Relentless (8 page)

“They’re rune stones.”

“Runes. Why does that sound familiar to me?”

“Because they’ve been around for years and are part of Norse history and mythology. They are part of your history.”

“All werewolves have at least one on their wrist. It’s only visible when they change.”

She nodded. “That’s right, and over all werewolves’ lifespans, the mark may change or they may develop different marks.”

I stared at her. “I’ve never heard that before.”

She reached in and pulled a few stones from the dish. “Over time, you change, learn, and perfect new gifts, and your marks change to reflect that.”

“But that’s not what these stones are all about. I think there’s more to them than just werewolf marks.”

“That’s very true, Alexis. The stones have much more meaning.”

Flattening the stones in my hand, I tried to discern their purpose, but the lines along the solid surfaces made no sense to me. “Runes aren’t really for voodoo, though, are they?”

She smiled. “Again, you’re right. Our family is a special one, dating back long before voodoo, back to the ancient times of the early werewolves, the Vikings. That religion was passed from one generation to the next. Eventually, a voodoo priestess became part of our family, and she incorporated the ways of that religion with the old one. Our beliefs and practices separated us from others. Now the old religion and the voodoo is one practice, one strength, and only our family knows its secrets.”

“I thought the stones were used for some kind of fortunetelling.”

“It’s true the stones may tell you things about yourself, but it’s not really like telling the future. Your future is what you make it.”

I arched a brow at her. “You can’t control everything in your future. I’m pretty sure I can’t just make this whole werewolf thing go away.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “We all have things that change the course of our lives. But you make the decisions. You may choose a smooth road or a bumpy one.”

I snorted. “I guess I keep veering off onto the bumpy one. I’m not trying to, though.”

“You’re just not trying hard enough to avoid it. But a bumpy path isn’t always wrong, just…harder to navigate.”

The bell over the door jangled. I jerked my gaze up to see Myles enter. My throat tightened for a minute, but I knew I couldn’t say anything. If he wanted to tell me who the woman he’d been sitting with was he would.

“Hey,” he said, coming up the aisle to where we were. “I figured I’d find you here.”

“You knew Rayna was here?”

He glanced past me to Rayna. “I knew her shop was here, and I kind of figured she might have made her way south.”

“I was just telling Alexis about the runes.”

“Runes are important,” he agreed. “The ones you get on your wrists and forearms when you turn explain who you are.”

“It’s really hard to pay attention to them at the time.  I’m so caught up in what’s happening to me I don’t think to look at my arm. I’ve seen mine, but I haven’t really paid attention to them.”

“You’ll learn soon.”

“But I want know what my marks mean.”

“Then you’ll have to remember what they look like and get Rayna to tell you. Or just get her to cast the runes for you. Your marks, at least some of the them, should show up in a casting.”

Turning my hand, I let the stones dribble from my palm back into the bowl. I turned slowly to Rayna. “Is that true?”

She shrugged, the loose cotton of her dress making a wispy sound. “For some, it is true. For others, it doesn’t work at all.”

“You have to have a strong force,” Myles interrupted, and Rayna frowned at him.

“What does that mean, a strong force?”

“If your werewolf spirit is strong enough, it will affect the casting of the runes. That’s all.”

“So if you can’t tell anything from mine, it means I have a weak spirit?”

“No, it doesn’t mean your spirit is weak, it’s just not a spirit that speaks to the runes.”

“Do the casting thing now.”

Rayna shook her head. “No. It is not a casting ‘thing.’ You don’t just do the casting for a werewolf. There are preparations that must be done, rituals, food, dress.” She waved her hands in the air as if there were so many more things to be done than even what she had mentioned.

“She’s right, Alexis. We’ll come back to town another time, and then you can get her to do it. You’ll have to plan ahead.”

“I’ll call and tell you when it will be a good time,” Rayna assured.

“Okay, then. I guess we should go. The others will be looking for us.”

Myles and I made our way to the front door with Rayna behind us.

“Be careful, you two,” she said before letting the glass door swing shut behind us.

I turned to say we would, but she had disappeared into the store already.

“So how was your shopping?”

For a moment, Myles’ face froze, and a flash of panic flared in his brown eyes.

“I…” He stopped, and I realized that he didn’t have a bag in his hand. He hadn’t bought anything.

“It’s okay,” I said quickly, not giving him time to try to make an excuse. “I haven’t bought anything yet, either. Let’s just run in the next store and grab some shorts.”

He nodded, and we hurried off, neither of us bothering to question the other.

“Stand up straight.”

I glanced over my shoulder at Yadira.

“Straight and face the front,” she ordered.

I sighed and turned back around only to see Brynna’s reflection in the mirror in front of me.  She lounged in a chair just behind the woman who was holding a measuring tape to my back. I watched her sigh and get up from the chair to hold the end of the measuring tape.

“It’s important for this to fit right, Alexis.” Brynna pressed the tape hard against my shoulder.

Yadira, now at my side, nodded. “The suit will protect you when you fight the werewolves while you remain in human form.”

Brynna snorted. “She’ll have to learn how to actually remain in human form before the suit does her any good. So be sure you don’t wear it until you figure that out.”

Yadira waved a hand at the redhead, who returned to her chair. She smiled at me. “Never mind Brynna. You’ll learn to control your change, then you will wear your savalin.”

She tugged a sleeve that would later be part of my coat onto my arm. Piece by piece, each part of the savalin was fitted, pinned, tucked, and remeasured. She wrapped the vidar around me, and I admired again the mix of soft fabric and unyielding leather, so feminine yet so indestructible. Finally, after removing the whole thing, Yadira stepped back.

“Are we done?”

“Yes, your fitting is done. I’ll have it sewn for you soon. I can make further adjustments if needed, but it’s usually not necessary.”

The woman turned away and went to work on something else as Brynna and I left.

“Well, that took forever.” Brynna sighed.

“You didn’t have to come with me. I could have found my way over here myself.”

She shrugged. “I didn’t have anything better to do.”

We followed the path back toward the dorms, walking silently for several minutes.

“I know you’re seeing him.”

“What?” My heart jerked to a rapid beat as my stomach tightened.

“I know you’re seeing Eric.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Like it wasn’t completely obvious the other day in Key West that you were ditching us to see him.”

“I needed to shop.”

“All day for one pair of shorts?”

I ground my teeth together, not wanting to lie to Brynna. “I’m not talking to you about it.”

“So you don’t deny that you saw him.”

I hurried to try to get away from her. “I said I’m not talking about it.”

“What about Myles?”

“What about him?”

“Did he go with you? You both disappeared, and nobody saw either of you until it was time to leave. I’d say I thought the two of you were trying to sneak off to be alone—”

“
What
?” I stopped short.

Brynna paused beside me and held up her hand. “Let me finish. I’d say you two were trying to be alone
except
I know Myles loves Lana and you’re insanely nuts over Eric, even though you have no business seeing him. I’m just saying, to some people, what you two did might look weird, and I’d hate a rumor to get back to Lana.”

I rubbed my hand across my forehead. “I never thought of that.”

“So think about it next time.”

“I will. I promise I was not with Myles.”

“I know, I know. Stop already. But if you were with Eric, what was Myles doing?”

I had to stare at the ground for a minute before I could meet her eyes. “I don’t know. Shopping, I guess. That’s what he said he was doing.”

“And I repeat, all day for a pair of shorts?”

I started moving again. “I don’t know, Brynna. You’ll have to ask him yourself.”

“I plan to.”

“Look, I have to hurry and get changed. I have a Bodinwa competition this afternoon.”

The path widened onto the grassy lawn of the dorm. Myles stood in the middle of the open area tossing a ball for Beowulf, his red miniature pinscher. Normally, I would have stopped to pet the feisty little dog, but today I only waved and kept going to my room. Let Myles deal with Brynna’s questions on his own.

I glanced at my phone to check for texts then stuffed it back into my tote bag, making sure it went all the way to the bottom before I headed outside. The covered boathouse where the Jet Skis were kept was to my right, but I veered to the left to the small building at the edge of the woods. It was built onto stilts about ten feet off the ground to keep out floodwaters during hurricane season. Obviously no one was that worried about the bottom floor of the dorm being flooded. But then the dorm was a good bit farther away from the ocean. I trotted up the steps and waved briefly at Hanna, who stood in front of a row of lockers.

The lockers were for the members of the Bodinwa team, and Hanna was the first team member I’d met. She had short brown hair and was generally very quiet. When we did talk, she was nice and helped me with some of the finer points of competing. I found my locker, which had a symbol on it that corresponded to the symbols on my lupin, the hitting stick I used in competition. I opened the lock with a key then stuffed my bag inside the locker. I couldn’t take my phone in my pocket, and I couldn’t let someone hold it for me in case I got another text message. I twisted the key, securing the locker, and hooked the key ring to a clip on my shorts.

“Nervous?” Hanna asked as we left the building and started down the steps.

“A little,” I lied. I was petrified. Not only was I about to compete in my first Bodinwa match against a team from another school, I also had to gather a plan of action to get myself off this island tonight without anybody knowing.

“The Savannah team is good. They’ll be the best we play all year. Just do what you can. It’s a good learning experience.”

“Are you telling me I’m going to lose?”

She laughed. “I don’t know if you’ll win or lose, but if you don’t do as well as you’d like, don’t worry about it.”

“They came all the way from Savannah for this?”

“Yep. Flew into Key West yesterday and stayed at a hotel last night.”

“No room for them here?”

“There’s room in the dorm, and some teams choose to stay here, but not the Savannah team. They’re very competitive and prefer to stay segregated from their opponents. They have several Valkyries on their team.”

“Brynna mentioned them the other day.”

“Valkyries?”

“Yeah, but she made it sound like they were separate from regular students. I didn’t think we’d be competing against any of them.”

“Some of them are different and don’t go to school with everyone else.” She glanced to the boathouse where Tom was waving at us to hurry up. “There’s no time to explain it all now. Just know they’re good at everything. Really good.”

Hanna hurried into the boathouse and flipped the switch to lower her Jet Ski to the water.

Tom stood by my Jet Ski and motioned for me to get on. When I was ready, he leaned toward me.

“Don’t be intimidated.” His voice was low. “You’re as good as anyone out there. You don’t know it yet, but you will.”

“I’m not intimidated.”

He smiled and said, “Yet,” as he flipped the switch, and the Jet Ski began its descent.

An hour later, I had to admit Tom was right. I was intimidated. Hanna and I waited side by side to face off against two girls from the Savannah team.

“Valkyries,” Hanna whispered, leaning toward me.

“I hate when Brynna does that, and now you’re doing it,” I hissed back at her.

“What?”

“Using words that really don’t mean anything to me.”

“I told you what a Valkyrie was, and you said Brynna told you, too. So you do know the meaning.”

“I know what you say the word means, but it just doesn’t
mean
anything to me. Especially not in this situation.”

She smiled, and I turned to watch the other two girls each make a run on the course. They were as good as Hanna had said. Better than me, that was for sure. They carried themselves on the course as they had on land, with a smooth grace that did not mask the relentless strength in their slim bodies.

Hanna took to the course and made a good run, though her time was still well above the other two. At last it was my turn. With my escape plans for tonight nonexistent, totally clearing my mind was impossible. I couldn’t focus, and it showed. Only a few feet into the course, I stood to swing the lupin, and my hand slipped on the handle of the Jet Ski. It skittered sideways, nearly unseating me. I recovered, but at that point, my time was shot. I missed a fint near the end of the course. As I flew up the ramp, I swung wildly at the final fint and jawa, missing both. The ski landed with an awkward splash on the other side of the obstacle, and my time stopped. I steered slowly back to where Hanna was sitting. Tom’s frown was hard to ignore. I tried.

“You stank that up,” Hanna said evenly.

I glared at her for a moment then shook my head. “Yeah, you’re right.”

We motored back to the boathouse and put up our skis. Hanna waited on the wooden deck for me so that we could go together to the beach. Both teams lined up in the sand so the high scorers could get their medals. I’d finished fourth among all the women. It wasn’t last, but I definitely wouldn’t be getting a medal.

After the medals were handed out, we shook hands with the other team. Several people stood around chatting, but I went back to the boathouse. Pulling loose the hose for the fresh water, I started cleaning my Jet Ski. The boards of the boathouse floor creaked as Tom came toward me.

“Sorry, Coach.” I tried to get the jump on him by apologizing for my bad performance. Maybe then he wouldn’t be angry with me. I looked at his face and knew my apology didn’t help much.

“You could have done better.”

“Should have,” I agreed. “I guess I was nervous. It was my first competition. I didn’t know what to expect.”

He nodded, and I thought for a moment he might be agreeing with me, but he wasn’t.

“You weren’t concentrating. I could see it from the start. Your mind was elsewhere. The director of the Valkyries was here today. I’d hoped you’d show them your best.”

“You know, people keep saying Valkyries this and Valkyries that, but I don’t know that much about them. All I know is those two girls were amazing. Way better than me. And, yeah, I admit, I was intimidated.”

“You could be as good.”

I wound the hose around my arm.“I don’t know about that.”

He opened his mouth to say more, but someone from outside called to him. “Ask Brynna or Myles to explain more about the Valkyries. I’ve got to go.” He made a few steps toward the door then turned back. “No matter how good you could be, you’ve got to start concentrating or you won’t stay on the competition team.”

I started to say that wasn’t fair, but he was gone. One bad showing, and I was going to get kicked off?  My grip tightened on the nozzle of the hose, sending a spray over the Jet Ski. I released it, turned off the water, and removed the nozzle. Then I attached the hose directly to the piece on the ski that would let me rinse salt water from the engine. I started the machine and turned on the water again. Leaning against the post, I knew Tom was right. It wasn’t that I hadn’t done well. I hadn’t given it my full effort, which wasn’t like me. I didn’t usually do something and not do it well. Especially when I had the ability. My relationship—or maybe it was a non-relationship—with Eric was affecting me, changing me. I wasn’t so sure it was a good change.  I turned the water off for the last time and wound up the hose. A final click on the lift settled the Jet Ski in its storage position. I looked at it for a minute. With a smile, I went to get a gas can. Escape problem number one solved. I had transportation.

In the end, getting away from the dorm wasn’t a problem. I went out in shorts and a T-shirt and set off at a jog like I was going out for a late-night run. I headed straight for the boathouse. I took a collapsible paddle from a kayak and lowered the Jet Ski into the water then dropped onto it. I sat there listening to waves lap against the pilings. Somewhere in the forest, a bird called and another answered closer by. I opened the paddle and stuck it in the water with a firm stroke, propelling my way out of the boathouse. This had been my biggest concern. The island was quiet at night. There were no cars here, only golf carts, four wheelers, boats, and Jet Skis. None of these were used at night, so the noise of a motor might draw some attention. Sweat began to drip down the side of my face as I pulled hard at the paddle, trying to move the heavy machine. There was open water about a hundred yards from the shore, and by the time I made it there, my arms were aching. I ratcheted the paddle into its compact size then stuck it under my thigh. It was a piece of equipment I needed to have with me when I returned. In the half moonlight, the water stretched flat before me, and the lights of Key West winked and flickered, calling me. I started the engine and pointed the nose in that direction. Eric was waiting for me, and we wouldn’t have long to be together and still leave me time to get back. With a twist of my hand, the machine took off, sending up a spray of water.