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Skarde opened his mouth to snarl something foul, but Jovi cut him off with a look.
“She’s right. I have to do this.” She turned to Fyrcat. “What do I do?”
Fyrcat took a step into the dark tunnel mouth and held out a hand to Jovi. “You come with me. If someone has to hold your hand through this, it should be a witch, not a berserker. He is at odds with all that you are.”
Jovi cast a doubtful glance at Skarde but nodded slowly. “If you say so.”
She slipped her hand into Fyrcat’s with palpable reluctance. I tensed when she slipped into the shadows and was lost from sight. Skarde’s posture mirrored mine, muscles taut as a bow string.
“I don’t like her being alone with Fyrcat,” I said in an undertone.
“Nor I, but I don’t see what choice we have.”
We were silent, listening to the muttered incantations of the two women. The humans filed in after them, orienting from the soft glow coming from their linked hands. Then the question that had been burning the tip of my tongue for hours slipped out.
“Do you want Fyrcat? As a mate, I mean.”
I had to admit, part of me liked the idea. If he was looking elsewhere, it meant I had Jovi to myself. On the other hand, it also meant my brother was tangling with one of the most powerful and deceitful witches of all time. It could get him hurt or killed or potentially worse.
“No,” he said immediately, but I could hear the lie in his voice. Skarde sighed and then amended, “Not as a mate. She’s a beautiful woman, and we have fought side by side. It gives a man ideas. But she is not my mate. I am still looking for Eir. I will find her.”
The glow grew, illuminating both Fyrcat and Jovi’s faces, as well as the ring of humans around them. Skarde was right. Fyrcat was beautiful, but she was no Jovi. Her face was sharper. Crueler. She had an edge that Jovi lacked. I couldn’t have found Fyrcat attractive, even if Jovi and I had never met.
Without warning, the glow between the two women went supernova, expanding outward in a flash of gold-white light that seared my senses. It drove me back a few steps, like the backwash from a blast furnace. It made my wolf lift its head and bay its displeasure at the sky, an unsettling reminder of what I was born to do.
Jovi wasn’t meant to be mine any more than Fyrcat was meant to be Skarde’s. We were built to kill them.
No. Never.
When I blinked past the spots in my eyes, the ring of humans were gone, leaving melted snow and charred walls in their place. I didn’t envy them the journey to sunnier climes. Traveling by fire hurt like a son of a bitch.
“Our turn,” Skarde said.
He’d taken a step forward when a man leapt down from above, landing with an earth-shaking impact before the mouth of the tunnel. But this was no man. It’s face was bloated and discolored, and its eyes were a flat, unseeing gray. Draugr.
More followed the first, moving to block our path. I reached for my makeshift weapon—I’d been lucky to find the tree cutter in Sandy’s garage. The blade whirred to life with a little coaxing, just as Skarde’s blade cleared his sheath. He glanced down at my saw and smiled, just a little.
“I must get one of those when this is all over.”
“I’ll get you one for Christmas,” I answered with a grin of my own.
Then we charged the draugrs, making short work of the first three. More were coming, dropping down from the bridge above the tunnel like lemmings off a cliff face. I didn’t pay them any mind. We didn’t need to beat them, just make a gap.
Skarde pelted forward, kicking the remnants of his foe to the ground before vaulting over it. He landed nimbly and disappeared into the shadows beyond. I followed, aiming a kick of my own at a draugr’s face when it tried to rise to its knees. Ogun kicked it again, just to be sure. Or maybe just to feel useful.
Jovi and Fyrcat were still kneeling. The latter was pale and sheened in sweat. She hadn’t been kidding about her magic.
“They’re coming,” I panted. “We need to go.”
Fyrcat’s head bobbed in acknowledgment.
“I’m not sure she can,” Jovi said doubtfully. “She’s exhausted.”
“Don’t count me out,” Fyrcat snapped, but even that lacked her usual venom. “I have one more spell in me.”
Skarde put a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll help you when we get clear.”
They shared a look full of meaning. I wished I could have deciphered that, but we didn’t have the time.
