18. WHAT THE FUCK, BEBE?

18

WHAT THE FUCK, BEBE?

A s the paws of the beast cupped my body, I curled inward trying to keep myself from being poked to death by its ridiculously long claws that circled me and Bebe. My dive into the river hadn't done us any good and the Rok had us before I was even a foot under water.

The weight of the monster pushed us further down and slammed us into the riverbed before it climbed again, dragging us with it.

We were going to get eaten by a monster if I didn't think of something fast.

But it wasn't me who saved us.

As we broke through the water surface, Bebe let out an unholy screech, so loud that it sounded as though she were ten times the size of her tiny body. Then she launched herself at the foreleg of the Rok, her tiny claws slashing through its flesh.

"No! You aren't going to hurt her!"

Like a demon possessed she flailed and screamed, blood flowing, splashing across all three of us.

The Rok wailed, its call as high-pitched as a young girl freaking out that her favorite doll had been grabbed by a cootie-ridden boy, its eyes wide as if it couldn't believe what was attacking it. Hell, I couldn't believe what was attacking it, and scaring it.

More importantly, the Rok dropped us. Like we weren't worth the hassle. I mean, who wanted to eat razor blades hidden in cotton balls.

I huffed as we fell, hit the water and went under again. This time I swam hard for the far shore.

Bebe was beside me and she climbed back up onto the pack. "Go, go!"

Only I couldn't go go . I was easily ninety-nine percent sure that we had to go through the lair of that fucking bird brain that wanted to play patty cakes with us. It flew in a large circle around the cavern, its eyes sweeping across us, as if considering another pass.

Maybe it realized that what had attacked it was all of six pounds.

I swam hard for shore as a howl lit the air behind me.

As if one monster trying to kill us right then wasn't enough .

"Fuck." I growled as my paws found the far shoreline and I scrambled across the loose, skittering rocks, clambering hard for the flat wall that the Rok had made its home in.

Bebe bobbled on my back. "Don't look behind us, no matter what."

I gritted my teeth and ran harder, my feet slipping in the loose stones as the ground itself seemed to pull me backward toward the river.

Two howls lit the air, one that reached into my body and slammed me like a tuning fork that left my legs jiggling and loose, my heart pounding for more reasons than the physical exertion. The other howl sent a live wire of fear through me, promising to hurt me, to tear me limb from limb, to see me down to my last gasp of air.

I was pretty sure I knew which was which.

A splash of bodies hitting the water as they entered the river on the far side only pushed me harder.

That was all I needed to launch myself up to the next pile of rocks. I looked up and knew that I had to shift back to two legs if I was going to make it. There was no way that I could climb the sheer wall with either of my canine bodies.

I made the decision and wobbled as I stumbled from four legs to two, naked except for the backpack.

"You're going to climb naked?" Bebe leapt to my side. I dared a look behind me then to see a black wolf and a solid white wolf in the middle of the river. The Rok had taken after them, swooping down and grabbing at them.

I stuffed my hand in my bag, grabbed a pair of pants and yanked them on, followed by a shirt. "No."

Was it modesty? Not really. Okay, maybe I didn't want either of those boys following me up the cliff, looking straight up into my ass crack. I slipped the bag back on and reached for the first handhold.

"Cin!"

Havoc's voice cut through the sound of the Rok and the howls of the other wolf who had to be Han.

No, I wouldn't turn around. He wasn't the good guy right now, and to believe he was anything but someone who would kill me was a stupid, stupid move. It didn't matter that it was a spell, cast by that wooden headed Sven.

"Cin, help!" He bellowed and then the gurgle that followed…

"Don't look back!" Bebe leapt up and grabbed hold of the backpack, her body blocking me as I turned my head to do just what she told me not to. "It's a trick, girlfriend. You know that. He told you to run, he told you to kill him if you were given the chance! And he never called you by your name before!"

She was right. He'd only ever called me Goldie. Still…

"What if it's not?" I made myself move, even as I asked the question, made myself start the climb. "What if he's hurt?"

"If he loves you," Bebe whispered. "He would rather let himself be killed than to draw you into that fight. No man who truly loves his woman would give up her safety, for his."

"Shouldn't it go both ways?"

"Not when you know you can't trust him." She butted her head against the back of my neck. "Trust me on this, Cin. You can't trust him—not right now. Which means you can't trust anything that comes out of his mouth, even if it tugs at your heart. Even if it breaks you."

I didn't like the tension in my chest, the way it grabbed at my heart and tightened my throat, the way my eyes blurred. I'd chosen him, and now I had to leave him behind.

"I…don't want to give up on him."

"I know. Neither do I. But right now, he's got to do him, and you've got to do you. You've got to stay safe, at any cost. You walk your path, Cin, and you rock this world to its core. And if he's going to be with you, then it will happen. You gotta just go with the flow this time, girlfriend," Bebe said.

"You're right." Two words, and damn they hurt as Havoc bellowed my name, at the sound of the Rok thrashing the water as it fished for the two wolves. My fingers and toes found tiny purchases as I dragged us up the sheer face toward the Rok's cave, my back and arms burning as I struggled.

Shifting so many times, so close together and then adding a wicked work out immediately was not easy, even on me.

Holding yourself perfectly flat against a wall of rock, the weight of a backpack and cat dragging you backward…it was a workout I wouldn't repeat.

There was a sudden rending screech behind us, then a wolf gave a guttural howl of defiance, and Bebe gasped. "I can't believe what I'm seeing. They killed it."

Fuck, fuck, fuck. Not that the Rok was my ally, but it had been keeping Havoc and Han busy, giving me a chance to get ahead of them. Without that distraction, my lead time was over. I redoubled my efforts, pulling myself up, pushing off with my toes, reaching for impossible hand holds.

Leaping, taking chances that I never would have taken before.

"Almost there," Bebe encouraged. "Maybe another two or three feet to the top."

I paused and sucked wind, shaking from the crown of my head to the tips of my toes. I didn't even have extra air for speaking. It had been silent below us for almost ten minutes now. There was no way that the two of them weren't climbing after me. No way they weren't catching up.

"Here, I'll help!" Bebe leapt off my back, for the top of the cliff. Only thing was, her launching herself upward, pushed back and down on me.

That little bit of pressure was all it took to upset the balance I was literally clinging to.

My fingers on my right hand let go, and my right foot slipped. I screamed as I clung by one hand and barely the big toe on my left foot. With only four fingers, I gripped with all I had. I swayed and cried as my left big toe lost its grip.

One hand, one hand was the difference between me living and falling to my death. Would the world go down with me? Would a fall actually end things, or would it take one of the boys chopping my head off with a magical axe?

"Cin, reach for me!" Bebe called.

Reach for her. To give her the sun. I had to give it to her before I fell.

I rolled my eyes up, fully expecting to see a tiny paw reach for me, not a hand with outstretched fingers.

I couldn't question what I was seeing, I just flung my right hand upward, grasping at the lifeline offered to me. Bebe had found someone; she'd found someone to pull me up and right then I didn't care who that someone was.

There was nothing left in me to help with the upward motion, I had to let them yank me up and over the lip of the cliff. Shaking from head to foot, I kept my head down as I sucked wind on my hands and knees.

"Thanks." I lifted my head and stared at the naked woman who stared back at me.

Chartreuse eyes. Light brown skin with freckles across her nose. Wild dark curls flowing over her shoulders, so long that they covered most of her generous chest. I just stared.

She grinned, though it was a little wobbly and I swore I could see tiny little dagger canines. "Hey, girlfriend."

I shook my head. I was seeing things, that was the only answer. But I knew that wasn't the case, I could see my friend in the naked woman's eyes. "What the fuck, Bebe?"

"Yeah, so maybe we should talk about this as we run? It's a new development. Like it just happened. Just now."

She was on her feet in a flash, and when I blinked, she was a cat again.

Her hair was puffed up, as if she were afraid. I stumbled to my feet. Wobbling as the adrenaline of almost dying—again—fled. I pulled a pair of socks and shoes out of the backpack and yanked them on.

Because despite my confusion, about how she just turned into a woman right in front of me, and then back into a cat, I knew she was right. "Okay, let's go. And you better start talking. "

I broke into a jog, shaky, but running, letting myself settle into the familiar movement, picking up speed with each step, pushing myself to go as fast as I could, all things considered.

"Here's the thing. I was cursed, you know that?" Bebe ran beside me, her tail straight up in the air like a flagpole. "The curse was because I messed around with Loki, but he…he softened the curse, the same way he softened yours. He told me that when…when I'd finally found true love, I'd be able to be a woman again. I thought that meant…I thought that meant romantic love."

Did she mean Richard? That she'd fallen for my brother and that broke her spell?

"You're my best friend and back there, with the Rok…I knew that I might die. I didn't care. I just thought to myself, at least she'll be okay. My best friend will be okay, I have to save her. There was no choice, I just did it."

I bit my lower lip and cleared my throat before I spoke. "You've saved me before."

"Not like that. Not knowing that I'd die, I always kind of knew I'd get through it. But this time…this time I was okay with it. Because…that's what true love is."

"I love you too, Bebe," I whispered.

"I love you more, girlfriend," she said. "I think…I think maybe I can shift back and forth now? But…I also think I can do more like this, as a cat. I'm just me, afte r all, no magic here. So, enough mushy stuff, pay attention, where are we going next?"

She was right. I needed to pay attention even though my heart was bursting with the fact that Bebe's love for me had broken her curse. Or at least it had broken part of her curse.

The walls of the tunnel were made of a glowing white stone, etched with symbols that no doubt meant things. A few I recognized from my crash course study of Norse mythology and the pantheon.

"How long do you think we have before they reach the top of the cliff?" Bebe asked as we continued to race through the dimly lit cave.

"Not long enough. Look for a side path, an opening, anything," I said as I searched the walls of the tunnel. I'd been so sure this was where we needed to go.

We took a corner, and I slammed to a stop.

A dead end. I put my hands against the white stone, and it was like touching a block of dry ice. I hissed and yanked my hands back, my fingertips bright pink and smoking a little. I put my hands to my head.

"This…this can't be it. There must be something else." I did a turn, looking at the wall, the symbols…that was what I should have been doing. Loki's symbol was right in front of me—the snakes woven around one another in an ‘S'. The mark on my neck thrummed, pulling at me to lift my hand to the symb ol, and I knew somehow that if I touched it, a doorway would open. I reached out then paused. How many doorways could we open? There could be a limit. I yanked my hand back.

"Look for a symbol that looks like a web," I said. "That's…that's what we need. You take the left wall, and I'll take the right. The symbol should open a doorway." I hoped.

"What if this web symbol takes us to a giant spider?" Bebe whispered.

"That would be shitty. But it's all we've got to go on." I turned and headed back the way we'd come, going as fast as we could while still checking the walls.

The symbols were all over the place, most of them I didn't recognize and then there it was.

A web etched into the wall just at my ankle height. Eight points of the web were embedded with tiny dark crystals, flickering as if they were lit from within.

"Here!" I dropped to my knees.

Bebe crossed to me. "You're sure?"

"It's this or we go visit Loki," I said.

"I'll take door number one."

"I thought so." I carefully pressed my fingers to the eight points of the web, the icy cold of the stones sinking into me. I grit my teeth and kept on pushing, feeling the wall slowly give away even as my hands felt like they would freeze solid, then shatter .

Smoke curled up from my fingertips, but I didn't dare let go.

One chance, I knew with an instinct I didn't understand that this was our one chance to get to the Norns.

I couldn't help the whimper as the doorway finally slid open…though I'd barely call it a doorway.

The opening was about two feet round, and disappeared into darkness, a waft of sweet smelling fresh air flowed up toward us, curling through me. That had to be good, right?

Cradling my seared hands, I scooted forward on my butt. "On my lap, Bebe, let's do this."

She did as I asked and I took a last look behind us, just as Havoc rounded the corner. His sharp blue eyes locked on mine. He gave a huff, a warning.

Go.

I nodded and forced myself forward, and into the darkness as he lunged toward me.