Foretold

Kat voiced my biggest question. “You don’t think she’d actually hurt them, do you?”

Hot tears burned the corners of my eyes but I held them back. “You guys know we can’t let her. If they live to fight and we play our part, one of them could survive and there will be no end of the world.”

Coral sniffed. Tears streaked her cheeks. “We have to stop her. No matter what it could mean.”

We stared silently at one another, each of us knowing what the others were thinking.

I couldn’t worry about dying or losing one of my sisters. We’d never been apart. We fought, sure—all sisters do—but we shared a deeper bond, one forged through years of only having one another in the weirdest of living situations. Out of the three of us, only Coral had braved a date. It was hard to date when your mother thought every potential boyfriend could be a killer. Other than that, only our jobs separated us.

Pathetic? Maybe.

But our purpose had been drilled into us from birth. We carried the norns’ souls, making us the new sisters of fate. We carved the old words in seidr trances and revealed secrets, lies and hopes. And now, we had to find all three potential world-saving warriors because we didn’t know which one Mom had gone after first.

Or what she’d do once she found him.

I risked one hand off the wheel long enough to rub my temple. This anxiety was eating me alive. I’d been driving too long and my head had ached the past twenty-four hours. I missed my sisters. We’d never been apart this long before.

So when the flash of brown stepped in front of my car, I panicked and swerved. The car hit a patch of ice, glanced off a tree and sailed with a groaning, metallic cry right over a ravine and into fast-moving, icy water.

The jarring crash rattled every bone in my body.

Shock froze me for a second or two. Then the terror hit. I screamed as the car floated down the river, slamming into boulders and tree limbs like some tricked-out carnival water slide. My suitcase flew between the bucket seats and hit my shoulder, knocking me into the steering wheel.

Blinking, I wrapped my cold fingers around the wheel until they cramped. I couldn’t see crap! Ride it out or abandon ship? The decision was ripped from me when everything came to a jarring stop.

The car had lodged into...a fallen tree. I took a deep breath. But then the vehicle tilted and my head slammed into the driver’s side window. Metal groaned again. The weight of the car pushed into limbs, causing shrill, screeching noises as they scraped the door.

Freezing water soaked into my jeans and through my T-shirt, ribbed turtleneck and my favorite jean jacket.

Fear, pain and panic create a mess of stupid.

I chucked my ego into the river and started scrambling. Everything was slippery and cold. I shivered, slid and gasped as I tried to right myself in the tilted front seat without standing on the driver’s side window. With teeth chattering and water dripping into my eyes, I searched out a dry spot on my jacket sleeve to wipe them. Water dribbled into my mouth. I caught the metallic taste of blood.

I climbed over the side of the driver’s seat and into the back, trying to brace my feet on anything.

Wrapping my fingers around the metal casing of the broken rear side window, I held on, dangling. Dizziness swept over me and I closed my eyes, trying to wrestle my panic into submission.

I held my eyes tightly closed. Took several deep breaths. When it felt as if the world would stay still again, I opened one eye and pulled myself partly up through the window. The snow pounded, feeling more like ice pellets. They stung my cold cheeks. My breath caught on a sob as the car suddenly lurched, slid a foot or two, then settled into another tree.

That’s when I saw him. Crouch-crawling along that tree. A man. A really big man in a black parka with the hood pulled over his face.

Chapter Two

My heart slammed against my rib cage.

It could have been the cold, or the terror, screwing with my head...or my penchant for scary B movies, but all I could think about were stories about girls who disappear when they’re alone out on the road.

Honestly, facing my death by drowning scared me, but being raped and murdered and left to freeze in the growing piles of snow wasn’t the way I wanted to go, either. My adrenaline spiked. I kept one eye on him and yanked the upper half of my body through the window.

Hell with the tree! I’d jump in the river and swim for it.

“Hang on,” he yelled. “I’ll pull you out!”

“No, thanks,” I shouted back. “I’m good!” I opened my mouth to repeat but choked as a surge of icy river water swept over the car and into my mouth. I spat it out, along with a twig and—oh, gross—something slippery that moved against my tongue. Gagging, I spat again and held on as the flood tried to push me back into the car.

“You’re bleeding a lot, so be still.” The deep voice was right by my head.

Gasping, I turned, swallowing the acid in my throat, not sure where to go. What to do. I was losing it. Hadn’t even realized he’d crawled that close.

“Hey, kid, if I can see the blood in this dark, with all this water, you’ve got a problem. Just stop wiggling so I can get ahold of you.”

“Who’s got ahold of you?” My words slurred and that scared me to death, even as the “kid” thing relieved me a bit. With my black hair cropped close to my head and wet, I probably looked like a twelve-year-old boy who’d stolen his parents’ car. With nasty river water choking me, I probably sounded like one, too.

“I’ve got my boots braced, don’t worry.”

Strong hands wrapped around my upper arms and he tugged me through the window opening. He slid one arm behind my knees. The other went around my shoulders. I stared into the darkness under the hood. It was creepy, like gazing into a black hollow where a face should be.

I felt the effort he put into staying on that huge limb. Every step he took was carefully thought out, strategically placed. “I heard your car go in. Noise travels well out here at night. And with the crazy weather, that little creek isn’t a creek anymore. It’s running deeper and stronger than normal. Does anything feel broken?”

“No. I just hit my head.”

“You were lucky.”

By the time he’d carried me back to solid ground, I felt the cold full-force. Violent shivers racked my body. My head pounded like it had been split. I couldn’t tell if water, snow or blood dripped down my face and I hoped it was the former. It was hard to see, to even keep my eyes open with all the wet stuff gumming them up or slamming into my eyeballs when I left them open. He didn’t stop once we reached the trees. In fact, he picked up the pace.

“My car,” I croaked, my hands sliding on the slippery material of his coat as I tried to clutch it. His jostling made me want to hurl. “Gods! Can you slow down?”

“Sorry. It’s too cold, you’re too wet and your head looks ugly.”

“Thanks.” Sarcasm. I was still capable of sarcasm.

Laughter shook his chest. “I meant the wound. As for the car, we’ll send someone for it after the snow sto—” He broke off. “Someone will come get it later.”

I narrowed my eyes even more with that abrupt cutoff. Did he know it probably wouldn’t stop? I wanted to ask, but my words were taking on separate life, buzzing unsteadily about my brain like furious, drunken bees. I closed my eyes, swallowed and concentrated on staying awake and aware.

He stopped and went quiet.

I gasped and managed to finally grab the slick parka. “Hey—” I snapped my mouth shut as the very wrongness of the moment hit me.

His caution crept into and around me until I could nearly taste the thickness of it on the air. Then I realized it wasn’t caution. It was magic. And with that, my surreal sort of dreamy state crumbled away like burning paper. I fully felt the cold in my lungs. The ache from their effort to continue working. The throbbing in my head. And the panic at the slide of that magic into my pores. Reality returned, as did my adrenaline.

I began to struggle.

He let me slide to my feet, facing away from him, but when my legs wobbled, he pulled me back against him and put one hand gently over my mouth. “Shh,” he whispered into my ear. The thick canopy of leaves over our heads slowed the fall of snow. His breath brushed hot over my cheek, down my neck. I shivered. He tightened his arms. “Someone’s out here. I was looking for a friend of mine who didn’t show at my house. I thought I heard Steven yell right before I heard your crash, so I’m worried someone else is out here, too.”

With his hand over my mouth, I couldn’t ask questions, wasn’t sure I wanted to, anyway. I nodded to let him know I wasn’t panicked now. He removed his hand, but kept his mouth close. I shivered when his breath tickled my ear. “Listen,” he said, more breath than voice.

And I did.

The forest around us joined in the silence, the only noise the patter of snow hitting snow. The occasional moan of wind through the foliage. My gaze swung right and left, the view the same no matter where I looked. Trees, bushes and a vast white that reflected the moon and lit up the night around us.

Standing there, under the treetops, with the forest silent and funereal, was like being cocooned in a world void of wildlife. I knew animals instinctively burrowed in the cold, but to hear nothing moving? This hush combined with the thick stink of magic was anything but ordinary. The air carried the smell of dark things, of twisted fury and evil intent.

And...lavender.

Slumping against him, I closed my eyes and concentrated. A faint humming sounded, a kind of mechanical whine, and it was far enough away not to alarm me much. But the responding thumping of feet hitting ground did. And the fact I could hear this when the ground was padded in snow sent something screaming up my back.

Someone was running hard, and the more attention I paid, the more I could pick out other noises. The runner’s harsh panting, a soft whimper of terror. My eyes flew open. I didn’t understand. Was it really my mom out there? Trying to hurt someone?

I tried to push away from the guy holding me. He merely tightened his arms. “Stop it,” he whispered. “You’re going to pass out. I’ll let you go, but you gotta sit down. There’s a boulder here.” He used one gloved hand to brush snow off the top of the huge rock, then gently lowered me toward it. “I’m Vanir.”

My butt thunked the last foot to the rock. Hard.

What were the odds? Odds, hell! There was no way this was a coincidence. I went light-headed. Nearly lost control of my legs, so I grabbed on to the rock. My wet jeans were already chafing my icy skin, so adding more cold against my butt made me wince.

He squatted in front of me. I sucked in a startled breath when he peeled the wet hood from his head. Scant moonlight touched his features. He wasn’t really a man. I mean, yeah, he was male, but younger than a man yet too old to be a boy. His size and deep voice had fooled me. He had to be at least six feet tall, and even crouched like this he made me feel small.

Not that that was hard considering my five-foot-one height.

But the face that met mine was around my age. Eighteen, maybe. He’d matured since that grainy newspaper photo. Sharp featured in his cheekbones, nose and chin, his face revealed a mixed heritage—like me. His eyes looked dark, though the color was hard to pinpoint in this light. His hair, swept off his forehead, reflected the light of the moon, and what hadn’t been visible in that black-and-white newspaper was the dark gold color.

He stared just as hard at me and those eyes held a maturity his face didn’t.

He smiled and I knew he did it to reassure me, because tension rolled off his body in choking waves. Suddenly, I wasn’t afraid of him. New warmth filled my gut. No, not afraid.

Just. Something. Else.

When he spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper. “My friend Steven was supposed to be at my house earlier. He never showed. His mom said he left a while ago, so I came out here to make sure he was okay.” He pulled off one thick glove and tilted my face into the moonlight, his fingers gentle on my chin.

The heat in his hand made me lean into his touch.

“You okay?” he whispered. Those eyes focused on my wound, but his thumb stroked softly over my chin, close to my bottom lip. “We need to get you looked at. My aunt is a doctor.” He dropped his hands to pull off the other glove before putting the gloves on my hands. That small bit of warmth was so welcome, I shut my eyes to enjoy it.

My eyes flew back open wide when he wrapped his coat around me and pulled my arms through the sleeves.

Some of his body heat was still in the coat, and while that felt good, the pressing of cold wet clothes into my skin didn’t. I said nothing about that. “I can hear your friend running. He sounds scared.”

His hoodie looked thick and mostly dry, though it wouldn’t stay that way long in this snow. I felt bad for taking his coat, but knew without doubt that he wouldn’t take it back.

Vanir stood and whistled softly. “I hate to leave you, but I have to help him and you can’t run. You’ll be okay if we can keep you warm.”

We? I saw the glowing, yellow eyes lock on me before two gray wolves stepped from the trees. They stopped on either side of Vanir. He bent to rub the head of one and a strand of his wheat-colored hair slid forward. His hair was long, shoulder-length at least.

In that instant, I knew I was right where I was supposed to be. Mom had been right about who he was. Right about the prophecies... Was she right about my possible death?

Was Vanir destined to kill me?

That humming filtered through the trees again, and this time the runner did more than whimper—he screamed. One of the wolves growled low in its throat.

Vanir’s hair caught the slivers of moonlight through the leaves as he whipped his head toward that sound. “I have to go. The one with the bent ear is Geri and this one is Freak—they’ll protect you.” He knelt and looked into the eyes of each wolf. “Keep her warm,” he said before loping into the woods.

Somewhere along the way he’d figured out I was a girl. I stared at the wolves, my tongue tied in knots. This was too much of a coincidence. The gods had to have a hand in this. My norn twisted behind my ribs as if she answered.

“Thanks,” I finally whispered. “The trick with the deer sucked. I know you probably hate the creatures because they munched on Yggdrasil and all, but I need my car.”

Vanir had disappeared into the forest, but I heard the slap of his feet on the snow. The wolves stalked toward me. My heart pounded so loud I knew they could hear it, could smell my fear.

One of them looked toward the place where Vanir had gone.

Geri and Freak, he’d said. Odin had run with two wolf companions, Geri and Freki.

Shivers hit me then, and before I could huddle into a ball, both animals crowded around me. Real fear froze me in place and it felt like my eyes were going to pop out of my head. These creatures listened to Vanir, but I was a stranger, nicely marinated in river water. I managed not to whimper when they crushed close, still watching the woods. Despite the pungent odor of wet fur and the absolute terror I had at the thought of relying on wild animals for heat, I sighed at the relief that warmth brought.

I couldn’t stay there, though. “Don’t worry about your friend,” I whispered to the wolves, my voice catching on the pain. Not only the physical, but the mental anguish I barely held tethered. That stupid lavender told me it was really my mother out there.

Scaring someone. Possible hurting them.

I pushed away from the wolves, though the loss of warmth made me clench my teeth. Staring into the trees, I called upon every reserve of strength I had before following.

Chapter Three

I remembered my cell phone as I stepped into the forest. I pulled off Vanir’s too-big gloves and shoved them into the pocket of his coat.

“Please, please...” I muttered, digging the phone out of the front pocket of my wet jeans. Why did jeans always shrink so tightly when wet? My fingers stung they were so cold.

The phone was damp, but the screen came on when I pushed a button. Coral answered on the third ring. “You’re hurt.”

We always knew with one another. I stumbled over something hidden in the snow and caught my hand on the rough bark of a tree. Wincing, I got my balance and curled my sore hand into a fist and pushed it into a pocket. “Gods, Coral, it’s crazy here! I’m in a forest, wet and cold, and get this, I’m walking with wolves.”

“Come again?” Her voice came across tinny—like she was in a tunnel.

I held the phone closer to my ear. “Yeah, wolves. I crashed into a stupid river and now I’m following Vanir—”

“You found him already? Is he it? Can you tell? Does he look like a warrior?” She paused. “Wait, you crashed?”

“Coral, I’m freaking freezing here. I’ll have to call back, but I think Mom is here.” I tripped over a stump this time. I knew it was a stump because my toe hit it hard. My knees crashed into snow just as one of the wolves nudged me and I dropped the phone. The snow stung my hands as I dug for it.

“Raven!”

My fingers were so stiff I could barely hold the phone, but I got it back to my ear as I leaned on a tree to catch my breath. Wet snow on the phone pricked my cheek. “I’m here. Dropped my cell.”

“Why do you think Mom’s there?”

“Because I smell lavender out in the woods in Oklahoma during Snowmageddon.” I took a deep breath. It hurt my lungs. “I’m also lost. I gotta go.”

“But if you smell lavender that means she’s—”

I closed my eyes, squeezed them to try and generate warmth and missed whatever else she said. One of the wolves nudged my side and I jumped. “Yeah, she’s doing some kind of spell. And it’s a doozy if I can smell it when I can’t even hear her.” The wolf poked me with its nose again. “I really do have to go. So cold.”

“Call me back soon, okay?” She sighed loudly. “Just let me know you’re okay. I’ll call Kat.”

“’Kay.” I flipped the phone closed and jammed it back into my jeans.

I wanted to get to Vanir before Mom did, though I still couldn’t believe she’d actually hurt him.

Fury got me moving again. One of the wolves stayed close to my side. It was so tall that I didn’t have to bend to bury my fingers in the warm fur. I should have been more scared of the huge animal, but I wasn’t. Not right then, anyway. “I don’t know if you’re Geri or Freak—which is a really mean name to give such a beauty, by the way—but you guys have to help me. Can you take me to Vanir?”

Yeah, rationally, I knew they couldn’t understand me. The weird, glowing eyes made them supernatural creatures of some sort, but wolves with the ability to decipher human speech? Nah. Still, one bounded a few feet ahead and went stiff, tail straight and horizontal to the ground. It sniffed, so I took a cautious breath, trying not to pull it too deep since my breaths felt more like they pulled in razors rather than air.

I gagged when lavender-tainted magic filled my lungs.

That wolf took off and the other stayed close by my side, surprising me with the amount of warmth it generated every time it brushed my hand or leg. I was glad the other one stopped every so often to turn those glowing eyes in our direction because I couldn’t move very fast now. Exhaustion made my limbs feel like anchors and the pillowy drifts of snow were starting to look more bedlike with each drag of my feet. And though I could smell my mother’s magic, I couldn’t follow it to the source—not even if I wasn’t already disoriented as hell from the bump on my head and the cold.

I wished then that I hadn’t cut my hair—at least it would have kept my ears warm.

Soon, my thoughts turned into jumbled mush as I focused on getting one foot in front of the other. Most of the images tumbling through my mind were of my mother and sisters during a few of the happier times, like the summer we’d crossed a couple of states with a group of people who called themselves Travelers. Took us a while to figure out they were mostly thieves, but the gatherings at night with music and good food had been cool. Or the time we’d stopped at an RV camp and I’d dived off the edge of a small waterfall and hit my head in shallow water. Mom had kept me up all night, afraid I wouldn’t wake if I fell asleep.

She’d always had problems and my sisters and I believed it was because of the prophecy, the running...maybe even our father, who’d abandoned her after their one night together. But I couldn’t wrap my mind around her behavior now. Crazy or not, she’d never left us, and as far as I knew, she’d never hurt anyone. I had such a bad feeling that she was trying to hurt Vanir.

I stumbled again and worked to focus on the problem now. The snow wasn’t that deep here since the trees were close together and their canopies were catching most of it before dumping chunks that created drifts here and there. Every now and then, I heard it spill in heavy thumps to the ground. The lavender smell wafted by again and I stopped, tried to pinpoint its origin. If only I could sniff her out, follow the strength of the nasty flower scent to its source.

A sudden, low cry of anguish pulled me from my lull and I gave up trying to snag a ride on my mother’s magic. Instead, I shot forward, running as fast as I could manage with my body ready to shut down. That sound had come from Vanir. I knew it.

I spotted glowing canine eyes before I realized the wolf had stopped in a clearing. I burst from the trees and promptly tripped over another stump and went right through at least a foot of snow.

This time, the dizziness hit me so hard I could only roll onto my spine and shut my eyes. My back stung as the snow seeped under Vanir’s coat. The world spun around me like I was caught in the center of a tornado and I moaned when one of the wolves nudged my leg off the stump or log or whatever.

Then I realized it was too soft for a log.

I reached down, feeling around until my hands closed over denim—wet, freezing denim that obviously covered a human form.

“Oh, no,” I whispered on a choked sob. “Oh, please, no.” I rolled over and got onto my hands and knees. “Hey. Are you okay?” The dark coat had me nearly freaking out until I realized it wasn’t a sweatshirt with a hood.

It wasn’t Vanir.

But my heart caught for whoever this was. Moonlight reflected in the empty gaze of one dark eye, in the strands of snow-dusted blond bangs over his other eye. A boy who favored Vanir only in coloring. I looked for a wound, anything, but it was too dark to tell what had happened to him. Everything was too wet.

CPR! He needed CPR. My hands shook so hard I could barely get them on his chest.

I didn’t hear Vanir approach. When his palm rested on my shoulder, I sucked in a breath, my head jerking up.

“It’s too late.” His voice broke, the sound of grief gravelly on his tongue. “I already tried that.” He fell to his knees next to me. “Whoever killed him is long gone or the wolves would be running after him.”

Or her. Oh, gods, or her! I sagged back to the ground. Killed him? A roaring filled my ears. Blackness edged my vision and I squeezed my eyes shut tight. The urge to scream my own grief raged in my throat. I couldn’t understand.

Cold that had nothing to do with my surroundings swamped my body like an arctic wave. The world swirled around me much like it did during my rune tempus, but this was something entirely different. This was me, dealing with the soul-changing second, the slicing knowledge that nothing would ever be the same now.

I blinked into the darkness of the forest as I bit down hard on my lip to keep in the keening wail flooding my throat.

If I’d driven down here sooner... If I’d searched out Vanir before the idea had come to her...

Opening my eyes, I stared at the boy on the ground. Steven, Vanir had called him. His life was over and I was scared to death that my mother might have been the one to take it.