Fall (The Ragnarok Prophesies) (12 page)

“Speaking of,” Gage said to Dace, “you better get over there, or Edwards will be the faculty’s sled captain.”

I gaped. “You’re the sled captain?”

Dace flashed me a crooked grin. “Control freak, remember?”

I shook my head.

Dace leaned down to kiss me. Amusement faded from his mind as his lips worked against mine less gently than they had in weeks. Desperation tinged his kiss, desire and fear so interwoven in his thoughts I couldn’t separate one from the other.

I kissed him back hard before he broke away.

“Stay with Gage, please?” he said, straightening up. Worry clouded his emerald eyes. Not a hint of his earlier smile remained. A touch of panic rippled across our bond. “I’ll be back for you as soon as the race is over.”

“I’ll be fine,” I promised, smiling to reassure him. “Have fun.”

Dace hugged me tight, letting go only when a whistle blew in two loud bursts across the field. He held my gaze for a moment and then turned to Gage. “Don’t let her out of your sight.”

I love you
, he added to me.
The shifters will be in shouting distance, and so will I.

I love you,
I sent as he hurried away with one last worried look over his shoulder at me.

I watched him until the crowd swallowed his lean form, then turned back to Gage and Chelle. I gave them a grim smile.

“No better?” Chelle asked.

Gage offered me his other arm.

I accepted it gratefully as we trudged through the snow to the bleachers. “Not really. He’s out of control.”

“Put yourself in his shoes,” Gage advised. “He’s lost everyone he’s ever cared about, and then he nearly lost you, too. Your destiny aside, that’s bound to cause serious issues for a guy like Dace.”

“I know,” I said, meaning it.

Dace’s mother died before he was old enough to really remember her, leaving him in the care of a father who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, accept his son was different. The man went crazy trying to cure Dace, and then died violently… right in front of Dace. Leaving Dace on his own at fourteen with this big secret he couldn’t tell anyone about. This big secret his father taught him to fear. And then he became responsible for keeping that secret for others as well, only to have me burst into his life and set everything he thought he knew spinning like a top.

I still struggled with the sudden shifting of my entire world, and I hadn’t spent half my life being conditioned to fear myself and what I might do like Dace had. I hated his father for forcing Dace to carry that burden. His dad was supposed to protect him. Instead, he filled Dace’s head with fear and doubt and guilt.

Dace still suffered so much because of it, more than any of us knew, I think.

Even if I didn’t agree with Dace, I understood why he felt like he was cursed. How could he not feel that way when being who he was had brought him nothing but heartache his entire life?

Gage helped me climb the bleachers and get settled beside Chelle. The metal risers were freezing even through the thick blanket Chelle threw over the bench before we sat. I didn’t care, though. I could deal with freezing my ass off. Dealing with the curious glances and hushed whispers floating around wasn’t as easy.

Blending in and laying low was hard to do with everyone in a five-foot radius talking about me. If I made it through the day without having to repeat the pathetic story Dace, my dad, and I concocted about not remembering my attack, it would be a miracle. People had questions. A lot of them.

Dace glanced up from the group of faculty members amassed about thirty yards from the set of bleachers where I sat. He turned in my direction by instinct. Even from a distance, I could read the worry on his face as well as I could the worry in his mind.

I waved, trying to assure him I was fine.

I seriously needed to figure out how to keep every thought in my head from bleeding through to him. Maybe things would be easier for him if he didn’t know how scared I really was. A girl could always hope, right?

“Where’s Beth and Mandy?” I asked as Gage seated himself on the bench behind us, his long legs outstretched so Chelle could lean back against him.

Chelle pointed toward a group clustered close to the faculty.

I followed her finger with my gaze. Her triplet and Mandy were both dressed in bright coats and brighter scarves. They stood on the fringes of the large group, listening as Professor Dodd, one of the younger professors at the college, spoke with them, using his hands to emphasize his point.

“How are they?” I asked Chelle, watching the girls. I hadn’t seen either of them since Beth’s confrontation with Ronan. I hated that juggling destiny with friendship had become so hard. As long as Ronan hung around, though, they wouldn’t come near me. I understood why. Truly, I did. But we needed Ronan, and that meant we had to keep him around. So Beth and Mandy kept their distance, and that sucked. I missed them.

“A little better,” Chelle said.

Another whistle sounded from somewhere on the field.

Dace and three members of the faculty hefted a souped-up dogsled and started toward a large hill on the far side of the quad. A group of students in the crowd around Beth and Mandy did the same with their sled. Cheers and catcalls went up from all sides of the quad.

Professor Dodd said something else to the girls, then walked away.

“Have you told them anything yet?” I asking, spotting Naomi Edwards and another of Dace’s shifters, Jennie, standing a few feet from Beth and Mandy, keeping an unobtrusive watch over them. Not even out here, with hundreds of people around, would Dace let his guard down.

Chelle shook her head. “I still think it’s better if they don’t know. Is that wrong?”

“Wanting to protect them isn’t wrong,” I said.

Chelle handled the truth as well as any of us, but none of this was new to her, either. She might not have known she and her sisters were the direct descendants of a Norse god, but she knew about the existence of this entire other world well before she found out she was as much a part of it as Gage or Dace and me.

Beth and Mandy didn’t know about our world though, and I couldn’t fault Chelle for wanting to keep them in the dark for as long as possible. This world, my world, was terrifying. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, let alone Chelle’s sister and childhood friend. I genuinely hoped they never learned the truth.

Did that make me a hypocrite? Probably. Did that matter to me? Not in the least.

Mandy turned in our direction, seemingly scanning the bleachers. She stopped when her gaze fell on me and Chelle

I waved.

She looked right at me, then turned back around, the set of her shoulders stiff.

“Don’t take it personally,” Chelle leaned in and murmured in my ear. “She’s still upset with Ronan. She doesn’t understand why you’re friends with him, but she’ll come around eventually.”

“Yeah,” I sighed, not sure I believed it. Kidnapping wasn’t exactly a forgivable offense. And I kind of doubted befriending a kidnapper was any better. I shrugged it off though―what else could I do?

The dean strode toward the middle of the makeshift Snowlympics field, presumably to get the games started. The two sledding teams struggled to the top of the hill and got into position with Dace’s guidance.

“Does he participate every year?” I asked.

“Dace is the only hope the faculty has of winning this thing,” Gage said, laughing. “Until he joined their team two years ago, their losing streak was the stuff of legend.”

Dace pointed toward a red line painted into the snow a good four feet from the lip of the hill. He looked so confident, like he had when I first met him. It took me weeks to comprehend that the confidence and self-assurance he exuded were a mask. He wore them like armor, but, underneath the gorgeous exterior, he was as insecure and afraid as the rest of us. He simply hid his insecurities better than most.

That made me a little sad.

Everyone relied on Dace to tell them what to do and what to say. He was only twenty-one, but everyone looked to him to guide them, or make them feel better about the things happening to us. All that responsibility forced him to hide so much of himself from the world. Not the mythical parts, but the other parts. The ones that made him the amazing person I loved.

No one got to see the real Dace Matthews, the one who kept a box of Cookie Crisps by his bed and knew every word to every John Wayne movie ever filmed. The one who made me melt when he whispered how much he loved me, or set me afire when he touched me. He kept our world hidden so well, protected it so carefully, but no one ever protected him like that. No one ever let him put the burden down for five minutes and rest. That wasn’t fair.

Like he said, he never asked for that responsibility. I hated that he had to carry the burden anyway. I hated even more that I couldn’t help him.

“Everyone here really loves him.” Chelle leaned close so her words didn’t carry. “He holds himself apart, but not so much so that he’s unapproachable, you know what I mean?”

As I watched him, I saw what she meant. Both the students and the faculty members chatted with him on the starting line. I’d never seen him interact much with either group, but the easy camaraderie flowing between them made me feel a little better. He might not attend parties with the students, or go to dinner with the faculty, but at least he had some normalcy in his life. He had friends and people who cared about him and wanted what was best for him, outside the ragtag apocalypse team, anyway.

Was that ever a question?
Dace asked me, his thoughts full of curiosity even as he threw his head back and laughed at something one of the students said.

Yeah, kind of.

I thought back to all the times he seemed oblivious to things that would have been glaringly obvious to anyone else. Like failing to understand why I wanted him to pick up the phone and call me instead of popping into my head when we first started dating, or why I wondered if he didn’t want me around when he avoided me. He hadn’t been able to comprehend either situation. Sometimes, he still acted like he simply didn’t get it.

I have friends, love. I just never had a girlfriend.

Never?
I asked.
As in never-ever?

Only you.

Well, okay then.

I didn’t have a clue how to respond to that, though I’m not sure why the confession surprised me. Part of me knew he wasn’t joking when he told me I was the only one for him. I guess I just didn’t know how literally he meant it.

I found it so easy to forget that I didn’t know everything about him. He was this big part of me, and I felt like I’d known him forever. But his life before me was still such a mystery. He didn’t talk about his past. I didn’t think he knew how to talk about the way he lived before he moved to Beebe.

Would I ever understand him and the things that shaped him? Could I?

The dean lifted a flare gun skyward.

The two groups lined up beside their sleds. Dace and a student positioned themselves behind their respective teams’ sleds with their hands on the handlebars.

Good luck,
I told him.

His laughter floated back to me.

A flare lit up the sky, and both teams hurried into action.

The faculty piled onto the sled Dace held steady, grasping at one another to keep from falling off. As soon as they were more or less seated where bags would traditionally go, Dace took off, pushing the full sled in front of him. He ran full out, racing down the hill like the sleigh weighed nothing.

The crowd whooped and hollered as the students’ captain got their sled started half a second behind Dace. He might not have bothered at all, because, even without Dace’s ability to move so quickly I couldn’t keep up, he ran like the wind.

The lip of the sled went over the edge of the hill.

Dace hopped onto the plate on the back.

The sled flew down the hill, gaining speed rapidly.

The student team’s sled started over the edge of the hill.

Their runner slipped.

The crowd around me
oohed
and then cheered louder when he pulled himself onto the plate in the nick of time.

I looked back to Dace, only to find his sled halfway down the hill. It showed no signs of slowing anytime soon. The faculty members on the sled each lifted an arm in the air to fist pump.

The crowd roared at their childish antics.

I threw my head back and laughed, too.

“That’s hilarious!” I shouted to Chelle.

She grinned, her eyes shining.

Dace’s sled leveled out when it hit the straightaway at the bottom of the hill. He and the faculty rolled across the finish line amid catcalls and playful booing from the crowd.

The sled slowed, then came to a halt a good twenty-five feet on the other side of the finish line.

Dace and the faculty bounded from their seats, whooping and hollering.

Three faculty members each bent down, grabbed a handful of snow, then took aim at their student rivals as their sled inched across the finish line. The team bailed off the sides of the sled in search of cover half a second too late.

Snow flew and hit two of the students squarely in the face.

I doubled over, laughing so hard my cheeks hurt.

The dean jogged across the snowy field toward the teams.

Something tickled my nose, a familiar scent whispering on the wind. It smelled a little like ash and pine needles, not unpleasant at all.

I stopped laughing and glanced around, trying to locate the source.

Buka?

Her thoughts bounced back to me in a soft rush, not words or images, but there nonetheless. She was close. Too close.

What are you doing here?
I asked, worried someone would spot her.

Her response filtered back to me slowly.

Despite the danger they faced, the pack stood guard, hiding in copses of trees all around the campus. Nothing bad would happen today, Buka informed me, not while they stood ready.

I appreciated the fierce protection and loyalty of the pack so much. If Buka was closer, I would have thrown my arms around her neck to hug her to thank her for looking out for me and my friends. But I was more concerned for the pack’s safety than mine. If Dace couldn’t, or wouldn’t, protect them, I owed it to them to try.