With a start, I shoved myself up, pushing a thick fur from my face. The air was still and cold. White moonlight fell across the snow, silent and unforgiving. In this light, the world was drained of color. I turned to see that the fire had burned down to little more than a bed of flickering embers, casting only a weak crimson glow across the rumpled furs. I sat up and reached for another log when a figure emerged from the shadows under the pines.
“He didn’t come,” Fenris said. His voice was as flat and cold as the moonlight.
I glanced at the sky. The heavy moon had drifted across the darkness to hover above the distant mountains. The black sky above me had already faded to a dull gray, and the brilliant sparkle of stars above our furs had vanished, leaving only a few glimmers of silver against the pre-dawn gloom. I must have been asleep most of the night.
“He could be late?” I said. The explanation sounded pathetic, even to me.
Fenris shook his head as he paced the clearing, rubbing his hands along his arms. “He’s not late. He’s never late.”
I stood and reached for him. Fenris walked to me, and I closed him in my arms. His body hummed with energy.
“Týr always comes during the day,” he said. “In the afternoon. The day of the full moon.”
Fenris bounced up and down on the balls of his feet. I let him go. He set off, spinning back on his tracks toward the edge of the trees. I leaned over the fire, feeding it another log. An explosion of sparks drifted upward, joining the moon in the lonely sky.
“He’s never this late,” Fenris muttered.
“Maybe... Maybe something happened in Asgard?” I said. “Maybe they needed him?”
Fenris glanced at me. In the renewed firelight, I saw his red-rimmed eyes. The night suddenly felt much colder. I’d known Týr was Fenris’s friend and lover. Somehow, I hadn’t appreciated how deep that bond ran until now.
Fear and regret twisted in my gut like a knife. I’d shared one night with Týr, enjoying his soft lips and slow kisses, and it was enough for me to feel close to the handsome Æsir. Enough for me to miss him, and to look forward to his visit.
But how many nights had my husband spent with him? For how many years had Týr come to Fenris on the nights of the full moon, his only companionship, his one friend in all the Nine Realms? Some dim understanding of the bond between the two of them yawned open in my chest, and I shivered. As if he read my thoughts in my expression, Fenris brought his hands to his eyes, scrubbing his face with his palms.
“No,” he cried, and the word was almost a howl. “No, damn it. We need him! We need bread. We need to know what to do about the baby!”
He spun again, his voice rising to the treetops.
“Týr!” He screamed. “We need you! Týr!”
His body vanished in a cloud of golden sparks. His scream became a feral howl, so loud and deep I felt it in the marrow of my bones. Hairs stood up all over my body, and the very treetops shook. Fenris leapt toward the trees; his enormous, shadowy form disappeared into the black maw of the forest.
But I could still hear him screaming.
I sank to the furs and reached forward, wrapping my fingers around the cold hilt of my knife. Somehow I didn’t think sleep would return for what small sliver was left of the night. I fed the fire, watched the moon sink lazily toward the distant horizon, and listened to my husband’s enraged screams echo from the depths of the Ironwood.
In time, they were joined by other screams.
I told myself they were not human screams.
“SOL?”
That voice was loud as an earthquake. My fingers clenched around the knife, and I turned. The sun had not yet risen, but the sky was light, and the deep shadows of the Ironwood were melting across the pale snow.
Fenris stood between the pines. Blood and foam splattered his muzzle; his massive sides heaved. As I watched, the beast’s form vanished, and my naked husband stood on the snow. He walked to me, still panting from exertion. His cheeks and chest were stained red with bloody streaks. It did not appear to be his blood.
For the first time, as Fenris stalked toward me, I noticed the similarities between his wolf’s form and his handsome, naked body. Something about his cheekbones, and the curl of his lips. He was almost upon me when I realized I was still holding the knife.
“Sol!” Fenris choked, then collapsed onto his knees on the furs we’d meant to share with Týr.
His shoulders heaved, and a harsh, barking sound tore from his throat. It took me a moment to realize he was sobbing.
Oh, stars! I sank to my knees beside him and wrapped my arms around his trembling frame. He smelled oddly metallic, as if he were a knife which had been heated too long on the coals. Slowly, his hands crept around my waist, and he buried his face against my neck.
“Sol,” he cried. “Did I do something wrong?”
His shoulders shook against my chest. For a moment, my mind filled with the flames and smoke of King Nøkkyn’s courtyard, and the crackle of the wood that was meant to be my funeral pyre. I remembered Fenris’s dark shape blotting out the moon, his great jaws closing around Nøkkyn’s body. The wet slap of Nøkkyn’s corpse hitting the stones.
“Shhhhh,” I whispered. “My love. Of course not. You did nothing wrong.”
Still, even with the heat of Fenris’s body pressed against mine and his tears flowing down my shoulder, I felt cold. Bard Sturlinsen’s words echoed in my mind, chasing my thoughts. Mímir showed me a death.
What was happening on Asgard, I wondered, as I held my husband close and tried to offer him the comfort of my body. Had that dark prophecy crossed the Bifröst? The songs said Týr was one of Óðinn’s many sons. Did our sweet lover really believe Fenris would kill Óðinn? Was Týr trying to protect his father by abandoning us?
“W-what,” Fenris whispered, bringing me back to reality, “what are we going to do?”
I kissed his hair in the weak half-light which comes just before the sun reveals itself above the horizon. “We’ll go home,” I said. “We’ll just go home.”
I stood and pulled him to his feet beside me. Something flickered in the corner of my vision. I turned to see two enormous ravens sitting on a low branch in the pines behind us. Their hard black eyes sent a shiver dancing down my spine, and I contemplated picking up one of the smoldering logs and tossing it at the tree. But I worried I’d only upset Fenris further.
Turning my back on the eerie birds, I wrapped my arms around my husband’s chest and led him home.
THE MONSTER CHAINED: CHAPTER FOUR
For several days, Fenris hardly spoke. He was gone in the mornings when I stretched and yawned into wakefulness, and he usually did not re-appear until the sun was at its zenith. He brought me food; rabbits, already skinned and dressed, or haunches of venison ready to be roasted. Once he brought me a naked bird which had been plucked so expertly I wondered if he’d stolen it from some farmhouse.
“We can’t stay here,” Fenris had said, the first cold morning after Týr failed to appear for our full moon rendezvous.
I’d nodded, feeling as though my heart was caught in my throat. We were standing together just outside the protection of our little cave, and Fenris was pacing back and forth, back and forth, his bare feet treading a path of mud through the snow.
“Where—” I’d begun.
Fenris had shaken his head. His hair had flared across his bare shoulders. “Not a town. We have no money.” He’d paused for a moment, then resumed his pacing. “And it smells like all of Nøkkyn’s territory is burning.”
I swallowed hard. “All?”
Fenris had stopped to run his fingers through his auburn hair. It fell almost to his waist now, in long curls and tangles.
“I’m never going back to Angrboða’s,” he’d said as if he hadn’t heard my question. “So, no towns. No cities. Nothing under Angrboða’s rule. Nothing of Nøkkyn’s.”
I’d sighed at the long list. It seemed there was nothing left for us; the world, which had once see
med unimaginably large, had now shrunk to the claustrophobic, soot-streaked walls of our cave. Fenris had stopped pacing long enough to meet my eyes, although he’d rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet.
“That just leaves one direction.”
“What’s that?” I’d asked, wishing my voice didn’t sound so weak.
“Up.” He’d glanced at the mountains rising behind me. “These mountains are riddled with caves. I can find us a better one.”
I’d shifted on my bare feet. I’d told King Nøkkyn Fenris lived in those mountains, in a cave whose entrance was just below the snowline. If Sturlinsen’s horrible false prophecy had reached the ears of the Æsir in Asgard, that imaginary cave had probably tagged along, like a flea on a dog’s back.
A shudder of doubt had run through me, making my stomach curdle. I still hadn’t told Fenris about the prophecy. What if he accidentally found a cave like the one I’d described to Nøkkyn?
A low rumble had filled the cold air between us. By the time I’d looked up, Fenris’s enormous, black form had already disappeared between the pines.
FENRIS RETURNED LATE, long after I’d crawled beneath the furs and let myself sink into the cloud of the feather mattress my husband had stolen for me in what felt like another life. The rustle and hiss of his movement woke me, and I opened my eyes to watch his silhouette in the waning moonlight. Fenris stood to remove Týr’s bag from its spot on the rock wall, then pulled out the venison I’d smoked that morning. I watched as he ate, my hungry eyes tracing the lean curves of his naked body.
Stars! I felt I could spend my entire life staring at him, and still, I wouldn’t have enough. My sigh of appreciation must have reached his ears because he turned to face me. In the darkness, I couldn’t quite make out his expression.
“Are you well?” he asked.
I stretched and kicked the furs off my bare legs. “No,” I pouted.
His head tilted to the side.
“It’s cold in here, with no one to warm the furs.”
Fenris’s shoulders dropped; I immediately regretted my words.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m still looking for a good place. It’s just so damned cold in the mountains right now. I shift out of the wolf’s body, and I can’t imagine holding a baby up there, with all the snow—”
His voice cut off abruptly, and his entire body changed. One moment he was slumped before me, resigned and exhausted. The next he was on his feet at the entrance to our cave, tensed to pounce.
“Shhhhh,” he hissed, although I’d hardly had the time to open my mouth. “We’re not alone.”
I held my breath, listening with every fiber of my being. I heard nothing but the slow thud of my own heart and the distant rattle of the stream over rocks.
Then the voice came, so clear and strong even I could make it out.
“Fenris.”
My blood felt like it had turned to ice, and my first, shameful instinct was to pull the furs over my head as if I were a child hiding from nightmares. Fenris spun his body, blocking the entrance to the cave.
“Fenris!” The voice echoed again through the moonlit darkness.
“Is—Is it Týr?” I whispered although I knew better.
Fenris shook his head. Then he exhaled, long and slow.
“Come with me,” he said, no longer making any attempt to lower his voice.
My fists clenched around the furs pulled to my chin. “W-with you?”
Fenris pulled himself up. “You’re safest with me. If you stay here, you could be ambushed. Even if it only took me a second to reach you...”
His words trailed off, and the cold silver of swords flashed in my mind. Yes, even a second was long enough to cut my throat. I stood without a word, pulled on the tattered dress I’d worn when Fenris rescued me from Nøkkyn’s courtyard and followed my husband out of our safe haven.
Something black streaked across the moonlit sky. The raven; it had to be the raven. But ravens did not fly at night, while this dark creature circled above our heads on massive, silent wings. Its beak opened.
“Fenris!” the bird cried, in the voice of a man.
Beside me, my husband’s naked body vanished in a flurry of golden sparks. The raven trembled in mid-air as the enormous form of the Fenris-wolf swallowed the night.
“Hugin,” Fenris growled. “I have come.”
The raven circled against the pale waning moon, climbing higher into the night air.
“Good,” he cawed. “Óðinn will have words with you.”
Fear sliced through my chest like a dagger. I wrapped my arms around myself as if I were trying to hold my own rib cage together.
“No,” I whispered.
Neither Fenris nor the raven paid me the slightest attention.
“Follow me,” the raven called. He was so high now that his voice was soft and distant. Coward, I thought.
Fenris turned to me, his wide, pale eyes echoing the moon. I tried to speak, but my mouth had gone dry. What good would words do anyway? How could we run from Óðinn of the Æsir?
I nodded, and he sank to the forest floor, offering me his shoulders. I climbed onto his back, trying to hide in the warmth of his thick pelt, but even Fenris’s heat did little to ease the numbing cold sinking into my body.
He rose, and my stomach gave a sickening jolt. Without a word, he began to pad silently through the woods, following the distant cries of the raven. I clenched my fists in his fur and ground my teeth together, trying to still the chaotic tumble of my thoughts.
I SAW TORCHLIGHT FIRST, flickering orange and hungry through the dark bars of the trees. Only then did I recognize our surroundings, which had looked so unfamiliar from the great height of Fenris’s back.
Fenris and I had followed the raven to the clearing where we entertained Týr. Only days earlier, this little clearing in the Ironwood was where I’d held my husband in my arms, sobbing and shaking after our lover refused to appear. The sick feeling twisted in my stomach.
“Stop,” I whispered.
Fenris froze. His muscles tensed beneath my legs, and his entire body bristled with energy. I felt the low rumble of his growl before I heard it.
“Shhhhh!” I ran my fingers through his coarse hair. “Just let me down. If it comes to fighting, you won’t want me on your back.”
The growl vanished. Fenris sank to the ground as silently as a shadow. I slid off his back and stood beside him. Our eyes met for a moment in the cold moonlight before he turned toward the grove where we’d once made love to Týr, together. I followed, although my gut seemed to have filled with stones, and each beat of my heart ached.
A group of men stood in the clearing, holding torches. The dancing firelight blazed off polished armor and long, wicked blades, making it hard at first to even count their number. One of the men was hulking and enormous, with a great, gleaming hammer clenched in his fist. Thor? I wondered numbly. Could that possibly be Thor of the Æsir?
Fenris emerged from the shadows, and one of the men stepped forward to throw his torch to the ground. A line of duff and firewood erupted into flame, momentarily blinding me. When I’d recovered, I saw the man standing on the far side of the flames, watching my husband’s wolf form with a cold, calculating expression on his weathered face. He leaned heavily against what I took at first to be a staff until the sharp blade on the top caught the firelight. A spear, then, and one topped with an especially wicked blade. One of the man’s eyes gleamed in the firelight, but the right side of his face was dark, and shadows filled his empty eye socket. I stepped back without thinking.
He was Óðinn.
The All-father of the Æsir. The one who built Val-hall, who traded his eye for a drink from Mímir’s well. The uncontested ruler of Asgard.
The man Bard Sturlinsen said my husband would kill.
As I stared at him through the wall of flames, two dark shapes fell from the sky and alighted on his shoulders. The ravens. Hugin and Munin, Óðinn’s spies across the Nine Realms.
The sudden rush of flames had subsided, creating a low, bright flicker as the fire ate through duff and kindling and settled into the thicker hardwood.
Fenris growled in acknowledgment.
“My son claimed you had no interest in politics,” Óðinn said, with a vague gesture to his left.
I followed his hand, and my chest tightened. Týr stood in the crowd of men, a broadsword clenched in his fist, his hood raised, and his expression hidden in shadows. Beside him was a man so beautiful he looked like he’d stepped out of a fever dream. The beautiful man’s hand was clasped over Týr’s shoulder, although whether that was to restrain him or to comfort him I could not be certain.
Óðinn continued before any of us could speak.
“Yet here I find a king assassinated, a kingdom plunged into civil war, and the corpses of an entire herd of roan deer scattered around this place like some sort of grisly warning.”
The screams, I thought. The screams I’d heard when Fenris ran into the woods the night Týr was supposed to meet us. Relief that the screams hadn’t been human mingled unpleasantly with a sense of revulsion. Had my husband truly killed an entire herd of deer?
“Are you trying to send Asgard a message?” Óðinn asked. He cocked his head to the side and raised an eyebrow. His expression remained hard as iron.
Fenris’s low growl rumbled through the Ironwood, not so much heard as felt within our bones.
“Nøkkyn abducted my wife,” Fenris snapped. “I would have thought your son would have reported that to you.”
The disdain dripping off the word son was so strong it made me tremble.
“Children can be a disappointment,” Óðinn said. “As, perhaps, you will soon discover.”
Týr flinched at these words. No one else seemed to notice, not even the beautiful warrior standing next to him.
The Complete Fenris Series Page 35
