Chapter 9 #2
“Aric?” I angle my head toward him.
No response.
Instinctively, my gaze follows his, and I see it.
A massive branch sprawled across the road, thick enough that no car could pass without removing it.
Except it wasn’t here on our way to Asgard.
And branches this size don’t fall cleanly.
They rip. They leave chaos—splintered wood, scattered debris, evidence of the storm that tore them loose. This one looks… placed.
Aric curses in Norwegian under his breath. I know because I’ve made a point of learning a few words since my arrival—specifically, the profanities. Men swear like it’s their religion. Seemed like an obvious place to start.
“Stay in the car,” he orders, already reaching for the door handle.
Which is exactly why I open mine.
“Ayanna—”
At least he calls me by my name. Worth it.
“I’m not sitting inside like a terrified puppy just because you said so.” I shrug, stepping out before he can stop me.
His glare could freeze lava. “You do what I tell you when I tell you.”
“Yeah, that’s working out great for us so far.”
He steps out, and for a split second, I stay by the door—long enough to watch him scan the tree line, the shadows between branches, the angles where threats could hide.
His body shifts into something I haven’t seen before.
Not the cold businessman. Not the distant husband.
Something predatory. Alert. Dangerous in a way that makes my pulse trip over itself.
Then I follow.
He whirls around as if he can sense me. “Ayanna. In the damn car.”
“No.”
His jaw tightens. “Get back—”
The gunshot swallows the rest of his sentence.
I don’t see the bullet. Don’t see where it lands. I only feel Aric—all six feet five inches of him—collide with me like a wall of muscle and instinct. One arm locks around my waist, the other cups the back of my skull, and then the world tilts violently as he takes us both over the embankment.
We hit the frozen ground hard. My breath leaves in a sharp gasp, spine absorbing the impact, but he’s already shifting—rolling us deeper into the embankment, pressing me into the cold earth with his body as a shield.
His chest covers mine. His arms cage me.
Every hard line of him is wrapped around me like he’s trying to absorb whatever comes next before it can reach me.
Another shot cracks through the night. Bark explodes off a tree inches from where my head was a second ago.
“Aric—”
“Quiet.” His command is little more than a rasp, dragged through clenched teeth.
A third shot. His body jerks above me—a sharp, involuntary flinch—and his breath stutters. His muscles seize.
Oh God. He was hit.
Panic claws through my chest, but he doesn’t move. Doesn’t pull away. If anything, he presses down harder, covering every inch of me with his body as if the bullet lodged somewhere inside him is irrelevant compared to the ones still coming.
“Tassilo!” Aric roars as another bullet slams into the dirt behind us.
The convoy erupts—doors slamming open, men shouting, boots hitting gravel.
Tassilo shows up like a demon summoned from hell, gun raised, eyes scanning every tree.
His gaze snaps to Aric, then to me beneath him, and his expression doesn’t change.
Not even a flicker. Even in chaos, he looks like a man who hates the entire world and has long since stopped pretending otherwise.
“Sector west!” Aric growls, the sound rough with pain. “Shooter’s moving.”
Tassilo nods and signals the others. Men scatter as though it’s choreography, and I’m the only one who doesn’t know the steps.
Then something warm drips onto my collarbone.
Blood. Not mine.
“Aric,” I breathe, panic tightening my throat like a fist. “You’re bleeding—”
“I know.”
“You’re shot—”
“I know, Ayanna.”
His voice is steady, but I feel his muscles trembling against me, not from cold or fear. From the effort of holding himself together while his body tries to fall apart. And the guilt hits me like a wave I didn’t see coming, dragging me under before I can catch my breath.
This is my fault.
I didn’t listen. I didn’t stay in the car. And now his blood is seeping into my dress, because he chose my life over his, and all he’d asked me to do was stay in the damn car.
He tries to lift himself off me but winces—jaw clenched, teeth bared, a sound caught somewhere between a grunt and a snarl. The movement drags another dark smear across the velvet of my dress, and fresh warmth blooms against my skin.
“Aric, stop—let me help—”
“Your job,” he grits out, “is to not get killed tonight.”
“And yours is to bleed out protecting me?”
His eyes flash to mine—pale blue burning through the darkness. “If that’s what it takes.”
The words steal the breath from my lungs. I don’t know what to do with them. Don’t know where to put the way they make my chest ache, the way they terrify me more than the bullets still ricocheting through the trees.
He finally manages to push himself up, bracing one arm against the frozen ground, the other pressed to his side.
He’s pale. Too pale.
Tassilo climbs halfway down the embankment and gestures. “Boss, we need to move.”
Aric nods, swallowing pain like it’s nothing. Then he turns those storm-dark eyes on me. “You’re going with Tassilo.”
“What?” My voice pitches higher than I’d like. “No. I’m not leaving you here—”
“Ayanna.” My name lands like an order. “Go with him. For fuck’s sake, listen to me. For once.”
Tassilo extends a gloved hand to me.
I hesitate, and Aric sees it. His jaw ticks, but whether from pain or frustration, I can’t tell.
“Please.” The word is barely more than a rasp, and something inside me gives way because Aric Vold doesn’t say please. Not to anyone. Not for anything.
I let out a shaky breath and nod.
Tassilo grips my hand, pulling me up the embankment. He positions his body between me and the treeline like it’s reflex, like shielding people from bullets is as natural as breathing.
I turn back to Aric. My heart splinters at the sight of him.
He’s still on the ground, one hand pressed to his side, blood seeping between his fingers. Because of me. Because I didn’t listen. This should’ve been me.
My jaw tightens. I want to stay. I want to put pressure on the wound and hold him together with my own hands if I have to. I want to scream at him for being reckless and brave and so infuriatingly noble that it makes me want to strangle him and kiss him in the same breath.
But I also want him alive.
The moment can’t last more than a few seconds, but to me, it feels infinitely longer.
Then his men form a wall around him, and he’s gone from sight.
My mind races as Tassilo moves me toward the vehicle.
This night. This road. This fallen branch that looked too clean and too deliberate.
None of it was an accident. Whoever fired that bullet wasn’t trying to rob us or send a warning.
They were shooting at Aric or me, or us both, with the intent to kill.