39. Wren
Wren
Oh, fuck yes.
My brilliant, pretty monster is back and battling like a boss bitch.
She’s wielding fire now, screaming out her fury as the embers cut through hail and hiss and sizzle as they blister the frost giant.
Her expression twists into pure retribution. She’d make any berserker on the field proud. Hell, even the most serpent-tongued courtiers of our Unseelie court would take a bow to her.
She isn’t hesitating anymore.
If she’s frightened, the feelings are relegated to a distant part of her, buried under mounds of instinct and adrenaline.
She roots herself in the snow, her arms straight and hands clenched around the hairspray and lighter. Orange flames cast her features in gold and melt along the individual strands of hair falling from her ponytail.
This is a woman who needs no wings or sword to be deadly. There's brutality in the simplicity of her, in the way she always does what must be done without credit or thanks for compensation.
Thank the gods for fireballs.
Nicholas peels up from the trunk he’d hit, when Isvargr shook him off like a dog with fleas. A low groan sounds from the left and my shadows peel free from a shifting Forest, magic twisting him into his usual towering, brutish form. With flaming red hair, I’m pleased to see.
Good. We need him pissed.
Maybe this way he’ll be useful.
“Get the girl, will you, bird brain? Leave the fun stuff to us.”
Nicholas and I rush toward the giant. In the smartest move of his ridiculously long life, Forest heads for Audra on the other side of the brick of car to get her to safety.
Helene won’t be swayed unless we’re prying her free from Isvargr’s cold, dead carcass.
The mental imagery’s arousing.
She’s got her fire back.
“Hell yeah,” I whisper.
Shadows pull tighter around the giant’s neck and tug, frost crackling at their edges. The darkness speaks to me, writing its own novel. No matter how much power the jotun wields, his ice against my darkness, there’s peace.
Even if reality isn’t fucking great.
The only way to kill these things is to separate the head from the rest of the body, like cutting off an engine. But good luck hacking through solid ice. Those flames aren’t powerful enough to do the trick.
If I weren’t such a fucking optimist, I’d say we were too late.
I know better than to get between a jotun assassin and his mark. Odin truly is pulling out all the stops for this one.
Helene’s flamethrower is a nice touch, though.
Frost and rot stitch through my shadows, spreading like sickness in the roots of the forest. If Isvargr stays much longer, even these old trees will fall.
“Will you pay attention this time?” I jerk my nose to Nicholas’s arms. “Those won’t heal unless we kill him.”
A glance at his face shows him stoic, deadpan, despite the awful burns searing down to bone. He’s burned up to his elbows. Even his precious coat.
His presence used to be a constant pain in my ass. Now I might worry about the beast.
He laughs once. “We’ll see.”
“Those going to be a problem?” I ask about his blisters.
“Is that?” He gestures to my shadows, freezing solid around Isvargr’s thick throat.
“I guess we’re going to see.” I crack my head side to side, disguising the struggle when magic pulls my shadows thin. “If I take him down first, I’m going to bury my face in Helene’s lovely pussy before you.”
Nicholas isn’t laughing anymore.
I leap over a fallen tree trunk, hurling myself toward the giant. His frost cracks through the makeshift noose holstering him in place and Isvargr shakes himself free.
“I’m coming, pretty monster,” I say with a laugh.
The Valkyrie is back.
And because my baby loves playing with fire, I force my shadows into a familiar weapon. The blade takes shape, and magic heats the metal until it glows.
It’s not my usual, but I do love a matching set.
When I send my shadows out again, they glow with gold. I circle to the right, and a smile splits my face.
Nicholas angles to the left, away from Helene.
“Well, come on, lollipop.” I taunt. “You want to play rough? I’m game.”
“Wren, stop fucking around.” He dives low and ducks, swiping claws like steel toward the jotun’s ankles.
His eyes burn red, glowing like a forge, and his fangs extend. He’s no longer the man but the monster on the inside.
Ice cracks where he makes contact.
And freezes over the moment he wrenches his claws free.
My jaw clenches, and my shadows cast a wide net around Isvargr. They drive forward at once, and in the same motion I leap, bringing the flaming sword down on his side where Helene’s flames touched.
Isvargr twists at the last second, and the sword tip buries itself in the ground instead, a puff of snow jetting upward.
Well. In the fight between fire, shadow, and ice…I know who’s winning.
Power tugs at my core to keep the sword ignited. How else am I going to melt the frost giant’s bones?
Three of us circle the beast, going low, nipping like piranhas.
Then the wind shifts.
The endless stretch of ice and snow, cut through by the howling gale, brings with it the whisper of change. It’s too small to grow into anything substantial yet but among the howl, beyond the wails of the spirits trapped by the breeze, stirs something more ancient than gods.
“Look, he’s good and mad now.” I slash at Isvargr, and he snaps in my direction, spouting more jotun curses. “Actually, I think the half-melted aesthetic is a decent look for you.”
Isvargr postures, hunching closer, trying to track all three of us. He whips around to face Nicholas with his limbs rigid and icy hackles raised.
“What’s the matter?” I ask Isvargr. “Are the odds against you, Elsa? Why don’t you let it go?”
Nicholas moves first, features a ragged mask of fury as he throws himself toward Isvargr again.
All those stains on my soul are finally being put to good use. I’m not afraid to play dirty.
Hell, none of us can ever be mislabeled as kindhearted. We never have been. We’re no strangers to sacrifice and betrayal, death and murder.
Forest crowds Audra near the base of a massive pine with a trunk too large to reach around. Shielding her with his body.
He glances toward me with a single cutting look that speaks volumes.
My grin widens. Eat your heart out, bird brain.
Shadows darken, pulled from my core, spreading like wildfire across the hoarfrost. Nicholas attacks, far from Helene, his claws singing as he sends them skittering over the jotun’s flank. He won’t use weapons. No knives, no sword, no bullets.
Nothing to risk hurting her.
Nothing that will easily take down a fucking frost giant.
I swing my own sword with a cackle and droplets of water hiss and separate from Isvargr’s leg as I drive it home. Ice crackles along the blade.
Metal shatters.
I bend, crouching, swiveling. Fuck.
A wave of hail pummels us from overhead.
Nicholas mounts the jotun’s back again, crawling up toward the same spot. I circle, doing my part in the dance, once that leaves you breathless. Thirsting for more.
Isvargr regenerates the longer we keep this charade going.
Too wounded to use his forearms to dig the wound deeper, Nicholas grabs hold of icy scruff and kicks down.
Ice cracks.
I leap at the same time, driving my shadow-cloaked fist up. Isvargr swings and drives ice toward my stomach. I bring my knee up, leaning to the side, shadows driving like a wedge.
Until Helene screams.
Until her bleat of panic fractures my attention.
The next strike sends me flying and crashing into the crumbled trash of the car. I land hard, indenting the already ruined shell, stars blanketing my vision. She’s screaming for me.
She’s yelling my name.
“Don’t worry, monster.” I grind my teeth and haul free of the metal prison. “I’m not so easy to kill.” Clearly.
“Then quit playing your fucking games and let’s end this!” Nicholas yells.
“Quit your bitching.” Shit, my knees hurt. And I know without looking that the gash on my thigh will take much longer than I need to knit together. “At least he’s not using his full strength. Are you, big boy?”
Isvargr chuckles, and in the next beat, the jotun lifts himself to two legs.
His features shift. The head of the ice wolf remains but his lower limbs crack, bend, and morph him into something capable of fighting on two legs.
“You had to say it, didn’t you?” Nicholas bears down when Isvargr reaches for Helene.
She pushes her hand to the canister. Flame belches and Isvargr shrinks away from it. A single hesitation before he plows through the flames, grasping at her.
Those claws miss her coat by inches, and my throat closes.
Well then.
I send my shadows out, warping them into a shape I know as intimately as my own face. Which I’m well acquainted with.
Magic thickens them, molds them into a puppet of her.
“Over there, Shnookums! You’re going for the wrong girl.” I push another web of darkness toward the ice giant to angle him.
He glances at the puppet and snarls.
Nicholas bends at the knees, leaping up to send his entire weight against the tiny opening he’s managed.
Isvargr lunches for the puppet, Helene scrambling out of the way to avoid his rear legs. He kicks snow and ice in a spray toward her face. A battle of strength and will, sure. But also wits.
I jab frozen shadows into Isvargr’s calf from the rear. Nicholas braves the burns to hack away at the creature when those claws swipe through my Helene puppet.
Darkness scatters. Which only pisses the creature off.
Isvargr roars. Then stumbles when Nicholas kicks deeper, those runes boiling through his pants and skin. I sprint out the way, cutting toward the side again. Circling. Blocking Helene with my body.
“What’s the matter? Is this proving to be a little harder than you thought?” I jeer.
Little bugs. My jotun isn’t rusty enough for me to miss his next grumbled words. Ready to be crushed.
“Not in this lifetime.”
I pull up another Helene puppet, and another, two of them rounding off against Isvargr with their gloomy faces morphed into vulnerable fear.
“Finish it before you force me into play!” Forest yells.
Helene is no longer screaming or burning. The silence gets me and I turn to look, turn to see that she’s okay. That she isn’t too worried.
Isvargr reacts and knocks his knee into my torso, driving me backward and the air out of my lungs.
By the time I blink away the pain, by the time I come to, Isvargr stands over me with a claw pointed to my breastbone in challenge.
Odin wants the girl.
My blood sings. “Odin can suck my dick.”
Isvargr growls and lunges with a snap. He lands on all fours, ice glittering along the sharp points of his spinal column.
His limbs elongate and shift, the axe absorbed into his new form. When he lifts his head, the wolf glares at us. Eyes as bright as coals and glittering like chunks of permafrost land on me.
But no Nicholas?
Something hard punches my kidneys from behind. My center of gravity changes. I throw up a shield of shadows before Isvargr takes a big bite where my head should have been. Darkness eats away the snow at my back.
I sink into a pool of it, disappearing. Solidifying across the clearing.
“You’re being too cautious,” I yell at Nicholas. Nursing his third degree burns like a human.
“And you’re being rash,” he tosses back.
“At least I’m getting things done. At least I’m making a move.”
He waves my insistence aside. “Rash and hardheaded.”
“The clarification doesn’t help. You’re going to get us all killed unless you actually fucking help me.”
He’s holding back. I glimpsed the beast when Helene bled. Where’s the bloodthirsty vampire now?
“I can’t be the cause of her death again.” He leans in close. “I can’t do it.”
Even though he knows he will be. Even though he knows he is. Every. Single. Time. Without exception.
The weight of each failure threatens to crash down on my head, and I’m not here for it.
“Fine, then,” I whisper, breath gusting in the air near my face. “No one likes a sulking vampire.”
Judging by the way he stiffens, he’s heard me.
Helene’s lighter clicks but the poor babe is finished. The stale reek of spent fuel fills the air.
Odin wants the girl. Isvargr swipes through the two remaining shadow puppets. I will not fail.
Forest gives a yell of warning before the jotun strikes again.
Nicholas steps up to block me at the last moment, the entire front of his shirt and pants destroyed from the burns. Fabric tears free, his skin mottled underneath. Without thinking, I reach my shadows around him, driving them into a point and using Isvargr’s momentum against him.
Together, Nicholas and I punch through his chest, his runes flaring. Ice cracks when the creature goes tense.
“Nighty night,” I whisper.
Isvargr pulls himself from the restraint, but my shadows spread, crowned with frost, notching in place.
Icy flesh cracks further under the collision, and I cringe at the stench of burning flesh.
An attempt to pull free only sends our combined hit deeper.
At last we’re not on the offensive anymore.
We drew the assassin into place, and damn but he fell for it.
Nicholas wrenches his arm free, swaying to the side.
I push him back, ignoring his stumble, and shove more shadows into the wound on Isvargr’s chest. Thick pools of ice melt around the hit, dripping along trembling front legs.
I brace for the next hit and punch deeper until shadows latch on his spinal cord, partially exposed on the other side.
Harder.
Rapt, I slice through his vertebrae as my power flares and empties into a sliver of its former glory.
With a quick, neat, goddamn elegant flick, I snap ice and dodge Isvargr when he drops to the earth.
Ichor stains my clothing.
Nicholas leaps up, landing hard on the giant’s back a third time. This time the collision sends a cascade of broken ice down to the creature’s haunches.
The rough ground rumbles, and Helene goes flying with a furious cry.
Vibrations ripple out through the woods, and Isvargr twists his head up a final time, snarling a follow-up strike.
There will be hell to pay for this, Stonebreaker. His voice ebbs, flickering and faint.
“Excellent. My favorite kind.”
I slash shadows through the last of his defenses, shockwaves running up my arms. Then the jotun falls still. He doesn’t move again.