AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Lad,” Birger began, gently. “We can’t–”
A low growl rippled from the window ledge, and then cut off abruptly. “Sorry,” Leif said, tone flat. “I know you don’t trust them, but Ragnar was their chief, and I’ve taken his place. Not just the wolves, but the whole clan will follow me if I tell them to march.”
Again, silence reigned. Oliver itched to break it, but thought it wasn’t his place. This moment now wasn’t about strategy, but about Leif and his uncle.
A silence that Leif himself broke, leaning even farther forward, light and shadow sliding up over his nose, his brow, his golden hair. He emerged from the dark with the air of a beast gliding into the glow of a traveler’s campfire. Oliver thought he’d never looked more wolfish in man form, and he noted the way Erik’s hand curled to a fist on top of the desk.
“You just said” – Leif’s voice was a rough scrape – “that every man counted. But you don’t want mine?”
“Leif.” Erik sounded strained. “Your people?”
Blue eyes fixed to blue. “That’s what they are. They belong to me.”
The bench cracked as Rune shifted, but Oliver didn’t dare look away from the stare-down before him.
“The Úlfheðnar betrayed us. They killed our people. They left us for dead in the mountains.”
“On Ragnar’s orders. They’re following mine, now.”
“Leif,” Erik began again.
And Birger beat out Oliver in breaking the awful tension. “That would be right helpful, lad. Thank you.”
Erik turned his head to regard him, jaw sharp as cut gemstone beneath his beard, but at least Leif sat back into his shadow, gaze sliding off to one side.
But then, Leif said, “Speaking of Ragnar,” and Erik’s head whipped back around, beads thumping against his jerkin. “He could be more useful to us than he is now.”
“How?” Rune asked, unable to keep quiet any longer.
But it was to Erik that Leif spoke. “You gave him to me. Said he was my war prize. He knows what we’re facing better than any of us, and I want him out of the dungeon.”
“Gods,” Bjorn muttered.
Leif ignored him. “Náli said he could enchant a torq for him. It’s time.”
~*~
When Birger finally pushed to his feet, both knees cracking, and declared that their plan was solid enough save conferring with the other lords, the meeting broke apart. The solidity of said plan was debatable, in Oliver’s estimation, but he was glad to see the others out.
Rune was the last to leave, and Oliver walked him to the door.
“I don’t know what to do,” he said in a small, boyish voice, rather than that of a man about to be married. He worried a lover’s bead absently between thumb and forefinger, gaze fixed on his boots as he scuffed along across the rug, in no hurry to depart.
He needed his uncle to reassure him, Oliver thought; needed Erik to pull him into a tight, sure embrace, and say that Leif was all right, and that Erik himself would make sure of it.
But Erik stood at the hearth, hands braced on the mantel, lost in his own thoughts, and so Oliver was playing uncle as best he could. He’d been playing cousin all his life, so he had some experience. Albeit, Amelia had never turned into a wolf, so…
He laid a hand in the center of Rune’s back, and hoped it was reassuring. “He only needs time, Rune. He’s still adjusting.”
“But it’s been a month!”
“A month – and he’s been a man his whole life and a wolf for one month. That’s a bit of a disparity, don’t you think?”
Rune sighed, shoulders dropping. “Yes.” They reached the door, and he turned to face Oliver, scrubbing at his chin and jaw in a way reminiscent of Erik. His face looked leaner since his injury, since the siege. The cheerfulness and boyishness had bled out of him…though his eyes were young and uncertain as he met Oliver’s gaze. “It’s just – I’ve tried talking to him. I’ve asked him to spar with me, and go riding, like we’ve always done. But he’s always with them.” With the Úlfheðnar, his wolf pack. Rune’s lip curled. “Or with him.” Ragnar. “Does he actually want to bring him up into the light? How could he possibly think that’s a good idea?”
Oliver bit back a sigh of his own. He himself didn’t trust Ragnar at all, but was willing to grant that Leif now knew him better than any of them. “I can’t speak to this truly, because I’m not him, and I don’t know what it feels like, but if skinwalker magic is anything like my own magic” – burn, you will burn; no, mustn’t think of that now – “then it comes with a certain amount of intuition. With a kind of knowing, that no one on the outside can understand.”
Rune frowned.
