Even I was surprised they’d calmed down. But they looked toward the window too often. Creeped me out. “And he normally wakes when you shake him?”
“He normally wakes when we flip on the light.” He cupped his brother’s jaw. “Come on, buddy, wake up. Hey!” He shook him. “He’s a light sleeper. This is different.”
I bit my lip, not sure how much to share here, then I thought, To hell with it. “Someone’s using magic.”
Hallur narrowed his eyes. “What do you know about magic?”
“A lot, actually.” I lifted an eyebrow. “It looks like whatever is happening in his dream feels pretty damned real to him. Have you heard about spells that trick the mind into true belief?”
“All nightmares feel very real when you’re in them,” Hallur said, voice low.
I cleared my throat. “What I mean is whatever is happening in his dream is going to feel so real that it could happen in his physical body.”
“Like The Matrix?” Ari asked.
It was hard not to roll my eyes. “We have to wake him up.” Though all that bare skin made me want to touch, I pinched instead.
Vanir’s brow furrowed. He sucked in a deep breath. Then another. Then...he held it.
Panic clawed my chest. “Vanir!”
We all started yelling. The wolves growled loudly. My ears rang from the noise. Still, he didn’t wake. I glanced from one brother to another, clenched my hands into fists. “Where’s your aunt? She’s might know something about this.”
“She had an emergency call.” Hallur’s normally brown skin was white. “We don’t have time to track her down. We gotta wake him now!”
All the yelling and shaking wasn’t going to work; I knew it on a soul-deep level. I leaned over Vanir, noticing that his lips had started to turn blue. He was suffocating. Somehow, the nightmare was taking his air. Was he drowning in this dream? Or being crushed? Why had he stopped flailing?
What if he was dreaming he was already dead?
Chapter Fourteen
I crawled on top of Vanir. His brothers shouted, trying to wake him. Ari slapped him, leaving a bright, red handprint on his cheek.
I saw red. Shoved Ari hard.
His mouth fell open before he hit the wall.
“You don’t need to hurt him.” I nearly growled the words.
I pushed the two brothers’ arms away from him, cupped his cheeks in my hands and placed my lips on his. Using my thumb, I pulled down his chin to open his mouth, tilted his head back to open his airway. I sucked in a deep breath and pushed it into his mouth but it felt like something blocked his air passage, so I blew harder. His stomach lifted with the force of my breath—I felt it against my inner thighs. I ignored the fact that the massive T-shirt he’d given me had ridden up, ignored that I straddled him in front of his entire family.
I only focused on getting air into his lungs.
“Stop yelling!” Hallur shouted. “Look.”
“He said she was smart.” That was from Ari. I didn’t look up. It was weird that I could already distinguish their voices. Ari’s carried that hint of amusement, even when he seemed upset. “It’s working. But she won’t be able to keep it up.” He cupped my right shoulder. “Here let me take over.”
I shrugged his hands off, irrationally terrified that Vanir would die if there was the smallest of breaks. But my mind was also scrambling for a better solution and I realized I didn’t know squat about the details of dream magic. I’d have to call my sister.
Ari leaned over me, his long hair pooling on the pillow beside Vanir’s head. I grabbed a handful of it, yanked his head closer. “Keep breathing for him. I have to call Coral.”
“Coral?” Hallur asked.
“My sister. She studies magic.”
“Shamanic?”
I nodded. “Kind of. Don’t worry. She’s good.” When it came to knowledge—even if she still had a lot to learn about actually using it.
I jumped from the bed, remembered the corner of a red phone I saw peaking from underneath a pile of clothes next to the nightstand. Flinging the jeans and T-shirts to the side, I dialed with shaking fingers. I glanced at the clock—1:00 a.m. I expected it to ring a while, but she didn’t answer at all. I tried the home phone just in case and she picked up on the second ring.
“What’s wrong?” She was wide awake.
“You were expecting me.” This made me pause, caused the surface of my skin to tingle in hyperawareness.
“I woke up a few minutes ago. Raven, you’re so scared, I can feel it. What’s going on?”
I watched Vanir’s brother breathe for him. Sweat had gathered at the small of my back as panic crawled under the surface of my skin. But my bare feet were freezing on the floor. “I need something to dispel nightmare magic. We’ve tried waking Vanir, shaking him, nothing is working.”
“What’s he doing?” she asked. “Thrashing or crying out? Do you know if he’s in pain?”
I shook my head even though she couldn’t see me. “I don’t know, but yeah, he was thrashing and yelling, and now he’s stopped breathing.” I heard shuffling in the background and knew she was pulling out books from the sound of hardbacks slapping the rickety table. That meant she was home. Our bookshelves were in our kitchen.
“Blue lips?” she asked after a few long seconds.
“Yeah. We’re having to breathe for him.”
The shuffling grew more frantic. I could hear Coral murmuring something about suffocation, then she shushed someone.
“Who’s there?” I asked.
“People, but listen, your best bet is iron. A knife is fine—”
“An iron knife? Where would I get an iron knife?” My heart stopped. “Wait, you want me to cut him?”
“No. Maybe. If there are trapped spirits...wait, I think just laying the knife on his chest will work.”
Ari let Hallur take over the breathing and got to the door. He could move faster without the cast.
“Stop,” I yelled at him. “Hold on a second.” Then to my sister, “You think spirits are actually trapped inside him?”
“Probably. It sounds like an old seidr trick. All divination witches call on spirits—even us, Raven.”
I tightened my fingers on the phone, glad Ari had not heard that part. The wolves stood at the side of the bed, fur dripping with melting snow. I could practically feel the terror radiating off the animals. But something was lurking in my mind, something just at the edge of my thoughts.
Both animals turned to look at me, expressions expectant. “Coral, remember that old story about the boy who suffered from nightmares and how his mother placed an iron horseshoe under his pillow?”
“A horseshoe would be great! But who has horseshoes?”
“Coral. I’m in Oklahoma.”
“Oh, yeah. Hey, you can also sprinkle peonies onto the bed—though it’s better to twist them together. Peonies would probably be hard to find in the snow....” She trailed off, then gasped. “Wait! What about a dream catcher? But you could really use a couple of wolf guardians. Which he has, right? And there’s something else.” Paper rustled as she turned pages. “Oh, man, why didn’t I think of this? Raven!”
“What!” I nearly yelled. I hated her prattling sometimes.
“No, not you, the actual bird. The wolves and the raven together. Remember the prophecy? Vargold?” Coral whispered the last word and my stomach dropped.
She was talking about the time that was supposed to come around Ragnarok. The time of the wolves, when they gathered with the ravens to feed on the dead of war. We’d only seen a few references to the time, it was so obscure. I took a deep breath. There would be no feeding here. Or dead. I’d make sure of it. “Ari, get an iron knife or horseshoe, if you have it. Then lay it across his chest.” He nodded and took off. I saw
a notebook with an attached pen peaking from under Vanir’s bed and I knelt to pull it onto my lap. “Coral, I gotta go. I know what to do.”
Geri and Freak walked to me, their nails clicking on the hardwood floor. They stuck their snouts on either side of my face, cheeks to cheeks. The wet fur smell didn’t bother me this time. Coral still jabbered but the solution was coming to me. From somewhere deep inside. As if old tradition and magic had lain dormant, waiting for me to wake the hell up. It had started at the Walmart parking lot when I’d accepted her, then again in the cab of the truck when I’d realized I had to keep him alive. I knew that Urd was helping me. And as if thinking, finally thinking, of her real name pleased her, she showed me what to do.
I dropped the phone. Wrapping an arm around each wolf, I pulled them close. “Work with me, guys,” I whispered to them. “You’re his guardians, his protective spirits, aren’t you?”
Their only answer was a ripple that ran through their bodies.
My fingers tightened on their fur. I planned to truly call my magic for the first time. My mother had explained that our gifts were whispered from the spirits of the earth. She’d never said we actually called them when we worked the runes—I’d always assumed they took us over. After all, I’d never had a choice in the matter. And she’d always believed the stopping of time was our own little addition to the mix.
But sometimes, when the runes were being carved or written, it felt more to me like they came from someplace deep inside me, than from external spirits. Like the knowledge of everything lived in the norn’s soul. Now that we’d truly melded and I’d accepted her, I wondered if that’s all she’d been waiting for. True acceptance.
After all, isn’t that what all beings, human or otherwise, really wanted?
I still didn’t know if this would work—especially under so much pressure. But I had to try. We waited for Ari to return. He staggered into the room, his arms full. I counted several knives, two horseshoes, scissors and a huge cast-iron anchor.
What the hell?
An actual smile tickled the corners of my lips. Why did they have one of those?
“You’re not putting that on his chest,” Hallur said from behind me.
Ari snarled at his brother. “I’m putting it on the foot of the bed.”
We watched as Ari laid out the iron findings around the bed. He put one of the horseshoes right on Vanir’s rib cage.
That was my cue. I clutched the wolves’ fur and held them as tight to me as I could. “I’m bringing you guys with me on purpose this time.”
And with that, I let the magic loose. That circling, rushlike wind filled my throat. Both wolves whimpered. I hoped they didn’t get sick as I relaxed every muscle in my body and just let the magic fly free. It tingled along my nerve endings and veins, stinging a little.
I opened my eyes only to feel an actual wind whipping my hair tight. The wide-open, startled stares of two of the brothers smeared past me as did the walls, the bed. Freak started trembling. I wanted to soothe him but I could only hold on.
I didn’t know where I traveled, if this was some sort of dimensional rift my sisters and I tapped into during divination or if we literally stopped the world. There were so many writings on seidr magic, but we’d never been able to find anything about the way it worked for us and, believe me, we’d looked.
When the world crashed to a halt, the wolves and I toppled over. We lay in an exhausted heap, our chests moving fast with the harsh breaths tearing in and out of our lungs. We’d never moved. The earth had done all the moving, but holding on had taken everything we had.
I rubbed my hands down their fur, stroked Geri’s crooked ear. “Thank you for not running, for trusting me. I owe you both.”
Groaning, I held the notebook in one hand and crawled on my hands and knees. The floor wasn’t quite steady, or maybe I wasn’t, so I crawled toward the bed and used one of the posts to pull to a stand on my jelly legs.
Luckily, I’d stopped time while Hallur was up taking a deep breath. Ari had finished placing the iron things around and on Vanir and had fallen to his knees. His very wide gaze was directed to where I’d been.
The wolves padded to the bed and sat, staring at me expectantly. People stopped in time didn’t breathe here, so I hoped Vanir was okay. Then I remembered that he’d come with me both times since we met. That scared me into tugging on his arm to pull him away from his hovering oldest brother. Then I scrambled over the bed toward him. I fell over once—dizziness still had a grip on my brain—and conked my head on the edge of that freaking monster anchor.
Rubbing my tender scalp, I crawled onto his chest and dropped the notebook beside him. “We have iron to cut into the dream, to ward off the bad spirits, Vanir.” My whispers sounded so loud in the utter silence of the room.
I glanced over my shoulder at the animals. Trust poured from both pairs of brown eyes. “He’s going to be okay,” I assured them. Turning back to Vanir, I framed his face with my hands, feeling quite a bit like Prince Charming as I kissed his still, cold lips. Yeah, he was beautiful but he probably wouldn’t appreciate being called Sleeping Beauty. I smiled against his lips before pushing the air from my lungs into his.
This time, it didn’t feel as if something blocked it, so I did it again. The bed suddenly shook. Freak and Geri crawled up to curl on either side of Vanir, both sets of eyes now glowed yellow and they were aimed on my face. “What am I supposed to do now?” I asked them. “What if I’m doing this all wrong?”
My fingers started trembling and the urge to write the runes hit. I wasn’t sure they’d still come, not when I stopped time myself.
As if to reassure me, Geri flopped her tail onto my leg. It wrapped slightly around my ankle. That was the closest thing to affection this wolf had shown me. I breathed for Vanir again. Technically, I should have been at his side, but the wolves had taken those spots and, well, I kind of liked it up here. I would have been blushing like crazy if he’d been awake.
And when I pulled back after two more breaths, he was.
A flush of pure happiness swept through me. Those dark eyes glittered, showing both exhaustion and a very, very obvious approval at my position on top of him. Freak barked, startling both of us. Vanir winced as he tried to lift his head to look around. I watched his gaze move over his brothers and the chaotic jumble of iron stuff around him. “Something is heavy on my chest.”
“Oh, sorry.” I started to scoot off, but his hand on my bare leg stopped me.
“I don’t want you to move.” His grin was shaky, but all male. The curl of his warming fingers over my skin made my tummy flutter. “I meant something else. I can’t lift enough to see it.”
“The horseshoe!” I pulled it off, surprised at how heavy it was, and leaned over to drop it beside the bed. It plunked hard. “I’m pretty sure it fell on Hallur’s good foot.”
Wincing, I turned back to find those dark eyes on me. “He’ll live. I like it when you stop the world,” he whispered. “Kiss me again.”
I was so happy to see the color coming back into his lips I dropped and did just that. When his hand slid a little up my leg, I sat up again. My fingers started to burn. Panic began a slow boil in my stomach. Burning fingers was not good. Not good at all. “I should get up.”
“I like you here.”
“You’re liking a lot of things right now and any second the world will start spinning and your brothers are going to be pretty confused. And—” I broke off as my hands went rigid. “The runes!” I suddenly remembered the notebook and pen. It was under Geri’s leg. I grabbed them and uncapped the pen. I barely had enough time to get the thing open before the runes came.
“‘Of dark blood born,’” Vanir murmured once I was done.
My blood ran cold. I couldn’t say anything. All I could do was think about his aunt asking about dark ones. Dark elves? What did
dark elves have to do with... It hit me. “Gods, Vanir. It goes with the last one! ‘In violence conceived, of dark blood born.’ And it’s not done. I know it.” Hot tears pricked the backs of my eyes. “I don’t know what it means, dark blood. Don’t know if this is about me and my sisters. I know nothing about my father. My mother won’t even talk about him without shutting down for a few days.”
“The giant called you dark. Maybe she knows who your father is.”
I bit my lip, then shook my head. “I don’t know. I’m not sure I want to know. You saw the fear on her face.” Staring at words that made my skin crawl, I wanted to scream. Why not give me more now? Why did it have to be so cryptic? Anger and threads of dread made a nasty mix in my belly. What did dark blood mean? I suddenly realized we were running out of time. “I need to get back to where I was when this happened.”
“I think the pain in Hallur’s foot will alert him to the changes.” Vanir smirked. “And check out their expressions. Don’t think they missed the beginning.”
“I should put the horseshoe back on you.”
“No way.” He pulled me down for a kiss, his hands sliding up my thighs again.
And with that, the spinning began. Freak whimpered and I put my hand on his back. Then I pulled both animals in with us to make them feel anchored and buried my face in Vanir’s neck. It felt like my magic had to work harder when there was more than one living creature coming through or back with me. As I felt my hair whipping up, and Vanir’s arms tighten around me, I worried about the words. My norn was telling me that my mother had been raped by someone with dark blood. The messages weren’t that cryptic this time. I thought of Mom...all those years of manic behavior. Had our conception made her crazy? I forced myself to just focus on the feel of Vanir’s body beneath me. On the way he left his hands on my bare legs.
He’d sure found a way to stay distracted.
I was holding my breath, anxious, scared...but I still wanted him to touch me. A lot.
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