by Danielle Monsch, Cate Rowan, Jennifer Lewis, Jeannie Lin, Nadia Lee, Dee Carney
“It’s a tail.”
He had showered and dressed and now wore a thick, cream colored sweater over jeans and worn slippers. And how was it that seeing him covered from neck to toe made her flash back to the glimpse she’d caught of him after his shift?
“I’m sorry, a what? A tail?”
He sat down next to her, a pile of clothes in his hands. This close, she could see the lines that spread from the corners of his eyes. He was no longer a young man, though his shaggy blond hair and bright eyes made him look youthful.
“This is where it began.” His hand touched hers as they traced the lines he had carved. “My bride was not human. She was a skogsrå.”
Mai looked at him, an eyebrow raised. “That’s some type of magical creature from Norse folklore. Like a troll, right?”
“Not quite. Trolls are large and stupid and can be vicious. No, Huldra’s people, the skogsrå, are very beautiful, but for one detail. Some have cloven hooves, some have pointed, hairy ears. She had a tail. Like a cow’s tail.” He rose again and left the clothes on the bed.
“And I was a fool.”
The door closed behind him, leaving Mai to finish reading the story in the carvings. Prayers to Odin for forgiveness, including one or two she’d seen in other inscriptions in other sources. Curses upon evil magic. The story of his travels over miles and years until he came to this place.
It was nonsense. It had to be.
Curses. Hmph.
Trolls and skogsrå. Psshh.
Shapeshifting bears. Ha.
Oh damn. It was real. Mai swung her legs off the bed and waited to see if she was going to pass out or hyperventilate or whatever was the appropriate response for a complete and sudden paradigm shift. When nothing happened, she nodded. Ok. Her brain was more flexible than she thought. That was bound to come in handy now that she’d officially fallen down the rabbit hole. Or into the bear’s den, as it were.
Speaking of dens, it was time she got up to explore her new surroundings. She really had no idea where she was. The last thing she remembered, she’d ducked around some signs designating a closed road that she knew led up into the North Cascades mountain range. For all she knew, she was in Canada by now. Not that borders mattered to the car that had followed her no matter how she tried to get away.
She shuddered as bits and pieces of the chase began to come back to her. It was done, and there was nothing she could do to change the past. Resolutely, she stood on weak, shaky legs and realized that she really, really needed a bathroom. Wrapping the blanket around her more securely, and carrying the pile of clothing, she cast a quick peek around the bedroom door to discover the lavatory. More grateful than she could express, she used the facilities, then sank into the hot bath he’d run for her, the water steaming, blissful torture that stung and soothed the small wounds left from the wreck. Clean and feeling stronger, she put on the warm outfit he’d given her. Probably not her best look, but she couldn’t be sure since there was no mirror handy. No matter, she stepped out to go look for him.
*
Tyr was disgusted with himself. He didn’t have so many friends that he could afford to drive even one away with the truth of his poor judgment and his curse.
He was in the kitchen, though not one she’d recognize with her modern ideas. It was in a separate part of the cave, away from the living area, and had several natural vents that allowed smoke to travel up and diffuse before drifting out, invisible to anyone who might watch. He had a sink with a pump to a deep well he’d found – the same well that supplied water for bathing – a rough wooden table, and a roaring fire with the tools he needed to make almost everything he liked. He was just putting the kettle on to boil for tea when he heard her soft footsteps. He heard every move she’d made, his senses sharper than usual, even with his animal nature. He’d heard the water splashing and now her hair was wet, combed and braided down her back. Her skin was scrubbed clean so her cheeks shone with delicate color. The scent of his soap on her reached over the breakfast smells and made him hungry for something other than food. He told himself he wasn’t going to look, but he wasn’t strong enough to stop his head from turning.
The sleeves of his blue flannel shirt were too long on her and she’d rolled them past her wrists. The tail reached halfway to her knees and she’d left it unbuttoned over a faded gray thermal that clung to her curves in intriguing ways. The soft gray sweatpants were also rolled up a bit at the ankle, but she was tall enough they didn’t swamp her.
She looked ridiculous.
She looked perfect.
Mai sniffed and walked up to him, her body swaying elegantly despite the ill-fitting clothes.
Every step she took that brought her closer frayed his control and it made him angry. Without control, he could lose his already tenuous grip on humanity, abandon himself to the animal frenzy, and bathe the world in blood. But as he breathed her in, her sweetness blended with the scents of himself and his home, his wrath cooled. He still wanted her, but the rage that simmered inside him – helpless fury at the curse as well as the sheer bad-temperedness of the bear – lessened.
By the time she reached him, he was calm. He knew what she was to him. Mitt hjerte. My heart. She peered around his shoulder and sniffed again, watching as he flipped another thin sheet on the griddle.
“Is that what I think it is? How do you get them so thin?”
“They’re lefse, a flatbread from my country and made with potatoes. It takes practice to get them right. There’s tea in the cupboard,” he said, nodding over his shoulder.
“It smells wonderful.” The kettle whistled and they worked together to get a meal on the table, using provisions from his most recent trip to town before the pass closed. On an average day, Tyr could put away a lot of lefse, but Mai did her best, smearing the delicate, crepe-like pancakes with butter and sugar or lingonberry jam. As they ate, they sat in companionable silence, the only conversation about how they took tea. Tyr’s was black and strong, Mai’s was light and sweet.
Pushing away their plates, he and Mai both leaned back. He watched her over the rim of his mug, her face a study in thought through the faint steam. Light streamed in from the roof vents and she looked ethereal, almost unreal. Her next words brought him crashing back.
“Where are we?”
“Not too far from where you crashed, near the border.”
“Does anyone know you’re up here?”
“Not a soul. This place is set far back into the woods, built into a natural cut in the mountain that I’ve worked on over time. I have simple wards placed that keep the few strangers who wander past from seeing what’s here unless I want them to. We’re safe, Mai.”
“Safe. What does that even mean? Trolls. Bears. Wards. This is magic you’re talking about, Tyr. I don’t know anything about magic. I don’t even believe in magic.” Her voice rose with every word.
“That doesn’t change the fact that it exists. And speaking of trolls, why were they after you?”
She put her mug down. “I have no idea. I was on my way to deliver an artifact to the museum from our collection before I started my sabbatical. I didn’t even realize they were following me until I turned off the interstate to grab some coffee. When I went to get back on the road, I got turned around somehow. I’d follow signs and still end up lost. I snuck through a barrier onto a closed road, thinking they wouldn’t be able to follow me and I could just retrace my steps when they went past me. It didn’t work.”
“Apparently not. I still don’t understand why they were after you. Trolls don’t just take whims. They hunt their territory, unless they’re…” Pointed. Aimed. Like weapons. He didn’t want to say the words, but Mai was waiting and he couldn’t lie to her.
“That pause was not reassuring, Tyr.”
“I’m sorry.” He leaned forward and carefully put his hand over hers on the table. “I believe they were instructed to kill you.”
*
He was holding her hand. She tried to pull it
back because all she wanted to do was curl up in a ball and try that frozen bunny trick again, but he wouldn’t let her. It was good because while her head spun, she had an anchor point. The warmth, the weight, the simple sensation of being connected to someone alive made her come back to herself with clarity.
“Ok, I’m not going to say anything patently stupid like, ‘That’s impossible,’ because clearly this is all possible.”
He nodded, blue eyes serious on hers. “Yes, all possible.”
“Stop humoring me, Tyr. I’ll be all right. I’ve got this.” It was sweet that he was working so hard to hold her together, but it was time to pull on the grown-up undies and stop depending on his sheltering grip. This time when she pulled away, he relented. For a half-second, she missed his touch. The rest of the second fled when she realized that he hadn’t truly let go. Instead, he shifted to lift her hand, pressing his lips to the sensitive backs of her fingers. The soft, sensuous touch of his mouth on her skin pulled a shuddering sigh from her as his gaze went from icy to molten in a blink.
“I can see you’ve got this, as you say. I’m very proud of you, Mai Westenra. I think not many people would be doing as well.”
She could feel red stain her cheeks as she blushed at his praise. Strange how this man, this very strange man, pulled at her emotions like no one had before. She was practical, level-headed, pragmatic. All words that made her sound very dull, but she didn’t think she was. She had friends, she dated. But no one had ever made her blush.
“Thank you,” she said, trying to play it cool and failing miserably. “But I still don’t know why I’m their target. I don’t have anything of value…” Her voice died away as she realized what she had been carrying. “Oh god, Tyr. I take it back. I told you I was transporting an artifact. A small stone. We would have hired a courier service, but I was planning on driving out that direction anyway. I have a runestone that the archaeology department says is thousands of years old.”
She jumped up from the table. “Didn’t you say you retrieved my bags from the car? Where are they?”
Tyr led the way through a maze of cavern rooms, walled in beautiful carved wood or the solid interior of the mountain, but she passed over the details as she followed him to an entryway. Her overnight bag was soaked, but laptop case looked dry.
Rushing over, she dropped to her knees to scrabble through one of the outer pockets of the damp leather satchel until her fingers closed on the small, cold stone with a carving, as sharp as if newly made, of a sideways “v” etched deep into its surface.
“This is a runestone that’s supposed to part of a magical set of stones that were given to Odin as he hung on Yggdrasil for nine days and nights, learning the wisdom of the world.”
“Yes, at the Well of Mimir, where he sacrificed his eye for knowledge.”
“You know your Norse mythology,” she said with a bright smile, inordinately pleased that he knew the same kinds of nerdy things she did. Most people’s eyes glazed over the moment she told them what she did.
“I am Norse mythology,” he reminded her and she blinked. Oh yeah. Bear shifter. Magic. Trolls.
“Nonetheless, there’s no possible way it can be from that set. Even if the myth is real, it’s millennia old. The likelihood of any stones from that set surviving this long and still being recognizable is miniscule. Microscopic. Statistically speaking, it’s impossible.”
She clutched the little rock, covering it with her fingers as she held it close. “Of course, sometimes I’ve believed in six impossible things before breakfast.”
As she spoke, the stone vibrated in her hand, a sharp tingle that zapped her fingers open, exposing the symbol to Tyr.
*
Kenaz. The symbol of the torch. Transforming fire. Harnessed power.
Tyr hadn’t seen the stone in centuries. Not since the day his bride revealed her true self and used the runespell to curse him into this endless half-human existence.
“Don’t touch it!” He batted the thing away from her and it bounced into the shadows under a table.
“Hey!” With a pout, she reached after her prize. She dropped it into the pocket of her shirt just before he grabbed her hands and held them to stop her.
“Leave it be, Mai. It’s dangerous. More dangerous than you can imagine.”
“It’s a rock, Tyr.”
She still didn’t understand.
“It’s not just a rock. How can you still not believe in its magic? How can you not see the danger?” He squeezed her hands and she hissed. Horrified that he might have injured her, he let her slide out of his grip. “Oh gods, I’m so sorry. Did I hurt you?”
“Not you. I must have zapped myself on something and got a shock.” She opened her hand to blow on it, and he saw the redness. The symbol. The mark of change.
“Oh no. No, no, no.” Panicked, he grabbed her wrist and half-dragged, half-carried her back to the kitchen to shove her hand under the spout handle, holding her there as he pumped madly, splashing freezing water over her hand, scrubbing at it with a cloth, doing his best to wash it away.
It didn’t work. Stark fear, the kind he hadn’t felt since the moment of his first transformation, stabbed at his heart with icy intensity. This time it wasn’t fear for himself that turned his guts to water, it was for her. For Mai, who had no idea what she’d unleashed the moment Kenaz burned into her flesh.
His skogsrå bride was coming.
Mai stood before him, her blue eyes shimmering under a veil of tears. “Tyr, you’re frightening me.”
He still held her hand, her poor hand, under a stream of water so cold it made even his fingers numb. Abruptly, he snatched it back, holding it gently as he dried her with a soft towel. He brought her pale, cold fingers to his lips, trying to kiss warmth back into them. She gasped, but didn’t pull away. She didn’t pull away when he cupped her face in his palm, his fingers tunneling into her hair, loosening the braid. She made no sound as he tilted her face up to his and bent to let his lips brush hers.
Sweet. So sweet. Sweeter than the sugar he could still taste at the corner of her mouth from the lefse. Sweeter than the honey he’d found and harvested at summer’s end. Sweeter than the last kiss he’d stolen from a maid in his father’s keep all those centuries ago, before he met Huldra. Before he was cursed.
But this kiss was a blessing, a benediction from the gods that he might yet live a whole life.
Mai’s mouth softened under his and he pushed for more, needing the heat of her to melt the ice around his cold, animal heart. She pushed in, responsive and eager, and he licked across her lips, diving in when she opened for him. A quiet moan rattled the air and he wasn’t sure if it came from her throat or his, but it didn’t matter. He pressed her cold hand to his chest, and she slid it around his neck, pulling herself closer until her small body was aligned with his from top to bottom. His arms banded around her, one hand between her shoulder blades to luxuriate in the feeling of her generous breasts pressed against him, and the other exploring the soft curves of her hip and bottom, squeezing and stroking. Her mouth was like honeyed wine, intoxicating, driving him to drink deeper. Another groan tore the air between them, and they each drew back to breathe though he wasn’t letting her go and she didn’t untwine her hands from around his shoulders.
Tyr dropped his forehead to hers and relaxed his arms, pulling back far enough to let air flow between them and soften their rough breath.
“Mai.” He liked the way her name fell from his lips, a reminder of hope and light even in the dark of winter.
“Yes, Tyr?” He really liked the way she said his name, especially now, throaty in the aftermath of passion. Unfortunately, with each uneven heartbeat, he remembered the reality of their situation. Huldra was coming for them.
Chapter Four
‡
Mai was grateful for the full, fresh mug of tea in her hands. It weighed enough that the fine tremor running continuously through her nerves was barely noticeable. Never before had a kiss affected
her so much that she was still humming minutes later. Her brain kept throwing up warning signs about moving so quickly, about letting her heart lead her onto a path full of magic and danger, but aside from knowing that his history was impacting her present, she serenely told her brain to settle down and enjoy the ride.
Still, she did need to know more about what was coming. “Will you tell me your story? I know I saw the carvings, but I’d like to hear it from you.”
He sighed and stared into the steam of his tea for so long she thought he was ignoring her until he put down his mug and started to speak. But when he finally began, he didn’t use the modern cadence she’d heard before in his slight, sexy accent. This was a different style of speaking, as if he practiced the formal art of storytelling that he had learned long ago.
“My name is Tyr Halvarsson and I was a prince of the country you now call Norway. My father was jarl of a large region. We were prosperous and happy. I was the eldest son of eight children, my parents loved each other and they loved us. I was a young man, eager to experience the world when one day I went hunting in the forest. It was there I met a woman of such wondrous beauty that I was smitten immediately. She was lovelier than the sun and I was blinded. I brought her out of the woods and into my father’s home and we were betrothed, despite my family’s sorrow at our haste.
“At the wedding feast, my parents became ill and within a week, they were dead. I became jarl in his stead, and my new bride would rule with me. We returned to our chamber after the installment and it was then the glamour fell. In all the nights we’d been together, I had never seen her wholly unclothed because she always kept her girdle about her waist. She was still lovely, but for the cow’s tail she had kept hidden all this time. I might have yet tried to love her, tail and all, but that with the exposure of her body, came the exposure of a soul so black and foul the devil himself would recoil at the stench.