Chapter 28: Chapter 26

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Pronouciation/Glossary

Gaelic

Lorg mi rudeigin - I found something (lorg me rooj-ig-in)

Dè - what (Jay)

Dh'iarr i comraich - she wants sanctuary (gee-ar ee com-reek)

Seall oirre - look at her (ShAHl or-reh)

Ban-sìthe - banshee

Old Norse

Fagr - beautiful (fag-er)

Helheimr - Hel's realm of the dead (Hell-hime-er)

Náströnd - where the damned dead reside in Hel's domain (NAU-strond)

Jötunn (plural - Jötnar) - giants of Norse mythology (Yur-tun pl. Yurt-nar)

Chapter 26

"You want to move all of these wolves within your walls?" Sindri scanned the cobbled together dens that lined the road with a puckered brow.

Pups ran in-between them, kicking up snow under the watchful eye of older wolves. The younger ones didn't notice the warriors circling or the tension that lingered. Blissfully unaware of the goings on, they delighted in the freezing cold while we watched grim faced as the sky filled with fluffy clouds.

Another storm was drawing breath.

Realising Sindri wanted an actual answer, I stepped forward and nodded. "Yes. All of them. Preferably, we want enough space for each family, or mated pair, to have their own room. We may be one pack but dens are for close kin, and wolves get territorial. There's already been a few nipping teeth over the last few days so some have come back out here to get away."

"Even if we fix the areas of the castle you have shown us, you will not have enough space for everyone," Sindri advised. "Not unless you want to build more onto what already stands."

"Very well," I said, much to Sindri's bemusement.

Whatever we had to do to protect the pack, we would do. . .but I had to keep in mind we didn't have the luxury of time.

Hati nuzzled his cheek against mine. "Perhaps it would be easier to secure the dens out here and extend the wall to surround them instead? We could use more space in the front for the pups to run around safely in the trees when they aren't allowed past the gate. There are also wolves like yourself, Elskan Mín, who would prefer to be a bit closer to nature while confined to the castle. You could have your own piece of the forest inside our walls."

That did sound nice.

As much as I enjoyed waking in Hati's arms on a soft bed with a fire crackling, it could only be appreciated more if my mate would come out and experience the warmth found snuggling with another in fur, as winter winds batter your body, forcing you to tuck your tail over your nose to protect your face from stinging flakes of snow.

Hati must have been paying attention to my thoughts for he cast me a look of disbelief. And he thought I was the pampered one? I would convince him to spend a night out in our new forest, he would see.

"Is that possible?" I asked hopefully.

Sindri glanced up to the burly God who'd followed us in complete silence all morning. At least, I assumed he was a god, though he looked nothing like the ones I'd seen so far, his skin and eyes without the subtle glow to mark out those like Gná. Even the Vargr had something ethereal about them. This male however, had an unfamiliar scent and an unfamiliar look about him.

He grunted and went to study one of the walls, knocking the sharp iron tool on the stone before turning back to nod at Sindri.

"He can do that. All we need do for him is mark out where you want the wall and he will build. He'll want to survey the land, though if your dens have withstood this long then it's probably good for building on." Sindri handed me a leather satchel. "You set to carving up your forest, I'm going to go look at your sorry excuse for a forge. Will you accompany me, Hróðvitnisson?"

Hati and I shared a glance.

He couldn't leave me to decide on where a wall should be built. I'd never built anything beyond small dens and burrows before in my life.

Chuckling, my mate pulled out a wooden stake from the satchel I clutched, eyed where the wall stood, then walked in line and planted the stake in the snow. "That's all you have to do, Little Alpha. I'm sure our Jötunn friend will keep you right."

Jötunn?

Of course. That explained the raw power emanating from him, untamed like the pounding of waves and the shifting of the earth because he was of nature itself. More than even I could boast of when I lived in the wilderness.

"We were all surprised when he agreed to help you, considering the roll the Jötnar play in Ragnarök." I hadn't heard Gná approach, but the Goddess appeared at my side just as Hati left with Sindri. She eyed the hulking Jötunn with distrust, fingers dancing over the shaft of her spear.

"Maybe that's exactly why he's helping."

Gná gave me a questioning look, then glanced back at the Jötunn thoughtfully.

With a biting winter wind building in the air again, I decided to get to work, pulling a stake out of the satchel and placed it line with the one Hati had staked into the icy ground. Gná kept pace with me, occasionally huffing out a puff of air and tugging at her furs. Even I was struggling in skin. I swore even the stakes were covered in a sheen of ice crystals as I pulled out another and grunted with the force it took to pierce it through the frozen soil.

Maybe that was far out enough. We were a good distance from the castle and a good few feet from the last shelter.

Stopping to stamp some feeling back into my frozen feet, I peered back at the castle peeking through skeletal branches. Before I'd seen the hall of the gods, I'd thought it to be a building of great splendour. Thanks to the dwarves who delighted in pointing out every fault and hazard in the stone and woodwork, and the shortcomings in the state of our own-forged weaponry, I saw what Hati saw, how much we were in need of help. In their current state, half of our walls would crumble in the next gale, or be breached as easily as pushing over a sapling.

It didn't feel so much like looking at my prison anymore either.

I wished I could stay my course and insist the wilds were where we should be, but for now I understood the need for walls, for the cooks who stopped fights for food breaking out, the warriors who guarded our territory, the healer and those who learned from her who tended to cuts and wounds before they could fester as they sometimes did in the wild. Suddenly, imagining life after, a life returning to the simplicity of roaming the forests and glens, well. . .it didn't feel like home in the way it once did.

"It's more space than some of the fields we keep our horses in," Gná said.

"It'll do for now," I agreed, turning at a right-angle to finish marking out the wall and begin the other side on the way back.

To the pups, I was sure the enclosed forest would feel like miles of woodland, enough for them not to get tired exploring. Enough even for them to practice hunting and stalking skills if we could usher in some rabbits and encourage squirrels to climb over the wall.

"Halt!"

I span on a jump as Gná's voice rang out, only to laugh at the sight of my wide-eyed cousin. Fionnlagh stared at the spear she held then lifted his gaze to mine.

"Can't you see the family resemblance?" I teased, and the goddess lowered her offensive stance.

Fionnlagh scoffed. "Course she doesn't, I don't have your stupid face."

I rolled my eyes and went back to my work. Measuring out a few steps before pulling out a new stake. "Do you need something?"

"Lorg mi rudeigin."

I frowned when he swapped to our tongue, straightening slowly as I considered what he might have found that would make him sound both guilty and scared. "Dè?"

But then I smelt it on him. Acrid and rotten. It had been closed enough to get its scent on him. First Niamh and now this. Why didn't he say immediately?

"Eabha!" he yelled, his fingers grasping at my wrist but I slipped away easily, his voice chasing after. "Dh'iarr i comraich!"

"Lorg Hati," I threw back at him but I should have known he was too much like me to listen. Hopefully one of the Vargr on watch would think to call for my mate when he saw me drop the satchel and take off into the forest.

Thankfully I had Gná hot on my heels, and when a high-pitched warning howl rang through the air, I was comforted in the knowledge warriors must have picked up the scent too. Fionnlagh outpaced me, darting around trees and over brambles as if he held a map in his head of every inch of the forest. Thanks to him, we beat the patrol in arriving first.

A growl rumbled from my chest as I caught sight of it staggering through knee-deep snow, but Fionnlagh shoved at my shoulders. Confused, I tried to push him out of my way. He hadn't seen a creature like this up close before, he hadn't witnessed the true brutality they were capable of, maybe he was thrown off by how much like us they appeared, but his sympathy still caught me off guard, doubly so when he lifted his arm to block Gná as well.

"Wait," he pleaded with both of us. "Did you not hear me? She asked for help. For Sanctuary."

I blinked. She. I thought he'd meant it. And I'd thought it asking for help no more than a ploy to try to get close enough to my cousin to snap at his neck. Grabbing his arm, I tugged him close and inhaled deeply, eyes searching out the new scratches on his skin.

"She tried to hurt you. Feed from you-"

"Yes but then she didn't."

My frown deepened. Why was he defending a creature of the same ilk responsible for killing his father, his cousin, for chasing us from our home?

"Seall oirre, Eabha."

Fighting between the urge to defend and knowing Fionnlagh would curse me for not at least hearing him out, I took a deep breath and forced myself to look at the demon.

Really look.

Tight ringlet curls were thick and dark as obsidian, cakes with mud and matted in places. Her skin, which I could guess had once been a rich earthy brown, held a sickly hue made worse by how tight it was drawn over bone. She didn't look too dissimilar to how I must have looked when I first arrived here; starving, desperate, disorientated. The dress she wore had patches of brightly dyed fabric where it wasn't caked in dirt, torn, or damp from melted snow. Her scent was foul. It burned my nose and stuck to my throat, thick and tacky. The demon stood trembling as if she felt the cold, as if she was scared of us, hovering a few metres away with darting eyes.

Fionnlagh was right. There was something eerily different about this one.

Crunching snow told me the patrol had caught up to us, but they stopped behind Gná when I lifted a hand. I frowned. They had stopped. So why could I still hear a slow thud like a slow moving giant?

A heartbeat.

The creature before us had a heartbeat.

"Please," the Blood Drinker croaked, clawing at her own throat. "It hurts. Make it stop."

Her pleading unnerved all of us.

Nobody seemed to know what to do as the Blood Drinker staggered forward on trembling legs then fell to her knees in the snow, fangs showing behind cracked lips as she begged again. "Please. I'm so hungry."

But she'd fed. At some point. The dark brown staining her dress wasn't from dye. Blood had dried under her nails too, up her arms, even speckled like rust around her mouth. The stench of death clung so thick to her, I half expected to blink and see a corpse rather than a breathing, talking woman. Yet, though I certainly felt disgust, I wasn't as ready to cleave her head from her body as I first was. Not as eager as the young male pulling his sword out was.

She startled at the hiss of steel, scrambling back in another odd show of emotion from a Blood Drinker. I could swear there was still something distinctly human about the fear glistening in her mahogany eyes.

"What's your name? Why are you here?" I heard myself ask before I could stop.

"Why in the name of Odin are you talking to it?" Vali barked as he joined us, much to Gná's displeasure. "You should kill it. Send its soul back to Helheimr."

His words sent the female wailing. She threw herself forward, hands splayed out beseechingly towards us. Her entire body rattled as she begged for her life, for something to sate the hunger, and then for death, all in one breath.

We stared at her in shock, as frozen as the ice crystals forming in her hair.

A Blood Drinker. . .crying? Begging?

Screeching like a dreaded ban-sìthe.

A flare of magic made my skin prickle and suddenly the female went limp and silent, her panicked heartbeat slowing once more.

I gave Vali a sideways glare.

He shrugged, "She was scaring the crows."

At least I could think without her attempting to burst our ear drums.

"What should we do with her?" Fionnlagh asked, concern etched into his features.

I growled, grabbing his arm before he could take a step towards the unconscious Blood Drinker. "You are going to return to the castle and alert Hati that we have someone for Eirny to take a look at. . .providing your magic will keep her under for a while, Vali."

"I can keep her sleeping as long as I'm awake."

Good.

"Then it's settled; she's coming with us."

No wolf, Vargr or Skin Shifter stepped forward to offer to carry her. I couldn't blame them. Even Fionnlagh was suddenly quickly making his way to find Hati. Just how my young cousin had stumbled upon the Blood Drinker when he wasn't meant to go further than the stream as long as he was with older wolves, I would have to interrogate him about later.

A few hours later, having sworn the wolves who saw our new guest to secrecy, we snuck the Blood Drinker in through the back to one of private rooms in Eirny's wing. It felt like an age since I myself had been in here, bathing in a real tub for the first time ever, listening in on Hati when he was a male I didn't trust back then, and I was a female he believed toying with him.

Now he and I were both looking at the newest arrival with the same suspicion.

"Maybe you can make an antidote?" I suggested half-heartedly.

Eirny shook her head, her expression grim as she looked over the shivering female on the bed. "It is not a poison that runs through her veins, more like an infection; one I fear has run most of its course. Smell," she urged. "Even in the short time she's been here, her scent grows less distinguishable as human. Soon, she won't be human at all."

"How is that possible?" Caldar demanded making motion with his hand as if to ward off the evil that permeated the room.

The hair on my arms stood on end.

"I think young Fionnlagh was right. There's something different about this Blood Drinker. . .if that is what she is."

"What could she possibly be if not a Blood Drinker?" Astrid blanched.

Yes. The thought of another creature running around in the shadows to deal with was not appealing in the least.

"There's no need to panic just yet. She has all the markers of a dead body that has been possessed like the others, if you ignore the peculiarities. Eabha will be able to prove it one way or another."

"Me?" I squeaked. "How?"

She chuckled and lifted her hand to cup my cheek. "By doing, or trying to do, what you were created for. If one of the twisted souls Sköll stole from Náströnd clung to her at the moment of her death, like a parasite, trapping her souk here too, then you will be able to set her free. You will be able to tear the parasite from her and send it back to Hel's keep. . . If it doesn't work. . ." She looked pitifully down at the unconscious female. ". . .well, then what I suspect changes everything."

"Wonderful," Hati grumbled at my back.

"It might not work because I do not know what I am doing," I mumbled.

"But you do," Hati disagreed. "You told me you remembered something Freyja said to you before you arrived on Midgard, in this body. Somewhere inside you, in your marrow, your soul, you know what you really are. You know what to do. Trust that, like you trust your instincts when you hunt." His lips twitched and his eyes brightened into a brilliant gold, his voice dropping low. "Like you trusted your instincts your first night with me by the fire, what fun we had when you didn't know what to do." He nipped my throat. "Maybe Freyja could not teach you to wield your power because no one can. You need to reteach yourself, Little Alpha. You need to remember."

Why did he have so much confidence in me?

Eirny guided me to sit on the stool by the female's bed, soft hands on my shoulders. She must have cast the others a glance because Astrid gave me a grin of encouragement before shooing everyone but Hati out the door.

"Take her hand," Eirny instructed.

I couldn't help but recoil in disgust. How could I touch it? Even though she'd been cleaned of blood I could still smell copper on her skin and on her breath. How many lives had it taken before it stumbled upon us?

"If that's how you're going to be, why did you even bother letting her live?"

It had been a while since I'd been scolded, and my head fell forward, irritation scratching up my spine when I heard my mate snigger.

Eirny was right. I'd chosen to spare the creature, whatever it was, so it was up to me to see this through. Swallowing bile, I tentatively slid my hand over the female's cool fingers, clasping then in mine, then I searched for that flicker of power in my chest, balled up like string, and tugged on a loose end. It felt like a rush of electricity, as if I'd been struck by lightening, or been imbued with the strength of the howling gales I could hear hammering at our walls even now. The room brightened into vibrant colours that shifted and swirled just as the fire in Hati's eyes did as he studied me, lips parted.

"Fagr. You are beautiful."

"Concentrate," Eirny interrupted before the tugging sensation drawing me to my mate could break my control. "Feel for her soul as you do Hati's so easily."

It was hard to tear my gaze from him. And when I did, I was doused in cold. Where Hati was a burning flame, the female on the bed was shrouded in shadow. The echo of her heart sounded more like an ominous drum if war than the pounding of life. In fact, there was nothing that spoke of life at all despite her chest rising and falling with breath.

"There's nothing," I murmured, terrified by that truth, by the empty echo I felt where with Hati and Eirny I could sense nearly too much.

Closing my eyes, I forced all of my will into searching for any sign of a soul, hers or other, pushing the light glowing around my hands outward to attempt to disperse the shadows. If I could do this, it would mean I did know who I was, my place in the world. This was what I was made for. This was my birth right. All I had to do was trust that.

Eirny squeezed my shoulders "There you go, that's it."

Harder and harder I focussed all my might on trying to peel away the darkness, the inky black I could sense running through her veins like poison; just as Eirny had said. But every time I felt it give, it came back all the harder. Too soon I felt myself begin to fade, my arms trembling, the unravelled ball in my chest beginning to wind tight again. The power I'd harnassed snapped back so hard I rocked dangerously on the stool.

"Did it work?" I rasped, blinking away the black dots eating up my vision.

Hati came to my side with a mug of water for me as Eirny leaned over to check on the female now twitching violently on the bed.

But I already knew the answer. If it had worked, wouldn't there have been more to it? Some monstrous apparition to send back to where it came from?

"This is what I feared," Eirny murmured softly, stroking the female's cheek.

"What? What is it? Why didn't it work?"

"The blood drinkers capable of speech, of proper thought, they're not dead possessed by souls from Náströnd; at least, this one certainly isn't." Violet eyes lifted to us, creased with worry. "She's both alive and dead, and if Eabha cannot help her then the only soul possessing her is human."

"What? How is that possible?" Hati demanded. "How can you say this creature is human?"

"I said her soul is human. Maybe it won't be either when the transformation is complete. My guess would be that this is what happens when blood from a Náströnd Blood Drinker infects a live human. If there is a cure, it will take me time to create it, and time to study these poor creatures."

"We can't keep a Blood Drinker here for you to experiment on, we've seen what just one can do to a pack," Hati argued.

"But this one didn't," I said. "She was starving but she didn't even try to attack me, and according to Fionnlagh, she held herself back from hurting him too. That's why I didn't kill her myself. If Eirny is right, then technically she isn't a Blood Drinker like we've come across before."

Not that I was totally comfortable with the idea of the same creature, or near enough the same, that killed two of my family members anywhere near the pack. Instinct told me to kill the fitfully sleeping female where she lay and be done with it, yet I was stopped by the knowledge I'd gained about killing without proof of crime. No one here could say if this infected female had harmed a soul, how much control she had over her actions, or whether Eirny would be able to help her.

"If she's starving it means she either couldn't feed or chose not to. We owe it to her to at least find out which it was first. She could have killed Fionnlagh, she didn't."

"Feeding her will be another logistical nightmare all together!" Hati huffed and rubbed his forehead before glancing back up at me. "I suppose helping her because she spared your cousin is part of your honour code from Alba?"

I couldn't help but smile a little.

He groaned and rubbed his face again. "Very well. But then I am taking a bite out of Fionnlagh for not being within the walls."

I blinked. Was my mate actually submitting to my wisdom?

He was. But then he then he opened the door so he could set our Beta on me.

"Eabha has made the final decision, the Blood Drinker stays," Hati informed him.

"I don't want to be an executioner," I said before Caldar could fly at me. I'd already done that once. "She's caused no harm to us."

"Until she does!"

"Until she does, she stays." Lifting my chin, I held Caldar's gaze with lifted lip until a muscle in his cheek twitched and he broke first.

"If she isn't possessed, then it means we need to go on another hunt," Hati added.

Caldar went so red in the face I thought he might implode. "No."

"Yes," I insisted, happy to be on the same page as my mate for once. "We need to find a Blood Drinker, an original one. If I can send one back to Helheim, maybe there's a way to send the rest back with it; otherwise we could spend years searching for every last one. We don't have years."

"There's too much going on here. The pack is still recovering from all Linnea did, They still eye each other with suspicion, the council are arguing about Ingrid's seat and whether it should even be hers at all and if Loa should keep her seat at all. She hasn't left her rooms once since news of Linnea's betrayal and subsequent death."

"It's not a bad plan, Caldar." Hati whacked his Beta's shoulder. "After all, what better way to arrange a meeting with the goddess of Helheimr than to offer her back the souls my brother and I stole from her? I have a Beta and a council exactly for times like these, when I must step away."

"And lately you have relied on us more and more so you can both run around, jumping through realms." Caldar huffed but we knew he would concede. I could see the defeat weighing on his shoulders.

Maybe our Beta had a point?

We'd just introduced new tensions with the arrival of the Dvergr, Gods, and now we planned to hide a new species of Blood Drinker in our walls too? The potential for catastrophe was astronomic.

Hati read the hesitation in my stance and turned me to face him. "No more hiding. It's time for you to do what you were made for, Elskan Mín, and it's time for me to fix the mistake I made. If we do this, it will be hard for Hel to refuse us time with Linnea's soul."

I searched his gaze, my fingers stroking up his arm as if touch might bare his soul to me. Fire. That's always what I saw in him. A determined flame that burned bright in the face of destiny.

He kissed me on a deep growl.

"So we hunt?"

"We hunt."

To Be Continued. . .