Twice Turned

by Heather McCorkle

It almost made me forgive him, and I couldn’t do that. “People would kill to be what I am. Calder did. Again and again.” My voice grew as dark as my thoughts. Dammit, I hadn’t meant to go down that road. I forced myself to brighten, to smile. Due to this damn superhero complex of his it would be easier to make him leave if he thought I was okay. “But, hey, I have the world at my feet, literally. There isn’t a wolf out there who would challenge me and win.” That did make me feel good, and I let it show. No one could bully me now.

  My steps sped up as we reached my bike. I wanted to get on it and away from Vidar. The sooner I did, the better. Being nice, pretending I was all right… I couldn’t keep it up for long. Agreeing to his help had been a mistake.

  “Why don’t we load your bike into the back of my truck and I’ll drive. That way we can catch up,” he said.

  I walked around my bike, putting it between us. For what I was about to say, I needed distance. The opposing fronts of what I needed and wanted threatened to pull me apart. I picked up my helmet and stared at my BMW’s pearly white gas tank. The reflection of my pale face and even paler hair looked like a ghost. That’s exactly what I needed to be to him—no more than a ghost from his past.

  “That’s a bad idea. I appreciate you wanting to help me, I really do. But you can’t, you shouldn’t. The reaper’s job is something best done alone,” I said, having to force the last words out.

  It shouldn’t be this hard, shouldn’t hurt this bad. I’d been alone for four years. It was something I was used to, good at. And a big part of that was his fault. Cutting him out now meant I would be truly alone. But hadn’t I been for the past four years? And that was a good thing; the way it should be. I forced myself to look up into that face that had grown only more attractive with the passing years.

  “That’s not true,” he said.

  He took a step closer, reaching across the bike for me. I stepped back out of his reach. “Don’t, Vidar. You left me when I needed you. Now I don’t. There was no reason for you to come back,” I said.

  Those hazel eyes turned cold. As triumphant as that felt, it hurt too.

  “I’m about to become a killer. You don’t need to see that.” The words slipped out as a sympathetic pang shot through me.

  “I’m sorry I left you, more sorry than you’ll ever know. I didn’t want to, but I had to. And you need me. No one left around here knows Calder like I do. I can track him.” He swallowed hard. “And we’re all killers, Ayra. It’s our nature. But you…you are the uppskera, one who kills with purpose. There is no shame in that.”

  Damn. I had misunderstood the chill in his eyes by a mile. I couldn’t tell him how much I craved the fight, the kill. And I hadn’t even reaped yet. The desire had been building ever since my power had awakened. Each day it grew stronger. How bad would it be once I had killed? I couldn’t tell him of all people that I was the worst monster of all. Unable to speak, I shook my head. Vidar leaped over my bike and took me by the shoulders.

  “With your power, urges awoke too. To hunt, fight, kill. I learned all about it at the temple. You aren’t bad, or evil. These urges help the uppskera do what needs to be done. But they can also be dangerous to you,” he said.

  I held his stare, transfixed by the acceptance in it. An acceptance I didn’t deserve. Elí looked at me with awe and a touch of fear, but never acceptance. So maybe Vidar did know, but that was different than seeing me give into such urges. And he had lost the right to be by my side for that.

  “So you did learn something at the temple other than just how to be a lögreglu,” I said.

  “I did,” he said in a low, breathy voice.

  The warmth of his hands on my arms, the brush of his callused palms, and the heat of his hovering, muscular body all threatened to set me on fire. The green muscle shirt featuring the Hulk that hugged his pectorals told me he would feel just as hard as he looked. Desire rushed up to feed the fire inside. But his shirt made me fear what I’d turn into once the reaping started. Here I was always lusting after a man other than my intended. My control was slipping already. I tore away from him before he could smell my need. I didn’t want to need someone who had left me behind.

  “There’s more you need to know. Please, hear me out. Let me at least give you a ride to wherever you’re going,” Vidar said. His desperate tone tugged at me.

  One part of me wanted to do whatever it took to make him stop sounding like he was in pain, though a much larger part of me reveled in it. But he was right. If he knew more about what I had become, I needed to hear it. And he could track Calder objectively, without getting emotional about it. While keeping him with me was certainly a bad idea, it was also necessary. I couldn’t let my emotions get in the way of capturing my brother before he did something even more stupid.

  “All right. You can take me as far as Idaho. I have a cousin there I think Calder might enlist for help,” I said, voice low so the boys in the backyard didn’t hear.

  The gorgeous smile that spread across his face tugged at my heart and libido. It reminded me of better days, days spent swimming in the river, running through the forest, days as happy kids without a care. Well, mostly without a care. There had always been my brother and my parents. But they hadn’t been as bad when Vidar was around.

  He grabbed my five-hundred-pound motorcycle by the frame, picked it up as if it weighed less than a bale of hay, and set it in the back of his truck. I tried not to admire the muscles in his arms flex while he did it. I failed. Suddenly the road to Idaho seemed very, very long, and somehow not long enough.

  Chapter Five

  Vidar

  I rambled on about Iceland for an hour. Nervousness always raised the urge in me to talk, to fill the silence, to avoid the true issue. She would eventually figure out I was holding something back about the temple. But I couldn’t tell her what it was, and she would get even madder at that point. But that wasn’t the only reason I rambled. I loved Iceland, and I wanted to tell her all about it so she felt like she had been there with me instead of here being tortured by her worthless brother. Oh, the ways I wanted to hurt that son of a bitch…

  Despite my dark thoughts, I kept my stories light. I told her about getting lost on the Reykjavik University grounds my first—and second, and third—time there. I told her about how on my fourth trip, someone took pity on me and told me my deplorable Icelandic made it sound like I was asking the way to the whorehouse instead of the history hall. The memory of that scorched my cheeks with embarrassment—which thankfully she couldn’t see due to my dark skin. But by the way she laughed, it was clear she saw it in my eyes. I didn’t mind. She laughed and that made it worth it. Gods, I had missed that carefree, bell-like sound.

  I kept trying, but that was the only laugh I got out of her. Tense energy filled the space between us, making it thick, cavernous, impossible. The Order had forbid me from telling her what she had been waiting all these years to hear. Their rules and restrictions weighed heavier on me now than ever before.

  The evening grew dark enough that it forced me to turn the headlights on. Not out of a need to see. My varúlfur eyes could see for a mile. But other cars couldn’t see me, and that could put them in danger. Ayra let out a long sigh. My gaze gravitated back to her. She looked almost ethereal, her porcelain skin practically glowing in the dark, her white-blond hair draped around her like a silken cloak. The years had added a sharpness to her high cheekbones and a fullness to her lips—not to mention her petite breasts. No, never mention those, because if I did, my gaze would travel there and I couldn’t allow it to do that.

  She was from the uppskera bloodline, so far above my station that even if she wasn’t engaged I wouldn’t have a chance with her. Not that she was the type to care about such things. No one had known about her bloodline until recently except for her family, which was probably the only reason it had taken as long as it had for her to get engaged.

  “Thank you, V, I needed to laugh,” she said.

  The use of my old nickname—th
e one only she called me—stirred much more than just emotions. It hurt deep down, all the way to my soul. I never should have left her. Now not only did the vow of celibacy tie my hands, but she was engaged. But did she love him?

  “You know I’m always good for a laugh,” I said with a forced smile.

  Leaning her head back against the headrest, she sighed and looked out the passenger window. “You’re good for so much more than that,” she said in a wistful voice. And was that a touch of desire? I could have sworn I felt it flare in her power, her scent. No, I had to be imagining it, wanting it so bad I made myself hear it, feel it. When her head rolled back in my direction, the gaze she fixed me with possessed a coldness that told me I had definitely imagined the desire. It was gone too fast for me to be sure, replaced by her ever-present tension.

  “So what besides your Bachelor in Science did you get from Iceland?” she asked in a guarded tone.

  My Bachelor of Science, something I know she wanted as badly as I did, though for different reasons. My interest was in sustainable energy, hers meteorology. On the surface her reason seemed a little deeper. The whole channeling lighting thing was something she and I had struggled to understand since we were kids. Alone. She’d always been terrified to tell anyone else she could do it. And I’d kept her secret. I had hoped my studies in sustainable energy might teach me more about the nature of her ability. Sadly…

  “Not much when it comes to your electricity channeling, either from the University or the temple. But when it came to the uppskera, the temple knew a lot,” I said.

  Some of the darkness that clung to her left her eyes, and she sat up straighter. “Do tell,” she prompted. The warning in her tone discouraged me. If I told her the whole story, would the Order find out, and more importantly, would it turn her away from me? I decided to start easy, with the history bits. That part wasn’t forbidden.

  “There hasn’t been an uppskera in three hundred years because our kind used to be far more reckless with those they bit in. The practice of biting in criminals to force them to serve penance to their victims’ families being outlawed played a big part.”

  She rolled her hand at me in a “go on” motion. “All things I learned from the journals on my own,” she said in an impatient tone.

  The implications of that made me swallow hard before I could go on. “Your heightened power, strength, and speed come from the ability to tap deeper into your instincts than any other varúlfur can. But it also makes you wilder, your power harder to control. It’s why you feel the instinct to hunt, to kill, stronger than you did before.” I stopped, afraid to say the rest.

  Pulling her knees up beneath her, she turned sideways in her seat to face me. She was such a petite thing that she didn’t even struggle with the seatbelt when she did it. Sinewy, hard muscles moved beneath her skin, and that was about it. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought she didn’t eat much. But she had always been rail thin and ate like a horse.

  The interest in her eyes didn’t sway me, but the trust did. I had to tell her. If she was going to choose me for her verndari, I needed to live up to that trust. More importantly, I had to make up for the years of barely talking to her. How I could stand to be her verndari while she was married to another, I wasn’t sure. But I would figure it out, for her. I owed her that much at the very least.

  “History has shown the uppskera have trouble holding on to their humanity because their edge between instinct and reason is far thinner than that of any other varúlfur. Many have tipped over into full instinct mode all the time, losing themselves to the reaping. Though today’s generations don’t remember, its part of why the packs have such a healthy fear of the uppskera.” The anxiety pinching her delicate features into a look of something near pain stopped me. I laid a hand on her knee. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, but that isn’t the kind of news someone should get in a letter, and…” I swallowed hard, fighting my training. “The temple forbid outside contact.”

  Blinking eyes that had misted over, she nodded. Seeing that made a million needles of pain stab into me. Dammit, that was part of why I hesitated to tell her all this. The hard look that banished the moisture worried me even more.

  “I understand. It’s just…” She swallowed hard before going on. “It’s just, that’s what I was afraid of.”

  Oh. She didn’t mean she understood about why I hadn’t kept in touch. I wanted to say more, but I was too afraid they might find out. I took hold of her hand. “But you won’t face it alone. Every uppskera has their verndari.”

  Her narrowed gaze lifted to me. She cocked her head to the side in that cute way she did any time she found something suspicious. Gods, I had missed seeing that. Face hardening, she pulled her hand from mine.

  “You said that before. It doesn’t make sense. But I’m guessing that’s because it has a deeper meaning than someone to protect the reaper. Out with it,” she demanded.

  Always straight to the point. I loved and dreaded that about her. If only she weren’t drawing away more by the moment. Damn their rules. I had to tell her. “The Order of the Verndari has trained varúlfur for centuries to be verndari to the uppskera. It isn’t physical protection, but mental, or so they think. The verndari protects the uppskera from losing themselves to their own instincts once they begin reaping,” I explained.

  Her power crackled over me like embers, stinging, biting, burning. “How?” It was an order, not a question.

  “By being there for them, reminding them they’re still a person, still more than a killer. But I suspect there’s more to it than even the Order knows. I think the verndari is linked, connected, essential to the reaper, and has something to do with their ability to channel lightning. ”

  She grinned. Not exactly the reaction I’d been expecting, quite the opposite, in fact.

  “What?” I asked.

  The mixture of happiness and sadness in her eyes reminded me of the look in my grandmother’s eyes when she’d been on her deathbed. A powerful chill rose bumps all over my body.

  “It’s cute that you still do that, think in threes,” she said.

  “What do you mean? I don’t do that.”

  “Yeah, and I’m not a size four or a B cup.”

  Those words drew my eyes to her breasts. They were perfect in my opinion, just the right size to fit in my mouth. The outline of her curves made me think she wasn’t wearing a bra. Heat burned up my neck to my face, making my eyes fly open. Gods, was it a sacrilege to think of the uppskera in such a way? But she wasn’t just the uppskera, she was Ayra, the girl I’d loved my entire life. My gaze plummeted to her mostly bare legs folded beneath her. No matter how hard I tried to stop, I looked up the length of those slender legs to where her cut off jean shorts barely covered the beginning of the curve of her ass. Damn that vow of celibacy. Damn it straight to Muspelheimr.

  I looked back to the dark road unfolding before the headlights. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to leer at you. It’s just that, you grew up while I was gone.”

  I wanted to kick myself for being so completely inarticulate. Of all the things I could have said…

  Down deep in her chest, she made an affirmative, appreciative noise. “So did you,” she said.

  The crotch of my jeans became painfully tight. I sat up straight in my seat, and put both hands firmly back on the wheel. Sighing, she turned in her seat and stretched her legs out beneath the dash. Then it struck me; she was distracting me to avoid the conversation.

  The ticking yellow lines of the road helped me focus. “I didn’t just go to Iceland to study energy.” I swallowed hard, having to build up the courage to say the next part. “I didn’t just join the temple to serve Odin and learn to be a lögreglu, either. I also did it to learn more about the uppskera so I could help you. I might not have learned about your ability to channel electricity, but I did learn how to help you with the rest of it. I want to help you, Ayra. It’s all I’ve ever wanted,” I said.

  Out of the corner
of my eye I saw her stiffen and wrap her arms around herself. Fear shot through me. Since we’d been kids that was what she had done when she was about to shut me out and close herself off. Except, this time, it wasn’t an argument with her mother she didn’t want to talk about, or a bruise from her brother she wanted to hide. This was her life, her future, and I couldn’t let her shut me out of it. I knew she’d react this way. It was exactly why I had hesitated to tell her.

  Her teeth ground together audibly. “Keeping in contact with me would have helped me.” The words were cold and peppered with anger and pain.

  I jumped in to try to cool her anger. “I had to see what I could learn. We knew so little about the whole situation. Let me help you now. No one should carry the weight of their entire race’s fate on their shoulders alone. I’m your best friend, I should be the one to help you.”

  Expression guarded, she fixed her cold gaze on the road ahead. “You were, four years ago before you dropped off the face of the planet. It’s best if we just remember things the way they were and move on.”

  “I’ll never move on from you, Ayra, I can’t, I won’t.”

  Her glacial eyes locked on mine. “I am engaged. And besides, I’m going to become a killer. I don’t want you to see that. It could change the way you look at me.”

  The dull feel to her power worried me. It flared when I put my hand on her leg, flowing over me in a tingling rush. Thankfully, this time it didn’t hurt. “Nothing could change the way I look at you.”

  She tensed, but didn’t pull her leg away. “Don’t be so sure of that,” she said in a flat tone. “So tell me, why would the uppskera be chosen by the gods, and their verndari be chosen by the Order?”

  I didn’t want to tell her, but I had to. “It isn’t, exactly. The Order only trains them and narrows it down to a final three. It’s then up to the uppskera themselves to choose out of those three.”

  “Why aren’t all three here at once for me to choose from?”

  Despite preparing myself for those very words, I flinched at the pain they caused as much as the coldness of her tone. “We are selected in order of how we final in the trials and we get to attempt Impression in that order.”