Fall (The Ragnarok Prophesies) (7 page)

How much worse would the end of the world look in living color, playing out all around me?

My stomach threatened to rebel at the thought.

I heaved a sigh and set the book aside.

Ronan glanced over at me from his seat at my old writing desk and then back down to the book in his hands.

Unlike me, he was actually reading, which was all kinds of strange. He didn’t seem like the reading type, and I never would have pegged him as intelligent, but he was. That irritated Dace to no end. I think he would have preferred if our raven was all muscle, no brain.

I watched Ronan for a moment, but he didn’t look up from his book again.

“Can I ask you a question?” I asked, tired of waiting for him to acknowledge me.

“Yes.”

“How did you and Dani meet?”

Probably none of my business, but I couldn’t help but wonder. Ronan was strange. I’d never seen him laugh or crack a joke. He rarely smiled unless he did it to intimidate someone. He’d been cocky the first time I met him, angry, but I wasn’t so sure that was the real Ronan. He wasn’t like that now. And I didn’t really think the change was because he lost Dani. I barely remembered him in past lives, but I think he’d always been somber and scary, and Dani’s murder was simply the icing on the cake for him.

Dani, though… well, she was the exact opposite. She’d been happy-go-lucky, always smiling and laughing. She’d thrived on social interaction and people. Even in the brief time I’d known her, I could see how charismatic and well-liked she was. How had she and Ronan fallen in love when they had nothing in common?

I didn’t get it.

“She came to the club where I work,” he said.

I waited for the rest of the story, but he didn’t finish. I briefly considered leaving the conversation alone, then decided I didn’t really want to. Dace was in the shower, and I didn’t want to read or sleep or worry about an increasingly grim Dace anymore. Talking to Ronan was my only other option. Besides which, I wanted to know. He’d been an almost permanent fixture since I awoke in the hospital. We had to talk at some point, and I found myself growing more curious about him by the day.

“What happened?” I prompted.

He closed his book deliberately before setting it aside and turning in my direction. “She tried to sneak in,” he said. “I went in after her, and she dragged me onto the dance floor.”

I think I heard a smile in his voice, but his wooden expression didn’t change.

“How long were you together?”

He tensed. “A year.”

I fought the urge to reach over and squeeze his arm in a show of support. I doubted he would appreciate the gesture. He wasn’t very touchy feely or emotional. In the two weeks since his confrontation with Beth, he hadn’t once mentioned it. I think he wanted to forget it happened. Hell, I think everyone wanted to forget the entire ugly scene.

“Dani never knew what you were?” I asked him.

“No.” Ronan moved his gaze back to the book on the desk. “She didn’t need to know.”

“Did you―” I broke off, too uncomfortable to ask him that particular question.

“Not right away,” he answered, seeming to know where my thoughts lay even without me finishing. “I found out who she was after we started dating.”

“Oh.” I plucked at the blanket thrown over my legs. I thought, had he known who she was before, he would have avoided falling for her. I didn’t ask him that, though. It really wasn’t my business.

“You never met her before that night?”

Ronan shook his head. “We ran in different circles.”

“Oh.” I frowned. “Where are your friends anyway?”

He looked at me levelly.

“When I met you, they were with you,” I said. “Where are they now?”

“Elsewhere.”

What did that mean?

“Are they shifters?” I asked.

“No.”

“Oh.”

I adjusted my position on the bed, the silence between us tense and uncomfortable.

“They were werewolves.”

“Were?” My frown deepened.

“Were,” Ronan said, his voice cold. He cut his eyes in my direction. “They were supposed to watch her for me. She died. So did they.”

I swallowed, my heart jumping. “You….”

I couldn’t bring myself to ask outright if he killed them.

The bleak look in his dark eyes was answer enough, anyway. Part of me was horrified he’d killed people he considered friends in cold blood. The other part though, well, that part understood his pain in some perverse way. If it was Dace, if he’d been killed on someone else’s watch…. could I let that go?

I didn’t think so.

The thought unnerved me, but I couldn’t deny it, and I couldn’t really judge Ronan when I knew there was even the slightest possibility I might be capable of doing the same thing. We were warriors, and this was war. I guess that changed things, even if the thought did make me sick to my stomach.

“I’m sorry you lost her,” I said softly.

He met my gaze full on. “Me too.”

I settled back against my headboard, closing my eyes. There were a thousand more questions I wanted to ask, but I didn’t have the heart to push. I didn’t necessarily like Ronan, but that didn’t mean I wanted to pick at his still raw wounds. He’d earned my respect if not my friendship, and I honestly didn’t want to make things worse for him.

I let my mind drift as I waited for Dace to finish his shower, trying to find a little quiet in the storm in my head. I focused on the pack, listening for the slightest murmur or stir from Buka, but as usual, I found nothing. They were too far out, hiding in the thick press of trees that extended for miles in every direction throughout central Arkansas. My weak connection with them didn’t extend that far.

“You know it’s only a matter of time until they stop hiding in the shadows,” Ronan said.

I wasn’t sure if his words were a statement or a question, and I didn’t need to ask to know he wasn’t talking about Buka and her pack mates. “I know.”

“Dace isn’t ready.”

“I know that, too,” I whispered. Dace wasn’t ready, and that worried me. If Sköll and Hati came for us… would he even fight, or would he trade his life for mine? I think Ronan and I both knew the answer to that question. Dace would move Heaven and Earth to keep me safe. I felt naïve for ever believing that was a good thing. It wasn’t, and Ronan and I both knew that, too.

Dace was losing it. Big time.

“I won’t let him risk Dani’s sisters,” Ronan warned. For once, he didn’t sound cold or distant. He sounded almost apologetic.

“You need him,” I whispered, my throat raw and my eyes wide.

Ronan met my gaze again and nodded. “I do.”

But not as much as he needed Sköll and Hati to die, or Chelle and Beth to live. If Dace got in the way of that….

I shivered, wrapping my arms around myself. “I’ll stop you.”

“You’ll try,” he said.

I narrowed my gaze on him, then sighed. I didn’t have the energy to fight, not when we both knew how things would end if it got that far. Freki lived inside me, but, even now, she was little more than a ghost. Without her strength, I couldn’t stop Ronan any more than I could Sköll or Hati.

“He needs time, Ronan.” I doubted my plea would do any good, but there was no way I would let Ronan hurt Dace. I’d find some way to get through to Dace first. I didn’t have a choice.

“We’re out of time. If you can’t get him under control, I will.”

I opened my mouth to ask what Ronan expected me to do when Geri roared.

The violent, unexpected sound split my head open with a fierce, tearing pain.

I cried out, reaching up to cradle my head between my hands.

Freki twisted and fluttered inside me, too weak to do anything more than howl faintly for her mate.

Dace tore the bathroom door open, slamming it against the wall outside my bedroom. The bed shook beneath me from the force.

Geri roared again, raging at some unseen threat. He refused to stop long enough for me to follow the disjointed thoughts skittering this way and that or to question Dace.

Something was happening though. Something big.

A chorus of howls sounded from the woods behind the house. They were faint, far away, but full of the same anger working Geri into a frenzy.

A soft huff whispered through Freki’s cage, which only served to make Geri howl louder.

Dace poked his head through the door. Water dripped from his hair, down the sides of his face, and over his bare shoulders. His muscles were tense, his jaw clenched. He strained hard, trying to keep Geri from wresting control away from him.

To his credit, Ronan didn’t ask a single question.

I wasn’t built the same way.

What’s wrong?
I demanded, pushing the thought at Dace as hard as I could.

His gaze fell on me for an instant. His eyes were pools of liquid emerald flame, burning brightly. “The wolves are under attack,” he said.

“Oh my god,” I whispered, fear turning my blood to ice.

Dace held my gaze for a moment, trying to convince himself, I think, that our friends needed him more than I did right then. Fear flickered in his eyes, fighting to reclaim its place at the forefront of his mind. I couldn’t let that happen.

Sköll and Hati no longer hid in the shadows.

They were out there right now, hurting our friends.

“Help Kalei and Buka,” I said. “Please.”

Dace stared at me for a moment, deliberating, then nodded.

He disappeared down the stairs as quickly as he’d appeared in the doorway.

I didn’t move. I was too scared to even breathe deeply. I felt sick to my stomach. Wrecked. Like I had the night I learned about Geri, the first time I sensed Freki living deep inside me. Nothing made sense, and then it became frighteningly clear

Geri still roared, fighting Dace for control. But this was personal for Dace. Last time Sköll and Hati crawled from the shadows, Geri held the reins. This time, Dace wanted to look the monsters in the eye himself. I think, if he could, he would rip them apart with his bare hands. It didn’t work that way though. At least I didn’t think it did.

I also didn’t think Dace would listen if I tried to tell him as much. Like I told Ronan, Dace wasn’t ready.

Please, don’t hurt him
, I prayed, unsure who I hoped heard my plea. Odin? God? Sköll and Hati?

Ronan paced around the room, clenching and unclenching his hands. He rolled his neck. Paced again.

“Sit down, please.” If I had to watch him pace until Dace returned, I’d lose my mind.

Ronan turned to look at me, opened his mouth, and then closed it with an audible snap. Hatred burned in his dark eyes, black shining almost as brightly as the emerald of Dace’s.

I shivered and looked away.

Half an hour later, Geri stopped roaring as suddenly as he started.

The pack’s howls slowed and then halted altogether.

I strained, listening for any hint of sound. The clock on my bedside table ticked. Breath rushed in and out of my lungs. Ronan’s boots scrapped against the carpet. But no sounds came from beyond my window. And none came from Dace and Geri.

Dace?

He didn’t answer.

Panic fought for a foothold. I forced it down, closed my eyes, and focused on my boys.

They both felt calm to me. Calmer, at least. And I couldn’t say for sure, but I think Dace’s shifters were with him, wherever he was.

The world was too silent for so much uncertainty, though.

Dace? Talk to me, please. What’s going on?

My cell phone rang.

I yelped and then grabbed for it, my heart pounding.

Ronan stopped pacing and turned toward me.

“Dace?”

“We’re fine,” he said.

“Oh, thank god.” My shoulders slumped, and then shook as healing fingers of relief worked their way through me, unknotting cramped muscles and loosening fear’s stranglehold on me. “What happened?” I asked.

“They killed a wolf two miles outside of town.”

My heart immediately leapt into my throat again. I felt weak, like I might pass out. “Oh, god. Who?”

“I don’t know him, and neither did the pack. He wasn’t one of ours.”

Not one of ours. Not Kalei, Buka, Fuki, or any of the others I’d come to love in the last months. I drew a deep, grateful breath, and then felt bad for it.

A wolf died today.

We didn’t know him, but that didn’t make his death any better.

“Was it… Did they―?” I didn’t know how to word my question.

“Yes,” Dace said anyway, seething. “Buka and Kalei went out to meet him, but Sköll and Hati found him first. Once the pack showed up to help, the cowards fled.”

Sköll and Hati were careful, but I didn’t think that was because they lacked courage. Every move they made had a purpose. They weren’t natural wolves like the pack, or even like Geri and Freki, but they acted like wolves. They hovered on the edges of the battle field, never expending energy chasing us down. They waited until they could pick off the weakest of us, those of us alone and defenseless like Dani and me, or Chiran and this poor wolf. When they attacked, we never saw them coming.

“What now?” I asked.

“The pack will mourn him like they do their own, I guess.” Dace sighed into the phone. “I’m so tired of this shit.”