Page 25

I WAS LOST. Stumbling through the forest as branches ripped at my face and my mind fled quicker than my feet, too fast for me to keep up with. I clutched a hand to my chest, feeling my lungs roaring for the first time in ages. Gulping as my throat swelled tight.

The disappointment was two-fold, both in that Aegir knew I was mortal and my secret was no longer safely confined in my own mind, and second that there was a secret at all. Because I’d foolishly hoped I was, in fact, somehow the missing goddess. I’d allowed hope to fester beyond control, and now felt like I’d been thrown from a cliff and was struggling to recoup as the sting of reality crashed upon my head, and my shoulders were not strong enough to bear the weight of it.

If I was not immortal, it meant a god was protecting me here, as shown when they allowed me to drink jravn without perishing. And quite likely, whatever deity was protecting me was also the one who orchestrated the events to bring me here. They had a purpose for me, and I needed to know what.

Or I needed to get out before their plan could come to pass.

But would I ever be safe on Earth? Or would the gods find a way to drag me back to them again, keeping me on a leash I could never be free of?

I wanted to stay to solve the puzzle. But I wanted to live more. And doing so required something I was quite hoping to avoid.

Ve needed the truth.

It had been put off long enough, but I wanted someone in Asgard who knew I was not a goddess and who could find answers where I could not. More than that, he needed to know why I desperately needed to return to Danmark, and how much danger I was in by staying here. As much as I wanted to fix this on my own, I needed help.

There was another reason I sought to tell Ve the truth. My heart was too close to him. I needed to see the look on his face when he realized I was not his fiancée, and that I’d lied to him about being a goddess, and see how his expression melted into betrayal, then anger, then regret. Only then would my stubborn feelings fade.

A grumble in my belly reminded me how long it’d been since I’d eaten. A small throb took root in the back of my skull, growing more demanding by the moment. It was like every part of my body was banding together to all scream out the same thing—things were not going well.

“They really aren’t,”

I grumbled.

Then, from the east, a low rumble crept forth.

I paused. “Please let that have been from my stomach,”

I whispered.

A growl replied. One that was most certainly not from me. It was followed by the snap of a branch, and the low rustle of leaves shifting. The hairs on my arms stood on end. Not my stomach. Beast.

I knew the sound of a predator when I heard it. It was the low sound of paws dragging across the ground, and of crawling through branches. Slow, calculated, and often deadly. I was being hunted.

My calloused hands tightened over the worn handle of my axe, twisting until the blade glistened with sunlight. My surroundings were built of brown and green that swayed gently with a breeze, but I searched for anything else. The noise had stopped, but the pit in my stomach didn’t go away.

My feet moved toward the sound. It would not get the chance to sneak up on me. I would force it to come out.

With my next step, a creature lurched from nearby brush, almost materializing from the air. It was a wolf, with narrowed eyes and sharp teeth bared at me, followed by a body three times the size of a normal creature. He would easily dwarf the one our chieftain had slain.

I swung the axe low, aiming for the heart. Enormous paws snapped at the blade, shoving it away effortlessly with a force that nearly ripped the weapon from my hands. I had no choice but to throw my body against the ground, slamming my chin on the rocks, as the wolf jumped to snap his deadly jaws at my neck.

He landed. His body hunched; yellow eyes gleaming hungrily.

“Go away,”

I shouted, kicking back as I shuffled to my feet. I hauled my heavy axe in an upward strike. The wolf retreated a few paces, but as soon as the weapon passed, he lunged.

I’d been prepared, and yanked the axe back. It dug itself into his shoulder, but as I tried to twist away, his claws found my side and embedded themselves there.

An ear-shattering cry ripped from my throat. The pain was immediate, swelling from my side and wrapping to my stomach as he tore his claws from my skin, ripping it open. Sticky blood ran down my hip.

With difficulty, I brought my axe around again, clipping his hind legs. He snarled in a low, haunting sound. Then he pounced again. His eyes flashed in a way that said he grew impatient. The hunt was over. It was time to sink his teeth into his prize. My heart pounded. I rolled on the ground, tucking my knees in and my axe against my body, then shifting to my knees to fling my blade around. It took all my effort, both to move the axe and to see as darkness clouded my vision. The pain was unbearable. The fear just as great.

The gods didn’t need to take me down. A wolf would do it by himself.

I wondered if this beast was sent from Odin—my punishment for attempting to interfere with the games. If it was, I’d never get to know. The wolf prowled closer, licking his hungry snout, as I fought against passing out. My clammy fingers held the axe close, waiting for him to come near so I could make a final effort to strike him down. But my strength grew thin. Blood was leaving me, quicker than it ought to. I wavered in my stance.

The wolf looked at me like he knew he only needed to wait, and he could have me without a fight. I swung the axe anyway. It made no contact.

This would be the end. It was only a matter of whether I’d fall unconscious first, or if I’d be awake to feel his teeth rip me apart. Before all went dark, a horn sounded to the right. The wolf snapped its head to the sound, then lowered into a prowl.

It was Ve. He appeared, throwing himself from the side to barrel into the beast. They furled into a tangle of limbs and clashing teeth, while I clawed my way closer to help, willing myself to stay awake.

Ve tore at the creature’s limbs, dodging as it went in for a bite. Ve had landed on his back. His legs came up to kick the wolf away, who rolled briefly before coming up faster than I thought possible. Thankfully Ve was on his feet in time, and had a narrow-tipped sparring sword drawn.

I found the strength to sit upon my knees and hold my axe before my body.

The wolf lunged, paying little mind to the glare of steel before it. Though Ve swung, and connected, the beast still sank its jaws into Ve’s shoulder. He let out a cry.

The sound gave me strength. I steadied my vision, lifted my weapon, and threw it.

Fortune wasn’t on my side today. The wolf twisted at the right moment, allowing the axe to clip against its leg before sailing by. It’d garner him a limp but little more.

Ve took his sword and drove it into the beast’s belly.

That ought to kill any creature. But Asgardian wolves must be built differently, because this one did not fall. Instead, it turned on Ve and growled, sword still in his flesh, leaving Ve defenseless.

I saw the moment his eyes flicked to my axe. It was nearby. He could grab it to defend himself.

His hand flinched, then withdrew. He would not touch an axe, even to save himself. The wolf descended again, sinking his teeth into Ve’s thigh.

His cry this time was more painful.

Satisfied, the beast turned to me. I fumbled for a stick—anything to protect myself—but came up empty. His steps must have been quick, but to me they were an eternity—each one slow and looming and inevitable, and haunting me with what would be my final moments. I had little time to think of anything else but Ve and the future we might have had, trapped in that thought of: he’ll never know how I felt.

All I could see were the beast’s yellow eyes. I kicked, summoning strength to fight one more time, though it refused to listen.

Then, before he could claim my life, the wolf let out a yelp of surprise, then a pitiful whine, before falling with a thud to the forest floor. His body was lifeless. His eyes still.

Behind him, Ve stood, shaking, with my axe in hand. His fingers were white, and his face drained of color.

I clambered to my feet to draw close to him. Blood ran in nauseating amount from his shoulder and his thigh, but his sole focus was on my weapon in his fingers, the same kind of weapon that had killed his sister and he’d sworn to never touch. My chest twisted, gutted that I’d forced him to pick one up.

“Are you okay?”

His whisper was barely audible, as if he were hardly here.

I slid my hands to his to ease the axe away. “I am now. Thanks to you.”

As soon as he let go, I tossed the weapon aside and filled his hands with mine. “You saved my life.”

Finally, his dark eyes settled on mine, and it was like storms ceasing.

A moment later, he collapsed to his knees. I knelt beside him, running a tentative hand over the wounds on his thigh. They were deep. Too deep. A shiver ran down my spine like a snake of death shuddering within me. My words shook. “Can you heal these?”

“You first.”

His voice was strained as he reached his shaky hands to my side to peel up my shirt where the wolf had dug his claws into my side, finding the skin cut open and bleeding. Ve looked at me as if feeling nothing of his own pain.

I winced as his hands met my skin.

“It’ll be over in a moment,”

he whispered. My fingers met his, and braced themselves there. A tingling feeling swept through my body as his eyes shut, and I could feel my skin piecing itself back together like fibers being pulled tight and wrapped back amongst each other until things were set right, and the sharp pain was no longer so unmanageable. In a few moments, it was hardly there at all.

I looked down. The wound was nothing more than a scar that appeared much like the ones on my arm as if it’d been there for ages and not from minutes ago.

“Now you,”

I pressed, taking his hands from me and putting them on his thigh.

He grinned. “As you command.”

Through the crack in his smile, I saw the agony of the claw-shaped tear in his leg, but slowly, it healed, and his face relaxed.

“Now your shoulder.”

I brought his hands there, and he healed that spot as well.

I sighed. The world around me still spun, and even though the danger was gone, my head felt thick. But we were safe. Ve was alive and the wolf was dead.

Still on our knees, he pulled me into him. His body shook under my touch. I couldn’t know the magnitude of that moment as he picked up my axe, but one thought rang in my head. He did it for me. “If you hadn’t come,”

I whispered, “I’d be dead.”

His gaze flicked to my weapon, tossed beside us. “I’m glad you’re alive. The free wolves don’t usually venture this far west.”

Now his eye shifted to the beast. Lying still, I got a better look at the size of it, and shuddered again. It was as wide as the largest shield, with legs like tree trunks and a nuzzle like a long dagger, lined with razor sharp teeth. “I can’t guess what brought them here.”

“Is it one of Odin’s?”

Ve shook his head, absentmindedly running his hands up and down my arms like he was still checking if I was okay. “The free wolves are cousins of Odin’s wolves, but they do not obey his commands. Nor do they take any orders. None have trained them, though many have tried. For them to come here, it is a vendetta of their own making.”

A thought slivered into my mind, crawled forth from the part that once believed I was Astrid.

As a child, Astrid had attacked one of Odin’s wolves, and it fought back. In retaliation, Odin put it to the blade.

Perhaps the free wolves heard Astrid had returned, and came for revenge for their cousin.

But my head was still thick, and my tongue heavy in my mouth. I didn’t voice these concerns to Ve.

“We can only hope he came alone,”

Ve said, looking around. “If a pack has come, then Asgard is unsafe.”

It’d never been safe for me anyway. Even now, though the wolf was dead and the cut on my side healed, I struggled to stay alert as everything inside dragged me toward unconsciousness.

Ve’s head dipped, and he frowned. Then realization hit him. “You’re tired, aren’t you?”

I managed to nod.

“It’s the effects of my healing. Your flesh is healed but your body is still recovering. You need to rest.”

I struggled to stand. “But you’re fine.”

He scooped me up in his arms. “My injuries weren’t as great. You don’t want to know how deep your wound was. Sleep, then your strength will return.”

Twigs snapped underfoot as he stepped, breaking the otherwise silent forest. The scent of pine faded as I was losing my senses, but I was still aware enough to know he moved toward Hitta Haven. I remembered why I had set out—and who might still be waiting at home, prepared to spill my secrets. If we arrived at Hitta Haven and Aegir was still there, then who could know what he might say.

“There’s something I must tell you,”

I whispered.

In response he held me tighter. “Sleep first.”

I was vaguely aware of him picking up my axe once more to bring along.

The darkness came fast, and sleep hit before I could say another word.