Page 32 of Grave Curse

Tyr.

Because of course.

“You’re a menace, you hear me? A goddamn menace.” The words were nothing more than an enraged growl, splashing the whole showroom with palpable fury. Then he turned andhalf-dragged, half-carried me back toward his office, while my useless legs did an uncoordinated dance trying to keep up.

“Tyr, that wasn’t Ginger’s fault,” Shiloh, bless her, barked out, sounding downright irate. “For God’s sake, you scared the crap out of that poor girl.”

“She wasn’t in any danger,” Misty added, and if I could have walked I would have rushed over to hug my two girlies with all my might for their unwavering support. “She had everything under control until you showed up and—”

Tyr ignored them, refusing to slow his roll toward his office. Once inside, he kicked the door shut behind us and all but threw me deeper into the room. My jelly legs responded as expected—which was not at all—and I slammed to my knees, coming to within a hair of faceplanting straight into his desk. My gasp mingled with his half a second before I was hauled back up and spun around to face him, and I inwardly braced to face his unbridled fury.

“My bad, baby girl,” he breathed even as his mouth closed over mine.

It was a wonder that cartoony question marks didn’t materialize out of thin air to pop up all around me.

Too much, my brain babbled incoherently. The past minute of my life had been too much—too much near-death experience. Too much relief at still being alive. Too much outrage at being blamed for something that wasn’t my fault. Too much Tyr. Too much confusion. God, so much fucking confusion, I didn’t know what to expect from this powerful man from one moment to the next.

Having grown up in a world filled with chaos and instability, that was more terrifying to me than a dozen falls off a ladder.

I didn’t know how to respond to Tyr’s kiss, extraordinary though it was. The heat of his lips was something that was now becoming familiar, and I welcomed it with an eagerness Icouldn’t explain. I could all but feel the thrum of tightly leashed emotions surging just beneath the surface, like a current of electricity that would fry me to a crisp if he ever dared to let his control slip. Tyr had never lost control in front of me, even when things were at their worst, and in that moment I wasn’t sure I wanted him to. I didn’t even know that particular Tyr, the one with no brakes and a raging volcano hidden inside. That Tyr felt wild and dangerous, like he could devour me with one gulp.

Just the thought filled me with a strange, heart-pounding sensation that could either have been fear or exhilaration, and I was too rattled to figure out which it was.

When he at last raised his head, I stared into his stormy eyes like a deer caught in the high-beams, wishing I could say something. Anything. But I couldn’t. The automatic reaction to life-threatening fear had been beaten into me long ago. Be silent and still, and maybe the gods around me would forget to smite me for pretending to be one of them. I couldn’t stop this reaction from happening any more than I could stop the sun from rising.

“My baby girl, you’re shaking like a leaf.” His plate-sized hands were hard on my waist, almost spanning it. He ducked his head so that his eyes were level with mine, and his gaze was so laser-focused on me I couldn’t look away. “Are you hurt? Did you hit your head on the desk?”

All I could do was shake my head and hope he’d leave it at that.

But, of course, this was Tyr we were talking about. Leaving things alone and making my life easier had never—as inever—been a concern of his.

“Oh fuck, you’ve gone quiet. I hate it when you go quiet.”

Yeah, it’s no picnic for me either, pal.

His hands tightened on my waist almost painfully, like he thought my MIA voice could be somehow squeezed out of me. “Look, don’t do this, okay? Just fucking say something, Snap.Come on, you’re freaking me out here.” When I could only shake my head before glancing back at the closed door in the vague hope of escaping until my throat finally unlocked, he bent and picked me up. No joke, he literally swept me off my feet and carried me princess-style to his desk chair, where he sat and held me on his lap with arms wound around me so tight it was clear I wasn’t going anywhere until he said so.

“It’s all right.” To my utter shock he began to gently rock in the chair as if I were a baby, his mouth coming to rest against my temple.What the hell’s happening to him? To us? “You hear me, Gingersnap? You’re okay, I promise. We’re just going to sit here in my office, being safe and okay, and eventually it’s going to sink in that everything’s going to be all right, and you’ll be able to talk again. I mean, you’re probably going to cuss me out, but that’s cool. I’ll just sit here with you and wait for that to happen.”

By degrees the tension drained out of me, until I sagged against his chest like a deflated balloon. He made crooning little noises of approval, another thing I never imagined I’d hear from him, before he started rubbing my back in a soothing rhythm. This was just so flipping weird, was all I could think. Maybe I’d actually crashed to the floor, and now this was my damaged brain coming up with some alternate reality where Tyr was both my protector and my comfort, and I was happily there to soak it all up like a damn sponge.

Weird.

But was it, really?

I closed my eyes and tried to think clearly. We’d been the closest of friends when his father Odin had been the head of the Chicago Gravediggers, while Hades had still been somewhat sane and caring toward me and my mother. But that had been a lifetime ago. Tyr and I had changed so much, twisted by Hades and his torture of pitting us against each other until hatred and resentment were all we knew.

How could I be okay while sitting on the lap of the man who let me get punished because of his bad behavior? How could I allow myself to feel safe and protected in his arms?

Because that’s what I was—safe and protected. The world’s worst monsters could burst through the door right now and I knew instinctively that zero harm would come to me. They’d have to get through Tyr first, and there was no monster on earth greater or more terrible than him.

Man, I had to be losing it if I thought Tyr was a safe harbor for me.

“I can’t believe I forgot this odd little glitch you’ve got.” The sound of his voice startled me, and I looked up to find him staring off into the middle distance. Whatever he was seeing was dark and terrible, if his expression was any clue. “I remember it now, though. The first time I noticed it was a couple years after my old man got his ass locked up. I guess that would’ve made you about… what, fourteen or so? Hades had been going on this power-drunk kick of sadistic insanity to prove to the club just how hardcore their new leader was, and every day seemed to be worse than the last.”

Yep. That was how I remembered it, too. Hades, never the most stable of men, lost every shred of human decency he had the moment he became president of the Chicago Gravediggers, and my world became a nightmare.

“Then one day he decided to make you stand up against the wall of the Rumpus Room while holding a pitcher of beer in each hand.”

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