Perfekt Balance (The Ære Saga Book 3) by S.T. Bende Read Free Book Online

enthusiastic kiss square on his
mouth. He groaned in approval, then dipped her low, resting one
hand on the back of her black tank top, and wrapping the other
around her blond waves.
    I raised an eyebrow at Forse. “It looks like
it’s just you and me.”
    Forse didn’t crack a smile.
    I sighed. Everything had been so easy back on
the couch, but that might as well have been a century ago. Now,
Forse’s shoulders were drawn against his black V-neck shirt, and
his voice cracked with stress. “Let’s just get this job over
with.”
    My fingers grazed Forse’s thick biceps as I
pushed confident energy at him. “We’ve got this.”
    “ Maybe.”
Forse’s eyes narrowed. He was so not receptive to the optimism I sent his way.
“This whole mission feels like a trap.”
    I pushed out a more forceful wave of
confidence. “If it is, we’ve got a strong team to thwart it.”
    Forse’s brow didn’t smooth one bit, but he
did give a slight nod. And when Tyr set Mia on her feet and grabbed
the brown paper bag from my hands, Forse took my hand and pulled me
after him.
    “Henrik, enough already. You’ll see Brynn in
a few hours; a day, tops,” Tyr barked.
    Henrik reluctantly released our valkyrie, and
Brynn skipped to Tyr’s side. “Miss you,” she said breathily.
    “ Take
care, sötnos .
Tell the dark elves we said hei .” Henrik grinned.
    “Henrik, give us the breakdown on the tech
you’re sending with us,” Tyr ordered.
    “Brynn’s got the brighteners, the extractors,
and Elsa’s emergency healing kit in her backpack,” Henrik
responded.
    “Oh, give me the healing kit. There’s one
more thing I need to add.” I held out my hand and Henrik passed
over the bag. While he and Forse spoke quietly about another piece
of technology they were working on, I removed my new necklace. I
couldn’t risk losing something so precious on the wild ride that
was the Bifrost, but I couldn’t bear to leave it behind, either.
With a breath, I held the larimar in my hand, infusing it with
extra love and healing before placing the crystal in the emergency
bag, where it could energize the other stones. It might have been
overkill, but we needed all the help we could get.
    When I’d tucked the necklace into the healing
kit, Henrik held out his hand and waggled his fingers. I handed
over the backpack.
    “ Takk . So our newest piece of tech is something Forse and I have
been developing off one of Mia’s sketches.” Henrik pulled a
palm-sized tablet out of the bag, then handed it to Forse. “Keep
this on you. It’s the modified locator.”
    “Were you able to decrease the track time and
up the search radius like we talked about?” Forse asked.
    Henrik
shook his head. “I’m sorry, kille . I gave it my best, but I haven’t been able to
conform the älva dust to the specs we wanted. I’ve adjusted the device so it
remains functional under twice the amount of dark magic it could
handle before—so now it should be able to track subjects in even
the blackest regions of Svartalfheim. But if the dark elves do the
impossible and find a way to throw out Helheim-level dark energy,
the locator’s not going to be able to trace the
subject.”
    “No trace at all?” Forse asked.
    “No,” Henrik confirmed. “But honestly, that
level of bad juju is rarely conjured outside of Hel’s inner
sanctum. On their own, the dark elves can’t produce anywhere close
to the amount of dark magic this baby can handle now. And I’ve
altered it so it’s got a few-hour track time—it should take two to
four hours, hopefully less, to locate a subject.”
    “That’s longer than it took before.” Forse
frowned.
    Henrik
shrugged. “Adjusting the älva dust had a price. We had to compromise speed for
strength.”
    The
rumble in Forse’s throat let me know he was not happy.
    “Mia and I will keep working on the
blueprints from this end. In the meantime, everybody, take one of
these.” Henrik pulled four thin plastic strips out of the