Fade Page 28

  “Did you find her, Buka?” I dropped to my knees in front of her.

  She howled again.

  “Is she alive?” I demanded, my heart galloping in my chest.

  Fuki yapped, dancing around in a childlike display of excitement.

  “Oh, thank God.” I sighed.

  Professor Edward’s sigh echoed.

  “Can you take us to her?” I put my hands to either side of Buka’s muzzle, staring at her intently.

  She made that oddly human, oddly formal nodding gesture between my hands.

  I climbed to my feet in an instant, ready to follow.

  “It would be faster if I went,” Naomi spoke, laying a restraining hand on my arm. “I can keep up with her.”

  “Not alone,” her husband said. “Whoever took her could still be there.”

  “Is she alone?” I asked Buka.

  She whined.

  “She’s alone,” I told Naomi, “but maybe not for long.” I made the only smart decision. “You go, and have the other shifters meet you there.” I hated making that decision, hated damning myself to stay behind, but I knew I had to do it.

  The shifters would be faster than me. Even if they didn’t move like Dace did, if they didn’t have his caliber of speed, they would be faster than me. And their perfect vision would see what my eyes could not. I would be a hindrance, not a help.

  Naomi nodded.

  Fuki danced in place, impatient to be off.

  “Take your cell phone,” the Professor reminded her. “Call when you find her so we can let the others know.”

  She placed her hand upon his cheek in a silent farewell.

  “Go, Buka,” I said as Naomi stepped away from her husband.

  Fuki yapped, and like a flash, they raced toward the trees. Even in her slacks and pumps, Naomi easily kept pace. I wanted to run with them, to race to Mandy. I balled my hands at my sides.

  I watched until I couldn’t see them anymore, and then turned back to the house.

  “Does being left behind bother you?” I asked Professor Edwards as we trooped inside to take up another vigil.

  “Sometimes,” he said, holding the door open for me. “I would love to run with her and experience what she experiences.”

  I mulled that over for a while, brewing a pot of coffee.

  “Is loving a shifter hard for you?” I glanced over my shoulder at him.

  He shook his head, a soft smile on his lips. “Loving her is the easiest thing I’ve ever done. She’s made me incredibly happy for thirty years.”

  I nodded, wanting nothing more than to be in his shoes in thirty years, telling the younger generation how easy it was to love Dace and his wolf, and how much they loved me in return. I wanted it more than anything.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Professor Edwards and I spent the next half hour in the kitchen, as silent and expectant as before, but with less awkwardness this time. Professor Edwards didn’t shoot me furtive glances. He huddled over his coffee cup, lost in his own thoughts.

  His adoration for his wife was clear. So was his worry. I could relate.

  Dad and Gage still hadn’t called, but I tried not to panic. Dace would be fine. I considered trying to get back into the wolf’s mind just to reassure myself, then decided for the hundredth time not to do it.

  Patience was highly overrated.

  I rose from the table to refill my coffee cup instead.

  I stirred sugar into my cup, watching the way the liquid spun in the glass.

  A clatter sounded behind me. Professor Edwards grunted, the sound pained.

  Something tingled as though I’d grown spider senses.

  I turned in Professor Edwards’ direction, not sure what I felt.

  I watched, surprised and vaguely horrified as he toppled from his chair, his mouth a little o of surprise. His eyes were glossed over.

  My mind lurched in one of those sickening spins. Time seemed to slow, leap forward and then slow again, scrambling to make sense of the scene.

  Ronan stepped from the shadows of the living room doorway.

  I yelped, hot coffee splashing across my hand. I hissed at the burn and flung off steaming droplets.

  “Arionna.” Ronan’s cold voice greeted me even though his empty eyes were on Professor Edwards.

  “What did you do to him?” I demanded as he stepped around the Professor.

  “He’s sleeping,” Ronan said. “He’ll be fine.”

  I glared at him, edging away from the coffee pot and inching toward the back door, still calm, but preparing.

  “I wouldn’t do that.” He scowled at me.

  I stopped inching forward. “What do you want?”

  “We need to talk.” He took a step toward me. “Did the pack find Mandy?”

  “You took her.” I felt calm, unruffled. Weird.

  “I had to.” He took another step toward me. Chills raced down my spine at the simple, matter of fact way he said it, as if he viewed his actions as the most reasonable thing in the world.

  “Why?”

  “Taking her was the only way to ensure the pack wasn’t blamed for Dani’s murder, and I needed to get you alone. Did you kill the wolf in the woods?”

  “Did I—?” I blinked, trying to grasp what he asked me. “Of course not! You did.” I glared at him, anger fighting to break through the stillness. The calm wavered, but held.

  He shook his head, his greasy locks swinging across his face. “I did not.”

  The way he said it left no room for doubt. Ronan had not killed Chiran.

  “And Dani? Did you kill her?”

  Something flickered in his eyes, the first real human emotion I’d seen from him since he’d glared so balefully at Dace at the rave. The emotion was hard, twisted, and grief-stricken.

  “You loved her,” I whispered, shocked. Ronan had been in love with Dani. “What are you?”

  “You mean you don’t know?” His eyes were hard and cruel, as if what he felt for Dani never reflected there. “I would have thought you had guessed by now.”

  “Guessed what?”

  “You saw it,” he said by way of answer. “I know you did.”

  “Saw what?” I frowned. Was he insane? He seemed insane. I glanced toward the fridge and the set of knives kept in their little block beside it. My eyes flashed back to his.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” he said. “I can have it away from you before your hand even closes on it.” He rolled his eyes toward the block of knives, then back to me.

  I made an instant decision and dove.

  My hand closed over the hilt of one of Dad’s knives.

  Ronan was there in a flash, his hand closing over mine and squeezing.

  My fingers went limp, sliding away from the hilt as pain lanced up my arm. I glared at him, refusing to cry out.

  He met my gaze and reached forward, sliding the block of knives off the cabinet into his free hand. “I told you,” he said, letting my hand go.

  I cradled it to my chest, grimacing. It hurt. I flexed it. Everything moved normally.

  “Bastard,” I hissed at him anyway.

  He looked at me, unfazed. “We need to talk.”

  “Then talk already!” I screamed, fury breaking through the calm, splintering it into a thousand pieces. My heart hammered in my chest. Angry moisture gathered in my eyes. My hand throbbed worse than the rest of me combined. I prayed Dace’s wolf didn’t decide to pop into my mind right then. As furious as I felt, the emotional overload would have been too much.

  “I warned you that would happen.” Ronan leaned back against the counter, unapologetic. “How’s your boyfriend?”

  “You son of a bitch!” Fury flashed to rage. I slapped him across the face with my good hand as hard as I could.

  He didn’t even flinch.

  I raised my hand to slap him again and swung as hard as I could.

  But he took a short step backward. My hand whistled through the air where he had been. I glared at him, furious and panting, but did
n’t try to slap him a third time. I wanted to though. Oh god, I wanted to tear out his throat for what he’d done to Dace. “What did you do to him?”

  “I was almost too late, but I saved him,” he said. “He didn’t even know what hit him. They were waiting for him at home. He was thinking of you. Didn’t even see them. They took turns playing with him.” He turned those cruel eyes on me again, curious. “You got my note?”

  Pain ripped through my heart at the image he conjured in my mind. I couldn’t doubt him though. He hadn’t hurt Dace.

  “Who did it?” I wanted to know. Desperately.

  “You know,” Ronan said, inclining his head. “You saw.”

  I wanted to scream. What had I seen? What did I know? And then I realized what he meant.

  “Sköll and Hati,” I whispered, the names causing my wolf to twist in anger in its resting place. I might not have been whole, might not have been able to shift, but my wolf was in there, and it remembered what I had forgotten.

  “It’s started,” Ronan said. “They know who they were sent for now.”

  “The sisters.” I wasn’t sure if I spoke to him or to me. It didn’t matter one way or another because part of me knew the truth all along. Why else had the wolves been drawn to this area? Why had Dace? If not because what they were meant to help protect drew them here, then why? There wasn’t a reason, and I’d known that from the beginning.

  “Yes,” Ronan agreed. “The three faces of the moon, and the sun. They’re coming for you and Dace, too.”

  “What are you?” I demanded, battling that horror down. I failed. Sköll and Hati were here, no maybes about it. Even though I’d known it already, having the truth confirmed made my blood run cold. I’d wanted to be wrong, but we weren’t. I’d known that for days, too.

  Another dream bubbled up as Ronan stared at me. He didn’t invade my mind, but the misty figure Dace and I stood beside millennia ago tumbled to the surface of my mind. He was no more substantial than he had been in my dreams, but I focused on him, awed.

  “Odin gave his eye for knowledge and his companions for time,” Ronan said. “The first two shifters created now guard all of creation.” His eyes met mine. “Geri and Freki stand against Sköll and Hati.”

  Given everything I’d learned about who Dace and I were, that should have been obvious to me. I’d almost considered it when Dace and Gage were arguing about Sköll and Hati being a different species. Something flickered in my mind, but I hadn’t caught the thought. I should have though. Everything I’d remembered and everything I’d seen in my dreams pointed toward the truth like a giant arrow in the sky.

  We were Geri and Freki, Odin’s wolves.

  They loved so powerfully, so endlessly, that they’d populated the world with their offspring. They walked with gods and were revered by Man. They had been mystical, fierce, and able to walk fully in both the human and wolf worlds. Odin himself had sent them to instruct mankind how to care for one another at the dawn of time.

  It seemed karmic in a way that he would send them to guard against the apocalypse he and his brethren’s trickery set into motion. How could the beings he’d fed from his own table in Valhalla and loved beyond imagining not give their lives to ensure all he loved had time to flourish? If Fenrir’s children were meant to free him, how could the wolves that Odin loved as his children not be sent to stop them?

  My head snapped up. Geri and Freki had not been alone in Valhalla. They had not been the only two creatures loved by Odin. Two ravens perched upon his shoulders and flew the length of the world to bring him news. They were Hugin and Munin, thought and memory, and they were as bound to Geri and Freki through the ages as they had been to Odin himself.

  “You,” was all I managed to get out as that final piece snapped into place.

  “Me,” he said.

  I didn’t know which raven he was, but I could guess. Memory. Munin. Not soulless as I’d thought, but capable of great cruelty even so. Nothing could be as cruel and vicious as memory. It could be gentle and loving when it wanted, or it could rip you to shreds. And Ronan was capable of both. The love I knew he’d had for Dani drove that point home.

  “Where’s the other raven?” I demanded.

  ”We’ve been reborn for millennia, and it’s taken a toll.” He met my gaze again, his stare cold. “You’ve lost the ability to shift. Dace has lost the ability to speak to his wolf. Hugin simply wasn’t reborn at all.”

  “And you?” I asked. I felt as if the world stopped spinning again. We were meant to guard the world against those who would destroy it, and we were fading. My wolf was buried too deeply for Dace and me to be what we needed to be, to bond as we were meant to bond. We stood between the world and the apocalypse, and neither of us was whole.

  Call me crazy, but I had a feeling the same didn’t apply to Sköll and Hati. They had always been destined to bring about the apocalypse. We’d only been sent to hold it off for as long as possible, and we were weakened. That wasn’t good news.

  “Memory fades too,” Ronan said.

  I knew exactly how true that could be.

  “You invaded my mind,” I accused him, crossing my arms over my chest and glaring. “Why?”

  “Memory fades,” he said again. “I had to be sure you were the one, and you needed to remember.”

  He didn’t look the least apologetic about it, and I could maybe see his point, but still … “Dace wants to kill you.” I found a certain, savage satisfaction in telling him that.

  “Dace usually wants to kill me,” he said as if that didn’t disturb him at all. “Wolves and ravens fight together. It does not mean they like one another.”

  Dislike was a bit of a big understatement for how Ronan and Dace felt about each other. They hated one another. And I didn’t exactly like Ronan much either. He scared the hell out of me.

  “We’re—” He stiffened, his nostrils flaring. He turned his head slowly, exactly like a raven. “Run, Arionna,” he whispered, dropping the block of knives.

  They clattered to the floor, bouncing upward. Time dragged as the knives hovered in the air, and then everything raced again as they fell back to the ground, one standing hilt up, stuck into the wooden floorboard.

  A boom rocketed through the room, flinging me to my knees even as the knife thrummed and vibrated. The glass window behind the table shuddered and exploded inward. The glass scattered across the room, raining down on me, on Ronan, and on Professor Edwards’ still form.

  A coal-black wolf, bigger in reality than it had been in my dreams, dropped like lightning into the kitchen. Yellow eyes met mine as I dragged myself back to my feet. The animal growled.

  A millennium worth of fury ripped through me until the entire house seemed filled with the sound of my defiant scream.

  Dace roared to life in my head, the walls between us shattering outward. Terror for me overrode everything in his mind. Man and wolf alike roared a terrifying cry, and I knew Dace was still not in charge. The wolf had control, and he wanted to do what we’d been sent to do.

  Anticipation and dread slammed through me.

  “Run, Arionna. Now,” Ronan said calmly, sliding around in front of me to face my nightmare come to life. He outstretched his arms, seemingly challenging the black wolf to attack.

  “Hati,” he said, the name twisting like a disease on his lips. Ronan’s hatred for him slapped at me as hard as Dace and his wolf’s did.

  My feet refused to cooperate.

  Hati bunched to leap.

  Ronan stepped forward, ready to meet the charge.

  His body exploded in a flash of light. When it cleared, a giant raven hovered in the air where he’d stood, flapping its wings with giant rushes of wind.

  Its beak parted, and a scream tore through the house. The shrill sound contained as much rage as my scream and Dace’s roar. What hatred existed between Ronan and Dace didn’t even compare to what that scream contained. The sound was as endless as time and as vast as the sea.

  Hati leapt
into the air, shards of glass raining like water from his back. He roared, and it felt as if the world trembled beneath my feet at the sound. The Earth knew what he was, and it feared him as surely as it did his father.

  Run, Dace screamed.

  I dashed out the back door and into the yard in moments, the sounds coming from the kitchen demanding I run faster, harder, and not look back. Ronan’s raven still screamed, and Hati still roared. The sounds echoed through the yard, bouncing back from the trees.

  I ran blindly into the thick of the woods, sobs bursting from my throat. I had no idea where to run, where I would be safe, but I couldn’t stop either. I felt Dace in my head, still urging me to flee, and I couldn’t disobey him. I couldn’t shift to protect myself, and Hati would kill me without hesitation if he caught me. Ragnarök was barreling toward me like a tidal wave. I thought it would sweep me under and drown the world right there.

  Scrambling through the undergrowth, I fell. A sharp branch gouged into my side, puncturing the skin.

  “Oh god,” I cried, jerking the stick out and scrambling to my feet. Blood oozed from the wound.

  Another scream sounded from the house.

  The woods were pitch-black, but even had it been day, I would not have seen through the images rushing through my head, one after another until they bled together. Dream after dream tumbled through my mind, but they weren’t dreams at all. They were the echoes of memories Ronan unlocked when he’d pilfered through my memories like a parasite, and those my wolf and Dace’s sent rushing through me like a picture show so many days ago.

  I fell again and climbed back up, half crawling forward, trying to get away from newfound understanding as much as from the scene unfolding in the kitchen. I couldn’t outrun the images though, and I couldn’t disbelieve them either. Sköll and Hati were here, and they were already winning.

  A massive dark shadow loomed up before me. I lurched forward and screamed. Yellow eyes turned on me, and white teeth flashed.

  Sköll.

  I wanted to scream my defiance but terror strangled me, leaving me unable to make a sound as I stared at him. Malevolence rolled from him in acidic waves, but he smelled like nothing at all. I suddenly understood why Dace and the wolves were unable to track him. He was as different from us as we were from the wolves and ordinary humans surrounding us. The offspring of a giant and the grandson of a god, so much stronger than we could ever hope to be as weakened as we were.