Tracking the Bear (Blue Ridge Bears Book 1)(36)

Frigg was all but crushing me with her power. If I’d been human, I might have been able to remain pliant. I could have watched and waited until the time was right for me to strike. But I wasn’t human. The berserker’s spirit that had wound itself so inexorably into the bear’s mind until they became one couldn’t remain still and do nothing under such an onslaught. We were being attacked, held down with our face literally and figuratively smeared into the mud. Pitting itself against Frigg was ultimately useless, but it still tried.

It felt like crawling naked over glass. My bear tore at me from within, and Frigg’s power pushed me down onto the spikes. She paced a few feet away, looking as lovely as she had the last time I’d seen her. If it weren’t for the slight sheen of sweat on her forehead and the tremor in her fingers, I would have thought she was entirely unruffled by the whole affair.

“How can you have lost them?” she snapped. “He’s one bear, carrying a human girl. It shouldn’t be so difficult.”

“Something was masking their scent.” Cave wolf, whose name I’d learned was Calder, scowled at the mud at Frigg’s feet.

“Something like what?” she snapped. “You’re wolves, for Odin’s sake. What could possibly throw you off the scent?”

“After the apparition appeared we could smell naught but magic, my queen. It was as you warned. The Vanir know of our plans.”

Frigg froze mid-stride, turning slowly to face Calder. To his credit, the wolf didn’t immediately grovel at the look she gave him. It promised murder. I struggled even harder, hoping the lapse would break her concentration and allow me to shift back, or hell, just move away.

Frigg fixed me with an icy stare and her hand clenched ever so slowly into a fist by her side. A strangled sound escaped my throat. Phantom hands squeezed my intestines shut. Nausea boiled in my gut and my body heaved, trying to expel whatever had caused me such agony. I only managed to turn my head in time to keep the vomit from covering my front.

The pain lessened a few minutes later, when her wrath seemed to have been sated. The nausea and muscle cramps remained however.

My thoughts spun out wildly. This wasn’t right. The tales I’d been raised on had always painted Loki or Thor as the vicious ones.

Mother Frigg was supposed to embody love, kindness and self-sacrifice. She was what most Nordic shapeshifter females aspired to. She was what the Proverb 31 woman was to Christians, or Gaea was to Neo-pagans.

Had the legends always been false? Were the Gods as prone to selfishness and short-sightedness as the rest of us? Or had the loss of her beloved son, Balder, turned her into this hardened shell of a woman?

I panted, but didn’t attempt to move further. She was back to pacing like a caged panther, and I didn’t want to draw her ire.

“Send out more wolves,” she snapped at Calder.

“That isn’t wise,” Calder murmured. “I’ve sent out thirty-five already. The humans may be slow, but if we go out in numbers they will take notice.”

Frigg had her back turned to me, so I couldn’t see her face. It must have been a sight to behold though, because Calder the Cro-Magnon werewolf went skittering back a few steps, an unconscious whine slipping from between his teeth.

“Find Luke Elmsong and bring him to me,” she hissed. “Before dark. I can barely restrain this one. I cannot force his cooperation if he takes bear form.”

She couldn’t? That was news to me. Her hold felt pretty damn inescapable. A plan slowly congealed in my brain. Maybe, if I could keep her occupied until sundown, Luke could assume his bear form. It was sad really, that allowing the insane killing machine to rampage all over the campsite would actually be the lesser of the two evils.

After a few moments of thought, I had an idea. Gods and Goddesses had to communicate with followers somehow. Most major religions posited that prayer was the way to open a dialogue with a higher power. So, I tried it.

“Dear Mother Frigg, you are the bitchiest Goddess I think I’ve prayed to all week.”

For a few seconds, nothing happened. She was still in conversation with Calder, still pacing a path from the constructed tent poles to me and back again. She paused halfway through a threat and tilted her head, as if listening to a distant sound.

She turned half toward me, so I could see her profile. Despite the insult, she looked pleased. “Smart bear, figuring that out so quickly. But if you want to talk to me, you don’t have to preface every sentence with a prayer. I can hear you, if I listen.”

Good to know. It would probably make the conversation less profane, in any case. There was only so much obsequious groveling I could take before I got snarky.

“You won’t get away with this, you know.” It didn’t sound as cavalier as I’d hoped.

She turned fully to face me then, and I was relieved to see that I hadn’t imagined it. She really did seem amused rather than put out. She’d dialed back the Stepford smile, at least. Calder was watching the one sided conversation with a bemused frown on his face.

“Has the pain addled your brain that badly? Or are we really speaking in clichés now? I suppose this is where I say, but I already have?”

“If you want to ride the witty banter train, I’m game. But I warn you, I’ve never been beaten.”

Frigg flashed me a smile. An honest-to-Gods smile. She really was enjoying this. I tried to ignore the positive swell of emotion that came with the expression. It was difficult, like trying to scowl on a perfect summer’s day.