I sharpened my hearing. From within the barn came soft, urgent whispers. At over fifty yards with walls in the way, I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but I knew they were there. Footsteps sounded from inside, approaching. Two other sets of footsteps retreated deeper into the barn. I picked up my pace and lengthened my stride. Behind me I felt the pressure of Vidar’s power as he followed. How he did so without making a sound, I had no idea. A few seconds later a tall figure darkened the gap where the sliding door stood partially open.
Arms crossed over his broad chest, the six-foot-four man leaned against the barn, his bulk blocking the opening. Chin-length blond hair framed pretty eyes and a Hollywood-like handsome face.
“Hello, Teach,” I said.
Though I attended the University of Montana where Tyler Viörrsson was a professor he had never been my teacher. I didn’t take history classes. But, since he had also been Sonya’s kennari, the title fit.
He nodded, power crackling off him in delicious waves of energy. “Hello, Ayra.”
“I need to speak with Sonya.”
“No need, she saved this one.”
I stepped closer, into the midst of that crackling energy. It stung, but in a wonderful way, like hail pounding down on me in a massive storm, a storm with the promise of lightning. The stinging turned soothing as it sank in deeper. My skin drank it in eagerly, just like in the fight with the bullies back in Hemlock Hollow.
Drawing in a sharp breath, Ty cursed in Icelandic and moved into a fighting stance. The flow of energy stopped. On instinct, I tried to reach for it, but something blocked it now. Ty. I had a feeling that if he wasn’t alpha material, I might have been able to keep drawing it anyway. But he was, and for that I was thankful, because I wasn’t sure I could have stopped. And I hadn’t meant to do it in the first place. Gods, I really needed to get a handle on this power.
“What did you just do?” he said through a growl.
Fascinated, I stared at him. “I don’t know. But I apologize, I didn’t mean to.” The uppskera journals didn’t say anything about that. Since the incident in Hemlock Hollow I had looked, hard.
“What happened? Is everything good here?” Vidar asked as he reached us.
Ty’s narrowed gaze shifted from me to Vidar. “I am not sure. I think she just…siphoned energy from me,” he said.
Head cocking, I shrugged. “I didn’t siphon so much as absorbed the energy he was giving off. You boys chat about it, I’m going to talk to Sonya.”
I took a step into the barn but Ty moved to block my access. “As I said, she saved this one.”
“Yes, I can feel that. He isn’t why I’m here. As I said, I came to talk to Sonya.”
I didn’t want to go through a guy who was alpha material, they tended to take things like that badly. But I would if I had to, and I thought I probably could. My confidence didn’t come from arrogance, but from what I could feel of his power and how it compared to my own.
One of Ty’s pale eyebrows rose. “You can feel that she saved him?”
“It’s more about what I don’t feel from him anymore. Now please, step aside.”
Doing as I asked, Ty swept a hand toward the interior of the barn in invitation. “Since you asked so nicely. But you will not mind if I follow, I do hope.”
“Not at all,” I called over my shoulder as I strode inside.
The two old friends exchanged greetings as they trailed behind me. They had been packmates once, before Bain had taken over the Draupnir pack and kicked them both out. That kind of bond survived a lot. Right now it served to keep Ty out of my way.
The scents of old hay and even older manure tickled at my nose, bringing up dark memories of being dragged against my will into my awakening. Anxiety reared its ugly little head in me, trying to feed on my fear so it could grow. The deep desire to turn and flee from this barn slowed my steps. But I wouldn’t let it stop them. Fear gave birth to anger, which swiftly devoured its predecessor. It grew. Anger at my brother for doing this to me, anger at those he had bit for hurting people, anger at Vidar for leaving me to handle it alone, all burned within, threatening to turn into an inferno.
Two energy signatures close together drew me to the back of the barn. Down an aisle of old, empty stalls and around a corner, I found them. Light spilled through a half open back door, bouncing off millions of dust particles, and outlining two figures. Shadows hid their faces. But I didn’t need to see them. The feel of Sonya’s power pushing against my own was unmistakable. Then there was the newly bitten. The taint of darkness on him made my power flare so much I grew nauseous. The way he shook with fear made my fangs extend in anticipation of a chase.
A flash stopped me in my tracks. No, not a flash; a memory.
Shouts, his shouts, punctuated the sound of flesh slapping flesh. His hands reared back again and again, connecting with the bruised face of a young woman. The final slap sent her spinning to the ground, but not before her head connected with the edge of a coffee table. After a bit of twitching, she went very still. The man’s shouts turned to sobs, then he sank to the ground.
The flash ended, leaving me with even more rage. The man whimpered and took a stumbling step backward. Sonya grabbed his arm. “Don’t run, or she will chase you, and I won’t be able to stop what happens,” she warned.
Fangs bared, I strode closer. “You killed her.”
The man jerked. “You were in my head! How did you do that?” He shrunk in on himself and tried to pull free from Sonya, but she held fast. It made me think of the woman who’d been cowering in fear of him.
Teeth gnashing, I growled. “Because I am the thing the monsters fear.” My voice sounded nothing like a human’s, and I didn’t care.
Ebony hair and tanned skin moved in front of the man. Sonja’s chestnut eyes glowed in the shadows. The fronts of our powers rushed against one another like the hot and cold that created a storm. In fact, that’s what it felt like; a storm building.
“Ayra, stop. He mastered his instinct and gained control,” Sonya said.
My gaze darted to her. “He beat a woman, then killed her,” I growled.
Sonya nodded. “I know. But he can’t make amends for it if you kill him.”
I shifted my weight, head titling so I could see him around her. The asshole looked like he was about to piss himself. It only made me angrier. “He won’t be able to do it again either,” I said.
“Killing him won’t make up for what he’s done. Only he can do that.”
Dammit. I hated that she was right.
The man stepped out to her side, exposing himself. He kept his head bowed and his eyes at my feet. At least he wasn’t entirely stupid. “And I will make up for it, I want to make up for it. I need to. I owe it to her and her family to try. I’ll never raise a hand against anyone ever again. I swear,” he said in an endless rush of words.
I forced my anger back down. Like bile, it didn’t go easily or without leaving behind a terrible taste. “And how do you plan to do that?”
He ran his hands slowly through his sweat-slick hair.
“Easy there,” Sonya said. “He only just beat the instinct today. He hasn’t had time to come up with a plan. But he will, I’ll make sure of it.”
Letting out a breath, I straightened up out of the fighting stance I’d automatically slid into. “All right.”
Sonya drew back a bit in surprise. “Just like that?”
“Just like that. I’ll know if he slips up, and if he does, I’ll come for him. No discussion, no mercy.”
A whimper came from the man.
Ignoring him, Sonya cocked her head at me. “So you didn’t come for him now?”
“No, I came to talk to you.”
“Oh.” Sonya relaxed out of her fighting stance. Head turning to look over her shoulder, she said, “Stay here and the nice reaper won’t kill you. I’ll be back.” Looking at me, she swept a hand toward the open door. “Shall we go for a walk?”
The newly bitten nodded furi
ously and backed up until he ran into a post. I gave him a little growl for good measure. It was wrong to enjoy the way he flinched, I knew, but I enjoyed it anyway. Shifting my attention to Sonya, I followed her out into the sunlight. I didn’t need to see the man to keep tabs on him. The taint on him acted like a scent trail that would lead me straight to him if need be.
We walked out into a field of golden, thigh-high grass riddled with weeds and the occasional blue or yellow flower. The scents of growing things warming themselves worked like a palette cleanser for my nose. That barn had smelled like sin and bad memories. Damn Calder for ruining the smell of a barn for me for the rest of my life. A Montana girl who couldn’t stand the scent of a barn was a sad thing.
An old oak tree with gnarly limbs stretching out low to the ground cast its shade over us as we walked beneath it. Sonya leaped up ten feet straight into the air and settled onto one of the limbs as though it were a bench. The wistful grin on her face began to fade as I jumped up and joined her. Rough bark pressed into my mostly bare legs, but I didn’t mind. The shade the big leaves offered felt good.
“I’ll never get tired of that,” Sonya said, looking down at the long drop to the ground.
“Being a werewolf does have its perks,” I agreed.
Her childlike enjoyment of one of the simplest benefits of being a werewolf made me smile. She’d taken so naturally to it that I sometimes forgot she was newly bitten.
I looked out across the golden field and up into the vast blue sky. Would the sky seem smaller once we crossed over into Idaho? People said it felt that way in other states. I’d never left Montana so I wouldn’t know. Well, I guess I would soon. I took a deep breath and stopped stalling.
“I’m sorry we didn’t get to talk before I left Hemlock Hollow. I was hoping to get the jump on my brother to prevent things from going any further than they already had,” I said.
Sonya’s smile faded away. “Unfortunately, he has at least a month on us, probably more.”
I thought back to the pictures of crime scenes plastered all over the walls in Calder’s loft. “Definitely more.” Anger spiked within and I had to work hard to stop it from giving me tunnel vision. “He’s been doing this since before I was born.”
“Do you think he had anything to do with Raul biting me in?”
“I’m sure of it. The woman Raul was engaged to was Calder’s girlfriend,” I said. The very idea of Calder having a girlfriend made me cringe, remembering the newly bitten back in the barn. But as far as I knew, Calder had never raised a hand to her.
Sonya’s eyes narrowed. “You think Calder made Raul bite me in just so he could keep his girlfriend?”
“Not at all. Calder never cared about her. I heard him say it often enough. He used her to manipulate Raul.”
“But why me, then?”
“The same reason he bit in all the others over the years, they awoke our power. But Calder might not be the only one who manipulated Raul. Did you talk to him after the trial?”
She stiffened. “No.”
A deep sigh pulled from me. I couldn’t blame her. “He told me Bain, Alpha of the Arnoddr pack, blackmailed him into biting you in.”
Her brows rose. “The guy who took over the pack by killing his own brother? Why would he want me bitten in?”
“Raul said because he wanted you as his mate, to strengthen the Arnoddr pack and solidify his place as its alpha. It makes a bit of sense considering how divided that pack still is.”
Sonya’s claws extended from her fingers, biting into the tree branch. “But Raul bit me in to be his mate.”
“He said he did that to save you from having to be Bain’s mate. Said he was hoping Bain would hold up his end of the bargain before he found out.”
“And what was this supposed bargain supposed to be?”
I couldn’t blame her for the doubt in her tone.
“I’m not sure, he didn’t tell me that part, but because of it Raul thinks Bain is tied to this, that he’s dangerous. That much, at least, I do believe.”
Her eyes grew wide and her mouth dropped open a bit. For several long seconds, she didn’t say anything. “All right, I trust you.”
She swayed a bit on the branch. I prepared to grab hold of her, just in case. “What connects your brother to all of that?”
“He’s close friends with Bain. And, he wanted to be the uppskera. He was hoping that by biting in so many people who wouldn’t make it, the power would awake in him. But then I was born.”
Sonya shook her head. “If that’s what he wanted, why hasn’t he stopped?”
“He wants to expose our kind, so they can take their rightful place as the alpha predators of the world. His words, not mine,” I said.
“Idiot. There would be all out war.”
“That’s what he has planned. I found a journal of his. He mentions a battle in July. I think he’s building an army to attack something, or someone.”
Her eyes widened. “Shit. Any idea where, or who?”
“Not yet. But he’s been tracking prisoner transports, breaking the prisoners free, and biting them in. I think they’re what he plans to use for soldiers.”
“That’s insane. Why would he use them?”
I brushed a strand of pale hair back from my face and looked out over the meadow. “Maybe because they’d be grateful, loyal, maybe to mess with me.”
“Because you see inside their heads, experience the crimes that have pushed them over the edge.”
The haunted tone of her voice made me look long and hard at her. “You see inside their heads too.”
She nodded.
Silence stretched between us for a long moment, until I finally filled it. “You can attract lightning.”
“And you can channel it. But what does that have to do with what Calder is up to?”
“By Thor, I wish I knew.”
She turned sideways on the branch to face me, pulling one leg up to her. “You healed me with it.”
“No, I just used the lightning to kick start your power so it healed you faster.”
“Ty tells me other varúlfur can’t do that. How long have you been able to channel lightning?”
I didn’t even have to take time to think about it. “Since I made it through the verða. I was eight.”
Her brows shot up into her dark hair. “Wow, that’s young isn’t it? Ty said most go through it during puberty.”
With a flourish of my hands, I pointed toward myself. “Yes, well, I decided to skip the whole puberty thing.”
Laughing, Sonya tagged me in the arm with a fist that could use a bit of work. “Don’t sell yourself short just because you’re petite. It gives you more of an element of surprise, and you’re not any less hot because you’re a size zero.”
“Size four, actually,” I corrected her.
We shared a long laugh that felt utterly foreign, and even more amazing because of it. Maybe it was wrong, against a cosmic code of some kind, but I felt like I could count Sonya as a friend. For a short while we watched the oak leaves sway in the wind.
“I’ve always loved storms,” Sonya said.
“Me too. It’s connected with what Calder is doing, I just don’t know how,” I said.
“He knows you can channel lightning?”
That caught me off guard. “No, he doesn’t.”
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely. I hid it from him, very well.” Any time I could do something he couldn’t, Calder would increase my “training” until I was black and blue—and often bleeding—and so sore I could barely move the next day. If he had found out I could channel energy… What he would have done to me would have been the stuff of nightmares.
To my surprise, Sonya didn’t question it. “How many people do you think are behind this?” she asked instead, surprising me yet again. I could see why Ty liked her.
“You mean aside from James and the others who have followed him around since they were pups?”
She inclined her he
ad in a short nod.
I recalled what Raul had said that day in the park. “Initially, I hadn’t thought so. But now I’m not so sure.” I looked long and hard into her eyes. “We can’t trust anyone but Ty and Vidar with our secret. This lightning thing, it means something, something important, I just don’t know what yet.”
“I agree.”
Well, that was easier than I had thought it would be.
“There isn’t anything in the leitar journals about it, and I’m guessing there isn’t anything in the uppskera ones either. And we can’t be the first. That means someone, or several someones, don’t want us to know about what we can do, or more importantly, why we can do it,” Sonya said.
Her intelligence surprised me, and convinced me that Raul definitely hadn’t chosen her on his own. “I think you and I could have been friends under different circumstances,” I said.
Forehead wrinkling up, she smiled in contrast. “But we are friends.”
Friends. I’d never had a female friend. My brother made sure I never had time for it. Couldn’t have me confessing that I was of the reaper bloodline and had the mark to anyone. Not that his influence would have mattered. I had always been a skinny, extremely pale—especially for the Norse—little girl. Hel, I still was. Kids were terribly unaccepting when it came to such things. It was part of what made me so angry that everyone wanted to be close to me now that I could offer them something.
“I don’t see how. I will kill the ones you don’t save. I imagine a thing like that would stress a friendship beyond its strength.”
She made a sort of snorting noise. “Their salvation isn’t my responsibility, it’s theirs. If they aren’t strong enough to want to fight the instinct to kill, and won’t listen to me when I try to help them, then they’re the ones that seal their fate, not me, and not you.” She waved a hand. “I’m not an angel and you’re not a devil. We’re just two women trying to right the wrongs of a couple of idiots. And damn history and tradition if it says we can’t be friends.”
The left side of my lips turned upward. “You and I are going to get along great.”
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