by Helen Scott
Tate was right. I had to suppress a sigh, and even though I still thought this idea was the best way forward, I wasn't sure exactly how we would accomplish it, given that there were probably price tags on our heads—Nina’s, for capture and the rest of ours for our deaths. We all fell silent at Tate's words, envisioning exactly how something like that might happen. I knew we were all also trying to figure out how we might be able to decide who to trust and who was going to betray us.
"Is there any way we could find out for sure?" Roman asked. "Do you have any contacts in your old pack that might be willing to talk to you and tell you what's going on?" He looked from Tate to me and back to Tate, who shook his head, his eyes downcast.
When Roman's gaze flicked to me, I knew he was asking me the same question—after all, we'd both been members of Jax's pack, even if we hadn’t known each other at the time. I shook my head and said, "Everyone thinks I'm a traitor, or at least everyone I knew. The second I asked for help, they'd be thinking of how they could use it to get in Jax's good graces."
"Our pack isn't amazing—obviously there are some bigots in there, since they tried to hunt us down—but how did that pack get so messed up?" Micah mumbled.
"They ruled from fear and anger. As far as I can tell, it goes at least as far back as Nina's old alpha, if not further. No one has felt safe in that pack for a long time, especially anyone who is weak or worse, a woman. I'm honestly surprised they left you alone for as long as they did, Nina," I said, turning to my mate. "Don't get me wrong, I'm incredibly grateful for it, but for them, it seems like women—no, girls—turn into possessions as soon as they are old enough for the mate bond to potentially trigger."
Nina looked green around the gills, and I regretted bringing it up. "Honestly," she said, after an awkward moment, "I think the only reason they left me alone was that the alpha at the time wanted me. I don't know why he'd waited so long, but I'm relieved that he did, or I never would have found all of you." She beamed at us, and the awkward feeling I'd had dissipated.
"I'm sure we would have found you somehow, even if you hadn't attacked me," I said, throwing a wink in her direction.
She grinned back at me, and I couldn't help but feel happiness swell in my heart. My mate was something I'd never expected to find, and even in the quietest part of my heart, when I had hoped to find one, I hadn’t thought she'd be throwing punches at me in a cabin in the woods. I was so incredibly lucky that she was mine—that I had something most wolf shifters only ever dreamed of.
"I think we should at least ask," Nina said, picking at some imaginary dirt under her fingernails. "They can say no and they can try to trap us, but we've always managed to get away before, and I think we can do it again."
"Okay, then we should head out tomorrow. Which pack do you want to ask first?" I asked. If we were going to do it, we needed to do it sooner rather than later.
"Let's start with Roman and Micah's pack," Nina replied. Her tone was almost confident, but not quite.
I glanced at the other two men and Roman and, for the first time since I'd met the guy, he looked a little apprehensive. He didn't want to go back to his old pack, and I didn't blame him. They’d basically run him, his mate, and his friend out of town. His reaction didn't exactly inspire hope within me.
The worst thing they could do was say no, right? So, we may as well ask and get it over with—find out which side they were going to fall on and go from there. The question that kept dancing through my mind was: What if saying no wasn't the worst thing they could do? What if Tate was right, and there was something more sinister they could do to us?
9
Nina
That night, when I had fallen asleep, I had almost felt relieved that we had a plan. Well, not almost. I had felt relieved that we had a plan. We were going to go back to Roman and Micah’s pack. I was terrified that they would betray us, but the only option we had to move forward was to try to do something differently.
Up until now, we had been fighting by ourselves and trying to stand against Jax on our own. Clearly, that wasn't working. We needed something to change, and I was hoping that it would be getting Roman and Micah's pack to help us—to join with us in our fight against Jax. I wasn't sure whether it was because that had been on my mind as I fell asleep, or whether it was just because Skuld was curious and impatient. But the next thing I knew, I was sitting on the wooden bench in her long house.
The fire crackled around us in a warm yellow glow, seeming to coat everything. I looked around and finally saw her sitting on the edge of the area that was her bed, surrounded by intricately carved Nordic designs. It almost looked like she was sitting in the middle of a longship, with the curved and carved wood framing each side of her.
"Finally," she said, drawing the word out as she let go of a breath she had been holding. "I have been trying to connect with you for a while now, and the magic just wasn't cooperating, but that's what happens when magic is slowly seeping out of the world."
"Are you okay?" I asked, wondering why I was seeing her sitting on the edge of her bed instead of puttering around the place like usual.
"Yes, yes," she said, waving me off. "I'm fine. Just old and tired. Are you well, daughter of Freya?" she asked, watching me with eyes that sparkled in the firelight.
"I am. I found my fifth mate, but now I'm not sure what to do. Nothing seems to have changed."
She pushed up off the bed and came over to me, looking me over as though she was looking for injuries or changes that I was unaware of. She even went as far as to stand so she could move the edges of my t-shirt, lifting it up to show my back and belly, before pulling at the neckline and shoulders so she could see my upper arms and chest.
"What are you looking for?" I finally asked.
"The bite marks, of course."
"The what now?"
"You said you found your fifth mate, and I assume that you've consummated the bond. But I don't see any bite marks; there are no claiming marks to show everybody in the world that you are taken."
"Why do I have to show everybody in the world that I'm taken?" I asked.
"Well," she began, seeming to pause so she could put her words in the right order. "It's not just to show that you're taken. Of course, consummating the bond makes it strong. But if you want to make it unbreakable—if you want to make it so that Jax can never kill your mates and have you—then they need to mark you and bind their magic to yours. When one mate marks another, their life forces are joined together. So, if Jax were to kill your mates, he would be killing you as well. Of course, that's a big thing to ask, to tie one's life to another, let alone five others. If you want to be sure that Jax can never have you while they are alive, then that's one way to do it."
I was stunned into silence, unsure how to respond to that. Was it something I would consider? Definitely, but it was also something that was dangerous. What if something happened to one of us accidentally? Would it kill all of us? There were a lot of questions that came up because of this, but as I opened my mouth to ask them, Skuld cut me off. "Have you shifted yet?"
"Yes, I have," I replied, unsure exactly why she was asking and what she wanted to know. She took no time in dispelling any curiosity I had.
"How was it?" Skuld asked. "Was it painful? Are you able to shift at will? Tell me all about it." She looked as eager as a child on the morning of their birthday.
I took a deep breath and sat back down by the fire, the bench firm under me, reminding me that this was all real in my mind. I let the warmth spread over my skin as I tried to formulate my thoughts. "The first time it was incredibly painful, but since then, I've gotten better about it, and the last time I had a run in with Jax, I was able to shift so my wolf could help me escape. The guys—I mean, my mates—told me that I ran faster than any wolf they had ever seen and that I was more beautiful than any other wolf they'd ever seen. But they're my mates. So, I figured that was just them being sweet," I rambled, wondering why I'd shared even half of that with her.
"Doesn't Jax, I mean, Fenrir, have the blood of the gods running through his veins as well, though?"
"Yes, that is true. However, Fenrir is chaos, He is darkness, and he wants to destroy the world. So, his powers are going to be unpredictable, if they exist at all. Or they could lean toward violence or aggression, things of that nature, instead of speed and strength like you have,"
My mind was whirling with all these ideas, and I couldn't help but ask about Jax. "The guys say that Fenrir has a dangerous wolf inside of him, and that if he is angry when he shifts, everything in his path is destroyed. They call him a berserker."
Skuld didn't look surprised by my words. In fact, she was nodding along, as though it all made complete sense. "Fenrir is the eater of the world. When his human form transforms into his wolf form, the magic within him becomes stronger, which means that he is more in tune with his primal nature. So, his chaos, his violence, and his world destroying abilities will all come to the forefront. Whereas you, being a daughter of Freya, have innate abilities that will relate back to her. You're the descendent of the goddess of love and fertility, but also magic, war, and death. Everything that Freya represents, you also represent—the same as Jax and Fenrir represent chaos and darkness, you are light and love. You are everything that this world should have. But it is a balance. One cannot appreciate the light without the darkness to make it shine. The balance also means that tipping the world back from Fenrir's control, from his goals, is going to be harder for you because it is weighted so heavily in that direction. Between you and your mates and the strength and love you possess for one another, you should be able to do it."
"Is that why you called me here? Why you came into my dreams?" I asked.
"Partially. I wanted to check on you to make sure that you had found your fifth mate and that the bond was at least partially cemented. Even if you have not marked each other yet, which is understandable since that might not be something you want to do at all. Not everyone wants to literally tie their life to another person’s."
I thought about her words and my mates for a moment, and a question occurred.
"All of my mates have a connection to a wolf within our... history." I almost said mythology, but I realized that that might be insulting to her, since this was her life. It was her story, and the last thing I wanted to do was insult Skuld. "As far as I know, though, Freya doesn't have one. I know she has the boar, the cats, and her feathered cloak, but I’ve never heard any stories about her having a wolf."
"She may not have had a wolf of her own, but she communicated with all animals. Just because there was no story featuring a wolf doesn't mean that she was not connected to them. She is the goddess of fertility. Everything is connected to her. Besides, sometimes she was Odin's wife, and he has wolves. So, if you really need a connection, then follow that one."
I looked at her for a second before I carefully said, "I thought Frigg was Odin's wife."
"Those old stories got confused so many times, but Frigg and Freya were the same person. One is just an honorific or, rather, a bad translation on your part. Besides, you seem to know your stories from our culture. How do you think she got a wolf to come for Völva to ride on? Just because Völva practiced Seidr doesn't mean that she was in control of all the animals around her. That was Freya; she was the one who was able to convince a wolf to allow Völva to ride as they went in search of Óttar's pedigree."
"How did so much of our history get so twisted and changed?" I wondered, more to myself than anything else.
"Well, nobody likes the old legends when they're boring, so they're made more exciting. And when men are in control of history, they write about other men. So, women's stories often get forgotten, brushed aside, and minimized. I mean, do you think that my sisters and I spent our entire lives sitting at the bottom of Yggdrasil watering it? That that was all we did—besides managing the fate of all mankind, obviously."
I had to chuckle. I looked at her and said, "That sounds like a pretty big job to me."
She waved a hand in my direction. "Mankind mostly takes care of itself, and watering the tree is a relaxing and rewarding thing, but that doesn't mean that's all we did. We had lives, we had loves, and nobody ever wrote about those." She drifted into silence, and sadness seemed to consume her for a moment, before she shook herself out of it. "I wanted to make sure you were okay. I wanted to make sure that everything was on track the way it should be." She sounded tired again. "I want to go home. I want to see my sisters," she said quietly, and I knew that I should change the subject.
The loneliness and solitary confinement she had found herself in unwillingly was too much to bear—and would be for anybody. She wanted me to succeed. She wanted to go home. And that made complete sense and also explained why she was checking on me. I wouldn't leave something like that to chance either if I had a say in it.
"You asked about your connection to Freya, and while I believe I explained it to the right degree, I also wanted to say that Freya is part of the Vanir, not the Aesir—it's because of that the magic is mixed into your blood. It's because of her that wolf shifters, any shifters really, exist at all. The Vanir were masters of magic. They were so talented that they could hide their entire realm if they wanted to. Freya was the one who taught Odin magic, and the rest of the Aesir were taught via Odin. So really, your bloodline is the most magical and strongest out of all of your mates. And that is why I have so much hope in you."
My throat constricted, and I didn't want to let her down. The hope that she had in me was unlike anything I had experienced before. The only comparable thing was my mates’ faith in me, but even that didn't seem to hold the same weight as one of the Norns believing that I could get her home to her sisters. "I'll do everything I can to get you home," I said.
She smiled at me and leaned over so she could pat my shoulder. "I know you will, but I don't think that Fenrir is going to give up. I think you will have to defeat him thoroughly." Her expression turned serious, and it chilled me all the way down to my bones.
"I thought the same thing," I said.
She sniffed in satisfaction. "Good. Then we're on the same page. I'm sure you will find the help you seek," Skuld said, and my ears pricked at her words. Did she know what my mates and I had been talking about before? I was about to ask, but the fire started fading in front of me, and the only thing that remained were her shining blue eyes in the darkness as she said, "It just may not come how you expect."
10
Nina
When I woke up from my dream with Skuld, I felt energized and refreshed instead of drained, like I hadn't been asleep. It was unusual, but I appreciated it. I knew it was something that she had done with her magic and that had probably left her drained. My mind spun with everything she had told me, and I couldn't help but latch on to the idea that I should bind myself to my mates in an unbreakable way.
She hadn't told me that I needed to do it. She had just told me how. But I wanted to do it. I didn't want a life without them. If Jax managed to kill them, then I wouldn't want to be alive either. But I didn't know if they felt the same way. If I died, would they be okay dying? That wasn't exactly an easy conversation to have with anybody.
My mind was racing too much for me to go back to sleep, so I pushed up and tried to sneak out of bed. I had Roman on one side of me and Tate on the other, which meant getting out of the bed was more than a little challenging, and by the time I got free, I realized that I was not the only one awake.
Blake pushed up onto his elbows and was grinning at me in the darkness, as though me wrestli
ng myself free from the covers and two of my mates was the most entertaining thing he had seen all day long. I grumbled at him as I went and found a pair of boxers to pull on under my shirt. The undies I’d put on with my extra-large t-shirt when I went to bed was not exactly something I was comfortable lounging around in, at least not these days, when it felt like we had to move at a moment's notice. I didn’t want to dig for actual clothes though, so boxers would have to do. Blake followed me out of the tent.
As I leaned against one of the trees nearby and looked up through the branches to the moon hanging in the sky, I felt him settle down next to me. Without looking at him, I said, "How am I going to win them over? How am I going to make them side with me instead of Jax?" It was the one question I'd had this whole time that I'd been too scared to voice.
"You'll win them over because you're you," he said as he nudged me with his elbow. "You have nothing to worry about. Nobody can resist you for long. I should know."
My mind flashed back to when we’d first met: the fight that we had been in and the way we had kept him in the cabin until the bond had made us unable to resist each other any longer. "So, you couldn't resist me, even though I tied you up and let Micah and Roman beat the shit out of you?" I questioned.
"Of course I couldn't. If I hadn't been tied up, I would have made a move on you a lot sooner, I'm sure."
"You're not tied up now," I teased.
"Is that an invitation?" he asked.
I shrugged. "Maybe."
He knew damn well it was, though, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw him grin. But instead of dominating me and pinning me to the ground like I'd expected, he swooped in and picked me up, rolling us until I was straddling him. I made some kind of embarrassing noise in surprise, which only made him laugh.
"Oh, is this how it is?" I asked as I looked down at him.