Frozen

by Meljean Brook

  Despite knowing that, I also knew that I wouldn’t get more than a mile in my Jeep before I had to pull over and bawl my eyes out. The ache in my throat was choking me. I walked faster. The last thing I wanted was to start crying now. I just needed to get away.

  Almost there. I just had to hold it together through one final bend in the driveway and then twenty more yards.

  Ahead of me, Erik came to an abrupt halt. A rough, low sound came from him, a wordless denial. Frowning, I drew even and peered up at his face. He was staring toward the main road, his features a desolate mask. I followed his gaze to the end of the driveway, where my Jeep waited. Astonishment rooted me to the spot.

  I wasn’t going anywhere.

  The hood had been torn away from the engine and flung against a tree, where it leaned against the trunk, half-crumpled. At the front of the vehicle, shredded wires and tubing hung over the radiator grill. I recognized the black box of my battery lying in the snow. My tires were flat—the rubber slashed—and it looked as if someone had taken an axe to the door panels and windows.

  No, not an axe…unless it had four parallel blades. But those couldn’t be claw marks. I needed a closer look.

  I started forward. Erik’s hand shot out and snared my wrist.

  “Don’t.” Protectively, he tugged me back against his side. I glanced up in surprise, but he wasn’t looking at me. His gaze searched the shadows between the trees. “We’ll return to the house.”

  Even though he couldn’t stand being around me? But I wasn’t going to argue. Fear had begun to steal its way through my astonishment and hurt. A fluttering movement caught my eye. My heart jumped and I looked toward the road again. Flimsy pink fabric lifted on a breeze before settling onto the snow.

  My nightgown. The rest of my clothes had been strewn about, too—or tossed up into the trees. The red dress I’d planned to wear during Christmas dinner hung from a branch by its halterneck.

  But it didn’t just hang there. It had been hanged.

  I stepped back. “Erik?”

  He stood frozen beside me, his fingers wrapped around my wrist. I edged closer to him. His big body shuddered, then he released my wrist and slid his arm around my waist, urging me back toward the house.

  “Let’s go.”

  I obeyed the gruff command without question, thinking of his fortress’s thick stone walls. I’d be glad to be inside those. “What did that? A bear?”

  Though I didn’t really think a bear could do that to my rig and my clothes. Maybe a rabid bear cranked up on cocaine, steroids, and gamma rays from space.

  “Not a bear.” The firm pressure of his arm against my back increased. “Faster, Olivia.”

  I was already bucking as hard as I could through the snow, my breath burning in my lungs. “I can’t go any faster.”

  “Then give me your bag.”

  A dead weight on my shoulder. Panting, I nodded. “Okay—”

  The world dropped out from beneath my feet. I cried out in surprise, clinging to the strong arm around my waist. Solid heat surged against my side. Erik’s chest. He’d swept me up—was carrying me.

  Sick with fever and bearing my weight. “You can’t—”

  “I can because I’m not carrying you. I’m carrying your goddamn bag. You’re just attached to it.”

  My laugh was too loud, my emotions crashing together in a chaotic wreck. Only a few minutes ago, he’d stabbed me with words and now here I was, grateful for his arms around me and my fear sliding away because of the safety his embrace promised.

  But it wasn’t safe for me here. I might start hoping for something I couldn’t have and he obviously didn’t want to give.

  I looked down as his hands tightened. My breath froze in my chest, killing my laughter. The storm of conflicting emotions died with it, replaced by sheer disbelief.

  The skin stretched over the sculpted muscles of his bare arms was a pale, glacial blue. That wasn’t a trick of light and shadow—it was blue. Sharp claws resembling shards of ice tipped his long fingers. And he wasn’t jogging through the snow so much as skimming over the soft surface, as if he stood on an invisible snowboard.

  Heart pounding, I dragged my gaze to his face. More pale blue skin, his thick hair a bluish-black and dusted with glittering frost. His jaw muscles bunched as if he were gritting his teeth, then his blue lips drew back and I saw those teeth were sharper than before—and definitely not human.

  Or I’d just gone completely crazy. “Erik?”

  “Olivia.” My name rumbled from him like the muffled roar of an avalanche. “Don’t be afraid.”

  Now I laughed again, because I couldn’t do anything else. I heard the hysteria in my voice but couldn’t quiet it, then he shifted my weight in his arms and I remembered his icy claws against my thigh and chest. Terror ratcheted my laugh into a scream. I flailed at him, slapping and punching his chest and neck, kicking desperately as I tried to get away.

  A clawed hand trapped my wrists. The support beneath my legs disappeared and I dangled two feet off the ground in front of a man I’d kissed and thought I’d known but he was something else, something with diamond chips in his eyes and terrifying teeth in his mouth. His voice thundered, “Olivia, stop!”

  I slammed my foot between his legs.

  The world dropped out from under me again. I fell, landing hard on my back in the snow. The impact knocked the breath from my lungs. Stunned, I lay there, my chest hurting and a tiny bit of sense returning.

  Whatever Erik was, he’d been protecting me. Something else had torn apart my rig—and that something might still be around.

  With a groan, I rolled over onto my knees, the snow crunching beneath my weight.

  “Olivia.” Erik rasped my name.

  I glanced up. He stood over me, his features a mask of tension and pain—and almost himself again. Not blue, not his familiar tan, but pale as snow and his gaze burning. He held out his hand. No claws now.

  “I’ll try to hold it in,” he said hoarsely. “But we have to go.”

  Nodding, I took his hand. He stiffened at my touch and his eyes paled almost to diamond. A tremor shook through him before he drew me to my feet. My gaze searched his face as I rose. “What are you, Erik?”

  That bleak smile touched his mouth again. “A man. Mostly.”

  Now obviously wasn’t the time to press for a full answer. “And whatever ripped apart my rig?”

  “Also a man…mostly.” He pulled me closer, hesitated. “I’ll carry you?”

  I nodded, remembering the claw marks in the doors of my Jeep. The woods around us no longer seemed beautiful, but dark and ominous, and Erik traveled faster than I did. He swept me up and I linked my arms around his neck.

  He started off—not gliding now, but at a brisk jog that reminded me of a soldier’s, moving swiftly without compromising awareness of his surroundings. His gaze continually scanned the trees to either side of us. I got my head together and looked over his shoulder, watching our back.

  Only trees and snow. Yet I could almost feel something out there, waiting. Relief slipped through me when the house finally came into view. “Do you know who’s out there?”

  “At least one of the Moon Hound’s sons. Maybe more.”

  That meant nothing to me. “What do they want?”

  “To kill me.”

  I jerked my head back to glance at his face. “Kill you?”

  “It’s a long tradition in our families.” His expression darkened. “My father should have known one of them might come soon. But he sent you anyway.”

  Erik’s determination to get rid of me suddenly made more sense. “So you knew this killer would come, and were trying to protect me from him?”

  “No.” His voice roughened. “I was trying to protect you from me. But it’s too late for that.”

  My stomach seemed to hollow out. “What does that mean?”

  And from deep within the shadows between the trees, a howl of laughter answered me.

  Chapter Three
/>
  Erik abruptly halted, his gaze fixed to the south. His arms constricted around me before he lowered my feet to the ground. With his hand at my waist, he tucked me protectively against his side.

  I slipped off my woolen gloves. Never taking my eyes from the trees alongside the driveway, I reached into my bag and withdrew my gun. I thumbed off the safety and held it aimed at the ground in a two-handed grip.

  Erik’s fingers softly squeezed my waist. I glanced up.

  He nodded to the bag. “What else do you have in there?”

  “Everything.”

  Oh, his grin. I hadn’t seen that laughing smile in months, but it didn’t last long—just a single thump of my heart, then he looked into the woods again. A pair of ravens burst from the treetops, cawing wildly. My gaze followed them up. The sky had darkened. Pink and orange stained the distant clouds. Only a few minutes until sundown.

  Beside me, Erik tensed. Shadows moved through the trees ahead. Not just one. At least four or five, slinking along the ground.

  “Wolves?” I whispered.

  “A few of them are wolves.” His hands flexed. Claws sharpened the tips of his fingers again. “But the two giant wolves are really Hounds. So is the one who looks human.”

  A person? I peered through the dusk and made out a tall figure walking between the slinking shadows—a man.

  Mostly, I reminded myself. “So what happens now?”

  “You’ll run, lock yourself inside my house, and drop the portcullis. I’ll stay here and kill the Hounds.”

  A mocking laugh floated from between the trees. “Kill us, son of Odin’s son? Two nights from now will be both a full moon and the winter solstice. My brothers and I are at our strongest. You should be, as well. We came expecting a fight. We didn’t expect to find you at your weakest.”

  Weak? I’d never associated that word with Erik. But the memory of blue skin and sharp teeth flashed through my mind—of Erik easily dangling me above the ground. Compared to that, perhaps this was the weaker version.

  He’d changed back because he’d terrified me. I didn’t think I’d be so frightened of him now. Quietly, I asked, “Is he saying that because you’re holding it in?”

  “I’ll let it out,” Erik said grimly. “You just have to make it into the house first.”

  The voice from the shadows answered again. “Perhaps you’ll kill us, just as you did my eldest brother. But tell her what happens afterward, son of Odin’s son. Tell her what your fever is, and how you’ll shatter the stone walls to get to her. How you’ll find her, no matter where she runs. Tell her of the Ironwood curse.”

  What would happen afterward? And what curse? But I wouldn’t let the man in the woods make me doubt Erik. Those questions could be answered later. Right now, two things were clear: Erik had been trying to protect me, even from himself; this stranger was trying to terrify me and had ripped apart my Jeep. Deciding which man to trust was a no-brainer.

  I raised the barrel of my gun a little. Not aiming at the stranger yet—just letting him know that I was prepared to.

  Moving with a silent, predatory stride, the man finally came into view. Silvery hair touched broad shoulders, giving the impression of greater age than his unlined face suggested. In a fitted black silk shirt with the first two buttons undone and tailored trousers, he should have looked out of place—he seemed more ‘trendy nightclub’ than ‘rugged mountain retreat.’ But whether because he stood as straight and unyielding as the trees around him, or because something in his direct gaze reminded me of the wolves at his side, he appeared right at home in these snowy woods.

  A scrap of pale fabric dangled from his elegant fingers. A handkerchief, I thought, until he brought it to his nose and inhaled.

  Not a handkerchief. He held a pair of my panties.

  A sickening sense of violation crawled up from my belly. Tearing up my Jeep hadn’t been enough. Now he had to threaten me sexually, too.

  But I didn’t think that I was his real target. The stranger’s gaze never left Erik, who stiffened as if absorbing a blow, his body radiating a wave of heat. The bastard was taunting him, I realized—trying to destroy Erik’s control.

  With his hand at the small of my back, Erik urged me toward the house. “Go.”

  Fangs gleaming, the wolves snarled. Their yellow eyes fixed on me. They were all big, but two of them were huge—more than twice the size of the others. And the smaller wolves were lean; the two Hounds had wide chests and powerful haunches, with thick furred crests across their shoulders.

  I hesitated. If they came after me, I’d rather stand my ground and shoot than turn my back and run.

  For the first time, the stranger met my gaze. His nostrils flared. With a frown, he tucked my underwear into his trouser pocket before looking to Erik again. “I can smell the witch’s blood in her. You’re a fool if you believe it will change anything. She’ll never break the curse.”

  Witch’s blood? My confusion only lasted a second.

  My mother. She’d never called herself a witch, but I could see how the label fit. Unfortunately, I didn’t possess a single hint of magic.

  This man didn’t need to know that.

  “Go, Olivia.” Erik’s voice had deepened, roughened.

  “Why? He’s already found me out.” I took careful aim and put the first giant wolf in my sights. “I can help you more here.”

  “You’re both fools.” A sharp grin spread across the stranger’s face. “Now my brothers and I will let you reap the consequences, son of Odin’s son. Obviously your woman knows nothing of what is to come—and seeing you broken because you’ve destroyed her will bring us more pleasure than ripping out your throat ever could. Soon you’ll beg us to kill you for what you’ve done.”

  He walked backward as he spoke, slowly melting into the shadows. The other two Hounds and the smaller wolves followed, except for one. It settled onto its haunches at the edge of the clearing, watching us with a steady yellow gaze.

  I didn’t lower my weapon. “Did the others really leave?”

  “No. But they’ve gone far enough. Don’t put your gun away. Just hold tight.” Without warning, Erik swept me up against his chest again. Blue tinged his skin. “And close your eyes.”

  He wouldn’t scare me. Not this time. Though his fingers ended in icy claws, he held me carefully. I suspected that he possessed enough strength to tear me limb from limb, but I felt safe in his arms. He glided across the surface of the snow toward his house…and now I understood why his family owned a small fortress. How often were they threatened?

  I glanced back toward the trees, where the wolf still waited, watching us. A real wolf, not one of the Hounds. “Did you really kill their brother?”

  “Three years ago, there was another Hound. It might have been their brother. I never had a chance to ask.”

  “He just attacked you?”

  “Yes.”

  The roughness of his response told me that he didn’t want to talk about it further. All right. There was something else just as important to discuss. “What curse was he talking about? What does he think you’re going to do to me?”

  Whatever it was, Erik thought he might do it, too. I was trying to protect you from me.

  “Nothing.” His arms tightened around me. “Nothing will happen to you.”

  But the rough determination in his reply didn’t match his expression. I couldn’t read the emotion that hardened his features and flattened his gaze, but something deep within me must have recognized it. A despairing, empty ache opened up beneath my breast.

  “Erik?” I heard the fear in my voice. What could make him look like that? “What’s going to happen?”

  He didn’t answer immediately, gliding into the gatehouse and setting me down. Slipping my gun into my bag, I waited while he opened the heavy front door. He stepped inside and faced me.

  “This raises and lowers the portcullis.” Erik reached for an iron lever embedded in the stone wall. Behind me, the gate rattled into place, guarding
the entrance. “Keep it down until I return, but be careful. The Hounds are tricksters and shape-shifters. They might conceal themselves, or look like me, or pretend an injury to lure you outside.”

  “Okay.” Keep the Hounds out. Don’t be fooled. Got it. “But where are you going?”

  “To kill them. Then you’ll take my truck and get the hell out of here.”

  My heart gave a heavy thump. Even though he’d admitted to killing another Hound, I couldn’t even begin to process that he would kill the man I’d just seen—and the big wolves, too, which were apparently more Hounds. Brothers.

  But Erik didn’t wait for it to sink in. He strode into the house, leaving me to stare through the open door after him.

  He was going to kill three men. Men who’d threatened us. Who meant to tear out Erik’s throat. But there was no one to call for help. The phones were down. The police weren’t an option.

  I didn’t know if the police could do anything, anyway. Not against magic or curses or whatever was going on here. Erik had been supernaturally strong. If the Hounds were a danger to Erik, if they’d torn up my Jeep, they must be strong, too.

  So Erik intended to kill them first. To protect us.

  Mentally, I could deal with that. Emotionally, I couldn’t make it settle. Dread and fear and disbelief roiled sickly through my stomach. It just didn’t seem real.

  But the wolf sitting at the edge of the clearing looked real enough. When I looked back into the house, the long iron-tipped spear that Erik took from a pair of brackets mounted over the fireplace looked real enough, too.

  And it looked old. The weapon’s shaft had faded to the palest of grays—except near the spearhead, where black stained the wood.

  Blood, I realized. Old blood. From other Hounds, probably.

  Oh, God. This was really happening. The realization swept over me, leaving me lightheaded and dizzy. The world seemed to shift and spin.

  But I needed to hold it together. Bending over, I braced my hands on my knees. Took slow breaths.

  “Olivia.”

  I opened my eyes. Erik crouched in front of me, the spear at his side. His pale gaze searched my face.