Winter Lost

There was a strange moment where Adam hung suspended on something that felt nothing like flesh and blood. He had already dived for its neck, and his mouth filled with something cool and tasteless that evaporated before he could puzzle out what it was. He was dropped to the ground on the far side of the creature, sliding awkwardly with the leftover force that should have been driving his claws and teeth deep into the enemy.

Somehow, it was like the hungry ghost—not quite in this world. He filed that information away and adjusted his plans again. Any soldier knows plans have to be flexible in the field of battle.

For all that the creature had the apparent consistency of pudding, Adam had managed to knock it off Mercy. But now it stood between Adam and his mate—which was unacceptable.

If he read the signs correctly from the tableau snapshot in his head of his initial sight of Mercy and this thing, Mercy had decided her best defense against this creature was Lugh’s spear—and it had not worked. Her first defense, when she was alone, was always to run. Running had not worked.

There were other possibilities, but his instincts and a preponderance of evidence told him that this creature had come specifically to attack Mercy. It had been feeding on her—and not her flesh and blood. The spider had told Mercy just this morning that the damage she’d suffered from the Soul Taker would attract things like the hungry ghost. It could be one of those.

Or.

Here before Adam was a giant doglike being, caught between life and death. How many of those could there be in a winter-torn corner of Montana? One. Garmr.

Lugh’s spear had done nothing to it. Lugh’s spear. If a weapon made by someone as close to a god as any of the fae had ever been was not able to hurt the creature, he didn’t know what could.

The creature lunged toward Mercy, and Adam lunged faster, landing between it and his mate. He got his shoulder in its way and shoved.

He couldn’t hurt it, but it held enough of some kind of mass that he could move it back. He forced it away from Mercy, throwing his weight against it, savaging it with fangs and claws.

Now he expected the lack of resistance and he followed it. It was like pushing mud. With that thought, he jumped back on top of it and dug at its whatever-it-had instead of flesh and blood as if he were digging a hole into the earth. That was more effective than he’d expected.

It broke away. Adam didn’t follow it.

Figure out your main objective, and don’t let your enemy distract you.

He couldn’t remember just now, in the heat of battle, if that was his old drill sergeant’s voice or Zee’s.

His main objective was to keep this thing away from Mercy. Because it wasn’t hurting him, but it had been able to hurt her. He stood foursquare against it. Against him, Garmr. Adam might have reservations about his identification, but his wolf knew. Patiently, Adam waited for the guardian of Hel to attack again.

Which he did.

Once more Adam managed to drive him back. This time Garmr jumped away half a dozen yards. Adam thought it might be a retreat, but his wolf wasn’t so sure. Garmr let out a hoarse, voiceless something that was not sound, but it shook the snow out of the trees anyway, snapping his vicious-looking fangs in frustration.

The green man was approaching—Adam heard his running feet on the snow. Friend or foe? The wolf moved his position so that, though he was still between Mercy and Garmr, he was also between Mercy and the place where the sound of the fae’s footfalls would take him.

With some distance giving him more time to observe, Adam noticed that Garmr was significantly smaller than he had been when Adam first attacked. It was still the size of a big grizzly, but the first time Adam had landed on its back, it had been larger than a polar bear.

Maybe his attacks were doing some kind of damage to it, enough to make it wary of him. He hoped it was true, because that would mean he could win. But it was too early to assume anything so optimistic.

Garmr abruptly turned his head in the direction of Liam’s footsteps, then, possibly driven by the knowledge that the green man was coming, it turned to run. It took two loping strides away from Mercy and away from the lodge, and stopped. Its long tail lowered and it dropped its head defensively, focused not on Liam’s approach but on something crashing through the underbrush.

The wolf was certain that there had been nothing approaching them from that direction before the noise started. He coiled his muscles, the better to defend Mercy from anyone or anything.

From the woods in front of Garmr, a huge stag broke out of the underbrush. Adam had the impression it had been moving at great speed, but it dropped to a stately walk as it emerged.

It wasn’t a real deer. Real deer weren’t larger than moose. They weren’t white with silver antlers that reached upward and outward in a testament of power.