by Zoë Archer
He rummaged through the packs until he found blankets and a canteen of water. Laying upon the hide floor, she drowsily watched him moving around the lodge, barely able to move except to turn her head slightly to follow him.
He cast shadows upon the wooden walls, recalling the beginnings of the world, when mankind was newly aware and walked upon the earth, creating, becoming legends. There was Nathan, gleaming skin, muscle, and bone, and there was his shadow, his dark shape that was an enchantment.
Nathan saw her watching him and smiled. What a smile he had, rare but brilliant. This man was himself enchantment, for she felt herself submerging under his thrall. Not a binding spell, but something that required an offering from the one being beguiled—a lock of hair, or a handful of trust.
Her eyes closed as he lay beside her. The sound of the canteen being set down, and then the rustle of woolen blankets draped over them both, their damp, worn bodies. He arranged their limbs so they twined together, and the energy of him beside her, around her, hummed beneath her skin.
They took sips from the canteen. The cold water was a blessing after the heat they had created. Then the canteen was put aside and he enfolded her in the tight satin of his arms.
“Tell me about your life in Victoria,” she murmured.
“Not much to tell. Had little life outside my work.”
“You said something about helping a Chinese laborer win a case against a white banker. Were all your cases like that?”
He sighed. “Not enough. Usually I handled property disputes, but I hunted down the cases nobody wanted. I’d go to the Indian settlements or Chinese camps and ask around, search out who’d been wronged and try to make it right. At first, I’d have to convince them that I could and would help—they were scared.”
“Of what?”
“Retribution. Or that they might bring a grievance and wind up getting punished. It happened too often.”
“You said ‘at first,’” she noted. “Something changed.”
She felt his smile on the back of her neck. “The Indians and Chinese started to seek me out after I won some cases. Mostly theft. Some slander—an Indian running a chowder shop lost his business when a white competitor scared off his customers, told them he cooked cats instead of fish. But I got the Indian restitution, and he reopened his shop. I said he didn’t have to pay me back, but he insisted on bringing me free chowder every day.”
“How was the soup?”
“Delicious. But the partners at the firm didn’t like what I was doing. Too many dark people lingering around the office. I wouldn’t stop, though. So I had my pro bono cases come at night, after the office closed down. Doubled my workload, but I didn’t mind.”
Incredible, the fighting spirit of this man. Who had made love to her as if she was more precious than sunlight.
She remembered the very last time a man had held her after lovemaking. Michael, the night before he died. In their tent, in the wilds of Abyssinia. He’d been unusually forceful that night, making love to her with a demand that bordered on prescient, as if he knew he would not get the chance again, and needed to brand the sensations and feelings into her and him.
His touch had faded from the memory of her skin. She tried to call it back, but too much time had passed. He was a warmth around her heart, but not a physical presence. The first time she had forgotten something about him—whether he had read The Woman in White—she collapsed into grief that lasted weeks. And then, then the process of losing him became…if not easier, then more familiar.
“Are there many Blades of the Rose who are husband and wife?” Nathan asked. As if he read her thoughts and knew she was thinking of Michael.
“Only a few,” she answered softly. “Arabella and Douglas Westby. Cassandra and Sam Reed. The Chattons, but they’re retired from the field now. One Italian couple. I never met them. Though men and women can be Blades, we aren’t actively encouraged to marry one another. Makes things a little more…complicated.”
“No man wants his woman in danger.”
She rolled over, propping herself up on her elbow, and scowled at him. “And if the woman’s a better shot than he is?”
His face had softened with repletion, the corners of his eyes turning up with a smile. “Then he makes sure she has enough bullets.” He ran his fingers back and forth across her collarbone, pausing to circle the hollow of her throat.
Though she was sated, his touch still called forth sparks along her skin. “No Blade ever goes into the field alone. We always travel in groups of at least two. And no one wants to see their partner injured. Male or female.”
“But it’s worse for a man to have his woman hurt. It’s his job to safeguard her.”
Astrid raised a brow. “I thought that, rebel that you are, you’d have a bit more progressive attitude.”
“Some things are carved into a man’s blood and bones.” His smile faded as his look grew more pensive. He raised his eyes to hers. “Like the need to protect his mate.”
She did not answer. Instead, she turned onto her other side and tried to settle, his arm around her a comfort and a weight. Unease shifted through her. They had shared something profound, something of such complexity that she could not yet face it. He had given her all of himself, and she had done the same, but years of protecting the damaged beast of her heart could not be undone in a night, a week. How long would it take before she was ready to fully bestow everything? She feared she would need a lifetime.
Chapter 11
The White Lake
The Métis guide was frightened. He didn’t want to show his fear, so he withdrew into impassivity, but Catullus could tell by the thin set of Jourdain’s mouth, the whiteness of his knuckles as he held his reins.
“This is the Earth Spirits’ territory,” he said tightly. “They are whispered about amongst the Métis. A secretive people of strange power. They keep themselves hidden.”
“And no one has ever explored their land before?” Catullus asked.
“None have dared.”
“I’m no stranger to traveling through forbidden territory,” Catullus said. “We will avoid populated settlements. What is the power of the Earth Spirits?”
Jourdain had been brought up a Christian, and he crossed himself now. “I cannot speak of it. Too dangerous.”
Catullus wished he had more information, but wouldn’t press the guide. Blades often rode into unknown situations, and he knew that he was as prepared as he could be for any eventuality.
As they rode through dense woods and across open meadows, Jourdain cast alert, anxious glances over his shoulder, worried that any moment could bring an attack from unfriendly Natives.
Catullus’s fear had another origin.
“She won’t be happy to see us,” he said to Quinn, riding beside him.
“I never met Mrs. Bramfield,” answered the Bostonian. “But you two are friends.”
“It has been a long time since she answered any of my letters. She made it clear she wanted to be left alone.”
“Doesn’t matter if she’s happy or angry,” said Quinn, plainspoken as always. “There’s no choice now.”
Catullus sensed the presence of the Heirs. It followed them like a rotten miasma. Heirs had traveled this very trail not long ago, and he hoped like hell that he could reach Astrid before they did. He checked his Compass again, a now habitual gesture, and the needle pointed him onward. To Astrid.
“No,” he said grimly. “There is no choice.”
It rather alarmed Astrid how easily she awoke beside Nathan, their bodies entangled. She hadn’t shared a bed with a man in years, and now here she was, feeling the solid weight of him all around her. He felt very different from Michael, who had been a big man with the large, golden-haired limbs and chest of his Saxon ancestors. Nathan was sleek, streamlined, and tight, with a dark nest of curls at his groin. And they fit well together. She did not feel trapped with his arms around her.
They were attuned to each other’s needs and rhy
thms as they readied for the day. Bathing, dressing, and breakfasting quietly, yet the silences between them were not awkward. Only when he tried to gather her close for a kiss did she pull on the threads of tension, giving him her lips but unable to give him more. Words and vows tried to spring forth, yet she could not give them voice. She clutched her heart close, reflexive. As he drew back from the kiss, she saw in his gaze a flare of demand, then deliberate—but temporary—letting go. His eyes swore that he would not retreat.
After thanking the fire spirit for its hospitality—and receiving demands of a return visit from the elemental—they set off northward. The elemental knew from the conversations of the lodges’ past guests that an ice field lay within half a day’s steady trek. So it was with greater confidence that she and Nathan pushed onward toward their goal—the first totem.
They hiked as quickly as terrain and body would allow. Speed was everything. The Heirs could be just up ahead, or directly behind. The falcon was absent from the sky. No way to know where the Heirs were, and uncertainty urged Astrid and Nathan forward.
“There,” Astrid puffed at midday. She pointed ahead to a mountainous ridge. “An ice field is just on the other side of those peaks. I can see the snow along the mountaintops.”
“And I can smell the ice,” he said, drawing in a deep breath. He drew straighter, vigilant and ready. “I feel it, too. That magic neither of us could sense before. It’s here.”
They shared a glance of growing excitement. Their goal was near. But they were just starting to ascend the peaks when Nathan halted, growling.
“The Heirs of Albion,” he snarled. “They’re close. Very close.”
Astrid’s hand immediately went to the butt of her revolver as her pulse spiked. Her rifle was loaded and standing by, too. A sound overhead brought her and Nathan to look up. “Jävlar,” she cursed. “Is that—”
“The same damned falcon,” Nathan said, teeth clenched. “We’ll stand and fight them.”
“No—we can’t. Our best chance is to get to the Source before they do.” She pointed to a notch in the mountains surrounding the ice field. “We’ll take that pass into the valley.”
Before he could argue, she began scrambling up the rocky slopes as fast as she could, using a long walking stick she had fashioned en route. Haste made her stumble slightly, but she moved quickly and heard Nathan behind her. Icy, gritty snow clung to the mountainside, soaking through her gloves as she hauled herself up. The air thinned, became brittle. Her breath gusted in short, white clouds.
The peak grew steeper, and soon, she and Nathan took turns helping haul each other up the rocks. She glanced down the mountain and swore again, her blood chilling further. A group of seven riders approached from nearly the same route she and Nathan had taken. The thick fir trees clustered at the base of the slopes blocked her view. She fumbled for her spyglass.
“No time,” Nathan said. “We’re almost at the top.”
Damn, but he was right. So she pushed herself on, the Heirs too close, but too far to know which of the bloody bastards pursued. Didn’t really matter. She hated them all.
The pass was a cleft between two peaks, lined with snow. They had to pause here, to catch their wind. She looked around for boulders or something else to block the pass, but found only more and more icy snow climbing up the sides of the mountains framing the gap. No trees to be found above the timberline. Damn, again. Her mind whirled, trying to figure a solution.
“Astrid,” Nathan said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Look.” He turned her around so that she faced into the valley.
She did look, and her breath caught in wonder. The valley, shaped like a bowl, glittered in the sunlight as a vast field of gleaming, pure white ice stretched across the bottom. Blue cracks spread throughout the ice, a network of crevasses running like rivers of air. Impossible to tell the depth of the fissures, whether they were shallow or deep, and how many of them lay beneath the surface of the ice. The valley was encircled with snow-covered mountain peaks. Astrid stared at them for a moment, squinting against the glare. The shape of the mountaintops, how each one had two sharp spires, and square rocky projections pointed into the valley, recalled something….
“Wolves,” she said aloud. “They look like the heads of wolves.”
A low chuckle from Nathan. “By God, they do.”
“The white lake where the pack hunts,” Astrid murmured.
“I feel it, too,” he said. “The magic of this place. It’s as if someone lit a hundred lamps beneath the surface of my skin. And,” he added with a grimace, “it’s hard as hell to keep from changing into the wolf right now.”
The totem’s doing. “Can you hold off?” she asked with concern. “We need our packs, but I can’t carry them across the ice on my own.”
He gave a clipped nod, though she felt the tension radiating out from him, the barely restrained beast trying to break free.
“Let’s get this totem,” he gritted, “before the Heirs reach it, and before I lose control.”
Descent into the valley had its own challenges. Too slow across the snow, and they sank. Too quick, they skidded and slid, knocking into rocks that thrust upward. The heavy pack on Astrid’s back wanted to pull her into a tumbling fall, a sure recipe for breaking her neck. By the time they reached the ice field at the base of the snowy slope, her legs shook and sweat chilled her back as she clung to her walking stick. Nathan, too, looked winded.
“I hear them,” he panted, bracing his arms on his bent legs. “They left their horses at the base of the mountains. Now they’re just about to reach the pass.”
Astrid cursed as she wiped a sleeve across her forehead. “If we could just block the pass, they couldn’t breach the valley, not for a little while, at least. But there’s nothing to use. The only thing in abundance is snow.”
Overhead, as if to jeer at them, the falcon shrieked.
Both Astrid and Nathan stared at each other as a notion occurred to both of them simultaneously, eyes widening.
“Avalanche,” they whispered.
God, she was perfect.
When this was over and the wolf totem was safely in his hands, Nathan would show courageous and cunning Astrid just how damned perfect for him she was. He wouldn’t let her withhold anything of herself, either. She’d shown him clearly last night that she was as bound to him as he was to her. And damn, with the totem’s force urging his beast on to a fever, it was all he could do to keep from claiming her here, on the white, shimmering ice.
But that was going to have to wait. Right now, they had an avalanche to start.
“Sound triggers avalanches,” she said. “And the snow along the pass is in a lee. It’s built up. All we need is enough noise to get it going.”
They both glanced around, as if a cannon was going to conveniently appear. None did.
She slid off her pack and took up her rifle. “I could try and shoot into the snowbank. That might cause enough percussion to get it going. Otherwise, I can’t think of anything that might work.”
Nathan had a sudden inspiration. He also pulled off his pack, but then removed his shirt and started to tug off his moccasins. In response to her quizzical look, he explained, “There’s something I can do, as a wolf.” Shoes removed, he undid the breechcloth. Hell—he might not feel temperature as strongly as he used to, but being naked on an ice field was not kind to a man’s most precious belongings. At least Astrid didn’t seem to notice. “When I give the signal,” he said, “fire.”
“And the signal will be?”
“I’ll…bark.” He glowered at her when a smile tugged on her lips. “Not a word.”
She mimed sealing her mouth, but that didn’t stop her eyes from twinkling like sunlight upon the gray ocean.
One last warning glare, and Nathan finally unchained the beast. Too long confined, lured by the totemic spirit within the ice field, it burst from him, savage and joyous. Skin turned to fur, the softer flesh of hands and feet hardened into paws, teeth lengt
hened. It would have been painful, had it not felt so damned right. Magic was everywhere here, it flowed through him in glowing currents.
He glanced at Astrid. She smiled encouragingly at him, then aimed her rifle up toward the pass. Nathan heard the voices of the Heirs, sensed their bodies and greed moving up the other side of the mountains, poisonous. They wanted him. They would hurt Astrid. He wouldn’t let that happen.
He gave a low bark. Astrid shot and the bullet slammed into the snow with a loud crack. At that same moment, Nathan gathered up all the magic he could contain within himself. Pushed it out as he threw back his head and howled. His wolf’s howl—the sound of his soul. Wild and rebellious.
And angry. He’d never howled before, didn’t know what he was capable of, but the sound he made was aggressive, coarse. Deafening. Stay back. This is my land. My woman.
At first, nothing happened. Stillness. Then a deep boom, as if a huge charge of dynamite exploded. Both Nathan and Astrid started from the sound.
“There,” she gasped, pointing up, but Nathan already saw.
A white torrent plunged down the tops of the mountains, gathering in size and speed as it thundered into the pass. Sheets of snow plummeted in waves, throwing up clouds of ice, and shaking the ground. Even far at the bottom of the valley, Nathan felt it through his paws. He crouched in readiness.
The pass quickly filled with snow. More snow overflowed, but it mostly spilled down the other side of the mountain ridge before the avalanche slowed, then stopped. With any luck, the Heirs of Albion would be buried in white, cold graves. At the least, they couldn’t force their way into the ice field for a long, long while. Not quite as satisfying, but he’d take it.
Astrid’s own vicious, victorious smile revealed she felt the same way. “A hell of a howl,” she said, grinning as she turned to Nathan. With a laugh, she added, “Your tail’s wagging.”
He made a woof of mock irritation. Then readied himself to change back into a man. They still had to locate the totem in the midst of all this ice.
