Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14

Celeste’s throat dried as Tyr turned, and she caught sight of him. Blood covered his face, throat, jacket, and shirt. His eyes had gone as red as the blood staining his skin, and his eyes told her everything she needed to know.

Bloodlust.

She’d heard stories of it before, but she’d never seen it in person, and in all honesty, seeing it was a lot scarier than she had ever imagined. Tyr charged Amezodile, but Amezodile headed for the door.

“He’s mine!”

Tyr looked at Celeste and then refocused on Anton.

Amezodile had reached the doorway when she blasted him. He fell forward and slammed into the floor.

“Please,” he begged. “Please, stop. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“Where’s my father?”

He wretched and gagged as foamy saliva fell onto the floor from his mouth. “I don’t know,” he gasped.

She blasted him again.

He curled in a ball and screamed a guttural sound, deep and animalistic.

“Where is he?” she demanded.

“I don’t know. I swear,” he cried.

Celeste released her blast and walked forward. Grabbing Amezodile by the head, she forced her way into his mind. He froze as she searched his memories. His hands gripped her wrists, and his jaw clenched.

She watched everything since the day she left, but there was nothing—not one memory of her father.

“Where is he?”

Amezodile’s grip tightened, and she delved deeper, and then, everything went blank. His eyes rolled back in his head, and blood oozed from every hole in his face.

She dropped him to the ground and turned back into the room. Guess I’ll have to get my answers elsewhere.

Anton had scampered behind his desk and reached for something under it.

“No more guns.” Celeste let out a mental blast that had Anton falling onto his desktop, flopping and writhing, scattering papers, pens, and everything else onto the floor.

Tyr jumped over the desk and grabbed Anton, jerking him upward. Celeste immediately pulled back her mental powers.

Tyr twisted Anton’s arm until the shoulder popped, and a crack sounded.

Anton screamed.

“Shhhhh…” Tyr said. “Don’t scream yet. We are just getting started. You should save the screams for when I get going.” He yanked Anton’s head back, and Anton stared straight at Celeste.

Tyr drew close to Anton’s ear. “You see that woman? That beautiful, perfect creature? She’s my mate, and you hurt her. Used her. Tried to break her. But you didn’t. Even so, I am going to break every bone in your body. Then, I am going to ask you a question. If I don’t get the right answer, I will start cutting pieces of you off. Pieces you like. Pieces you need. Maybe even a few you don’t.”

Tyr slammed his metal fist down on Anton’s open palm, and the bone crunched beneath the blow.

Again, Anton screamed. “Please. Please. Ask me anything. I’ll tell you whatever you want.”

Tyr shook his head. “Pain first, question second.”

Tyr reached in and bit into Anton’s ear, ripping it from his head and flinging it across the room. Then, he flipped Anton over, raised his fist over his head, and brought it down heavily on Anton’s chest. Celeste watched as several of Anton’s ribs cracked. She wanted to be the one to hurt him. To see him squirm and writhe. But something told her not to interfere.

“That’s enough,” Celeste’s mother yelled.

Tyr looked at her, and a wicked smile crossed his face before he turned to Celeste. “How many bones of yours did he break, Fylgja ? Ten, twelve, fifteen?” His gaze swung to her mother again. “When I’ve tripled that number, then maybe it will be enough.”

Tyr grabbed one of Anton’s knees and with a sickening pop, broke it.

Celeste swallowed hard.

Tyr’s thoughts invaded her mind. Images of things he’d done in the past. Things he was prepared to do to Anton as well.

A perverse part of her delighted in his power. More and more images bombarded her, and Celeste had to raise her barrier.

“Please,” Anton begged. “Stop. For the love of God, stop.”

Tyr cocked his head to the side. “What god? Me? Odin? Thor? Or maybe a different god. Zeus, perhaps.” Tyr shook his head. “Nope. Sorry. None of us love you.”

“Please,” Anton pleaded. “Take whatever you want. You want the girl? Take the girl. I give her to you. You can have her.”

Tyr smashed his head into Anton’s, breaking his nose and spraying blood everywhere, before smashing his fist into Anton’s jaw.

“You give her to me? You? A mere Midgardian? A man who is not more than a flea on the ass of this world, think you could give me a goddess like her?”

Tyr pulled Anton’s face so close Celeste was afraid he might bite Anton’s throat out the way he had the bodyguard.

“You cannot give what is not yours. And Celeste was never yours. She is mine. Not because you gave her to me. Not because I took her. Not because I forced her. But because she was born to be mine. And you put your hands on her. Your dirty, disgusting, human hands.” Tyr dropped Anton back onto the desk and slammed his fist into Anton’s second hand before he swung his fist across Anton’s cheekbone, jaw, and finally his temple.

A red aura swam around Tyr, and she swore with every swing of his fist, his aura grew brighter and his frame larger.

Celeste took a step forward. “Tyr!”

Something inside told her that if she didn’t stop Tyr, the people in that room wouldn’t be the only ones who would pay.

Tyr swung again, and Anton’s head cracked.

“Tyr!” She pushed a mental blast at him, and he shook his head before looking up at her. He squinted, and for a moment, she thought he might attack her as well, but he blinked twice, and then his eyes widened in recognition.

He looked at Anton and then at her again. He took a deep breath and stepped away. Anton lay on the desk, not moving.

“Do you really want me to stop? Or perhaps you want to exact your own revenge. Come, Fylgja . Let me help guide you.”

She wanted to say yes. Wanted to tell Tyr they’d torture Anton for the next twenty-four hours, make love in his blood, and it would still not be enough for what he had done to her. What he had tried to take from her.

But the vibes Tyr gave off told her she needed to calm him or risk the whole western hemisphere breaking into civil war. America struggled enough without that happening.

She walked toward him in slow, confident strides. He smiled, and she reached up and cupped his cheek. She needed to say something to get through to him.

“If you continue, he won’t be able to answer our questions.”

Anton moaned, and his eyes fluttered open and closed.

Tyr grabbed her hand where it touched his skin. He pulled it to his nose and breathed her in.

She laid her other hand on his chest. “You’ve done enough. You’ve avenged me. He can’t hurt me anymore. Can’t hurt anyone anymore.”

He closed his eyes for a long moment, and when he opened them again, something shifted, and he came to himself.

He slapped Anton’s cheek twice. “See that? See the woman you tried to break, tried to destroy. She just saved your life, you useless tick.” Tyr raised his fist again, but Celeste encased it with her smaller one.

“I need to know where my father is.”

Tyr nodded and pulled Anton off the desk with his free hand. “Where is Sylax?”

Anton groaned, and his eyes rolled, unfocused.

Tyr leaned his hand onto Anton’s broken arm, and Anton cried out, his eyes flying open.

“Where is he?”

Anton sucked in a shallow breath and muttered something so softly Celeste couldn’t hear.

“You’re lying,” Tyr said.

Anton’s head lolled from side to side, and he mumbled again.

Tyr licked his lips.

“Where is he?” Celeste asked.

“He says he never had him. He has no idea who Sylax is.”

A chill swept down Celeste’s spine. She lowered her shield and delved into Anton’s mind.

A wave of nausea coursed through her, seeing all the things he’d done and the perverse pleasure he’d gotten from doing it. She slapped Anton before looking harder.

Anton cried out as she refused to go slower. Anger raged inside her as she pushed him, looking for her father. Tyr groaned and slid behind her, pressing into her and kissing her neck.

She kept looking and finally growled and let go of his mind. Nothing. He told the truth. Anton never had her father.

Tyr’s hands roamed her body, and her skin heated. He spun her around and kissed her hard. His lips were so hot they almost burned her, and his hands scorched her skin as he rubbed them over her body. She let him kiss and claim her for a minute and then stepped away, breathing heavily.

“I’m sorry. I…”

She squeezed his hand. “I understand. Trust me.” Her gaze traveled to Anton. “He didn’t ever have my dad.”

“Where does that leave us?”

“If he never made it here, there was only one other place he would have gone.” Celeste’s gaze moved to where her mother had scrambled across the floor to the corner.

Her mother had lied. And there was only one reason her mother would have lied. A pit grew in Celeste’s stomach, but she shoved it away. No. She wouldn’t give up hope. Couldn’t give up hope.

“Where is he?” she whispered.

Her mother shook her head. “I… I don’t know, I swear. He said he was coming here to kill Anton for what he’d done.”

“When?”

Her mother’s brow furrowed, and she shook her head. “When what?”

“When did he tell you? You said you hadn’t seen my dad.”

Her mother licked her lips. “I… uh… I…”

Celeste lashed out and blasted her mother with a huge wave of mental energy.

Her mother screamed, and her eyes rolled back in her head, and she began to convulse.

“Where? Tell me! Tell me, or I’ll pull it from you,” Celeste screamed.

She continued to hold her mother in her mental grasp, searching for the answer, but her mother fought back, blocking her mind from Celeste.

Celeste pushed harder, making her mother whimper, but she couldn’t break her mother’s wall.

Celeste yelled in rage and then took everything she had and pushed it at her mother. Her mother’s eyes flew open, locked on Celeste, and her mental block shattered.

The pieces of the memory were fuzzy, broken, and disjointed. Her father at the front door. Her mother yelling at him. He didn’t back down. They’d struggled. Then, everything went black.

“Where is he?” Celeste ran to her mother and slapped her. She turned to Tyr. “Kill her.”

Tyr stormed forward, scooped up his sword, and headed right for them.

Her mother’s eyes widened. “He’s at the house! Sylax is at the house!”

Celeste grabbed Tyr’s arm before he struck.

Tyr’s gaze became conflicted. She touched his cheek, and his expression softened.

Celeste pointed at her mother. “Bring her.”

Tyr nodded, hefted her mom over his shoulder like a sack of flour, and together, they strode from the room.

They reached the bottom of the steps, and Tyr stopped short. Celeste scanned the bar. Shattered chairs and bodies lay dead or unconscious on the floor. She blinked several times, taking in the scene. Everyone. Every single male in the bar littered the floor.

Several bloodied women lay on the sparkly runways. She touched their minds in turn, making sure they were still alive.

The men, though… less than five were so lucky.

“Finished?” Heimdall sat at the bar, drinking from a bottle of whiskey.

“Someone had fun,” said Tyr. “Thought you weren’t supposed to interfere.”

Heimdall shrugged. “I saved as many of the women as I was able. Some I couldn’t stop from attacking, though, so I had to knock them out. They shouldn’t have to suffer for your temper tantrums.”

“Maybe you should work for me. Not spend all your time at Frigg’s.”

Heimdall sipped his drink. “We leaving?”

Tyr snorted. “You already know the answer.”

Heimdall downed his drink. “Let’s finish this.”

They walked over the bodies littering the floor, and as they pushed open the front door, noise on the streets assaulted them.

The group stared at the chaos outside the strip club. A complete riot ensued all around them. Men beat each other. Women screamed and slapped each other. Dogs barked and snarled at everything that moved. The entire street was littered with crashed cars. It was mayhem. Sirens wailed in the distance, and a helicopter flew into view.

Celeste took Tyr’s hand, and his eyes clouded in regret.

“It’s not your fault.”

Tyr shook his head. “Yes, Fylgja . It is.”

Celeste’s heart pounded, and her leg bounced in the front seat of Amezodile’s SUV as they headed back to her mother’s house.

Please, please, please , let him be okay. She let down her shield and reached for her father again, but there was no response.

The best she could think was that her mother had him in the house somewhere warded that Celeste didn’t know about, and his abilities didn’t work where he was being held.

Tyr squeezed her hand, and she tried to smile, but her mouth wouldn’t work. At least his eyes had returned to normal, and the red aura had left.

As they pulled up in front of her house, a pit grew deep in Celeste’s gut. She sucked in several breaths.

“I should go first.”

Celeste shook her head.

He looked like he might argue, so she jumped from her side of the vehicle before he said anything.

“Celeste!” Tyr leapt from the car and met her at the front, where the high beams fell across the now-dark yard.

The car door opened behind them, and Celeste turned to her mother. “Where is he?”

Heimdall joined them.

Her mother’s gaze bounced between them.

Heimdall grabbed her mother’s arm and jerked her forward. “Tell her,” he ordered.

Her mother chewed her lip.

“Now!” Tyr demanded.

Her mother jumped and pointed to the front of the house.

Celeste didn’t wait. She ran straight for the front door and threw it open. “Dad?” She ran into the front room and scanned it.

Nothing had changed from earlier.

“Dad?” She ran down the hall to her mother’s room, opened the door, and flipped on the light.

No dad.

She ran to her mother’s closet and looked under the bed. Then, dropping her shields, she explored every inch of the house.

Still nothing.

She opened her old bedroom door.

A pit in her gut grew bigger.

She rushed to the bathroom and the kitchen. Celeste yelled in frustration and stormed back out the front door.

She slammed her mom with a blast, knocking her off her feet.

“He’s not in there.”

Her mother dry heaved on the ground. “I… never said… he was.”

Celeste’s patients shattered. She slapped her mother’s face before pushing her mental energy into her mother’s mind. She’d get answers one way or another.

Her mother screamed and clutched her head.

“Celeste,” Tyr called from somewhere far away.

Celeste dug deeper. She found the scattered and fragmented memories from earlier and focused on them.

A week ago, her dad had stormed up to the front of the house, shouting for her mother to come out. When she wouldn’t, he ran to the front door but was met by an invisible hand and flew back across the grass. He lay for several seconds before hopping to his feet and running at the house again, shouting her mother’s name.

The front door opened, and her mother peered out at him. He yelled about how horrible her mother was. He said he never should have left Celeste with her. And then, he said he would kill her for what she’d done to Celeste. He brandished a gun and shot through the door, hitting her mother three times.

Her mother stumbled and rushed out the door. Grabbing her father by the lapels of his coat, she threw him into the invisible barrier.

Her father’s body convulsed, and then, out of nowhere, her mother produced a golden javelin. She flung it at her father, pinning him to the barrier. He screamed and writhed for a long minute before his form blackened and stopped moving.

Her mother trudged forward and pulled the javelin from her father’s chest. His body dropped, and the javelin disappeared.

Her mother stared at her father’s body for a minute, and then she picked him up and dragged him into the bushes.

Celeste fell backward with a thump. Tears streamed from her eyes, and she convulsed as the emotional toll tore at her insides.

Dead. He was dead. Her father was dead.

“Celeste?” Tyr’s hand pushed the hair from her face.

Her gaze drifted past him to the bushes by the front door. Celeste crawled toward them, begging, pleading with any deity that would listen that she wouldn’t find him. That, by some miracle, he’d been spared and was somewhere in the Underworld recuperating.

She reached the half-dead shrubs, her hand hovering above the foliage.

Please, don’t let him be there. Please. Please.

Shakily, she pushed the branches apart, but it was too dark, so she reached out, and her fingers slid across something that felt like leather.

“Celeste, don’t.” Tyr pulled her into him as Heimdall peered into the bushes.

Celeste hung limp in Tyr’s arms as memories flooded her.

Her dad taking her to the park. Going to a hockey game. Camping in the Redwoods. Lunch at the pier. Him letting her win at Monopoly. Teaching her how to use her gift. The tears as he left her. Then, reaching for him on lonely nights, only to find him nowhere. All of it, gone. Done. Over. There would be no more memories.

The anger and pain multiplied inside her so all-encompassing that she could not hold it back. She wailed up at the sky, allowing all of her pain and anger loose into the air.

The sound that emanated from her was one she’d never heard nor made before. So primal. Visceral. From a place deep inside she’d never accessed.

The cry went on and on until she had no breath left. It cut off, and she fell back against Tyr.

She wept into his chest, clinging to him for support. He pulled her to him and held her close.

A minute passed. Dead. Her father was dead. And her mother had killed him.

A light shot across the sky. Then another, and another, and another. And like strikes of lightning, a dozen or more golden beings stood in the front yard.

Angels.

Heimdall assessed the beings surrounding them and put his hand on his hip but didn’t speak.

The angels inspected the area, and their eyes all lit on her mother.

One of them turned to Celeste. The woman’s hard eyes pierced straight through her, and Celeste recognized the angel immediately. Grandmother.

A tense silence stretched out over the group, and finally, her grandmother spoke.

“Take them.”

Two angels stepped toward her mother, and Heimdall pulled a small knife from his belt that grew to over five feet long and ten inches wide. He stabbed it into the ground and leaned on it, making the angels stop and pull their own weapons.

At the same time, four other angels walked toward where Tyr held Celeste. He sat her on her feet and retrieved his own flaming blade.

“Wait,” said Celeste.

“You should move before I have my soldiers cut you down.” Her grandmother’s gaze remained fixed on Tyr. “These two are our business, not yours.”

“I beg to differ,” Tyr replied. “Celeste is my mate. That makes her my business. Don’t force us to cut you all down in her defense.”

“Do you know who you are speaking to?” one of the angels spat. “This is the Archangel Sariel.”

“Do you know who that is?” Heimdall retorted. “That’s Tyr, Norse God of War. And I’m Heimdall, Guardian of Asgard. Amongst other things.”

The angels stopped and looked to Sariel for orders.

“You can try to take Celeste,” said Tyr, “but you’ll not do so until I am dead. And seeing as I cannot die…”

Celeste swiped her eyes and got to her feet. “I think it’s time for my mother to go home. She’s done enough damage.”

Somehow, when she had cried out it had been a beacon to the angels, and they had come to her aid. And she needed aid because she could no longer deal with her mother without killing her. And as much as she wanted to kill her mother… she just couldn’t.

Her grandmother took her in. “And you?”

Celeste slipped her hand into Tyr’s. “I’ll be with my husband. In the Underworld.”

Her grandmother didn’t speak for a minute. “Be sure you keep her there. I can’t guarantee her safety here on Earth outside of the room I created and warded for her.”

She created it? Not her mother?

Sariel nodded, and the angels picked up her limp mother and disappeared in a flash of light.

Her grandmother stood a moment longer. “I’m sorry about your father, Celestine. Even though he was a demon, he was better than most and obviously much better than my own child. If you ever change your mind and want to join us in the fight against evil, call, and I will come for you. No matter where you are.” Her golden glare landed on Tyr. “God or not, if you let harm come to my granddaughter, I will bring all the hosts in heaven to aid me in your eternal destruction.”

Tyr nodded once, and then a golden light fell over her grandmother. She gazed at Celeste for a long minute before wiping a tear from her eye and disappearing. A patch of lilies sprouted up from where her grandmother had stood.

Tyr hugged Celeste before kissing her head.

“Did you mean what you said?”

“What?”

“That I am staying with you?”

He searched her face. “Did you mean what you said? I am to be your husband?”

“Well… I figured…”

Tyr smashed his lips to hers and pulled her hard against his chest, sending a thrill through her.

A moment later, they parted

“Does that mean you want to marry me?”

Tyr smiled and kissed her again.

By the time they parted again, Heimdall had retrieved several blankets from the house and had wrapped Sylax in them.

“Can… we bury him on the estate?”

He put his arm around her. “Of course. We will bury him at our home.”

Despite her sadness and pain, Celeste couldn’t help smiling. Hers. Her place. She finally had a home. A real home. A home with Tyr.