Chapter 12
ERUS
G iven the Morrigan and the leader of the bean-sidhe were in town, I shouldn’t have been surprised by the knock at the front door, and was even less surprised to see the Valkyries had returned. I was slightly concerned by the amount of luggage they seemed to have brought with them, though.
“Erastus! We’ve returned to continue our sacred duty.”
Without their armor, and with their wings on display, they looked like tourists on the island for a girls’ trip. It was disconcerting, given that I’d seen Hildr with monster insides splattered across her body and a smile on her face.
Stepping aside, I ushered them in, though I didn’t even attempt to take their bags. I liked my hands attached to my arms. “Your sacred duty?”
“Protection of the new Fates, and the Mother of Fate,” Hrist informed me like I was stupid. “We also brought gifts and mead. Where are your barracks?”
We did not have barracks. We didn’t even have enough bedrooms in this place, despite the size. “Uh, come on into the kitchen, and we’ll figure something out.”
Maybe we could eventually appropriate one of the outbuildings as a bunkhouse, but none of them were at that stage yet. Plus, we didn’t have enough beds, food, or linen.
They seemed to have dipped into their mead already as they chirped loudly with each other, roaming the house like they owned it. It was still standing because of their help, though, so that gave them a little bit of ownership in my book. They were smiling and laughing, so at odds with the serious warriors we’d met last time.
Wren was drawn from her room by the sound, meeting us in the hall. Noticing her, as one, they dropped to a single knee. It was hilarious, considering they were all in sundresses and cross-body bags. “Mother of Fate.”
Giving them an amused smile, she shook her head. “Not you guys too? Just call me Wren, please. I’m not sure I’m ready to have such a serious name.”
Hrist shrugged. “Ready or not, the annals of history have named you this. Better to just roll with it. Plus, being named is a serious honor in our Pantheon, and most others. You would be a fool to reject it and the influence it gives you over others.”
Wren gave a short nod. “I understand. But how about here, among us, you call me Wren? I’d like to have a break from being ‘The Chosen One’ inside these four walls.”
Hildr bowed her head solemnly. “Understood.” Then she bounced to her feet. “We bought gifts for the new Fates from home.” Her voice was muffled as she looked inside a giant box on wheels. “But most importantly, we brought you these, from Odin and Frigg, as well as Freya, and her twin Freyr.” Swooping her hands into the box, she pulled out a gray tabby kitten, a piglet that looked almost golden, and a raven chick. Well, not a chick; it had all its flight feathers, but it still looked young.
Wren stared at the baby animals, shock making her lips fall open. She didn’t know what these were, but I did. Obviously, Hrist understood that the Norse histories would be foreign to Wren as well, because she explained. “It is the whelping season in Asgard, and these are the offspring of some of our greatest animal companions.” She pointed to the raven. “One of the most recent chicks from Huginn’s sired clutch. His name is Trig. He will help the Fates decide what is truth and what is deception as they grow.”
She pointed to the kitten. “This is Von, the kitten of Freya’s favored battle cats. He will be a fierce warrior and will protect them for as long as they have him by their sides.” Lastly, she pointed at the piglet, who shone golden under the overhead lights. “A piglet sired by Gullinbursti, the boar mount ridden by Freyr. He will be protective, and his golden mane will show them their way, even in the darkest of times. His name is Galt.”
She cleared her throat, her eyes catching Wren’s, her face as serious as it was in battle. “You have been honored by these tributes. These are the offspring of some of our greatest steeds and warrior companions. They’ve never been given as gifts outside of our own kind before.”
The solemnity of the gifts wasn’t lost on Wren. “I am deeply thankful. How do I express my thanks to Odin and Frigg, and Freya and Freyr?”
Hildr smiled. “I’ll help you with the appropriate prayers of thanks later. We also brought mead!”
The moment over, the Valkyries left their suitcases in the long hall as they all moved toward the back courtyard. Wren leaned down, holding out a hand to the small animals still sitting on the ground where they’d been deposited. They looked slightly freaked out.
“Hello, little ones. I bet this is scary, isn’t it?” She left her fingers slightly curled in front of them, so they could sniff. Trig, the raven, hopped up onto her wrist like he was trained to do it, walking slowly up to her shoulder before snuggling into her hair. She laughed softly, as both the boar piglet and kitten sniffed at her fingers. “I will care for you until my babies are old enough to care for you themselves. I’m sure you’re hungry. How about I grab you some food, then we’ll find a place for you to live? Maybe introduce you to the puppies?”
She stood, the raven clutching tightly to her shoulder, and the kitten and piglet following behind her. As she walked away, a different memory, a different age, overlaid the present. A different woman, always surrounded by animals, always with something perched on her shoulder or weaving around her feet. A time long ago, when I’d also been happy.
Wren looked over her shoulder, her eyes wide and joyful. She let out a silent squeal of happiness that the tiny animals were following her. My heart wanted to burst. It might be a similar scene, but I was a different man. I’d been happy back then, but not like this. Not like I was with Wren.
She completed a part of me that I hadn’t even known was empty. I loved her so much that it felt like a part of my heart, of my soul, had been closed off, just waiting for her to burst in and make it her own.
The house was alive in a way that I never could have predicted. If an Oracle had come to us last year and said that in twelve months’ time, you’d have a pregnant bond, a house filled with Gods and Demigods from other Pantheons, and so many animals that you had to watch where you stepped, I would have laughed in their face. I would have told them that no one could cross our wards. That I had lost my heart to a dead Goddess so long before, and it was shriveled and useless now. That we were too set in our ways for such trivial things as the fleeting lives of pets.
Yet here we were, once again, in the courtyard, because no room inside the house could hold us all. The Valkyries had cracked the mead and were actually fangirling over the Morrigan, much to the amusement of Néit.
Wren sat securely in Milo’s arms, looking tiny against his huge form. She was thirty-two weeks today, according to Teron, and we were all watching her like a time bomb that was ready to go off. We were keeping her due date a secret from everyone else, but honestly, it wasn’t much of a secret if you got a good look at her. She really did look ready to pop, though the new kitten seemed to enjoy the warm sleeping spot the shelf of her belly made.
If Wren’s army got any bigger, we were going to struggle to feed them all. We’d resorted to cooking outdoors on the spit to accommodate all the hungry mouths, and while we were originally going to do a kontosouvli , the presence of Galt had kind of soured the idea of pork products. The little piglet was super cute. He was running around chasing some of the dogs, who were entertaining him as if he was just a really unfortunate-looking puppy.
Tryp came up beside me, kissing the top of my shoulder in a gesture he’d done so many times, it was a wonder his lips weren’t permanently grooved into my skin. I leaned my cheek against the top of his head, rubbing my scent on his hair and temple. We hadn’t had as much time to be consumed by each other, and I found that I missed the other half of my soul. It was an unusual sensation.
“Sleep in my bed tonight?” I asked lightly, and he grinned at me, that wicked expression I knew better than my own reflection.
He kissed my lips softly. “Every night, if you’d like. You just have to ask.”
“Just don’t want you to forget how much I love you, with all this madness.”
He wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me tight against his bare chest. “I have known your love for centuries, Erus. It’s encoded in my very makeup. I could never forget.” He kissed my shoulder once more. “We have more people to love, that’s all. It doesn’t diminish our feelings for each other—only makes them more vibrant.”
Tryp made out like he was a dick-swinging playboy from time to time, but he was probably the most in touch with his emotions. Definitely more than me, and a mile more than Demke or Teron.
A dog came over—I didn’t know their names, the way Cy and Wren did—and sat at our feet. Checking the lamb, I sliced off a little piece of the skin and dropped it beside him. “Wait for it to cool,” I warned him. His tongue lolled out of his mouth as he smiled a toothy canine smile.
I looked back over at Wren, because it was nearly impossible to keep my eyes away when she was in the room. She was running a hand over the underside of her stomach. “She’s been doing that a lot,” Tryp murmured, and I realized we were both looking at her.
“Rubbing her stomach? Yeah, I noticed. You think it’s just the babies moving around? Or muscle strain? Or…” I trailed off, because the other option involved contractions, and I wasn’t ready for that. The idea of losing her terrified me.
The prophecy delivered by Apollo had been pretty succinct: that she had to die for the babies to live. It might be just one possible outcome, or it might have been Apollo talking shit, but the possibility that it was true was like acid in my veins.
She looked happy enough, though, laughing with the bean-sidhe Clio, and petting the kitten who’d migrated from her stomach to her chest. It was probably just growing pains. She’d been complaining of her hips hurting earlier.
A howl went up, and the dog at my feet skittered away, the piece of juicy, hot lamb forgotten. Half the dogs cleared out of the courtyard; the other half raced toward Wren. I searched out Cy, who had his head tilted to a large dog, listening intently.
He looked over at us, his expression panicked. “The Moirai are here.” With that, he transformed into a white dog and disappeared.
The Fates were here? How had they made it so close?
Demke was immediately on his feet. “You know what to do. Everyone in position. Milo, take her somewhere safe.”
Shifting her into his arms, Milo climbed to his feet, but Wren slapped his chest. “Wait! Just fucking wait. Cy! Get back here.” She wiggled in Milo’s arms until he was forced to put her down. “Cy!”
Cy reappeared from around the corner, switching back into his human form, sans clothes. He pecked a quick kiss on Wren’s cheek, and I wanted to growl. “Sorry. I had to check it out.”
Rolling her eyes, she gripped his chin, forcing him to stop his marking and look at her. “Did the pack say if anyone else is with them? Another army? Titans?”
Shaking his head, Cy spoke to the huge mutt beside him. “Attie says there isn’t anyone further out either.”
Demke looked disapprovingly at both Cy and the dog. “Excuse me if I don’t trust your intel. How did they get so damn close, unless the pack missed something? You’re meant to be the sentries.”
Attie, the mutt, growled low, and Cy’s lips pulled back from his teeth in his own human version of a snarl. “They portaled in. My hounds threw up an alarm as soon as they were spotted, which is a lot more than your wards did.”
“Hey!” I protested, but he was right. The wards still hadn’t gone off, which meant that someone had disabled them without me knowing.
I wasn’t a wardsmith. I wasn’t even good at it. I’d been able to maintain the very basics for a few centuries, simply because there hadn’t ever been anyone who seriously wanted to make it across them.
Until now.
Wren raised a hand. “We can bicker like a bunch of old people later. If it’s just the Fates, I want to talk to them. I have a few fucking questions that need answers.”
We all protested at once, but the stubborn tilt to her chin told me that we could protest all we liked. Unless we wanted to pick her up and physically move her against her will, this was happening.
“I have a matching set of Celtic War deities, some of the fiercest warriors of any Mythics, and an entire pack of dogs. If we can’t hold back the Fates for one conversation, then we’re in much more trouble than we thought.” She looked between Demke and Néit, who was once again holding his big ax.
Where did he even pull that from?
She sucked in a deep breath. “Please. I trust you to keep me safe.”
The ward made the ominous knock, knock, knock reverberate around the entire compound. We all deferred to Néit. If anyone had their entire heart and soul wrapped up in Wren, it was him. He was the strategic one. The God of War.
He let out a shuddering sigh. “Okay. But you stay behind us, and you run if we tell you to run. Got it?”
She nodded solemnly. “Let’s go meet these bitches.”