by Skye Malone
A breath left Lindy, and he looked back at her again. One finger at a time, she pulled the glove from her hand.
Black ink twisted across her skin like a jagged vine, tangling over her fingers, thumb, and palm. The lines almost reminded him of Norse art or old ulfhednar drawings, and when she moved, the dark markings reflected the firelight with a metallic green sheen.
“What is it?” he asked softly.
“A curse.”
He looked up at her in alarm.
Her eyes on the flames, she continued. “Did you know the Order has some of the greatest magical storehouses in the world? Possibly the greatest?”
Wordless, he shook his head.
“They’ve been collecting things for millennia. Ancient spells. Old artifacts. Things they probably stole from the wolves or someone else. Things humans”—her lip twitched, cold certainty in the expression—“never should’ve touched. Some of the spells you’ve seen. The ones that let them control the draugar. The ones that killed that elf. But others…” She held up her hand, the tattoo catching the firelight. “Others let them do things like this.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you’re not safe. No one is.”
She tugged the sleeve back down and started to put her gloves on.
He put a hand to her leg, and she froze. “Why?” he asked.
She looked up at him. “Because I’m a monster.”
His chest ached at the painful certainty in her voice.
“Or I will be.” She wrapped her arms around her legs as if drawing in on herself. “Soon. When this takes hold and I…” Her face tightened like she was struggling with the words. “I’m not like the other Allegiants, Wes. I’ll be so much worse. What they did to themselves was as far as they got on the global scale, but… there are darker magics. Older. A mantle passed down through the generations, even if it was only symbolic”—an ironic look twisted across her face—“before now, anyway. And that’s what they gave me. Made me.” She shivered. “The Scythe of Niorun.”
He hesitated. The last word was familiar, but he couldn’t place why until foggy memories of mythology classes returned to him, filled with countless hours of memorizing old stories and reciting them back. Niorun was… a goddess, maybe. But not much was known about her. She hid her face in darkness. She lived in a different realm from the other gods, a dangerous one, obscuring herself in rainbow mist and deep shadow. But some worshipers believed she was a goddess of dreams.
And nightmares.
He forced his focus back. “What does that mean? What will you do if you… become that?”
“Hurt people.” She shifted uncomfortably. “Kill them. That much I know. But mostly… I’ll drive people mad. Get into their minds and make them turn on each other, murder each other.” Her eyes went to him, pained. “The ulfhednar packs would tear each other apart. As the Scythe, I could make you kill your best friends with your bare hands if…” Her hand rubbed at the front of her neck as if she could feel something tight there. “If the one controlling me wanted it.”
“Controlling you?”
She nodded.
Inside him, the wolf paced, snarling. Like hell. Like bloody, gods-damned hell. “That won’t happen,” he promised.
A tiny laugh left her, humorless, defeated.
“Lindy, you’re not a monster. I saw you. You helped people with this… whatever this power is. You won’t—”
“It won’t matter.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m fading. I can feel it inside. It’s taking me. I don’t even know everything of what’s coming or what this is going to do. All I know is that someday, maybe really soon, whatever makes me, me? It’ll stop.”
He stared at her.
“This thing they turned me into, it’s a power too strong for one person to possess and control at the same time. It’d be like asking the engine of a car to steer itself.” She hugged her legs tighter. “I’m the weapon. And when this takes over, they’ll control me. I won’t be me anymore. I’ll just be a monster, even worse than the Allegiants you’ve seen. Nothing more than the Order’s weapon.” She looked back at the flames, bitterness flashing across her face. “Just like Mom always wanted me to be.”
When it was his turn for rest, sleep barely came, a blur of tossing and turning to fitful dreams of Allegiants dragging Lindy away while she screamed and he couldn’t do a thing to stop them. By the time dawn finally arrived, he was almost grateful for the excuse to abandon the tangle of blankets and do something—anything—useful to get them on their way.
Because that’s all he could do. That, and get her to Minneapolis and hope to the gods that her family had answers to help her.
He shoved food and bottles of water into his bag. She’d be okay. He didn’t care what it took. They’d find a solution for this because like hell those Order bastards would use her. Erase her.
Control her.
Striding out of the kitchen, he headed deeper into the house, raiding every drawer and closet he could find for matches and rope and any other damn thing he thought they might need. Guilt lurked in the background—he was stealing, after all—but they had to survive.
Hopefully whoever owned this place would understand, assuming they were still alive.
More snow had fallen in the night, forming a thick cover on the truck and making the road even harder to find. With his hands clenching the wheel, he drove them north again, praying the tires stayed on the road and that nothing else went wrong.
Lindy barely said a word.
Wes watched her from the corner of his eye. He couldn’t see her tattoo anymore. She’d put the gloves back on last night and hadn’t taken them off since. But how the hell could the thing change like that? Grow like it was some disease spreading through her? How far did it go? Could it be reversed?
He steered the truck through a bank of snow, hoping the road was beneath it. His own tattoos chronicled the new life he’d gained as much as anything. And hers?
They chronicled everything she was losing.
Burying a grimace, he struggled to push the thought aside. They’d fix this, whether by finding the answers with her family or somewhere else, they’d fix this.
He just had to get them to Minneapolis first.
Beneath the tires, the snow growled and grumbled. Chunks of ice hit the undercarriage and thudded on the floor of the truck. He felt ironically grateful to that Allegiant asshole for choosing a vehicle capable of maneuvering through this mess, but gods, it was slow going. They’d crossed the Minnesota border a while ago, as evidenced by a small sign protruding from a snowbank, and they’d passed through several towns since. He’d gathered gas and a few more supplies, but with every mile the road grew worse, the tires spinning as often as they caught traction and the engine grumbling toward overheating from all the effort. The world was an endless expanse of white, buried so deep that now he was only guessing where the road might be.
On a good day, Minneapolis should have only been a few hours distance from where they’d stayed the night. Now, it might as well be Tokyo.
The tires lost purchase again, spinning while the truck suddenly sank into snow past the doors.
Fuck.
He closed his eyes. Well, that had been nice while it lasted, having a vehicle and all.
Now what?
Avoiding Lindy’s eyes, he glanced around. Last he’d seen a sign, they weren’t actually all that far from Minneapolis, though if the monochromatic wasteland around him was any indication, they certainly weren’t there yet. And given that digging out the truck would only be useful for the twenty or so feet it took for it to sink into a snowdrift a second time, there was really only one option. They had to walk.
Again.
But on what road? The snow in Nebraska had been bad, but this was absurd.
He eyed a tree about fifty feet away. That might work.
“May I borrow your knife again?”
Lindy gave him a skeptical look, b
ut she drew out her knife and handed it to him all the same.
“Thanks. Back in a sec.”
Shoving at the door was useless, so he climbed from the window instead. Slogging through the snowdrifts took forever, and it took longer still to cut off the branches, but dammit, this would work.
His training up in Alaska hadn’t been for nothing.
He returned to the truck and climbed into the back, needing the space. Through the rear window, Lindy watched him, curiosity clear in her eyes. Tapping a gloved knuckle to the glass, he waited until she slid the pane open.
“Could you hand me the rope? It’s in my bag.”
She did as he asked.
Working as quickly as possible, he fashioned snowshoes using the rope and branches, and a pair of ski poles too, and then turned back to Lindy.
Did she look impressed? A warm feeling spread in his chest at the thought, though of course that was ridiculous. What should it matter what she thought of him?
Something in him wanted to grin like a schoolboy, anyway.
He cleared his throat, keeping his voice as neutral as he could. “You want to try these on?”
She nodded. Climbing out the passenger window, she waded through the snow and jumped into the back of the truck too. She lifted her foot, and he took it, lashing each boot to the snowshoes he’d made.
“Try it out, eh?” he suggested.
She hesitated. “What about you?”
Her voice was wary. She already knew the answer, he could tell.
“It, uh… it’ll be easier if I travel another way.”
The fear that flashed across her face was painful.
But that was ridiculous too. Of course she was uncomfortable with what he was. She should be. Human? Wolf? Lindy was no fool.
Unlike a certain ulfhednar. Namely him.
He dusted the bark from his gloves to cover his discomfort. “If you want to—”
“I’ll wait over there.” She said the words quickly and scrambled from the back of the truck before he could even agree.
He buried a grimace. Glancing around, he tried to figure out a better way to do this than the frigid option before him, but couldn’t think of much. The doors were blocked. Getting back in the truck only to get back out would be ridiculous, not to mention extremely awkward to accomplish.
But gods, this was going to be cold.
He stripped down quickly, his body protesting the bitter breeze and the snow, and he shoved everything into a bag as fast as he could. With a sharp breath, he braced himself, snarling an order at the wolf to keep itself damn well under control.
Because this was Lindy, and that fool beast wanted her, and he’d throw himself into that fucking ravine before he let the creature harm her.
Warm fur engulfed him as he shifted, but his skin still burned with the aftereffects of being exposed to the open air. The wolf’s stronger senses flooded his mind, and instantly the beast wanted to head for Lindy, to smell her, to feel her hands on his fur.
To taste her.
Inside his mind, he cursed at the wolf, ruthlessly beating the bastard back with all of his might. Like hell that sick fucking side of him would touch her. He wasn’t going near her in this form, and the rabid beast either accepted that, or they’d damn well stay here in this truck while he sent her away.
His wolf side paused.
The impulses faded.
Damn straight.
A breath left him. Gathering the handle of the bag into his mouth, he turned to jump down from the truck.
He stopped at the edge of the truck bed. Lindy was staring at him, but quickly, she ducked her face away.
How long had she been watching him?
Eyeing her, he leapt down into the snow. The thought she’d watched him strip down was… flattering? Definitely arousing. But it took second place to the concern thrumming through him. As a wolf, he could see shadows around her where his human eyes had seen nothing. Darkness pooled in the hollows of her cheeks and drifted across her face like sinister ghosts. But they weren’t the same as the Allegiants with their skull-like faces and black-hollow eyes. On her, the shadows were everywhere, as if they were working up to devouring her whole.
And at their core stood a beautiful woman, her eyes filled with sorrow and a fear of him she was desperately trying to hide.
His heart ached. He would never harm her. No matter what the wolf thought she was—his mate or any other impossible thing—he never would. Whatever Lindy became, she would be safe from him. Now. Always.
He’d die before he would ever hurt her.
15
Lindy
Wes was breathtaking.
And every instinct screamed for her to run.
Not daring to move, she waited as he jumped down from the truck, muscles rolling beneath his fur. He wasn’t what she’d expected—although, really, she didn’t know what that would’ve been. His fur was the color of dark ash, of storm clouds and smoke, though lighter shades interspersed it here and there like wisps of daylight. His paws were enormous, splayed out on the snow as if they were snowshoes all on their own. Pale-gray eyes locked on her when he turned back, as if questioning whether she was going to follow, and all the while his ears twitched like he was catching sounds beyond anything she could hear.
And he was huge. Most ulfhednar were large, surpassing the size of any ordinary wolf.
But God help her, up close like this, he seemed really huge.
He regarded her for a moment, and she braced herself, waiting for him to attack. She was Order, after all—or had been. Would his wolf side be as understanding as his human side had been? How did that work, anyway? The Order taught that all ulfhednar were beasts no matter their form. Wily crafty beasts, sure, with heightened intelligence that made them dangerous as hell, but without a trace of anything resembling a soul. When they shifted, nothing of their human “facades” remained. Just animal instincts. Just hunger and bloodlust and violence.
Their real selves, the Order said.
Lindy had never really put the Order’s description to the test. Her best friend, Hayden, disappeared every month right around the full moon, always with one excuse or another, so Lindy never had the opportunity to prove to herself how wrong the Order had been—and it wasn’t like she’d gone hunting for any other ulfhednar to find out for sure.
Years of putting their bullshit out of her head evaporated in the face of a wolf that maybe, just maybe, would show her the one thing the Order hadn’t been wrong about.
But would Wes really have suggested this if he knew he was going to be a danger to her?
He nodded to the side, the motion almost like a request for her to go on.
She swallowed hard. Was he still in there? Was this a trap? “Y-you go ahead.”
The wolf watched her for a moment, and something flashed through his eyes that almost looked… hurt?
How could she know that?
Wes bobbed his head as if in agreement to her request. He started across the snow ahead of her.
For a moment, she hesitated, glancing around at the truck, the snow, and the utter lack of alternatives. If she didn’t move, he wouldn’t keep going. He’d just come back here, and then they’d both be stuck standing next to a truck they couldn’t drive, miles from the destination she’d insisted they try to reach.
Forward was the only option.
She took a step out onto the snow. The rough snowshoes he’d made her held up beneath her feet surprisingly well, and the two longer branches like walking sticks helped her stay steady. Though his head turned back toward her slightly, Wes didn’t stop or slow down, continuing on several yards ahead of her as if he wasn’t inclined to come too close.
Wait… was Wes-as-a-wolf scared of her?
Something in her chest twisted at the thought. She wouldn’t blame him if that were true. She was scared of herself. Terrified, really. She could feel the fear deep down somewhere, thin and distant, like a person at the bottom of a canyon, screaming. But if
he was afraid, he wasn’t attacking. He reacted to her when she spoke, too, which meant he must understand human speech.
The Order was wrong. They had to be.
She hoped.
Even with the snowshoes, forging through the drifts was exhausting, and she was grateful when finally they stopped in the shelter of a cluster of evergreen trees where the snow hadn’t managed to pile very high. Awkwardly lowering herself onto a relatively cleared patch of ground, she rolled her tense neck and tried not to do the math on how many miles they still had to go.
From a couple of yards away, Wes watched her and then maneuvered open the bag with his teeth and paws. She watched, obscurely impressed, only to freeze when he drew out two cans of food and nosed them toward her.
Her stomach rolled. Last night’s dinner had tasted like ash, though it wasn’t Wes’s fault. She saw what he put in the pot. It’d seemed like a nice stew, and she felt terrible for possibly making him believe it wasn’t.
But the thought of food was nauseating, even if she didn’t want to think about possible reasons why. What the hell did the Order intend for her to do? They’d never mentioned not needing food.
Wes nosed them toward her again with a small yipping sound.
She fought off a grimace. Maybe she was just nervous. Every scrap of logic in the universe dictated she needed to eat. She hadn’t touched a bite this morning and they’d been slogging through snow for an eternity, with another eternity to go.
It wouldn’t do anyone a damn bit of good if she passed out from hunger.
With a tense nod to Wes, she took the cans and pried them open by their pull-tops before setting one back down where he could reach. Retrieving a spoon from her bag, she scooped out the cold SpaghettiOs and gulped them down fast, each bite hitting her stomach like lead.
She could feel him watching her when she was done. Not meeting his eyes, she tucked the cans away beneath a tree, hoping some small creature could finish up the scraps, and then climbed back to her feet. “Ready?”
