Foresworn (9 page)

It had burned in a circle all around the tree.

A circle in the snow.

Fire that burned in wet snow.

Just the thought stole my breath.

I picked up my phone, saw there was a message and felt a million times better when I heard Coral’s voice. She was fine.

A grunt, then a groan sounded right next to me, and I turned my head, catching Tyrone’s grin as he pushed his sandy-colored hair off his face with his prosthetic hand as he sat up. The ease with which it moved fascinated me.

“Neat looking, isn’t it?” He flexed the fingers a couple of times. “I’m not sure what my parents did to get the money for this baby, but my mom always said it was worth every penny.”

“How did you lose it—if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Mastiff.”

I blinked. “Seriously? Aren’t those, like, really sweet dogs?”

His grin let me know he was teasing. “Mastiff as in British armored vehicle. I fell in the wrong place.”

I shuddered.

“It could have been worse.”

The irony wasn’t lost on me. The god Tyr lost his hand to a wolf. “Your parents don’t care that you came here?”

Grief tightened his features instantly. “They were killed two years ago. Drunk driver.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“What for? You weren’t there.” He shrugged. “It’s easier now, but I was a mess for a long time.”

Trying to lighten the mood, I smiled and hoped I didn’t have morning goo on my teeth. “You know, it’s generally accepted that the sorry is for the grief of the person left.”

“Is that so? Then thanks.” He stretched out long legs. “I generally don’t get people who drop the word
sorry
for things they have no control over. Kara says I’m an ass about it. So um, sorry.” He chuckled.

I did, too, because I could tell right off I’d like him—that maybe if things had been different, we could have been friends. “Arun said your birthday is coming up, so you’re not yet eighteen?” I wrestled with the sleeping bag as I sat up and pushed my tangled hair off my face. “Are you on your own then?”

He looked down at his hand and flexed it again. “I live with my uncle. He’s cool and I didn’t want to leave him, but this is kind of important, you know?”

“But how did you know?” I wrapped my arms around my knees. “Arun said you guys can’t feel the soul you carry. So how did you know that you had it? Or to come here?”

“Well, I kind of always knew I was different. And I’ve had dreams of Yellowstone my whole life when this is the first time I’ve stepped foot near it. Then Kara showed up and told me what was going on.”

I looked around for the redhead, partly to see what she’d be wearing today. But then, her things had probably been burned with the others’. “She barely looks older than us. Why did you trust her?”

He stared at me for a long moment. “I was playing basketball with a group of guys. Good guys, though not everyone thought that because they were in a gang.” His mouth twisted. “It wasn’t much of a gang and they’d only put it together to offer each other protection because there was another local gang who was anything but good.” He cleared his throat. “There was a fight. A brutal one. She walked right into the middle of it and knelt to touch the shoulder of one of my friends who was dying. I watched him sit up, look at her and disappear. His body was there, but his spirit just walked away. Then she came over to me and held out her hand to help me up.” He started to laugh. “I was scared to death to touch her and scrambled away. Thought she was there to make me disappear, too. But she explained that Rick was one of the
einherjar
.”

I covered my mouth, stunned that he’d actually witnessed a Valkyrie choosing a warrior for Valhalla. “The
einherjar
, Odin’s warriors, are supposed to come back and fight in Ragnarok.”

“If this is the real one,” he said. “The one Kara told me about was supposed to have three years of winter first. But if the giants and the elves are really here...”

“Trust me, they are. The elves for sure.”

“Then this is all happening now.” He lowered his voice. “I’m scared to death and I’m not afraid to admit it.”

I rubbed the goose bumps on my arms. “So am I.”

Voices filled the room as everyone started waking. Most got right up and started rolling up their sleeping bags, so I stood to do the same.

“Hey, Kat?” Tyrone held his sleeping bag under his arm. “Do you hear the music now, too?”

I nodded. I had to concentrate to do so here around the noise, but if I worked to block out everyone’s voices, that ethereal crescendo of music grew clear.

Crescendo. Odd word to choose when I thought about the
rune tempus
message from the night before.

Arun walked into the greenhouse and all my thoughts sort of stuttered. He looked good today despite the little sleep he’d had. He wore low-slung jeans that made his legs look really long and a thick black hoodie that made his dark eyes look nearly black and his blond hair even lighter. He looked around the room, his gaze landing and staying on me. His smile then made me catch my breath.

“Hmm,” Tyrone said under his breath. “Never seen him look at anyone like that.”

“Like what?”

“Kind of like he does the plants. That’s a compliment, by the way, since he loves those things like crazy. Like you’re more beautiful to him than all of them—that sort of thing. Just look at that dopey smile.”

I nearly loosed a very unladylike snort, but I sniffed it back. “Yeah, right. I know what I look like in the morning.” And I did. I always looked like I’d been in a war while asleep. Even if I braided my hair before bed, it came undone and tangled into knots all over my head, and even if I tried to sleep on my back, I always turned over and ended up with huge sleep creases on my face. Coral kept warning me those were what turned to wrinkles, but short of tying myself onto my back in a bed, I didn’t know how to stop it.

“Hey, beautiful,” Arun said as he stopped in front of me.

Now I knew he was being facetious. So I glared at him.

His grin grew wider and right there in front of everyone else, he leaned down and kissed me. On the mouth.

It was short, but it still startled me because we weren’t alone.

And apparently everyone else was surprised, too, because the greenhouse went silent.

Arun didn’t look the least embarrassed. Instead, he handed my rolled sleeping bag to Tyrone and threaded our hands together. “Can you put that away for her? I want to show her something.”

“Sure thing, fertility god.”

He frowned at his friend, then rolled his eyes.

My neck burned as I followed the laughing Arun to the pile of coats by the door. He dug mine out, turned and started putting it on me. “I’m not five,” I muttered, my cheeks joining the blush party.

“Sorry. I’m in a hurry.” He dug around until he found my beanie and the huge gloves he’d strapped around my wrists yesterday. He stuffed the gloves in my pocket and chortled as he pulled the beanie over my head and tucked my hair back. “Your hair is crazy wild. I should have brought you a brush.”

By the time he was done, my glare felt set in stone.

He laughed all the way outside, but the warmth of his hand when he held mine lessened the sting a bit. He snatched his coat off the snowmobile parked right outside the door and only let go of my hand long enough to get his coat on. Then he started pulling me away from the sad greenhouse carcasses.

“Where are we going?” I asked after we’d crossed half the field. “Shouldn’t we take the snowmobiles if we’re going into the woods? They might be the only way to outrun those elves.”

“We’re not going far. I don’t think any of us should travel with less than four at this point.”

“I hate to point this out, but there are only the two of us, and it looks like you’re dragging me into the forest.”

He sighed heavily. “So impatient.”

“Wish you’d let me brush my teeth first,” I mumbled.

“You think I’m pulling you out here to make out?”

“Um.” I choked, then coughed. “No, of course not.”

He stopped, turned and put his finger over his lips in the universal “be quiet” sign. Then he walked slower toward the trees, still pulling me along with him. The snow today fell in light, barely-there flakes and there was actual sunlight breaking through the cloud cover—sunlight that sparkled on the snow. It made the place slightly cheery. That is, if you didn’t look back at the charred buildings behind us. I wondered at Arun’s good mood. I wouldn’t be so happy if I’d lost my home. But then I was used to losing mine.

Or watching my mother take it down and put it into a bag.

The rented house we’d been living in the past year had become a real home for my sisters and me, though, and the thought of losing it ripped into me. He had to be hurting.

I squeezed his fingers in sympathy, and he stopped walking to lean down and kiss me again. This time, he let go of my hand and put the hand that was warm from our combined body heat against my cheek.

Gods, this kiss made my toes curl and everything between my mouth and those toes go into overdrive. Then I remembered my morning breath and pulled back. I looked away so my breath would aim away from him. “I thought you said you didn’t bring me out here to make out.”

“I actually didn’t say that.”

I lifted an eyebrow, thought back. No, he hadn’t. Chuckling, I pushed my hand onto his chest and pushed, but he reached up to put his hand over mine. Then he used his other to pull me close again. “I don’t care about your morning breath, if that’s what you’re worrying about.”

“You think I want my first real kiss to be with night crud on my teeth? No, thank you.”

“Night crud? You really know how to charm a guy.”

I resented the heat that crawled up my cheeks then.

“First real kiss?” he asked with a raised eyebrow. “We’ve had a couple of kisses before now.”

“Yeah, well, I can tell what kind of kiss that was leading toward.”

He tightened his hands on me. “And you haven’t had one of those before?”

I shook my head, embarrassed at having to admit that. I had been kissed—with actual tongue involved—before, but I hadn’t been willing. And though the boy hadn’t gotten any further, that one forced kiss, with my bathing-suited back up against the painful rough bark of a tree, had been so awful, I hadn’t tried to have another with anyone else.

“Usually my—what was it you said—prickly nature keeps the kisses away,” I offered as an explanation.

“Then you’ve obviously known a lot of wimps. You don’t scare me, Katriel Lockwood.”

Gods. I didn’t know how to take him. “Did you really bring me all the way out here to kiss?”

He shrugged. “Partially, yeah. But there is something I hoped to show you if it’s still there.”

“Lead on, fertility god. Don’t think I’m forgetting that’s your god’s specialty. I’m on my guard.”

His laugh this time was full out loud, his head going back.

Warmth filled me, and I really, really wished I’d stored my toothbrush in my coat pocket.

“Come on, beautiful. Gotta be quiet from now on.” He tilted his head toward the woods and held out his hand.

And for a second, one horrible black second, I was thirteen and in the woods with that older boy. My muscles froze as I remembered how hard I’d fought to pull away from him, the horror I’d still felt when I’d hit him with a tree branch and saw the blood pouring out of his nose. He sought me out after that and swore he hadn’t meant to scare me, but my norn had warned me he wasn’t serious.

As Arun stood there with the sunlight sparkling on his light hair and that humor lighting his features, I knew without a doubt that he’d never do anything to make me scared. My norn agreed because she sent a stream of warmth through me. Arun held out his hand once again and this time, I threaded our fingers together.

“Damn toothbrush,” I muttered, making him laugh again.

Just then, something let out this loud, piercing scream.

“Gods!” I yelled and hauled him to a stop. “We gotta go back.”

“Hold on. It’s okay. This is what I brought you out here to see. They’ve never done this so close to our home before.”

“Done what?” I frantically scanned the woods. “And who is they?”

“The elk are going early into their rutting season.”

“Wait.” I stopped him. “You brought me out here to maybe kiss and to see elk doing it?”

“No.” This time, his laughter went on until I narrowed my eyes at him again and he finally choked to a stop.

“You’re kind of a weirdo, aren’t you?” I grinned at him, couldn’t keep the glare going. Another sound came through the trees, this time starting out low, then rising in volume and intensity until it made me wince. “That’s coming from an animal?”

“The bull is showing off to others, saying this is his territory. He’s bugling to attract females.”

“Well, glad that works for him.” I winced again when the elk let loose with another horrific yell. “Screaming at me isn’t a way to get me interested. Just so you know.”

“Noted.” He grabbed my coat, pulled me close and up on my toes to rub our noses together. “Come on—we can get a little closer.”

Okay, the nose rub had made my stomach all fluttery, and this time, instead of getting mad about the weird feelings, I just sort of accepted them. I liked him. A lot. So I followed without another word, keeping quiet because if I was going to be honest, I didn’t want to scare the elk away before I got to see them. I’d only ever seen them in documentaries before.

We walked slowly around a few snow-covered evergreens; then Arun abruptly stopped. He threw a frown in my direction, then waved me back around the fat tree we’d just circled. He took careful steps, obviously trying not to make any noise, so I did the same.

He stopped and leaned down until his mouth was right by my ear. “There’s someone else out here.”

Terror locked my knees in place as I thought about all those elves against just Arun and me. I forcefully pointed back the way we’d come, but Arun wasn’t watching me. His head was cocked to the side, his eyes shut, and then his expression went through a series of changes that ended in pain. When his eyes flew back open, grief and anger warred for dominance.