“Why wouldn’t she be?” Imogen gave me an impatient frown. “You’re not thinking, Fran. It must be jet-lag. If Loki seduced your mother just so he could harm her, then he would have done so by now. Either he’s seduced her in order to use her as bait to draw you in, or she’s off with a mortal. Either way, she is most likely unhurt and in love, as Absinthe told you.”
“I guess so. Back to the lich . . . we don’t know for certain that he took it. Forgive me, Imogen, but maybe Günter . . . ?”
She shook her head. “I wouldn’t think it likely. If Günter wanted to steal the Vikingahärta, why send a lich?”
She had me there. “Good point. Where do we start?”
“Go change your clothes. Wear something tough. Leather is best, if you have it.”
“Er . . . will jeans do?”
“If that is all you have. Wear something you don’t mind getting dirty. I will meet you at my car in”—she consulted her watch—“half an hour.”
Seeing no other option, I agreed, saluted her, and headed off for my mother’s trailer.
I had just stepped into the darkened trailer when a big black shadow rushed me, smothering me in a cloying, sickening smell that sent me sliding into a dense abyss of nothingness.
Chapter 9
Sounds, thick and heavy, like they were wrapped up in thunder, rumbled in the distance, slowly, ever so slowly sharpening until I realized I was hearing two men talking.
“—you told me not to hurt her doing it, so I used chloroform,” one man said.
“Where the hell did you get chloroform?”
I frowned to myself. I knew that voice. It resonated within me. Through the dense fog in my brain, an image rose.
Ben! It was Ben.
Francesca?
The floor beneath me rocked. I cracked an eye open to see what was going on, and found myself held in Ben’s arms. “You got your cross back,” was the first thing I said, touching the Celtic cross he wore.
He smiled, his eyes so beautiful, so warm and sexy I just wanted to lick them.
That sounds uncomfortable, but I appreciate the sentiment. You’re still a bit drugged, aren’t you?
“Drugged? Hrr?”
“Let’s sit you up. Maybe that will help.”
The world wobbled around quite a bit but finally settled into a familiar orientation, and after a few minutes to clear my head, I had enough wits to realize I was sitting on the ground, leaning against a smooth boulder, Ben squatting on one side of me while another man knelt on the other. Two camping lanterns sat next to them, casting a thin white-blue light around us. It was dusk, the sky a deep indigo, with just a smidgen of the moon starting to come up.
“Hello,” the man said, smiling broadly when I looked at him. He had kind of a singsong accent, something I hadn’t heard before. It sounded almost English, but wasn’t quite. It was a nice voice—not as intriguing as Ben’s, but nice. The rest of him wasn’t bad, either. He had a squared chin with a little cleft in it, very pale blue eyes, like polar ice, and reddish blond hair that made me think of the word “russet.”
“Hi. Are you the one who put a bag over my head and drugged me?”
“Yes.” He grimaced a little. “Well, it was a blanket, but yes, that was me.”
“Ah. Gotcha.” I made a fist and slammed it into his nose.
He fell over backward with a squawk. Ben, who quickly righted me when I tipped over from the momentum of punching the man, laughed loudly. “I told you she wouldn’t take kindly to that sort of treatment.”
The man sat up, gingerly feeling his nose, his eyes crossing as he tried to look at it. “Next time I’ll take your word for that. I’m sorry if you’re feeling any after-effects of the chloroform, Fran. I assumed that since you were a Beloved, you wouldn’t suffer any of the normal unpleasantries that mortals might.”
“Well, I’m not a Beloved, so don’t do it again. Who are you?” I asked, taking advantage of my wobbliness to lean into Ben.
“Benedikt’s blood brother. And I’m delighted to meet you at last. He talked about nothing else for so long, I was beginning to think he was mad. But now I see why he did so.”
“You’re . . . uh . . . Daffy?” I asked, racking my brain for his name.
Ben laughed even harder as the other man pulled a face. “David Kneath, actually.”
“I’m sorry.” I rubbed my forehead. “I could have sworn Ben wrote me an e-mail about you and your name was Daffy. I must be punchier than I thought.”
“It’s spelled Daffyd, but pronounced ‘dav-ith’ actually. I’m Welsh, you see.”