32. Forest
Forest
Helene isn’t in bed.
Awareness crashes like a blow to the head. My eyes pop open, breath lost.
Her loss is immediate, visceral, my heart shredding my ribs. Beyond the mattress, beyond the other men sleeping at my flank, an all too familiar crash outside rattles the foundation of the house.
Thunder cracks, unnatural in the silence outside of us. Thor’s hammer.
But it’s not Thor wielding it.
I know it without having to look.
Something stirs, and she’s gone, and those two things are linked.
“Get up, bikkja.” I nudge Wren toward the side of the bed, swinging my legs around. “Niketas!”
His name roars out of me.
“Don’t you fucking dare call me that.” Nicholas comes alive with a start, shifting seamlessly from stillness to motion. “Where is she?”
And where the hell are my clothes?
A glimpse of white on the floor and a bit of feather answer the unspoken question. My vestments and the rest are mingled in a pile like so much dirty laundry, shucked aside and discarded in favor of skin on skin.
My throat constricts with an invisible noose.
“She’s gone, hundr.” I shove my legs in my pants and drag them high, looping the ties at the front. “They’re both missing.”
The sister’s absence leaves a palpable silence in the tomb of this place. While we were sleeping, they snuck out.
A hit of familiar loneliness lands like a punch.
Wren stretches his arms overhead like he’s got all the time in the world, his cock hanging out like an exhibition. “They won’t have gotten far.”
“Not with Thor’s hammer thundering over the entire damn town,” I growl. “Do you hear it?”
I drag my shirt over my head, limbs sore and tense. It’s not a great time for Wren’s bullshit attitude. It never is, but today of all days—
She ran out on you rather than staying. Poor Muninn. What do you think it says about you?
The voice in my head has enough ring of truth to mark it as mine. I stop. Slap a palm to my temple.
“Thor’s hammer? A little early for him to have a crack at this world, isn’t it?” Wren works his shoulders, loosening knots from sex. “Usually he can’t be bothered to wake before noon.”
I stalk toward the door, grabbing the knob and wrenching it clean off its hinges.
“Fucking hell! Don’t destroy the building, Forest,” Nicholas yells, trailing me to the pile of clothing.
A second behind.
I drop the door without fanfare, its dusty edge digging into the plaster wall on its fall and crumbling pieces free. They drift in disorderly piles to the warped floor. “Helene!”
“If she’s not here, then what’s the use in calling for her?” Wren asks.
Indeed, the voice in my head adds. What use is there in claiming her if she will only leave you? This situation is on her shoulders. Isn’t it? Your lost years. The incomprehensible loneliness...
“Because the storm outside is made of magic. Because the house is empty, and we almost slept through it all,” I mutter.
Where would she go? Why?
The living room is vacant and cold, without a trace of their energies lingering. Which means we dallied much longer than we should have, and in the space between breaths, she took charge. She ran.
To get away from us.
Nicholas shoulder checks me on his way past and inhales, his features darkened by rage. “A fucking hour. That’s how long they’ve been gone.”
His wrath tails him like a ghost.
Wren follows, darkness leeching from his skin. His shadows go wild and push through the frosted panes of glass into the whiteout beyond.
The cruelest thing any of us have done to Helene is love her.
“I told you the memory was a bad idea. I told you she wouldn’t handle it well.” Nicholas shrugs into his coat, claws snagging on leather.
Yes, a terrible idea. Why did you insist on it?
I shake my head, splitting apart. The words in my head are meant to punish. Demanding more than I'm willing to give.
Worse because I'm still unsure whether the voice is my own or something else.
Our pain combines, concentrated around us, suffocating.
Each time, we understand the rules of the curse. The day we each greet Helene in her latest form is nothing but the beginning of a terribly long and cruel goodbye. We meet believing we're blood and bone but in truth, we are nothing but phantoms.
“The connection isn’t strong enough for us to pull on yet. Not even after...” Wren trails off, his hands in his pockets. “Well. I thought a few orgasms might do the trick. I barely feel her.”
I snarl, glancing out the window. “The memory wasn’t what scared her away. In fact, it was the only way for her to fully recognize what she’s dealing with.”
Was it? The voice is insistent. Or were you desperate to reclaim those lost moments too?
Wind howls against the house’s eaves.
“You had to choose the last time we were together. Didn't you?” Nicholas points a warning finger at my face, his fangs openly displayed. “You had to go full tilt right away. There was no better remembrance to ease her into this?”
I round on him. “I’m not the one who chose the memory. I’m the one who brought her into it. She chose. Her soul decided, the same way she always has. And that’s where we ended up.”
Nicholas and his anger adds a layer of scent to the air, a static charge. Wren only stands there, trapped in sulking amusement and cloaked in darkness.
What do we do?
Two choices. The voice, serpentine and coiled in my head, drowns out the sounds of the world. Go after her. Not the optimal choice with the current conditions. Or hand her over to the gods and end this charade.
“I’m sick of your games and your manipulations,” Nicholas is saying. “We all know this cycle has sped up. And if the Norns are truly weaving another fabric of fate, then we didn’t have time to waste. Now we’ve lost our girl, and I’m not going to bullshit away another second.”
“Then perhaps it’s best for you to leave this to me. I’ve already sent my shadows out to find her. She hasn’t gone too far,” Wren replies.
Nicholas hunches forward. “Far enough for her scent to go cold.”
“Is that what we’ve devolved to? Dick measuring contests?” Anxiety threads through me like invisible tattoos.
I’ll never hand her over.
I snap mental barriers down to block out the voice, but the knot in my chest stays lodged against my heart.
Worry flares across Nicholas’s expression before he smothers it with a dark smirk. “It’s no contest.”
He heads to the door.
Wren scoffs, a lazy sound. “Literally the only thing we’re attempting, Niketas, is to help us formulate a plan. We won’t be any match if the AllFather himself decides to descend from his fucking throne. What if he’s out there in the ice? What if Thor’s hammer is a diversion?”
The kitchen shrinks around me, walls closing in. No air. No room to breathe.
Even Nicholas pauses at the door.
Action without organization hurts everyone. We know it too well.
“If that’s the case then we’re already screwed, and you know it,” he grinds out.
“Which is why we need a plan in the first place instead of jumping off the diving board into the deep end not knowing how to swim.” Wren crosses his arms over his chest and the pair ignore me.
“While you’re both trying to take charge, I’ll do something.” I shove Wren aside and throw open the windows, squinting against a battering of cold. The chill freezes my eyelashes and my cock. “Stay here and wait. I’ll find her and bring them back.”
The shieldmaidens have vanished, the voice reminds me with a hiss. And you intend to brave the storm, raven? How droll.
Magic spreads outward, rooted in my core. Spreading through my limbs and twisting them, shrinking, bones going lightweight. Night black feathers push through my skin.
Their protests go soundless behind me.
The massive raven pushes off the ledge and into the world beyond.
Everything else fades.
The memory of the bed and the four of us together fades.
Helene. I’m coming.
There is only the whiteout blanketing the earth, the blizzard sudden and violent. Ice pricks through my plumes. Screeching, I head high into the clouds until the roads of Nightshade Hollow form a labyrinth beneath me.
They spread, knots of asphalt and cement, the land rolling toward the river. Today it’s nothing more than a churning, furious push of gray.
She wouldn’t have wasted time going through the town.
No, if she were frantic, she’d leave. She’d want to get as far away as possible, as quickly as possible, an animal hell bent on escape from this trap.
I scan for blood in the snow. Her scent.
Everything will be over if she dies early. Done.
She’ll expend herself to protect Audra, and if she fails while we’re not there to help her, we’ll all lose.
Something close to despair clogs my throat.
I course correct, allowing the tailwind to push me away from the lights and houses. Another unnatural storm has the land in its strangling grip. I’m willing to bet if I uncover the heart of it, I’ll find the source, and Helene. She doesn’t have to worry about us keeping her trapped.
We’re not the ones who will keep her here.
There’s no way to sidestep destiny.
Wind propels me in the opposite direction, coming from the left and battering me in reverse.
The veil is too thin for this to be a coincidence If Odin gets his hands on her this early...
If the Norns weave a new tapestry of fate that doesn’t involve the four of us together.
Then what?
I squint and duck low, the blast of cold sending me flying backward several feet. What the hell do we do then? Will we be blasted off the great tree of life and into oblivion? Will it be the end of our looping?
The curse will never be broken.
Our souls will be lost, and if we do meet our death, even the harrowing halls of Hellheim won’t be restful.
Magic pulses in the air. The scent sharpens the closer I get to the heart of the storm.
The raven is more powerful than the man. I lean into its instincts now, gaze scouring the ground for the small pulse of calm and the source of this wintery skitr.
I pull up, tearing through the sky, pushing my body harder. My beak opens on a gasp. There is something here.
A presence not meant for this world.
Wind and ice ruffle my feathers and send me careening off course. I tumble through the air, ass overhead, a tailspin. A crash.
Heat burns through my muscles before I manage to control myself.
Flapping, I take off to the left, cutting under a second burst of sleet.
I’ve lived long enough to mark the individual feelings of the god’s magic. They each carry their own signature, written in the energy of their power. Loki is pure chaos and this storm reeks of compunction and command.
This is too bitter to be Odin. He may be reckless, but he is never regretful over his actions, and bitterness evokes a sensation of regret with it. Always.
Another outpouring of cold carries me forward, and then the snow moves.
It separates and the shaggy head of a wolf made of ice lifts his face to mine. The outline of the frost giant crouches in the gloaming, its form solidifying.
Massive. And mean.
Its frosted maw pulls away from sharp teeth designed to splinter through flesh and tear through bone.
I can’t take on the thing myself. And with its presence, I won’t be able to find my girl, either.
Not alone.
The frost giant tracks my path through the sky, and I duck, cursing.
Too weak to take on a little jotun? The voice in my head clucks. What’s the matter, Muninn? Losing your edge?
The words are a taunt, a summons to attack.
Instincts demand I flock to the giant and probably die, swatted away like an insect.
I clench figurative teeth, heading into the nearest tree. My hold on my magic weakens with the loss of my memories. I have enough of it, enough power, to land a few good hits and injure it. But jotun are not trolls.
They are not wraiths or Unseelie or anything easy to take down.
To kill a frost giant is costly.
How long did it take Beowulf to dispatch Grendel and his mother? How much chaos did they cause, ravaging the hall of Heorot, before they went down? Even the strongest warriors were necessary to battle a frost giant of this size.
As much as I hate to admit it—
I take off, the landscape beyond like a bead of blood breaking through skin. The town.
There's no safety there. Head down, I push through, heading back to the old Victorian. At least we are together. There is nothing in this world the three of us can’t accomplish.
Except, of course, keeping Helene alive.
Now I combat the wind to get to them, a horrifying necessity.
Aw, don’t bore me, the voice adds. Try it. See if you are able to confront the jotun alone. Prove she’s worth it to you.
Sink into the raven, into a part of my mind where panic, fear, and that god’s damned voice can’t reach me.
Detaching, I let the bird take over, using muscle memory and magic to get me to the house.
I land on the sill, wind-battered but whole.
The sick sense of control disappears and drains everything but that rage from me. Of course they didn’t wait.
The bloodletter and the Dokkálfar are gone.