He closed the distance between them until his nose was almost touching hers. “Not precisely the right emotion. Besides, you haven’t seen the size of my weapon. Yet.”
“Ever.” She broke away, heading into the street. “I don’t mingle when I’m on a job.”
“I wasn’t talking about ‘mingling.’” He winked at her and sent her a slow, heated smile that warmed her from the inside.
Ragnarök’s breath. It wasn’t as though men didn’t attempt to woo her on a regular basis. And if she was being honest, usually she would have been more interested in his friend, Sirius, who had dangerous written all over him.
But there was something about Tormund that caught her eye.
His smile perhaps; the type of smile that stopped her heart in her chest.
Or the calmness that leached off him. He radiated confidence, as if it didn’t matter how many punches the world threw at him, he would simply keep striding inexorably forward.
She’d never met a man who made her feel instantly at ease.
“You certainly think highly of your charm,” she noted. Keeping him at arm’s length was proving difficult. The man shrugged off insults and seemed immune to her cooler glares.
“It’s not my charm I think highly of.”
Bryn snorted. “Oh, I’m sure.”
A girl shivered on the corner of the street, holding a plate out for passers-by. Bryn’s gaze slid over her, then she sighed and reached into her purse, dumping a handful of coins there. “Freyja’s blessing upon you,” she said.
The girl gave her a startled look, before her eyes widened when she saw what Bryn had given her.
It would never be enough.
But she’d been cold and hungry before. She knew the gnawing ache in her belly the girl no doubt suffered from. And while there had never been anyone there to assuage that hunger for her, she could offer assistance now.
Behind her, she heard Tormund adding a few more coins.
“That was kind of you,” he said when he rejoined her.
“Foolish,” she replied. She didn’t want to talk about it.
And clearly he understood her reticence.
Tormund looked toward the mountains in front of them. “Dare I ask how you know Marduk has a golden crown tattooed on his ass?”
It was tempting to tell him she’d seen it firsthand.
But keeping her lies to a minimum was the first rule Bryn owned when working a job. You never knew when something was going to trip you up.
“The blacksmith’s niece saw it,” she said dryly, as they reached the edge of the village. “And the innkeeper’s sister. And the mayor’s daughter confirmed their accounts. Needless to say, the prince left in a hurry.”
“Ah.” His smile softened. “So you didn’t personally meet the prince.”
“I wouldn’t be here if I’d met him.” No. Marduk would be trussed up in Solveig’s dungeon if she had.
A small dot grew larger on the horizon. Bryn tugged a leather gauntlet from behind her belt. She slipped it on, knotting the laces.
“Lucky for me then that you didn’t.”
Bad. This was bad.
She had to stop this flirtation right here, right now.
“I am here for one thing, and one thing only. Marduk.”
“A pity. I could have changed the course of your life if you’d let me.”
Bryn held out her hand as the flash of feathers dove toward them. “Who says I want to change the course of my life?”
Tormund jerked back as the merlin banked and landed on her wrist, her feathers grazing his cheek.
“Jesus Christ.” The words tore from him as he clapped a hand to his chest. “Where did that thing come from?”
“Is the big, bad warrior afraid of my little fluff?” Bryn cooed, scratching the little merlin under the chin. Sýr closed her eyes and leaned into the caress. “Did you scare him, my precious sweet girl?”
“That thing nearly took my ear off!”
“That thing is called Sýr.” Bryn glanced up from beneath her eyelashes as she thrust her wrist forward and set the merlin free. Sýr launched into the skies, content with her pat. “She hunts at my side, and she has far better discretion than to touch such a big, bearded lout.”
“Then she doesn’t know what she’s missing out on.”
“Oh, she knows.” Bryn tucked her wrist closer to her chest and stalked past him. “But regret is not precisely the emotion she feels.”
He laughed behind her, but Haakon called out, “Which way?”
The road wound through the mountains ahead of them, fog drifting through the lower valleys.
Sirius had vanished a half hour ago, and no doubt he was soaring through the skies above them. He’d find them, he’d claimed, which made her a little uneasy.
Double-crossing a human was easy enough, but dreki had long memories, and she’d heard plenty of stories about the dreki they called the Blackfrost in the past hundred or so years.
Solveig had failed to mention he was one of the party Bryn would need to track. And if she’d known, then she might have preferred to follow at a distance, rather than ingratiating herself with them.
Too late now. Bryn headed into the trees, leaving the road.
“The prince was last seen heading up into the mountains,” she called over her shoulder. “According to the blacksmith’s wife.”
“I thought he was in disguise. How did you know it was a dreki prince if you never saw him?” Tormund asked. “How do you know so much about dreki? Most humans seem to be unaware that they’re more than myths and legends that hide up in the hills and steal their sheep.”
Now that she wasn’t batting her eyelashes at him, he was starting to think. Usually she appreciated an intelligent man, but this was the wrong time to find one. “I’ve run afoul of dreki several times. And my mother told me about them and their world, though she suggested I should avoid them.”
“How did the blacksmith’s wife know it was the prince?”
Bryn rolled her eyes. “The blacksmith’s wife said he had the look of the devil about him and her cross burned cold every time he smiled at her. She was certain he wasn’t human.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Haakon threw over his shoulder. “Crosses don’t react to dreki.”
“And in their human form, it’s difficult to see the difference between a dreki and a large man,” Tormund pointed out.
“Trust me, giant. He was dreki, according to my sources.” And then she waggled her eyebrows in a suggestive manner.
“Do I want to know?”
Bryn knew her smile held the sweetness of a trap about to spring. “I don’t know. Do you?”
He stared at her for a long moment, and then his gaze slid to the mountains over his shoulder.
Sometimes, it was almost too easy to deflect a man’s attentions.
She headed up a narrow track that diverged from the glade. “This way.”
The climb turned steep and treacherous, and the three of them scrabbled over rocks and boulders. Her breath caught when she saw the side of the path drop away into an immense gully. Though the village was barely a hundred feet behind them, it felt as though they’d entered an ancient world.