Chapter 26
Audrey wasn’t happy with the news. At first, Gunnar considered not telling her, but that felt too risky. Who knew what the fuck would happen in the next few weeks? He’d told her over dinner at their cabin. Now they’d finished eating, and she pulled books from her shelves one after another.
“And she’s sure it’s blood madness?”
“Got the impression they’ve both fed on it before.”
“I know little about it,” Audrey said, stacking another tome on the table before retaking her seat. When she shoved one toward him—Duster Studies Portfolio 2143—he quirked a brow at her. She mirrored his expression. “We both know you’re too worried about me to go hunting tonight. Instead of sitting here brooding about it, why don’t you help me try to find a solution?”
He opted to clean the dishes instead, which he never did, if only because Audrey always beat him to it. Not brooding while he did it, though. He didn’t . . . brood.
He frowned.
Did he?
“Maybe the solution is sending them somewhere else.”
She’d already opened another book, Human/Aperien Medical Condition Crossovers, and didn’t look up as she ran a finger along the index. “Maybe it will be, if that’s what Rina decides. Or maybe she can arrange help to come here on the next train day.” She turned the page. “It’s still two days off.”
After a few minutes of scraping paper and clanging flatware, she muttered, “I wish we could contact Theodore.”
“He’s not where all these new books are coming from?”
“Maybe some of them?” She said, granting him a wrinkled nose with a snarky little grin. “I regularly get books with no sender marked, but I’ve also ordered several of them from traders in the Dominion.” She pointed to a thick volume on the shelf with gold leaf on leather; History and Policy of the Moscow Dominion, Ver. VII. “That one was a gift from the head bookkeeper in Moscow proper. I export ink to him every week now for new reading material.”
Gunnar grunted and went back to the dishes, later plopping down across from her again when he finished.
“This entry says blood madness can be treated if caught early, but also that the treatment varies drastically depending on blood composition. You might get your wish after all, at least temporarily. The Dominion has some talented healers, both science based and magic users.”
“Read that in the fancy book?”
Audrey laughed and flattened her hand on the spine. “However did you guess?”
Gunnar tapped a finger on the book she’d pushed at him. He had an idea, but he didn’t much like it. He tapped again, considering the book in front of him, Audrey’s furrowed brow as she studied. Innocence’s melancholy and Virtue’s concern for her brother.
He cleared his throat, grumbled out, “Might be worth talking to Virtue and . . .” He grimaced. “Innocence about all this. Maybe they know some shit that won’t be in these books or can tell you what to look for.”
Audrey paused, and when she looked up from her reading and propped her chin on both hands, he knew he couldn’t walk it back. Her grin was entirely shit-eating. “Did you just tell me to visit the brothel?”
“No.”
She squinted at him. “Are you sure?”
“Pretty fucking sure.” Gunnar’s lip twitched, but otherwise he stayed stoic as her scent threaded with more mischief.
After a pause, she asked, “Do you really hate reading that much?”
“You want help carrying your books or not?”
Gunnar tried not to be a complete asshole, but watching Audrey at a tavern table between Virtue and Innocence gave him trouble. To his credit, Innocence hadn’t made a single innuendo, subdued as he drank tea and listened, offering an occasional tidbit. He’d even left a seat between himself and Audrey without Gunnar insisting. Virtue sat close, her focus entirely on the research at hand, but she was still an Aperien apex predator.
And while Audrey did her best to stay attentive, she blushed the entire time she chatted with the pair, and every time Virtue gave her any praise or encouragement, she got flustered.
Natural response, he reminded himself. Any duster would have trouble around these two; a human didn’t stand a chance no matter how hard Virtue and Innocence suppressed their natures.
“Gonna go hunt,” he grumbled after about twenty minutes of pacing around the tavern, and he pointedly ignored Virtue’s smirk, Innocence’s eye roll, and Audrey’s confused expression. “If I’m not back when you’re done, walk her home.”
“Jonathan, I can walk home by myself,” Audrey groused. “They need to w-work when we’re done, anyway.” She cleared her throat but kept her little chin up high.
Virtue canted her head at him, her smirk devilish from behind Audrey’s shoulder. “Audrey is very capable, Gunnar. I’m sure she’ll be just fine.”
That Innocence didn’t join in for an easy barb spoke volumes. And he needed to get out of here before he started being irrational. Audrey wasn’t in any danger; she was well protected between two powerful creatures, both of which were grateful for her help.
His hackles were up anyway, hindbrain overruling logic, which made him growl. “Don’t wait up.”
Gunnar shoved out the doors, thankful for the winter bite, sunset inches away. He cracked his neck, rolled his shoulders, irritated at his frayed control. The fresh air helped; his nose cleared out long enough for his instincts to fucking relax.
This wasn’t a normal response.
They lived in a town full of dangerous beings. Rina was Baba Yaga’s daughter, for fuck’s sake. He didn’t know who the hells E really was, but the man reeked of old, deep power. Gullin was a raging dickhead on a good day. The harpy wasn’t overtly threatening to him, but she could easily rip a human to pieces. Same was true for Aster, Zhadan, and Lyubava. Same was true for the entire Clan, not to mention a thirty-strong pack of dire wolves. A leshy lived a few miles beyond their cabin.
And then whatever the train brought through every week—like that fucker Dimitri. A roulette every time, and while he kept himself on guard during those days at the market, he’d never let his instincts rankle like they did right now.
And as dangerous as Innocence and Virtue were by nature, Gunnar knew they’d never hurt Audrey. Hells, Gunnar was pretty sure Virtue was a friend to them both at this point, and as much as Innocence was a pain in his ass, the man was alright. They’d protect her same as they’d protect anyone who called Nizhny home.
He stepped down the station stairs, still growling and grumbling, because he knew exactly what was going on and admitting it wouldn’t do shit about him getting territorial around a girl who didn’t belong to him.
Gunnar scoffed, but he couldn’t help a smirk. As Audrey said the bar that night, who she fucked or didn’t was none of anyone’s business. Yeah, well, she could think that all she liked, be right about it, and he’d keep his mouth shut. But none of that changed the truth.
If anyone touched her? He’d kill them.
Gunnar’d never felt so certain about anything in his life and never so out of control at the same fucking time.
“Shit,” he muttered, rubbing his face.
The fresh scent hit him before he heard the footsteps, a shadowed figure stumbling from the western tree line and collapsing after only a few paces.
Mateo. And by the smell, he was bleeding out.
Gunnar inhaled deeper as he stalked toward the vileblood, picking apart the nuances as he crossed the rails, boots crunching against the icy snow.
A gut wound, the rich, heady stain of organ blood. Adrenaline, sour and wild, tangled with frustration, anger and fear. Regret? Exhaustion, right on the edge of passing out. Gunnar realized he wasn’t just scenting Mateo.
Tomas’s blood too, and a lot of it. And fuck if he didn’t taste madness in the dark scent of that spilled black blood.
Blood madness didn’t have a flavor he could readily associate it with. Anger tended to read hot, spicy. Sadness, by contrast, might come across cool on his senses, often reminding him of rain—or a rainstorm if tangled up with other emotions. Happiness felt warm, could carry sweetness for some reason, rich and almost fruity other times. Arousal, depending on the person, could be decadent or sour—but always invasive.
Madness wasn’t bitter—like lies tended to be, probably because madness couldn’t really hide once it really gained ground. Acidic, antiseptic? Not really rotten, not overripe, either. But like many things, Gunnar knew it when he smelled it, and Tomas’s blood carried the taint. Whatever happened since yesterday? Not fucking good.
“The fuck’s going on?” Gunnar yelled, keeping a good ten feet between him and the downed vileblood. Mateo’s blood smelled clear of madness, but he was a wounded, vulnerable predator.
Mateo rolled his head, groaning as he shifted his weight. Blood drenched his furs in wet black, a smear spreading on the surrounding snow. Blood, blood, and more blood, everything reeked of it. “Gunnar?”
Frost and frozen blood peppered his hairline, bruising forming around both eyes and his left cheek. His bottom lip was split wide open, his teeth black when he winced.
“The fuck happened?” Gunnar repeated, dropping to a squat with his palm resting at the knife on his thigh.
Mateo wheezed out, “Tomas.”
“Yeah, I can smell him. He dead?”
Mateo’s eyes flashed, all pitch and pain. “No. He’s mad, though. He . . .” He licked his lips a few times. “I thought we . . .”
“You fucking knew?” Gunnar snarled, wanted to grab the fucker and shake him. “For how fucking long?”
“Few weeks.” He coughed, holding his stomach as he bent in on himself. “Tried . . . tried to help him.”
Gunnar blinked. “Those corpses, all fucked up on the borders. That was him?”
“Tried to . . . work it out.”
“You fucking idiot. You should have told someone.”
He shook his head. A brittle laugh bubbled out. “What, so you’d kill him?”
“If only I fucking could,” Gunnar growled. “No, once you’re here, you’re part of it. Innocence and Virtue picked up on his madness. They’re already going through Audrey’s books, trying to figure out the best way to help him. Rina’ll get a blood mage out soon as she can.”
“They . . . really?” Mateo’s scent washed with disbelief.
Gunnar rolled his eyes, checking over his wounds. Yeah, the worst was his stomach, wide open, guts tangled in his fists. “You gonna shake this off?”
Mateo grunted. “You need to find Tomas . . . He was worse off.” His head lolled a bit, and Gunnar smack his cheek a few times. “I had to hurt him,” Mateo mumbled. “You’re going to have to put him down . . .”
He regretted that part, Gunnar could tell from his scent, even if he didn’t regret hiding that Tomas was slipping.
This shit was not how Gunnar had expected the night to go. When he pulled at Mateo’s arm, set to drag him to the station, the vileblood shook his head.
“I can manage.”
Gunnar inhaled, because the blood was all tangled between the two vilebloods, but he hadn’t picked up a lie anywhere in Mateo’s scent, so he left him in the snow.
The trail cut a stark, dark line in the otherwise pristine landscape.
Gunnar hit a fast jog he could maintain for a few miles. If Mateo was this worried, Tomas might die before he reached him. Or he fully expected Gunnar to finish what he’d started and put the kid out of his misery.
He veered off the main railway area, following the bloody footprints toward the taiga proper. He let his beast rise, easy with so much blood on the wind, saturating his senses with heady violence. Idle days were fine, Gunnar’d gotten used to them, but he hunted harder and fought messier after a few days off. That conversation with Virtue and Innocence simmered in the back of his mind; he might as well make use of his blood, what made him a monster. What made him good at being a monster.
He was the best tracker in the settlement, hands down. His senses, his endurance, and the way he could drop into a mode not so unlike torpor, everything else falling away besides what he needed to do: find Tomas before he died, because if he could be saved, it would make Audrey happy.
The terrain was easy, and he ate up the distance. He swung wide around the expansive swamp Mateo came in from, as nasty things came out to play there at night. Mateo and Tomas hadn’t cleared this parcel yet. He’d find Tomas there, he wagered, out on the far, frozen edge.
Breathing heavily now, Gunnar slowed. Tomas’s scent thickened, along with the scent of him and Mateo’s blood. Viscera mixed in. He inhaled deeper, other scents sparse as he veered further away from the nearest swampland. Audrey’d been right about most nasties around Nizhny favoring wetter terrain. Good for Tomas, though. Maybe nothing had come upon him yet.
Gunnar squatted at the edge of a clearing. Broken branches, smears on the snow, what looked like a body dragged over the next mounding snowbank. He drew the eversharp blade, flexed his knuckles. Maybe all the vileblood chased everything else off.
He crept forward, crouched low, the cocktail of Tomas just upwind, over that next bank. He crested, finding an unmoving lump at the bottom of the dip, half covered by a cluster of fallen trees. Damn, they’d torn this place apart, but there was no movement, no heat.
“Shit,” Gunnar muttered.
He heard a snap.
A body collided with him full force, a blade digging through his coat and deep into the meat of his shoulder, before they rolled wildly through the snow.