Page 40 of Rock Bottom
Kirsten chuckled, and she rolled her eyes when I looked at her — while I was salting my chicken pot pie.
“Sorry for laughing,” she said, “but get used to the fact that the man you love will know when you’re hungry, thirsty, sleepy, have a new bruise on your leg, or wore heels so long your feet hurt, or — apparently — are low on salt, which could be handy, actually.” Another roll of her eyes. “Mordecai is keyed into my adrenaline levels, so he shows up anytime something triggers a reaction. It’s interesting, though, that Marco has taken on a bit of a caretaker role with you.”
“It is,” Cora agreed, and she met my gaze to add, “He likes you and wants to make sure you feel comfortable here. As to your earlier question, he hasn’t told me anything about your physical body, that part’s still a mystery, but a little about your stepbrother, so I’d understand why our people had reported in that you spent so much time climbing our boulder.”
“I’m sorry, I’ll stay away from it, if it’s not good for me to be on it.”
“Oh, no, on the contrary,” Kirsten said. “We like having positive energy in that field, as much as possible. We are gifted with the energy you’ve brought us. Thank you for being here, and for sharing your aura with us.”
Cora nodded. “Not the wording I’d have used, but I completely agree with the sentiment. You brought joy and balance to our meadow.”
A weight suddenly landed around my neck and on my chest — cold and solid, heavy — and instinct took over. I slapped at it, heart jolting, fingers closing around something that definitely hadn’t been there before.
“What the fuck!” I shot to my feet, knocking my chair over with a clatter, then jumped to the side and looked all around me.
Kirsten and Cora looked at me in shock, but within seconds, Kirsten rose and circled the table, stepping near me with the calm of a therapist who can handle anything her patients tell her without so much as batting an eye. Kirsten epitomizes strength and calm.
But in this moment, I was neither of those things.
“It’s okay. It’s fine. The necklace has a mind of its own, but it’s never…” Kirsten planted her hands on her hips, staring at the dip between my collarbones a few seconds before meeting my gaze. “It’s a magical necklace, or rather, part of one.” She shook her head. “If you look up Freyja’s necklace online, you’ll find stuff about it,Brísingamen. It’s half the necklace, the metal part. Someone else has the jewels, and I guess you’ll need to know about him, too, if the necklace is choosing you.”
“Yes, she will,” Cora said, still in her seat, “but let’s give it some time to make sure it’s going to stay with her. She’s safe from him while she’s on the property.” Cora looked at my chest and then met my gaze. “You were told there’s a Hell realm when we took you to Alfheim. He’s a Lord of Hell, a demon, and he’sreallyeasy to like, but completely untrustworthy. That’s all you need to know right now. If it stays with you, you’ll need to know more.”
“A lot more,” Kirsten said.
I’d been rolling with the punches since that first night in Alfheim, but each new revelation felt like another layer of normal being stripped away, and this was so far beyond not normal, all I could do was listen to Cora and Kirsten, trying to take it all in.
I reached up to grip the mysterious object and when my hands shook, part of me wanted to laugh hysterically at the absurdity of amagical necklace.
Of course it’s a magical necklace. Because vampires and werewolves apparently weren’t enough.
I lifted the chain over my head and looked at the pendant. It was a metal coin with a hole through it. It looked and felt like gold, and it was for-sure ancient. I held it out to Kirsten. “I don’t want it.”
Kirsten took it, put it on over her head, and said, “We’ll see if it’s that easy.”
She walked back around the table to sit down, and the necklace was suddenly back on me.
“What the fuck?” I asked.
“It has a mind of its own. If you feel it vibrating, pay really close attention to what’s going on around you. If someone just told you something, or asked you a question, it could be telling you whatever is being said is important. Lots of times, the vibration is a warning to let me know I’m in danger. The more danger, the more it vibrates. If it starts jumping up and down and you have a gun on you, go ahead and draw it.”
“If you touch it, most of the Drake security people will know it’s vibrating, and they’ll go into hyper-alertness,” Cora said. “I’ll talk to Nathan and make sure there’s a note in your file, saying if you touch the necklace it means danger is close.”
I shook my head. “I can’t wear a coin pendant all the time. Especially not on stage.”
Kirsten sighed. “Mostly, it’ll do what you want, or what it thinks is best, so if you don’t want it to be seen and you have an outfit on that lets it hide, it will. The thing is, the coin has its own agenda, and in a choice of your agenda or the coin’s grand plan, it’ll betray you every time. One of the Faerie shows on network TV a while back had this saying that all magic has a price, and while it isn’t usually the kind of price they showed on television, it’s often true. Sometimes it just means you need to eat more food to replenish your energy, other times it means you end up standing in front of a demon trying not to bargain your soul away.”
“So, what, do I have to find Mordor and put it into Mount Doom?”
Cora had been taking a drink of her tea, and she nearly choked on her laugh. “If there’s a way to destroy it, no one will tell Kirsten or me. We believe the necklace is trying to reunite with the gemstones originally in it, but we also figure someone separated it into two parts for a reason, so it’s probably best to keep them that way.”
“I don’t know what it looked like before,” Kirsten said. “I know someone melted it down and reformed it into the coin. The Lord of Lust has talent with fire and heating things, so he could probably reunite them into a new jewelry setting, or he knows someone who could, but it feels like we shouldn’t let that happen.”
My eyes went so big I could feel cold air all around my eyeballs, and I blinked. “The Lord ofLust? Seriously?”
Kirsten nodded. “Yeah, and you just naturally get horny as fuck when you’re in his general proximity. Just talking about him, I’m getting all hot and bothered. As Cora said, he’s damned charming, too. Completely untrustworthy and a major asshole, but fucking enchanting, charismatic, enthralling — all those words that mean magically tempting. Keep your guard up and remember he’s a demon in a sexy body with a seductive voice and the magic of lust.”
I heard someone approaching, and I turned to see Julian step into the room. “I have some free time, and…”
