Page 34 of Vicar
“So we faced something even then.” She sniffled a little and looked at him with concern. “Do you think the monster is Violence?”
“I’d bet my life on it.” He squeezed her hand. “But at least we knew what we were up against. Hopefully, that will help in the end.”
“Yes,” teenage Trinity gushed, falling to her knees in front of him with tears in her eyes. While Trinity felt her overwhelming happiness, she also felt her profound sadness. “How though, Vicar?” She reached out to touch the sword and stone, but predictably, her hand only passed through them. “How when most of the time I can only come here as a ghost thanks to Raven?”
“Raven?” Trinity gasped, confused. “How is that possible?” She looked at Vicar as though he might have the answer even though she knew he didn’t. “She doesn’t possess that kind of power. Nobody does...right? Because it’s...what exactly?” She gestured at her younger self. “I’m a ghost!”
“But still alive in the twenty-first century,” he reminded as the memory faded and the room went cold and quiet. Sad as if echoing the loneliness it might have felt after they left. Perhaps this had even been the last time they were here.
“You weren’t actually dead when you were transparent,” he continued. “I know you weren’t.” He shook his head. “This wasn’t some sort of bizarre haunting that took place after you died, and you kept aging.”
Right? Because she was alive and older now.
They exited his lodge only to end up back in the hallway of the Keep. While one part of her wanted to rush back into the Fortress chamber, another dreaded it. As though they might open the door again and find a cold, dead place. As if her very presence there might have tainted it. “Why do I feel that way?” She shifted closer to Vicar out of instinct, fearing that he might vanish too. That this might all be some sort of dream. “Why do I suddenly feel so displaced? So evil and good all at once?”
“Because that’s what it feels like to suffer multiple personalities.” He kept her close and steered her down the hallway back in the direction of his chamber. “Witnessing those memories affected not just this side of you but your other half. A side capable of anything. Or so you assume.” He shook his head. “It might seem like it sometimes, but your other side isn't evil. It’s just following its natural instincts.” He stopped outside his door and tilted her chin until she had no choice but to look at him. “You’re no more evil than I am, Trinity. You’re just a victim of circumstance...”
She didn’t blame him when he trailed off. Hadn’t she uttered those very words to him at one time? Theyhaddiscussed their Múspellsheimr sides before. And while she meant to say something, anything, she got caught up yet again by the feel of his fingers against her skin. At their weapon-roughened texture and the intensity simmering between them.
She’d been kissed enough by other men but never lost herself like she had when he kissed her on the ship. Never felt the entire world melt away. It was as if he held her suspended in a romantic oasis. All-consuming didn’t begin to describe it. She’d felt like she was coming home but at the same time, kissing a man for the first time.
“What happened to us, Vicar?” she whispered, understanding what Jade must have suffered when she learned Thorulf had been ripped from her memory. “Who did this to us?”
Was it her? She didn’t think so. Vicar? Impossible to imagine. Raven? Maybe. But even then, it felt off somehow. Like she might have played a part in all this but was by no means the sole culprit.
“I don’t know,” Vicar murmured, clearly remembering the kiss as well when his gaze fell to her lips in that I-want-to-eat-you-alive way of his. A way that made her knees so weak, she was surprised they still held her up. How could she have ever forgotten the way the golden hue of his eyes darkened with desire just for her? How the feel of his gaze set her inner beast on fire?
“You don’t know?” she whispered, mindlessly repeating his words, falling into him like a woman diving headfirst into love while at the same time clawing her way to the surface.
Not just clawing but luring.
Gaining strength to attack.
“I don’t know,” he repeated before he blinked and snapped out of wherever she'd been taking him.
“Don’t,” he growled. His words came from a great distance away like they had at the armory. “Don’t try to gain strength and understanding by letting your Múspellsheimr side take over. By allowing her to lure me.” He pressed something cold and hard into her hand. “You find strength in this, Trinity. In Alfheim.”
Disgusted, not herself at all, she nearly tossed whatever he’d put in her hand away but stopped short when warmth curled through her. Once again, she had the sensation of jolting awake, only this time he’d pressed their Alfheim stone into her palm to bring her back.
“My other half is getting stronger,” she said, trying to get her bearings. Trying to get a better sense of her other personality. She might not be evil, but she certainly was ambitious. “She’s just realized Violence can help her take your position among your followers.” Sensing even more, she looked at him with concern. “And I think she’s aiming even higher now.”
Vicar narrowed his eyes as if catching not just the intent of her inner self but something else as well. “My Múspellsheimr side knows.” He sighed and shook his head. “Worse yet, I think he’s daring her to do it.” He winced. “All the more reason to do away with her.”
Say what? “Do away with me?”
“Do away withher,” he corrected. “He wants you to live but her to vanish.”
“While I appreciate the sentiment,” she replied, “I’m not sure it works that way.”
“Yet he seems determined to see it happen.” He offered an apologetic look. “Not out of any sort of sentiment, I’m afraid, but because he sees the benefit in keeping your less-threatening side alive and well.”
“Ah.” The flash of hurt she felt caught her off guard. “Keep me meek, and his alpha position remains solid. I’m no longer a threat.”
“That would be the idea.” He gave her a reassuring look. “What he forgets is my Sigdir side has a much stronger, if not more permanent hold, as long as this side of you is surfaced.” He shrugged. “Who knows? Perhaps in destroying your other half, he’ll destroy himself too.”
“No.” She might have replied instinctively, but she meant it. “I don’t want that, Vicar.”
He frowned, a little wounded. Even jealous if she didn’t know better. “Why not?”
