Taran jerked the wheel, cursed, and my head slammed into the passenger window. Groaning, I rubbed my scalp.
“Sorry.” He cursed under his breath again. “I didn’t see the little dog until I nearly hit it. Are you tripping over the darkling thing?”
“Wouldn’t you be?”
Everything, including the twins, jostled in the back as we hit a curb then drove onto someone’s front yard before Taran got us back onto road. I looked in the back, biting my lip to see that Taran had set them on their sides and half on top of each other. Their bodies slid on the next swerve, Grim’s finger poking Josh’s eye. “I need to crawl back there and buckle them in.”
“I tried. Won’t work. Not with the way they’re frozen—not with all the crap you have back there.”
“Crap?”
“Sorry. Stuff. I meant stuff.” Taran swerved and whipped the car into a neighborhood. “So what do you think the runes mean?”
“Like I said, nothing. Or anything. It could be about you and the two boys my sisters are trying to help. It could mean all the kids out there carrying gods’ souls because we just met another one.”
“Yeah, I’m kinda tripping over that. I’m like his father in some sort of mind-boggling way.” He shook his head. “I can’t wrap my brain around it. How many do you think there are?” He cursed, slowed the car to a stop, then pulled into another yard to go around a bunch of stopped vehicles.
“I have no idea. Thirty? Forty? Hundreds? We have no way of knowing which gods came back and if you count them all, it gets overwhelming.” There were also all the warriors taken off the battlefields by Valkyries, the ones who’d been living in Valhalla until Ragnarok. Just because Mist had been escorting Magnus didn’t mean the others weren’t bringing resurrected warriors. I braced myself on the dash, closed my eyes as Taran zipped through someone’s gravel driveway that went all the way through to the next street.
“So what made you think I was one of the hundreds your mom decided to pick on?”
I opened my eyes when the car bounced over something hard, then closed them when I saw the house right in front of us. “Because my mother had more on you and the other two than anyone else. You play a huge part in Ragnarok. Or Thor does. Plus, my norn sort of let me know I’d guessed right.”
The car swerved, bounced. “We’re back on the street and not too far from my house. I had to take a long way around. But back to Ragnarok. Thor’s part... it’s depressing, right? He dies?”
Squeezing open one eye, I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw we could go around the cars easier now. “That’s one possible outcome. I don’t think it’s the only one.” Hopefully, it was like that with all the prophecies.
He took his hand off the wheel to point at the notebook. “So what was the message from the other night?”
“Valkyries shadow.” I wrote it down, then wrote the new one just beneath. “That’s it!”
“What?” he nearly yelled back, gripping the steering wheel so tight, his knuckles turned white.
Guess I’d startled him. “Sorry I yelled. I was thinking that Valkyries was possessive, that my norn was talking about one of their shadows.” I pointed to the new runes. “This actually says warriors’ with an apostrophe so that first shadow is a verb. Of course we know that now with Mist and Magnus.” My norn never used apostrophes before. Maybe she was trying to adapt.
“So you think anyone with a god’s soul can move around during your rune thing.”
“Rune tempus,” I corrected, wondering how many times I’d have to repeat it before he got it. “It’s the only connection I know we all have. Though it didn’t always happen with my sisters, so I’m not sure if it would be happening all over or just close to us. You and me—together—seemed to have triggered it. Hey, I’m glad you’re accepting all this. I thought maybe the hammer appearing and disappearing would be pretty convincing.”
“You know, Coral, up until it started snowing, the only unusual thing about me was being a little strong. Yeah, I admit the hammer thing freaked me out, but to actually believe that I carry the soul of a mythological god is kind of hard to swallow.”
I could understand that. I’d felt my norn for nine years so I’d had time to adjust. Sort of. All this had been dumped into his lap at once. But I could tell by his tone that he was really starting to believe it. And that it scared him. Badly.
The urge to scooch over and wrap my arms around him hit me hard.
Then the warm, giddy swirling feeling—separate from the movement of the vehicle—clued me in to what was about to happen.
Taran must have figured it out too, because he groaned. “Oh man, not this. Not yet.” His words sounded more like a growl.
“Can you pull over somewhere?” I yelled, unable to imagine what would happen if we came out of this in a moving vehicle.
“No time!” Taran shut off the car and surprised me when he reached across and hauled me close, wrapping his arms around me. My seat belt cut into my neck. “I really hate this part,” he muttered into my cheek. “But it seemed better when we were holding each other. That’s not some line, either.”
“Okay,” I breathed, staring into the backseat as the twins, the seat, the piles of stuff, all smeared into a spin.
Taran moaned into my neck. “Is there any way to stop it from happening?”
“I don’t know,” I said, shutting my eyes. “I wish I did.”
When everything stopped spinning, we only had a split second to let go of each other because a car crashed into the back of mine.
The twins collided with our seats. Hard. Josh screamed as the blankets, bags of herbs and books I’d piled back there slid on top of him.
Taran winced. “Stop squealing like a girl!”
I glared at him even as I rubbed the back of my neck. It had wrenched when the car hit us. “Like a girl?”
“Sorry,” he muttered, frowning. “Man, Coral, I’m so sorry about your car, too. I tried to pull to the side of the road, but we ran out of time.”
“It wasn’t your fault.” The car behind us had pushed us up on a curb. The hair feather clips I kept on the rearview mirror dangled at an angle. Something else in the back slid off the seat, making Josh grunt.
Someone pounded on the driver’s side window and a bushy black beard and furious dark eyes showed through the glass. “Where the hell did you come from?” the guy yelled.
Taran pushed open the door, forcing the man to take a few steps back as he got out. The fierce winds blew tons of snow into the car. I shivered.
Josh groaned. “What the hell? How’d we get here?”
Grimacing, I looked into the backseat at the two furious guys, both more on the floor than on the seat. “Would you believe magic? Are you guys hurt? I’m sorry we didn’t have time to figure out how to get the seat belts on you.”
Grim, hanging upside down off the seat, patted his coat pockets frantically, then relaxed when he pulled out a packet of Fun Dip. He didn’t say anything, just worked to get the candy stick out with shaking hands.
“Magic makes more sense than anything else. This is what you did the other night, right?” Josh tried to right himself, his elbow smacking Grim in the nose.
Grim howled, dropped his candy and shoved his brother. “Vitskertr!”
Josh shoved back. “Huglausi vifill!”
I would have laughed at them calling each other shortwit and cowardly beetle, but their fight jostled my little car and I noticed other people had left their vehicles to stand around watching Taran and the other driver. Some were yelling questions, asking where we’d come from. I felt like sinking into the floor of the car and hiding. Felt bad that Taran was getting the brunt of what happened when my rune tempus screwed things up.
The driver from the car behind us got in Taran’s face. “Yeah, they saw it, too. You, appearing
out of nowhere. Where did you come from?”
Taran held up his hands. They were shaking, and I knew it was from the frigid wind and snow sweeping down the neighborhood street. I looked around for his coat and didn’t see it, so I tugged one of the blankets from under Josh and Grim.
“The snow must have blocked your view or something,” Taran said loudly, trying to talk over the wind.
The guy took a step into Taran’s personal space and I saw one of Taran’s eyebrows go up, his expression bleeding into that fierce sort of scary calm it had earlier in the restaurant.
“The snow didn’t block anything, you stupid—”
The wind picked up and I couldn’t hear more but from the look on Taran’s face, the guy had said something bad—crossed a line. My hand was on the door handle when Taran yelled.
“Uh-oh,” Grim muttered. “Not good.”
“What’s not good?” I asked, breathless because Taran had closed his hands into fists, was murmuring something we couldn’t hear. The sky darkened and I leaned over to look up through the windshield. A wall of thicker, black clouds had rolled over the others.
“The yell was the first sign of a problem, but it’s better if he keeps yelling.” Josh pushed his brother off him and finally sat up straight. He pulled another of the blankets out from under himself and shared it with his brother as they kept their gazes locked on Taran now. “Quiet Taran is the scariest kind of Taran.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because that means he’s using up everything to hold back his temper and when he holds it back, it builds.”
I looked outside to see that Taran clenched two fistfuls of the man’s coat in his hands. He lifted the much bigger man off the ground. People around them started backing up. All I heard was the pattering of snow on the roof of my car, the moan of the wind coming between the houses. I scrambled out, slammed the door and ran around to Taran.
Nostrils flaring, Taran aimed a harsh glare at the man he held. I expected lightning bolts to shoot out of his eyes any second.
“Kid, put me down.” The driver’s bushy black eyebrows squished together, his eyes widening as he stared at Taran. His curly black hair whipped about in the wind as he struggled and grabbed Taran’s wrists.
“Hey,” I said softly as I laid one gentle hand on Taran’s side. A part of me thought he might go off if startled. His brown gaze flicked down to me. I smiled. Or tried to. I was pretty sure ice was forming on my cheeks. “You’re freezing. I’m freezing. Let’s just go.”
He stared as if I were speaking in another language. The guy in the air fought harder, kicking out his legs. One hit me. Hard. I winced and stepped back, then rushed forward again when Taran actually growled and started shaking him.
A loud rumble of thunder shook the earth.
“Let him go!” I blinked as snow pummeled my eyes and face. The wind hit hard, growing so loud, it sounded like ocean waves. It burrowed into me, forcing me to grab onto Taran’s arm to stay still. Everyone else ran back to their cars. The snowflakes thickened, my teeth started chattering. “H-hey! W-we can’t stay out in this. Let him go! It was an a-accid-dent. Not your fault!”
“Hell yeah, it was his fault. You heard the bitch. Put me down.”
“What did you call her?” Taran didn’t yell, but we both heard him over the wind. Lightning flashed in the overcast sky, followed by a sharp clap of thunder so loud I winced.
The sneer in the man’s voice pissed me off too, so I turned and wiggled between them, my entire back plastered to the front of Taran as I looked up at the guy. Then I sniffed as a whiff of something hit me. Surprised any scent lingered in this wind, I leaned forward, smelled his coat and realized why it had. Wincing, I held my hand over my nose. “My M-mom used to date this guy who reminds me a l-lot of you only he had long hair and a long beard.”
“I remind you of what? Girl, I don’t care about your mama. I’m freezing my ass off, the sky is about to open up even more, and we need to exchange numbers so He-Man here can pay for the damages. Drop the chitchat. Tell your freak boyfriend to put me down!” He brought up his fist.
Taran made another growling noise in the back of his throat. Lightning rent the sky again. My mouth dropped open as I realized the sky seemed to be reacting to his mood. Every hair on my body stood. I had to calm him down. Now.
I reached behind me to touch him, somehow knowing that worked. My hand ended up on his hip. He stiffened up, went completely silent for a moment, then kind of chuckled. I glared back up at the dangling, wiggling man. “Look, this c-cold is killing me. That guy my mom dated smelled just like you. Cheap whiskey. It sticks in your clothes.”
A cop car pulled to a stop a few houses down.
“Just go home,” I told him.
Taran dropped him and the man staggered back. He brushed his hands down over his coat, snarled at me. “Stupid bitch.”
I had to turn and physically wrap my arms around Taran’s waist when he started to step after the man again. “Gods, I’m freezing. Let’s just g-go, okay? It’s okay. You don’t want to get into more trouble, and he r-reeks of booze.”
He stared down at me, blinked as he seemed to get himself under control. Then he snorted. “Were you petting me?”
“N-no.” I frowned as the sky seemed to settle. “Well, sort of.”
The corner of his full lips went up. “I liked it.” He leaned down until his lips were by my ear. His warm breath made me close my eyes. “Wanna try that again later when I don’t have my shirt on?”
Just the thought of fewer clothes in this cold made me grimace, but that grin of his had my heart fluttering about in my chest like a caged bird. My norn shifted and it almost felt like she sighed.
I get it, I thought to her. He’s potent, isn’t he?
She shifted again, seeming happy that I’d spoken directly to her. Someone cleared his throat behind me.
“Great,” Taran muttered.
I turned to find Grady Breen standing there with his arms crossed and a glare, much like his son’s, darkening his face. Wind-driven snow blew past, not doing anything to cool his fierce expression.
“It’s all fine, Officer.” The driver who’d hit my car backed up fast toward his own. He slipped on the snow, but managed not to fall.
I finally looked and saw that the back of my car was dented and that the front of his had taken a small hit. It wasn’t bad, but I didn’t really care at this point. I could no longer feel my feet. I stepped closer to Taran’s warmth.
Another cop—the one who’d been in the car the first night I’d seen Taran—came to stand beside Grady. He shook his head as he crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes into the wind. “Taran, you don’t think we have enough to worry about right now? Thought you were housebound.”
Taran said nothing, just glared at his father. Their identical expressions clashed, their fierce temperaments burning a path through the snow between them. I looked back and forth, expecting a fire to break out any second. Fire would so be welcome about now.
The other cop jogged over to the damaged car behind mine and bent to talk to the driver through the window.
“Pretty sure I told you to stay home.” His dad took a menacing step toward him. “Am I going to have to get an ankle bracelet? Put you under house arrest?”
“You can’t do that.”
“Try me. I know people.” He waved his hand around. “With the chaos going on, I have a feeling they’ll be passing the things out.”
“Um, Mr. Breen?” Josh stuck his head out through the door opening. “It’s our fault Taran came out. We asked him to come get us. Car trouble.”
I don’t know how he lied to the man. I couldn’t have. Something about the elder Breen made me think he could smell a falsehood a mile off.
“Is that right, Josh?” Grady cocked one eyebrow before his shou
lders straightened. “It’s too cold to stay out here and figure out what’s true and what isn’t. Is anyone hurt?”
We all answered no, all except Taran, who stood silently fuming. I didn’t even think, just stepped closer and slid my arm tight around his waist. I knew I could comfort him, calm him down, though I didn’t know how I knew it. It worked. Again. His gaze locked with mine and his slow smile showed a hint of appreciation. And growing affection. It made me catch my breath.
His dad missed none of that and it showed in his narrowed eyes. “Coral, was it?” He walked to the car. “Why don’t you get out of this wind and give me your number. You can alert your insurance about the accident. Unfortunately, it’ll probably be a pain. I’ve overseen over thirty accidents already this morning.” He looked at his son. “Several with fatalities.”
“It wasn’t Taran’s fault.”
As I spoke, tires screeched—maybe a street over. Grady Breen closed and rubbed his eyes.
Taran’s arm tightened around me. “I’ll be lucky if he ever lets me out of the house again, which is gonna suck because I’d like to see a lot more of you, Coral Lockwood.”
I wanted to respond, but a violent shiver shook me.
“Come on, let’s get you inside and under one of those blankets out of your hoarder stash.” He walked with me.
I slid behind the wheel, realizing we’d never said Taran was driving. I doubted the guy who hit us would say anything—he was probably hoping they wouldn’t figure out he’d been drinking. My hands shook so much, getting my name and number written grew frustrating. The paper I handed his dad looked ridiculous with half-legible scribbling, but I didn’t care.
“Go home, Taran,” his father said, weariness softening his features as he took the paper. He bent to look at me. “Drive slowly and stay off the roads. It’s way too dangerous for anyone to be out right now.”
Forecast Page 8
