Fall (The Ragnarok Prophesies) (10 page)

“Fuki isn’t fully grown,” I reminded him, but didn’t argue further. He was right. Fuki might have come inside, but I couldn’t see the others stepping foot through the door unless Sköll or Hati strolled inside again. Not even Buka would enter without that threat, and she was nearly as curious as her half-grown cub.

“Regardless,” Dace said, “they’re fine. Not cold.”

“Then why don’t they like snow?”

“It’s hard for wolves to hunt in snow.” Dace reached out to adjust the blanket around my shoulders. “They don’t like leaving tracks, and snow can be dangerous, too. It hides pitfalls that can drop a wolf as easily as they drop their prey.”

“Oh.” I frowned again. “None of them have been hurt, have they?”

He stroked a thumb along my cheek, setting off little fires in the pit of my stomach. “They haven’t been hurt. They’re watching Fuki right now. He seems to like snow as much as you do.”

I sighed, envious I didn’t have access to the entire pack mind thing like he did. The pack could share their thoughts with me and hear mine, but only when they were close to me. Not at all like Dace who could communicate with them over long distances.

“I want to see Buka.” I hadn’t seen her in weeks, and I missed her desperately.

“Maybe later,” he said, his thoughts distracted.

My shoulders slumped. “The hunters are out looking for them again, aren’t they?”

He nodded.

“How many?”

“Twenty or so.”

Twenty or so. All with guns and a license to kill.

“This sucks.”

“I know.”

We stood in silence for a moment, watching as a branch across the yard drooped, sending another shower of snow onto the pile at the base of the tree.

“Has the pack hunted lately?” I asked, leaning against him.

“Not much,” he said. “Kalei is keeping them out of sight for now.” He tightened his arm around me. “They’ll be fine.”

I tried to believe him, but I’m not sure he really even believed himself. “I still think you should let me talk to the wildlife people.”

“What would you say?” He glanced down at me with wide, gentle eyes. “You can’t very well explain that Hati attacked you.” His voice dropped to a growl, and his expression hardened. His fury washed through my head in a series of sharp lashes. At least he actually said Hati’s name this time, though.

“I don’t know what I’d say.” I huffed, frustrated that everything was suddenly doom, gloom, and apocalypse again. “Anything to make them stop trying to kill the pack. I feel like this is my fault.”

Dace pulled me to him, enveloping me in his arms. His heart beat strong and steady beneath my ear. “This isn’t your fault, Arionna. The wolves don’t blame you, and you shouldn’t either. You did
nothing
wrong. Nothing.”

I pressed my face into his chest, wishing I could bury myself in his warmth and stay there until this entire nightmare ended. “You can’t command them away?” I asked, already knowing his answer.

“You know I can’t,” he said anyway, tilting my chin up so he could look at me. “Kalei’s already made it clear that they won’t leave until Sköll and Hati die. Besides, I need them here.”

“I wish you wouldn’t risk them. It’s not right.”

“They came here to fight, Arionna.”

“Then refuse to let them!”

“I can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Does it matter?” he asked.

“It’s not right,” I said again, not sure I wanted to know the answer.

“I know.” He gave me a weak half-smile. “It never is.”

Ugh.

I didn’t know what else to say to him, so I rested my head against his chest instead of arguing further. The wolves weren’t safe, and that hurt. It hurt more that Dace could willingly put them in danger, that he risked their lives to keep me safe.

There weren’t any words to make me feel better about that.

“Are you ready to go back inside?” Dace asked, resting his chin atop my head.

“I guess so,” I said, the snow no longer as magical as it seemed ten minutes ago. Reprieves were in short supply these days.

“I’m sorry I got you into this,” he murmured, wrapping his arm firmly around me to help me back into the house.

“Don’t be sorry, Dace.” I laid my head on his shoulder. “I wanted this. You know I did.”

“Do you still?” he asked, his voice quiet.

A little piece of my heart shattered at how uncertain he sounded. At how uncertain he felt. There were a million things I wasn’t sure of, but how I felt about him wasn’t one of them. Maybe I’d been destined to love him and couldn’t have fought it if I tried, but I did love him.

I didn’t regret that, even if I probably should have.

“Always,” I promised him, reaching up to press my palm to his cheek. His skin was cold beneath my hand, but heat still pulsed everywhere we touched skin to skin. “I’ll never stop wanting you.”

He looked down at me, his green eyes swirling with emotion. “I love you, Arionna.”

“I know,” I whispered.

That was the problem, wasn’t it? He loved me.

Too much, maybe.

“Get your fill of the snow?” Dad asked when Dace and I strolled back into the kitchen. He stood at the sink, scrubbing paint from his hands.

“She got cold.” Dace helped settle me back into my chair at the table before moving into the kitchen proper. He started rifling through cabinets, pulling out mugs, cocoa mix, and various other ingredients. “Did you know her eyes actually gleam when she sees snow?”

“They always have,” Dad said, chuckling. “I think it’s a southern thing.”

“You’re a Southerner too.” I hated when they talked about me like I wasn’t in the room. And they knew that, which is exactly why they took so much pleasure in doing it.

Men were downright irritating.

“Yeah, but I’m old,” Dad said. “You get excited over coffee and eight full hours of sleep when you hit my age.”

I rolled my eyes at his exaggeration. He wasn’t old. “Weren’t you the one who built snowmen with me when I was little? One year, you started before I even woke up.”

Dad grinned, unabashed. “Someone had to do it. You were a terrible snowman builder. They were lumpy when you got there first. Total abominations.” He shuddered in mock horror.

Dace chuckled when I spluttered indignantly.

My snowmen were never lumpy!

“Do you want a cup?” Dace asked, holding out a mug of cocoa toward Dad.

“No thanks.” Dad ceded use of the sink to Dace in exchange for a hand towel. “If I don’t do some writing today, I’ll never get the manuscript revisions done for you to look over.”

“Having any luck with it?” Dace asked, adjusting the water temperature.

“A little. I think you’ll like the additions.”

“Can’t wait.” Dace smiled.

“I want to see them too,” I said. They spent hours discussing Dad’s book, but I’d yet to see it. How was that fair?

“When it’s done,” Dad promised.

I huffed.

You’re cute when you’re irritated
, Dace said, mixing cocoa into a mug of hot water. He gave it a quick stir, then sprinkled cinnamon on top.

I stuck my tongue out at him.

He headed my way with a steaming mug in his hands and an amused smirk on his face.

“You’ll be okay?” Dad asked while I glared at Dace.

I turned in his direction. “I’ll be fine, Dad. Go. Write.” I made a shooing gesture with my hand.

He hesitated, clearly torn between writing and keeping a close eye on me.

“I won’t let her leave my sight,” Dace promised.

Dad glanced over at Dace, then nodded. “All right, then. I’ll be in the study if she needs me.”

I ground my teeth in frustration. “I’m right here, you know.”

Dad dropped a kiss on my forehead. “Indeed, you are, and we’re both grateful for it. Love you, Ari.”

He disappeared before I could say anything further.

I huffed and turned my icy gaze on Dace, only to find him watching me. The soft, wanting expression on his face made my stomach flutter. Irritation bled away in the blink of an eye.

“You’re beautiful,” he said simply.

“No fair,” I whispered, my frustrated argument blowing away like so much dust.

“What’s not fair?”

“You distracting me from being angry.” I reached for his hand.

“You were angry?” He placed his hand in mine, his emerald eyes gleaming with lighthearted mischief. “By all means, let’s hear it.” He made a show of looking serious, straightening up in his chair and clearing his throat.

“I lost the moment,” I said.

“That’s good.” He lifted our interlaced hands to his lips and brushed a light kiss across my knuckles. “Because I never promised to play fair.”

“You never do anyway,” I grumbled.

Wasn’t I supposed to warm you up?

Dace
….

He completely ignored my warning, staring at me instead with one brow raised and a cocky smirk on his face. His desire brushed across me like a caress. He called a memory to the forefront of his mind, one of me settled on his lap on the couch, my head thrown back as he watched me writhe above him.

Heat rushed through me in waves before settling low in my belly at the memory.

I hadn’t forgotten that day, but my memory of that moment was different. His eyes glowed in my memory, everything he felt for me shining like beacons from those emerald depths as he marked me as his partner, his lover… his mate.

So beautiful,
he thought.

“So perfect,” he said, sliding his hand from mine to cup my cheek.

I groaned aloud at his low, silky whisper.

He brushed his lips across mine, his touch featherlight.

Geri rumbled, pushing his way into my mind more fully than he had in days. Images went skittering through me so quickly I could barely keep up.

Dace and I curled up together in front of a roaring fire.

Dace leaning over me as I stared up at him with wide, trusting eyes.

The two of us laying together inside a cave while snow swirled like an obscuring blanket tossed over the world outside.

Geri showed me a hundred similar images from different lifetimes, and each ended the same way. With Dace moving over me, kissing me in a thousand different places, touching me in a million different ways. Each touch, each kiss, was given with words of love on his lips and desire burning in his eyes. And each one sent another wave of heat rolling through me.

Geri sat in the corner of my head reserved for him, his eyes glowing exactly like Dace’s did in my memory. Love and pride poured from him.

The spaces reserved for Freki, those places deep down where she still resided even if she could no longer come forward, fluttered and shifted as Geri’s picture show radiated through me with the force of an atomic bomb. She might have been little more than a ghost living in the deepest recesses of our shared soul, but she felt her mate, too. And she wanted him as much as I wanted Dace.

A faint whine burbled up from her, no more than a gentle exhalation on the wind.

Geri heard it. He tossed his head back and howled his desire for Freki and me.

Dace
…. I swayed against him, my entire body aching with need as the sound of Geri’s mating cry fanned the flames higher.
Please.

I lifted my hand to plead with Dace to touch me. To really kiss me. To please, for the love of all that’s holy, ease the burn. I needed him in ways I couldn’t even begin to describe. Since the moment I met him, I’d wanted him. I’d needed him. But this was different. With the exception of his massage last night, he’d given me nothing but chaste kisses in weeks―and they weren’t enough. Not with all those memories bouncing around in my head. Not with his thoughts, his desires, and his emotions swirling through me alongside my own, alongside Geri’s, and alongside Freki’s.

If he didn’t touch me soon, I really would explode.

“I can’t,” he groaned, pulling away. “We can’t. You aren’t fully healed yet.”

Geri stopped howling as if he’d forgotten that damning fact.

Freki settled again, disappearing into her half of my soul with a single flutter.

“Please.”

Being with Dace was killing me slowly. Every day for weeks, he’d been right there beside me, but he hadn’t touched me. Not like I needed him to. He treated me like porcelain, as if I would shatter in his arms if he kissed me like I knew he wanted to, or touched me like I wanted him to. If feeling his guilt was hard, having him here, feeling the depth of his desire, and not being able to really kiss him was impossible.

“No,” he said.

Defeat hurt.

I dropped my head to rest it against the table when Geri retreated. The cool wood didn’t help me. I was still on fire. I still ached. I still felt like I might explode.

Arionna, please.

“When I’m healed?” I asked.

“When you’re healed.”

That day couldn’t get here fast enough. I’d already died a virgin once, thank you very much.

Dace and Geri growled.

I ignored them both.

“Don’t do that,” Dace said.

“Do what?”

“Be angry with me for trying to take care of you.”

“I’m not angry. I’m sexually frustrated.” I turned my head to look at him. “You’re torturing me.”

He smiled crookedly. “Trust me, love, if anyone’s doing the torturing, it’s you.”