by Skye Malone
The gun clicked empty. Lindy’s heart raced as her gaze darted around the room. There had to be a way past this thing. A way that didn’t involve seidr. If she could make it to the front door—
Wes grabbed a wooden TV tray from next to the sofa. “Hey!”
The woman whipped around.
“Get the hell away from her,” he snarled.
Swinging hard, he slammed the wooden stand into the creature’s head. The woman stumbled to the side as the tray shattered.
“Go!” he shouted at Lindy.
She didn’t need the encouragement. Darting out from behind the armchair, she bolted toward the hallway.
Like a cobra striking, the woman lashed out, catching her forearm.
Beneath her leather band, the tattoo on Lindy’s wrist flared white-hot, the pain piercing down through her skin until it felt like it scorched into her bones. She screamed even as the creature did too, and the woman fell to her knees, releasing Lindy immediately.
Wes didn’t waste a second. Grabbing Lindy’s shoulders, he hauled her away and pushed her ahead of him as she stumbled toward the door.
An ear-splitting shriek came from the living room behind them. Cringing, Lindy clamped her palms over her ears again as she raced out the back door and down the steps toward the SUV. Wes climbed swiftly into the driver’s seat while she rounded the vehicle and scrambled in on the passenger side.
The woman ran from the door, her distorted mouth gaping wide in a scream.
“Go!” Lindy cried.
Wes floored the pedal, sending gravel and snow spitting in their wake as they flew away from the farmhouse.
8
Wes
“Are you all right?” Wes asked, throwing a fast look to Lindy as he sent the SUV careening back onto the road. Her scream when that creature grabbed her had sent his heart into his throat, and he still didn’t feel like it’d come down.
Holding her right arm to her chest, she didn’t answer.
“Lindy?”
He could see her grip shaking where she held her arm.
Worried, he reached for her. “Lindy?”
She jerked away from him like his hand burned. He froze.
Rapid breaths entered and left her for a moment, and then she shifted on the seat, a steely cast coming over her face. Releasing her arm, she gripped the side of the door, her body rigid with tension and her eyes locked on the world beyond the passenger side window. “I’m fine.”
He cast short glances at her as he raced the SUV down the road. Sure she was.
Though, really, who could blame her for being shaken? What the hell had that thing been? Bullets couldn’t hurt it, neither could a damned machete?
And those corpses…
Old memories of long-forgotten mythology classes played back as his heart slowed down. He hadn’t been raised among the ulfhednar, at least not until after he was bitten and had nowhere else to go, but once he joined the pack, he’d been tutored with the rest of the kids. Connor’s father had always insisted they learn mythology, which annoyed the hell out of most of them because how would that ever be relevant, and now…
“A fucking huldra,” he muttered, incredulous.
From the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Lindy glancing at him.
“That was a huldra,” he explained. “They’re forest creatures. In myth, I mean. They’ve got a cow’s tail and a back like tree bark and they…” Shudders ran through him. That creature had looked at him as if he was Sunday dinner and she hadn’t eaten all week. “They seduce people, and if they’re not, you know—” His eyes flicked toward Lindy and then back to the road, and he cleared his throat with discomfort. “Satisfied, they… they kill them.”
Lindy looked away again, not saying anything.
His brow furrowed. She didn’t seem shocked or confused. More like distracted, and her fingers had begun itching absently at the sleeve on her right wrist.
“You sure you’re all right?” he asked.
She stilled her hand, placing it back in her lap. “Yeah.”
He steered the SUV onto an on-ramp for the interstate, not sure he believed her. “Thanks for the knife,” he said. “And the warning.”
Lindy flinched again, as if he kept pulling her from her thoughts, and her gaze inched toward him. After a heartbeat, her head dipped in a small nod. “Thanks for the TV tray.”
His lip twitched. “You’re welcome. You were pretty impressive with that gun.”
She looked away sharply, locking her eyes on the window at her side. “Anybody could hit a target three feet in front of them.”
His mouth moved, but against her cold tone, he had no idea what to say. Blinking with consternation, he turned back to the road.
He didn’t know what to make of her, except to think she disliked him for some reason. But then, she’d also saved his life, more or less, considering what might have happened if that creature touched him.
And what might have happened to her.
“You sure your arm is okay?” he tried again.
Her eyes snapped to him. “I said it was.”
He held up a hand peaceably.
Blinking, she looked away slowly like she wasn’t sure she should take her eyes off him.
A breath left Wes. Maybe it wasn’t him specifically she disliked. Maybe it was anything or anyone inhuman. For all that she’d been friends with Hayden for years, she hadn’t known the female was ulfhednar. She probably hadn’t known anything outside of the so-called “normal” world existed.
Then she found out about “werewolves” only an hour or so before the world ended and everything from draugar to huldra to the-gods-knew-what-else came out to play. And that didn’t even bring the Order into it.
All things considered, she was keeping it together amazingly well. But it was no wonder she was edgy.
Maybe he just needed to give her time to realize he wasn’t actually…
His thoughts trailed off. What, a monster? Who was he kidding? He wasn’t, but that didn’t mean he was safe for her. That he could ever let down his guard for even a heartbeat, for her sake and his.
Gods, he was thinking like they could be… what? Friends? More?
Shifting position on the seat, he shoved the thoughts aside. He needed to focus on driving, not woolgathering over the beautiful enigma of a woman who could never be anything more than an extremely distant acquaintance to him.
No matter how much the delusional wolf inside him paced and grumbled about it.
Time crept by as he steered the SUV along the highway, stopping a few times to siphon gas with a tube Lindy produced from her backpack and endlessly veering wide of the draugar roaming the terrain. Slowly, exhaustion began to seep through him despite his efforts to fight it. He hadn’t slept in two days, and barely slept the day before that. Meanwhile, the world around them was a monotone expanse of white and gray, with barely a curve in the road to provide variation. Whatever adrenaline he’d gotten from surviving the huldra’s attack was long since gone, and his limbs felt almost as heavy as his eyelids.
This was absurd. Surely she wouldn’t leave behind the SUV—and him—if he simply let her drive for a while.
At least long enough for him to get a bit of rest.
“Listen,” he said. “Any chance you’d mind taking over a bit so I could get some sleep?”
She looked over at him, and for a moment, she said nothing. “Yeah, okay,” she allowed. “I could…”
Her eyes went beyond him, alarm breaking past her closed-off expression. He followed her gaze.
For a moment, he couldn’t tell what she’d seen. The landscape ahead looked burned—as if, like in Mariposa, this part of Nebraska was another place where fire had inexplicably poured from the gashes in the sky. But in the distance, it was encased in white fog, rendering the horizon a uniform blur.
Almost uniform.
Leaning closer to the steering wheel, he strained to see the strange object in the distance. It was tall. Too tall. Last t
ime he checked, Nebraska didn’t have skyscrapers, especially in the middle of nowhere.
He glanced over as they flew past the burned remnants of a highway sign. Most of the markings were charred, but he thought it said thirty miles to Lincoln, Nebraska.
Way too far for that to be a structure inside the city.
Apprehension bubbled through him. Maybe the road would curve away from it. Maybe it was just a trick of the weird, overcast light… or lack thereof.
With every mile marker, he thought they would come upon it, but still, the structure remained shrouded by fog, far in the distance and yet growing larger with every moment.
Gods, it had to be huge. How had they not passed it yet?
Gradually, the highway curved, carrying them on an angle away from the thing. But as the minutes passed, the fog began to thin. The expanse was hazy, but he began to be able to make out a shape.
His mouth moved. “What the fuck…”
A person stood in the open fields, towering taller than the Empire State Building. Its back was hunched, its gray skin mottled like the surface of the moon, and its long arms dangled down beside its ragged loin cloth and knobby knees. On its face, it bore a beard that looked made of snarled seaweed and dead trees, the tangled mess covering everything below its bulbous nose and pinprick eyes.
It was a frost giant. It had to be. In enormous, lumbering strides, the thing walked along the countryside, billows of fog rising like a smoke machine all around it.
And suddenly, he realized why.
In an instant, the ash-covered highway turned to a sheet of ice and snow, and the windows frosted as if from a sudden temperature drop. He pumped the brakes, trying to find traction where there wasn’t any, while the SUV slid on the wintry road, careening wildly.
The tires made a crunching sound. The SUV tipped as they left the road behind.
And then came the ditch.
9
Lindy
Lindy groaned, grimacing as she opened her eyes. One minute they’d been driving, closing in on that towering nightmare on the horizon, and the next…
Slowly, she leaned her head away from the hard surface beside her. She hurt. All over, she hurt, and gingerly, she lifted a hand to her head.
A painful lump throbbed beneath her questing fingertips, dried blood crusted on it.
Dammit.
She looked to her left and then paused, confusion hitting her. Wes was stirring at her side, groaning too, but he seemed higher than her. The whole cabin of the SUV was tilted, and beyond him, she could only see snowy gray sky and no sign of the monster walking across the countryside.
“You okay?” Wes asked, worry in his voice.
“Yeah. You?”
He started to nod and then winced with pain. “Yep.”
The guy barely sounded it, but she didn’t argue. They were alive. It was enough. It meant they could keep going.
Away from the thing that could only be a goddamn frost giant, somehow wandering the scorched Nebraska fields, turning them into the arctic.
She swallowed hard. Icy roads were probably only the beginning of what that thing could do.
Moving slowly, Wes reached up and tried to start the SUV. The engine grumbled but didn’t turn over. “Shit,” he muttered.
A shiver went through Lindy. No. No, she needed this vehicle. Any vehicle, but out here, where she’d seen nothing but the SUV for miles…
Looking around, Wes seemed to orient himself, and then he grabbed the handle and shoved at the driver’s side door, leveraging it open despite the way it kept wanting to fall closed.
Taking a deep breath, Lindy turned, trying to do the same.
The passenger door wouldn’t budge.
Her heart began pounding harder, her blood pressure rising. Scrubbing her arm across the fogged window, she tried to see past the glass, but all she could find was snow. Grunting hard, she shoved at the door again.
“Hey.”
She shoved again.
“Lindy!”
Whirling, she looked back to find Wes reaching toward her.
“Here.” He stretched his arm as far as he could. “Come on.”
She reached out and grabbed his hand. Bracing himself, he pulled her with him as she clambered across the seats and out the door. Swinging down from the opening, she landed on frozen dirt and snow.
And slipped.
Wes caught her.
Lindy froze. She was right up against his chest, so close she could feel his warm breath on her cheek. Her hands clutched his coat where she’d grabbed him for balance, and his face was only inches from her own. A sudden, irrational compulsion gripped her to reach up and run her fingers across the dark stubble on his jawline. The smell of sandalwood and musk surrounded her, lessening the panic and fear of a moment before, leaving only the desire to bring him closer, breathe him in, and God, yes, let him do all manner of amazing things to her. Heat rushed through her body, making her throb and bombarding her with insane impulses that were impossible. Suicidal.
Overwhelming.
“Are you okay?” he murmured, his deep voice only inches from her ear.
A full-body shudder coursed through her. God, she… she wanted…
Exhaling sharply, she retreated, not looking at him as she braced herself on the side of the SUV. A heartbeat passed before she could find her voice, the sound strained to her own ears. “Fine.”
When he didn’t respond, her eyes crept up in spite of herself.
Wes’s head twitched in a nod, a tight expression on his face. He probably thought she was nuts.
Better that than a threat.
She tried to refocus, looking at the SUV, because for goodness’ sake, now was not the time for any of this. Not even the person for any of this, by far. What the hell was wrong with her?
Focus, dammit. She had to focus. The world around her was a charred wasteland buried in snow, and their vehicle was stuck in a ditch. The sooner they got it out of here, the sooner she could rescue her family from her mother.
And get away from this disastrously tempting, distracting wolf.
Taking another breath, she forged along the side of the SUV, using the vehicle for balance as her boots sank into the snow. The driver’s side seemed fine, but when she reached the front of the vehicle—with Wes way too close behind her for comfort—she spotted the other wheel on the passenger side.
Her body went cold.
“Dammit,” Wes muttered.
The axel had snapped, and the right front wheel was lodged sideways under the vehicle. It was only a miracle the SUV hadn’t flipped.
Trembling ran through her. There was no fixing this. Ragnarok didn’t feature a maintenance shop. And they were miles from Lincoln, let alone Minneapolis, with nothing but miles of the burned and frozen wasteland around them.
Beneath her leather wristband, the tattoo itched like tiny teeth biting into her skin. Ever since the huldra grabbed her, it hadn’t stopped, and even now, she could feel the shadows at the edge of her mind roiling like amorphous monsters who thought their time had come.
Did she have days left? Or was it only hours—minutes, even—until whatever was holding back the darkness finally collapsed and the curse took her? Before she was gone? Too late to save her dad, her brother. Too late to save anyone from what she would become.
Tears stung her eyes. She’d run all the way to Minneapolis if she could.
“Guess we’re walking,” Wes said. His feet sloughed through the snow as he headed for the back of the vehicle.
She didn’t move, her trembling growing worse as rage and sobs and a scream all boiled up inside her. So, what? He thought they had all the time in the world then? And fine. Sure. Walking was the only choice, but would it be enough? Could she be fast enough to stay ahead of the monsters, when the monsters were in her own body, slowly devouring her soul?
On that day, you shall know neither pain nor sorrow nor joy. You shall only be our weapon as we lay waste to the corrupt world.
“Lindy?”
A shudder ran through her. She couldn’t take her eyes from the SUV.
“We’ll just—”
A scream left her. Wildly, she kicked the fender.
“Holy—” Wes forged through the snow back to her. “It’s okay. We can—”
Her boot slammed into the SUV again.
“Lindy—” He reached out to grab her.
She yanked away from him. “It’s not fucking okay!”
“What—”
“Nothing is fucking okay!” She stared around at the empty wasteland. There wasn’t anything she could do to stop herself if the curse took her. No gun. No machete. Just endless fucking snow and the hope Wes would give the knife back before she killed him too.
“Lindy, we can still—”
“No.” She shook hard, her muscles longing for something to punch. Something to do, if only to change this. With every ounce that remained of her soul, she wanted to fly straight to Minneapolis this moment, where her dad and Frankie would be alive, and safe, and Carolyn wouldn’t have found them.
Yet.
Shudders racked Lindy’s body. “She’s going to kill them. She’s going to… And I can’t…” Her voice choked. “There’s no time to…”
She hugged her arm to her chest, her body caving in on itself as the tears burned in her eyes.
“Who’s going to kill someone?” Wes’s voice was quiet behind her.
Trembling racked her. She dashed the moisture from her eyes and tried to ignore the way her skin itched and the shadows roiled in her mind. There wasn’t time for this either.
For anything.
Turning fast, she shoved through the snow toward the back of the SUV. Yanking the rear hatch open, she set to shoving supplies into bags. Warm things, she would wear. Food, she could carry. And maybe—probably—she wouldn’t make it, but…
Dammit, she knew she was going to die.
But she wasn’t dead yet.
