Page 31 of The Knight

Asta smiled and pushed open the nearest door. “This is my guest room. A bed and not much more, but the mattress is very comfortable.”

“Thank you.”

Asta made a dismissive wave of her hand. “Do you have a change of clothes with you?”

“No.”

“Well, let’s get you some clean clothes. Come.” She hustled Freya into the third room.

Asta’s bedroom.

She opened a paneled wardrobe and rifled through the shelves. Freya cast a glance around the room. A bed with a pale blue coverlet. A small bedside table stacked with biophysics textbooks with familiar titles.

The room was comfortable, feminine, but there were no personal touches. Like downstairs, there were no family photos adorning the walls, no trinkets or mementos scattered about. Apart from her cat, Asta’s research appeared to be the sole focus of her existence.

“Here.” Asta placed a pile of clean clothing in Freya’s arms.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it. I’ll leave you to get cleaned up. I have some precautions I’d like to review now that you’re here.”

“Precautions?”

“Boring stuff. Nothing important.” Asta made a dismissive gesture as she turned to head downstairs.

Okay.Freya blew out a breath.

The bathroom was simple, like the rest of the house. Like Asta’s life. White-tiled bath and sink. One bar of white soap and a bottle of generic minty shampoo. One towel on the rail.

Freya turned on the tap, letting the thunder of the hot water wash through her. Exhaustion gnawed at her, dragging her down. Steam rose from the water as she waited for the bath to fill. She rose and crossed to the bathroom mirror. There were shadows under her eyes, but nothing that a good night’s sleep wouldn’t fix.

She stared at herself, reliving the whisper of Abe’s thumb against the sensitive skin on the inside of her wrist. Did he treat all his charges like that? Was it all part of the service? She’d never had a bodyguard before. Was she reading more into this than there was?

She’d had sexual relations with men, but never arelationship. She didn’t know what the indicators were.There should be manuals on things like this.

She glanced over her shoulder at the steam-filled, modest bathroom. She and Asta were more alike than she wanted to admit. This was the reason they had always got on so well—their matched single-minded focus on their work.

For all of Freya’s adult life, it had felt like enough.

Is this what I will end up like if I continue on my current trajectory? Will I end up alone with an aloof cat as my sole company?

Right now?

She was no longer sure if the path she had chosen in life was the one she wished to continue.

17

Abe’s lungsburned as he sucked in great gulps of the frigid Icelandic air.

A full moon hung low in the sky. Its milky glow gave an ethereal beauty to the harsh landscape. He chose a circuitous route as he headed up the tallest hill so he could scout the area. Silence pressed in around him, broken only by the soft crunch of his boots on the volcanic soil. The only intruders he clocked were field mice, their tiny forms darting through the scrub on their own covert operations.

Somebody ought to warn those little bastards about Moose. Talk about a high-risk insertion.

Asta hadn’t exaggerated, the terrain was unforgiving. Low-growing thyme clung stubbornly to the earth, its tough stems concealing treacherous potholes but scenting the night air as he crushed leaves with his steps.

Cresting the hill, he dropped to one knee, using the meager cover of an isolated wind-stunted birch to break up his silhouette. Satisfied there were no immediate threats, he pulled out his phone, reinserted the SIM card he’d removed at Asta’s, and hit Fox’s number.

The call rang once.

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