I was quiet as Coral maneuvered herself out of her coat and inside the sleeping bag beside Raven.
“So your friend is okay?” Raven asked her.
“He will be. It took me so long because I had to talk Grim out of coming here. Now that he knows his brother will be fine, he feels like he should be up here with us.”
Coral had told me about Josh and Grim, twin brothers and Taran’s best friends. Just from her tone I could tell she was nearly as crazy about them as her new boyfriend.
“There won’t be enough time for him to get here, anyway,” Raven pointed out.
We could barely move in the small space, but I didn’t mind. Even though a part of me wanted the comfort of Arun, I needed to be with my sisters. Besides, I could tell Arun’s mother wasn’t that cool with me sleeping with her son—not when it wasn’t an emergency “stay warm” sort of thing. Raven and Coral had pretty much said the same thing. Seemed all the adults were happier not to see us climbing into tents with their family members.
As of tomorrow, Arun would be eighteen, and the rest of us already were, so it was pretty damned ridiculous. Especially when we took into account what we were facing here. But I supposed I could try to take comfort from that small bit of normal. And the more I thought about it, that’s probably what Alva, Hallur and Grady were trying to do—keep a small bit of normal.
I lay there a long time, whispering with my sisters, listening to what had happened to them over the past few days and was glad we were together.
* * *
Everyone was understandably quiet the next morning. Once Taran and Vanir told Alva about how they came into their full powers, she suggested we wait until sunset, that we could take the day to prepare.
Taran’s dad, the pilot, Vanir and Taran took the helicopter out to see what we would be facing. Arun, Gillian, Kara and Tyrone scouted out ahead on the snowmobiles. They didn’t plan to go far, but Arun insisted on finding a route without surprise pits in the ground.
While they were gone, Nanna joined me and my sisters by the fire while we ate more freeze-dried food. I hadn’t even paid attention to what I grabbed—it probably tasted like any of the others. Besides, I was too worried about Arun out on the snowmobile. Silly because he knew this terrain well—I know—but something in his expression this morning as he’d pried Gillian from the wrapped Sky, made me worry his grief would keep him from paying attention. I wanted to be with him, to make sure he was okay.
I frowned down at the noodles and red goo in my food packet.
Gods, I have it bad.
Nanna was in the middle of telling Coral about her grandmother’s dandelion root tea when the ground shook.
As voices faded around us, the ground shook again, over and over, and the rumbling sounds in the distance filled me with alarm. I looked at Nanna to find her watching the ground as though she was waiting for a hole to open up, too. She caught my gaze and grimaced just as the helicopter sounded.
When Grady stepped onto the ground, I knew we had a problem. His skin was pasty white, his expression fierce as he argued with his son. Grady and Taran looked so much alike as they faced off—down to the scrunched eyebrows and tightened lips. Grady’s hair was a darker blond and he was bigger, but I figured that was temporary. They took their argument into the forest.
Coral watched anxiously; then a faint smile pulled up her lips. I looked back to find Taran pulling his dad into a fierce hug.
“He’s just scared,” she murmured. “Grady. You know what they had to have seen by the lake. Taran and his dad fought giants at home, so he knows what we’re in for. And you should have seen Vanir’s brother’s face when he saw his first one on the way here. Raven and Vanir faced one down in Oklahoma, but apparently Vanir’s wolves chased it away.”
I glanced around for Vanir and found him talking to his brother, both with overly long hair, but one blond and one solid black, similar to the color of my own hair.
“I need to mix up some protection spells,” Coral mumbled as she wandered off.
“I’ll help her,” Nanna said before following her.
Raven and I both turned as someone yelled to find the pilot stepping down from the helicopter, his loud voice carrying as he said he’d radioed in for help and that he refused to fly anyone back to the lake.
Alva growled, her gloved hands in fists as she stomped toward him. Grady hurried toward her, and soon half our group stood around arguing with him. It grew worse when Arun and the others returned.
I tuned them out, watching all the fierce expressions, the waving arms...the absolute love the older people had for the younger ones. And it made me think about Dru.
She was out there terrorizing people instead of here, worried about her daughters. In fact, I wondered why she hadn’t shown her face today—what was holding her up. She’d looked so, so bad standing in that water as she’d looked at me. Looked at me with someone else’s expression.
And something loosened in my chest. I didn’t hate her—not like I’d always thought. And to know she was probably trapped inside her body, fighting an insane Norse god, made me feel rotten.
Coral believed anyone would be crazy after having poison dripped on his face for centuries.
Guess I could understand that.
“Did you hear that?” Raven asked, pulling me from my thoughts.
I shook my head.
“Those rumbles and ground shakes were from giants jumping into the air and trying to catch the helicopter. No wonder the pilot is freaked out.” She stood up, touched my shoulder and looked at me with gray eyes so like mine. “I’m feeling a bit freaked out myself. You okay?”
I shrugged. “Think I just need a few minutes.”
She nodded, leaned down to hug me, then left me alone.
On my way back to the tent we hadn’t yet taken down, I tripped over a limb and managed to get snow up under the blue parka Alva had brought me. After hurrying into the tent, I stripped off the dry coat and the red sweater I’d also borrowed, then pulled the wet T-shirt underneath over my head. I dug around in the backpack we’d left in here earlier, looking for fresh clothes, then stared in horror at the only shirt packed inside. A red tank top.
My hands shook as I stared at it, not sure I could bring myself to put it on. Not when I’d been wearing it in every fire nightmare lately. But a shadow fell over the opening of the tent and I hurriedly pulled it on, planning to take it back off once I was alone.
Arun crouched there, his nice lips curved in a smile that managed to be friendly and still sad at the same time. “Mind some company?”
“Just you, okay?”
He looked around, the sun that had managed to break through the clouds sparkling in his blond curls. “Like anyone else would fit with me in here with you. Everyone is still arguing, anyway. Doesn’t matter. We’ll be going to the lake soon whether we have the helicopter or not.” He crawled in, closed the tent and sat cross-legged in front of me. “Your sisters are great.”
I nodded, wrapped a sleeping bag around my shoulders and picked up the food I’d dropped when I’d crawled in. I took a bite, grimaced at how cold it had grown and stuck my fork in it. Setting the packet down in the corner, I nudged the other sleeping bag toward Arun.
He settled it over his lap. “I like Taran and Vanir, too. Oh, and Magnus. Did you see the size of his hands?”
Magnus, who’d lurked around the campsite with the Valkyrie Mist, had to be one of the biggest guys I’d ever seen. Bigger than Tyrone even. He had to be nearly seven feet tall and everything about him was massive from his head to his feet. He had the kind of really dark black skin that made his teeth flash startling white when he grinned, and he did that a lot. Especially when the blond bombshell he traveled with was anywhere in his sight. “His hands are bigger than my head.”
“Bigger than several heads,” Arun a
greed.
I picked my spaghetti surprise back up. Didn’t know why because I had no intention of eating it at that point. “Do you see the way he looks at the Valkyrie who brought him here? And the way she looks back? She’s completely in love with him. What do you think will happen with that? She can’t stay here, I’m sure.”
“Why are you sure? Once this is over, her job is over.”
“I hadn’t thought of it that way. But it’s hard to imagine her picking Earth when she lives in some kind of utopia.”
He reached out, snagged my pack of food and took a bite. “Yuck. Cold.” He licked my fork and winked at me. “Some people will live anywhere if it’s with the right person.”
I held my breath, watching him lick the utensil that had just been in my mouth. “What are you saying, Arun?”
“I do love my name on your lips.”
I rolled my eyes. “What did I tell you about saying stuff like tha—”
He shut me up by lurching across the small space between us and kissing me. I had no idea where the food pack went, then didn’t care as I slid my fingers into his soft curls. Could a person become addicted to another person’s kisses? Because it was starting to feel that way—like I craved his mouth on mine.
“I love my lips on your lips better,” he murmured between kisses, his hand big and warm on my neck.
I nearly snorted and managed to hold it back. Barely. Gods, he could be cheesy. But hell, I cared about the guy. I liked his corny lines, though I wouldn’t be admitting that anytime soon. Then I thought about him with the sword, standing strong and powerful against that giant, and my belly fluttered. He was such a cool mix of nice guy and tough guy, he made my head spin. These feelings for him had moved fast past the like stage sometime when I’d held him as he’d slept the day before. Sliding my fingers deeper into his hair, I cupped his head and let myself go into the kiss. In the back of my mind, I thought it might be the last time. A part of me still believed I had a date with fire.
“Damn,” he whispered as he pulled back enough to rest his forehead against mine. “We will be figuring out this geographical problem we have after all this. You get that, right?”
“What, you better not be thinking I want to be some kind of young bride because—”
Instead of a kiss, I got his hand over my mouth as he laughed. “No. Of course not. But I’m not ready to let you get away from me yet, either. Please tell me you feel the same. Your kisses sure feel like you do.”
I stared at him, then sighed. “Yeah, I do. I don’t know how we’ll deal with this.”
He smoothed his hand down my hair, curled his fingers in it. “We just will.”
He leaned down to kiss me again, and I stopped him. “Holy crap, Arun, your eyes are doing that thing again!”
“What thing?”
The seal brown that I loved was no longer just brown. His eyes had taken on a golden sheen. “They’re glowing.” I sat up straighter.
“I knew you could light me up.” He couldn’t keep a straight face with that one, cracking a grin.
I punched his shoulder. “Really? That one was bad. But seriously, today’s your birthday, right? We have to get you to some kind of magical place so you’ll get all your power. Coral and Raven both said that Taran and Vanir had to be in a place like that.”
“Hey, calm down. Gillian just turned eighteen and she wasn’t anywhere special.”
“Yeah, but she didn’t get bigger powers.”
“Kat, the girl can walk through fire.”
“True. But she could do that before. Nanna overheard Coral telling us about the wolves on the water in Florida and she said that Brigg had been on sacred ground when he turned eighteen. She thinks that’s why he turned into a human glow lamp.”
“I don’t know of any magical place around here, Kat.”
“Really?” I lifted an eyebrow. “Music on the lake, Arun.”
“Oh, you’re probably right then. And really, they’re glowing?” He actually looked nervous, which made sense.
If my eyes were glowing, I’d be tripping.
He started to say something else then, stopped when screams outside the tent caught our attention. Before we could scramble out, it was like someone tried to roll us into a ball or something. Inside the freaking tent! Our bodies crushed together, and I gasped in pain when something wrapped us like a vise—right before we went airborne.
“It has to be a giant!” Arun yelled over the screams outside the tent. “Can you breathe? Shit, Kat, you’re turning blue.” He tried to pull me free but couldn’t get around well enough. Then he managed to twist and I felt him feeling around before he jabbed something into the hand holding us. I think it was my fork, which couldn’t make much of a dent in a giant hand.
It did something because the thing howled and dropped us, but we were snatched back up fast.
This time I could breathe, so I fought to get out of the tent with Arun. Fought until something slammed into my head and everything went dark.
* * *
“I asked for Arun—not the girl.”
I recognized Branton’s voice and felt Arun tense against me. My head hurt so much, I couldn’t figure out where we were at first—only that the ground was hard beneath us...right before we went airborne again. He wrapped around me as we were snapped out of the tent. Hard. Snow cushioned our fall, but we rolled. Arun grunted when his body took the brunt of the impact when we hit a tree. I scrambled off him and patted him down to see if anything was broken. The snow stung my bare fingers.
“I’m okay,” he murmured quietly as he quickly sat up. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” Outside of the head pain. And the cold. Unfortunately, I was only wearing the tank top—I’d never had the chance to finish putting on my layers. Turning, I looked for the coat that had been in the tent with us, but my gaze landed on the guy responsible for destroying Arun’s home. “You know, Branton, you’re the worst sort of asshole.”
His striped hair wild and messy about his head, Branton walked toward us. “You got a mouth on you. Maybe I should let Vrunlin here shut it up with a fist—make your mouth match your forehead.” His gaze flicked toward the top of my head. “Nice lump. Ouch. Bet that hurt.”
That name made me turn slowly until I spotted the elf Coral swore was our father. He was just as she’d described him. Short silvery-white hair covered his head and his skin was the same shiny, hard-looking black as the other elves. Coral had called it marble. I could see where she’d get that because it had an odd surface sheen to it. He stared at me in complete fascination, his look so probing, I couldn’t hold his stare. Then I realized I didn’t want him winning any sort of stare battle and snapped my gaze back to him. I even added a fierce snarl.
His slow grin sent shivers down my spine.
Coral was right...This elf was completely captivated with us.
A group of elves stood around him and another I recognized stalked forward, his expression tight with fury, his white suit still covered with smeared bloody runes. He ran at me, his clawed hand out like before and I felt air instead of his fingers as Vrunlin smacked him away from me. The two started arguing and when they stood facing each other, their profiles made it obvious they were related. No, more than related—they were twins. The one in white, the one I’d given a rune, suddenly made this horrible ragged noise, grabbed his head and bent. He panted, then looked up through his hair to glare at me.
Guess my rune worked. I couldn’t wait to tell Coral as I sneered at him.
When a third white-haired elf came forward to put his hands on their shoulders, I sucked in a breath.
“I know—wild, isn’t it?” Branton had knelt next to me and leaned over to whisper. As if we were friends or something. “Triplets, too. It’s why Vrunlin was picked to seduce your mother into that grove. Triplet elves are rare—lik
e so rare, they’d never happened before. Your mother’s a triplet. He’s a triplet...it’s like triplets gone wild! They orchestrated the norns’ rebirth perfectly.”
Wait. My mother was a triplet? That information stunned me so much, it made me forget the cold for a moment.
“Branton, why are you doing this?” Arun asked while he kept his gaze on the elves.
“Destiny. Just like you, Golden Boy.” He reached out like he was going to pat Arun on the head and Arun grabbed his wrist. Hard, too, because Branton’s fingers started turning colors.
“You should let go,” Branton said through gritted teeth. “These guys need me.”
“How long have you known you carried Surt?” Arun tightened his hand.
Branton grimaced and tried to pry Arun’s fingers off his wrist. “Most of my life. Couldn’t really tell you, considering who you carry and all. What a mess, eh? Seriously, dude, let go or I’ll set you on fire right now.”
“You really plan to kill your friend?” I asked him. Like Arun, I kept an eye on the elves as their voices escalated in anger. The snow started up again and wind swept into the small clearing, both stinging my eyes, making me shiver and file away the new information about Dru for later.
“We all have parts to play in this, Norn.”
I frowned at him, shivered, and brushed snow off my cheeks. “But you’ll die, too. So will everyone—your mom even.”
Branton shook his head. “No, we’re going someplace else. They promised.”
“Yeah, into an early grave,” I snapped. “You’re an idiot.”
“And you’re going to die by fire. I have the spot all picked out and everything.” He snickered at me.
My hand slid over a rock next to me and I curled my partially numb fingers around it. Arun let go and before Branton could move away, I grabbed the rock and brought it around as hard as I could, slamming it into his face. He wasn’t braced for it, had no idea it was coming, and he fell back against a tree as blood poured from his nose. A cut sliced open one eyelid—blood poured from that, too. I got to my feet, the blood-covered rock in my hand. “You want to say anything else to me?”
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