Chapter 10 - Torsten #3
My forelegs locked as the vision hit me like a sledgehammer to the skull, tearing my consciousness away from the battlefield and hurling it into something far beyond the present moment.
Three men stood in shadows that seemed to bend around them. Their faces remained unclear, but their purpose blazed with crystalline certainty: vengeance.
Three wolves unchained.
The uprising Rowan had begun set them on this path. One carried the scent of mountains and snow. Another’s rage radiated heat like a forge fire. The third stayed behind the other two with a deep air of mystery surrounding him.
And between them and their mission stood a woman with snow-blue eyes identical to Freya’s.
Valkyrie wasn’t cowering or broken. Her chin was raised in defiance, her white hair flowing free — fierce, unbroken, ready to fight the world if necessary.
The moment her eyes fell on those three shadows, my Odinswolf sight revealed a truth I sensed none of them would want to accept.
Bonds instantly formed between her and these three…
mate bonds that needed time to solidify, but obvious nonetheless.
She gasped, her own Odinswolf sight revealing the same thing to her.
But she shook her head and stood her ground.
I gasped.
The rescue would come, but not from us, not the way we planned. These three strangers held the key to her freedom, though the how and why remained shrouded in prophecy’s mist.
Sudden realization crashed into me: When our battle with the conquerors ends, so too will hers.
As the vision faded, my wolf stumbled and fell.
The battlefield rushed back in fragments — the acrid smoke, the screams of battle, the metallic taste of blood in the air.
My wolf form hit the frozen ground hard, my consciousness scattered across possibilities and futures while my body lay vulnerable.
“Torsten is down!” Gabriel’s alpha voice cut through the chaos, sharp with alarm. “Protect Rowan while he’s distracted!”
Strong arms wrapped around me, and Rowan’s scent flooded my senses — wild and fierce, now tinged with desperate protectiveness. Through the haze of the vision, I realized he’d shifted back to human form, his enhanced strength from the Bonded link allowing him to easily lift my wolf’s limp form.
“I’ve got him,” Rowan’s voice was rough with strain and worry. “We need that exit now!”
As my awareness returned, I saw Jasmine run ahead, leading the way to safety. But Denraider alphas converged on our position with murder in their eyes and the hungry anticipation of wolves who lived for violence.
“Stand down and surrender,” Rowan snarled at them, his voice carrying an inhuman edge as he used his extra alpha powers to halt them in their tracks.
The alphas froze in confused compliance, and a group of betas tore into them out of nowhere.
Rowan hugged me tighter to his chest. “I’m not leaving you.”
The world felt unstable, like I was seeing it through water. The ground blurred beneath us as Rowan carried me away from the chaos. Every muscle in his frame was coiled with tension, his breathing controlled despite the burden he carried.
I struggled in his arms and called out to him through the Bonded link.
“I can run,” I managed, though my head still spun from the prophetic episode.
“I’m not putting you down,” Rowan replied grimly, not slowing his pace. “What did you see?”
“Later,” I said, forcing strength back into my limbs. “Put me down. I won’t be carried to safety while everyone else fights.”
He gently set me down, and I shifted back to human form, my legs unsteady but functional.
Behind us, the civil war we’d triggered raged on.
Through Skill’s distant sight, I watched Mavis rally the freed slaves, his attacks filled with savage joy as he led them against their former captors.
Furred bodies littered the ground — both oppressor and oppressed — the fight too close to call victory for either side yet.
Four white wolves put themselves between Rowan and me and our pursuers. From time to time, they converged on one of our pursuers, working together to put them down one at a time. I didn’t trust my arms to be steady enough to hold a weapon right now, or I might have tried to cover them.
The pursuit thinned as we put distance between ourselves and Denraider’s territory.
As we continued on, Jasmine raced ahead to lead Rowan to our vehicle.
Meanwhile I let the ravens show me everything.
Lydell howled with fury, rallying his enforcers and loyal followers.
Part of me regretted not ending him when we had the chance, but with so few of us, we’d been lucky to make it out at all.
Eventually, Jasmine allowed us to slow, to catch our breath, to assess the damage.
The others shifted back to human form in a small clearing. The winter air bit at our skin as adrenaline began to fade. Steam rose from our overheated bodies, and the scent of sweat and battle-fury hung heavy in the air.
Rowan let out a snarl of annoyance as he pulled a handful of shards and ashes from his sling bag.
“The talisman Zak gave me was destroyed.”
I found myself studying Rowan, seeing him for the first time outside of dreams.
With Zak’s magical object ruined, Rowan’s cheekbone blazed with the ansuz rune, Odin’s symbol. It marked him as Freya’s… and mine. Whether he realized it yet or not.
“You don’t need to hide anymore,” I reassured him.
A half-moon tattoo matching mine decorated his upper shoulder, no doubt put there on the same night mine had appeared — when the starbeams fell on us all.
And on his neck, the circle of Freya’s bite proudly marked his flesh. I couldn’t wait for mine to join it. A witchfire burn on his left wrist was the only scar that marred his flesh, despite the battles I knew he’d fought recently.
He was magnificent. His disheveled hair and full beard gave him a wild, untamed appearance that made my wolf stir with want. Blood streaked his tanned skin, several shades darker than my own — and his golden eyes still burned with the fury of battle.
In our wolf forms, his alpha wolf had towered over my smaller, more normally sized wolf. But in our human forms, he looked up to me. Despite his smaller stature, his powerful body left no doubt as to his alpha status, even in this form.
Those dangerous, golden eyes now studied me with barely banked heat, and I caught Gabriel doing the same to Jasmine. Suddenly I remembered how alphas usually celebrated their victories, and my skin flushed, my cock stirring in spite of myself.
“No time for that,” Garreth lectured both alphas.
Rowan snorted and fixed him with a glare. “Which one are you?”
“You’ve never met?” I blinked.
“We know the rest of the Howling Echo, including Freya,” Jasmine said. “But we’ve never met Rowan in person.”
“I stood guard while the others met with you.”
“Well, then.” I introduced all four. “They’re all former Snow Moon pack.”
“Thanks for the backup,” Rowan grunted. Then his gaze returned to me, his voice going rough. “You changed your hair.”
My hand went self-consciously to the braids, my fingers working to retighten them. The hair style he no doubt remembered from the dreamscape was longer and flowed more freely. Too freely to hold up under real world traveling conditions for my taste.
“Do you—does it look—?”
Jasmine laughed with delight, and Grayson elbowed her.
“It looks… like a warrior ready for battle,” Rowan finished for me, stepping closer despite the blood and grime that covered us both. “Like someone who survived everything thrown at him and came back stronger.”
The distance between us simultaneously felt too close and too far. Did he remember that dream we’d shared as well as I did?
“You should both ride shifted in the back of the truck,” Gabriel said, cutting into our moment. “To heal any wounds.”
Around us, Jasmine and her mates were checking each other for injuries with quiet murmurs of concern and relief in the aftermath of battle.
Grayson sported a deep gash along his ribs where fangs had caught him, while Garreth nursed a twisted ankle.
Gabriel looked unharmed except for some minor cuts, his attention focused on ensuring his mate remained unharmed.
It seemed he’d done well, as Jasmine sported no wounds that I could see.
“Who will drive?” I asked, unable to tear my eyes off Rowan.
“I will,” Gabriel answered.
“We’ll shift to heal for now,” Garreth said, motioning to Grayson. “But once we go pick up our other ride, I’ll drive it.”
“That was incredible,” Jasmine said, turning to us with bright eyes despite the exhaustion in the set of her shoulders. “The way you turned their own people against them, gave them the power to fight back. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“It was Gage’s idea,” Rowan said, but I caught the pride in his voice. “And Freya gave me the power to do it.”
Gabriel pulled down the tailgate and motioned to his brothers to hop in.
They both checked the contents of their sling bags before shifting and hopping gracefully into the back of the truck.
Jasmine moved around to the passenger side of the truck, but ran one hand down Garreth’s muzzle when he stuck his head over the side to nuzzle her.
Gabriel approached Rowan. “We’d like to join your allied packs. No other pack would even imagine doing something like that to free other shifters who weren’t from their pack. Will you speak to Gage on our behalf?”
“Of course,” Rowan said. “You fought by our sides… you’re more than just some temporary allies.”
“You belong with us,” I said with absolute certainty.
Jasmine’s eyes brightened with hope.
“Good. Then let’s get you back to the pack,” Gabriel said.
Rowan and I shifted back to our wolf forms and joined Garreth and Grayson in the back of the truck. Then Gabriel pulled away from the grove hidden among rocky outcroppings.