by Renée Jaggér
Winner Takes All
WereWitch™ Book Nine
Renée Jaggér
This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.
Copyright © LMBPN Publishing
Cover by Cover by Fantasy Book Design
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LMBPN Publishing
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Las Vegas, NV 89109
First US Release, October 2020
eBook ISBN: 978-1-64971-276-9
Print ISBN: 978-1-64971-277-6
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Thin Ice
Note from Renée
Books from Renée
Other LMBPN Publishing Books
Chapter One
Bailey “Nova” Nordin stood on the grass under the shafts of sunlight that filtered down from the scattered clouds. It had rained last night and earlier that morning, raising the humidity, but the heat of summer was waning toward autumn, and the day wasn’t too uncomfortable.
Still, after how much she’d been exerting herself, her brown hair was slick with sweat as she stared across the field and reflected on all that had led her to this point.
I wanted to get out of a mandatory arranged marriage and save a nice, good-looking wizard from being turned into some Seattle chicks’ breeding stud. If you’d told me that I’d have ascended to godhood by the end of it, I would’ve laughed in your face and told you were crazy.
Now, I’m being asked to stop the fucking Norse apocalypse. No pressure, though. Shit, what’s a goddess to do?
Forty feet away from her, staring her down, Roland raised his sword. The breeze caused his golden hair to fly away from his face in a mass of yellowish spikes and whipped his shirt about his slender frame. “En garde,” he said.
Bailey raised her own blade and charged at him.
Using the magic she wielded as both a werewitch and a goddess, the girl augmented her speed, moving twice as fast as a normal human being would have; the distance between them vanished in a flash. She was practically on top of him, her sword flashing and thrusting.
The weapon in her hands resembled a classic European longsword, made of bright shining metal that was not of the Earth. It lacked a crossguard, however, giving it an appearance that was both unusual and elegant. It sliced through the air and crashed toward the blond wizard.
Though not a deity, he was a caster of greater than average power and potential. And then Bailey had given him an infusion of arcane might that had raised his profile still higher. He was effectively a demigod now.
And using his considerable skills, he nimbly sidestepped her blazing charge, slashing the blade he held to deflect Bailey’s strong overhead swing and pull her off balance, so she stumbled past his position.
Roland resumed his defensive stance as he turned to face her again. The weapon he held was an enchanted seventeenth-century side sword, a compromise between a rapier and an arming sword. It was able to cut and thrust with equal efficiency, and an elaborate shining handguard curled over his knuckles from the base of the blade.
Bailey taunted him as she readied herself for the next attack. “That was fancy. You’ve gotten faster lately. I figured I’d bowl your ass on to the ground in one move.”
The wizard smirked. “Not yet. Nice try, though.”
Their blades clashed again, and Roland slipped the point of his over Bailey’s guard toward her face. She recognized instantly that he wasn’t putting enough force behind the motion for it to reach her face. It was a bluff to make her flinch.
She did feel her muscles tighten and her head draw backward an inch or two, but she held her ground, ready for his next move, which was to swipe his sword down and aside toward her arm.
Bailey pivoted to the side. Roland’s balance was good enough that he’d be able to respond quickly, but she was faster. She brought her leg up so her shin connected with his lower abdomen, then whipped her sword down toward his groin, pressing the blade lightly against his inner thigh as he froze in place.
“Dead,” she informed him. “Carotid artery.”
He squinted. “It’s the femoral artery, dear. I think the carotid artery is in the, uh, chest or something. In any event, if I’m going to lose, it might as well be while you’re caressing me between the legs. Though preferably not with a sword.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she shot back. “Keep up that attitude, and I’ll do more than caress your groin with it.”
He made an “O” with his mouth. “Kinky. You are, however, unwise to lower your defenses.”
A storm of freezing sleet erupted over her head in a tight-enough column that it startled her and obscured her vision without much affecting Roland. She launched herself straight back, dodging the wizard’s blade, and retaliated with a fireball that blasted through the freezing mess toward him.
He easily hopped aside from it, summoning an arcane shield in front of and around himself for good measure, then tried to catch her in a crossfire of two horizontal lightning bolts that intersected to form an “X” of blazing white light.
But Bailey was already airborne, slashing her sword downward, directing its course through her magic. It landed at the point where the two electrical bolts crossed and absorbed their energy before spinning laterally toward the wizard.
“Shit!” he exclaimed, doubling his shields and rolling aside.
Bailey floated earthward as her fiancé narrowly evaded the powerful attack. Her sword crashed into the trunk of a tree, getting stuck after passing halfway through it and then unleashing a torrent of sparks and smoke. The tree burst into flames.
While the girl dived for her blade, the wizard summoned atmospheric moisture to coalesce around his own weapon, then flung it at both Bailey and the burning tree in a tight wave, enough to cause concussive damage or even cut through matter like a knife. Bailey shielded herself, ignoring the foaming white spray that collided with the arcane barrier as she pulled her sword free of the trunk. The leftover water extinguished the blaze.
Then Roland was upon her, his side sword lashing nimbly. Though the werewitch’s sword was heavier, she had more formal training in fencing than the wizard did, and as a lycanthrope, her paranormal strength more than made up for it, anyway.
Their blades smashed together, each now trying to overcome the other through brute force. They pulled them apart, and each sent a feinting strike at their opponent’s eyes, only to lock steel once more, straining and striving against the other’s will with waves of psionic fear and despair attacks.
Neither yielded.
They separated again, looking into each other’s faces as they heaved f
or breath and smoke rose from the scorched earth around them. Roland gently waved his left hand in a healing spell and a soft green light flowed over the ground, undoing the worst of the damage so that the grass would return soon.
“Yeah,” Bailey panted, “I’d say that’s enough for today. We’re at the point of it being a ‘damn good workout.’ But if we go much past that point, it’s legit exhaustion, and it takes too much damn time to recover from that. And we don’t know how much time we have. Can’t be caught when we’re weak.”
Roland sheathed his sword with an unnecessarily elaborate flourish, though he missed getting the point exactly in the scabbard and had to readjust at the last second. “Well, I tried,” he mumbled, then, “Yes, let’s take a shower and get some food. Can’t save Asgard from destruction on an empty stomach, can we?”
“Probably not.” She walked over, planted a kiss on his cheek, and led him toward her truck, their arms linked.
Things at the Bristling Elk, the combination country-western bar and diner that had sometimes been called the heart of Greenhearth, Oregon, were quiet. They were moderately busy, but things were normal. Bailey smiled. The warm feeling of peace and familiarity...she needed it right now.
Tomi, the main full-time evening waitress, greeted them with a wave. “Hi, Bailey. Hi, Roland. Go on ahead to your usual seat, and I’ll be right over.”
“Thanks.” Bailey waved back, and she and her fiancé headed over to their standard place, nodding or saying hello to most of the other patrons en route.
Bailey ordered her usual steak sandwich and fries, along with regular coffee, whereas Roland went with chicken alfredo and decaf. The plan, they agreed, was to drink out of each other’s cups half the time so each of them would get some caffeine, but not too much.
Tomi laughed. “Whatever. I’ll bring you a third cup to mix it if you want. Anyway, I’m happy that things are finally getting back to normal around here. By the way, I haven’t seen your brothers in a while?”
Bailey shrugged. “They must not be hungry. And business is good.” Everyone knew that Tomi had a crush on all three of them, or at least on Jacob and Russell, the elder two.
The couple chatted about cars, sports, and the weather as they waited for their meals. Roland had first come to Greenhearth in the spring, and he was curious about what winters were like here in the mountains, compared to his hometown of Seattle.
“Ehh,” Bailey told him, “they vary. Probably colder and snowier some days, and warmer and drier others. We’re not far enough east to be completely out of the stereotypical PNW climate zone, so it isn’t likely to be that different from Seattle.”
“Hmm.” He sipped his half-caff coffee. “I’d expected them to be comparable to Siberia, but perhaps not. Your summers are certainly hotter than ours are. Was hotter, anyway.”
Tomi brought out their food, wished them a nice meal, and excused herself. They thanked her and dug in.
A minute or two later, someone wandered into the diner. Bailey’s finely-honed senses picked up slight abnormalities in the person’s tread and demeanor. She turned at the same time she noticed Roland, who was facing toward the diner’s entrance, widening his eyes.
It was Loki. Today he was a slender, pale man in a dark coat with black hair, the mortal guise of the Norse god of mischief.
“Well,” Bailey murmured, swallowing a mouthful of beef and bread, “this oughta be good.”
Various other patrons turned to look at the odd man as he strode by. He had a way of attracting attention to himself despite moving smoothly and with minimal noise.
Loki stood beside their table. “Good evening,” he stated in his low, smooth voice, pinching a steak fry off of Bailey’s plate, sniffing it, and popping it into his mouth.
“Oh,” Roland reacted, flapping his hand in annoyance, “just help yourself then, by all means. Take whatever you want.”
The deity smirked. “If you insist.” He picked up Bailey’s fork, which she wasn’t using, and stabbed it into Roland’s pasta, twirling it around and adding a chunk of chicken to the tines before sampling it. “Not bad. Not superb, but acceptable.”
The werewitch looked up at him. “So, why are you here? I’m hoping for good news, but not holding out much hope, we’ll say.”
“Oh, ha! Good news!” Loki chortled. “No, no, of course not. But not bad news either. I merely wanted to check in and see how you were doing.”
Bailey shrugged. “Fine. Keeping up with our training and staying alert, but also trying to get enough rest, that kind of thing. Working at the auto shop sometimes. I’d rather make money the honest way than conjure it out of thin air. Shouldn’t you be hiding somewhere, though? In case you-know-who appears out of nowhere? He doesn’t know you’ve been sneaking around and helping us, and I’m pretty sure he’d have a few objections to that.”
Turning his eyes to the ceiling, Loki pointed out, “Well, he has objections to everything, doesn’t he? My existence, for example, among many, many other things. Anyhow, what exactly have you been training in? I’m curious.”
Roland answered him. “Magic and swordsmanship, most recently. I’d say I have more of a knack for the latter than I would have guessed.”
“Oh,” Loki replied, “good, I suppose. Don’t forget the subtler arts, though. This struggle won’t be won solely by brute force. Subterfuge is a powerful factor.” He arched his black eyebrows to emphasize the point.
The girl had to agree with that. After all, Fenris had employed layers upon layers of deception in order for his plans to advance as far as they had.
“Yeah, I know,” she told the god. “We’ve been planning and drilling ourselves in what to do and say if we have to play along, or if he asks us certain awkward questions. And how to slip quietly through an area without being seen. I only hope it’s enough.”
Loki flexed the long fingers of his left hand. “Perhaps it will be. You’re better positioned for the task to come than anyone else. You have a good shot, though of course, nothing is certain. And on that note, I lied. Sorry! I did, in fact, come here to warn you and deliver bad news.”
Roland threw up his hands and shook his head. “For fuck’s sake.”
Grimacing, Bailey responded, “All right then, let’s hear it.” She pretty much knew what he was going to say.
The traces of amusement left the trickster god’s thin face.
“I suspect that Fenris is moving to trigger Ragnarök sooner than anticipated. Exactly how soon, I cannot say, but we believe he’s taken to lurking within Asgard, our homeworld. Our agents have spied him here and there, under ‘innocent’ circumstances, but that is all. He’s keeping a low profile, not making a scene. Slowly but surely, he is setting up the ritual that will culminate in his self-sacrifice.”
Bailey gave a single slow nod at that. They all knew that Fenris’ real plan was to sacrifice her in his place.
“And,” Loki continued, “once that little shenanigan is completed, it will trigger the Norse apocalypse, leading to the end of Asgard and quite possibly its associated sub-domains, and perhaps your world, as well. Our dimensions are all connected, and the destruction may easily spill over from one to the other.”
The werewitch rubbed her temples and closed her eyes. None of this was a shock to her at this point; she’d accepted it a couple of weeks ago. But that didn’t mean she liked hearing about it.
Several nearby patrons could not help overhearing the conversation, and their hands began to shake as they gripped their forks and knives. The town of Greenhearth had suffered through witch invasions, wolf pack wars, and battles in the streets. The last thing the people needed to deal with was the end of the goddamn world.
Roland asked, “Okay, then why hasn’t he made the final move yet? What else is he doing at the moment? There has to be more to his plot than only trying to trick Bailey into taking his place.”
“Oh, ha.” Loki snickered. “Of course. There is much more. While he was in your presence and you in his, Fenris seems to h
ave forged alliances with the monstrous species that live in the outlands of our dimension. There has been an increase in border skirmishes between them and Asgard. We believe Fenris is behind this. It’s likely the next phase of his scheme.”
Bailey’s jaw dropped. “Wait, what? You mean like the frost trolls and the dark elves?”
Loki helped himself to Roland’s glass of ice water and took a sip. “Yes, of course.”
“But,” the girl protested, “I was with him. We went to their realms together to fight those assholes! How could he go from helping me kill a hundred of their warriors to making deals with their leaders in the same fuckin’ excursion?”
Loki gazed at her with a fatuous expression that might have been a sardonic sort of pity.
“That’s easy,” he answered her. “He excused himself off to somewhere else at some point, didn’t he? And the monstrous peoples are less concerned about individual lives lost, as long as they benefit collectively or their kings approve it. Fenris could have easily convinced them to sacrifice a paltry number of grunts in exchange for a share of the spoils of Asgard. All he had to do is lie, and he’s been doing a lot of that lately.”
Bailey felt her guts coiling up within her, turning to ice and fire in alternating cycles.
Fenris had been her mentor, her teacher, and her friend. Or so she’d thought. He had officially released her from the obligation to marry a random pack alpha by her twenty-fifth birthday, the Sword of Damocles that had hung over her head her entire life. He had freed her, lifted her up, and helped her gain respect in her community. They had fought side by side against mutual foes.
