Fall (The Ragnarok Prophesies) (5 page)

couple more steps, Ari,” Dad said, wriggling two fingers.

I shuffled forward. My legs trembled until I felt like Bambi learning to stand for the first time, but Dace stood at my side, so I knew I wouldn’t fall flat on my face. Not this time, anyway.

“You’re doing good,” he said, squeezing my hand in his.

Easy for him to say. Every time I moved an inch, it seemed like the couch did too.

I hated walking.

“Why does the couch keep moving?” I complained, glaring balefully at the leather sofa.

“It isn’t.”

I arched a brow.

Stop whining. You can do this.

I ignored him, mostly because he was right. I could do this, and I was whining.

I took another shuffling step forward, and then another. My side ached and throbbed. I gritted my teeth and kept moving. One baby step at a time.

“Atta girl!” Dad cheered from across the room when I finally bumped up against the dark leather arm of the couch.

Dace helped ease me down, grinning.

“Congratulations,” Ronan said, holding out a blanket for me. He quickly snatched his fingers away when Dace closed his hand over the purple microfiber.

Dace grunted before placing it over my lap and settling down beside me.

I rolled my eyes.

“You’ll be running in no time, hon,” Dad said, oblivious to Dace and Ronan’s childish display.

“I’d settle for a brisk walk,” I muttered. Being an invalid sucked. I’d come a long way in the last month, but I still couldn’t even pee without someone helping me to the bathroom. And I was the only girl in the house. Talk about awkward.

Dace slipped his hand into mine.

“Have you found anything?” I asked, glancing between him and Ronan.

Ronan propped himself up against the wall, shaking his head. “There’s nothing to find.”

I snorted, more frustrated than disbelieving. “Sköll and Hati didn’t pluck the flowers from the side of the road.”

“No, they didn’t,” he agreed, looking at me levelly. “But I’ve read the memories of every nurse and tech at the hospital. No one remembers where the arrangement came from.”

“Ugh.” I scowled at the room in general. How the hell did two monsters send flowers like that and then disappear into oblivion? Better yet, how the hell did they live out in the open and never raise suspicion?

“The same way we do,” Dace answered, shrugging a shoulder when I turned my scowl on him. “We’ve been hiding who we are from the world without being discovered. Why would it be any different for them?”

“Because they’re crazy murderers?” I snapped.

Dace and Ronan flinched. The corner of my dad’s mouth turned down.

Crap.

“Sorry.” I really needed to learn to control what came out of my mouth. Easier said than done though. Being home was as hard as I expected it to be. I felt caged, restless. I couldn’t relax, and I desperately missed Buka. Thanks to the hunters scouring every inch of the woods around town for the pack though, Kalei refused to let her visit me. It sucked.

And my head refused to quit hurting.

The endless barrage of nightmares didn’t help either. Nor did the fact that Sköll and Hati were out there and we couldn’t find them. Not a single trace. The demon wolves could have strolled right up to my door and set the vase down themselves, for all we knew.

That wasn’t an excuse for taking it out on Dace and Ronan though.

“I’m sorry,” I said again, guilt weaving through me.

“It’s fine.” Dace gave me a grim smile.

“We need another way to find them,” I said, giving in to the inevitable.

“We can keep sorting through the myths,” Dad offered.

I glanced at the books stacked precariously on the coffee table and wrinkled my nose. They contained nothing useful. Everyone had a theory on the harbingers of the apocalypse, but no one had anything helpful to say about stopping said harbingers.

“What about Sol’s descendants?” Dace asked, looking at my dad. “Have you or Edwards found anything helpful there?”

Dad shook his head.

“Lovely.” I sighed. Why couldn’t the descendants of gods come with name tags? A forehead tattoo that said “I’m in danger. Save me.” or something suitably obvious would do.

“We need to consider the possibility that they’ve already been killed,” Ronan said.

Dace raked a hand through his hair, tugging lightly on the strands.

You know he’s right
, I whispered to him before he could argue with Ronan. I didn’t want to consider the possibility that we were that far behind either, but we couldn’t rule it out. We knew who Mani’s descendants were, but only by sheer luck. We had no clue who Sol’s descendants were, or where to find them, and Dace knew it.

And honestly, I didn’t want to listen to another argument between the guys. If Ronan said it was raining out, Dace took offense. If Dace said the sky was blue, Ronan argued about why. If I had to watch them go at it again, I would strangle one of them. I really would.

“In every life I remember, we found Sol and Mani’s descendants in the same area of the world,” Dace said, his jaw set. “I’m not willing to accept that the rules suddenly changed. Whoever they are, they’ve got to be here.”

“The rules did change.” I shrugged apologetically when he set his gaze on me. “Think about it, Dace. Ronan’s memory is failing. I can’t shift. You and Geri can barely communicate with each other. And Hugin wasn’t even reborn. We’re lucky we’ve made it this far. We can’t pretend things aren’t different this time, because they are. Besides, how much do you really remember about our last lives?”

“I remember enough,” he snapped.

“Do you? Because I don’t. Neither does Ronan. We’re broken, and we can’t pretend that doesn’t change things. We might never find whoever else we’re supposed to protect, if they even exist. For all we know, they’re on the other side of the world, or their line faded away like Freki.”

“Then what do we do?” Dace demanded. Frustration whipped through our bond, crackling like lightning from him. Every line of his body radiated the same intense frustration. His stance was rigid and his jaw set. His eyes blazed with green fire. He wasn’t upset about me siding with Ronan though. The situation in general had Dace on edge.

“I don’t know.” I looked at my dad and Ronan, hoping one of them had an answer because I didn’t. I didn’t know any more than Dace did. I didn’t think any of us really had a clue what we were doing. We didn’t know enough. We weren’t strong enough.

Sometimes, destiny could be a fickle, unhelpful bitch.

“We’ll keep looking,” my dad said with false confidence. Trying, I think, to give us a little hope. “There’s got to be something out there we can use.”

“I’ll go out again tomorrow.” Ronan didn’t look thrilled about the prospect. “Maybe I’ll find something new.”

Dace snorted, his disbelief obvious.

He’s trying, Dace.

Yeah, well, it’s not enough. We have to find them.
His fear twisted through me like smoke.
I won’t lose you again.
He reached out to touch my face. His fingers trembled against my cheek, the emotion in his eyes stabbing like knives into my heart.
I can’t lose you again.

Ronan met my gaze briefly and then glanced away.

I silently prayed for a miracle.

Unfortunately, miracles were in short supply these days. We were going to have to get ourselves out of this. Find a way to protect ourselves.

“I want a gun.” I blurted the thought I’d been quietly playing with for days.

Three sets of wide eyes settled on me, making it evident Dace hadn’t homed in on that particular line of thought before now. No one said anything for a long moment as they processed my confession.

“It’s not a bad idea,” Ronan said then.

“Are you kidding me?” Dace yelled at the same time my dad said, “Absolutely not!”

I cringed as they both turned to glare daggers at Ronan.

So much for forestalling another argument.

“She can’t protect herself like this,” Ronan said, a lot more calmly than I would have with Dace and my dad both looking like they were ready to throw a punch. Ronan jerked his chin in my direction as if to illustrate his point.

Dace growled aloud at the reminder that I needed help to walk across the room.

“She’s smart enough to use a gun safely,” Ronan said, eying Dace levelly.

I don’t think Dace scared him in the least. Lucky Ronan. When Dace growled at me, I wanted to hide beneath the covers. I knew he’d never hurt me, but reconciling fierce alpha Dace with scared boyfriend Dace was an exercise in futility, and I’d given up trying. There were two sides to him. Two very different, very confusing sides.

“I’ve made it through forty-four years without bringing a gun into my home to protect my family,” Dad said, his voice soft and intractable at once. “I won’t bring one in now.”

Ronan arched a brow at me as if to ask if I was going to let them make this decision for me.

I squared my shoulders.

“You’re not getting a gun, Arionna.” Dad cut me off before I could even speak up in my defense. He looked at me, expression firm. “End of discussion.”

Dace nodded an agreement, a smug edge to the emotions he sent filtering through to me.

I huffed, narrowing my eyes at both of them. “I’m an adult, you know.”

“You’ll always be my daughter.”

“This should be my decision.”

“Why?” Dace asked, crossing his arms over his chest. “It’s a bad idea.”

“Says you,” I muttered, turning my face away from him and all of his superiority and smugness. Men were irritating.

“And virtually every shooting related news article ever written,” he retorted, refusing to be cowed that easily. He placed his hand on my arm. “Accidents happen, Arionna. Guns discharge. People die. I won’t let that be you.”

I opened my mouth to argue… and stopped short when something flickered in his mind. Images coalesced one after another, freezing me in my tracks.

Blood ran in rivulets across a white, tile floor.

A hazy figure gaped at the gun in his hand, his mouth moving as if he were speaking.

Familiar, green eyes stared vacantly.

A black bag zipped over a body.

The images were brief, no more than split second flashes, there and gone as quickly as they appeared, but sorrow ripped through Dace like claws tearing through flesh.

I cried out, stunned by the sudden, intense pain.

Dace’s hand fell from my arm.

“What was that?” I asked, still swaying beneath the dizzying cloud spinning through me even without physical contact. Black spots swam before my eyes.

Dace didn’t say anything.

“Dace?” I blinked away the spots swimming in my vision, forcing myself to focus on him. “What was that?”

He met my gaze, his expression bleak. His mouth twisted. The haunted look in his eyes deepened. “My father.”

“You were
there?
” I whispered. Dace’s dad was killed in a robbery right after Dace’s fourteenth birthday. I knew that. But I hadn’t known…. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

He shrugged a shoulder.

A soft, mournful sigh whispered through me, coming from Freki.

I closed my eyes, my heart physically hurting. I’d assumed Dace hadn’t been with his dad. That he hadn’t seen him die. I didn’t like his dad because of the messed-up crap he’d done to Dace so long ago, but knowing Dace watched him die… There were no words for how sad that made me. Dace was a kid. Only a scared, fourteen-year-old boy.

No matter how bad the parent, no kid should watch his parent die.

“He was shot?” Ronan asked.

I opened my eyes, nodding when Dace didn’t say anything. “In a robbery.”

“I’m sorry, son,” Dad said, clamping a hand on Dace’s shoulder.

“Me too,” he said, looking down at me. His gaze pinned me to the bed. “The guy panicked when my father came up behind him at the register. He swung to face my dad, and, somehow, the gun discharged. Dad died before his body hit the ground.”

“Wrong place, wrong time,” I whispered, the same thing Dace said to me when he first told me about his dad what felt like lifetimes ago now.

Dace nodded.

I hesitated and then gave in. “No guns.”

I didn’t like the decision, but I wouldn’t give Dace something else to worry over. He hurt enough already.

“Have you considered getting her out of town?” Ronan asked instead of arguing.

I gaped at him, stunned.

For a bird, he had the nerve of a freaking grizzly.

“I already told you she’s not leaving,” Dace snapped, whipping his head in Ronan’s direction.

They’d had this discussion before? When?

I glanced between the two of them, frowning.

He brought it up a few days ago,
Dace said.
He’s an idiot.

Geri rumbled his agreement to Dace’s insult.

“She’s not safe here,” Ronan said.

“Would she be safe somewhere else?” Dad frowned like he was really considering the possibility. I couldn’t blame him for that. I didn’t want to be in the middle of this any more than he wanted me in the middle of it. Unfortunately, destiny didn’t ask what we wanted.

“No, she wouldn’t.” Dace clenched his jaw so hard it creaked again. One day, he was going to snap the bone.