Fated in Stone, page 5
She rubbed her free hand over her head, tunneling her fingers through her short hair and tugging slightly, hoping it would ease some of the pressure on her skull. The movement strained her tweaked wrist but not enough to clear her muddled thinking. All it did was remind her she was sore from hitting the ground hard a few minutes ago.
“So now what?” she asked the room at large. The wolf couldn’t exactly answer that question. Still, she felt the need to ask aloud.
She glanced around. The house felt empty now. Just her, the wolf, and the crates. And the stone statue of course. But she should still check. There’d been more guards than she’d been aware of, hiding in the stacks. She needed to make sure there were no more enemies lurking in the shadows.
Elle looked between the statue and the wolf again, hesitating to leave the statue for reasons she couldn’t quite name. Then she contemplated the nook the statue was in. And something she hadn’t considered occurred to her. The wolf had come from in here. From a boxed off area where she’d purposefully stashed the man so there was only one way to get into the nook, a way she could block to guard him. But the wolf had still come from this direction.
The wolf could have come up over the top of the crates, technically, she guessed. Glancing up she confirmed the crates of the two remaining sections of the nook were stacked high, but not all the way to the open, peaked roof. Which, now she thought about it, made her “safe nook” not so safe. The monster could have just come over the top, too. The thought that she’d underestimated the danger, or more to the point, didn’t see all the permutations of danger in that moment, left her light-headed as a surge of fear for what could have happened hit her. She wobbled, nearly dropping back onto her ass.
No. No, she didn’t have time to think about the what-ifs now. She’d let those join her nightmares. She had so many already, what were a few more? Right now, she needed to ensure the house was truly empty and she was safe for the moment. Then she’d contemplate…the rest.
She glanced at the wolf again. “I need to make sure the house is secure. I’m hesitating to leave…” She gestured at the statue. “I’m not sure why. Stone statue. Should be safe enough, right? But…” She was explaining all this to a wolf? Shaking her head, she said, “I’ll be back. Don’t run away.”
The wolf whined softly and made a move to go with her.
“Please. I’d rather someone stayed with…him. I don’t know what this is. If he’s dead or… But I don’t want to leave him, and I still need to check the house.” She lifted the gun, the muzzle carefully pointed out between the crates and not at either the wolf or the statue. “There are still bullets in here. If something happens, there will be gunfire. You’ll know I’ve found someone.” Or something. Like a monster.
The wolf nudged the sword on the ground. The man had had that clenched in his hand. It wasn’t clenched in the statue’s hand, though. The weapon clanked against the wooden floor when the wolf pushed it toward her with his nose.
“It’ll be useless to me,” she said. “I know how to use the gun. Don’t have the first clue how to use a sword. I’ll just get hurt. Gun will have to do.”
Another whine, but the wolf stopped shoving the sword at her.
“Stay here. I’ll be fine. Quiet and careful. Promise.” She had no idea why she was trying to reassure a wolf.
She eased out of the nook, once against easing up over some of the fallen, broken crates. Secure the house first. Contemplate impossibilities later. One step at a time until they were safe.
Just as she’d learned in her childhood.
CHAPTER SIX
Not following the woman took a great deal of willpower. Ben had to talk his wolf out of disregarding her request because the wolf wanted to stick by her side. Both he and the wolf knew full well the human body was fine as it was. Especially since the house was empty now. He could hear it. And he could sense it. There was a stillness. Even the monster was gone.
But the woman didn’t know that, and she was worried about him. Also very confused.
She wasn’t the only one.
He had not meant for his wolf to leap out and through her. That was… That was for later. After she knew what she was to him. After he knew her fucking name! After they’d established trust and she’d agreed to stay with him. The curse wouldn’t break if she didn’t agree. She had to stay of her own free will. He couldn’t coerce her. The choice to stay was entirely hers.
Except… He’d done something now that linked them. Solidly. Maybe irrevocably. And he had no idea how that affected all this. Had he accidentally taken away her choice? Had he doomed himself to forever live under Ne’s curse?
When the ancient god En had created the Seven Families to hunt and kill Ne’s monsters, Ne had cursed the Families to a horrible death. A death with their animal spirits corporealizing inside their bodies and literally trying to rip out of the human forms as they turn to stone. A curse En couldn’t just wave a hand and end. But he could mitigate it. Could give the Families a way to end it. He’d promised them a destined love. Their Nam-tar. And if the Nam-tar agreed to stay with their destined hunter, the hunter’s curse was broken.
All very romantic. Except the hunters of the Seven Families didn’t live human lifetimes. They lived significantly longer. He was over three hundred years old. And most Nam-tar were human. Not all—his sister Rebecca had found hers a year and a half ago, and he was a werewolf—but most were ordinary humans, even if they had some additional attribute, something a little more. Like his oldest brother Eric’s Nam-tar being psychic. The problem with humans, though, was that they had quite short lives. Nothing that would match a hunter’s life span. A cruel joke to find one’s destined mate, only to lose them after a few short decades. If the hunter could keep their Nam-tar alive even that long.
So En provided one more gift. One more reward for doing their duty and destroying the monsters. A Nam-tar could agree to a ritual that involved the hunter’s animal—in his Family’s case, the wolf—leaping through the Nam-tar. Once on the way out of the human host body. Once on the way back into the human host body. This left just enough of the wolf behind to extend a Nam-tar’s life to match their mate’s. It didn’t give the Nam-tar their own animal spirit. Didn’t make them into what Ben and his Family were, what all the Seven Families were—though it did add to their strength and healing ability—but it did enough to ensure the couple could live together for much longer than they would otherwise.
But all of that happened after the Nam-tar agreed to stay. After trust. After love. After…all of it. It was a final step. A step that involved a lot of trust. And not every Nam-tar agreed to it. It wasn’t a requirement for breaking the curse. It was a sort of bonus. A non-required bonus.
He’d quite literally jumped all those steps. On accident. In the moments of realizing he’d die without letting his wolf leap from his body, riding the wolf’s form while his injured human form turned to stone and healed, he’d been too focused on surviving. On the fact that after all this time, he’d found his Nam-tar and he wasn’t going to die yet. He wasn’t going to let her be killed either. There was a grinluk threatening her. The man who’d shot him still had a gun.
All those worries rolled through him fast and relentlessly. And he knew he had to leave his body, let the wolf out, rejoin the fight. But in all that fear and worry…he’d forgotten when his wolf leapt free, he wouldn’t just knock the woman to the side. That had been his intent. To knock her away from the man aiming a gun at her. Except she wasn’t an ordinary woman to him. And he hadn’t knocked her aside.
He’d gone through her instead.
The confusion this caused everyone had been pretty impressive. He hadn’t minded that part at all.
But it meant they had another problem now. Not only had he potentially ruined any chance of ending his own curse, not only had he started his introduction to his Nam-tar by violating her choice—even if done on accident—but he’d inadvertently given the grinluk the idea that she was a Family member. That the wolf had been hers and she’d somehow managed to do something no Family member could do—have their animal leap and leave the human spirit behind in the human host body.
The animal and human spirits were never meant to exist separately. They were in a symbiotic relationship that meant one couldn’t exist without the other. No matter what body they were in, human or animal, they remained together in that body. One in spirit, the other corporeal. But always together.
By leaping through the woman in front of the monster, Ben had accidentally given the monster the impression she didn’t have to do this. That she could let her symbiotic animal leap free without her human spirit having to go with it.
This was…not a good turn of events.
The monster would come for her now. It would have anyway, for interfering. And if it got even a hint that she was important to Ben, that she was a Nam-tar, it would absolutely try to kill her as soon as it could. But this…
This could bring more than just the grinluk. Maybe even more than the Elemental or Elementals working with the grinluk and other monsters. This could bring all the monsters and threats to the Families down on her.
A human woman with no idea any of these things even exist.
This was very very bad.
His wolf agreed. So much so, he couldn’t stand still. He paced restlessly around his stone body, resenting the gunshot wound that forced him into this form. A form he couldn’t talk to her from. The wolf had a lot of advantages, but the ability to use human language wasn’t one of them. And Ben needed desperately to talk to the woman. To explain…as much as he dared.
Damn it all, what was he going to do? Had he screwed up his chance to end his curse? Had he destroyed any hope of earning his Nam-tar? And what had he done to her? If he didn’t jump back through her, would that leave her able to return to normal? If he didn’t complete the ritual, would she be okay?
None of this was a scenario he’d thought to ask about growing up. Someone had to know, though. This couldn’t be the first time in sixteen thousand years this had happened. Someone had to know what to do.
He needed answers. Answers he wasn’t going to get like this.
There was still the problem of the geneticist, too. Once again, they’d lost the chance to extract one of the scientists and find out exactly what the monsters were having them do.
Fuck. What a mess.
He was still pacing restlessly when the woman finally returned. Having her back, having her near, filled him with so much relief and joy, his wolf actually danced over to her before the logic that was his human spirit thought to calm the wolf’s enthusiasm.
She doesn’t know us. She doesn’t know she should be welcoming a strange wolf who’s excited to see her.
The wolf stopped short of jumping up to put his paws on her shoulders and lick her face. But it was a close thing.
She gave him a funny look, then said, “The house is clear. Nothing living. But…” She shivered. “There are things in jars in a storage fridge that I’m not sure I want to know more about. Especially after that tentacled monster thing spoke. How the hell does a monster speak?”
Did she realize she was talking to him, to the wolf, as if he would understand her? He’d tried to let her know he did when she’d asked yes-no questions. But she’d fallen into talking to him as if he could definitely understand all she was saying. He liked that. Loved that. But…did she even realize she was doing it?
She gave the stone body of his human form a little frown. Then looked back at the wolf. “I’m talking to you like you understand,” she said.
He shouldn’t have been surprised they were thinking along the same lines. She was his Nam-tar. He just fucking wished he knew her name.
“I’m not sure why I’m doing that except that I need to say all this out loud so I know I’m not crazy. Even though, frankly, I’m pretty sure I’m crazy right now. Still not able to talk myself out of knowing you managed to jump through me and not over or around me. Not through me as in pushing me down and jumping over the top of me. You went through me. And I know that’s not possible.” She frowned. “Although the monster seemed to think it meant something.” She shook her head. “So where did you come from? Are you related to him?” She nodded to his statue body. “Is he dead?”
This was something Ben could answer. He shook his head hard in a no.
“Okay.” She let out a long, slow breath. “Okay. Well, that’s good.”
He was very happy she thought so.
“But the fact that there’s a stone statue here where he should be means I can’t ask him about why he’s a stone statue now. And then there’s you to consider…”
He whined softly.
“A wolf. There are wolves in these woods. A long time ago… Well, that’s not important now. Anyway, I know there are wolves in these woods. But you don’t act like a normal wolf. And since you managed to turn yourself insubstantial enough to go through me, even though that should be impossible, I’m going to assume you’re not a normal wolf. Anymore than the things in the jars are normal. Or that the monster was normal.” She shivered again. “And since I’m already talking to you like you understand, I also feel impolite not introducing myself. Is that weird?” She sort of half laughed, but there didn’t seem to be a lot of humor in it.
He waited on his haunches, trying not to leap up and down in his impatience to have her name.
She glanced at the broken crates nearest them. “Not sure if you’ve noticed, but… There are things in the crates, too. After the jars in the storage fridge, I haven’t looked too closely, but…” She swallowed hard. “But I think we need to get out of this house, even if there aren’t any men with guns anymore.” She glanced at the statue. “But I’m not sure how to move him.”
Your name! What’s your name? He wanted to shout but all that came out of his wolf was a whine. She was his future, and it felt so wrong that he didn’t know what her name was.
She misinterpreted his wolf’s whine. “Is moving him bad? Will we…hurt him or something if we try?”
He shook his head no, but… But his statue would be too hard for her to move, too heavy.
He really needed to talk to her. He had to get back into his body, even if only for a few minutes. The wound would have healed enough by now for him to survive it. Not enough to be healed. He’d have to stay out of that body for a few more hours to fully heal. But he could leap back in, tell her what she needed to know, make introductions, and then leap out again. Or maybe get them both out of here first, then leap out again.
Would his body be capable of that yet? He hadn’t been out of it long. Long enough to save himself. Long enough he was pretty sure he wouldn’t die going back in yet.
There was also the issue of not jumping back through her to get into his body again, of not finishing the ritual. But…
Well, he’d just have to hope he hadn’t fucked that up completely. They had more immediate issues to worry about. Like getting her out of here.
He gave her a gentle nudge with his nose, careful so as not to scare her, and urged her back from the body.
She complied, but the furrow in her brow deepened. “You don’t want us to move him?”
Rather than try to communicate like this, in nods and headshakes, he trotted a few feet from the statue, and then took the run and dive back into his body.
He knew what the process looked like from the outside. He’d seen his family do this over and over again, all his life. But it was the first time he’d wondered what a stranger saw. What someone who hadn’t grown up with this process might see. When they were in a safer place, and he was fully healed, he’d ask her.
Right now, he just needed his human body’s ability to speak.
The transition for him was…well, as natural as breathing. The wolf returning to the human host, turning incorporeal as it melted back into the human body, the stone retreating and returning to living flesh. The cold that swept through him before he felt warm again. The transition to breathing, smelling, seeing, feeling with his human body again.
And, this particular time, the burning pain of a gunshot wound still ripping through his chest.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The man gasped, dragging in a ragged, rough breath. And all Elle could do for a long long moment was stare.
The wolf had leapt into the stone statue. Turning into a ghost as it went. Entering the stone body. As it did, the stone had seemed to flow away, flow outward toward the limbs, replaced by actual human flesh. The process was fast enough she really only processed the change after it had happened, separating out the different impressions of the change once it was finished. But once it was finished, the living, breathing man she’d dragged into this nook blinked up at her.
Flesh and blood again.
Oh! Blood.
The wound in his chest seeped blood more slowly now. And there was less of a hole than there’d been just twenty minutes ago—or was it less time? She’d lost complete sense of how much time had actually passed. Still, she knew that wound should be worse. That not enough time had passed for that much healing to have occurred.
And yet, she’d just watched a stone statue become a living man right before her eyes, after a wolf that had been solid jumped into the statue and became not solid. So…
What she was certain of and not certain of was pretty much out the window.
Along with her sanity. She was certain now that had flown the coop. Probably the instant she’d seen a monster and heard it speak.
“I can’t stay like this long. I need to transition out of this body again for the wound to heal fully.” The man spoke as if what had just happened wasn’t impossible.
The fact that he was speaking at all was just…
“Okay,” she said, because he paused like she was supposed to contribute to the conversation now.
