Aegyir Rises (Guardians of The Realm Book 1) Read online

  Our cottage lay on the very outskirts of the town – once you were past our lane, you hit the countryside. We were the last of three old farm labourer houses, clustered together on a side-road. At the end of the side road, next to our place, fields led up to an escarpment. The gym lay on the other side of town, about twenty minutes away.

  Grey clouds covered the sky and I shrugged my leather jacket closer around me and jammed my hands in the pockets to keep warm. A residential area lay between our cottage and the centre of town and I peered into the gardens as I walked, smiling at the near-identical squares of neatly mown lawns surrounded by a strip of border. A dampness coated the air and I smelled leaf-mould and mushrooms as I passed the one garden that had been converted into a vegetable plot. Maybe one day, Finn and I would have a place like this.

  As I turned on to the main shopping area, my attention was pulled away from trying to imagine life as a suburban housewife with 2.2 children. A young lad, maybe seventeen or eighteen, was hassling a woman in her forties. Nothing serious – just catcalling and suggestive hand gestures – but it was enough to flip a switch in me.

  “Hey! Fuck off!” I sprinted towards them, ready to weigh in.

  It wasn’t necessary. The lad took one look at me charging towards him and legged it, ducking and weaving past the few shoppers on the street, before shooting across the road, making a car brake sharply and honk loudly. I turned to the woman, who rapidly took five steps away from me.

  “You okay?” I said, catching my breath and reaching out to touch her shoulder in a gesture of comfort and solidarity.

  She clamped her bag against her chest, eyes wide. “Leave me alone!”

  “I’m not—” I held my hands up, palms out. “I was just checking you’re okay.”

  “Go away! Leave me alone! I’m calling the police!” She yanked her phone out of her coat pocket, her knuckles white, shielding her handbag from me.

  Did she think I was about to rob her?

  I backed away, hands still raised. “Forget it. Just forget it!”

  I sucked a deep breath in, injustice burning my core. I’d been trying to help her. The woman caught a sob in her throat and hurried away from me towards an older woman who’d loomed into view. Margaret Thatcher handbag; sensible flat shoes under a tweed skirt. Yeah, she wasn’t going to ring any alarm bells. She slid her arm around the younger woman’s shoulders.

  “You okay, pet?” she said, casting me a filthy look over her shoulder and leading the younger woman away from me.

  I didn’t hear the reply, but I understood the body language alright. I closed my eyes, biting my lip, and turned towards the road leading to the gym. My scowl hadn’t lifted by the time I met Finn in the staff-room.

  “What’s up?” he said, frowning as he got up from the comfy seats.

  I told him. When I finished, he scruffed my hair up affectionately. “You did the right thing.”

  “Except she was more scared of me than the yob who was giving her grief! Why is it that whenever I try to help someone, it all goes tits up?”

  Finn’s gaze travelled over me, pausing on the studs in my ears and nose before he quirked a brow up.

  “Yeah, okay. Maybe the sight of me running full pelt towards her wasn’t entirely reassuring,” I said. I was in my full war-paint and clad in black leather.

  “You think you might possibly be on a hair-trigger this week? I mean, you didn’t need to run at them.”

  I glowered at him, making him laugh.

  “Come on then. Let’s go work this out of your system. Your heart’s in the right place.” He winked at me. “Though you might need to finesse the execution a bit.”

  Story of my life.

  3

  An hour later and I’d blocked Finn’s mock attacks and pretend-poked his eyes out for the umpteenth time. Always one to believe women should be able to defend themselves, he’d been teaching me self-defence since we first met, when I was fourteen and he was fifteen. The bullies at school got a rude awakening that year.

  A manoeuvre later, I caught him off guard, smacking him in the midriff and making him cough and clutch himself.

  “Oof! Enough. I get to box now. Come and hold the bag.” He swiped his palm across his middle, smiling at me.

  “Sorry.”

  I held the bag steady for him, wondering who he was imagining punching the lights out of. He settled into a steady rhythm, so focused that I wasn’t sure he was still on earth. Slowly, he drifted back to the here and now, finishing his workout with a volley of punches before stepping back, breathing hard. I hoped to God he didn’t end up hitting Stephen like this. I couldn’t bear to lose Finn, and John would make sure he’d be put away for a long time if Finn even sneezed too violently in Stephen’s vicinity.

  I arched a brow at him and he gave me a sheepish grin, slick with sweat.

  “I promise, I’ll keep my cool if I see him,” he said, untaping his hands.

  I nodded curtly. I wasn’t sure I would.

  ***

  “Pub on The Hill for lunch?” suggested Finn when he joined me in the gym cafe, showered and changed.

  “Perfect.”

  I jammed my fingers into the back pocket of his jeans and he looped his arm over my shoulders, kissing the top of my head. Outside, I squeezed in behind him on the bike and wrapped my arms around his waist. He kicked the stand up and we roared off, leaving dust swirling in our wake as we headed out of town and up to the pub.

  The Pub on The Hill was an old favourite of mine and Finn’s. It did good food and real ales and there was usually a table near a fire to be had at this time of the year if you timed it right. We found seats next to a wood-burning stove, tucked the helmets under the table and shed our jackets in the warmth. I’d seen Finn scan the pumps with interest as we came in.

  “You want me to drive back?” I said, half hoping he didn’t. “They’ve got two guest ales on I think.”

  Finn wouldn’t even drink the froth off a pint if he was driving. “Mind?”

  I groaned internally but shook my head.

  The cosiness of the pub, the good food and being able to have a laugh with the man I loved, allowed the knots of tension to melt away.

  “You know me too well,” I said as we finished the main course and ordered more drinks. He cocked an eyebrow at me. “Coming here. Thank you. It’s what I needed.”

  “I only came for the beer,” he said, winking. “Knew you’d drive back.”

  I leaned back in my seat, breathing in the scent of wood smoke. “Why do you want to get a dog? Has your mum put you up to it? Practice for potential grandkids?”

  He laughed loudly. “Much as she would love us to be providing her with grandkids, no, she didn’t suggest we get a dog.”

  Finn’s mum wasn’t the only one who would love us to have kids; Finn did too. He’d make a fantastic father. I’d make a terrible mother.

  He picked his glass up. “Anyway, she’d want me to be a good Catholic boy and marry you before we had kids.”

  “She doesn’t seem to mind you being a terrible Catholic boy and living in sin for years.”

  Finn’s eyes met mine over the top of his beer. “Are you wanting me to make an honest woman of you?”

  “No. Relax.”

  He wasn’t stressed.

  His attention wound out to the bar and he stared for a few minutes, only looking back when the waitress brought dessert menus.

  “Share one? Or are you up to a whole one to yourself?” Finn asked, scrutinising the card.

  “I’ll just have a bit of yours if you’re having one.”

  He nodded and his gaze drifted back over my shoulder.

  “Is she very pretty?” I asked, my voice full of hard edges.

  He turned back to me, puzzled. “Who?”

  “Whoever it is that you can’t take your eyes off. At the bar.”

  He winced. “No one.”

  “You are such a shit liar.”

  I swivelled in my seat to scan the bar. Joh
n and Helen stood nursing drinks, Helen’s too-tight jeans squashing her curves into a muffin-top, John’s rigid posture under his fleece top telling me he knew we were there. I slewed back round before they could make eye contact.

  “Sorry. I didn’t know whether to tell you or not.” Finn bunched his lips in apology.

  “If they come over, we’re leaving.”

  “No, we’re not. I haven’t finished my pint. And we were gonna share a pudding.”

  On cue, the waitress returned, brows raised, pencil poised.

  “Er, yeah. Can we get a Death by Chocolate and two spoons please?”

  Finn handed the menus back and slid his hand into mine. “Helen’s on her way over.” His grip on my hand tightened, his face telling me to stay put.

  “Reagan. Finn,” she said, standing next to the table.

  Her eyes picked over the piercing in my nose and the line of studs in my ear. I regretted not putting my war-paint on after training. Her focus shifted to Finn and her lip curled slightly.

  “Did you want something? Other than to spoil our day?” The tension ground into my shoulders.

  Helen took a couple of deep breaths, her scraped-back fake-auburn hair pulling her face tight. “Reagan, I thought you should know that Stephen will be out on Thursday. He’ll come and stay with me and John.”

  “Thursday?” I said. “You’re kidding me!” The anniversary of Sarah taking her own life. “Christ, Sarah’s parents will be gutted.”

  She swallowed, twisting her wedding ring round. “Yes. Well. I didn’t make the decision.”

  “You made the decision to hire that scumbag lawyer to defend Stephen. If he’d had even a shred of humanity, he wouldn’t have questioned her like that. Sarah had been through more than enough, yet you sat back and watched as he asked her questions about her sex life and made out she was a slut. How would you have felt, having to answer questions like that in front of a roomful of strangers?”

  “Stephen was entitled to a defence,” she said, thin-lipped, her make-up settling into the lines around her mouth.

  “No, he wasn’t, because he was guilty and should have pleaded that.”

  My voice rose and Finn pressed on my hand, trying to calm me. Faces began turning in our direction.

  “Your step-son took explicit pictures of her, without her permission, then shared them online when they broke up,” I said. “He humiliated her. And instead of doing the decent thing and persuading him to plead guilty, you hired that sleazy bastard and put her through more hell.”

  Helen planted her hands on her hips, glaring. “Maybe you should remember who persuaded her to take it to court.”

  I shot to my feet. “Get out of my fucking sight, Helen. I will never forgive you or John for supporting Stephen. Never. You might as well have thrown her off the escarpment yourselves.”

  She opened her mouth but Finn rose before she could speak, standing in her personal space and drawing himself up to his full six foot four.

  “I think you should probably go now, Mrs Gray.”

  I smiled internally. Finn only ever called her by her proper name when he was seriously pissed off, emphasising that she and I no longer shared a surname. I’d kept Paul’s surname – Bennett – when Helen remarried, one more thing we’d argued about. Helen retreated back to the bar. John scowled in our direction and I had to work hard not to stick two fingers up at him.

  We both sat again and Finn rubbed my knuckles. “You okay?”

  “Just peachy. Are they leaving?”

  He peered over my shoulder again. “Mm. John’s downed his drink and they’re putting coats on. What work have you got this week?”

  “Twenty hours. I’ll keep the door locked at home.”

  That hadn’t worked last time. Stephen had smashed it in, in a drunken rage, before beating the shit out of me for persuading Sarah to report him to the police. Finn had come back just as I was losing consciousness. Only the fact that I’d needed an ambulance had stopped him from killing Stephen on the spot.

  I took a deep breath and exhaled hard, trying to blow away the memories.

  “The papers are going nuts about the fracking.” I tilted my head towards a table where copies of the local rag sat piled up, full of doom-laden headlines about how the region would be desecrated. “You think the oil company will ride it out?”

  “Dunno. I hope not.”

  We’d already had to take a circuitous route to the pub to avoid a bunch of placard-waving angry protesters. At the outset, the company had made it all sound so innocuous; so beneficial. There would be jobs and opportunities. No one mentioned the downsides. No one said that the new jobs and new opportunities wouldn’t actually go to the locals. Maybe the tide would turn in the protesters’ favour but it was too late to stop the fracking. The main process had already started.

  You’d never be able to put a Green label on Finn and make it stick, but he adored the countryside and being outdoors and despised the thought of even a tiny portion of it being spoiled.

  He leaned back in his seat, licking the froth of beer from his lip. “I hope they find nothing down there and it will all have been a monumental waste of time and money.” He tweaked my fingers, brightening suddenly. “Hey. Pudding’s arrived.”

  I smiled, despite myself. If only all of life’s problems could be solved by chocolate.

  ***

  By the time we left the pub it was dark and pouring with rain – my least favourite road conditions. Finn gave me a sympathetic look as we stepped out, but there were no other options except for me to drive so I fired up the bike, feeling him slide in behind me and wrap his arms around my middle. I drove back only doing about half the speed we’d done getting to the pub but he wouldn’t care.

  Back at the house, Finn put the bike away in the shed opposite the cottage while I scooted into the dry. He joined me in the kitchen, stripping off his wet jacket and hanging it over the back of a chair. Mine was already dripping on the cracked lino.

  I checked the time. My shifts at the gym meant I was free most Sundays and I normally Skyped with Paul every couple of weeks.

  “I’m going to get changed. Can you listen out in case Paul calls?”

  “Sure.”

  I hurried upstairs to get out of my wet clothes. As I was coming back downstairs, Finn said, “He’s out this week.”

  I ducked into the lounge and Finn smiled up at me. “She’s here now. Back in a bit Paul. I’m soaked.”

  He handed the laptop over and I settled myself into the corner of the worn sofa. “Hey, Paul. How are you?”

  “Oh, I’m fine, Reagan. Finn said that Stephen’s going to stay with Helen and John.” A frown settled. “Sarah’s family must be horrified.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Horrified barely covered it.

  Paul was in the swish conservatory of his house down south. From the windows behind him, it was raining as hard there as it was with us. I’d almost moved to the south when he did. When everything had been going so wrong with Helen and John and Stephen, he’d offered yet again for me to go and live with him, but by that time, Finn and I were together and so I’d stayed in the north.

  Finn came back into the room, scrubbing his hair with a towel. He plonked himself on the sofa and slipped his arm around me. “How’s Livi?” he asked Paul.

  Paul’s partner, though they hadn’t married. She had a son and a daughter almost the same age as me and Finn, but I didn’t really know any of them. Livi rarely joined the Skype chats and I knew it was because Paul wanted it to be time for me.

  “Oh, she’s fine. Off to a pal’s at the moment. Divorce woes. The pal’s, not Livi. Obviously.”

  I laughed. “Obviously. You still sure you won’t get married?”

  “As sure as the seven hundred other times you’ve asked that. And if we’re on that topic… Finn, when are you going to ask me about marrying my daughter?”

  Finn pinked lightly and didn’t reply. Paul didn’t push it. Unlike Helen, Paul loved Finn. He was a me
chanical engineer – hence helping to rebuild the bike with Finn. Paul would be delighted if we got hitched.

  “Did you want me to come up?” asked Paul. “When Stephen’s out.”

  The corner of my mouth lifted. “No offence, Paul, but if Finn can’t protect me, I’m not sure you can.”

  Finn stifled a snort behind me. Paul wasn’t even as tall as me and had the build of a whippet.

  “That’s not what I meant. Did you want me to talk to Helen and John?”

  “I wouldn’t waste your petrol driving up,” I said. “You could phone her, but she won’t listen.”

  “She wouldn’t even answer. At least if I had my foot in the door, she’d have to hear me out. I don’t like the idea of Stephen being so close.”

  A warmth crept through me. “I know. And it’s really lovely of you to offer, but you’d be wasting your time.”

  Paul let it drop. We chatted on for a bit, catching up on each other’s news before promising to call again in a fortnight. I closed down the laptop and put it on the low table in front of the sofa. Made from old wooden beer-crates, it had been a present to Finn from his best friend, Rick, and was the only piece of furniture we actually owned. Finn drew me against him, wriggling until we were stretched out together on the sofa.

  “You okay?” he said, tracing circles on the small of my back.

  I propped myself up to look at him. “The man who almost beat me to death is getting released from prison on the anniversary that my best friend threw herself off a cliff. If I hadn’t persuaded Sarah to go to the police, Stephen wouldn’t have attacked me and Sarah wouldn’t have been put through so much hell that she couldn’t bear to go on. No. I’m not okay.”

  I pressed my forehead into his neck.

  “It’s not your fault. You can’t keep blaming yourself for any of this.” He teased his fingers through my hair.

  “Who should I blame?”

  “Stephen! You didn’t do anything! You were an amazing friend to her. If she hadn’t gone to the police, she’d still have been put through hell, because Stephen had shared the files. He now has a criminal record and is on the sex offenders list.”