Bitten & Beholden (Children of Fenrir Book 2)

by Heather McCorkle

  Dustin’s wide eyes landed on me. A glimmer of sympathy in them suggested I might have an ally. Too bad he was too submissive to do any good in a fight.

  “Do it, now,” I commanded.

  Just as I had suspected, he began to move toward the door as if unable to go against a command. But it was too late. A cry of pain followed by the grunt of air expelling from lungs came from the direction of the fight. James writhed slowly on the ground. The amount of blood on his shirt, arms, and dripping down his forehead ensured he wouldn’t be getting up any time soon. Breathing hard and grinning like a maniac, Calder turned toward me.

  “You’re mine now, ylva,” he said as he approached.

  Holding my ground and keeping my hands before me as if I were still bound, I let him come. An easy calm settled over me while I watched him walk, assessing his energy level and injuries as he came. Dark blood flowed from a long gash on the inside of his right arm. He favored his right leg a bit. Little things, considering how much stronger he was than me, but they’d have to do. The smug look on the bastard’s face made it clear he didn’t expect me to put up a fight. Shit, the man’s biceps alone were intimidating. Eyes wide, I did my best to look scared. It wasn’t hard. He ate it up, grinning all the wider, baring his fangs as he scented the air.

  “You have his stench on you. But I’ll fix that,” he said as he reached for me.

  I cowered and flinched. As he took that last step I pretended to step back, using the motion to draw my leg back for a kick that I drove into his groin as hard as I could. Beneath my foot I felt soft bits slam into his pelvic bone. Air left him in a groan that sounded as if it wanted to be a scream but lacked the ability. He hunched over and covered his crotch with his hands, but didn’t go down. Without hesitation, I turned, cocked my leg, and threw a potentially deadly hook kick that whipped my heel into the side of his face. His head snapped to the side so fast I expected to hear his neck break—and didn’t, dammit. He went down hard. Guilt tried to rear its head at the death wish, but I forced it away, knowing I may still have to do worse.

  I stood over him in a fighting stance, waiting for him to move. After a moment of stillness, I dashed for the door. Dustin stepped in my way. As he did a power tugged at something deep inside me, stirring it to life, awakening it. But it wasn’t my wolf. This was something impossibly stronger, deeper. I could feel the moon like the pressure building before a storm, but instead of pushing, it pulled at that thing inside me. Trying to ignore the sensation, I shook my head.

  “Don’t do this, Dustin,” I warned.

  He swallowed hard and straightened. “I have to at least try to stop you or Calder will kill me.”

  Having seen Calder’s chest moving, I couldn’t waste time. The man would get up eventually. Dustin’s fists shook as he held them up. Faster than even a snake could hope to move thanks to my wicked varúlfur skills, I planted a palm heel strike solidly into Dustin’s left cheek. He went down almost as hard as Calder had. Leaving him groaning on the ground, I ran for the door again. James stood in my way, silhouetted by the pink light of early evening. In his arms he clutched Ayra.

  “Don’t hurt her,” I demanded.

  He shrugged. “Fine, here.”

  With a mighty shove, he heaved her at me, his varúlfur strength lifting her easily off the ground. It was either catch her or let her fly across the barn and slam into a wall. I caught her. The moment we touched, that energy the moon had been pulling at erupted from me in a golden glow and poured into her. Warmth spread over my skin, not like the heat of fighting the change, but more like the buzz from far too much whiskey. The mark on my hip burned slightly. Though it felt kind of good to me, it must have hurt her because she screamed like a banshee. Not wanting to hurt her any more, I let go of her and stepped back. Her screams turned into sobs as she slumped to the ground and clutched her head in her hands.

  “I’m so sorry. Did I hurt you?” I asked, taking a step closer to her.

  When she didn’t answer or even lift her head I took another step and started to reach out a hand. “Are you all right?”

  Head bowed as it was, she couldn’t have possibly seen me, but she flinched nonetheless. At first I thought it was a varúlfur thing, scent, sounds, or something. Then I felt the push and pull of her energy as if somehow we were tied together in a way that allowed me to feel her without needing to see or smell her. In an instant, I knew she wasn’t hurt. The opposite, really. She felt like a fountain of that golden energy that had burst from me. Not even Ty felt this powerful. Bumps rose along my skin and I took a step back.

  Hands covering her face, she shook her head. “No, I’ll never be okay again,” she said.

  Something red against her pale skin on her lower back caught my eye. At first I thought it was a bruise from her brother’s rough handling, then I realized it was far different. The bumps that had risen on my skin spread until it felt as though they covered my entire body. Her mark was a port wine stain, a birthmark exactly like mine, the rough shape of a crude S, as if someone had stamped it on her skin. I reached a hand toward it and it started to glow the same gold color of the energy that I had seen pass from me into her. The mark on my hip began to heat up again.

  “What the…?” I stumbled backward. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on, Ayra, but we need to get out of here while these guys are still down.”

  But deep down, I did know. Both of our powers had just awakened. The feeling was undeniable. In my gut, my heart, I knew I was this seeker they spoke of. I held my hand out to her, far enough away not to be intrusive, but close enough that I knew she’d feel it. The sobbing stopped and her hands moved slowly away from her face. She looked up, hair falling away from a pale face from which topaz blue eyes peered.

  “You really don’t know, do you?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “I didn’t, and I didn’t mean for it to happen. Please, let’s get you somewhere safe.”

  Her head turned as she looked at each of the men, then back to me. “Might as well. There is no going back now,” she said in a sad tone that told me she didn’t think that was a good thing, not at all.

  Looking at the men lying on the barn floor, I couldn’t blame her. Family wasn’t exactly my strong point either.

  Slowly, she took my hand. An almost electric charge that wasn’t entirely unpleasant passed through us. It felt more like residual energy than anything else this time, like a powerful static from clean laundry.

  James blocked our way.

  “What just happened? What did I do to her?” I demanded. Part of me needed to hear it said out loud.

  The smirk that turned up the corners of his lips made me want to tear him a new one. “She has become what she was always meant to be, thanks to you.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “For every leitar there is an uppskera. It takes one to bring the power of the other forth during the full moon,” he said.

  I knew what leitar meant, well, the word at least. But the other word… Swallowing hard, I glanced at Ayra before I asked. “What does uppskera mean?”

  His grin melted away. “Reaper.”

  My mind chewed slowly over that but couldn’t make any sense of it. Right now, especially in present company, I didn’t care to think on it anymore.

  “You got what you wanted. Get out of our way,” I said.

  One hand pressed against his left side, James widened his stance. “You can go. She stays with us.”

  “That’s not happening,” I said as I moved between him and Ayra.

  Reaper or not—whatever that meant—this young woman was in no condition to fight, and I wasn’t about to leave her with these men. Gravel crunching beneath tires sounded from outside—two motorcycles from the whine of the engines. Footsteps pounded toward the barn a second later. Whether it was backup for these guys, or Raul, both were trouble that I couldn’t afford right now.

  A door slid open to our left. Two men rushed in from the dark. “Get Ayra before she reali
zes what she can do,” James commanded.

  I tried to pull Ayra to my other side to shield her, but she tore her hand free. “Can you fight?” I asked her.

  From the corner of my eye I saw her smile, but it was not a pleasant expression. “Unfortunately for them, yes,” she said.

  I couldn’t wait to see if she was right. This had to end quickly. Her image wavered like a heat mirage, then became a white wolf. With a thought, I grew my fingernails and toenails into claws, and made my fangs extend. The two men rushed Ayra and I lunged at James with a sidekick that was meant to look like I put all my power into it. He deflected it with one hand and stabbed the other at me, claws extended. Pretending to be off balance from the kick, I let myself fall in the direction my movement was going. Hopping on the leg I had just kicked with, I whipped my left leg toward his abdomen. It collided with his thrusting hand and I felt a claw dig into my knee, but the roundhouse kick followed through and struck him solidly in his bloody gut. At least two of the claws on my toes dug into flesh. With my varúlfur strength behind it, the kick would have sent anyone else flying, but it only doubled James over.

  He caught the second one and twisted my foot swift and hard. To avoid my leg getting broken, I went with the movement, spinning in midair and sprawling to the ground. Claws dug deep into my abdomen when I landed. Oddly, it didn’t hurt. I didn’t have time to worry about that right now, though. From a crouched position I kicked out at his left knee and connected hard, claws raking straight through his jeans and deep into his flesh. He cursed at me in both English and Icelandic, and paused long enough that I was able to launch to my feet.

  He stared at me with wide, dumbstruck eyes. “What the hell? You can extend your claws?”

  It was the last moment I was going to get. A kick beneath the chin sent him flying backward. He landed hard and writhed, but didn’t get back up. The almost overwhelming urge to follow him to the ground and take his throat in my teeth raged through me. The desire nearly made me shift, but then I thought about the reason for the instinct, and the need disappeared. I had to stay in human form. With my claws and fangs, I had more of an advantage in this form than I would as a wolf.

  Something warm flowed down my shin and my chest, distracting me. Blood, dark in the fading evening light, ran from a gash in my knee that showed enough bone to make me queasy. Heat drew my attention to my right side. Below my ribs four long gashes had torn open my tank top and were leaking blood in steady streams that darkened the waistband of my shorts. Those weren’t the worst part. Four wicked-looking holes sat below my ribcage. Damn. The world swayed. Ignoring it, I shifted my stance, hands held at the ready, and checked to make sure no one else stood in our way. The urge to take James’s throat in my fangs and make him submit completely didn’t leave, but I didn’t give in either.

  Steps pounded on hard ground, coming at a pace I wouldn’t be able to outrun even if I were willing to leave Ayra behind, which I wasn’t. Ayra stood over the still forms of two men, her naked chest heaving. Blood dripped from her hands and ran down from her lips to drip off her chin. I couldn’t think about what that meant. More were coming. Slowing my breathing, I turned to the door and prepared to fight again. The person that ran through it wasn’t at all who I expected.

  “Damn, Sonya. And here I thought you needed rescuing,” Ty said in a voice filled with relief.

  My arms sank down and the tension drained from me in a rush that left me feeling light-headed. His head turned as he swept the area, taking in the downed men. It looked more impressive than it was since I hadn’t exactly taken them out all on my own. They had helped with their little pissing match, and Ayra had clearly beat two all on her own, but I was too tired to voice that right now. In fact, now that the threat was over, the room began to sway, a lot.

  “Ty…”

  The world fell out from under me, leaving only darkness.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Ty

  I registered the other people in the dingy barn, but they did not matter. Not the prone but breathing body I leaped over, not the groaning man in the corner, not even the dainty blond woman rising to her feet. Only Sonya, collapsed and bleeding out on the musty hay-covered floor mattered. There was so much blood, dark and spreading its coppery scent throughout the barn. It surrounded her in a growing pool that I had no choice but to step in to get to her. Her eyes were closed and they did not even flutter when I knelt and pulled her carefully into my lap. The slow rhythm with which her chest rose and fell was only slightly encouraging.

  Up close the wounds in her abdomen looked so much worse. They had the scent of impending death on them. I did not know if new varúlfur could survive wounds like that. Helheimr, I didn’t know if seasoned ones could. Soft footsteps padded on the brittle hay toward us, but I couldn’t look away from Sonya.

  “We cannot let her die,” said a level, feminine voice in what sounded more like a command than a statement.

  “I do not know what to do,” I whispered.

  Thunder sounded off in the distance. Sandaled feminine feet came into view. “I do,” said the female voice. I looked up at her, more because of her words than any sense of fear of a threat.

  Long, white-blond hair plaited into a loose, frazzled French braid hung over a dainty shoulder strapped with sinewy muscle, down across her meager breasts, and reached all the way to a thin waist. An almost elfish-looking face with high cheekbones gave her a slightly severe yet lovely appearance. Sapphire-blue eyes, filled with a sense of purpose and confidence that was slowly eclipsing the fear in them, looked past me. She regarded Sonya in a calculating manner that I didn’t like. Despite her delicate frame, the woman’s expression and stance made her look like a force to be reckoned with. More than that, it made her look like Frigg, the wife of Odin. She was not, of course.

  I instantly knew her for what and who she was: Ayra Valdísdóttir, now one of the most powerful varúlfur to walk the earth, the uppskera, or the reaper. The power rolling off her was staggering. Vidar had told me all about the legend during a phone conversation on my drive here. He had known exactly what was going on without me even having to mention Sonya’s mark, making me feel like a complete idiot for not calling him sooner. But he had put me at ease by telling me the monastery didn’t allow him to have a phone, so I wouldn’t have been able to reach him anyways. That, and he said people were listening and watching every communication and interaction he had. When I finally did reach him, he’d been in an airport on his way here. Since it was too late to warn me, he didn’t see the harm in telling me over the phone.

  I clutched Sonya closer and bared my fangs. “You will not take her from me. Odin help me, I will kill you or die trying before I let you finish her off,” I all but growled.

  From what Vidar had said, the uppskera was powerful beyond their appearance. I knew I’d likely die if I tried to fight her. But I would do it anyway. My arms convulsed around Sonya. A brief flash of sadness lit Ayra’s eyes and she shook her head and looked to the side.

  “Already they fear me,” she said through a sigh. When she looked back at me any hint of sadness was wiped away from her face. “That’s not what I meant, Tyler. Bring her,” she commanded and promptly turned to leave.

  All signs of the hesitation she had shown while approaching were gone. She stood tall—rigidly so, almost—and walked with confidence, as if she had undergone a change in that short trip across the barn. But then, I suppose she probably had. According to Vidar, the uppskera was fully awakened by the touch of the leitar. Meaning, Ayra had likely just come into her full power. James had probably brought Sonya here for that reason. He had found out about her. Her bloodlines, the Cherokee pack trying to kidnap her, the signs were there for anyone who knew to look.

  James. Shit!

  I looked around as I rose with Sonya in my arms. He had been lying over…somewhere. But he was gone. So was the other man who had been groaning in the corner. Finding and killing them would have to wait. Saving Sonya came first.
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br />   “What can we do for her?” I asked Ayra as I followed her small frame out of the barn.

  Darkness waited for us. I had not been in there that long, had I? Then I smelled the moisture in the air and looked up at the pregnant, charcoal clouds. In the distance, flashes of light lit them in dancing spots from high above. Thunder rolled near the horizon. I knew before Ayra said it.

  “The lightning can heal her. We need to get her to the bridge.”

  The words forced my eyes in the direction of the bridge. I remembered all too well where it was. All important events involving the packs of Hemlock Hollow took place there to be witnessed by the Gods. My alpha had been killed there. The storm clouds seemed to be concentrating over that very spot. Flashes in the clouds highlighted the tree-covered hills now and again. It beckoned and taunted me at the same time. That was one place I had sworn I would never step foot or paw on again. One look down at the bleeding woman in my arms and I realized I would go anywhere for her, even Helheimr and back if it came to it.

  “My car cannot get through the forest and I do not think we will make it in time if I carry her,” I said. My voice broke, but I did not care. Much more of me would break if Sonya did not make it.

  Ayra strode out into the cloudy dusk with long steps that should have been impossible for a woman barely over five feet tall. She called over her shoulder as she went, “We’ll stop by my place and get my parents’ Polaris.”

  I nodded as she opened the passenger door of my borrowed truck. Gently as I could, I lay Sonya down on the leather seat. She groaned, and her lashes fluttered, but her eyes did not open. I put her seatbelt on to hold her in position then leaped over the hood of the truck to reach the driver’s side. Hand on the door handle, I looked over the hood at Ayra. “Are you riding with us?”

  “No. I can cut through the forest and beat you there,” she said.

  One of my eyebrows rose in an involuntary show of disbelief. “I’m the uppskera, remember?” she said with a touch of irony darkening her tone.