Page 84 of Untethering Dark

“You’ll take care of her, right?” Johanna asked, voice watery. She cleared her throat forcefully, as if to will strength where there was none. “She’ll need a constant.”

So much worry and heartache in those words. Absent from them was all the stern reservation Johanna had when they’d met. He couldn’t be sure he’d fully proven himself, but the forest ranger at least recognized that he cared deeply about her friend.

One thing was clear to him—Astrid would take this human’s passing hard.

Whatever doubts he harbored about his own lifespan, he would not let his Hexe suffer the hardship of losing her loved ones alone. He’d seen the powerful force of sheer will again and again in humans, and if that was all he had, he’d stretch life’s threads for as long as Astrid needed him to.

“There’s Perchta, of course,” Johanna continued, taking his contemplative silence for hesitation. “And the witch loves her something fierce, but those two are quite independent when left to their own devices. They’ve gone for months without talking before, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that evolved to into years or decades or...”

He placed his hand on her shoulder, a long-forgotten ache yawning in his chest. Sympathy, sorrow, connection. The forest ranger swiped at her eyes before looking up at him, startled. “I’ll take care of her,” he promised.

Fresh, silent tears streaked down her cheeks, but Johanna didn’t wipe these ones away, opting to place her hand on top of his instead. “Thank you.”

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Twilight crept in. Its indigo fingers traced the sky and deepened the shadows the trees cast, inky branches long and gnarled and stretching. There was a time not so long ago when Astrid would’ve quivered in fear to have Altes Geweih pacing and prowling outside her cottage, wound tighter than a ten-day clock and ready to spring.

But that was the past, and she had an inkling she knew what Gudariks needed now.

He hadn’t stopped moving once in the last two days, his heat signature leaving blinding red zigzags in the snow. Closing der Schwarzwald off to the public made the forest quiet in a way it hadn’t been in centuries. And while he seemed relieved about it at first, a creature of habit needed its routine.

“I don’t know what’s worse,” he growled, ears pricked. “Their taunting or this maddening quiet.”

Sitting on the tree stump outside her gate, Astrid folded her hands in her lap. “You need to hunt.”

That kind of unspent energy might be useful during a confrontation with their foes, but it wasn’t doing him any good now. And it wouldn’t be good energy to bring to tomorrow’s ritual when she needed him to give, rather than take. He needed a distraction. Something to take the edge off.

“You know I would, but there’s nothing to hunt since Johanna closed the park.” A tremor rolled down his spine, fur spiking along his back. He shook his head. “At least, nothing that deserves it.”

“Hunt me.”

He stopped, still for the first time in days, save for the restless twitch of muscle. Long moments of silence ticked by. “What do you mean?”

“Chase me down like prey. Claim me in the snow.”

And if their enemies watched, let them see.

A growl was Astrid’s only warning before, in a flash of movement, Gudariks pinned her against the nearest tree. Hands to either side of her head, claws clenching, but careful not to scrape the bark.

As crimson eyes locked on hers, searing every bit meant for the cold, his body heaved with barely contained energy, his restraint already treading thin ice. “You’ll have to tie me up, if you want any kind of head start.” With every growled clause, his breath fell hot on her cheeks. It would be cruel to promise and not deliver.

“But what is strong enough to hold you?” She smiled, skating her hands down his long, graceful arms, playing fire with glacial touch. Delicately she enclosed her fingers around his wrists, and ice flowed from her hands, shackling them in thick cuffs. “My vicious lover.”

As she drew away, chains of ice formed and fused to the tree, snaking up the trunk, winding around the thickest boughs. Thin ice was weak, easily broken, but ice that had built and built and built over time—that had to be chipped away, bit by tedious bit, and her magic gave it that strength.

Ducking under his arm, Astrid patted his dappled rear before dashing away, a little skip to her step as she went to don her skis.

Gudariks roared behind her, pulling and yanking on the chains, shaking snow from the branches above. But not too hard. The branches would break before the chains, and he’d never hurt the tree.

Just as she’d counted on.

Astrid bent to strap her feet in when he stilled. She knew better than to trust that calm.

Turning his bloodred gaze on her, he warned, “Best not wear anything you like.” Those eyes pierced her with promise as he curled his claws around the chains, squeezing. She heard cracking before micro fissures spiderwebbed along her handiwork.

Her magic held him, but not for long.

Astrid fled.

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