the strength to magically probe the premises for other prisoners and to open the cell door and to force Nor to shoot himself. But that magical reservoir hadn’t been available to him when he’d thrown the man guarding the driveway through the air. Also, he really shouldn’t have used compulsion to make Rayne reveal Penny’s sister’s resting place. But Dare had felt Penny’s hurt in her shaking hands, and he had to.
“The Veil … World Gate … Fairy Path, whatever you want to call it, is near the split oak,” Rayne continues. They’re just a few steps from the car, on the driver’s side. “You should come to my world, Alfheim.”
Seconds later, Dare finds himself looking over the car, pistol firmly in his hand, but still pointed at the ground. He glares at Rayne, not remembering opening the door, or standing.
“I’m not going with you,” Penny hisses, her back to Dare. He notices that her shoulders are wide for her wiry frame, and her strawberry blonde hair is falling out of a bun. She has freckles on her back. He feels a twisting in his stomach, and a heaviness in his heart that he hasn’t felt in a long time. It’s hopeful and painful in equal measure.
Rayne sighs, and Dare tears his gaze from Penny. “Count, relax … I don’t want her blood … I can’t do that … not again.”
Dare finds his frame softening, remembering after Gretta died, Jonathan, Pieter, and Portia. Each time it hurt enough to make him think, Never again. His eyes slide to Penny, the thought of losing her someday already hurts.
“You can’t protect her, Dare,” the prince says, and Dare’s eyes snap back to him. The prince’s lip curls. “I don’t know why I’m justifying myself to the likes of you. You should come back to Alfheim, too. You’re nothing against twenty-three vampires!”
Dare’s fingers tighten on the pistol. Twenty-three? That will be difficult.
“I’m not going,” Penny declares.
The prince growls, “I’m trying to save your tragically short, dreary, mortal life. Dare is weak, he can’t protect you.”
He reaches toward her, and Dare aims the pistol across the roof of the car. “Stop.”
The prince steps back from Penny.
“You wouldn’t shoot me, Dare,” Rayne says. “I am your Prince!” Raising his hand, palm to Dare, fingers splayed wide, Rayne says, “You will put the gun down.”
Dare leans heavily on the car. The prince is trying to compel him, and Dare feels suddenly weary.
“Don’t put the gun down!” Penny roars.
And Dare’s head ticks, the weight on his chest lightens, and he raises the pistol. “I’m sorry, My Prince. You know how it is, blood is thicker than water and all that.”
Rayne looks between him and Penny. “How much did you drink?” he asks, his voice incredulous. Dare didn’t drink that much, but the prince doesn’t know that, and he’s already backing across the parking area toward a well-worn trail.
“I will be sure to tell Odin that you helped rescue Penny and me from your brother,” Dare calls out.
“You’ll be dead!” Rayne retorts. Spinning on his heels, he takes off into the trees. Dare marks the direction—the World Gate must be that way.
“Well, that went well,” he says as the prince vanishes from sight. The trees are towering and thin, and between them he sees growing brightness on the horizon. The air is hot, humid, and thick with the sound of insects and birds.
Penny turns back to Dare. “The sun is rising soon.”
Her makeup is smudged, her hair in disarray, and she has dark circles under her eyes. She is artless, and were she a Night Elf, he wouldn’t find her beautiful. But she is a human, and what’s more, she has given him blood. Looking at her, his skin heats, his blood moves, and he has to struggle not to lick his lips—and it isn’t just blood he wants. It is exhilarating that blood still does this to him after so long and terrifying, too. Blood lies is a saying among the Night Elves.
Dare leans against the car. “You want to see your sister’s resting place,” he says. Another saying is, blood compels.
“He told me where it is; I can come back anytime. You’re going to die,” she says, opening the car door. “Help me get it started.”
She is brave and generous. Sometimes blood is true.
Chapter Three
“How soon until we get there?” Dare asks, snapping Penny from a memory of the last time she’d seen Chantilly.
For someone who had been a-okay with her hiking out to Lake Hart to see her sister’s final resting place, Dare is very nervous about the sunrise.
“Another twenty minutes,” Penny says.
He looks into the back. “This car doesn’t even have a proper boot.”
“What?” Penny asks.
“A boot,” says Dare. “You know, the place where you typically stash Night Elves when you’re ferrying them about?”
Penny’s brow furrows. “Do you mean the trunk?”
Dare smooths back his hair. “That might be the right word in this time and place, yes.”
“I took off the board thingy between the seat and the back windshield that hid the boot,” Penny answers distractedly. “I don’t need someone jimmying the lock to the trunk and the damn thing flapping open when I drive.”
Her mind drifts back to that last meeting, Chantilly had—
“You don’t have a bumbershoot?” Dare says.
Penny sits up with a start. “What?”
“A thing for keeping the rain and sun off you,” Dare says, miming with his hands.
Penny blinks. “If you mean umbrella—”
Rubbing his jaw, Dare looks befuddled. “You don’t say bumbershoot anymore? But it was such a common thing to say … ”
Penny’s eyes widen. “I have sunscreen in the glove box!”
Dare snorts. “Red Vet Pet doesn’t work … as a redhead, you should know that.”
Penny grasps the steering wheel hard. She has no idea what he is talking about but … “The stuff in the glove box does sure as hell work. That is micro-milled zinc, titanium oxide, full-spectrum, sunburn blocking magic, and it’s waterproof, too.”
“Is not,” says Dare, but he takes out the tube. “There’s no hocus pocus in this,” he mutters, sniffing at it.
“It’s better than nothing!” Penny says exasperatedly. She wants to get home and then think about what she’s going to do. Rayne had promised Dare would be killed; by extension, she’s pretty sure that means her. The other vamps have her ID, but it’s from West Virginia, and isn’t going to help them. Her phone though was a cheap thing she got a convenience store, and it doesn’t even have a security code. She thinks back through her few contacts, and who among them have her address. Will they give her away?
Rubbing sunscreen onto his hands, Dare says, “So, I don’t know what sort of myths humans now believe about Night Elves—”
“We believe that you’re vampires,” Penny says, eyes on the road, somewhat irritated by having her thoughts interrupted. Again.
“—but Night Elves can’t read minds. Or at least, I can’t.”
So there are some that could read minds. She glances over at Dare. He’s found the cheap pair of sunglasses she’d put in the glove box and put them on. They look much better on him than her. On him they look like something out of the Ralph Lauren eyewear collection, not something she’d picked up for a buck from CVS.
She downshifts, and guns the engine through an intersection. The morning is humid, warm, and ominous.
“I’m worried about the other vampires finding their way to my home,” Penny admits.
“I wouldn’t worry about any visits during the day,” Dare says, putting the sunscreen back in the glove box, where he’s also stashed the pistol. He slumps back in the seat. “If they come at night, we’ll deal with it.”
He sounds exhausted, but not afraid. Rayne had said Dare is weak …
Meditatively palming the top of the stick, she glances over at the vampire in the passenger seat. He’s leaning back, and even with the glasses on she can tell his eyes are closed. He certainly doesn’t look dangerous. But Odin wouldn’t send a weakling … would he?
Dare doesn’t wake up even when she pulls up to her trailer and kills the motor. She can hear the horses in the barn, and the door of the main house slam. “Hey,” Penny says.
Dare doesn’t move. His head is tilted back, and his lips are slightly parted. Weirdly, she can’t see his fangs at the moment.
“Hey!” she smacks him across the thigh, and somewhere in her brain it registers that she just smacked a vampire, but she isn’t afraid of Dare.
Dare starts and looks across the lawn. “That’s your home?”
“Yep,” says Penny.
“Oh, no,” Dare whispers.
Stung by his words, she snaps, “Yep, it’s a trailer, and while I’m at it, I’m also from West Virginia. Get over it, Count, or hit the road.” Sure, it’s only a trailer on cinder blocks, but she keeps it clean, and it doesn’t leak, or have more bugs than you’d expect in Orlando. It’s shaded by pretty trees—except that dead one—and she keeps the area around it clear of junk. It’s kind of picturesque, actually.
Dare rolls his head toward her, and his eyes narrow. “I am concerned about the sunlight.” For the first time ever, his voice drips venom, and it startles her.
Penny looks out across the lawn. In the moments since she turned her head, sunlight has dappled the grass between the drive and her trailer.
“I could go get a blanket,” she suggests, feeling bad about being defensive.
“No,” Dare says, dipping his chin. “I think it’s better if I make a run for it.”
“I’ll go first and open the door,” Penny suggests.
Dare nods and she sees his Adam’s apple bob. She can’t help notice how striking his profile is … he can probably get any woman he wants. Shaking her head, she hops from the car, runs across the lawn, retrieves the spare key from under a rock, and unlocks the door.
Turning around, she sees Dare sprinting toward her. He passes through one strip of sunlight, and then another, and then at the third, he comes to a stop. Lifting the hand without a pistol in it, he holds it before his eyes as though expecting something terrible to happen.
Penny hops off the stoop and runs toward him, her heart seizing up. “Don’t turn into a pile of ash on me, Dare!” The urgency in her voice surprises her; she decides to examine it later.
“Beat me daddy eight to the bar!” he murmurs as she approaches, and she half expects to see smoke rising from his fingers.
“Beat you?” says Penny.
“Your sunscreen works,” he says, sunlight haloing his dark curls. “Even in the 1940s there was nothing like this. It’s only been what? Seventy or so odd years?”
Penny hears Todd’s truck start, and realizes she and Dare both are splattered with blood, and Todd will see them when he goes past them on the main drive. “Come on. We have to get inside.”
Dare’s hand drops, and he gets a little wobbly. Penny throws an arm around his waist, and he leans heavily against her. “Yes, all the magic and the sun, and not enough … ” He trails off.
Not enough blood, Penny’s brain finishes, helping him toward the stoop. He hadn’t taken a lot; she hadn’t even been dizzy when he finished. He’s not going to say it, because he’s too nice.
As she helps him stumble up the stoop, he pitches forward. Penny thinks he’s going to fall over, but then realizes he’s just eyeing the space between the ground and the trailer bottom. Straightening, he says, “There are probably snakes under there,” and shudders.
“Yes,” she admits.
“Well, that’s a real corker,” he mutters.
They go inside and before she can say a word, Dare pulls away from her and dives onto the ancient couch in her living room. Penny goes over and kneels beside him. His eyes are closed and his breathing is gentle. She has a lot of questions to ask: where vampires come from, how can they be killed besides a bullet up the nose, and what their other weaknesses are. But that is all going to have to wait. She feels the pressure of exhaustion behind her eyes. Going to her room, she takes off her clothes, puts on the t-shirt and shorts she usually sleeps in, and almost goes to bed … but then she thinks about all her phone contacts and sends out an email to all of them instead. Had my phone stolen last night by a real creeper! If he asks for my address, don’t give it!
Afterward, she still can’t sleep. At nine, she gets up and starts pacing and thinks of going out to help with the horses, even though she told Emma and Todd she was taking the day off.
She stops by Dare, dead to the world … or undead to the world … or … whatever. He doesn’t look very vampiric clutching one of the dingy throw pillows. He looks young and vulnerable—and who knows, maybe for a vampire he is young? Maybe he was turned in the 1940s or something, and that’s why he uses the slang, and why he is so tall—weren’t people before that really short? He’s not supposed to be vulnerable. He’s supposed to be wicked and powerful and have a thirst to kill his enemies, or her enemies.
She remembers his stance when he aimed the gun at Rayne across the car. She’s not an expert … but he’d looked professional. Her eyes narrow. Which is really strange since he seemed to not know what a gun was when Nor had first confronted him, or when he’d studied the weapon after Nor shot himself. And how exactly had Nor shot himself? He didn’t seem like the type to look down the barrel and pull the trigger. Also, she was sure Rayne had locked the door to the cell, and the floor had not been cracked.
She stares down at Dare, irritated by all that she doesn’t know, all she needs to do, and his ability to sleep. She should go to Chantilly’s resting place now, but she’s so keyed up that she knows she shouldn’t drive, and she’s not sure she should leave Dare here … or leave him at all. That’s what happens in horror movies: people split up and then they die. In most horror movies the vampire is the horror, and those other vampires are horrors, but not bumbling Rayne, and not Dare. Dare is maybe not bumbling, but he is afraid of spiders … and possibly snakes.
She bites her lip, and her hands ball into fists. He can’t sleep peacefully, he can’t be afraid, and he has to be strong.
Dare wakes up to the smell of blood. Before he knows what is happening, the blood is at his lips. “Drink. You have to be strong.”
His eyes slide to the side. Penny is kneeling beside him, her bleeding wrist close to his lips. He knows, dimly in the back of his mind, that she’s still in shock, and he should push her away—not just for her sake, but his own. The a willing donor’s blood occupies a unique and terrible place in the soul somewhere between addiction and love. But he’s tired, he does need to be strong, and it’s been too long. He throws out an arm, pulls her on top of him, and drinks deep.
When he is done, she is lying across his chest, her head turned to the side. He can see her eyes, gazing at nothing. He wants her … if she looked at him, he’d kiss her. With one hand he strokes her hair, completely undoing the binding. His other hand skims along her spine. Everywhere their bodies touch he feels heat and electricity; he wants to shift her weight so it is on him just so … but then he notices the vacancy in her eyes.
“What is it—” He almost calls her ‘Love.’
“I can’t sleep,” she says, her voice inflectionless.
For a moment, it’s Dare who is in shock. But then he releases a long breath and lets the heat he feels disperse into the atmosphere. He wraps his arms around her and pulls her tight. “Yes, you can. You’re safe.”
He doesn’t use magic, but her eyes slip closed.
Chapter Four
Penny wakes up on the couch alone. After Dare finished drinking, she’d somehow managed to fall asleep, and at some point she’d found herself on her side, Dare’s body pressed behind hers. She’d never imagined herself spooning with a vampire, but she’d felt safe and she’d slept without nightmares … she wonders where he has gone.
“Penny, you have no food, and thanks to Loki’s refusal to allow me to prepare for this journey, I have no money,” Dare complains from her kitchen, and for some reason she finds herself smiling.
A minute later, Dare’s sitting down on the trunk that passes for a coffee table in front of her, a plate of toast in one hand and a glass of juice in the other. He’s wearing a different shirt. She blinks and realizes it’s probably an undershirt. It’s cream colored and thinner than what he was wearing last night, and made of what she thinks is maybe linen. He’s silhouetted by the light peeking beneath the shade, and she can see the outline of his body through it. He’s tall and rangy, with broad shoulders, and a trim waist. She knows guys that bulk up think women want muscles on top of muscles, but from all she’s seen, Dare is what most girls want. What had Chantilly called it? “Otter bod,” or some such. Penny feels herself flush, wondering if he’s catching her staring.
“My tunic was gory,” he says. “But I didn’t want to put it in the washing machine and wake you up.”
Yep. She’s been busted. “You know what a washing machine is?” she asks, to take the focus off her checking him out.
“The 1940s weren’t so very primitive,” says Dare. “Did you think we relied on a rock in a river?”
Penny snorts, and he holds out the plate. “Eat … and then you must tell me everything you know about Prince Aurel’s little operation.”
“No, you’ve got to tell me some things,” Penny says, balancing the plate on her knees.
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