Page 495 of Flirting with Darkness

“You’re alive. I thought you were dead! I was going to…a proper funeral, with a boat, and flowers, and weapons…” He gestured along her sides.

Only now did she see the flowers, and the things they’d taken from the cottage. Along with three knives he must have hidden from her, which he’d also taken, for he had not carried them on the islet.

“How could you think I was dead? I was just unconscious!” Astrid said, struggling to get up. She had no desire to lie in this funeral boat a moment longer.

“Your heart no longer beat, and you did not draw breath. Your neck was broken. I felt it as I carried you,” Fenrir said.

Astrid’s hand went to her neck, but it felt fine to her. Her heartbeat was rapid beneath her fingers and her breath…well, she was still breathing hard from their lovemaking. Definitely breathing.

“Perhaps…Mistress Kun’s spell…” she began. “She said when she enchanted me, that I would survive. Whatever she did to me…stops me from dying. I am like you.”

Fenrir shook his head. “No, you are not a wolf, and you do not have stone skin. You still need food, and water, and sleep, and while your heart might have stopped beating, it beats once more. While I have no heart, for you cut it out and replaced it with stone.”

Now she could not stop the tears from falling. “I’m sorry, Fenrir. My father would have killed you if I didn’t do as the witch wanted. I thought…I hoped…”

He hushed her. “I do not blame you for any of it. I am your protector, and honoured to be so.”

Astrid shook her head. “My protector, perhaps, but you are more than that now. What we just did…I would do over and over, every night for as long as we live.”

Fenrir glanced up at the sky. “But night will be over soon, and if I do not find shelter, the sun will turn me to stone, and I shall be no use to you then.”

Together, they gathered up the supplies, before Fenrir tossed his cloak over his nakedness, and they ran all the way to the cottage.

The window was still broken, and no one was home, so when Astrid collapsed on the bed, she pulled Fenrir down beside her. Before she had caught her breath, she kissed him again, and this time, their lovemaking went on for hours.

13

For a week they honeymooned in the cottage, until Astrid knew every inch of Fenrir’s body almost as well as he knew hers. He turned from man to wolf to man again, at her command, and he finally remembered to return her necklace to her, with the new gold chain.

But once the week had passed, her resolve hardened, and they departed for the high pass again, more determined than ever to find the other warriors she’d cursed, so that she might ask them what had happened to her village.

This time, they carried a tent they’d made out of materials they’d found in the cottage – blankets thick enough to block out both sunlight and the cold, and ropes sturdy enough to keep the tent anchored even when their lovemaking threatened to shake the whole thing loose from its moorings and down upon their heads. Not that even that could stop them once they had begun.

One night, as they neared the pass, a bright light appeared in the sky, much like the one the monster had possessed, when it had nearly killed Astrid. Soon, a roaring sound every bit as loud as the first monster reached them. Fenrir grabbed Astrid and raced out of the creature’s path, taking shelter in a crevice between several rocks.

The creature, or whatever it was, flew through the sky, passing them as though it had not seen them.

“Is that a dragon?” Astrid asked, squinting up at the beast.

Fenrir shrugged. “I have never seen a dragon, so I could not say. But whatever it was, it had a sort of whirling wheel on top of its body, and that’s what made all the noise.”

“The beast on the road did not have such a thing, did it?”

He shook his head. “No. But its body was bigger than the flying monster, though both had blindingly bright lights.”

“Maybe these monsters are the reason the village is gone. If even you could not fight them…”

“In a fair fight, I might be able to,” Fenrir said, glaring after the flying creature.

If he were a normal man, Astrid might have laughed at such bravado, but he’d survived his battle with the first beast, when she had not. Perhaps Fenrir would be a match for it.

Especially with three more enchanted warriors to fight at his side.

Astrid almost didn’t recognise the entrance to the pass, for there was no snow or ice on the ground at all. In fact, there was even grass growing where there’d been nothing but frozen wasteland for as long as her people could remember.

“They should be here,” she said, staring at the three holes in the ground, too regular to be anything but graves. “Where are they?”

“You’re the expert on enchanted warriors, not me. I just happen to be one of them,” Fenrir said.

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