Fall

By A.K. Morgen

How do you save someone who doesn't want to be saved?

Those called to stand guard against the end are broken, and Sköll and Hati run free. Now Arionna Jacobs and Dace Matthews face a threat unlike any before. Ragnarök is coming and they aren't strong enough to stop it.

Arionna thought she understood sacrifice, but she never counted on her destiny tearing Dace apart. Ever since she nearly died, he has been consumed with guilt. Now it threatens to turn him into the monster he always feared.

It's up to Arionna to stop him before it's too late, but the path to Hell is paved with good intentions, and Dace is hurtling toward self-destruction. This time, Arionna isn't sure she can save him from himself. Can she convince him to let the past go, or is her true destiny to sacrifice her heart in exchange for the lives of the people she loves?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tirgearr Publishing
• Release date: Jun 24, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463021774

Book preview

Prologue

Iceland – December 1783

My eyes burned from the acrid smoke billowing through the village in great plumes. Gray ash swirled within the noxious clouds, covering everything in an inky film. The maps spread across the table before me were stained with soot, making it all but impossible to see the siege lines laid out below. Still, the thin parchment fared better than most everything else caught in the poisonous mists.

How long had the fires from Laki burned now? Eight months? Longer?

I could not remember.

Six months, Katrín murmured from across the room.

I looked up from the table and into the weary, hazel eyes of my betrothed. A wild tangle of auburn hair highlighted the flush of her cheeks. Soot made dark streaks down her simple dress, but she was still the most beautiful girl I’d ever laid eyes on.

Aye, I said, deciding the maps could wait. I moved across the room toward her, my arms aching to feel her in them again. Six months.

And two and twenty days since we were betrothed.

My bottom lip curled upward when her soft reminder floated through my mind in a whisper. Two and twenty days since I promised to make her my wife. Despite the chaos swirling around us, and the fires burning the countryside alive, they’d been the best two and twenty days of my life.

Maybe our only two and twenty, Katrín whispered on the private link binding us firmly one to another.

Nei, I said aloud, my heart stuttering at the fearful tremor rippling through her.

Geri rumbled in the back of my mind. As always, when fear gripped Katrín tight, the great wolf curled his essence around her, protecting her as best he could. Flickers of images skittered through me in a soft rush as the animal living inside me pushed soothing thoughts at her. I did the same thing, wrapping my arms around Katrín and holding her to my heart.

Despite my and Geri's combined efforts to ease her, Katrín still trembled in my arms.

Fear hung in the air around me as thick as the smoke and ash boiling from Laki. The villagers' fear. The wolves’. Katrín’s. Aside from my betrothed’s, I scarce knew what came from whom any longer. Not even Geri and his sharp wolf senses could pinpoint which of our people owned the choking emotion.

I was no longer sure it even mattered. Man and wolf alike had plenty of reason to fear.

The fires of Laki had burned for six months now, covering the countryside in the same palpable film of ash and mist that marred the siege maps. The livestock was dying. The rivers and streams were polluted. Farmlands, once bountiful, produced little more than poisoned, rancid shoots. Katrín’s people and our wolf brethren were starving.

Worse, somewhere out there, hidden by the ash and lava still spilling through the countryside like a thing alive, Sköll and Hati roamed free. The monstrous wolves struck like snakes, rising from the mists when least expected. They attacked without mercy, felling their targets one by one. I had centuries of memories stored away, but not once in all of those lifetimes could I remember Fenrir’s brood ever coming so close as this to fulfilling their destiny.

Iceland was dying, and, soon, the world would follow.

Geri growled at me as another ripple of fear waved through Katrín like long grass in a summer’s breeze. Her wolf, Freki, whined.

The sound seemed little more than a hushed murmur in the back of my mind.

Nei, fallegt, I soothed woman and wolf, reaching out to touch Katrín’s flushed cheek. We shall find them again.

Já, she answered aloud. We will.

I didn’t need the unbreakable bond linking us to know she only half meant the words. Her fear was the same that had taken up permanent residence in my heart since the twin wolves took their latest victim a fortnight before. Katrín and I would find Sköll and Hati again, but gods only knew if it would be soon enough. Asdis and Dagur were the only of Sol’s descendants remaining, and I no longer knew if we could protect them from the hellhounds.

The combined might of the shifters and the wolves we commanded was failing. How long until Fenrir’s brood fulfilled their destiny? Until we were unable to beat them back as we were meant to?

I didn't know, but I felt the end barreling toward us.

You cannot think that way, Jon, Katrín admonished, her worried eyes meeting mine again. You mustn’t.

I stood silently for a moment before sighing in defeat. Katrín was right; I couldn’t think that way. I couldn’t afford to think that way, but I couldn’t help it either. I knew what Sköll and Hati were capable of.

How many times had I lost the girl in my arms to them?

I'd lost count long ago, but I remembered each and every time vividly.

I still heard the way Katrín screamed for me when Sköll hamstrung Freki a century before. Katrín's name was Sarah then, but her face had been the same.

I remembered the way she reached for me, mouthing my name, as Hati leapt upon her from behind three centuries before that, and the way her blood spilled across the Savaran Pass in the Jebal Barez a century before that.

Each time, she had a different name and lived in some new place, but she’d been the same. And so had her heart. That was as pure as Freki’s snowy-white fur had ever been, a lighthouse beckoning me home.

Home…

Mine and Geri's home would ever be with Katrín and Freki.

Jon. Katrín said my name softly, the worried gleam in her eyes melting away.

I tilted my head down to hers and brushed my lips across her cheek. Tis true, you know, I said against her flushed skin. You and Freki have always been home for us.

And you, I, she returned. Ég elska þig. Always.

Geri rumbled in pleasure when Freki’s weak thoughts echoed Katrín’s vow of forever.

I closed my eyes as the tension drained away, leaving peace in its wake. Only Katrín could do that for me, could calm me so easily. Geri felt the same, and so did Katrín and Freki. We were each parts of one whole. Soul mates in the truest sense, created and loved by Odin himself.

I scarce remembered Odin now, but a piercing sense of longing twisted through Geri and me at our master’s name echoing in the innermost places we shared between us.

I think I remember him sometimes, Katrín said, twining her arms around my waist and resting her head upon my chest. I wake some nights and remember the feel of his hands, stroking Freki’s fur before holding out some new treat. There is always a sense of pride, as if, even then, Freki and I knew how loved we were by him. As if we knew the honor he bestowed upon us by feeding us from his hand… Katrín trailed off with a sigh. Do you think, when this is over, we get to go back to him, Jon?

"I don’t know, fallegt." I tucked her closer as Geri whined, the sound full of hope.

I pray so, Katrín murmured. I think…I think I’ll be glad when this is over, Jon, when we’re finished. Her shoulders slumped as soon as the confession left her lips. I should not think such grim thoughts, either.

Her guilt pricked at my heart like the point of a sword.

"Nei, fallegt, I soothed again. ’Tis not wrong to wish this war ended."

Nei? she said. When it’s finished, the world ends, Jon. Everything Odin loved dies.

Aye, I know. I stepped back and reached out to tip Katrín’s face up to mine. But ‘tis ever the way it was meant to be, Katrín. There’s no shame in wishing to be done. Even Odin knew we could not stand against them forever. He would not begrudge you the desire to see this duty discharged.

Perhaps not, Katrín said, biting her bottom lip. But…

But what? I prompted when she fell silent. I caught little more than the shape of her thoughts in my mind.

But he dies, Jon, she said. When this is over, Odin dies.

Geri whined, the sorrowful sound sweeping through me in a rush.

A soft, mournful flutter of thought came from Freki.

Aye, I whispered, wiping a tear from beneath Katrín’s eye with the pad of my thumb. He does.

Do we? she asked. Do we die with him?

I know not, I said, swallowing down the fear that thought sent spinning through me. My death mattered little to me, and I knew Geri felt the same, but Katrín's death? Freki's? Geri and I would fight Sköll and Hati back for another thousand millennia if it meant Katrín and Freki lived on to be reborn again.

I couldn't imagine a world without Katrín. In truth, I never knew a world without her. In every life, Katrín walked at my side. Odin might have been my master, but she was my life. My heart. She and her wolf were the reason Geri and I fought to preserve what Odin created. Without her, would we even wish it preserved?

I would not, Katrín murmured, glancing up at me again. I think Odin knew that.

Did he? I asked and then nodded once. Perhaps he did.

Odin sent us together, to stand together, to fight together, but we were always destined to fail at this duty eventually. I had the feeling the end would come when Katrín and Freki, or Geri and I, were reborn alone to face it. Odin had to have known Geri and I would be incapable of fighting without Katrín and her wolf, and she and Freki without us.

There was a lot I didn't understand about the myths surrounding my life and Katrín’s, but I'd learned enough in the last months to understand one thing clearly: the end would come for us sooner or later. Already, death lay like a shroud on the edge of my vision.

Freki was weak, failing, leaving Katrín barely able to shift into wolf form. And the mind that Geri and I shared was fracturing apart like a sliver of wood beneath an ax. Soon, in this life or in the next, our mind would splinter apart as Freki and Katrín’s did lifetimes ago, and the connection that always bound us together would fail.

Death would come for us then, and for the world.

When it came, did we get to go home to Valhalla?

Our fates had never been written as had Odin's and his brethren’s. Geri and Freki simply disappeared from myth and prophecy. I did not know what that meant, and neither did Geri. If Hugin and Munin, the ravens sent to stand guard with us, ever knew, they did no longer. As with Katrín and me, the ravens were weakening. Soon, too soon, we would fail altogether, and Fenrir would be freed.

As if thinking the grim thought set the Norns to spinning their weave, a shrill scream rent the air outside the cottage. Another scream followed on its heels, and then came the human cries of the villagers.

The devil comes. Oh lud, he comes! The hellhounds are loose! one of the village women cried right outside the door.

Katrín jumped. Terror lanced through her thoughts.

Geri responded with a rage-filled roar.

I swore savagely as the wolf attempted to claw his way to the surface and force the change in response to our mate’s fear.

Nei, nei, hold off, I commanded the wolf, already knowing my demand was useless.

Geri would not stop now.

My men’s shouts bounced around the village and through minuscule cracks in the walls until the entire room seemed full. The thoughts of the wolf pack arrayed beyond the village bounced back to me in a clamor.

They were under attack.

Jon! Katrín cried out.

Another shrill scream cut through the clash and clamor outside. Whether it was Hugin or Munin, I didn't know. But I knew what it meant, and so did Katrín.

Sköll or Hati was out there somewhere, coming closer.

Death might not be so far off after all.

My vision blackened, fear for Katrín and Freki blinding me as Geri roared to the surface, melting bone and sinew before knitting it together again in a flash. When my vision cleared, I saw through the eyes of my wolf. The world was slanted, sharp, and tinged with an animal perception far beyond what my human eyes ever saw.

Katrín cried out my name again, the sound full of pain.

I felt Freki trying to force the change for her, but it came upon her slowly, creeping inch by inch. The wolf was too weak to make the change painless for Katrín.

Geri lashed his head back and forth, angry roars erupting from his throat.

The thoughts of the pack beyond the village dropped into our mind one after the other. Their alpha, Shidan, was being torn apart by a wolf twice his size. Despite the combined efforts of the pack, they could not stop the monster. Shidan would die where he stood, but as the alpha I knew him to be, the wolf had every intention of meeting death on his feet.

We have to help him! Katrín screamed through our bond, the change finally taking her.

I watched from eyes that no longer belonged to me as she dropped to all fours, not a hazel-eyed, soot-streaked woman any longer, but a snowy-white, lethal wolf. She was as beautiful in wolf form as she was human.

Freki staggered before catching herself hard against the leg of the table, holding the siege maps. Fear for her and Katrín raced through Geri and me. We couldn’t lose her. Not yet. Not if we could stop it.

Aye, I vowed as our men tore open the door to the cottage in response to Geri’s furious roar. We will stop it.

We must, Katrín whispered.

Our wolves leaped as one through the door and into the chaos of the village beyond.

Men, women, and children ran this way and that, crying to the gods for protection, for shelter, for a miracle. My men, gifted shifters down to the last one, raced alongside them through the misty village on twos and fours. Great cats and wolves ran side by side with shifters still in human form to Shidan’s aid. Down to the last one, they knew they’d be too late, but they ran anyway.

Geri lifted his muzzle to the sky and howled, a thousand lifetimes of defiance echoing like a clap of thunder through the village. Freki’s furious response ripped through the air a split second later, blending with ours until the air seemed full of rage.

Hugin and Munin burst into sight at the edge of the village, giant wings flapping on great puffs of thick, sooty air. Neither Geri nor Freki slowed as the ravens circled above us, leading us through the chaos of the village and into the misty field beyond.

Geri and Freki overtook the ordinary shifters in seconds.

The scene waiting beyond the edge of the village was as familiar to me as Katrín and Freki. I’d seen it a thousand times, in a thousand different lives, playing out in a thousand different settings. Shidan’s pack fell upon a great, black wolf in silent, snapping waves. The monster shook them off as easily as rainwater, the alpha’s throat clamped between his massive jaws. Shouts bounced around the misty valley in a rush of sound, seeming to come from nowhere and everywhere at once.

We raced into battle a full thirty seconds too late.

With a single shake of our enemy’s head, my wolf brother died, blood pouring from his throat and down the hellhound’s muzzle. I did not know if the massive wolf was Sköll or Hati, but it mattered little. Shidan died either way.

Odin save us, Katrín prayed.

The beast dropped Shidan’s lifeless body and turned feral yellow eyes in our direction. He snarled, the alpha’s blood still dripping from his muzzle.

Aye, death was coming.

Chapter One

March 2010

I stood alone in a shadowy cavern, my legs trembling.

Ancient torches flickered around me, so brittle, they looked as if a single touch would destroy them. Massive boulders shot upward in the eerie, inky light, standing like endless mountains barring my way. My gaze bounced across round and jagged alike, trying to pick out where one ended, and the others began. I couldn’t tell the difference though.

My attention drifted and skittered around the cavern, focusing everywhere except on what waited for me beyond the thick fingers of solid earth standing like the bars of a prison ahead. Soft, ominous rumbles sounded from that direction, so deep, the cavern floor vibrated beneath my feet.

Run, Arionna. Run.

I fought to listen to the voice of reason urging me to flee for my life, but I couldn't seem to keep my legs locked in place. The compulsion to move, to look, to see, was too strong.

I took a step forward, then another, slipping through narrow cracks between one rock and the next. The rough surface scraped against my arms and tugged at my hair, pulling small strands away from my scalp. I kept moving through, squeezing between narrow openings until the craggy ground gave way, ending suddenly at a frothy river.

I glanced across the foamy water.

My lungs stopped functioning.

The endless spread of boulders scattered all around were tiny pebbles compared to the solitary mass of earth on the far side of the underground channel. A chain wound around and through the mountainous rock, so thin it was almost invisible to the eye.

I ran my gaze across the shimmering links, checking to ensure the magic bond still held firm.

It did.

Air shuddered into my lungs.

Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid, I chanted to myself, but when I turned my head, my heart pounded uncomfortably anyway.

I bit my lip to keep from crying out when my gaze landed on the monstrous black wolf lunging against the tiny chain. Foam ran in buckets down his chest and into the river around him, as if his hatred cut a canyon of desiccation through the rock like a knife through butter. He towered over me, taller and wider than any wolf I'd ever seen. He was a giant. A Titan.

Fenrir.

I shivered at the sound of his name echoing in my head.

He gnashed his razor-sharp teeth and roared, struggling against the chain binding him to earth. The sound echoed throughout the massive cavern, bouncing from rock to rock in the same deep, ominous rumble I heard earlier.

Pebbles showered down from overhead, falling to the dirt floor all around.

Fenrir shook them off, then tried to leap.

The chain stretched taut, groaning in protest, but it held firm.

Fenrir hit the ground―hard―and was up again in an instant.

He coiled, crouching as if preparing to spring again, then twitched.

He stilled, not even his chest moving when he drew breath. Sanity flickered in his gaze for a brief moment, burning away the obsessive rage pouring from him. What swept through those yellow eyes in its place was far worse: intelligence.

Fenrir knew his prison would not hold him forever. Eventually, he would break free.

Not today. Please, not today, I pleaded, hoping someone in charge heard me.

Fenrir sniffed the air.

I stopped breathing, praying he didn't see me standing amongst the rocks.

He turned his head slowly in my direction, one ear twitching.

His rage-filled gaze met mine and held. Recognition flared in his baleful eyes.

I trembled, trapped in his sights like a prisoner, unable to move. The wolf sharing my soul snarled, trying to shake herself free of the thrall freezing me in place. She was too weak to do more than flutter and twist inside me though.

Fenrir’s lip curled in a menacing snarl as he looked into me, looked through me, and saw everything I was and everything connecting me to him. For a moment, no more than a split second really, he looked pleased. As if he knew his wait was almost over.

And then rage blazed to life in his eyes again, wiping away recognition and replacing it with burning, poisonous hate.

He growled low in his throat, the sound that of a gathering storm.

The cavern floor vibrated beneath my feet again.

Pebbles showered down, striking my arms, my legs…my face. Each hit stung and burned.

The river of foam at my feet churned across the rocks like mini-tidal waves.

Dust filled the air in thick puffs, choking me.

Fenrir dove toward me, howling.

I covered my ears and screamed…

Good morning, Miss Jacobs.

I jerked awake at the unfamiliar voice, crying out.

Fenrir still hovered like a specter in front of me, snarling and snapping in his attempt to reach me. I pressed my fingers over my eyes, trying desperately to rub him away. My heart pounded so hard it actually hurt. I took a deep breath, and then another, trying to force air into my lungs and Fenrir out of my head.

His image blurred and then faded.

I lay still for a long moment, trying to calm my racing heart. An elderly nurse stood beside my bed, watching me. Her bright orange scrubs matched her hair.

Soft snores and the steady beep of my heart monitor whispered around me. Muted conversation trickled from cracks beneath the door as the group of nurses at the station outside exchanged notes on patients.

I strained to hear through those ordinary sounds to the soft murmurs right beneath the surface. The ones that whispered through me like a healing wind. They came from Dace Matthews, my half-wolf, half-human boyfriend. My soul mate.

He dozed in the chair resting flush against my bed, his sleeping mind drifting through lifetimes long lost to me. Even the darkest of his dreams were so much nicer than mine. Every time I closed my eyes, I dreamed of monsters I couldn't escape and shadowed memories that woke me in a cold sweat. Since learning to accept Geri, the wolf sharing his soul, Dace dreamed of us―and our pasts.

He offered those visions up to me without reservation. Sometimes, witnessing those scenes unfold made the last three months of turmoil seem almost worth the cost. To me, anyway.

Dace didn't feel the same way.

Asleep, he found some measure of peace in our bond and all the history that came with it. Awake, he struggled with our destiny and the threat dangling like a sword over our heads.

Sköll and Hati were out there somewhere, roaming free, and we didn't know where. They were the monsters lurking in the shadows, felt but unseen. That scared Dace. So did the knowledge that they would come for me again.

Ever since Hati almost killed me a month ago, Dace's fear of the wolf and his twin brother shuddered through me in ever-widening ripples. Worry dimmed the light in his vivid emerald eyes. Those brilliant lights had muted to an almost ordinary green in the last weeks. His arms never relaxed when he held me anymore, either, and he kissed me as if I would break.

Dace changed while I hovered in the void between life and death―and not for the better. He might have learned to trust Geri, but he blamed himself for what happened to me. Not even the fact that I was healing quickly erased the haunted, guilty look in his eyes when he was awake. And it definitely didn't calm his angry outbursts anytime someone so much as mentioned Sköll or Hati to him. He was drowning beneath the weight of our destiny, and our bond made things a whole lot harder for him, I think.

Asleep though…well, I had trouble reconciling the haunted, awake Dace with the beautiful guy sleeping at my bedside. He looked so peaceful with his long lashes resting against the sharp planes of his cheeks. The shadows beneath his eyes were less pronounced, and the ever-present furrow in his brow had smoothed to nothing. The little scar above his right eye looked like a spot of silver in the early morning light; the stubble on his cheeks appeared softer than I knew it to be.

If it weren't for the flow of power dancing around him like an electric current, I'd believe he was two different people. But awake or asleep, his aura whispered to me of safety, desire, and all those things that screamed different. And Dace was different. We both were.

We were the first shapeshifters ever created, sent by Odin to keep Sköll and Hati from freeing Fenrir from his prison of earth and magic for as long as possible. We'd succeeded in a thousand previous lifetimes, but things were different this time. Eons of life and death and fading magic buried my wolf, Freki, in the deepest recesses of my soul and all but shattered the connection between Dace and Geri.

I couldn't shift anymore, and they could barely communicate with one another.

Our problematic partner, Ronan LaCrosse, wasn't faring much better. He was Munin, Odin's raven of memory, but not even he could recall most of the lives we'd lived. And his twin, Hugin, hadn't been reborn at all in this life.

None of that changed what we needed to do though. If we didn't stop Sköll and Hati, Fenrir would break free of his chains, and Ragnarök would rip the world apart.

I felt the apocalypse creeping closer every day, and so did Dace.

Dani Michaelson was dead, and her sisters, Chelle and Beth, were under constant guard on his command. If they died, the world would fall. And we couldn't keep them alive forever.

Dace didn't like to talk about it, but we both knew Sköll and Hati would find the girls sooner or later. Chelle and Beth were the Norse moon god's last living descendants, and Fenrir's offspring were destined to kill them. No matter how many times we'd beat the monsters and saved the world before, or how determined I was to save it again, there was no guarantee we could do it this time. Sooner or later, we would fail…and everyone we loved would die.

Dread shot through me at the thought, clinging like choking ivy.

I shivered, but the knot of fear souring my stomach didn't loosen. My breath didn't come any easier, either.

I was scared. Terrified, really, and I didn't know how to deal with that.

You okay, hon? the elderly nurse asked.

Yeah. I cleared my throat, trying to force away my grim thoughts. Weird dreams.

Understandable. She crossed the room toward the windows.

Yeah, I said again.

My name's Esther, and I'll be your nurse this morning. How are you feeling? She flashed a concerned smile over her shoulder before twisting open the blinds.

Early morning sunlight flooded the room.

I flung an arm over my face. My head felt heavy, my body thick and uncooperative. My side throbbed where staple indentions crisscrossed teeth-marks, disguising the worst of them. The skin was an angry, ugly red, and the muscles beneath weak. Basically, I felt like crap all around.

Dace shifted beside me, his chair creaking as he pushed himself up into a sitting position. Morning, he rasped, sounding half asleep still.

Morning. I dragged my arm down to look at him through slit lids. The dark circles under his eyes probably matched mine.

He scrutinized my expression for a long moment, then frowned. Another nightmare?

Yes.

I'm sorry.

I shrugged, flinging my arm over my face again. I felt like I'd tumbled down the rabbit hole with Alice. Only instead of weird cats and crazy queens, this