Page 10 of The Fanged One

"Parts. I know the smell of the blood when they died. I remember you were upset that they had disturbed me," he said haltingly. He struggled to remember much more than the scent of her. "You…touched my paw. You weren't afraid."

Linnea sniffed, her neck turning pink. "I had been so afraid for months at that point that I think I had run out of fear."

"I did…" Fenris forced his tongue to move, the new human language still finding its shape in his mouth. "I did dream of pleasanter things, like you wanted."

"Good," she said, her hand still in his.

Fenris dared to gently wipe the tear from her soft cheek. "No more tears. Not for me."

Linnea nodded, small and matter-of-fact, and she gave his hand the gentlest possible pat before she set it back down on his thigh. Her fingers lingered for half a second on the back of his hand before she stepped back, picked up the scissors she had set aside, and made some small adjustments to the line of his beard.

Finally, she set her tools down on the counter.

"You're all done. I'm going to call the gods now," she said, her voice steadier. "Or try to. Don't worry, I'll sort it out and get Havi here as soon as possible."

She squeezed his shoulder in a kind of reassurance and walked out of the kitchen. He listened to her footsteps go down the hall, and a door shut behind her.

His wolf wanted to follow her.

No, Fenris told it, with an effort that surprised him.

She wept. She is alone.

She wants to be alone. Leave her.

The wolf sat down inside him, unhappy, and keened softly.

Fenris licked his fingers still wet with her tears and tasted their sweet salt. He closed his eyes, feeling that small hand again on his paw in the darkness. He never told her that after that moment, all he had dreamed of was her.

6

Linnea's body was burning hot all over in mortification. Gods, she was such an idiot for stroking Fenris's scars. Why? Why did she have to do that? It was like she hadn't been able to stop as soon as she started. He must have thought she had lost her damn mind. Her wolf tried to say something, but she pushed it away before it could start.

"No. It's enough. Get your shit together. You have a goddess to talk to," she told herself, and got to work. She didn't know how to process whatever that moment had been in the kitchen, but she knew magic. Magic was her sanctuary and safe place.

The rug came up under Linnea's hands in a single heavy roll, and she shoved it against the wall hard enough that her shoulder twinged. The last thing she wanted was to accidentally get ash or burn marks on it and have the All-Father pissed at her.

She crouched at the small fireplace and built it up one stick at a time, because her fingers were less steady than she wanted them to be. The kindling caught on the third match, and she blew on it gently, feeding it pieces of birch until the flames were tall enough to throw their light across the wood floor.

Linnea grabbed her bag of runes, knelt on a pillow she had pulled from the bed, and emptied the wooden discs into her hand. She had carved them herself in Gudrun's house last winter, and her mentor had sat across from her at the workbench every evening and refused to do a single one for her.

A völva carves her own runes, Lin. Or she works with someone else's tongue.

The runes were rough where she was beginning, and smooth where her hand had learned to carve. She had never gone back to try to pretty up the first ones; they were what they were meant to be, and they were hers.

She set them on the floor in front of the fire. Fehu first, the rune Freya had drawn over her basket of charm bags last midsummer. Then Uruz, Thurisaz, Ansuz, until each rune sat in a spiral, and Othala closed it. She sat back on her heels and looked at them in the firelight.

Are you sure? her wolf asked.

Not really, but I don't see another option.

Linnea closed her eyes and took a long breath through her nose. The cottage smelled of woodsmoke and pine and the faint eucalyptus of Havi's shampoo where Fenris had brushed against her earlier. She breathed it in, breathed it out, and on the second breath, let everything around her drop away.

What was left was the breath itself.

What was left was the song.

She started low. The galdr Gudrun had taught her for calling was nothing like the lullaby she had sung in her dreams. The lullaby was wordless. The galdr was word and intent and magic. It moved out of her in three falling notes and up again, and she let it go where it wanted to go.