The Fire Within The Night (Night Aberrations - Book Two) Read online

  Nils stalked in front of me, more dangerous than I’d ever seen him. His eyes glowed, a sure sign that his wolf was close to the surface. “Get up, Kvinna,” he growled, circling me, as if looking for a weakness.

  Was he serious? I gingerly lifted my bruised body from the ground, dusting the dirt off my clothes. “What the fuck, Nils? Are you high?” He would be lucky if I didn’t kick his ass for making me ruin my new shoes.

  “I will attack you at your weakest, Erin. I suggest you stand and fight me.”

  I didn’t understand. Why would Nils do this? Warily, I held my hand out and focused my flame in case he decided to attack again.

  “Come on, Erin!” he bellowed into the night, the last word ending in a long, soulful howl. Phasing into his wolf, his attack came too fast for me to follow. Screaming, I panicked and struck out, hoping to catch him in the ribs with my foot. That succeeded in making him growl a throaty chuckle from ten feet away. Frustrated, I crouched down, my fingers resting on the grass in front of me. I would get the upper hand the next time.

  The moment he sprang in my direction, I pivoted my body to the side, spinning myself out of the grasp of his outreached paw. Or, I would have, if I wouldn’t have overestimated my turn. He used my momentum against me, slinging me into the tall grass on the other side of the driveway. As I lay there, I decided two things. One, I was glad to have accelerated healing because everything from my head to my feet felt bruised, and two, next time, I would just throw myself to the ground to save him the trouble. Even with all of my magic, I could never best him. He had thousands of years of experience in battle.

  “This is madness!” he screamed into the night, stalking to the place where I lay recuperating in human form again. “Fight me!”

  “Fine!” I roared, sitting up with bared fangs. I was beyond tired of playing ‘Let’s get my ass handed to me’. If he wanted a fight, he was going to get it.

  He bared his long canines. “Well then, let’s go, little girl.”

  With a growl and a mighty burst of energy, I exploded up from the ground, gathering my fire in its most concentrated form. It was my only hope to overpower him.

  His laughter filled my mind at an annoyingly loud decibel. “You think that will stop me?” he taunted, stopping me in my tracks.

  The distraction of his usual egotistical jackassery was all it took to break my plan of retaliation into a million pieces. Taking advantage, he attacked as soon as my fire died down, knocking me off my feet and pinning me down. Before I could even think of a way to buck him off, he was already across the yard, sitting on his haunches and wearing a smug little, ‘I’m a gigantic jerk, and I’ll take any opportunity to point it out’ wolfy grin.

  I hated him … really, really, really hated him. In truth, the more I looked at his big dumb dog grin, the more I wanted to kick his ass from here to next Tuesday. My fire was a white hot presence in my senses, connecting with my rage and coaxing me to unleash it on him. And far be it for me to deny my magic when our acquaintance is so new, and I so desperately wanted to punch him in the throat. I wasn’t an unfeeling female, after all.

  Standing, I freed my fire, letting it cover my body. In response, he tensed, readying himself to spring. I waved him forward.

  On this attack, the previous lightning fast moves seemed to come slower, his bounding leaps shorter. In fact, the hypnotizing reflection of my blue flames in his widened eyes didn’t quite mask the new look of abject fear they held. At the last possible second, he veered to the side to avoid me, not able to get his hindquarters to follow his front. Whether he was afraid of getting burned by the fire that consumed me, or whether he didn’t have the heart to hurt me again, I didn’t know, but his poor planning caused his back half to crash violently down onto the gravel driveway, pelting my face with rocks as he skidded toward impact with my legs.

  With an ear-piercing shriek, I jumped upward using agility I didn’t know I had and started to panic when several unexpected things happened at once. A blast of scorching heat seared outward from my body, launching me to a height I could have never reached without magic, and at the same moment, my arms stretched to impossible lengths, easily steadying my balance. Around me, everything had become a strange ultra-violet, brighter, and more vivid than I’d ever seen before. It was amazing … and terrifying.

  Seeing my fingers flatten to long, electric blue feathers caused me to cry out in confusion and another ear-shattering shriek rumbled up from my throat. Then, realization hit me. I was a bird—a bird on fire that was on a collision course with the ground.

  “Erin!” Emelie shouted from the front porch, holding her hands over her ears and wearing an astonished look that marred her normal smiling visage.

  I tried to answer her frantic call, but another shrill squawk came out of my … uh, beak, before I had to brace myself for the imminent crash-landing behind the house. I flapped my wings to try to slow my descent, and amazingly, it worked. I landed on my feet … err, talons, stumbling over my too long stick legs and turned to face a fast approaching Emelie.

  “Oh, for the love of the Norse,” she said, pinching the bridge of her nose, sighing, and then smacking Nils, who was still in his wolf shape, for all she was worth. “Phase, right now, Nils.”

  Obeying her command, his fur rippled and stretched until he stood tall and naked next to her. “What’d you do that for,” he asked disgruntled, rubbing his shoulder. “I did what her brother asked me to do.”

  The lines of her young face were harsh in the blue glow of my flames. “Soren told you to push his sister through a window, then attack her until she changed into an animal he wasn’t sure she would be able to turn into?” she retorted with sarcasm. “Yeah, that sounds like him.”

  Exasperated, Nils explained, “He might not have been sure, but I was, Em. I could smell it on her. Like I can on him. Like I can with all shifters.”

  I turned an eye up to him and glared. Why hadn’t he told me this sooner—the jerk. My heart felt like it was about to pound out of my chest.

  “Stop staring at me, Erin,” he shivered. “That bird eye thing creeps me out.”

  I retaliated the only way I could think of … by pecking him in the bare foot. “Ow!” he howled. “What the fuck? I did what I was supposed to do. Why am I getting tortured for it?”

  “Oh, shut up. You deserved it,” Emelie said, tiptoeing toward me with wide eyes. “Holy shit, Erin! You’re like a … help me out here, Nils.”

  “I was hoping you would know.”

  Those weren’t the reassuring words I’d been looking for. I mean, this bird thing was a hoot, no pun intended, but I was ready to change back into my usual form and forget that this was something I could do—for the rest of my life.

  “She appears to be a firebird, if this is anything to go by,” Viggo said, joining the others with a long feather, glowing in the night like a fading ember. “Though, there hasn’t been a firebird sighting since medieval times in Eastern Europe. In all probability, she is the last of her kind.”

  “Definitely, the last,” Emelie agreed. “How many fire-walkers have a shape shifter, like Odin, for a father?

  “Just one?” Nils guessed.

  “Yep, and she’s standing here, looking uncomfortable with all our jabbering. Erin, honey, Soren does this all the time. Just relax and close your eyes. Try to imagine yourself in your usual form. It should happen right away.”

  I closed my eyes, grateful that I wasn’t in this alone, and did as she said, thinking of my normal tall self, then held my breath.

  The change was as immediate as all of my magic had been, thus far. I blinked to focus on their faces in the pitch black night. My eyes didn’t work as well at seeing in the dark as they had while I was in my bird form. When I finally made out Nils, standing with his arms crossed to the side, I stood. “You suck, Nils.”

  “Awe, come on, Erin.” He stuck out his hand. “Friends?”

  I took what he offered with a vicious grin. “We were never friends. You kno
w, on account of you being a dick, but I will promise not to kill you for pushing me out of the window. Oh, and for almost paralyzing me.”

  He waved away my anger. “Soren would have healed you up. Besides, how else would I have been able to get you mad enough to bring out the animal in you?”

  His words chimed in my head. “That’s what Soren sent you out here for. Not to teach me combat, but to see if I could transform?”

  His smile was telling. “You’re as smart as you are beautiful.”

  I looked down in embarrassment. Nils had a way of making every woman uncomfortable with his questionable way of speaking…and dressing. He was still buck naked. “Wait a minute. How am I still dressed but you’re nude?”

  “She’s as smart as she is beautiful,” Viggo chided. “Time to fess up.”

  Nils put his arm around me and led me toward the back steps. “I have nothing to confess, Viggo. So what if I choose nudity over artificial fibers. It makes everything much more accessible when I need it.”

  I threw off his arm. “Ugh, Nils. You’re disgusting. You know that, right?”

  He shrugged, smiling a boyish grin that could charm the knickers right off of any single female in the Norse-lands. “You still love me. I can sense it.”

  “Can you also sense that the next time you do something like this, I won’t be pecking you in the foot?” I asked, squinting my eyes, then glancing downward with a meaningful look.

  “Not only do I sense it, I anticipate it,” he answered with a lewd smile. “Tell me something? Are you always this hot when you threaten someone’s male-hood?”

  “Oh, fuck off, Nils.”

  “What’s all the excitement?” Axel asked us from his hidden spot near the steps.

  I spun my feather between my fingers. “Nothing much. I found out that I can turn into a giant, loud bird, and that your brother is a masochist. But that was just the last five minutes or so. Wait around. I’m sure something else will push me over the brink real soon.”

  He arched an eyebrow at the words that didn’t match my nonchalant tone. “Indeed?” He motioned to the piece of my plumage that I held. “Is that your feather?”

  I handed it to him. “Yep.”

  “I am astonished. It has been six-hundred years since I have heard of a firebird in the Norse-lands. They are extinct.”

  Nils clapped him on the shoulder. “Not anymore, brother. Behold, the giant, glowing peacock of death.”

  I reared back to hit him, but he sprinted away too fast for me to catch. “I’ll get you later!” I yelled at the back of his head, as he went up the stairs toward his room. “And put on some damn clothes. There’s only so many times I can look at your dick in an hour!”

  “See! It’s not just me,” Emelie said, stepping in the back door with Viggo right behind her. Grinning, she asked, “Is there tea?”

  Viggo grabbed the teapot. “I’m on it. Want to get the ladies a cup, Axel?”

  He bowed. “Of course, my prince. It would be an honor to serve you.”

  The teapot clanked to the stove. “You know how I hate that subservient shit, Axel.”

  “I do,” he answered, placing a cup and saucer in front of each of us. “That’s why I haven’t stopped doing it.”

  “You are spending way too much time with Kristian,” I observed. “You’re twins, at this point. Where is your brother from another mother, anyway?”

  “Still looking for his mate.” Axel sighed. “He hasn’t had much luck.”

  “And my brother?”

  “He’s checking out a lead on Chase's whereabouts.”

  Nils came down the stairs wearing a towel over his wet hair and nothing else, right on cue. “Don’t lie for Soren, brother. He may not want to tell them, but I do. It is what is right.”

  “Tell us what?” I asked.

  “We know where Chase is.”

  Everyone was stunned. Well, not everyone. Just Emelie and I reacted. Grinding my teeth, I swore to myself that I was going to start kicking several someone’s asses if they continued to keep important secrets from me. Emelie? Well, I could see why they didn’t tell her. She was trembling like a leaf and looking as if she would faint at any moment. I counted to ten and asked as politely as my temper would allow, “Nils, how do you know where she is?”

  “Chase has been rambling to me about Viveka and Freyr for the last day and a half. She’s disoriented, but she is lucid enough to know that Freyr is using her power to keep their whereabouts hidden.”

  When Emelie’s tremble became an all-out shimmy, I pulled out a chair for her. She eased into it, looking like a lost puppy. I could hear her teeth click together as she gasped out, “She is alive.” Speaking more to herself than to any of us, it was clear that tonight had been a little more excitement than she could handle.

  I filled a glass with water and pushed it at Emelie. “Okay, since Emelie is out of sorts, why don’t you answer a few questions for us, Nils?”

  “What do you want to know, Kvinna?” He laid his towel over a barstool before he sat on it, all the while managing to look like an old-time villain. All he needed was the mustache to twirl. Nils was just so … weird. I’d never met someone so strange and normal at the same time. Well, except for Chase. No wonder they’re fated mates.

  “Three things.” I said. “One, how do males shower so fast? I would still be in there trying to find a towel in the three minutes it took you to take yours. Two, have you told my brother about this? And three, why am I just hearing about this?”

  He breathed out a pained sigh. “To answer your questions in order, as boring as they are, I shower fast because I’m not a female, and yes, I notified Soren the second I heard from Chase. The not telling you part, you’ll have to take up with your brother.”

  “But, I don’t get it,” I complained. “Why would she call to you, but not to me or her mother?”

  “Whatever magic she is being forced to use is blocking her from contact with you. Believe me, I’m positive that she would rather talk to anyone else, and I probably would not hear her at all if she was not my true-mate.”

  Emelie and I both shot our widened eyes to Nils. “Your what?”

  Viggo shook his head at us in awe. “You guys are so scary when you talk in unison. I freakin’ love it.”

  “He’s about to find out what scary looks like,” I said. “You’re a fool, Nils. What the fuck?”

  Serious for what must be the first time in his long life, he said, “Stay out of it. I can handle it.”

  “Then handle it!” Emelie snapped.

  “I have been handling it for the last twelve hundred and three years,” he bit back in anger.

  Axel cleared his throat. “I believe that you have been ‘handling’ it for a lot longer than that, brother. Remember that time you got caught in th—”

  “Shut up,” Nils interrupted. “You promised me your silence.”

  “No. I did not. What I said was something along the lines of … I will save this humiliation until such a time that it suits me to use it against you. That time is now, if you are wondering.”

  Jakob arrived and took a seat next to me, shaking his head in undisguised distaste. “For the love of the Norse, Fenrir. Put some clothing on. Allow me to apologize for my friend’s appalling behavior, ladies. He is an embarrassment to our gender. It is almost as if he was raised by wolves.”

  “I give zero fucks about what you think, Jakob.”

  “Enough!” Soren commanded, sweeping into the room. “Nils, don’t let me see you undressed before my mate and sister again.”

  “I could give him something to wear,” I said, smiling at Nils. “You like polka dotted dresses, right?”

  “I know for a fact he does,” Emelie confirmed, watching her mate leave the room. “Soren wants to speak to you, Erin.”

  “Ugh … do I have to? I’ve just saw my mate for the first time today. Can’t I at least tell him my exciting news first?”

  “Yes, you have to, because this time I think that yo
u’re going to approve of what he says. I’ll fill Jakob in on your fancy new ability to burst eardrums.”

  “You’re a terrible liar, Em.”

  She threw an arm around my shoulders. “I know. Now go and make up with Soren, so he’ll stop driving me bat-shit crazy.”

  “Fine!” I whined, stomping my foot in petulance. “I’ll be right back.”

  Pouting, I made my way out into the hall and called to my close-minded, hypocrite of a brother.

  “Soren?”

  He answered right away, as if he’d been waiting on me to speak. “Will you join me in the library?”

  “Sure.”

  It felt like I was on trial, and Soren was about to judge me. “Dead elf walking,” I muttered to myself.

  Soren stood when I entered the room, ever the gentleman and no doubt ready to read me what I’m sure would be an enlightening riot act, but I didn’t let him speak first. It was time to lay my cards on the table, and this time, I wasn’t going to bluff.

  “Soren, today will be my last day with the rebellion.”

  “You cannot mean that,” he said, aghast. “Surely, you do not think that Odin’s rule must continue.”

  “No, of course not. It’s just that—” I broke off, afraid to finish. What if he tried to force me to stay? Emelie did say something about a locked tower.

  He took my hand, his eyes beseeching me. “What is it, dear sister?”

  “I just can’t be here. Not when you cling to this preposterous chivalry notion the way you do. I will no longer be prohibited from seeing my mate. I’m a grown female. I make my own decisions.”

  “Is it so absurd that I want my sister to be spared from the ridicule that will follow you after a shameful affair like this?”

  “That’s just it! It’s not shameful. His mating is over in every way but paperwork filed with the council and a hastily thrown together bond. Everyone in the Norse-lands knows that she is an escaped criminal.” I closed my eyes and tried to reign in my anger. I couldn’t look at him without wanting to roast him alive. Why couldn’t he see reason?