Cold Spell

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

A strangled sound emerges from Lucas’s throat. I see him close his eyes, bracing for the teeth, the claws. I exhale. After all that, this is how we’re going to die?

The first Fenris leaps over us. Then another, another. They avoid us entirely, instead headed for the ice, elongated faces and jaws, their teeth yellowed and bloody. They look so different from Kai, from the guards we killed. I can’t believe I ever thought Mora’s wolves were Dalia’s beasts.

The sight breaks through Ella’s calm exterior. I can see her panic; one shot left, a dozen wolves, Mora… there might as well be zero shots. Kai lowers his head and growls so loudly I can hear the sound from here, but they don’t stop; they pass him, finally stopping between Ella and Mora. The Fenris at the front of the pack pauses, and then twists, contorting. His snout sucks into his face; there’s a cracking sound as his spine changes, as his haunches become hip bones. He becomes a man with a wild, angry grin.

“Mora,” he says in a singsong voice. “Darling.”

Mora doesn’t answer. Her confidence fades; her shoulders slacken. She doesn’t move, doesn’t look at them—if it weren’t for the slow, even rise and fall of her chest, I’d say she wasn’t breathing. As strong as she’s always looked to me, she now resembles a ragdoll, something to be tossed around. Behind the Fenris, Ella softens her grip on her gun and takes a step away.

“Time to stop all this and come home,” the man—the Fenris—says, extending a hand to her. Behind him, the others pace, scratching at the ice and snarling to one another. They look at Mora hungrily, angrily. She reaches up, her hair behind her ears, and seamlessly, as if she’s sliding into a dress, changes.

When the Fenris change it’s violent—cracking, popping, skin to fur and nails to claws. When Mora’s guards change, it’s faster, simpler, but it still looks painful. Mora, however, looks beautiful as she slips away from her human form and becomes a solid white wolf with clear blue eyes.

So that’s why they want her, I realize, watching. She’s theirs.

“You did well,” the Fenris says. “We thought we’d never find you, for a while. Who’d have thought it would be a mortal girl to lead us straight to your door?” His eyes flash toward me, vulgar and leering. He smiles again.

Mora stands perfectly still. A gust of wind ruffles her fur; Kai and Ella continue to slowly, carefully retreat, wary of drawing the pack’s attention.

“Are you sure there’s no more ammunition?” Lucas mutters to Callum.

“Not a single round.”

“Then someone here better figure out what we’ll do when they come back this way. They’re slower in this weather, but they’re faster than us,” Lucas says gravely. Flannery looks over at me, reaches down, and presses a knife handle into my hand. My fingers are too cold to close around it.

The pack leader walks over to Mora, running his hand across her head as if she’s a dog. “There we go,” he says. I can see her shaking, not from fear, I don’t think, but from rage, the kind that has to be bottled up but threatens to shake you from the inside out.

I rise, unsteady, using a tree and Flannery’s shoulder for support. The others look at me as I clear my throat, trying to find enough warmth in my chest to make my words reach across the lake.

“Mora!” I shout.

The Fenris and Mora turn to me; I jolt at a dozen yellow, horrible eyes setting on me at once. Ignore them, ignore them. I find Mora’s eyes instead—they’re still ice blue, even in the wolf’s body. One chance.

“No one will take everything from you. Never again,” I call across the ice.

The pack leader raises an eyebrow at me, as if I’m some sort of lunatic. For a moment, I think I might be; Mora just stares. There’s so much hate in her eyes, so much fury. She blinks, ducks her head down, and then seamlessly turns back into a human, the act pushing the pack leader’s hand off her head. He looks at her incredulously, raising an arm to strike her—

The ice cracks.

I look to Kai; he understands. He dashes forward, brushing by Ella as they run for the shore. The Fenris look around, confused, as the ice reverberates beneath them. It grows louder, louder, louder, until it sounds like a train in the distance coming ever closer. The pack leader looks down, watching as the ice beneath his feet begins to crumble—

“Get off the ice!” he shouts to the pack.

It’s too late.

They crash through the ice with a screeching, screaming sound. Jaws and teeth slide into the water as the ice gives way. Mora is the last to fall; she doesn’t flail, doesn’t try to catch herself. It’s over in an instant, blonde hair sliding out of sight.

My eyes move to Kai and Ella; they’re almost here, but the ice is being swallowed up behind them. Ella is slower on two feet than Kai is on four; Kai glances over his shoulder and realizes this. He turns back, grabs hold of Ella’s coat, and charges forward. The ice is moving faster; the whole lake is caving in on itself; they just need to make it to the shallows and we can get them. Water licks at Kai’s heels—

He leaps away from the deep water, into the shallows just as the water catches him. They slide onto the remaining solid ice—Lucas runs down and pulls Ella out. Kai bounds to the shore, shaking, looking less like a thing to fear and more like a thing to pity. He collapses onto the ground; I crawl over to him, not caring about the added cold when water from his fur soaks against my chest.

Beneath me, Kai shifts. I let go, watching as he curls first into a ball and then begins to change. His limbs elongate; the fur fades away and becomes skin; there’s a cracking sound, and he groans as his spine straightens. As he becomes the boy instead of the wolf. I reach forward and grab hold of his hand as the claws draw in, becoming fingernails. His skin is still cold, his face still pale blue, and he’s naked, trembling.

I grab hold of his shoulders, bring my lips to his; he reaches up in response, tangles his fingers in my wet hair, pulls me closer. I finally pull away from his lips, but not his face, leaving my eyes on his, my cheeks close enough that I can feel him breathing.

“You know I love you, right?” he says hoarsely, and I nod against him.

“So that’s him?” Flannery asks. I turn my head, see her propped up on her good shoulder. “I dunno, Ginny,” she says, surveying Kai. “For all the trouble, I expected him to be taller.”