But sibling rivalry beat listening to me, because he barked a harsh laugh, shook his head, and charged Grim.
“Stop!” A blast of cold air swept over me. I was the eye of the hurricane and the winds spun around me, but where I stood was still and calm. Fenris pitched forward, as if he could muscle his way past the wind. “You have to stop,” I repeated, and the wind redoubled until he flew back, slamming into a tree, pine needles raining on his head.
Sucking in a breath, I stared, open-mouthed. Had I—? Did I—? I hadn’t meant to hurt him. The white faded, leaving a slightly dazed, much more human looking man in his place.
Ignoring Raynor and Grim, I leapt at him, skidding on the snow and falling to my knees. “Oh crap. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Are you okay? I don’t know what happened.” My hands hovered around his face, touching his blonde hair, smoothing the long locks away from his face. “Don’t move. You could be injured.”
Behind me, Grim and Raynor chuckled, and I pinned them with a glower. “Help him!” I demanded. “He could have a concussion. I might have broken his head.”
“Our brother’s head is too hard to ever break,” Raynor husked, passing a hand over his mouth when I glared at him.
“They’re no help,” I muttered, turning my attention to Fenris. “What can I do? Are there doctors here?”
The entire time I spoke, he watched me with wide-eyed bewilderment.
“How many fingers am I holding up?” I asked, showing him three fingers. I happened to glance at my hand, which wasn’t its usual pale pink color, but was white, pure white. A white so bright it was blinding. “Oh!” Falling back on my heels, I held up both hands, and then shook them, trying to dislodge the color. Trembling, I pushed my sleeves over my elbows. Dizziness swept over me; the color was everywhere.
Behind me, Raynor and Grim sat, arms reaching for me. Fenris shook his head, shedding the needles and taking my hands in his. “You’re all right. It will disappear in a moment.”
“How?” I asked. This really needed some explanation before I lost my mind and started babbling or rocking.
“You’re our skaoi,” he whispered, eyes warming again. A smile touched his lips.
Reaching out, unable to stop myself, I touched his lips. Slowly, as if the color transferred from his face to my fingertips, the white deepened to blush and then pink, and I released a breath.
“I don’t understand,” I whispered, looking from one man to the next.
Holding my hands in his, Fenris stood, helping me along. “Come back, and we’ll explain.”
I nodded. Yes, an explanation would help, and if it didn’t clear things up, then I could always make a tornado like an X-Man and fly myself back to Boston.
7
Raynor
I’d never seen anything as beautiful as our skaoi. In all my years, I’d never let myself believe I’d be blessed with one, and now I was nearly paralyzed with joy to share her with my twin.
Ever since my injury, which had the female Jötnars of our tribe refusing to meet my eyes, I’d become accustomed to the idea of living a life of solitude. Or as much solitude as one could have as they grew old with their mother.
Betha was mine. The gods, instead of being angry with me for allowing an elder’s blade of ice to slip past my guard and across my throat, had given me the ultimate gift. Forever, my brothers and I would protect her. I no longer had to worry about Grim locking eyes with a woman and leaving, his loyalty transferring from brother to bride. The three of us would work in concert together, making sure her every need was met.
Betha and Fenris walked a little ways ahead of Grim and me. Every so often, our elder brother would tug her hand, warning her of fallen logs or puddles.
Dropping his hand, she sighed. “I know how to walk, you know. I don’t need you to lay down your jacket across puddles.”
Snickering, I caught Grim’s eyes. Apparently, my skaoi’s needs did not include being babied.
“What jacket?” Fenris asked, confused. “I’m not wearing a jacket.”
A fascinating series of emotions played across Betha’s face: annoyance, confusion, wariness, and finally amusement. Her gaze roamed my brother’s face. Jealousy stabbed me momentarily as Fenris preened under her attention. A second later, I dismissed the uncharitable thought.
My dour older brother needed to smile as much as any of us. Our father’s death had thrust him into a position no Jötnar should be in at such a young age. He’d taken on the role of protector and provider, and I knew he blamed himself for my injury. Each time I spoke, he winced. My ruined voice was a reminder of the day when he’d been unable to keep me from harm.
A wicked smile curved Betha’s face, and she spun one finger in the air. “Turn around.”
Fenris did, glancing over his shoulder while Grim and I watched with interest. The woman had something planned, but like myself, Fenris was at her mercy. Anything she wanted, he’d give her. Placing her hands on his shoulders, she leapt, wrapping her legs around his hips and hooking them at his waist. Automatically, he caught her beneath her thighs, her weight negligible.
“I actually don’t want to get my feet wet. These are my only boots.”
Fenris chuckled, and my mouth dropped open. When was the last time he’d laughed? Taking one step back, he cleared the brook ahead of them with a stride. Grim and I followed, and I hoped for my own opportunity to ferry her across some of the brooks and rivers she’d vaulted across earlier.
Of course, earlier she’d been Jötnar. Distances easy to cross in ice were much more difficult in skin.
“Think he’ll give us a turn?” Grim muttered.
“My hero.” Betha giggled in Fenris’s ear.
“Doubtful,” I answered, a grin widening my lips. “Let him have this.”
We crunched through the late spring snow, still deep in pockets of the forest where the sun couldn’t filter through the tall pine branches. Every so often, Betha would turn, as if making sure we were following. The trees stopped, and we reached the edge of the clearing. Tendrils of smoke curled from the chimney. Mor had made a fire, probably in anticipation of our return and the chill our skaoi would feel. Though we approached silently, the door to the cabin opened, and our mother walked toward us.
Fenris let Betha’s legs go, hands skimming her hips as she landed on her feet. Patting his back, she made her way to Mor, who had the decency to look embarrassed.
“Husbands,” Betha began, jutting out one hip and glaring at Mor.
“Fated,” Mor clarified.
With a glance over her shoulder, Betha raised an eyebrow. “I could use an explanation.”
Stepping back, Mor opened the door and gestured to the interior of the cabin. “Come in then.”
Attempting to assuage her guilt with food, our table was piled high with treats—fresh made bread, fish, jams—she’d pulled out all the stops.
“I turned into a yeti,” Betha said as soon as she was seated. “An abominable snowman.”
“There was nothing abominable about you,” I was quick to reply. “And I don’t know what a yeti is, but I can assure you, you were not a man.”
“What is going on?” she asked, taking a sip of the cider my mother poured into her cup.
“We are Jötnar,” Fenris answered quietly. “Ice giants.”
Eyes widening, her gaze swept from me to my brothers and to Mor. She took another sip of cider, hand shaking. A drop of liquid caught on her lips, and she brushed it away with her fingertips. “Ice giants. Thor, Loki, Odin ice giants?” Her voice lifted in pitch as she listed each of the familiar Norse gods.
“To a degree,” I answered. “Our people came across the ocean generations ago. Some of us stayed in what you would now call Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark—and chose to hide their magic. But our ancestors refused, and so we journeyed here. Made a safe space for ourselves and thrived.”
“Magic.” Gazing at her hands in wonder, she brushed her fingers together as if she could call up the ice and wind she had earlier.
“We can be frightening when the ice calls,” Fenris explained. “You’ve seen us. Are we not monsters?”
“Am I?” she snapped back. “I’m not stupid. I turned into a yeti. Am I a monster, too?”
“No,” I replied, dropping out of my chair to kneel at her side. “You were beautiful. The most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.”
Her face softened, and she touched my cheek. Closing my eyes at the sensation, I felt her thumb graze my cheeks. “Thank you, Raynor.” My eyes opened, and she cleared her throat. “I didn’t think any of you looked like monsters. More like, X-Men.”
“I know X-Men!” Grim burst out. “Wolverine!” He slashed his hands through the air, and I rolled my eyes, but Betha only laughed.
“You know Wolverine and the X-Men, but not a yeti? Your pop culture dictionary needs an update.”
Sitting in the chair again, I grasped her hand. Gods, I loved the sound of her laugh, and the way she included us all in the discussion, spending as much time answering Fenris and bantering with Grim, as she did reassuring me.
“But how am I your fated? And what is a skaoi? And how come I can change? Did you bite me? Is it like that? Did I miss it when you bit me?”
Mor poured more cider in Betha’s cup as the questions came faster, one after the other. “Jötnar,” she explained, “have bonded mates. Partners chosen by the gods who strengthen and deepen our magic. Before we came here, bonding was common between humans and Jötnar, but here, we have isolated ourselves, and the only skaoi to be found are between tribes.”
“How have you avoided humans?” Betha’s eyes suddenly widened. “Wait. You’re not like—sister/mother/wives, are you? You’re not their grandmother and their sister and their mother?”
Mor’s face paled, blue-white ice shimmering over her cheeks before retreating. “Of course not! There are many tribes and many Jötnar. There is not intermarriage between family. That’s disgusting!”
Pressing a hand to her chest, Betha slumped. “Thank goodness.”
It took me a moment to catch up, and then I barked a laugh. Grim followed, and then Fenris, the three of us drowning out my mother’s continued explanation and Betha’s apologies.
“Enough.” In between fits of laughter, I’d dropped her hand. Wiping my eyes, I fought for breath. “Enough.” Intercepting her frown, I reached for her again, pressed the back of her hand against my lips and felt the skin chill.
“You crashed here, into our family, to be our skaoi. I knew it the moment we pried you from the plane. A woman who survived falling out of the sky, a woman who didn’t panic when she came face-to-face with this—” I jabbed a thumb toward Fenris. “You are ours.” A tear tracked down her cheek, and I brushed it aside. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
Wiping her face, she stared at her wet palms in surprise. “I didn’t mean to.” She lifted her head, turning to my brothers. “So, all of you are meant for me? I don’t mean to be insulting—”
Mor snorted.
“But where I come from, one woman marries one person at a time.”
“It is unusual for a skaoi to be fated for more than one Jötnar,” Mor admitted. “But not unheard of. I’ll admit I hoped for such a thing. I even spoke to their father about it before he died. I didn’t want to see my sons separated from each other.”
A fist closed around my heart as memories of my father rushed me. He would have liked Betha, liked her spirit and audacity.
“Why didn’t you wait, though?” Betha asked Mor. “I’ll admit to being drawn to them. Something, I don’t know what, made me feel as if we were tied together in a way. Why not see how it developed, rather than marry us?”
“Because I wanted to send you away,” Fenris replied bluntly, and I didn’t miss the way Betha swallowed.
“You didn’t want me?” The woman was unpredictable. One moment she argued not having enough time to make a decision about us, and the next she was upset when Fenris appeared to be saying he didn’t want her.
“I want you,” Fenris whispered and stood. Keeping his eyes on hers, he walked around the table and pulled her out of her seat and out of my hands. “I want you badly. But my mother has only told you the rosy side of our story.”
“Rosy?” Lifting an eyebrow, she held up a finger. “Chased out of your homeland and your father dies? It doesn’t sound rosy.”
Releasing a breath, Fenris began, “The Jötnar are warriors, made for battle. Above all else, strength is valued among our people. If our elders see any sign of weakness, they cut it out.”
“Fenris,” I hissed, warning.
“She should know, Raynor,” he replied, smoothing Betha’s hair from her face.
“Know what?” she whispered.
“When our elders learn of you, a human skaoi, they’ll try to kill you.”
8
Grim
“Never.” I would never let that happen to Betha. “We’ll go somewhere else, like our ancestors did. There is nothing here I care enough about to stay.”
“It is safe here,” Mor replied quietly. “For us. The world is more crowded than before. How would you be Jötnar in one of the human cities? Never able to access your magic? Grim…”Standing from her seat, my mother crossed to me, holding my face in her hands like she did when I was a boy and wanted me to pay attention. “My brave boy. Leaving is not an option.”
“What then?” Fenris snapped. “How do we protect her?”
My mother’s eyes flashed white and blue, ice crackling along her hands as she clenched her fists. “We fight. We’re warriors. Better we die protecting our family than live as cowards. How could I look your father in the face when we meet again, having told his sons to run away?”
We’d been lucky living here, battling only each other. None of us had real fights to win. The last great war was decades ago, the time of our great-grandfathers. Still, we were raised as warriors, and I’d pounded my brothers into the dirt enough to know hiding from a challenge was not our way.
“We fight the elders,” I agreed, nodding. Embracing the idea, my skin rippled with ice, my magic bubbling with anticipation. Yes. Battle! “If they take her from us, they die.”
“Do they, Grim? It’s that easy?”
I noticed my brothers had stood, taking a step closer to Betha. I dismissed Fenris’s worry with a wave. “If you’re too afraid to do it, then Raynor and I will. It’s probably better if we do anyway.”
“You goat turd,” Fenris replied quietly. In a flash, he was encased in ice.
“Outside!” Mor yelled, and I let my magic overwhelm me.
“With pleasure,” I answered, smiling. I wanted this fight. Needed it. Between Raynor and me, we would smash his face in the mud. Hold him down and take turns—
“Outside.” Out of patience, Mor held the door open.
“No!” Betha yelled, running in front of us and placing her hands across the doorframe. “No fighting.”
“They’ll be fine,” Mor soothed. “Let them go.”
But she shook her head. “No. You’re brothers. And yes, I know brothers fight, but you’re more than brothers now. You’re my husbands.” As if she was answering a question none of us had asked, she nodded her head decisively. “Yeah. So, I don’t want you beating each other to a bloody pulp.”
No? Beating each other to a bloody pulp sounded like a fantastic idea, and when I met Fenris’s eyes, I saw he agreed with me.
“It’s fine.” Fenris held up his hands. “The twins are exaggerating. They haven’t yet bested me.”
Why you… “Liar.”
Whipping his head to me, he narrowed his eyes. “Say that to my face.”
“I just did.” Was he deaf as well as dumb? “I said you’re a liar. Raynor and
I have bested you plenty of times.”
Snorting, he shook his head. “Hardly.”
“Betha, daughter of my heart,” Mor murmured, waving to my skaoi. “Move away from the door. If you don’t they’re going to smash my kitchen table again.”
“I won’t.” Stamping her foot, Betha spoke through gritted teeth. “If I am your wife, or skaoi—” The way she managed the word was adorable. “Then you should care about my feelings. And I would be upset, very upset, if you fought each other right now when there are so many other things to talk about. Don’t make me worry about you getting hurt as well being murdered.”
“I won’t kill him,” I assured her.
“Not you,” she clarified. “You all would get hurt, but I apparently am about to have some angry giants after me. Why do we even need to tell them? I haven’t seen anyone while I’ve been here, except for you guys. Why can’t we just continue on as we are?”
Her words had my ice disappearing, though cold fear squeezed my heart when I imagined someone hurting her.
“They already know.” My twin’s voice was even more rough than usual. “As soon as Mor released the magic to bind us, they knew.”
“Well, that sucks.” Her arms dropped from the frame, crossing over her chest. Taking a deep breath, she turned from us to stare out the door at our yard. Shoulders tense, she abruptly spun, pinning us with a glare. “Well, if you’re going to fight. I will, too. I’m a big girl. Teach me how to throw my weight around.”
I couldn’t help it; I laughed. A big girl? My Betha was a sprite compared to us and the elders. Even Mor towered over her by a good arm’s length.
“No.” Raynor sliced a hand through the air.
“There’s been a lot of you telling me what is going to happen, and not enough of me telling you,” she answered, a hesitancy to her voice suggesting the thought had only now occurred to her. Foreboding rose in me, much like it did when I walked through the woods at night knowing Raynor was hiding somewhere, waiting for me to pass by.
The Ice Bride Page 4
