12. Runa
Runa
Maren and I stand at the window like a pair of widows expecting husbands who will never return from war. Beside herself with grief because she thinks Ash killed Sven, Maren can’t stop crying.
I tried to tell her that Ash wouldn’t kill Sven outright or make him disappear because he wants peace, or he wouldn’t have come here. The other Regulator’s death is already a problem the Fireborns have to deal with.
In addition, Ash is forcing marriage on himself and my sister so our people will have a chance at survival. He won’t want to compromise that.
But even I’m not convinced. I can’t guarantee Sven’s survival since he might get stupid and try to kill Ash, in which case, Ash will snap him like a twig.
“Sven is transitioning into a Fireborn Regulator,” I tell my sister.
“The Fireborn Alpha won’t lose control over his element while he’s among us.
That will provoke Soren, who will fight back with his element, and that could mean disaster.
They know the devastation they could cause.
We have to trust those two will do the right thing. ”
Maren bites her lip. “Why can’t they send out a search party tonight instead of tomorrow?”
“Because it’s too cold.”
“It’s not that cold yet.”
I touch her elbow. “Let’s get some rest.”
“I can’t sleep.”
“Go see Mom. She’ll give you something to sleep.”
Maren nods. “I’ll bring you something too.”
I thank her and stay by the window while the burn on the top of my hand, which isn’t healing, throbs with my steady heartbeat. When I press the fingers of my other hand against it, it’s hot, as if it’s some sort of localized fever. So weird.
The pain is dull, not terrible, only annoying, and it makes me want to scratch. I don’t understand why it’s not healing properly. Maybe the Fireborn Alpha gave me cooties.
There’s no such thing as werewolf cooties, but I don’t know how else to explain this wound.
With the chores finished for the day and Maren off to see Mom, who will likely give her massive downers along with wine so that Maren will fall asleep at Mom’s, balled up and crying, I’m free to go down to the med bay.
Lindsey, our healer, isn’t there. She’s probably in bed.
We have no medical staff on duty unless there’s an emergency.
Since I’m on the ground floor, I grab a guard uniform and coat from the communal closet and step outside. The chill threatens to freeze my eyeballs.
One of the guards jogs over. Frost covers his eyebrows. “You shouldn’t be out here.”
Duh. “Have you seen Lindsey?”
“She’s delivering Miki’s babies.”
“Shit.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No. Having girl trouble is all.”
Nothing shuts up a male like a conversation about “girl trouble.” They have no idea what we mean by that, but their survival instincts tell them to keep their mouths shut. Only the dumb ones speak.
This guard is smart. He nods. Good boy.
“When is the freeze coming?” I ask.
“In an hour.” A sweeping gust makes both of us stumble. He tries not to run into me, but steps on my foot.
“Ouch,” I say, then wiggle my toes.
The young wolf blushes. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay. You did warn me about the weather.”
He smiles wider. “That is true.”
I hook my thumb over my shoulder. “I’ll be going back inside now.”
He hops in place to warm up as he waits for me to return to the castle.
I trot down the steps into the basement, pass the food storage areas, and exit at the bottom near the wine barrels, where I know nobody stands watch this time of night.
I cross the bridge to the Fireborn tower, where I find six Fireborns.
They’re dark-gray-and-obsidian wolves the size of mules.
They lower their heads and lift their upper lips.
I stop dead in my tracks.
They circle me and sniff.
These aren’t Stormcrest wolves. They smell different and growl at me, which the males in my pack wouldn’t do. When they circle me, they don’t touch me, but I notice them pausing by my throbbing hand. Their tilted heads tell me they’re puzzled by the scent.
I really hope it’s not some sort of disease they know about and won’t tell me. Werewolves don’t have many sicknesses, but we have a few skin diseases caused by various microbes. They’re rare in our climate because not many disease-causing agents can survive the cold, but there are some that do.
I sniff my hand. Nothing.
Blade steps out of the tower.
“Hey,” he greets me as he slides on his gloves. “Yes, we’re heading out to search for Ash. I can’t wait until the morning. None of us is going to sleep anyway. You want to come?”
“I’d love to.” Wow. I hadn’t expected that. “My brother will lock our pack inside because of the temperatures tonight. We have less than an hour before it becomes dangerously cold out here. Even for wolves.”
“Less than an hour, you say?”
I nod.
“We’d better make haste, then.”
Excited to track, because I never get to do that, I rush past him and undress inside the kitchen, then pad outside as a wolf. They’re all towering over me, but that’s fine. I’m a girl wolf, and girl wolves are built smaller. Even an alpha girl wolf is smaller than most beta males.
Blade stays in his bipedal form.
When he whistles, the wolves take off. They’re so fast!
I struggle to keep up with them and very quickly get left behind.
I can still see them climbing the mountains, but I can’t expect them to slow down for me.
They expect me to search for Ash near the ocean instead of the mountain range.
I probably couldn’t scale it in time to get back to the castle before I freeze anyhow.
Trouble is, I have a feeling I’ll find something on the mountain east of the tower. It’s the one opposite the slopes they’re currently ascending.
I pause to assess, whining, torn between staying close to them, even as they leave me in the dust, or following my instinct and running the opposite way. Because the weather is getting worse, it’s stupid of me to separate from the pack, but I’m not a sheep. I can’t just follow the flock.
I’m a wolf, a predatory species, and I know the terrain. Technically, I don’t need a bunch of male werewolves to run with me.
I run as fast as my legs can carry me and scale the mountain toward the first cave. I enter it, sniffing the ground for Ash’s scent, but he’s not in here. I’m unsure why I’m sure about that, but I know it like I know Maren’s already asleep with my mom running her fingers through Maren’s hair.
My paw throbs with its own heartbeat. It burns like hell.
Running over snow soothed the burn on my paw, but in the cave, the uneven ground makes me wobble. I recall how Ash also had trouble with his paw. Oh man, I think he did pass some disease on to me. We both need to see Lindsey first thing in the morning.
Outside, the high winds sweep the cave and throw me against a rock. I hit my flank. Ouch. Now I have a burning foot and a bruised flank. That Fireborn alphahole better be around here somewhere.
I scale the mountain until I reach the second cave, which I enter as fast as I can before the wind sweeps me off the edge of the cliff, and I tumble down the mountain. Inside, I shake out my fur, then pad deeper into the cave toward some muffled sounds.
As I near the source, there’s a continuous roar, as if a tornado is spinning inside the cave. My instincts tell me I’m nearing Ash Fireborn, and possibly his fire.
I follow the tunnel toward a glow, which grows brighter and brighter as I approach. It’s a red light. The roaring sound of fire is unmistakable now.
At the end of the tunnel, I come upon Sven holding an electronic device in his hand, aimed at something inside the cavern. We don’t use electronics the way humans do. It’s bad for our mental health and cognitive abilities, which are crucial to our ability to shift from animal to bipedal.
I poke my head in to peer into the cavern.
Ten feet below, Ash stands knee-deep in a frozen pond, a perfect circle of melted ice around his legs.
Eyes closed, he concentrates on wielding elemental fire in a figure eight around his body.
The flames take the shape of galloping horses.
They race in an infinite loop, diving into the water and surging back out behind him.
A fire purge.
I pad to the edge to get a closer look.
“Stay back!” Sven shouts. Startled, I slip. I try to step back, but the ground is slippery. I slide down the cavern toward the fire wolf.
Ash’s eyes snap open. The horses vanish, and the flames explode. The force of it stops my sliding, and I scream at the top of my lungs. A wall of fire engulfs me, roaring all around me. I try to dodge left, then right, but there’s no escape. There’s no escape! I’m burning, trapped in an inferno.
Ash walks calmly through the fire and stands in front of me with his hands over his head, his eyes the size of dinner plates.
He bends at the knee and crouches before me, then reaches out and captures my muzzle.
He stares into my eyes. I don’t know what he sees, but his eyes are not red but brown. They’re chestnut brown.
When he touches his nose to my wet one, I pull back my lip and growl.
Cooties! I don’t want his cooties on my nose. Or on my cheeks. I try to backpedal, but he holds me tightly.
“How the fuck are you doing this?” he asks.
Errrr. Doing what?
Ash stands with his hands on his hips, drawing my attention to his middle. He’s nude. It’s very distracting. I look away.
“Shift. Shift immediately.”
No way. We’re standing in the middle of the inferno, and I’d rather die a wolf than a naked girl.
Ash pulls the fire into his body, extinguishing the inferno in a second. He turns to Sven. “Stop the feed and leave us.”
When Sven doesn’t respond, I turn my head his way. Sven’s mouth is agape. Clearly shocked, he stares, unmoving.
“Which wolf is that?” someone asks from Sven’s electronic device.
“None of your business,” Ash says. “I’m going to count to one, and you will turn off the device. One.”
“Wait!” the person says, just as Sven slides the device into his pocket.
“What… What was that?” Sven asks.
Ash is by two backpacks at the side of the pool, getting dressed. Gray sweatpants. No shirt. No shoes. Must be nice to keep warm in this weather.
“How much time do we have left?” he asks Sven.
Twenty minutes. Maybe less.
Ash gives me a once-over, his jaw tight. “The storm will bury us if we don’t get back now.”
I’m so lucky to have this alpha inform me about the weather in my neck of the woods. In wolf form, I roll my eyes.
“We can get trapped in the cave or run back to the castle,” he says. “You can pick which.”
I move toward the exit.
“Keep tightly to my flank,” he says. “If you stray, I’ll be forced to carry you like a disobedient pup who walked into a burning fire.” He shakes his head. “The fuck?”
I huff. I didn’t walk into fire. I slipped and slid.
Ash and I climb out. Sven turns on the electric sled that the humans provide to our Regulators.
The blizzard has already started. Ash wastes no time and shifts into a horse-sized, obsidian wolf.
He takes off, racing beside Sven’s sled toward the castle.
I sprint at top speed, yet I can’t catch up.
I understand the urgency, but also, if he hadn’t been purging, we wouldn’t be stuck in this fucked-up situation.
I trip over my own feet and tumble down the mountain.
With a firm grip on the scruff of my neck, Ash, back in his human form, slings me into his arms and runs with me. My muzzle bounces off his biceps, my ears flop, and I bury my nose in the crook of his arm, because this has to be one of the most humiliating moments of my life.
My father and Soren warned me. Gently, they suggested that I ran too slowly and should never run with the trackers. But I thought they were being mean because I was an omega and a girl.
Now I see why they said that. Ash Fireborn sprints at a speed I couldn’t possibly match. If my pack is to outmaneuver an opposing pack (such as the Fireborns), we are only as fast as our weakest tracker. Which is me.
But even with his speed, we can’t outrun the brutal storm that’ll swallow us whole.
I lift my head. Frost covers Ash’s face, and fire burns in his eyes. He looks like a nightmare. Slowing down, he stares at me down his nose.
“You think you can do what you did in the cave so we don’t die out here?” he asks.
Without further ado, we’re engulfed in elemental flame. In his arms, I whimper, wishing I could crawl inside him to escape the fire blazing around us.
Ash glares as he runs. “What the fuck are you?”
Me? He thinks I’m the problem? He’s the lunatic who keeps setting me on fire!