Witch Bound (Twilight of the Gods) (11 page)

He was right, Raquel realized. Either they were fast or she’d lost time. She could hear Aiden’s voice, gruff and deep, and then another man who came to kneel beside her.

“No, don’t stop,” he told her when she started to withdraw her hand. “Let me just see...ah.”

She could feel his magic through her connection to Rane. Strong for a healer, and he seemed to know what he was doing.

“Will she make it?” Aiden asked, but the healer was gone, completely absorbed in trying to repair the damage. The question hung there like a curse. No one could answer it. Aiden swore and Christian pulled him aside so they could work. Behind them, the two men spoke in quiet, urgent voices.

The healer was silent, but Raquel could feel him working, could feel the heartbeat steadily strengthen until he looked up and said, “You can stop now. There’s nothing...” He turned. “Aiden, let’s move her to the house. She’s stable enough for that now.”

“Will she be okay?”

“She’ll make it,” Christian said fiercely, as if he could will it to be so.

Rane muttered something, but her mouth was too broken for the words to be understood. Alan placed his hand on her shoulder to hold her still. “Shh. She’ll make it. Call Elin. She’s lost too much blood. She’ll need a transfusion.”

“She’s already on her way.”

Aiden mounted and Christian gently slipped his arms beneath Rane’s body. He rose smoothly, but Rane still moaned when he lifted her into Aiden’s arms. Alan placed his hand on her forehead and sent a pulse of power into her.

“Best she’s asleep for the ride home.”

Aiden started back to the house. The healer mounted and followed. Christian squeezed Raquel’s shoulder. “Come on. Let’s go. We’ll meet them there. The stones will keep until tomorrow.”

“What happened to her, Christian?”

His mouth tightened, troubled blue eyes met hers. “I don’t know.”

Chapter Ten

They gathered in Alan’s living room. He lived in the house across from Aiden’s, within walking distance. Aiden’s home was nearest to the fault. The hunt stabled their horses there. They trained in one of his barns, rode on the hunt from his property. So it made sense for the clan healer to live next door.

Alan’s house was old but well maintained. Refinished woodwork around the fireplace and archways between rooms. High ceilings and a lot of antiques, which Raquel had been told his wife collected and sold in a shop out by the interstate.

The rush of urgent activity to get Rane to the healer’s house had been so consuming that it hadn’t left any time for thought. But the lull afterward while they waited to see if she’d recover was never-ending. No one spoke. Elin sat on the couch sandwiched between Grace and Christian. Grace held Elin’s hand, and every once in a while Christian would bend his head to speak softly in her ear. Elin barely seemed to register it. It wasn’t surprising—the daze Elin was in or the fact that her clan was concerned for her too. Often when one crow died, the other quickly followed. And then twins would be born to some clanswoman within the next year or two. On-the-job training at its worst.

Fen sat across the room, done with pacing for the moment, although his leg shook restlessly. Raquel thought he’d be up prowling about the room again any minute now. Everyone looked up when Aiden entered, looking like the world rested on his broad shoulders. His gaze swept the room, coming to rest on Elin.

“She’s going to make it.”

Elin crumpled, as though her fear had been holding her upright. She turned her face into Christian’s chest and he gathered her in, kissing the top of her head as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Raquel had wondered why the crows, this one in particular, had wanted so little to do with her. After today, she was beginning to understand. All the hints and innuendo...so much of it attached to the woman in her fiancé’s arms right now.

She turned her head to find Fen staring at her, eyes sharp and piercing. She had the feeling he could see inside her head. She couldn’t read the expression on his face at all. After a moment, his jaw set and he dropped his gaze to the floor.

Aiden crossed the room, cupped his hand to the back of Elin’s head and whispered something that seemed to calm her. Her shoulders stopped shaking, but she stayed tucked up in Christian’s arms. Raquel had known that Christian had a life before she showed up. She’d heard the rumors about him. He’d broached the subject himself, carefully, saying that he’d taken other lovers in the town. She wasn’t a virgin either. It was good of Christian to recognize how badly Elin needed his support right now. Stupid to be hurt by it.

Raquel was so busy not being hurt that she started when Aiden spoke her name. “Alan says you saved her life out there. Thank you.”

She squirmed beneath the sudden attention. “I have some training as a healer. It doesn’t require much magic to keep a heart beating, just concentration mostly.”

His eyes narrowed, considering. She didn’t want to be a healer. She almost said it out loud, but he spoke before she did. “Nonetheless, thank you.”

“Did she tell you what happened?” Christian asked.

Aiden ran his hand through his hair. “She crossed into Asgard is what happened, despite my order not to.”

“She must have found something.” Fen leaned forward and clasped his hands between his knees, all intense focus and controlled anger. Raquel could feel the restlessness in him, the desire to hunt.

“She said ‘Vanir,’ but I couldn’t get any more out of her, not now. She’s sleeping and Alan says she’ll be out for a while. He placed her in a temporary coma so that she has time—” Fen sprung to his feet, but Aiden blocked his path. “Time to heal. We wait until we have the whole story from her.”

“What more do you need? He has to be a witch to have survived in Asgard for as long as he has, we knew that. You suspected all along that he was behind the weakness in the fault.”

“Suspected,” Aiden said. “We still don’t have anything more than that.”

“We have Rane, cut and beaten nearly to death, whispering his name. What more do you need?”

Aiden didn’t budge. “We wait for Rane to wake and give us the entire story. The reason she’s lying upstairs is because she disobeyed my orders and crossed into Asgard half-cocked. You’re not doing the same.”

Fen wanted to push past Aiden and storm off anyway—Raquel could see it in his stance—but instead, he cursed and backed off. Vanir were enemies to the Æsir. Clan lore said the Æsir and Vanir had once shared a world. Long ago, the Æsir crossed to Asgard and created their own home, but even that distance didn’t heal all of the old animosities. Like squabbling siblings, they’d spent as much time fighting over the centuries as at peace with one another.

The surviving Æsir didn’t know the specific cause of the last war that culminated in the destruction of their home, but they knew that the Vanir were behind it. The Vanir still inhabited Vanaheimr, but they exiled the worst of their criminals to Asgard. A death sentence, even if it might take years for them to actually stop breathing.

Grace shook her head. “He wouldn’t have done that. That doesn’t make any sense.”

Fen snorted. “He’s your best friend now? He wanted to keep you there as a pet.”

Grace grimaced. “He was...lonely. He wasn’t cruel. He didn’t hurt me or Hallie, who was there much longer than I was.”

“He was exiled for a reason,” Fen said. “And he is not our friend.”

Aiden held up a hand. “We don’t know yet that he’s the one who did this. We wait for Rane to wake up and decide from there.” He glared at Fen. “I’ll have your promise on that.”

Fen looked as if he’d balk, but after a long tense moment, he gave Aiden a short, jerky nod and headed for the door. Grace stood and moved into her husband’s arms. Raquel looked at Christian, who still held Elin, and then slipped out after Fen.

He was sitting on the porch steps staring off into the fields. Tension rolled off him like an electric current, but she sat next to him anyway.

“I thought you’d be running by now.”

“I should be.”

She knocked into his shoulder. “You can go if you want—I’ll cover for you. I’ll even drop your clothes off by your back door if you want.”

“I don’t run in town. None of the hounds do.”

Her clan allowed it, but it was a hotly debated tradition. A lot of the townspeople had nothing to do with the hunt and didn’t like to be reminded of it. Enormous, black-furred wolves prowling through town with unusually sharp teeth and intelligent eyes were a pretty big reminder. She’d never agreed with that point of view, but she didn’t say anything.

“It’s my own rule and the others picked up on it. Not a big deal really, I scared a little girl when I was a teenager. She was my cousin, but she never looked at me in quite the same way after she saw me as a hound.”

For someone like Fen that would be hard. Raquel still didn’t like the idea of him having to slide around the edges of town hiding what he was when he was out there risking his life to protect these people. She patted his knee, a weak comfort but all she could offer. “Go,” she said. “You meant what you said in there, right? You won’t try to cross?”

“I don’t know if I could force the portal open anyway. I just need...to get away.” He hopped off the porch, walked backward for a step or two. “Are you still planning to come over tonight?”

“Yep. Christian too.”

His smile fixed. “Sounds good. It’s your turn to make dinner, remember.”

“You didn’t
make
dinner. We had pizza.”

“I had pizza,” he agreed. “Until you lit it on fire, along with my house.”

She laughed. “You’re not going to let me forget that are you?”

That flashpan grin. “Not a chance, Rocky. See you later.”

And he was gone. She stared at the sky for a few minutes, trying to work up the will to go back inside. She didn’t want to watch Christian comfort his friend or whatever the hell she was to him.
More than a friend
, her mind whispered. Just as it had when he’d smiled at the waitress the other night. Christian was hers now. There was no such thing as a celibacy clause in their contract. Or a fidelity clause either. And so much that she didn’t know about Christian.

Something clamped down on her foot and she jumped, letting out a yelp and scrambling back until she saw Fen.

Sleek black fur. All bone and muscle, just like the man. His eyes were the same too, and she knew he was laughing at her when he sat on his haunches and let his mouth gape open to reveal curving, finger-length fangs. Hound was a misnomer. The oldest legends called them wolves, which was closer to the truth but not entirely accurate either. They were bigger than wolves for one thing. Faster and stronger too, and they could rend flesh as easily with their claws as with their fangs.

“Fen. You scared the crap out of me.”

His tongue lolled out, and the door opened up behind her. She didn’t need to turn around to know it was Christian.

“I thought I heard you yell.”

She lifted her chin. “Fen snuck up on me.”

A note of amusement in Christian’s voice. “He’ll do that.”

Fen pressed his cold nose to the back of her hand, uttered a short yip and then took off for the field. She wished she could follow him, run like that, hard and fast, all powerful grace and controlled menace. He was surely a sight to behold.

Christian touched her shoulder. “Are you ready to leave?”

“Yeah.” She tore her gaze away from Fen and smiled at Christian. “Let’s get out of here.”

Chapter Eleven

Fen opened the door and his heart lurched when he found Rocky standing there all alone in the circle cast by the porch light. He looked past her hoping to find Audrey or Christian out parking the car, but there was no one. Just Rocky. Looking nervous and hopeful and so unsure of her welcome that he didn’t have the heart to turn her away.

She gave an apologetic smile. “Aiden asked Christian for some help. Audrey is still out shopping with my mom.”

He hesitated but pushed the door open wider. “We can do this another night.”

She held up a recyclable bag with the grocery store logo on it. “I brought dinner, but we can reschedule if you want.”

Even as she said it, she moved inside. Setting the bag on the table, she frowned when she saw the burn mark on the wood surface. He didn’t think she’d noticed it the other night. She shrugged out of her coat and he took it from her, resisting his instinctive urge to lift it to his nose. The smell of her filled him anyway. Sunshine and magic. The same sort of summertime smell as Lois’s shop. He’d always thought it was the herbs, but apparently it was the magic after all.

When she looked up, he felt a sharp bite of panic. Troubled eyes, pale skin, tight mouth. She wasn’t here for the runes. The run this afternoon had mellowed him somewhat but if he’d still been in his wolf form, his hackles would have raised.

“Fen?”

He was sure he didn’t want to hear what she was going to ask, so he grabbed the bag and started for the kitchen, flipping on lights as he went. “Let’s get started on this, I’m starving. What is it?”

“I cheated,” she said, voice subdued. “My mom made meatballs today. I stole some and picked up rolls at the grocery store.”

“Sounds good.” He put the bag on the table. “Sit, I’ll get the plates.”

The scrape of a chair, the rustle of clothing as she sat. “Fen.”

Shit.
He grabbed his good plates, the ones he’d grown up using, seventies brown with paler stone flowers around the rim. One had a chip that perfectly fit the curve of his thumb. He turned around and accidentally looked her straight in the eyes.
Double shit.

“I think we need to talk.”

“About the runes,” he ventured hopefully, crossing the room and taking the seat across from her. Safer to leave at least one chair between them.

“About Christian.”

He winced. “Christian is my friend.”

“That’s why I’m asking you about him and Elin.”

He let out a shaky breath, relief and annoyance mixing bitterly in his stomach. He’d thought maybe... Well, hell, it didn’t matter what he’d thought. “Maybe you should ask Christian about that.”

“Yeah.” She hesitated as if she might say more but then nodded once. “You’re right. I hoped we’d have time to talk this afternoon, but Lois was waiting for me at the house.”

He took the split roll she handed to him. Her fingers brushed briefly against his, making the skin tingle all the way to his wrist. She was soaked in power. It leaked from her, but that was all she had access to—this bit that seeped through that enormous barrier.

“What did Lois want?”

“One of the stones had been disturbed. It was causing an imbalance with the wards.”

“Because of Rane.”

Rocky finished chewing and swallowed. “I should have gone back to check. She wanted to make sure I knew I’d made another mistake and that she’d fixed it for me.”

“Witch.”

“Yah. At least one of us is.”

“Aw, come on. You’ve got loads of potential.”

Those sweetly mobile lips quirked up at the corners. “Big steaming piles of it.” He laughed and she jerked her head up. “What? You think it’s funny?”

He held up his hands in surrender. “My first pity party. I didn’t know there were rules.”

“This is serious.”

“It’s not. The future of our clan is
not
resting on your shoulders. If you can’t control your power, then we get a new witch. If the fault begins to fail, we evacuate and relocate. Either way it’s not the end of the world. Your pride’s on the line, that’s it.”

“Rane—”

“Is safe and healing. Everyone goes to sleep curled up next to their loved ones, alive and well. It’s not a tragedy.”

She got up and helped herself to a soda from the fridge. Her expression was brittle and he hated it. Hated that she was hurting. Hated the tension in her shoulders. Hated most of all that there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. She toyed with the tab on the can. “Elin is his lover, isn’t she?”

Fuck.
That’s what this was about. He should turn her away gently and send her to Christian. She should hear this from him. But she must have seen the truth in his eyes. Her face crumpled and he stood, torn between wanting to comfort her and needing to keep his distance. Boundaries. They needed boundaries.

Ah, she’d started to cry. He took a small step in her direction, because he couldn’t just stand there and do nothing. Holding his arms open and giving her plenty of time to escape, he wrapped her in a hug, swallowing a groan as her arms circled his waist. He tucked her head under his chin and grinned like an idiot when she wiped her face on his shirt. He was an idiot. A wretched, masochistic fool.

“They’re not together now,” he said.

“He still cares for her.”

“Of course he does.”

She didn’t make any move to pull away. Her body fit against him perfectly. Slender, lithe, as warm and sweet as he’d imagined. He touched the back of her neck, gently rubbed the tight muscles there and then stroked his open palm down her spine, learning the curve of it, forcing himself to stop when he reached her waistband. Comforting a friend, not copping a feel. Boundaries. Fucking boundaries.

“Will he screw around on me?”

“He’ll honor you,” he said, almost regretting that it was the truth. “Honor is important to Christian. He will respect his wife.” Or Fen would kill him with his own hands.

“Honor isn’t love.”

“He’ll love you.” He almost choked on the words. Damn her for making him say them. Damn Christian too. He had this fucking precious gift in his hands that he’d done nothing to earn and the lucky bastard didn’t even seem to realize it. But Christian was a smart man. He’d figure it out and he would love her. How could he not?

And Rocky would get over these nerves and fall for Christian just like everyone else did. Fen would be happy for her too. Christian would give her children, normal not-cursed children. He’d make her happy.

Fen started to move her away, but she lifted her face, eyes bright, hair a god-awful mess, tendrils sticking to the tracks of her tears. “He kissed me today.”

“Rocky...”

More tears leaked from the corner of her eyes and he cupped her cheeks to brush them away with his thumbs. “You should go be with Christian now. Talk to him about Elin. About all of this.”

She sniffed and leaned forward, setting her cheek against his chest and wrapping her arms around his waist. She sighed...the same kind of sigh he made when he slipped into bed bruised and battered from the hunt. The sound of someone reaching a safe shelter. And he wasn’t—couldn’t—be that for her.

“That’s the thing,” she whispered. “When he kissed me today, it felt wrong. And when I saw him with Elin... I
should
be upset about that. But that’s not why I’m crying.”

“I saw the way you looked at Alan’s. You were upset. I wanted to go to you.”

“It stung my pride.”

“You’ve only known him a few days.”

She’d stopped crying, but made no move to unwrap herself. He should do that, untangle her arms.

“I’ve only known you a few days.”

He closed his eyes. Bending his head, he touched his lips to her temple and breathed her in. He stroked a hand through her hair as he considered how to respond. He didn’t want to, didn’t want to acknowledge this at all. “You’ve never met a friend you felt like you’ve known forever? It happens sometimes.”

She fell silent. He should set her aside now, step back and start putting some distance between them. But...he couldn’t seem to do it. Not yet. When would he ever hold Rocky like this again? Never.

When he let her go tonight, he’d let her go.

“I thought about you.” Her voice fell to a bare whisper. “When Christian kissed me, it felt wrong because I wanted it to be you.”

He felt it like a shot to his gut. The pain hit first before it turned into something else. Something that caused his arms to tighten around her shoulders. Rocky tipped her head back to look at him and he stared at her lips, parted slightly, trembling. For a second, he let himself imagine it—bending his head to claim her mouth, sinking inside her heat. He wanted to know the taste of her. His skin tingled like it did before a shift, when he was holding back the magic from washing over him.

“I don’t want to marry Christian.”

As if a gaping hole opened under his feet, he fell into that sentence. His mouth opened, but he clamped it closed. What could he possibly say? This was his best friend’s fiancée, and he didn’t want a mate. He didn’t want children who would grow up and have to deal with this shit. Didn’t want to take the risk of handing his soul over to another person and then spend the rest of his life hoping they didn’t change their mind.

He was still falling when the phone in his back pocket began to vibrate. It was enough of a jolt for him to close his eyes and pull away. He dug the phone out and glanced at the number before answering. Aiden.

“Is it Rane?”

“No,” Aiden said, sounding tense and frustrated. “Another surge. Gather your men, pick up Lois too and meet us at the house.”

“Will do.”

Rocky was close enough to hear. “I’ll come too. The rune stones...Lois said she fixed the last one this afternoon. There shouldn’t be a surge. If there’s something wrong with the—”

“No.” Fen would have let her ride along if he didn’t need the space so badly. Her lips firmed, but she didn’t argue. “Now’s not the time to try to figure it out. When the demons are dead and it’s clear, then you can go look at the stones. Maybe Lois missed something.”

“Maybe Lois missed something on purpose.”

The accusation shocked him and apparently Raquel read that on his face, because she blushed and shook her head. “I’m sorry, no. I shouldn’t have said that. Lois wouldn’t place her own people at risk to discredit me, I know that. I’m the one who screwed up. Again.”

“Raquel—”

“Just go, Fen.” She gave him a gentle push toward the door. “I’ll clean up here.”

He keyed the emergency text as he walked out, not looking back even though he knew she was standing there watching him leave. He had a job to do. He wasn’t running away from her.

* * *

Christian was walking toward the barn beside Elin when Fen arrived at the house. Of course he was. He’d probably come back here after dropping Raquel off to keep Elin company as she sat by Rane’s bedside.

Fen had told Rocky the truth. Christian had broken things off with Elin months ago—as soon as Raquel’s family contacted him to make final preparations for the ceremony. Christian was friends with any number of his ex-lovers scattered through the town. And Rocky was perceptive enough to see it. He didn’t think she was confident or forgiving enough that it wouldn’t bother her. Especially not when she’d already overheard him telling Aiden that he only saw her as an obligation.

“You dropped Rocky on me again so you could run back here.”

Christian stopped walking, turned slowly. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about your fiancée risking her life so she can take her place here and coming to my house to cry about you.”

Christian glowered. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. We’re fine. She said she was fine. We’re getting to know each other. These things take time.”

Fen knew he should shut up and walk away.
He knew it.
But he still took a step closer. Still got in Christian’s face. “She needs more from you.”

“I’m marrying her.”

So she should be grateful?
“And she’s marrying you. You can both walk down the aisle lockstep like good soldiers.”

Christian’s hand was on his sword and Fen could feel the magic gathering around his own body. He hadn’t been this close to an uncontrolled shift since puberty.

“I’m doing the best I can,” Christian said. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

Fuck.

“Love her.” It was the simplest thing in the world. Why couldn’t Christian grasp such an incredibly simple thing? Christian would love her and then Fen could stop.

Christian went very still, but his hand fell away from his sword. Elin stood there gaping and Fen felt suddenly sick. He thought about letting the change take him, shred through his clothes and favorite jacket. Sink into that altered state where everything was sharp and clear and simple.

“Is there a problem here?”

He swung around. Aiden was dressed in full leather armor and already mounted on his horse. His expression hard and unhappy. “We need to go. Fen, most of the hounds are already here and changed. They’re out creating a perimeter around the break. We need you.” His eyes flicked up to focus on Christian. “And you. Can you put whatever the hell this is aside for the moment?”

Not waiting to see how Christian answered, Fen turned and walked away. He stripped off his clothes and tossed everything onto the porch in a heap. They’d all seen him buck naked countless times—a hazard of being a hound, one that had long since ceased to bother him. Elin, far more polite than he was, walked away to make her own transformation. The crows...well, he’d never seen them shift before and not for lack of trying. And not, like Rane teased, to sneak a peek. Purely a professional curiosity.

He loved Rane and Elin, but not in that way. He didn’t understand why it didn’t bother Christian to have a relationship with a woman who’d been childhood friends with his great-grandmother. Letting the change take him, Fen felt some of his helpless anger ease.

He was told that the change appeared to be almost instantaneous, but it didn’t feel that way on the inside. He’d seen video in high school science class of the birth of a star, matter collapsing in the blink of an eye and then shooting outward in every direction. A blaze of fire and light. Shifting felt like being at the center of that. Not painful exactly, but shattering.