Howl for Me

by Dana Marie Bell

  Jeff, his entire body trembling violently, brought his bloody paws together and stared at Fen. His beautiful eyes were full of pain…and trust.

  “Chinese finger trap.” Jamie heaved some more. “I need to call Travis.”

  Fen remembered what Jeff had shown him two months ago in the helicopter. Fen grabbed hold of Gleipnir and, instead of pulling, pushed gently. The rope fell away from his mate’s paws. Jeff was free. “Change, elskede. We need to get out of here.”

  Jeff whimpered. A strange sound started to fill the air, one Fen had never heard before. It was loud, the sound rising and falling like the screech of an angry dragon.

  Jamie staggered to her feet, still looking the worse for wear. “Fuck. The cops are coming. Jeff, get un-furry, you stupid bastard.”

  Fen could see Jeff struggling to find his human self, but the pain was overriding everything else. “We carry him.” Fen pulled Jeff onto his shoulders and winced at his mate’s canine scream. The moan that was torn from his mate’s throat brought tears to his eyes. “Can you get us to your car unseen?”

  Jamie nodded. “I think so. Travis is on his way, so if we have to we leave my car behind and get in his.”

  “Easy, kjaere.” Fen raced out of the house, his mate draped across his shoulders. “We’ll have you home soon.” With luck his father and Kir would be there and could help him figure out why Jeff wasn’t healing. Had he been wrong?

  Was his mate still mortal?

  Jeff tried to bite back his cries. Already he could hear the police moving around inside the house. He knew they’d find where Grimm and Rina had attempted to fillet him. From what little he’d seen they’d also find that poor family Grimm had slaughtered.

  How had Grimm disappeared like that? Fen had him in his jaws, ripping into him and tearing him apart. One second he was bleeding from bites, the next he’d disappeared and not even Fen could find him.

  Wasn’t Fen supposed to kill Odin? Or did some other piece of prophecy need to be fulfilled first?

  “Jamie!”

  Jeff opened eyes he didn’t even remember closing to find his sister in her lover’s embrace. Travis looked tormented, just as he had when Jamie had been in that hospital bed months ago. He closed his eyes again and waited.

  “Shit. Is that Jeff?”

  He felt Fen move, knew the wolf was climbing into Travis’s car. Fen placed him on the back seat, careful of his wounds, the werewolf’s hands never leaving him. He was surrounded by the scent of loved ones.

  It didn’t dull the pain, but it made it more bearable.

  “Why isn’t he healing?” The concern in Fen’s voice was sobering. Jeff struggled to turn human, but the pain overrode everything else. He was stuck in this form, at least for now. The car moved, taking them away from the death and carnage. How they’d avoided the police Jeff had no idea, but he was pretty sure he’d left a trail of blood right to the street. He figured his twin had used her woo-woo powers to hide them from detection.

  Travis was driving like an insane man. “I don’t know.”

  The car turned and Jeff moaned again. He was shuddering from the pain, freezing cold. It was possible he was going into shock from blood loss.

  “And I can’t take him to a veterinarian. He looks nothing like a real wolf.” Travis idled at a red light, his fingers drumming impatiently on the steering wheel.

  “Not to mention my grandfather could get to him there.” He heard Jamie’s worried sigh. “Are the wards back up?”

  “Jordan’s working on it. We’re also trying to figure out a way to get word to Logan and Kir about what just happened. I don’t think they realized Grimm would make his move the second the wards snapped.” Travis muttered something vile. “He had to have been waiting right outside the building to get to us that quickly. They’d only been down for a few minutes when he showed up.”

  “He may already be at Yggdrasil. My father is used to moving swiftly. This is the first time he’s had so many people to protect.”

  “And his main priorities are Kir and Jordan.” Travis pulled to a stop. Since no one began climbing out of the vehicle Jeff assumed they were at another red light, but he just couldn’t bring himself to open his eyes and make sure.

  Fen stroked Jeff’s head and Jeff tried to relax. Whatever was going on, his mate would help him.

  “Jeff?”

  Jeff barely managed to open his eyes. Something about his sister’s voice was off.

  “Grimm killed Dad.”

  Jeff shivered. He knew. He closed his eyes and carefully wiggled until his nose rested on Fen’s thigh. It was all he could force himself to do, but he needed the comfort. The scent of his mate surrounded him but couldn’t drive away the reality that his big, strong father was dead. The man who’d tossed him in the air, who’d baked him the worst cookies he’d ever tasted, the father who’d cried when Jeff broke his arm, was dead.

  “What are we going to tell Mom?”

  Jeff whined. Jeanne Grimm, despite her anger, had adored her husband. She was going to lose it when she found out he’d been murdered.

  If he knew his mother, she was going to go after Oliver Grimm with a sawed-off if they didn’t figure out a way to stop her.

  “We’re almost there.” The now familiar bump as they drove into their building’s parking area jarred him, made him whimper. “We’ll take Fen and Jeff up to their condo, then go and fetch Jeanne. Sweetheart? Your dad’s in Logan’s place. Jordan’s called Toni to let her know what’s going on. She might be there when we get back.”

  Good. The homicide detective would help them with…with…

  God, he couldn’t even think about it. His father was dead, killed by his grandfather. It was beyond fucked up.

  “How will we get Jeff up the elevator without anyone noticing?”

  Travis pulled into his assigned spot with a sigh. “Magic.” Jeff opened his eyes to see Travis glowing with a strange light. He wavered before Jeff’s eyes and…disappeared. Jeff was lifted from Fen’s arms and couldn’t hold back his cry of pain and loss. “You two go on ahead. Pretend nothing’s wrong. I’ll need you to punch the elevator buttons for me.”

  “Holy shit, Trav. Since when can you do that?” Jamie headed for the elevator, Fen on her heels.

  “Since forever, but it’s extremely tiring. I have to literally bend light all around me while making sure people don’t see any warping, distortion or blank spots. Do you have any idea how heavy light really is? On top of that, I’m doing it for someone else. I can’t do it for more than two, and if your brother was any bigger I wouldn’t be able to do it at all.”

  “Oh.” They got on the elevator, Jamie wincing as the Muzak version of “Welcome to the Jungle” began to play. “I hate this music. Who picked this puke anyway?” She sniffed, not fooling anyone. Jamie was on the verge of collapse.

  Before the elevator made it to their floor Jeff lost his battle with consciousness.

  Chapter Seven

  “That should do it.” Fen sat and watched closely as Travis ducked his hand in the basin of bloody water. “These stitches will hold but he’s lost a lot of blood.”

  “He can have mine.” Jamie held out her bared arm. “Make with the needles.”

  Travis shook his head. “I don’t have the equipment to do a transfusion.” He stood and headed for the master bath. “I’m going to clean up, then see if I can arrange something. Maybe I can get hold of Logan or Kir, get their asses back.”

  Fen stroked his mate’s muzzle, his gaze glued to the rise and fall of Jeff’s chest. His mate looked like a patchwork doll, the stitches neat but visible against his russet fur. “Are the wards back up?” If Odin made another attempt on Fen’s mate, he’d be torn up even more than he was sure the Old Man already was.

  “Jordan’s working on it. Uncle Val is doing what he can to help, but it’s not his strong suit.” Jamie settled carefully on the bed next to her twin. She rested her hand alongside Fen’s. “He’ll live.”

  Fen’s jaw clench
ed. He heard the uncertainty in her voice but couldn’t answer it. “Jeff’s still mortal.”

  She nodded. “Yeah. I think so.”

  “That’s not the way it was supposed to be.” He’d been positive his bite would bring his mate over, make Jeff just like Fen.

  He’d been wrong.

  “I know.” Her hand brushed against his, her fingers twining with his own. “Fen. You couldn’t have known he’d still be mortal.”

  “My jealousy kept him from sharing blood with Kir. If he had—”

  “He’d still be hurting. Just immortal and hurting.” Travis set his hand on Fen’s shoulder, but Fen couldn’t bring himself to respond. “And there’s no guarantee that if he’d shared blood with your father he’d get Logan’s healing abilities.”

  “He’s got your magic in him, Fen. Maybe if we can get him to shift back, he’ll heal?” The barely suppressed hope in Jamie’s voice rubbed at the raw wound left by the attack on Jeff.

  “No. It doesn’t work that way.” Jeff whimpered, his head moving restlessly. Fen untangled his fingers from hers and resumed stroking his mate’s muzzle. Jeff settled back down immediately. “If he’d gotten my ability to heal he’d be all right by now.”

  “Then it’s like sharing blood with Logan. He only got one of your abilities, shapeshifting, rather than all of them.”

  “Then maybe if he shared blood with one of the others he’d get something of theirs?” Travis’s hand lifted away. “We can try me, but I don’t heal the way Logan does.”

  Jamie twisted so that she was staring right into Fen’s eyes. “I heal.”

  He lifted his head and stared at his mate’s twin. “Will it work?”

  She shrugged. “What’s the worst that could happen? He gets woo-woo powers or lights up like a Christmas tree when he’s ticked? It’s worth a shot, isn’t it?”

  “The problem is your healing might not be as strong as Logan’s.” Travis reached around Fen and ran his fingers through Jamie’s curls.

  Her answering smile wobbled. “Anything is better than nothing.” She bit her lip, obviously fighting back tears. “I can’t lose him too, Tyr.”

  Travis sighed. His hand stroked her cheek. “Do it, love.”

  She nodded and held out her hand. “Scalpel.” Travis handed her a small silver blade. “Fen? When this was done to me I had a bad reaction. Kir isn’t here to save Jeff if something goes wrong. Are you okay with this?”

  Fen stared at her. “Could this kill him?”

  “We think she had the reaction because Logan and I shared blood with her one right after the other. You bit Jeff this morning. Since it’s now late evening, he stands a better chance. The more time between the better off he’ll be, but from the way he’s breathing I’d rather give it a try now than wait.”

  Fen nodded. A slim chance was better than none. “Do it.”

  Jamie sliced her palm and placed it against one of the smaller wounds, one of the cuts Travis hadn’t stitched closed. The trio settled down to wait.

  Nothing happened. Fen wanted to howl in frustration. “Why isn’t it working?”

  Jamie sighed. “One in three chance he’d get healing, remember?”

  “We’ll have to see what happens when he wakes up. But it’s pretty obvious he didn’t get healing.” Fen frowned. “Wait. I never shared blood with Jeff, just claimed him and turned him.” He grabbed the silver blade and dragged it across his palm.

  “No!” Travis stopped him before he could lay his hand on Jeff’s side. “We don’t know how he’ll react, remember?”

  Damn. Fen watched the cut on his palm heal and growled. “I need to heal him.”

  “I know.” Travis sighed. “The goddess of healing won’t come here, even for Jeff.”

  Jamie slumped with a grimace. “Frigg.”

  Travis nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Does she survive Ragnarrok?”

  Travis blinked. “You know? I have no idea. The fate of the goddesses is never mentioned in either the Poetic or Prose Eddas.”

  Fen heard the doorbell ring. Travis put his hand briefly on Fen’s shoulder before walking out of the room. Fen could hear him talking to someone, but couldn’t bring himself to care.

  “In here.” Travis led whoever their visitor was into the bedroom.

  “Poor doggie.” A dark-haired woman entered the room and clucked her tongue at the sight of his wounded mate. Her hands were reaching for him, but Fenris snarled and she pulled back.

  Travis gestured toward the bed. “As you can see, Jeff’s been injured.”

  “That’s Jeff? Holy fuck.” Fen sniffed and recognized the woman’s scent. It was the police detective, Antonia Mancinelli. “What the hell happened?”

  “Grimm happened.” Jamie’s hands clenched into fists. “I’m going to turn the Old Man into patè.”

  “No. I mean when did he become furry and four-legged?” Antonia’s hands ran through Jeff’s fur. Fen barely bit back his growl. This woman wasn’t pack, wasn’t family. She shouldn’t be touching his mate so intimately. “What did Oliver Grimm do to him? Some of these wounds are pretty serious.”

  “He’s my mate.” Fen did growl then as the woman’s hands went dangerously close to the largest wound, the one on Jeff’s chest. “I marked him, made him mine.” He lifted her hands off Jeff’s body. “I won’t be able to keep myself from hurting you if you don’t stop touching him.”

  “Sorry.” Toni took a step back from the bed. “Jamie. I need to file a report about your dad. You say Grimm attacked him?”

  Jamie nodded. “Yeah.”

  Toni sighed and rubbed her head. “Jesus. Technically speaking, Oliver Grimm is a missing person. If I post a report that he’s killed Fred Grimm the cops will start hunting him. But with the wound on your dad there’s no way to claim it was natural causes. And they’ll want to know why I think Oliver Grimm killed his son. Shit.”

  “He attacked Jeff. He tried to fucking skin him.” Jamie’s hand was once more buried in her brother’s fur.

  Toni winced. “Shit.” Toni flopped down into a chair across from the bed, far enough away that Fen didn’t feel Jeff was threatened but close enough that she could converse without shouting. “Your grandfather’s quite the asshole, isn’t he?”

  “Yeah.”

  Fen frowned. Something was different. Off. He sniffed the air around his mate, but nothing had changed.

  “Fen?”

  The hair on the back of his neck was standing on end. Perhaps Jordan and Val were finishing up the wards?

  “Fen? Are you all right?”

  No. It wasn’t the wards. This magic felt…different. Female. He’d felt it a few times before, so long ago he could barely remember it. It was subtle, this magic, one that was only wielded by a select few.

  He jumped to his feet and changed, startling everyone in the room. He raced to Toni’s side and sniffed deeply.

  Yes. Subtle, but there. Diluted by time and intermarriage with humans, but still there. He changed back and grabbed her hand, dragging her back to Jeff’s side. “Stroke him.”

  “Um. Didn’t you threaten my life if I got too close?” She was wide-eyed, holding back.

  Fen growled and forced her hand against Jeff’s skin. “Heal him.”

  Travis gasped, but Fen kept his gaze on the woman in front of him. “You carry the blood of Valkyries in your veins. It’s faint, barely there, but some of their power runs through you.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Despite her protests her hands moved through Jeff’s fur.

  “The Valkyries were the ones who chose who died and who did not, but they also had the power to heal. They could bring the living back from the dead. Odin hated when they did that, so they rarely practiced their healing skills.” Fen pleaded with her as best he could. “Save my mate. Please.”

  Toni blinked, her expression uncertain. “I don’t know how.”

  Travis took hold of her wrist. “Remember how you felt when you came into the room and saw what ha
d been done to Jeff?” She nodded. “Your first instinct was to reach out to him, to make him feel better, wasn’t it?”

  She shivered. “Not quite.”

  Fen tilted his head.

  “It was to put him out of his misery.”

  Fen snarled.

  “At first I thought he was a dog, okay? One that got run over by a bus, maybe.” Her hands continued to move through Jeff’s fur, her fingers lightly tracing the lines of the cuts Travis had sewn shut. “Honestly, I don’t think he’ll make it even if I help. He looks like reheated Hamburger Helper.”

  “He will. If you help him.” Fen took hold of her hand again. This time he could feel the faint traces of her power flowing through her and into Jeff.

  It was working. Without knowing it, Toni’s desire to fix Jeff was healing him slowly but surely. Already Jeff breathed more easily.

  But it was taking a subtle toll on the detective. Her eyes turned glassy, her skin taking on a sickly sheen. She was pale and trembling before five minutes had passed. The rancid scent of sweat and fear filled the air around her. “I can’t.”

  Fen lifted her hands away from Jeff just before she collapsed. He helped her back to the chair she’d settled in before. “You did enough. Tusen takk. ”

  “Thank you,” Travis translated.

  She was trembling. “How is this possible? I’m not like you.”

  “Someone in your past was.” Fen settled back down on the bed, curling himself around his sleeping mate. “Your great-grandmother, or even further back, was a Valkyrie. They have always been lovers of mortals, and sometimes bore children with them.”

  Her head shook in disbelief. “But I’m Italian, not Norwegian.”

  “Then someone lied to you, or forgot that one of your relatives wasn’t Italian.” Travis brought her a drink of water. “Here. I’ll get some blankets and you can borrow some of Jamie’s pajamas.” He raised his hand when Toni opened her mouth to protest. “You’re in no condition to drive, Detective, and you know it.”

  “I have to file my report.”

  “You have to get some sleep and file it in the morning.” Travis smirked. “Or should I contact Nik?”