Foretold

I felt the effort he put into staying on that huge limb. Every step he took was carefully thought out, strategically placed. “I heard your car go in. Noise travels well out here at night. And with the crazy weather, that little creek isn’t a creek anymore. It’s running deeper and stronger than normal. Does anything feel broken?”

“No. I just hit my head.”

“You were lucky.”

By the time he’d carried me back to solid ground, I felt the cold full-force. Violent shivers racked my body. My head pounded like it had been split. I couldn’t tell if water, snow or blood dripped down my face and I hoped it was the former. It was hard to see, to even keep my eyes open with all the wet stuff gumming them up or slamming into my eyeballs when I left them open. He didn’t stop once we reached the trees. In fact, he picked up the pace.

“My car,” I croaked, my hands sliding on the slippery material of his coat as I tried to clutch it. His jostling made me want to hurl. “Gods! Can you slow down?”

“Sorry. It’s too cold, you’re too wet and your head looks ugly.”

“Thanks.” Sarcasm. I was still capable of sarcasm.

Laughter shook his chest. “I meant the wound. As for the car, we’ll send someone for it after the snow sto—” He broke off. “Someone will come get it later.”

I narrowed my eyes even more with that abrupt cutoff. Did he know it probably wouldn’t stop? I wanted to ask, but my words were taking on separate life, buzzing unsteadily about my brain like furious, drunken bees. I closed my eyes, swallowed and concentrated on staying awake and aware.

He stopped and went quiet.

I gasped and managed to finally grab the slick parka. “Hey—” I snapped my mouth shut as the very wrongness of the moment hit me.

His caution crept into and around me until I could nearly taste the thickness of it on the air. Then I realized it wasn’t caution. It was magic. And with that, my surreal sort of dreamy state crumbled away like burning paper. I fully felt the cold in my lungs. The ache from their effort to continue working. The throbbing in my head. And the panic at the slide of that magic into my pores. Reality returned, as did my adrenaline.

I began to struggle.

He let me slide to my feet, facing away from him, but when my legs wobbled, he pulled me back against him and put one hand gently over my mouth. “Shh,” he whispered into my ear. The thick canopy of leaves over our heads slowed the fall of snow. His breath brushed hot over my cheek, down my neck. I shivered. He tightened his arms. “Someone’s out here. I was looking for a friend of mine who didn’t show at my house. I thought I heard Steven yell right before I heard your crash, so I’m worried someone else is out here, too.”

With his hand over my mouth, I couldn’t ask questions, wasn’t sure I wanted to, anyway. I nodded to let him know I wasn’t panicked now. He removed his hand, but kept his mouth close. I shivered when his breath tickled my ear. “Listen,” he said, more breath than voice.

And I did.

The forest around us joined in the silence, the only noise the patter of snow hitting snow. The occasional moan of wind through the foliage. My gaze swung right and left, the view the same no matter where I looked. Trees, bushes and a vast white that reflected the moon and lit up the night around us.

Standing there, under the treetops, with the forest silent and funereal, was like being cocooned in a world void of wildlife. I knew animals instinctively burrowed in the cold, but to hear nothing moving? This hush combined with the thick stink of magic was anything but ordinary. The air carried the smell of dark things, of twisted fury and evil intent.

And...lavender.

Slumping against him, I closed my eyes and concentrated. A faint humming sounded, a kind of mechanical whine, and it was far enough away not to alarm me much. But the responding thumping of feet hitting ground did. And the fact I could hear this when the ground was padded in snow sent something screaming up my back.

Someone was running hard, and the more attention I paid, the more I could pick out other noises. The runner’s harsh panting, a soft whimper of terror. My eyes flew open. I didn’t understand. Was it really my mom out there? Trying to hurt someone?

I tried to push away from the guy holding me. He merely tightened his arms. “Stop it,” he whispered. “You’re going to pass out. I’ll let you go, but you gotta sit down. There’s a boulder here.” He used one gloved hand to brush snow off the top of the huge rock, then gently lowered me toward it. “I’m Vanir.”

My butt thunked the last foot to the rock. Hard.

What were the odds? Odds, hell! There was no way this was a coincidence. I went light-headed. Nearly lost control of my legs, so I grabbed on to the rock. My wet jeans were already chafing my icy skin, so adding more cold against my butt made me wince.

He squatted in front of me. I sucked in a startled breath when he peeled the wet hood from his head. Scant moonlight touched his features. He wasn’t really a man. I mean, yeah, he was male, but younger than a man yet too old to be a boy. His size and deep voice had fooled me. He had to be at least six feet tall, and even crouched like this he made me feel small.

Not that that was hard considering my five-foot-one height.

But the face that met mine was around my age. Eighteen, maybe. He’d matured since that grainy newspaper photo. Sharp featured in his cheekbones, nose and chin, his face revealed a mixed heritage—like me. His eyes looked dark, though the color was hard to pinpoint in this light. His hair, swept off his forehead, reflected the light of the moon, and what hadn’t been visible in that black-and-white newspaper was the dark gold color.

He stared just as hard at me and those eyes held a maturity his face didn’t.

He smiled and I knew he did it to reassure me, because tension rolled off his body in choking waves. Suddenly, I wasn’t afraid of him. New warmth filled my gut. No, not afraid.

Just. Something. Else.

When he spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper. “My friend Steven was supposed to be at my house earlier. He never showed. His mom said he left a while ago, so I came out here to make sure he was okay.” He pulled off one thick glove and tilted my face into the moonlight, his fingers gentle on my chin.

The heat in his hand made me lean into his touch.

“You okay?” he whispered. Those eyes focused on my wound, but his thumb stroked softly over my chin, close to my bottom lip. “We need to get you looked at. My aunt is a doctor.” He dropped his hands to pull off the other glove before putting the gloves on my hands. That small bit of warmth was so welcome, I shut my eyes to enjoy it.

My eyes flew back open wide when he wrapped his coat around me and pulled my arms through the sleeves.

Some of his body heat was still in the coat, and while that felt good, the pressing of cold wet clothes into my skin didn’t. I said nothing about that. “I can hear your friend running. He sounds scared.”

His hoodie looked thick and mostly dry, though it wouldn’t stay that way long in this snow. I felt bad for taking his coat, but knew without doubt that he wouldn’t take it back.

Vanir stood and whistled softly. “I hate to leave you, but I have to help him and you can’t run. You’ll be okay if we can keep you warm.”

We? I saw the glowing, yellow eyes lock on me before two gray wolves stepped from the trees. They stopped on either side of Vanir. He bent to rub the head of one and a strand of his wheat-colored hair slid forward. His hair was long, shoulder-length at least.

In that instant, I knew I was right where I was supposed to be. Mom had been right about who he was. Right about the prophecies... Was she right about my possible death?

Was Vanir destined to kill me?

That humming filtered through the trees again, and this time the runner did more than whimper—he screamed. One of the wolves growled low in its throat.

Vanir’s hair caught the slivers of moonlight through the leaves as he whipped his head toward that sound. “I have to go. The one with the bent ear is Geri and this one is Freak—they’ll protect you.” He knelt and looked into the eyes of each wolf. “Keep her warm,” he said before loping into the woods.

Somewhere along the way he’d figured out I was a girl. I stared at the wolves, my tongue tied in knots. This was too much of a coincidence. The gods had to have a hand in this. My norn twisted behind my ribs as if she answered.

“Thanks,” I finally whispered. “The trick with the deer sucked. I know you probably hate the creatures because they munched on Yggdrasil and all, but I need my car.”

Vanir had disappeared into the forest, but I heard the slap of his feet on the snow. The wolves stalked toward me. My heart pounded so loud I knew they could hear it, could smell my fear.

One of them looked toward the place where Vanir had gone.

Geri and Freak, he’d said. Odin had run with two wolf companions, Geri and Freki.

Shivers hit me then, and before I could huddle into a ball, both animals crowded around me. Real fear froze me in place and it felt like my eyes were going to pop out of my head. These creatures listened to Vanir, but I was a stranger, nicely marinated in river water. I managed not to whimper when they crushed close, still watching the woods. Despite the pungent odor of wet fur and the absolute terror I had at the thought of relying on wild animals for heat, I sighed at the relief that warmth brought.

I couldn’t stay there, though. “Don’t worry about your friend,” I whispered to the wolves, my voice catching on the pain. Not only the physical, but the mental anguish I barely held tethered. That stupid lavender told me it was really my mother out there.

Scaring someone. Possible hurting them.