by Eleri Stone
She touched his chest and he searched her face for a moment before closing his eyes. A shudder passed through him. He drew his hand from beneath her jacket and cupped it against her cheek.
He kissed her again, this time with a gentleness that was sweet. Tucking a strand of loose hair behind her ear, he said, “But you’re not ready. How about we take a look around and then...will you spend the rest of the day with me?”
The night too. He was offering that, she could see it in his eyes. Hunger. Possessiveness. Challenge. He wanted her. At this most basic level, apart from duty and contracts and loyalty, Christian wanted to fuck her brains out. Attraction. They could start with basic physical attraction and work from there. Why the hell not?
Because it was wrong.
* * *
“Over here.” Christian stopped beside a ward stone while she searched for its mate. She thought she’d start by checking the wards themselves. Right now, what she felt was as strong and stable as the fault back home, but there had to be something...
She cast around for the next stone. It had been windy last night and even though they’d only been placed a few days ago, some of the stones were already covered by debris. She took a step toward a pile of leaves covering a dip in the ground and her breath caught in her throat.
There was a drop-off just a few feet away, a steep hill that might hold a small creek in the spring. It was dry now but not empty. Something was down there, black and limp, lying in the crumpled leaves. At first she recoiled, thinking it was a demon, but the magical imprint they made in this world didn’t slam into her. If it was a demon, it was a dead one.
Whatever—whoever—it was, wasn’t getting out of there on its own.
“Christian,” she shouted, and he was there before she turned to look for him.
He slid down the drop, one hand grazing the ground for balance. She went behind him, more carefully. Last thing they needed was for her to twist an ankle now.
“Oh God.”
It was one of the crows. As Raquel drew nearer, she recognized the injured woman as Rane, the crow who’d been arguing with Aiden at the welcome party. Her face was a bloodied, swollen mess, nose and jaw both broken. A gash on her forehead still bled sluggishly. She was naked. The black that had caught Raquel’s attention in the first place were her feathers, which were damp and plastered to her skin. That was a bad, bad sign. Christian’s pinched face confirmed it. Rane had had trouble completing her transformation. Usually that indicated severe internal trauma.
Raquel dropped to her knees beside the body and felt for a heartbeat while Christian called for help on his phone. She found a pulse, tremulous and weak, fluttering beneath the pale skin at Rane’s neck.
“Aiden? We found Rane near the fault. West side of the lake, near the cliff. She’s hurt badly.” A pause. “No, bring Alan here. I’m afraid to move her.” Christian looked at Rane, eyes bleak, face hard and filled with helpless anger. “We’ll do what we can. Hurry.”
Raquel had already taken off her coat and laid it over Rane’s body. Her skin was naturally pale which made the blood and bruises stand out in stark contrast. Black feathers stuck to the drying blood.
“We can bind the wounds.” Christian reached for his pack.
Raquel shook her head. “There are too many small cuts and she’s not bleeding badly anymore.” Which wasn’t a particularly good sign. It just meant Rane didn’t have that much more blood to lose. Raquel had apprenticed with their healer last year at Kathy’s insistence. Being a witch didn’t necessarily make you a good healer. Healers, in fact, were usually witches who had very minor gifts magic wise. Their true talent lay in their intuition and control. She couldn’t heal Rane. If she tried, she might do more damage than good. But she could keep her heart beating until help arrived, could keep her lungs drawing air and prevent her from losing any more blood.
She pressed her palm to Rane’s heart and closed her eyes. Focused on matching the beat of the crow’s heart to her own. A small magic, less than lighting a match or activating a rune, but she focused all her attention on it.
She heard Christian stand, and a moment later a weight landed atop the body as he gently covered Rane’s exposed legs with his coat. He settled himself at Rane’s head and talked to her in a low voice while Raquel tried to keep the weakening heart muscle pumping blood.
God, what had happened? She’d never seen injuries like this. Demons, for all of their terror, were straightforward killers. They didn’t generally toy with their prey. These wounds had been purposefully placed to keep Rane alive as long as possible and suffering. And they’d left her here to bleed out alone at the very center of clan land.
Rane whimpered and Christian lowered his head. “Stay with us, Rane. Help is coming. I hear them, they’re almost here now.”
He was right, Raquel realized. Either they were fast or she’d lost time. She could hear Aiden’s voice, gruff and deep, and then another man who came to kneel beside her.
“No, don’t stop,” he told her when she started to withdraw her hand. “Let me just see...ah.”
She could feel his magic through her connection to Rane. Strong for a healer, and he seemed to know what he was doing.
“Will she make it?” Aiden asked, but the healer was gone, completely absorbed in trying to repair the damage. The question hung there like a curse. No one could answer it. Aiden swore and Christian pulled him aside so they could work. Behind them, the two men spoke in quiet, urgent voices.
The healer was silent, but Raquel could feel him working, could feel the heartbeat steadily strengthen until he looked up and said, “You can stop now. There’s nothing...” He turned. “Aiden, let’s move her to the house. She’s stable enough for that now.”
“Will she be okay?”
“She’ll make it,” Christian said fiercely, as if he could will it to be so.
Rane muttered something, but her mouth was too broken for the words to be understood. Alan placed his hand on her shoulder to hold her still. “Shh. She’ll make it. Call Elin. She’s lost too much blood. She’ll need a transfusion.”
“She’s already on her way.”
Aiden mounted and Christian gently slipped his arms beneath Rane’s body. He rose smoothly, but Rane still moaned when he lifted her into Aiden’s arms. Alan placed his hand on her forehead and sent a pulse of power into her.
“Best she’s asleep for the ride home.”
Aiden started back to the house. The healer mounted and followed. Christian squeezed Raquel’s shoulder. “Come on. Let’s go. We’ll meet them there. The stones will keep until tomorrow.”
“What happened to her, Christian?”
His mouth tightened, troubled blue eyes met hers. “I don’t know.”
Chapter Ten
They gathered in Alan’s living room. He lived in the house across from Aiden’s, within walking distance. Aiden’s home was nearest to the fault. The hunt stabled their horses there. They trained in one of his barns, rode on the hunt from his property. So it made sense for the clan healer to live next door.
Alan’s house was old but well maintained. Refinished woodwork around the fireplace and archways between rooms. High ceilings and a lot of antiques, which Raquel had been told his wife collected and sold in a shop out by the interstate.
The rush of urgent activity to get Rane to the healer’s house had been so consuming that it hadn’t left any time for thought. But the lull afterward while they waited to see if she’d recover was never-ending. No one spoke. Elin sat on the couch sandwiched between Grace and Christian. Grace held Elin’s hand, and every once in a while Christian would bend his head to speak softly in her ear. Elin barely seemed to register it. It wasn’t surprising—the daze Elin was in or the fact that her clan was concerned for her too. Often when one crow died, the other quickly followed. And then twins would be born to some clanswoman within the next year or two. On-the-job training at its worst.
Fen sat across the room, done with pacing for the moment, al
though his leg shook restlessly. Raquel thought he’d be up prowling about the room again any minute now. Everyone looked up when Aiden entered, looking like the world rested on his broad shoulders. His gaze swept the room, coming to rest on Elin.
“She’s going to make it.”
Elin crumpled, as though her fear had been holding her upright. She turned her face into Christian’s chest and he gathered her in, kissing the top of her head as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Raquel had wondered why the crows, this one in particular, had wanted so little to do with her. After today, she was beginning to understand. All the hints and innuendo...so much of it attached to the woman in her fiancé’s arms right now.
She turned her head to find Fen staring at her, eyes sharp and piercing. She had the feeling he could see inside her head. She couldn’t read the expression on his face at all. After a moment, his jaw set and he dropped his gaze to the floor.
Aiden crossed the room, cupped his hand to the back of Elin’s head and whispered something that seemed to calm her. Her shoulders stopped shaking, but she stayed tucked up in Christian’s arms. Raquel had known that Christian had a life before she showed up. She’d heard the rumors about him. He’d broached the subject himself, carefully, saying that he’d taken other lovers in the town. She wasn’t a virgin either. It was good of Christian to recognize how badly Elin needed his support right now. Stupid to be hurt by it.
Raquel was so busy not being hurt that she started when Aiden spoke her name. “Alan says you saved her life out there. Thank you.”
She squirmed beneath the sudden attention. “I have some training as a healer. It doesn’t require much magic to keep a heart beating, just concentration mostly.”
His eyes narrowed, considering. She didn’t want to be a healer. She almost said it out loud, but he spoke before she did. “Nonetheless, thank you.”
“Did she tell you what happened?” Christian asked.
Aiden ran his hand through his hair. “She crossed into Asgard is what happened, despite my order not to.”
“She must have found something.” Fen leaned forward and clasped his hands between his knees, all intense focus and controlled anger. Raquel could feel the restlessness in him, the desire to hunt.
“She said ‘Vanir,’ but I couldn’t get any more out of her, not now. She’s sleeping and Alan says she’ll be out for a while. He placed her in a temporary coma so that she has time—” Fen sprung to his feet, but Aiden blocked his path. “Time to heal. We wait until we have the whole story from her.”
“What more do you need? He has to be a witch to have survived in Asgard for as long as he has, we knew that. You suspected all along that he was behind the weakness in the fault.”
“Suspected,” Aiden said. “We still don’t have anything more than that.”
“We have Rane, cut and beaten nearly to death, whispering his name. What more do you need?”
Aiden didn’t budge. “We wait for Rane to wake and give us the entire story. The reason she’s lying upstairs is because she disobeyed my orders and crossed into Asgard half-cocked. You’re not doing the same.”
Fen wanted to push past Aiden and storm off anyway—Raquel could see it in his stance—but instead, he cursed and backed off. Vanir were enemies to the Æsir. Clan lore said the Æsir and Vanir had once shared a world. Long ago, the Æsir crossed to Asgard and created their own home, but even that distance didn’t heal all of the old animosities. Like squabbling siblings, they’d spent as much time fighting over the centuries as at peace with one another.
The surviving Æsir didn’t know the specific cause of the last war that culminated in the destruction of their home, but they knew that the Vanir were behind it. The Vanir still inhabited Vanaheimr, but they exiled the worst of their criminals to Asgard. A death sentence, even if it might take years for them to actually stop breathing.
Grace shook her head. “He wouldn’t have done that. That doesn’t make any sense.”
Fen snorted. “He’s your best friend now? He wanted to keep you there as a pet.”
Grace grimaced. “He was...lonely. He wasn’t cruel. He didn’t hurt me or Hallie, who was there much longer than I was.”
“He was exiled for a reason,” Fen said. “And he is not our friend.”
Aiden held up a hand. “We don’t know yet that he’s the one who did this. We wait for Rane to wake up and decide from there.” He glared at Fen. “I’ll have your promise on that.”
Fen looked as if he’d balk, but after a long tense moment, he gave Aiden a short, jerky nod and headed for the door. Grace stood and moved into her husband’s arms. Raquel looked at Christian, who still held Elin, and then slipped out after Fen.
He was sitting on the porch steps staring off into the fields. Tension rolled off him like an electric current, but she sat next to him anyway.
“I thought you’d be running by now.”
“I should be.”
She knocked into his shoulder. “You can go if you want—I’ll cover for you. I’ll even drop your clothes off by your back door if you want.”
“I don’t run in town. None of the hounds do.”
Her clan allowed it, but it was a hotly debated tradition. A lot of the townspeople had nothing to do with the hunt and didn’t like to be reminded of it. Enormous, black-furred wolves prowling through town with unusually sharp teeth and intelligent eyes were a pretty big reminder. She’d never agreed with that point of view, but she didn’t say anything.
“It’s my own rule and the others picked up on it. Not a big deal really, I scared a little girl when I was a teenager. She was my cousin, but she never looked at me in quite the same way after she saw me as a hound.”
For someone like Fen that would be hard. Raquel still didn’t like the idea of him having to slide around the edges of town hiding what he was when he was out there risking his life to protect these people. She patted his knee, a weak comfort but all she could offer. “Go,” she said. “You meant what you said in there, right? You won’t try to cross?”
“I don’t know if I could force the portal open anyway. I just need...to get away.” He hopped off the porch, walked backward for a step or two. “Are you still planning to come over tonight?”
“Yep. Christian too.”
His smile fixed. “Sounds good. It’s your turn to make dinner, remember.”
“You didn’t make dinner. We had pizza.”
“I had pizza,” he agreed. “Until you lit it on fire, along with my house.”
She laughed. “You’re not going to let me forget that are you?”
That flashpan grin. “Not a chance, Rocky. See you later.”
And he was gone. She stared at the sky for a few minutes, trying to work up the will to go back inside. She didn’t want to watch Christian comfort his friend or whatever the hell she was to him. More than a friend, her mind whispered. Just as it had when he’d smiled at the waitress the other night. Christian was hers now. There was no such thing as a celibacy clause in their contract. Or a fidelity clause either. And so much that she didn’t know about Christian.
Something clamped down on her foot and she jumped, letting out a yelp and scrambling back until she saw Fen.
Sleek black fur. All bone and muscle, just like the man. His eyes were the same too, and she knew he was laughing at her when he sat on his haunches and let his mouth gape open to reveal curving, finger-length fangs. Hound was a misnomer. The oldest legends called them wolves, which was closer to the truth but not entirely accurate either. They were bigger than wolves for one thing. Faster and stronger too, and they could rend flesh as easily with their claws as with their fangs.
“Fen. You scared the crap out of me.”
His tongue lolled out, and the door opened up behind her. She didn’t need to turn around to know it was Christian.
“I thought I heard you yell.”
She lifted her chin. “Fen snuck up on me.”
A note of amusement in Christian’s voice. “H
e’ll do that.”
Fen pressed his cold nose to the back of her hand, uttered a short yip and then took off for the field. She wished she could follow him, run like that, hard and fast, all powerful grace and controlled menace. He was surely a sight to behold.
Christian touched her shoulder. “Are you ready to leave?”
“Yeah.” She tore her gaze away from Fen and smiled at Christian. “Let’s get out of here.”
Chapter Eleven
Fen opened the door and his heart lurched when he found Rocky standing there all alone in the circle cast by the porch light. He looked past her hoping to find Audrey or Christian out parking the car, but there was no one. Just Rocky. Looking nervous and hopeful and so unsure of her welcome that he didn’t have the heart to turn her away.
She gave an apologetic smile. “Aiden asked Christian for some help. Audrey is still out shopping with my mom.”
He hesitated but pushed the door open wider. “We can do this another night.”
She held up a recyclable bag with the grocery store logo on it. “I brought dinner, but we can reschedule if you want.”
Even as she said it, she moved inside. Setting the bag on the table, she frowned when she saw the burn mark on the wood surface. He didn’t think she’d noticed it the other night. She shrugged out of her coat and he took it from her, resisting his instinctive urge to lift it to his nose. The smell of her filled him anyway. Sunshine and magic. The same sort of summertime smell as Lois’s shop. He’d always thought it was the herbs, but apparently it was the magic after all.
When she looked up, he felt a sharp bite of panic. Troubled eyes, pale skin, tight mouth. She wasn’t here for the runes. The run this afternoon had mellowed him somewhat but if he’d still been in his wolf form, his hackles would have raised.
“Fen?”
He was sure he didn’t want to hear what she was going to ask, so he grabbed the bag and started for the kitchen, flipping on lights as he went. “Let’s get started on this, I’m starving. What is it?”
