“I don’t know. James’s been missing, along with Calder and a few others from various packs. The Council suspects they have something to do with the unsanctioned bitings, but that’s all they know.”
“You’d better not be lying to me,” Ty warned. Menace radiated off him. How he could pull off the look with nothing more than a scrap of cloth covering his genitals, I had no idea, but I was impressed. And turned on.
“I’m not. I’ll tell the Council. They’ll get guards in place right away. You have my word. Raul doesn’t want anything to happen to her any more than you do.”
Growling low, Ty took a step toward him. “They can keep others away, but they do not step a foot on my land. If they do, as Odin and Frigg are my witness, I will invoke landsvӕði. You tell them that.”
Hands held up, Leo started to back away awkwardly. “I will, I swear.”
With that, he turned and limped away. My muscles tensed again with the desire to give chase, but I resisted easily enough. He wasn’t the problem right now. The problem was that Ty was keeping things from me and I’d had it with secrets, especially from someone I had begun to trust and thought I might actually be interested in. If he didn’t come clean right now, my ass was getting in my Jeep and I was going to drive to Hemlock Hollow, verða be damned.
Chapter Seventeen
Sonya
The sweet scents of maple sausage and pancakes wrapped around me as I stepped into the house. For someone so fit, Ty had a ridiculous craving for pancakes. During the week I had been here he had already fixed them for breakfast three times. But he had told me a varúlfur’s metabolism was so fast it burned up carbs practically like they were air. The memory, along with the scents, almost banished my anger until I shut them down. This was one time I wanted to be mad. I needed it. It would be my armor, an armor I regretted ever shedding. I didn’t try to fight it when my fangs extended.
After he had dressed, we’d gotten my wounds cleaned and bandaged with barely more than a few sentences spoken between us. Now I was ready for answers.
I strode up to the bar and slammed my hands down onto the marble top so hard I heard the wood supporting it groan. The sound made me realize I was overreacting—a lot—but my anger had pulled hard on that little rein I had given it and stretched it dangerously thin. “You’re keeping secrets from me, something you promised never to do, if you remember,” I snapped.
His brow wrinkled up into deep furrows. “What are you talking about?”
I knew he didn’t mean the promise.
“Let’s start with what does invoking landsvӕði mean?” We hadn’t covered anything like it in our language lessons and I had a prickly feeling about it.
He answered without turning around. “It means I have deemed all other varúlfur hostile and will kill them if they come on my property.” The chill in his tone told me he’d been pushed far enough to follow through on that.
Part of me thought that was a bit extreme, but another part of me was sick of being threatened. I decided to move on to more pressing matters. “Okay. Then how about you being banished from your pack, having belonged to the AVV.”
The spatula in his hand clattered to the countertop. His face went smooth as glass, the brittle kind that threatened to explode into millions of shards that would cut you to ribbons. A chill washed over me, taking some of my anger with it.
“Leo told you that?” he asked in a voice as chilly as I imagined the winds of Iceland would be.
The question threw me for a loop. After what had just happened, that’s what he was concerned with? “Yes.”
Lips curling back from his fangs, he stalked around the bar in a manner that made the hair on my arms stand up. Disturbing as the sight of him was, it was a bit more disturbing how much I was getting used to seeing a man with four fangs. Part of me thought I should be afraid of the tall mountain of muscle descending on me, but I was too pissed. Craning my neck back to keep eye contact, I stood my ground.
A slight hum began beneath my skin, but it didn’t burn, so I didn’t worry overly much. Ty spun back around to face me, his fists clenched so tight the muscles of his arms stood out in hard cords. Fangs bared at me, he stared through me with icy eyes. The look finally broke me down. In the wake of reason, my anger faded. I wanted it back, wanted to wrap myself in the comfortable yet cold feel of its armor. But I couldn’t, thanks to his teachings. I knew the reason for it and that negated it. I felt betrayed.
“You promised not to keep secrets from me,” I all but whispered.
The vulnerability in my voice made me cringe. The cold look in Ty’s eyes melted and his fangs retracted. Blond hair fell down across his brow as he shook his head.
“My past is irrelevant; it has nothing to do with your training. And it would only be a secret if you had asked and I did not tell you.” Like a switch being flicked, the fury was gone from his voice. And just as quickly, it fled me as well.
His gaze flitted back to the door, but he didn’t move toward it. Though I knew it could stir the wolf in him back awake, I touched his arm. His words moved me in such a way that I had to risk it.
“It isn’t irrelevant to me. You are the first person I’ve started to trust in a long time. Your past is a part of you, and you are relevant to me,” I told him. Damn, that had sounded less vulnerable in my head.
I pulled my hand away, but he captured it in his own. The warmth, the rough calluses, they distracted me in the most delicious way. “It is not a good story. You might change your mind about trusting me.”
Hardening my heart against the charms of his touch, I looked up into his eyes. “I will definitely change my mind about trusting you if you don’t tell me, because I’m asking now.” It was a bit low, but I had to say it. I had to know who I was putting my trust in.
He let go of me and ran his hand through his hair. With a sigh, he sat down on the barstool closest to me. Eyes fixing somewhere on the wall behind me, he began to talk in a carefully guarded tone.
“For eight years I was a verndari for the alpha of the Draupnir pack.”
As he paused to gather himself, I took a guess at the word. “Guardian?”
One corner of his mouth almost turned up. “Yes. They are to the alpha what knights are to a king. While I was a verndari, I also belonged to the AVV. Many of my pack did. My uncle was the Draupnir male alpha, and while he was a good one, he was old and clung to the old ways. There were those that opposed him and his mate because of it.” He stopped and swallowed hard.
A slight shine to his eyes suggested the depth of his pain, but the stoic expression in them assured me that tears wouldn’t fall. Enthralled though I was by the story, guilt tugged at me for causing him such pain. As he fell silent for a moment, I got two beers from the fridge and removed the food from the stovetop. With the same ease he had shown a week ago, I popped off the tops of the non-pop-top beers, and set one before him. Already my strength had increased that much.
Sure, it was early for beer, but I had a feeling we were going to need them. Giving me a grateful look, he lifted it to his lips, tipped it back, and emptied half of it. I sipped at mine as I sat on the stool beside him, wishing the drink were something stronger.
“I should have seen it coming; it was my job as a verndari to see it coming. But I did not. One of his rivals, his own brother Bain, moved his pawns into place and challenged him.”
“Pawns?” I asked.
Though his eyes met mine, I knew they didn’t see me. “Those who would support Bain’s challenge. My girlfriend at the time, Morene, was one of them. I never saw that coming. You think you know a person…”
The image of the uptight woman from the park flashed across my memory like a cold breeze. I wanted to bring down all kinds of hurt on that woman now. With a great effort, I pushed that desire aside. As I touched his hand, his eyes finally focused on me, but only long enough to give a sort of half shrug. After downing another long drink of his beer, he went on.
“Bain did not just defeat him. H
e used my uncle’s own beliefs against him, challenging him by the ancient Viking rule, the one that allowed a fight to the death.”
The way his fingers began to turn white around his beer bottle started to worry me. Gently, I extricated it from his grip before he could break it and end up like I had a week ago.
“He killed him? His own brother?” I asked.
Throat working to swallow something lodged in it, Ty nodded.
“Why would he do that?”
Head sinking down into one of his hands, Ty made a sort of groaning noise that tugged at me. “Because it is the only way to keep an alpha’s verndari from challenging the challenger. The new laws allow an alpha’s verndari to stand in for their alpha, or fight the challenger even if he defeats their alpha. Either way, if they are able to defeat the challenger, the alpha maintains his standing. The old laws determine the victor final, with no further challenges allowed by the defeated one’s verndari unless they want to take over as alpha.”
“I knew there was something about that bitch I didn’t like,” I said more to myself.
He remained silent for so long that I had to prompt him, but this time I was gentle. “What happened after that?”
“The old alpha’s verndari were given the choice of submitting to the new alpha, or being banished from the pack. Since I was not allowed to kill the bastard without taking over, I chose banishment. And the banished cannot belong to even an umbrella pack, so I am no longer an AVV member, either,” he said in a smooth, emotionless tone.
But I could feel his emotions boiling below the surface, like a kettle about to scream. It hit me with a sudden clarity that he had felt my emotions in much the same way when I had stormed into the room. That was how he had known I was behind him, and pissed, before he even turned around. Another varúlfur perk, no doubt.
“You don’t want to be alpha?”
Clouds of anger moved across his blue eyes. “No. I have no interest in leading and playing politics. Politics are a noose that makes a wolf weak.”
“How can you stand going back to that town?” I asked.
Pain shone in his eyes when they met mine. “My parents live there when they are not in Iceland. I still have friends there. The Council sees me as an asset they cannot part with, so they made me a kennari to keep me connected. Since I was never defeated in battle, according to the Viking way, I have not lost face, so it was allowed.”
“Why would you do anything for those people?”
Sighing, he picked his beer back up. “Because I still care about what happens to our kind. And something more than one alpha being challenged is going on there. I can feel it. I just do not know what it is yet. But now I have a feeling it has something to do with you.”
The thoughts that stirred made me take a long drink of my beer before answering. “So I’m likely walking into a viper’s nest in two weeks. You think Raul didn’t just bite me in to keep from marrying.”
Eyes narrowing, he looked at me hard, not with anger, but with a look that suggested deep thought. “Exactly. Raul is not the type to think much beyond his own desires. But that does not mean he is not a pawn for someone else.”
Head already buzzing from lack of food, I downed the rest of my beer. “In that case, we’d best eat and get to training,” I said.
A shadow of a smile worked its way back onto his face, giving him a wistfully handsome look that made something deep in me ache. The smile infected me, turning my own lips upward. I quickly found the bottle of beer in my hand interesting. Picking up his empty bottle, Ty rose and walked back around to the stove. He put the pan back on the burner and picked up the spatula.
With his back still to me, he said, “You are relevant to me too, you know.”
It took several hard swallows before I could answer. “Thank you.”
Gaze glued to his strong back as he flipped pancakes and bacon, I began to question the wisdom of where this training was leading me. Better control of my anger was most certainly developing. Desire was something altogether different, though. Already it had built coals too hot to touch. And touch them I would have to if I was ever going to master my control of it. With Ty becoming more interesting by the day, I wasn’t sure how I was going to fare at that lesson.
Chapter Eighteen
Sonya
I’d never thought of putting Worcestershire sauce on steak, but it smelled so good I could hardly wait to find out how it would taste. But that could’ve been because I was absolutely starving. Trying to learn to fight—a losing battle, by the way—learning a new language, and channeling lightning the other day had taken a lot out of me. My head still reeled over the channeling lightning thing. None of the books Ty had pored over told us anything about it. But I wasn’t worried about it like he was. For one, I loved storms, always had. I didn’t possess the fear for them most people did. That fear was self-preservation, I knew, and it was probably stupid to be without it. But it was what it was.
Channeling lightning had felt amazing, almost as good as sex, chocolate, and the buzz you get after a really good workout all rolled into one. Anything that felt that good couldn’t be all bad. At least that’s what I was going with. Hell, this werewolf thing needed a perk or two, so I was taking it where I could get it. Amazing as it was, a huge part of me was disappointed that it had interrupted the kiss Ty and I had almost shared. Clearly he felt something for me. I still didn’t know if the verða was heightening my feelings for him or not, but I was starting to think it might not matter. He was a good man, the kind a girl could have a future with. Maybe it was time I actually went after a guy like that. And maybe, just maybe, it would work. First to make it through the verða alive.
Perched on a tall stool next to the bar, I kept a watchful eye on Ty as he cooked. Not that I had to worry. By all indications it seemed he would undercook the meat rather than overcook it. The sweet, buttery scents of both corn and potatoes roasting within tin foil on the top shelf drifted to me. Spatula in hand, Ty leaned over the grill, blond brows scrunched together in concentration. In a pair of khaki cargo shorts and a faded tan short-sleeved shirt, he looked a bit like a Viking slumming with mortals on the weekend. Sipping at my iced tea, I tried to tune out the voice in my head that told me to reach over and touch him. It was getting harder and harder. But that was in part due to the fact that I was losing my will to fight it.
Each day that passed made me more comfortable with the idea of becoming a varúlfur. That had to be the key to staving off the madness, didn’t it? Watching Ty made me feel a bit out of control, and I wasn’t sure that was a good thing. It wasn’t that I was worried about him being outcast or any of that crap. That didn’t matter to me. But how could I focus enough to stay sane while I couldn’t stop thinking about him?
Since I had dressed in a low-cut red silk tank top that clung to my breasts like a second skin to pay him back for his display at the lake, I had to be careful. Beneath it I wore a skimpy lace bra with no concealing padding. If my body reacted to him, he would know it with one glance. Apparently, my subconscious had already decided on where I wanted this to go when I chose what to wear. Any remaining resistance I might have had melted the moment I laid eyes on a hot guy cooking for me.
“So why did the three packs leave Iceland for Montana?” I asked, needing a distraction to keep me from jumping him right there in the kitchen. If we were going to do this, I had to do it slow and right.
He set the spatula down and picked up his glass of pop. “What makes anyone leave their homeland? Religious oppression.”
“Really? Not angry mobs with torches?” I grinned, though I was only half kidding.
Such ignorance wouldn’t surprise me. Ty gave a little, humorless laugh.
“Nope, though that often goes hand in hand with religious oppression.”
He winked at me, making me want to climb over that barbeque and sample some hot meat. Oh, man, I really was losing it. Fear flashed through me. How did they kill varúlfur who went mad? Hanging, burning, drownin
g? They couldn’t exactly electrocute me. Yep, that line of thought helped cool my desire. But too late.
Eyes sparkling from probably smelling my arousal—damn varúlfur senses—he went on. “Christianity came to Iceland around 1300 and we were seen as heathens, pagans who were an embarrassment to the rulers who once relied on us to fight their battles,” he said.
“That’s sad. Hmm, the packs have been here that long?”
“Not quite. They held out for about three hundred years before finally leaving in the 1600s.”
“Why Montana?”
Soaking in the scents of pine, hemlock, grass, and water, I thought maybe I knew.
Wood ground against stone pavers as Ty pulled out a stool and sat across the bar from me. “You can feel it. Our kind need the forest. It is good for our souls. But really, it is the isolation we have to have.”
I sighed. “People destroy what they don’t understand.”
“Yes, especially if it is more powerful than them.”
Even if they kept to the forests, I didn’t see how varúlfur had stayed hidden for so long. “Are there many more of our kind in other parts of the world?”
His eyes softened. The hint of a smile hid in the tug of his lips. The look was part joy, part relief, and sexy in a vulnerable way that made parts of me tighten. Whatever I had said to please him, I wanted to say it again.
“We are all over, though there are fewer of us now than there has ever been. Like I said, we need forests.”
For the first time since we’d come back outside, my eyes moved from Ty to the nearby forest. “That’s so sad.”
Silence fell heavy between us, broken only by the sizzle of fat hitting hot coals. I began to feel bad for putting a damper on such a nice night. I didn’t know if what I had to say next would make it better or worse, but it had to be said. “Look, Ty, about what happened at the lake…” My voice trailed off as he went rigid.
Bitten & Beholden (Children of Fenrir Book 2) Page 18