“Not one woman so much as a harem. Jens was too popular in Tonttu after he killed those trolls, so he moved around a lot before taking on your family on the Other Side. Many men who spend time in Bedra never come out. Jens made it out, but that’s where he acquired his lavender powder addiction. The Mare buy it from my people by the barrel. It’s how they keep their men so long.” He sighed. “I knew Jens back then. He bought some lavender powder for medicinal reasons. Those trolls messed up his back a little.” He shook his head. “It always starts out medicinal. Then a few years later, you’re wearing the powder around your neck like a noose.”
I nodded, not fully understanding everything. “You know I only got about half of that, right?”
“The tiny size of your brain never surprises me.”
Henry Mancini looked up at me with sad eyes and started heaving as he yelped. “Oh, baby! What’s wrong? Did you eat something bad?” Foss inched away as my puppy built up a fair amount of sick and barfed it on the deck. My hands were on him in an instant, images of Linus on the floor of the bathroom churning in my rattled psyche.
“Ah!” Foss complained loudly, as if a dog throwing up was the most aggravating thing ever. “Control your wolf, Lucy! We just swabbed the deck.”
“I’m the one who cleaned it, you jag. Leave him alone. He’s been through a lot.”
I trotted down the stairs and fetched a rag made from a ruined garment. I came back to the top and cleaned the spot up, throwing the rag and chunky puke overboard. I crouched next to Henry Mancini and spoke in soothing tones that made Foss groan his annoyance at me. “It’s okay, sweetheart. Poor, seasick puppy. We’ll be off the boat soon.”
Henry Mancini stood on all fours, turned around in a circle three times, and then collapsed like a dying star.
My chest felt tight until I saw him breathing. “He’s okay,” I informed Foss, who probably could not have cared less. “What should I do for him?”
“Throw him overboard so he doesn’t have to deal with you anymore?” Foss suggested.
I glared at his smirk. “Don’t even joke about that. How do I make him get better?”
Foss rolled his eyes at having to care about my problems. “Let me take a look. You’re so overly emotional about a simple creature. Jens should never have let you keep this wolf.” He looked inside Henry Mancini’s mouth and frowned, then checked his fur.
“You shut your smackhole!” I demanded, angry that he was being mean to me while my dog was sick. “Henry Mancini needs me! I’m his family. He came to me, of all people. He knew I would take care of him.”
“Fantastic job you’ve done so far. He looks awful.”
I closed my eyes and willed myself not to cry in front of Foss. “Please just tell me what to do. I really can’t lose another person I love. I need him to be okay.”
Foss’s arrogance and snark deflated out of him at my plea. “Get him a dish of water. If it’s something he ate, that’s the best way to move it through him on the limited cargo we have here.”
I ran down the stairs and brought back the water as fast as I could, spilling a little on the way. Foss was bent over my puppy, and I did not like the sight of him so close to something I loved. “Here,” I said, handing the wooden bowl with water to Foss.
“Um, Lucy? Back up. Something’s wrong.”
The concern in his voice sent ice through my veins. “What is it? What did you do?”
Henry Mancini’s eyes were shut, and he was growling in his dreamy state.
“Go get Jens right now.” His tone was controlled, but I could tell something was very wrong.
I wanted to ask questions, but I obeyed. I ran down to the bottom floor to collect Jens, yanking him from the crate he was packing up. “It’s my dog! Something’s wrong with him.”
Jens wasted no time running to the deck. Foss stood and whispered to Jens while I brought Henry Mancini onto my lap. He was growling at something in his delirious state, but I could not tell what.
Then my sweet puppy did something he had never done before. He turned his head and sank his teeth into my hand, shaking his head back and forth to further rip into my skin. “Ow! No, Henry Mancini! No, no!” I dislodged his jaw from my hand but he came at me again. When he looked up at me with malice I had never before seen on him, my heart froze.
My precious little puppy lunged at me, his gray eyes mutating to a ferocious yellow.
Twenty-Nine.
Henry Mancini
I heard Jamie’s cry of surprise from below the deck, and I could tell he was unhappy that I’d let us get bitten.
Henry Mancini barked at me like I was a burglar or something. I held up my hands to remind him who I was. “No, baby! No! It’s me! I’m your mama! I love you!”
He lunged at me and bit at my shoe with his maw that was now bubbling with white foam.
Jens was on him in a hot second. He wrestled Henry Mancini until he finally clamped his fangs shut. Henry Mancini struggled mercilessly against Jens to get at me, but fortunately Jens was stronger.
“Loos, Pesta’s got him,” Jens explained through gritted teeth. “There’s nothing we can do for him now.”
Horror slammed into me, pushing me forward onto my knees. “No! Don’t hurt him! He would never bite me like that. You know he’s a good dog, Jens! He didn’t mean to do it!”
Jens was a mix of woe, duty, pity and sadness as he looked at me and tried to make me understand. “Lucy, he bit you. Possessed or not, he has to be put down.”
“It doesn’t even hurt!” I lied as the blood dripped off my shaking fingers onto the floor. “Don’t take him away from me! I’ll do better! I’ll watch him more carefully! I promise!”
“It’s got nothing to do with you, honey. Pesta’s using him to track us now. He won’t stop coming at us till we’re all dead.” Beneath my panic, I could tell Jens was filled with self-loathing at having to restrain our puppy.
Henry Mancini thrashed in his arms, and I hated the sight of his struggle. “Let him go! I’ll hold him. I can calm him down. He needs me!” I reached for Henry Mancini, trying to edge him out of Jens’s unyielding grip. “Please, Jens! Stop it! You’re scaring him!” I could tell by the pitch of my voice that I was on the verge of bursting into tears as the angst effervesced inside me.
Foss tugged me back, wrapping an arm around my torso like a seatbelt. “Jens, let me do it. She already hates me. You don’t want to be the one to end him.”
“No.” Jens spoke as if he wished it was as simple as someone saving him from the dreaded task. “She’s my responsibility. I never should’ve let her keep a wolf to begin with.”
“What’s going on up here?” Jamie asked, his hand bloody. Britta, Charles and Uncle Rick came up when they heard the commotion, too, but they all kept a safe distance.
I lunged at Jens when I saw the resolve on his face. “No, Jens!” I screamed. “I’ll do anything! Don’t take my dog! Don’t murder my puppy! He needs me! You can’t give up on someone just because they’re a little broken. No!” I scrambled to get out of Foss’s grip, but despite my thrashing and frantic movements, Foss’s hold on me was as firm as Jens’s was on Henry Mancini. My dog and I lunged to get at each other. “I can fix it! I can fix it!”
A solitary tear leaked out of Jens’s eye and slid down his cheek. “Baby, he can’t be fixed.”
“That’s what they said about Linus, and those doctors were wrong! You’re wrong!” I clawed at Foss’s arm and threw my entire body weight forward, still short of my destination. “They gave up just because it got hard! He could’ve been okay! One more round of chemo! You don’t know!” I elbowed and kicked at Foss like a madwoman. “Henry Mancini can make it! Just give me a chance! I can make him better! Please, Jens! Please! I’ll think of something! Just give me some time!”
Foss grew frustrated with me almost escaping from his grip, so he pinned my front to the floor with his obnoxiously large body, crushing half the air from my lungs. “I can do it, Jens. Really,” Foss offered, fa
ce grim.
“No. He’s half mine. My responsibility.” Jens took a long, hard look at the beast that was no longer Henry Mancini, ignoring my shrieks. I screamed and clawed at the floor to move closer to them, but Foss was too heavy on top of my back. “Don’t look, baby.”
Foss covered my eyes with his too-large hand, but the sound was clear as day. Swish, yelp and pop, followed by the sound of Henry Mancini’s last breath escaping his tiny lungs in a whimper.
“Linus!” I screamed, sobbing like the mess I was.
Foss scraped me off the deck, rolled me over and brought me to his chest in a hug I was too distraught to examine the oddity of. He picked me up and carried me past the gawkers down to the room he’d taken as his. He said not one disparaging word as he sank to the floor with me on his lap. He was a hoarder guarding the treasure he hated.
I punched his chest as I cried.
“Go on. Let it out.”
My ineffectual fists did not damage him as I hoped they would. He’d restrained me and kept me from saving my dog. Henry Mancini was gone, and Foss would pay the price. I wailed on him, refusing to be softened by his arms around me. My knees gripped his hips as I sobbed.
Foss waited out my fury with patience, breathing deeply when my punches turned to girlish slaps across his hard face. “That’s it,” he soothed me. “I know. It’s been a hard life.”
I hated that he was the sane one in this moment. The one time I needed him to be more horrible than me, and he let me down. I slapped him once more before collapsing in his arms like a rag doll. I buried my face in his neck and alternated between crying and screaming, knowing that no matter how many friends I made, I would always be alone.
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Book four in the Undraland Series
One.
Stargazing with Foss
“He’s been gone too many days, Alrik,” Foss complained, leaning back against the boat’s rail. “We should never have sent Jens to Bedra without a chaperone.”
“Patience, friend,” Alrik answered, his gray beard outlining his tight smile. “I’ve never known Jens to fail. He wouldn’t stand for it. Too stubborn.”
I’d bitten my nails too often for them to appear ladylike. I’d lost my twin brother, my parents, Nik, Tor and Henry Mancini. And now Jens was taking his sweet time coming back to us. He was supposed to be gone one night, but that was a week ago. Jens had been sent to secure horses for us to travel on, plus more supplies since a lot of ours were washed overboard when the farlig fisk attacked Foss’s ship.
Well, it was my ship, technically. Since Foss had been declared dead, I inherited all his possessions due to our sham marriage. Foss and I did not agree on much, but we worked together surprisingly well on the boat. He would show me how to fix a leak or clean a part of it, and I pretty much did whatever he asked. While the others lounged and planned, Foss and I worked until we were exhausted at the day’s end. I did anything to occupy my mind so it did not dwell on the very real possibility that Jens was next on the list of people I loved that were now six feet under.
“Not like that,” Foss said, correcting the back and forth hand movement I was using to scrub the walls. “You need to go in a circle, or it won’t be even. Everyone knows that.”
“Sorry. Like this?” I changed my scrubbing accordingly.
“Is it in a circle?” he asked.
“Yup.”
“Then that’s how I want it.”
If I was new to Foss’s “cheery” nature, his constant negativity and criticism would have been tiresome. But having grown used to his personality, I did not take offense. I was too concerned with Jens’s prolonged disappearance to properly argue with Foss.
This seemed to be the only thing that softened the brute. That, and my brother Charles Mace had done his freaky Huldra whistle a few more times to strip away bits of the curse that kept Foss the surly jerk he was. That had been a long night of Foss puking overboard while I held him. Since his last stripping two nights ago, he was noticeably less argumentative.
“Do you want me to start over? I can do it all again with your circle swipes on the deck.” I had maybe three feet left to wash on the entire ship, but it didn’t faze me. I wanted the distraction.
Foss examined my work and shook his head. “No. Just remember for next time.”
“Okay.” I finished up and threw my rag in the bucket. I was sweating from head to toe, but didn’t care. It’s not like I was gunning for a beauty pageant or anything. My jeans had seen better days, and my purple tank top had dirt and blood stains on it from our various adventures. I stood and stretched my arms over my head, twisting my waist to get some feeling back in my body. “What’s next, boss?”
It was rare I surprised Foss, but the shirtless hulk of a man looked at me like I’d just started speaking in French. “It’s almost dark.”
“You can go to sleep, but I’m not tired. What else needs to be done?”
He looked around, casting for things we’d not tackled. “Nothing really. A few things we’ll need daylight for. Repairing nets is impossible in the dark.”
“I’ve got good eyes. Show me how,” I demanded. The others were eating in the galley, but I had no interest in socializing or eating more of the stale, powdery biscuits. There was a tin of random-meat jerky left, but honestly, I’d rather chew on the dirty rag I’d just cleaned the boat with.
“Everyone else is eating,” Foss pointed out.
“Oh. Go ahead. You must be starving.” I rubbed the back of my neck. Though it had been a couple weeks since my long blonde hair had been lopped off to an inch below my chin, it still felt strange to have the wind touch my neck. “Where are the nets? I’m sure I can figure out how to fix them.”
“Take a break, little rat.” He mussed my filthy hair with something that almost resembled affection. “Rat” used to be strictly derogatory. After we survived Fossegrim together, there was less hatred in his dealings with me.
“Nets?” I asked again. If I stopped, everything would come crashing down on me. The deaths, the fear… and Jens.
To be clear, it wasn’t that I missed my boyfriend, which of course, I did. The thing that kept my hands working was the thought that he would never come back, which was a very real possibility.
Foss gave me a hard look, and then led the way to one of the rooms below deck. He yanked out giant rope nets that weighed at least triple one soaking wet me. He hauled them up to the deck so we could take advantage of what was left of the dipping sun. Opening the bundle up on the wood floor, he pointed to a frayed edge. “See that? It needs fixing. And this?” He showed me a severed knot. “Retying would do the trick.” He brought up a box filled with supplies I would need. “But it can all wait until tomorrow. I was going to do it anyway. We’re running low on food, so I was planning on taking the boat out a little ways to catch some fish.”
“You’re giving up on Jens coming back,” I stated flatly, fingering the edge of the net.
Foss rolled his eyes. “You’re so dramatic. The Mare won’t kill Jens. They’ll just… detain him. He’s fine. Taking his sweet time, but fine. I’m not giving up. I’m catching dinner so we can eat while he wastes our time.”
“Okay.” I nodded, sitting down on the deck and pulling the net onto my lap. “Go on down and eat something.”
Foss looked like he wanted to argue, but left anyway. As much as I loved when he was gone, his absence left me alone with my thoughts, and my thoughts these days were pretty grim. I couldn’t shake the memory of my rabid dog snapping to get at me from Jens’s arms, and the awful sound he made when Jens killed him.
Images of Jens with an arrow through his chest flooded my brain before I could stop them. Jens with a knife in the back. Jens on a guillotine. Jens beaten up and left rotting in a ditch. He was Superman to me. Something about the feel of waiting in angst for your protector to return can make a girl nuts. Nuts enough to clean an entire pirate ship.
>
I did a thorough job with the nets, going through each little notch, inspecting it for any signs of weakness, and repairing the parts when I saw fit. It was the perfect task – never-ending.
The others ate and turned in for the night. Britta and Jamie hugged me, looking only mildly concerned for Jens’s welfare. Jamie treated the whole thing like an annoyance, as if Jens was purposefully being detained. Britta was not as concerned as I thought a sister should be, but I took her gentle strength as a rubric for how freaked out I would allow myself to be on the outside. On the inside, I would go nuts and bolts. To the world, I would quietly tie knots in a fishing net alone in the corner on my dead husband’s ship. Totally emotionally balanced.
Alrik gave me a kiss on the top of my head, and Charles hugged me before poking me in the side with his prehensile tail to provoke a tease out of me. He earned a simple smile, which he seemed satisfied with, thank goodness.
With everyone tucked in their hammocks down below, I sat in the red moonlight with the repair kit as I looped and knotted.
“Would you stop it?!” Foss cried from across the deck. I could see his neck muscles tensed even in the light of Undra’s giant moon.
I stilled, turning to him. “What?”
“The rocking you do. It’s deranged! Just go to bed. You’ll send me over the edge if you keep this up.”
“What rocking?”
Foss smacked his forehead. “You don’t even know you’re doing it! You were rocking back and forth like a madwoman. Go to sleep, Lucy. We’re docked. There’s no reason for you to work like this.”
“Am I being loud?” I snapped.
“No. You barely run your mouth anymore.”
“Am I in the way over here in the corner, or when I was cleaning the boat with you all day?”
“No.”
Fossegrim Page 17
