Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
“Ooooh!” the OOPS gang, as she’d now come to almost lovingly call them, shouted in unison.
“It’s all right, Dom!” Marty encouraged from her seat on the stone bench at the entry to Nina’s hedge maze.
Dressed in a bright red coat with a furry collar and matching boots, she raised her fist high in the air.
“You got this, honey! Remember to take a deep breath and plant your feet in the ground. Stand firm!”
“You’re a badass bitch, Dom! Show ’em what a badass bitch can do!” Nina called out, her hands bracketing her mouth.
Nina was a badass. Dom? She was just showing her ass at this point. But the vampire was an amazing example of tenacity. According to everyone, she never gave up, no matter the fight.
In their own way, they were all tough as nails. Some of the battles they’d fought, as retold by Arch and Carl around the dinner table, left Dom in disbelief at their courage.
And the more time she spent with them, the more she wanted to be like them. To prove to them she was worthy of their investment of time.
But how in all of Midgard was she ever going to save the world when she couldn’t even catch MC without face planting?
That was only phase one of the lessons she needed to learn about harnessing MC’s power. There were other tasks to learn, like how to use MC to strike the precise weak spot of a serpent named Jormungandr if he attacked.
Or how to hide her fear if a Mangog were to wriggle its way into this mess she was in. Fear made her easy prey for a Mangog.
What she didn’t understand was why it had been so easy to pick up MC and launch him to the floor of her townhouse a few days ago, and now, she could barely catch his handle before she wiped out.
Harvey said the answer was simple—because it had been in the heat of the moment and she’d panicked.
Wasn’t her grandfather’s life in jeopardy enough to make her panic? She’d been in panic mode since this all began. What was so different now?
And then there was Harvey. He was invested, too. He cheered as hard for her as everyone else…but there was something he still hid, and she couldn’t figure out what.
Regardless, he was by her side the entire way. Offering advice he’d learned from his father, helping her with her stance, teaching her all the things she needed to know about being MC’s guardian.
She appreciated all of it, every second.
What she didn’t appreciate were the butterflies in her stomach when he stood behind her to position her hand, his broad chest pressed against her back, or the crazy anticipation she felt when she rose each day and they had coffee together, just the two of them, before she set out to begin another day of failure.
She liked him. He was everything all her past boyfriends were not.
Considerate, funny, patient. Rock steady in his devotion to MC and their cause.
Though, the obvious reasons to find herself attracted to him were no longer enough to sustain her interest. He was beautiful to look at, but she’d had pretty before. She was done with those days.
Yet, every time they sat together in the quiet of dawn, sipping coffee while they waited for the rest of the castle to rise, she literally fought the urge to lay one on him, right there in the glow of Nina’s vast kitchen.
He stirred a different kind of attraction in her—one that had more depth and complexity than she’d ever before experienced.
And she kept reminding herself, she had enough on her plate. She didn’t know if people assigned to save the world dated or even got out much, but right now, her focus had to be on keeping her grandfather and everyone around her safe.
Jumping to her feet, her bones battered, her body bruised, Dom shook off her aches and pains and stood as tall and unbending as her bent spine would allow.
Her spine wasn’t really bent, but it sure felt like it was, since she’d begun this quest to master the art of wielding MC with even a modicum of expertise.
Rolling up the sleeves of her flannel jacket, a fabric she wouldn’t have been caught dead in a week ago, she rolled her head on her neck and worked out the kinks from being slammed to the ground more times than she cared to count.
They’d been practicing for four days now, and all four days, the women, Fletcher, Carl, Arch, Tottington and Harvey, too, had sat outside in the dropping temperatures of fall, under gray, cloud-filled skies, cheering her on like her own personal paranormal cheer team.
For hours at a time.
While the leaves fell and a snowflake or two had appeared, they never left their places on the benches. Even little Charlie, her silky dark, curly hair in pigtails, had come outside with Nina, shaking pom-poms to root her to victory.
Fletch soared above from tree to tree, flapping his wings, squawking when Dom fell, pecking at her cheek when she didn’t think she had it in her to get back up again. Until she did. And she kept getting back up, until she almost couldn’t stand without wobbling.
Last night, Harvey had ended up forcing her to stop practicing by hauling her over his shoulder and taking her upstairs to her room in Nina’s castle, plunking her down on the bed while Wanda ran her a scented bath, insisting a tired warrior was a dead warrior.
They were all unflinching in their support. They refused to give up on her, making her that much more determined to soldier on.
If you’d have told her a week ago she’d now be dressed in flannel and some work boots with no makeup, not even lipstick, her hair in a high pony on top of her head, her hands frozen from the cold, trying to catch a hammer in order to save the world, she’d have laughed until she cried.
Yet, here she stood. In the middle of a hedge maze, trying to catch a hammer.
Squaring her shoulders, Dom took a deep breath and called to MC again. “Hammer!” She bellowed the name they’d decided to use into the waning daylight, holding out her hand.
He flew at her with the speed of light.
Instead of watching him come at her, she’d been trying Harvey’s idea of simply waiting for the feel of him, when his cold handle hit her palm.
But thwack!
Yet again, the force of MC knocked her flat. Only this takedown left her a little dazed.
Dom heard heavy footsteps before Nina stood over her, bracketing her body with her feet, holding out her hand.
“Time for a break, Thor Two-Point-O. Take my fucking hand. Arch made hot chocolate with those tiny marshmallows I miss like I miss my beating heart, and snickerdoodles. Hot and fresh from the oven. You’re gonna have some in my honor and take a GD break. Get up.”
Dom took her hand but shook her head as she rose to her feet. “No. I can’t stop now, Nina.”
But Nina gripped her hand harder, pulling her toward the group. “You can and you fucking will. Don’t make me haul your ass outta here. I think we know I can.” She pointed to the bench, where Arch and Tottington had set up on one of the concrete tables.
A tendril of steam rose from a large kettle, and the scent of baked goods wafted to her nose. Her mouth watered. Maybe a break wouldn’t hurt. They were Arch’s snickerdoodles, after all…
She let Nina lead her over to the bench, where Arch poured her a steaming mug of hot chocolate with a smile, as Marty fluffed up a heated blanket for her to sit on and Wanda made her a plate.
Arch smiled at her with that genuine gleam in his eyes. “You are a fine warrior, Mistress Dominique. I do hope you know how much we appreciate your relentless efforts to prevent our doom.”
That word “doom” haunted her every night when she closed her eyes. If she wasn’t so exhausted from simply trying to get hold of MC, she’d never sleep. How could someone like her be responsible for the fate of the entire world?
Still, she smiled at Arch, his blue nose a tiny bit red from the cold.
“If there’s anything that can help whip me into shape, your snickerdoodles have to be high on the list, Arch.
Thank you. And you, too, Tottington.” She reached out and brushed his hand with her frozen fingers.
“I don’t know where I’d be if not for you two and your gourmet feasts.
I don’t think I’ve eaten this well since my papa… ”
They’d gone above and beyond to make her feel comfortable by borrowing some of her papa’s old restaurant recipes he kept in a binder, and making some of her favorites for dinner. Their tag team attempt at pastitsio had been a chef’s kiss that almost made her cry with nostalgia.
Tottington grazed her fingers, his typically stoic face lightening, his eyes kind. “It is my deepest honor to fill your belly with whatever you wish, Miss Dominique, in order to fuel your heart and mind for your fight for humanity.”
Taking a sip of her cocoa, she looked up at them both as the sky began to bruise with the coming night. “You’re both the best. My stomach salutes you.”
Arch chuckled as he headed back toward the house, and they all settled in to enjoy the treats he’d bestowed upon them.
Nina plopped down next to her with one of her blood bags, sipping it like a juice box. Nudging her with her shoulder, she asked, “So…when were you gonna tell us it’s you who owns Remember Me?”
Dom wrapped her hands tighter around the mug and shrugged as she looked off into the distance. “I didn’t think it mattered who owned it.”
Wanda cocked her head with a soft smile on her beautiful face, tugging at one of her pearl earrings. “No. It doesn’t matter, it only emphasizes the good in you, Dom. But you could have told us it was you who turned that place around.”
Marty nodded, brushing the crumbs from her snickerdoodle off her lap with a grin. “You sure did turn it around, Miss Ma’am. Darnell tells us it was on the verge of closing before you stepped in. How’d you save it?”
Dom gulped. That was all true. Try as she might, the nightmare that had been her life before last year never totally left her—even though she’d never have to worry again. She never took the gift she’d been given for granted.