FREYA 18
“Is he upset?” I can feel my stomach tense in nervousness when I think of what Tor will say. I feel like a schoolgirl again called to her teacher’s classroom after school for something I did wrong.
Dane shrugs as he guides me towards Tor’s office.
“Dane?” I call, irritated that he’s not answering.
“What did you expect when breaking into his drawers?” he asks in a matter-of-fact voice.
I stop a couple of feet away from the office. “What will he do?”
“It will be fine, Freya, but he wants to talk to you and Anastasia.” The knots in my stomach have grown and are now making me feel sick. I asked Dane if Tor was upset with him because we didn’t listen, but he merely shrugged and now Tor wants to speak to us. Dane’s finger is stroking my hand as he opens the door to Tor’s office. The first person I see is Ulrich squatting down before Anastasia as she sits on the chair in front of Tor’s desk. Walking in, I realize Tor isn’t here.
“Looks like we’re in trouble,” Anastasia says as she glances at me.
“Where’s Tor?” I ask as I sit down on the chair next to Anastasia.
“He’s coming,” Ulrich says as he stands, his muscles rippling as he throws a weary glance at Dane just as the door opens and Tor walks in. The first thing I notice is his scowl, he doesn’t seem happy, and an unhappy Tor is not good for anyone. He walks around his desk and sits, facing us. At first, he doesn’t say anything as he takes both of us in. I can feel my hands shaking slightly in nervousness until Dane’s hand rests on my shoulder, which, in a tiny way, gives me comfort knowing that Dane won’t let anything happen.
“Here at the club, we need to be able to trust everyone here…” Tor begins, his voice low as if talking to children. “Do the two of you think we can trust you when you break into things that are locked for a reason?”
“We just wanted to go out, Tor, you need to understand that we were locked at the club for two whole weeks,” Anastasia argues, which has Tor leaning forward as he places his elbows on his desk.
“This is far from being a prison, Anastasia,” he reminds her in a hard voice, “and if you felt so closed in, why didn’t you ask your mate to take you out?”
I see Anastasia glance up at Ulrich. “To be fair . . .” Ulrich starts, but Tor lifts his hand to stop him.
“You had your turn earlier.” That tells me that Tor has gone through this with the men before he called us in.
“Look, unfortunately it isn’t always safe when you’re with an Elemental, therefore, we have to make decisions to keep those around us safe. If you don’t listen, then you’re not safe, which will in turn, jeopardize my men’s lives, and I don’t like that.”
“We didn’t think,” I murmur, understanding where he is coming from. I know that by Dane and Ulrich coming after us, we jeopardized the other men that they were with at the time.
“I need everyone in this club to pull together so we can keep you and everyone else safe.” He looks at the men, his eyes a freezing blue. I sense that there is a message in his eyes that I don’t know, but I feel that the men do. “I don’t want this to happen again. If you want to go out gallivanting, then by all means, do it, but safely. I will make sure that the prospects are ready to accompany you when you want, but with one condition,” his eyes bore into the two of us before he continues, “that your mates know what you are planning at all times.”
I’m surprised he is consenting to having prospects accompany us whenever we need it. “Thank you,” I say.
Anastasia nods her thanks.
“You can go,” he says with a grunt which has me quickly standing to leave, just as we get to the door his words stop us again. “And next time you think to break into something that I’ve locked away, don’t.” His words are hard, forceful, and I know that out of everything, he is not pleased that we went into his locked drawer.
“Well, that wasn’t very pleasant, now was it?” Anastasia mumbles.
“If you didn’t decide to go and eat cake when I asked you not to go out, then you wouldn’t have to listen to him,” Ulrich argues as they make their way down the corridor.
“Which of you broke into his drawer?” Dane asks.
Looking up at him as we walk into the kitchen, I shrug. “Doesn’t matter, does it?”
“I thought so,” he says.
“What?”
“I knew it wasn’t you.”
“How did you know that?”
“Well, besides the fact that Tor has a camera in his office, I didn’t feel that you were the one that went to get the key.”