She nodded and held out her hand. “Scalpel.” Travis handed her a small silver blade. “Fen? When this was done to me I had a bad reaction. Kir isn’t here to save Jeff if something goes wrong. Are you okay with this?”
Fen stared at her. “Could this kill him?”
“We think she had the reaction because Logan and I shared blood with her one right after the other. You bit Jeff this morning. Since it’s now late evening, he stands a better chance. The more time between the better off he’ll be, but from the way he’s breathing I’d rather give it a try now than wait.”
Fen nodded. A slim chance was better than none. “Do it.”
Jamie sliced her palm and placed it against one of the smaller wounds, one of the cuts Travis hadn’t stitched closed. The trio settled down to wait.
Nothing happened. Fen wanted to howl in frustration. “Why isn’t it working?”
Jamie sighed. “One in three chance he’d get healing, remember?”
“We’ll have to see what happens when he wakes up. But it’s pretty obvious he didn’t get healing.”
Fen frowned. “Wait. I never shared blood with Jeff, just claimed him and turned him.” He grabbed the silver blade and dragged it across his palm.
“No!” Travis stopped him before he could lay his hand on Jeff’s side. “We don’t know how he’ll react, remember?”
Damn. Fen watched the cut on his palm heal and growled. “I need to heal him.”
“I know.” Travis sighed. “The goddess of healing won’t come here, even for
Jeff.”
Jamie slumped with a grimace. “Frigg.”
Travis nodded. “Yeah.”
“Does she survive Ragnarrok?”
Travis blinked. “You know? I have no idea. The fate of the goddesses is never mentioned in either the Poetic or Prose Eddas.”
Fen heard the doorbell ring. Travis put his hand briefly on Fen’s shoulder before walking out of the room. Fen could hear him talking to someone, but couldn’t bring himself to care.
“In here.” Travis led whoever their visitor was into the bedroom.
“Poor doggie.” A dark-haired woman entered the room and clucked her tongue at the sight of his wounded mate. Her hands were reaching for him, but Fenris snarled and she pulled back.
Travis gestured toward the bed. “As you can see, Jeff’s been injured.”
“That’s Jeff? Holy fuck.” Fen sniffed and recognized the woman’s scent. It was the police detective, Antonia Mancinelli. “What the hell happened?”
“Grimm happened.” Jamie’s hands clenched into fists. “I’m going to turn the Old Man into pate.”
“No. I mean when did he become furry and four-legged?” Antonia’s hands ran through Jeff’s fur. Fen barely bit back his growl. This woman wasn’t pack, wasn’t family. She shouldn’t be touching his mate so intimately. “What did Oliver Grimm do to him? Some of these wounds are pretty serious.”
“He’s my mate.” Fen did growl then as the woman’s hands went dangerously close to the largest wound, the one on Jeff’s chest. “I marked him, made him mine.” He lifted her hands off Jeff’s body. “I won’t be able to keep myself from hurting you if you don’t stop touching him.”
“Sorry.” Toni took a step back from the bed. “Jamie. I need to file a report about your dad. You say Grimm attacked him?”
Jamie nodded. “Yeah.”
Toni sighed and rubbed her head. “Jesus. Technically speaking, Oliver Grimm is a missing person. If I post a report that he’s killed Fred Grimm the cops will start hunting him. But with the wound on your dad there’s no way to claim it was natural causes. And they’ll want to know
“He attacked Jeff. He tried to fucking skin him.” Jamie’s hand was once more buried in her brother’s fur.
Toni winced. “Shit.” Toni flopped down into a chair across from the bed, far enough away that Fen didn’t feel Jeff was threatened but close enough that she could converse without shouting. “Your grandfather’s quite the asshole, isn’t he?”
“Yeah.”
Fen frowned. Something was different. Off. He sniffed the air around his mate, but nothing had changed.
“Fen?”
The hair on the back of his neck was standing on end. Perhaps Jordan and Val were finishing up the wards?
“Fen? Are you all right?”
No. It wasn’t the wards. This magic felt…different. Female. He’d felt it a few times before, so long ago he could barely remember it. It was subtle, this magic, one that was only wielded by a select few.
He jumped to his feet and changed, startling everyone in the room. He raced to Toni’s side and sniffed deeply.
Yes. Subtle, but there. Diluted by time and intermarriage with humans, but still there. He changed back and grabbed her hand, dragging her back to Jeff’s side. “Stroke him.”
“Um. Didn’t you threaten my life if I got too close?” She was wide-eyed, holding back.
Fen growled and forced her hand against Jeff’s skin. “Heal him.”
Travis gasped, but Fen kept his gaze on the woman in front of him. “You carry the blood of Valkyries in your veins. It’s faint, barely there, but some of their power runs through you.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Despite her protests her hands moved through Jeff’s fur.
“The Valkyries were the ones who chose who died and who did not, but they also had the power to heal. They could bring the living back from the dead. Odin hated when they did that, so they rarely practiced their healing skills.” Fen pleaded with her as best he could. “Save my mate. Please.”
Toni blinked, her expression uncertain. “I don’t know how.”
Travis took hold of her wrist. “Remember how you felt when you came into the room and saw what had been done to Jeff?” She nodded. “Your first instinct was to reach out to him, to make him feel better, wasn’t it?”
She shivered. “Not quite.”
Fen tilted his head.
“It was to put him out of his misery.”
Fen snarled.
“At first I thought he was a dog, okay? One that got run over by a bus, maybe.” Her hands continued to move through Jeff’s fur, her fingers lightly tracing the lines of the cuts Travis had sewn shut. “Honestly, I don’t think he’ll make it even if I help. He looks like reheated Hamburger Helper.”
“He will. If you help him.” Fen took hold of her hand again. This time he could feel the faint traces of her power flowing through her and into Jeff.
It was working. Without knowing it, Toni’s desire to fix Jeff was healing him slowly but surely. Already Jeff breathed more easily.
But it was taking a subtle toll on the detective. Her eyes turned glassy, her skin taking on a sickly sheen. She was pale and trembling before five minutes had passed. The rancid scent of sweat and fear filled the air around her. “I can’t.”
Fen lifted her hands away from Jeff just before she collapsed. He helped her back to the chair she’d settled in before. “You did enough.
“Thank you,” Travis translated.
She was trembling. “How is this possible? I’m not like you.”
“Someone in your past was.” Fen settled back down on the bed, curling himself around his sleeping mate. “Your great-grandmother, or even further back, was a Valkyrie. They have always been lovers of mortals, and sometimes bore children with them.”
Her head shook in disbelief. “But I’m Italian, not Norwegian.”
“Then someone lied to you, or forgot that one of your relatives wasn’t Italian.” Travis brought her a drink of water. “Here. I’ll get some blankets and you can borrow some of Jamie’s pajamas.” He raised his hand when Toni opened her mouth to protest. “You’re in no condition to drive, Detective, and you know it.”
“I have to file my report.”
