Chapter 27 | Ravinica

Chapter 27

Ravinica

THE RIVER TH’RACE WAS wide and winding, curving out from the tree line before disappearing deeper into the forest.

And there, rummaging around in a glade, was my man. Pale and sexy as ever, showing his bare back and scarred flesh, the swirling blue runic tattoos that spread across his sharp shoulders and muscled back.

Magnus was about thirty feet from us, shirtless, chopping wood with an axe near the bank of the crystal-clear river. He looked pristine and glistened with sweat, with his auburn hair wet, perhaps from a recent plunge in the water.

A rattling sigh left my lips. The world settled around me, everything closing in as I watched Magnus grunt and work, oblivious and beautiful. My heart soared and tears came to my eyes.

To think, I’d nearly lost him. Everyone else he’d traveled with had died, save one escapee. Our farewell to each other had only been brief, and not meaningful in the way it should have been if it was to be our final farewell.

I’ll never take these guys for granted again. Any of them.

The Skogalfar made nary a sound as they hemmed in. My group was also relatively silent since we’d been trained by none other than Kelvar Hersir to be that way.

Magnus didn’t notice us at first.

Jhaeros and the wood elves studied Magnus with scrutinizing eyes, like he was a feral animal they wanted to domesticate or put in a zoo. Their murmurs were low, whispers to each other as they pointed and chuckled at the way he chopped wood on a stump.

I flared my nostrils, frustrated they were poking fun at my lovable sociopath. Laugh it up, assholes. I’m guessing you don’t get too much action out here, so this is your one big event for the generation—a sexy tattooed human showing up on your doorstep.

When I thought of it like that, my anger subsided. I almost felt bad for the Skogalfar. My “Races & Realms” book hadn’t even mentioned them. Which meant they must have been forgotten for the more illustrious Ljosalfar and Dokkalfar elves.

If the Skogalfar moved here from cities, hundreds of years ago, does that mean they technically are Ljosalfar? Light elves who have . . . lost the sunlight, perhaps, to make their homes under the canopies?

It was a question worth asking later. Everything in Alfheim intrigued me. The fact we hadn’t been slain on the spot by the wood elves was also promising for my endgame goal.

For now, my focus was on Magnus. A small smile came to my lips, and a gentle hand fell on my shoulder. I glanced over, blinking away tears, and Grim smiled at me.

“Well, little sneak? You should be the one to greet him.”

I swallowed hard over a lump in my throat. He gave me a gentle push and I started forward. One of the wood elves hissed at me leaving the thick trees and their entourage, but Corym scolded him in the elvish tongue.

I took three steps, only getting a few feet closer—

And Magnus straightened. His axe was lifted, muscles corded and vascular in the elven sunlight, when it dropped to his side. His head raised, chin tipping as he seemed to breathe in the sky and pollen swimming in the air around him.

He abruptly spun, as if he could scent me, even though he was no shifter with preternatural smelling abilities.

No. Not scent me . Scent my blood.

His eyes bulged in perhaps one of the first moments of shock I’d ever seen from the cool customer, always guarding his emotions like they didn’t exist. I was the only one who could bring these tender moments out of him—just like was happening now.

I smiled wide, showing my teeth, choking back a sob while I ugly laughed. “Magnus.”

“ Silvermoon !” he roared.

Then he was running, closing the gap in long strides, barreling through the high grass and around the twisting trees.

Bracing for impact, I still wasn’t ready for the sheer force of his embrace, his arms wrapping tight around my middle like I was his everything—the only thing that mattered in his world.

My face was crushed in his bare chest. I couldn’t stop myself from huffing his musk, his scent of leather and candlesmoke. It ignited something inside my core, drawing me even closer and deeper into his grasp.

And then I heard . . . a sniff.

I lifted my face, wrinkles forming in my forehead as he dipped his chin and looked down at me.

Magnus, the dispassionate, unfeeling “sociopath” had dewy eyes. “I thought I’d never see you again.” His tattooed knuckles came up to rub against my chin, my cheek, and then he took my chin between his thumb and forefinger, tilting my head just so, and kissed me softly.

I suffocated in his warmth, his allure, every fiber of my being wishing to be part of him and entwined with him. To feel his scars as if they were part of my body. My hands gripped tight against his back, squeezing the raised flesh.

“My beautiful monster,” I whispered to him with a tear rolling down my cheeks. “I’ll always come looking for you, because I know you’ll always come for me.”

He flared his nostrils, fighting back tears. His throat bobbed. “You got that fucking right, silvermoon.”

I laughed, a giddy giggle, a sound not used to hearing from my own mouth.

He kissed me again.

Someone had to clear their throat behind us—Kelvar the Whisperer—ruining the gods-damned moment, stepping out of the trees into the sunlight.

Magnus tautened, hands gripping me and gently starting to push me behind him on instinct. “What in Hel is—”

I put a soft hand on Magnus’ flexed bicep. “It’s okay, Mag. He’s with us, strange as that may seem. We were sent by the academy to find you and the missing Huscarls.”

“ We ?”

At that, Sven, Grim, Arne, and Corym stepped out from the darkness.

Magnus was floored, his eyes widening as he took everyone in. “Gods above. They sent the fucking cavalry, did they?”

“You got that fucking right, bloodrender,” Sven said, echoing Magnus’ whispered words to me. It annoyed me that he could hear us even from that distance.

I couldn’t stop from smiling. I had all five of my mates with me, together, and we weren’t even in our own fucking world . It took us coming to an alien realm to finally come together as a whole.

A lot is going to change when we return to Midgard, I told myself. I’m going to love on these men like they might disappear tomorrow—because they fucking might. And I’m going to let them dote on me without getting annoyed or flustered, because I know it’s what they want.

I had loved each of these men in their own way, individually . Never, I realized, as a group, a team, a pack.

As a family.

The thought rocked me. My head started swimming when I thought of our bond in that way. These five men are my family. I was lost without a family before coming to Vikingrune Academy. Hated by my half-brother, loathed by my stepfather, and used by my mother as an instrument of her vengeance.

But I had found them. Through trials, difficulties, and some major soul-searching on my part to decide I didn’t want to carry out my mother’s assassination plans and kill them after all . . . I had found them.

The tears came faster now. They weren’t tears of sadness. They were tears of relief and contentedness. Because, for just this moment, things seemed perfect and aligned.

I knew once we left Midgard, everything would change. Hot would turn to cold, summer would turn to winter. We still had the mystery of the dead Huscarls to solve, and an academy that wanted to kill and exploit us as much as teach us anything.

Arne had problems with his childhood rebel group, his sister—who might have somehow just become a problem for all of us. Sven had issues with his pack, as well as a rival wolf pack who wanted his blood. Magnus had problems with Tomekeeper Dahlia and had a weird master-sensei thing going on with Hersir Kelvar. Grim had problems with Hersir Jorthyr and anyone I had problems with, and the ticker never stopped ticking on that front.

For now, however, things felt right.

I was in a daze for the next few minutes, my soul swimming freely in the green-blue sky, away from my body. My mates were all smiles, fist-bumps, and even hugs with Magnus.

They all knew the score. They knew the bloodrender was just as important to me as they were. Without all of them, I could have none of them. My heart wouldn’t allow it.

To their credit, none of them were jealous. They had come to accept my wants, needs, and deepest desires. Even someone possessive like Sven, or protective like Grim, or emotionally stunted like Magnus. Each man in my family filled a void in my soul and, together, they made me whole.

As Kelvar gave us a minute to reunite, I caught him flash a small smile at Magnus beneath the ridge of his shadowy face. He had a knack for keeping his hood over his head, to make him even sketchier, but I was starting to warm up to the Whisperer.

Big mistake, I’m sure. He’s been spying on us this whole adventure, and I’ll bet everything he’s learned here will go straight back to Gothi Sigmund, who I trust about as far as I can throw.

I was trying not to think about the negatives and the awful possibilities—the likeliest possibility. So I smirked at Kelvar, showing him I’d caught him feeling some sort of fondness for Magnus, for finding him.

The Whisperer’s smile vanished when he glanced over at me, just as quickly as it had come. He turned around with a grunt, not wanting to give me the satisfaction of seeing him happy for once.

That was when the Skogalfar stepped into the glade as a single unit—a dozen bare feet wading out of the trees and bushes into the high grass.

“What the fuck,” Magnus gasped, stepping toward the front of our pack and spreading his arms wide to start Shaping.

I put a hand on his shoulder, which was warm to the touch. Odd, since the draug is usually cold. Is it something about being in Alfheim? “It’s okay,” I whispered. My face screwed up. “I think.”

The wood elves didn’t look happy. They certainly weren’t smiling or cheering our little reunion. Jhaeros stepped forward from the group, and Corym stepped in front of ours. They spoke for a few minutes in Elvish.

Finally, Corym glanced over his shoulder at us. “We need to head back to the stone circle, lunis’ai . The portal. We’re not welcome here any longer.”

My shoulders sagged. I bowed my head glumly. I understood, since Corym had given them our word we’d leave once we’d found Magnus.

I still didn’t like it, because I feared I’d never return here. And in order to pacify Alfheim and Midgard and turn them into allies instead of enemies, I would need to make myself known to the elves—even the ones who hid in the shadows of the trees, rather than in the sunlight of the grand cities I was sure inhabited this realm.

The Skogalfar. Corym talks about them like they’re nuisances. His discrimination shows, sadly, and I’m sure he has some valid reasons to back up that general sense of unease and trepidation for the wood elves.

But they didn’t kill us. They didn’t attack us. They were cordial, even, and understanding.

Most of all, they’d led us to Magnus. We may have never found him without their help.

I was shocked if this was the end of our Alfheim journey. Such a quick trip here and back. It seemed . . . too easy. Maybe I was just used to things going badly, going wrong, back in Midgard.

“Okay,” I told Corym with a stern nod. Speaking as leader of the family. “We’ll go. We gave our word, and they’ve respected their end of the bargain.”

“Right,” Corym said, turning away.

Something about him seemed different. He was hesitant.

“Are you . . . joining us, Corym?” I asked, my voice shamefully hopeful and weak.

The gold-pale elf whisked a smile in my direction. “Of course, lunis’ai . My place is with you. My journey is not complete until yours is.”

I took in a deep, ragged lungful of air, breathing easier after hearing him say that. He had every right to want to part ways with us now that he was back in his homeland.

I had brought him here, as promised, yet I never planned far enough ahead to wonder what would happen once we were here together .

“My journey is not complete until yours is.”

I thought of his words fondly, grinning. “Then let’s get out of the wood elves’ hair, gentlemen.”

A round of “ayes” flew from my mates, and then we were off, bounding into the forest.

If everything seemed too easy now, well, that was only because it was. But I knew it wouldn’t be forever.