Foretold (18 page)

Vanir didn’t speak for a while and I knew he was concentrating on driving on the snow, so I stayed quiet. My lungs hurt from pulling in so much cold air so fast. There were no other vehicles on the road and we made good time despite slipping and sliding a few times. I turned again to see Geri and Freak standing guard on either side of the bed. The truck swerved and the wolves shuffled their feet, but stayed facing out, their gazes pinned on the trees. Or what moved around them. We were miles away from the park and still there were glimpses of animals. It was like we’d been pinned with targets that drew them out as we passed.

When the truck spun again, I faced front and grabbed for my seat belt, but this time Vanir couldn’t stop our slide off the road into a ditch. I managed to not hit the dashboard by holding onto the seat belt.

“Shit,” he breathed, stretching his arm over the backseat to look behind as he tried to back us out. But the tires only spun.

Growls came from the back of the truck and Vanir cursed again. “The dogs are pretty far back, but we need to run.” His took my chin in his hand, stared into my eyes and gave me a smile I suppose was meant to reassure me. “You ready?”

I wasn’t, but I nodded.

We clambered out of the truck and met at the hood before hitting the road. Geri and Freak ran to our sides. I kept slipping, so I moved onto the ground next to the road, hoping that would help with traction. When I looked over my shoulder, I saw blobs of brown and black moving behind the trees. So many.

We couldn’t outrun them like this.

The wolves must have come to the same conclusion because they stopped running and braced to fight.

I did the only thing I could think of. I yanked on Vanir’s hand, pulling him to a stop. Then I wrapped my arms around him and let the swirling magic in my throat loose.

* * *

“Whoa.” Vanir let go of me, his boots crunching snow as he blindly reached out to brace his hands against a tree.

The forest still moved in a dizzy spin, but I whirled around to where Geri and Freak paced. Their growls rumbled loud as the world stopped—suspended as if we’d been frozen inside a snow globe midshake.

Everything inside me snapped taut as I followed the wolves’ gazes. Dogs had just started to clear the brush. Wild ones in all shapes and sizes, some probably domestic—some obviously pets by the collars—their paws outstretched midstride, teeth glistening wet in open mouths.

“Oh, gods, Vanir, look.” I pointed. “We don’t have much time. I’m still new at doing this myself so I have no idea how long it’ll hold. We have to run!”

He let go of the tree, dark, dark eyes wide as he stared at the animals chasing us.

I touched his arm. “We have to go. Will the wolves follow? I can’t leave them here to fight.”

When he met my gaze, his own was full of steely resolve. “They will end up fighting no matter how this plays out. We will, too.”

His expression said so much more than his words. Yes, we would fight. Whether it was here against wild animals or later against others carrying gods’ souls—our fates were playing out like we were nothing more than game pieces on a colossal Norse chessboard. My fingers began to sting from more than just the cold, so I pulled out the small notebook I’d snatched from Vanir’s room, held out my other hand to him.

Vanir whistled for Geri and Freak, took my hand and we bolted. He surprised me when he pulled me off the road completely and into the woods. His legs were longer and he could probably get farther on his own, but I was small and quick so I was pretty sure I could keep up.

Without wind, nothing but us moved. Snowflakes dangled in the air, tiny wet dots that stung and melted on my cheeks as I struck them. The forest spread out before us, looking as if someone had sprinkled the air with white pepper. We jumped over fallen logs, small bushes and even a rabbit that had been frozen midleap. Our breath fogged from our mouths only to mist as it became not of us, but of the rest of the world. I wanted to fan my hands in front of my face, knock the flakes and mists out of my way, but one hand held tight to the notebook and the other to Vanir. The strength of his grip told me he would never let go.

Then my fingers started to burn.

I tugged hard on my fingers. “I’ll keep running, but I need my hand.” He let go, shortening his strides to stay back with me. I tried to hold the pen to the paper despite running over uneven ground.

That was such a bad idea. I crashed into a prickly bush, extra prickly because it had solidified into what felt like porcupine quills. As I fell over it, my feet flew into the air, my face sinking into snow. The cold pricked at my skin as I hurriedly sat up and tried to brush it off with one hand while reaching for the notebook I’d dropped. My fingers touched paper and when I pulled they came away with one ripped piece.

My hands shook with cold. I braced the paper on my thigh. Snow was soaking the paper too fast. The pen made no mark when first put to paper and panic choked me as I spit out snow. I shook the pen, growing more and more afraid as my right hand took over.

“Shit, Raven, here!”

I glanced up to find Vanir shoving the notebook toward me. This time, the pen worked but it took so long to get the symbols written, my fast breaths were ripping up my lungs with cold.

“‘The trickster is freed.’” I could barely get sound into my words, my throat was so tight.

The words fell between us like a heavy rock.

Vanir grabbed the notebook, frowned hard at it. “If we go back to the first and second messages...’in violence conceived, of dark blood born, the trickster is freed’...and what? There’s more to this, I know it.”

“Your brother called me a trickster.” I frowned. “But Loki is the trickster, too.”

He nodded. “I know. And he’s supposed to be locked up in a cave until Ragnarok. We know that’s happening, so it isn’t as if this is news.”

“Unless it goes with something else.” I hugged my arms to myself, remembered the animals behind us. I scrambled to my feet, my heart pounding so hard, it hurt. “We have to run.”

Vanir suddenly moaned.

The trees next to me seemed to tilt as the slow spin began. “Oh, no,” I whispered. We’d run pretty far, but I didn’t think it was far enough. One tree melted into the next and Vanir dropped the notebook, his face alarmingly pale. I didn’t think twice, just stepped as close as I could, stretched onto my toes and wrapped my arms around his neck. My cold cheek met his, my lips as close to his ears as I could get. “Close your eyes,” I whispered. “Hold on to me and don’t let go.”

“Don’t you let go.” His deep voice rasped into my ear before he pulled back just enough to slide our lips together. They started out cold, but warmed fast as he opened my mouth and slid his tongue in to touch mine. I kissed him back, loving the heat that built inside my body, loving his taste.

I moaned and tightened my arms around him and he squeezed his arms and lifted me off my feet, slanting his mouth over mine harder before gentling the kiss and sucking gently on my bottom lip.

The
rune tempus
, the dogs, all of the bad stuff disappeared as I lost myself in him. In this heat and excitement...this connection that filled me up and made me want to fight not only for his life, but my own.

The sound of dogs in the distance snapped us out of our private cocoon. He pulled his face away, but held me against him, my feet just sort of dangling there. “I like the private spinning we create better than the other one.” He kissed me quickly, set me on my feet. “But we have to go.”

The next sound brought hot tears to my eyes and terror into my heart. Snarls of fighting wolves.

“Quick!” Vanir tugged my hand and we ran. He knew the woods better than I did. I was completely turned around as we struggled over the frozen terrain. Nothing was familiar, but at least it wasn’t dark like that first night. We skirted trees and bushes, jumped over anything in our paths and still it wasn’t fast enough.

One of the dogs caught up.

A blur of black and white dove into Vanir’s feet. He crashed onto the ground and the border collie’s teeth latched on to his shin before he stopped skidding. Blood spattered the snow.

Screaming, I jumped onto the dog’s back and tried to pry its teeth from Vanir’s leg. Vanir wasn’t moving. My stomach shot into my throat when I spotted the rock by his head—shiny, wet blood staining its surface.

The dog snapped at me and I felt one sharp tooth slice into my thumb. I didn’t let go. The dog did, only to sink its teeth into Vanir’s thigh. Instinctively, I knew it was going to try for his throat, but my body weight and smacking hands threw it off.

Afraid to let go, but seeing I had no choice, I jumped up, hauled my leg back and kicked it in the lower gut. It wailed but let go, stumbling back and falling into the snow. Even as I sobbed and tears froze on my face, I kicked it again, this time in the head.

Gods
,
it wasn’t the dog’s fault.

It was spelled.

I told myself I had no choice, but agony buzzed hot in my chest when it laid still. I only took enough time to make sure its sides were still moving before I reached down and shook Vanir.

“Get up!” I screamed into his face.

He blinked at me, his eyes rolling back into his head.

I shook harder, my fingers curling into his coat. “More are coming! I can’t fight them all off you!”

He opened his eyes again as the sound of barking grew louder.

“Please, Vanir. I don’t want you to die! Please!”

He shuddered and sat up, groaning. Blood coated his jeans and a trickle of it dripped down the left side of his face. His hair lay in a wild mass of tangles about his head, some on the side matted where he’d hit his skull.

“Get up!” I yelled, yanking on his hand with all my strength.

He got to his feet and started to follow my lead, then abruptly pulled me more to the right. His leg had to hurt so much and yet he picked up the pace—not once letting go of my hand.

We came over the top of a hill and I nearly cried in relief when I saw that ugly warehouse with Randy’s truck still lying on its side at the bottom of the hill. Vanir had been leading us here the whole time. I didn’t even have time to stop and think about what he’d planned for us all alone here.

He stopped, bent over to try and catch his breath. I glanced over my shoulder to see two white hunting dogs jump from a stand of trees. He saw them, too. We hit the door to the warehouse with outstretched hands. Inside, I ran straight to the woodpile and dug through it for the two-by-four Rose had been trying to find.

“It’s over there,” Vanir said, his sides heaving as he sat hard on one of the metal chairs.

I saw the piece we needed propped in a dark corner, snatched it and slid it into place. Two sets of barks were right outside the door.

“The rest are less than a mile away,” Vanir said, swiping blood off his cheek and grimacing as he took in the rest of it on his jeans. When he met my gaze, he still had that fierce determination, but the paleness of his skin let me know his wounds were getting to him.

One of the dogs rammed into the door, making me jump.

“Raven,” Vanir said, his voice low. “This place isn’t gonna hold.”

Chapter Seventeen

When I walked to him, he grabbed my arm. His grip lacked strength. “You’ve gotta get out of here. They’re after me, not you. I’ve got my phone. I’ll call my brothers.” The door rattled as one of the animals hit it again. “Shit! Can you climb trees?”

The amount of blood pooling on the floor under his leg freaked me out. I yanked off Hallur’s coat, then the orange OSU sweatshirt I’d borrowed from Ari. My teeth chattered so loudly they echoed in my skull. Underneath, I had on that white, long-sleeved shirt Vanir had given me the first night. I started ripping the bottom of it.

His eyebrows lifted. “Uh, Raven, I’m interested in seeing where this is going, really...but—”

“Shut up.” Wow, it was harder than I expected to rip a good solid ribbon off the bottom of a shirt while it was still on. Part of my white bra showed a bit when I was done. I knelt and tied the torn material around his leg, then looked for something that seemed clean to put under the tie for pressure.

Would have to be the shirt. I yanked the rest off, folded it and put it over the wound.

I felt more than heard the chuckle that rumbled through his body. “I did want to get you out of your shirt at some point, but—”

I reached up, put my hand over his mouth. “I said shut up.”

Absolute terror locked my muscles when I looked down and saw a small pool of blood on the floor.
How much had he lost?
The dogs grew steadily closer, their barks and howls increasing in sound. We’d run out of time. I had to use every ounce of my willpower to push my fear back. Closing my eyes, I sent up a silent prayer to the gods to help me because Vanir wasn’t going to like what I was about to do.

I grabbed him by the coat with one hand and pulled him down, then gave him a kiss he wouldn’t soon forget. I hoped it would keep him from paying attention to my free hand. I scooped up his blood and I don’t know what else off the floor and rubbed it on my pants. I leaned onto his leg, opened his mouth with my tongue. His groan rumbled into my mouth. I didn’t know if it was from the pain of me touching his wound or from pleasure in the kiss.

The whole time I basically ravaged his mouth, I was putting his blood, his scent, onto me. On my clothes. My bare skin. I rubbed as much as I could off my hands on the sweatpants, onto my bare belly.

His fingers tightened on my arms and he pulled away, dark eyes glittering. “Again, I really like where this seems to be leading. No. I love it, Raven. I really do. But we need to be focusing here.” He looked down at my body and his eyebrows dipped down. “Raven—”

I stood and bent over to shut him up with my mouth this time. My plan to redirect the dogs could end up with me being puppy chow even though that wasn’t really my plan. I wanted this kiss just for me and tried to convey that. I slid onto his lap, slipped my filthy fingers into his loose hair and let those silky strands wrap around my hands; I tasted him, memorized him. When he took over the kiss, I realized he wasn’t nearly as weak as I’d thought.

He was sooo not going to let me out of here without him. I had to do more.

Thinking fast, I reached for the button at the top of his button-fly jeans, took a deep breath and popped them all open. Then I jumped off his lap, pulled him to his feet, knowing I was hurting him, but determined to disable him—even for just a few seconds. When he stood, I yanked his pants down.

Vanir made a strangled noise as I pushed him into the chair. The metal was so cold, it probably froze his butt. His cell phone fell out of his pocket and clattered to the floor, but it didn’t break. I swiped it up, handed it to him and turned away. I snatched the sweatshirt, but didn’t take the time to grab the coat—instead, I hauled up a heavy branch from the pile of firewood that was about three feet long.

My cheeks flamed. Vanir, still disoriented, only stared with his mouth hanging open for a moment before his eyes narrowed. I didn’t stop as I heard him scrambling and cursing under his breath. I just ran to the door. There was no way to lock it from the outside, so I sent up a silent wish to the gods again. If I was supposed to keep him safe, I needed their help.

“Send the dogs after me!” I yelled as I ran from the warehouse. This wasn’t some crazy suicide mission. I run fast and had every intention of scrambling up a tree once the dogs were far away from Vanir. He couldn’t keep up with my pace—not with his leg. A spot of white came around the corner and I realized the dogs had run to the back side of the warehouse, probably looking for another way in. Once I was sure they had the scent of Vanir’s blood on me, I sprinted for the woods again.

Adrenaline kicked in when I heard Vanir’s yell of fury from inside the warehouse. I hauled butt, my shoes sinking into the snow, my body shivering because I was wet with his blood. And wearing only a bra on my upper body. The sweatshirt was still in my hands. I was too scared to stop and put it on even though my skin stung something awful.

Muscles screaming in my legs, I ran faster than I ever had before. My lungs worked to keep up with me and the cold. Soon, every breath felt like I was sucking razors down my throat.

Legs and arms pumping, lungs bursting, I looked behind me and a root came up out of nowhere. I flew. Trying to curl into a roll midair, I covered my head. The thought of passing out with those dogs scared the crap out of me.

Of course, being eaten alive might be better while unconscious.

My shoulder hit the ground. Wincing, I rolled again so I could get up on my hands and knees. My skin began to ache from the snow.

The dogs were so close.

Pure fear helped me to my feet, but I couldn’t run anymore. With blinding panic darkening the edges of my vision, I spotted water and moved toward that, a part of my splintered brain remembering that water washes away scents. I was hopefully far enough away from Vanir now—I could try to lose them.

The first dog hit me before I reached the river. I screamed as I hit the ground again. The dog didn’t hesitate; it went for my throat. I managed to shove it aside, but razor teeth gnashed into my shoulder. I couldn’t even tell what kind of dog had caught me—it was just a blur of white and brown.

The pain of my fall didn’t compare to the slice of those teeth. I nearly lost my battle to black panic as the world around me grew dim in that overwhelming haze of hot, stinging pain.

“No,” I whimpered, hearing the crashing of more bodies coming through the brush. I used the wood against the dog, but couldn’t get a good swing with only one arm. So I turned to my fist, trying to get the animal to let go of my shoulder. It wouldn’t, growling at my movements. The panting of another dog sounded close and I felt a burst of adrenaline sweep through me. I heaved the dog away.

Sobbing, I scrambled back until my spine hit a tree. Stars and tears blurred my vision and I swiped my hand across my eyes, realizing too late it was covered in blood. My blood instead of Vanir’s this time.

I finally got my eyes open only to see the second animal hadn’t been one of the dogs. I saw her crooked ear first. Geri had the dog backed against a tree. Her lips curled, her eyes glowed yellow.

Growls, barks and cries from what I assumed were the bobcats reverberated through our small clearing. Luckily, the cats weren’t here yet. Tears spilled from my eyes. Geri and I couldn’t hold off all these animals. My shoulder ached with a scorching fire that did little to help the cold taking over every other part of my body. My sweatpants were soaked, my skin red and chapped from the wet and cold.

I could only hope Vanir wasn’t facing a similar situation. Hope he’d stayed inside and that his brothers would arrive in time.

Black feathers caught my gaze. When my mother stepped into sight, my first instinct was to run to her. Maybe she’d wrap me in her arms like she used to, when I was small. Luckily the pain hadn’t dulled my senses enough and I remembered who’d set the dogs on us in the first place. She’d spelled innocent dogs.

Dru Lockwood stared at me in shock before her gaze zeroed in on Geri. Her hair was wild around her head, so black against the snow, and her normally red lips looked pale and cracked and tightened to the point they nearly disappeared. Then she curled her upper lip into a snarl. She reached out and smacked the head of the dog closest to her. A mangy-looking thing of mixed blacks, grays and blues, I couldn’t believe it didn’t turn that snarling mug on her.

“Stupid animals. You’re chasing the wrong person.” Concern filled her gaze and she stepped closer to me. “Oh, Raven, your shoulder. Sweetheart!”

Geri growled and Mom lifted her hands, probably to do something horrible to the wolf. “No,” I yelled.

Several of the still-growling dogs went quiet.

“Don’t you dare hurt that wolf.” I winced, pushed through the pain in my shoulder to reach for the sweatshirt I’d dropped. “She’s the only thing keeping your creatures from finishing the job.”

My mother narrowed her eyes, her expression a strange mix of concern and annoyance. But something in her smoky eyes gave me the creeps. It was like she was acting. Pretending to care about me. She took another step. “Did one of mine tear into your shoulder?”

“What does it matter? They all want to turn me into a tasty chew toy.”

She looked around at the hodgepodge of angry animals and the smile that suddenly stretched her mouth sent new shivers through me. That smile no longer held an ounce of concern, or regret. It was sinister and void of anything that even resembled my mother. A wave of dizziness swamped me. Something was so not right here, something I should have been catching, but couldn’t with pain, exhaustion and cold blurring everything.

Geri stepped closer, her back still to me, a low, rumbling growl vibrating in her throat.

“Raven, you shouldn’t have come here. I couldn’t believe it when I saw you in that store parking lot.”

“Someone had to stop you. I can’t believe you’re here. Doing this. What the hell are you thinking?” I wanted to say more, so much more, but every word took effort. “Someone had to stop you,” I repeated on a huff of painful breath.

“From protecting my daughters?” The thin, black eyebrow she raised had a new streak of gray in it.

“You call this protecting?” I was seeing stars, my words slurring a bit. How much blood
had
I lost?

Geri growled again and a flicker of fear rippled through my mother’s gray eyes. Eyes I’d inherited. “That wolf is a magic creature,” she said through gritted teeth. “You know the story. When the supernatural wolves arrive, they come to destroy us.”

“How can you talk about destroying?”

She pulled something from her back pocket and my eyes went wide at what looked like a small crossbow, the right size for use with one hand.

“You’re going to shoot me, Mom?”

“Don’t be stupid. I’m getting rid of that creature.”

“There isn’t an ounce of evil in this wolf. Mom, listen to me. We were wrong about the prophecy. Wrong! The wolves and the boy you’re after are innocent.”

“There is no innocent in war.”

“The only one turning this into a war is you.” Again, everything started swirling. My mother was spinning, the dogs around her were spinning. Nausea crept, slow and insidious, up into my chest. I closed my eyes a second, tried to take a deep breath. Wished this was my
rune tempus
, but it wasn’t. It was me getting ready to pass out.

My mother took a step. She grinned and the madness in that warped smile made me realize that reasoning with her wouldn’t work. She’d moved beyond the point of reason long ago.

“My daughters. So important in this coming of Ragnarok. Your boy, the one you don’t even know—he’s going to hurt you. You could help me, Raven. Help your mother. Together, we can stop all the prophecies.”

“All of them?” I swayed even though I was sitting, flattening my palms on the ground behind me. My words grew sluggish. It felt like I pulled them through sludge, so I could only whisper. “What if you’re wrong? You think this boy will kill me, but think of the innocent boys you’ve killed. Think of the mothers of the children you’ve stolen.”

For one fleeting instant, I saw a flash of guilt so powerful I felt it inside me. I gasped and watched as my mother seemed to wrestle...with herself...before taking control. She stood straight, smoothed down her long, black hair, tugged her feathered coat over the top of the jeans she must have stolen from Vanir’s friend’s store.

I should have told them about her. I might as well have killed Dan myself. “I won’t let you hurt Vanir,” I whispered as the darkness began to win the fight. I slid down the tree, the back of my head scraping along the bark. Blinking up at my mother, I watched her point to the right. The animals took off. She brushed her hands over her hips and stepped closer to me, her gray eyes narrowing.

Geri suddenly lunged.

My mother screamed and I watched in a sort of dazed blur as she lost her little weapon. It sank into a snowdrift. I tried to crawl toward it, but I was having trouble getting my lower body to work. I didn’t know if it was from loss of blood or the stupid, damned cold.

Male shouts filtered through the woods. I heard Vanir’s voice in there, his fury coming across loud and clear. Loud gunshots filled the air. Suddenly Geri whined and fell off my mother. Mom stared at me only a second or two before she turned and ran into the trees. My mind was fuzzy, but I was sure I heard the sound of breaking glass right before I could no longer see her.

The wolf staggered to the side.

“Geri?” I whispered. “Oh, no, please be okay.”

She whimpered and limped to me, curling her body around me. Two seconds later, Freak ran around the tree I leaned against and added his body to the pile. Their heaving bodies were warm, but their fur was wet with snow and blood. They smelled awful. I didn’t even want to pick apart that choking odor, didn’t want to see the evidence of violent fights in their fur.

Vanir and his brothers broke into the clearing. I draped the sweatshirt over my chest.

“Damn it!” Vanir bit out as he slid to a stop and dropped to his knees in front of me. His brothers apparently didn’t slow enough for the wolves. They both growled.