Boss Fight (Beyond the Aura Book 1) Read online

  “Where the hell did you go this time?” Raz yelled. He was pacing up and down, face drawn with worry as he cradled his own taufrkyn. Ques’s fur was only a few shades lighter than Lorl’s. “When I came out of the bathroom you were gone! No note, nothing!”

  “You know that conversation you told me to have with Lee?” There was a catch in my voice. “It happened.”

  I dumped my duffel by the door and sank onto the sofa, careful not to jostle Lorl or my flaming ribs. I needed leighis – soon – but I had to talk to Raz first.

  “Oh…” The anger faded from his voice. He stopped pacing and sat beside me. “What happened?”

  “It was so stupid,” I said. My throat clenched and I knew I was going to cry. Goddammit, I never cried, at least where people could see. “He heard the radio and the shower.”

  Guilt flashed across his face. “Daphne –”

  “Not your fault.” And it wasn’t. In a way I was glad that things had come to a head now; if another eight months – or eight years – had passed before Lee revealed his intentions, I would have shattered. As it was I felt pretty fucking broken.

  I told Raz about the conversation in detail, right up to the point where I’d performed the ritual. When I was done tears dripped down my face. I wanted to bury my head under a pillow and sob, but I had just enough self-control left; I wiped my eyes and let Raz hug me. I took comfort from his proximity, from his sympathy and understanding, even though the movement jostled my ribs (I still wasn’t sure if they were cracked or just violently bruised). I bit back a curse and said nothing, careful not to let him see.

  “I’m sorry about Lee,” he said, handing me a handkerchief. I blotted my face, mindful of the bruises, and sniffed. “He made you happy, and you deserve – more than most – to be happy.”

  “It gets worse.”

  “There’s more?” He sounded dismayed.

  I told him what I’d learned about Mina. He stared at me, eyes opening wider by the second. He was ominously quiet.

  “That isn’t funny, Daphne.”

  “Yeah, I wasn’t laughing either. Mina must have been Kristjan’s student. I think he was somehow keeping her under control, right up until the point where Lukas ripped his head off.”

  “That is…” Silence. “Unusual.”

  “Not exactly the choice of words I’d use.”

  “You took care of the golems?”

  “Yeah.”

  He eased away and looked at my face – really looked, seeing behind the tear streaks and swelling – and frowned.

  “They hurt you.”

  “Might have cracked a rib or two…”

  “You should have mentioned that the moment you stepped through the door.”

  His words were severe but his tone was gentle. It wasn’t a real rebuke. I tried to smile.

  I could barely move; my ribs screamed, my face throbbed, and everything else complained like a little bitch. Lorl hopped up onto the back of the sofa and Ques joined her.

  Raz pressed a full tub of leighis into my hand and helped me up. I flashed back to my early days as a berserker, after the many times his training had left me black and blue, and he’d made sure that I was properly patched up before sending me home. Right now it felt like coming home. And wasn’t that a special kind of fucked up?

  I tottered into the bathroom and set to work. Lorl flitted after me and watched, attentive, as I smeared a healthy dollop of orange leighis across my ribs. They were almost as bruised as my face.

  I looked at my reflection in the mirror.

  “Fuck this,” I muttered, rubbing cream into my swollen skin. Why bother keeping the bruises as a disguise when Lee and Min already knew my secrets?

  The phone was ringing when I came out of the bathroom. Lorl spread her wings and glided back to the sofa. Raz was already heading for the phone; I waved him away and answered the call.

  “I hadn’t appreciated just how hard you are to kill.”

  My hand clenched around the phone so hard that the plastic creaked. It was Mina. Her tone was completely normal, as if she were taking tea with a bunch of friends on a Sunday afternoon. Nothing unusual here, ladies, just discussing how jolly hard Daphne McArthur is to kill.

  “You know berserkers don’t go down without one hell of a fight,” I rasped. Raz snapped to attention.

  “I do know. I remember that.” Her pleasant afternoon-tea voice slipped as confusion crept in. “I do remember. You’re tough. But I still lost my…” She trailed off, the silence thick with sorrow.

  I wondered yet again how Mina managed to function. It must have been Kristjan. The warlock had taught her how to raise golems, so he must have done something to her – cast some spell – to keep her going, to let her hold just enough of a grip on her sanity to interact with other people.

  “I’m sorry your aura went nova,” I said in what I hoped was a soothing voice, “but this has to stop, Mina. What you’re doing goes against every single value a berserker has. You know that, right?”

  “I don’t care!” she snarled, sounding like a wild animal. I held the phone away from my ear, then clamped it back so that I wouldn’t miss anything. “I’m broken, don’t you understand? Can’t you have some fucking pity?”

  “Pity kind of runs out when you try to kill people!”

  Raz caught my attention. We can help, he mouthed.

  “There are places that can look after you,” I said, careful to keep my emotions in check. “Let us help. Tell us where you are.”

  “Oh, no, I don’t think we can do that.”

  Crap. She was back to her Sunday afternoon tea-party voice. Rational Mina was gone and the splitter was in control.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, it’s like I said – you and your friend are hard to kill. You have a habit of breaking my golems, and I work so hard to make them.” She sounded aggrieved, as if I’d wronged her. As if I’d wronged her. “So I think I’ll lure you to a place of my choosing. Then I’ll kill you.”

  “That’s not going to work if we know we’re being lured.” This conversation had gone from nuts to pure surreal. I had no idea what I was doing here.

  “Oh, I think it will.” She sounded… happy. “I took something that you’re going to want back.”

  I glanced around my flat, wary. What could she have taken? Raz had been here for hours, there was no sign of a forced entry…

  “What?” I asked. “What have you taken?”

  “Not a what. A who.” She sounded so cheerful now. A hard lump of uncertainty dropped through my stomach. “I took Alice. If you want her, you’re going to have to come and get her. Isn’t it marvellous?”

  The world faded to black. When had it become so small? I was staring at Raz’s face. His mouth was moving but I couldn’t hear a sound.

  Alice was gone. Mina had taken her.

  I was going to kill Mina. Rage – hot and acid and racing through my head – blotted out the whole world. I was going to kill her. I’d go back to prison – of course I would, it would be premeditated murder – but that wouldn’t stop me…

  “…Daphne? Daphne? Are you still there?”

  The phone dropped from my numb fingers. Raz caught it, lightning fast, before it could hit the carpet. I collapsed onto the sofa and buried my face in my hands.

  “What did you say to Daphne?”

  Mina’s muffled voice.

  “And where is she now?”

  How could he be so calm? How could he just stand there as if everything was alright, as if his fucking world hadn’t just come to a grinding halt?

  Because Alice isn’t his best friend. Because he’s objective. Because he’s not boiling in his own rage.

  “You’re not going to tell us? Doesn’t that defeat the point of what you’re trying to do? Oh. You might tell us later. Why not now? Let us help you – damn! She hung up!”

  I didn’t have time for ‘later’. Alice didn’t have time. Mina was out there somewhere and she’d taken my best friend. I
was going to smash her face against the wall until it turned to so much gristle and blood. Never mind Mina’s pain; there was a tear inside of me and it was burning, eating away at me. If it didn’t have an outlet soon I was going to incinerate. I had no idea what I’d do when that happened.

  “We’re going to find her.” Raz perched beside me and I felt his hands on my wrists, gentle, pulling them down from my face. When he saw my expression he flinched. “We will find her.”

  “How?” I demanded. It was hard to think through the anger in my head. It was all-consuming.

  “Your ex-boyfriend is going to be useful.”

  I didn’t like Raz’s plan. But short of asking Lukas – which we had been prepared to do, to find the golem wrangler – he was our only option. I took the phone and called Lee.

  “I’ll keep this short,” I said before he had a chance to speak. “I need a favour. In return you get information.”

  There was a long pause before he said, “What sort of favour?”

  “Missing person.”

  “And then…?”

  “Then I’ll teach you whatever you want to know about life beyond the aura.” I swallowed. “Willingly.”

  “No bullshit? No half-truths or procrastination?”

  “No. You need a mentor, or some troll gang is going to take you out inside a week.” I didn’t add what I really felt – that I hoped a troll gang would take him out inside a week.

  “It’s a deal. See you in fifteen.”

  Now I just had to work on controlling the overwhelming urge to kill him.

  When I opened the door we stared at each other for a few seconds, him wary, me breathing hard while anger tick-tick-ticked inside.

  “You gonna let me in?” he asked eventually.

  “I’m trying to decide if I’m going to smash your face against the doorframe or the wall.”

  “You asked me for a favour.”

  Raz nudged me aside and pulled the door wide.

  “Actually, it was me.”

  The two men stared at each other. There was no emotion on Raz’s face; whatever he felt, he kept it locked down tight.

  “So you’re still here, then.” Lee’s voice was flat and hard.

  “I never left.”

  Male subtext: - Daphne trusts me, it said. I never lied to her, it said. I am – still – an important part of her life.

  Lorl chose that moment to plonk herself down on my shoulder. Her fur flushed an ugly mix of red and grey – she was picking up on my emotions. When Lee saw her his eyes widened.

  She blew a raspberry, flipped her tail in his direction, and took off.

  “Was that –?”

  “A taufrkyn. She’s called Lorl and she doesn’t like you. I can’t think why.”

  I waved Lee into the flat and told him about Mina’s call. He didn’t say anything, just strode into the kitchen and started making his own calls.

  “That went well,” Raz murmured.

  “Only because he wants information.”

  “I’m not sure that this is the best time to mention this… but he is a berserker now. His training shouldn’t come with conditions.”

  “He forfeited that right when he blackmailed me!” I hissed, feeling my fingers clench into fists. The tenuous grip on my temper was slipping, inch by inch.

  “That’s not a right that can be forfeited,” he cautioned. “He’s a bastard, I’m not going to deny that. But this is how we work. We look out for him, because one day we may need him to look out for us.”

  My fury cooled a notch; my grip improved. He was right. Berserkers stuck together. Lorl spread her wings and flew back to me, landing lightly on my shoulder. She rubbed her head against my chin and my anger cooled further.

  “All right,” I conceded with bad grace. Trust Raz to be the voice of reason. “But that doesn’t mean that we can’t use the hell out of him.”

  Raz surprised me with a wide grin. “I agree.”

  Lee made several calls while we listened from the living room, but with each successive conversation my heart sank further. He grew irritated, then angry… then furious.

  “Arseholes,” he growled as he strode out from behind the faded silk screen. “My people will put out feelers for Mina and your friend. But they’re not a priority.”

  “Not a –!” I bit back a sharp retort.

  “Do you know what the worst of it is?” he grumped. Right, because my friend being missing totally isn’t bad enough. “They’re all ‘well done on your mission, return to base ASAP for debriefing’.”

  “Yes, well done on your mission!”

  This guy was a real piece of work. He’d twisted my affections and held my freedom to ransom. If he hadn’t coerced me into maturing his aura we’d never have gone to the woods. We wouldn’t have met Mina and been forced into that showdown. And maybe – maybe – she wouldn’t have taken Alice.

  “I’m an experienced agent! I don’t need to run back to my CO after every minor success!”

  “Well boo-fucking-hoo,” I snapped. Minor success?

  “Watch your mouth,” he growled.

  “Watch yours,” I countered. “Especially if you want to meet a vaengrjarl.”

  “Is that wise?” Raz asked, eyebrows arching. “Considering you and Lukas –?”

  I cut him off with a sharp shake of my head. This was too big for politics now, too big to worry about who’d slept with who and who would definitely be pissed if they found out. We didn’t need Lukas’s help with the golems anymore, but we did still need him. If Lee’s Army pals weren’t going to help us get Alice back and stop Mina, there was only one place left to go. It was time to send out a supernatural distress flare.

  “Lorl, be a sweetie and bring me Lukas’s stone?”

  My taufrkyn launched herself and chirruped, disappeared into my room, then flitted back to my outstretched palm. She tossed a stone – flat, grey, smaller than my palm – into my other hand. I scratched her ears as a thank you.

  The stone was flat, a few inches in diameter, and carved on one side with an angular rune. I’d kept the damned thing in the back of a drawer and tried to forget that it existed.

  “This Lukas bloke is a vaengrjarl?” Lee asked.

  I nodded and closed my fingers around the stone, stumbling my way through the Old Scandinavian words that I’d learned. It sounded as if I was trying to clear my throat.

  The stone grew warm. Both Lorl and Ques watched with interest, fur swirling yellow.

  “This is a Sowilo Stone,” I explained. I was talking to Lee, but Raz was listening; I’d never shown him, because then I’d have to explain where it came from. “Kind of a magical text message. Lukas should be here soon.”

  “Where did you get it?” Lee asked, not bothering to conceal his curiosity.

  “Lukas gave it to me when we first met. Rule Number One of being a berserker – when you talk to a vaengrjarl, bite your tongue.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Of course he wouldn’t. Humility wasn’t in his repertoire.

  “His kind are powerful,” Raz said. “They’re shapeshifters, dragons. Arrogant and proud. They don’t suffer the slightest insult or slur.”

  “Dragons?”

  We tell him all that, and he focuses on the ‘dragon’ part? I rolled my eyes.

  “Yes.” Raz’s voice was brisk and business-like, professional in a way that I knew I’d never be able to manage. “If you piss them off – or offend them – or even look at them funny – they can rip you apart like that.” He clicked his fingers. OK, not quite so professional.

  Uncertainty crossed Lee’s face. Finally, the gravity of the situation was beginning to hit him.

  “You’re about to meet a prince. He’s used to getting what he wants.”

  “And what does he want?” His fascination was back.

  Raz’s look said it all – he was leaving it up to me.

  “He wants me to have his kid,” I sighed, knowing that he’d keep prying until I caved.
/>   “You’re going to have a baby –” His face was hot with anger, voice ringing with something that might have been jealousy. Or maybe that was just my interpretation.

  “No –”

  “You’re banging him as well as Raz?” He scowled and turned away, running a hand through his hair.

  “You bastard.” I seized his shoulder and hauled him back; he offered no resistance. I couldn’t look at Raz. “Who I sleep with is no longer your fucking business, got it?”

  It hurt. It hurt that he thought I’d been unfaithful. It was stupid and I hated him; even – for a moment – hated myself.

  He finally shook my hand off. “Alright, I’ll accept that you weren’t having sex with Raz.” His voice was rough with suspicion and maybe, just maybe, something else. “But this Lukas guy. He paying your rent or something?”

  Finally I looked at Raz, fury fizzing through my bloodstream. His jaw was clenched hard, fists held rigid at his sides. Knowing that my usually-controlled mentor was struggling to keep his shit together dumped cold water on my emotions.

  “You don’t deserve to know anything about this,” I said, slow and careful. “But I’m going to tell you, so I don’t have to answer any more of your stupid questions. I met Lukas a few years ago. We took care of a problem and ended up sleeping together. I didn’t see him again until a couple of days ago.”

  “Really?” There was no mistaking it now – Lee was seething with jealousy. “I’m supposed to believe that you passed up a life with a prince for me?”

  Raz turned, abrupt, and stalked into the kitchen. The silk screen gave us the illusion of privacy, if nothing else.

  “Believe what you like,” I said. “I don’t care. It doesn’t matter –”

  “Of course it matters,” he snarled, grabbing my upper arms. “If you were having sex with both of us at the same time –”