Da howled, wordless and frustrated, and went down to one knee. It wouldn’t slow him down for long. His arm was already healed, the thick rents in the muscle stitched back together. His backhanded slap left Gregor sprawled and bloody in the snow.
“Da,” Jack said, on his knees in the snow as he forced the wolf down. It didn’t want to go, but for once, he didn’t listen as he shoved it away. He needed to be human; he needed words. Jack crawled forward and reached out his hand. “Da, it’s us. Stop. Let us help you.”
The Old Man snarled at him with a broken nightmare of a mouth, his teeth broken and crowded with fangs. His eyes were all black and red rimmed, nearly buried under his heavy brows. His body was scratched with a lattice of scars under the filth, where his body had to leave the seams to move onto fresher injuries.
When Jack tried to reach for him again, Da snapped at him and tore a chunk out of the heel of Jack’s hand. A rough collar around his neck pulled tight, and the inked leather dug into his skin as he strained against it.
“He’s gone,” Rose said. Her voice was unsteady as she limped out of the storm. The end of the leash was in her hand. Her stomach was blue from the cold, and something squirmed inside it, pushed against the thin, overworked skin. “I thought if I cut his wolf out, there’d be room, but it was still too tight. So I cut the man out too, a little bit at a time, to shove all the god in. It still spills out, slops over, and tries to slither back into its corpse. Stubborn bastards, man and god. I thought they’d be a good fit. But no, just to spite me, no.”
She rapped her knuckles on the back of the Old Man’s head. He cowered.
Jack stared at the collar and back along the leash. His life was lined up in ink-and-salt-darkened skin, strips of leather tied together in tight, stretched-to-unwinding knots. Fenrir was already awake, the Sannock had said, and bound with flesh like his father.
“You’re right. It’s your skin,” Rose said as she jerked the lead to pull Da back to her side. Or whatever wore his skin, anyhow. “I peeled it off Lachlan’s bones for this. It would have been better fresh, wet with your meat and blood, but your brother failed me. His regard for you outweighed his love for his wolf.”
Gregor laughed harshly as he picked himself up from the roots of a tree.
“He’s got nothing to do with this,” he said. He glanced down Rose’s body, then grimaced uncomfortably as he dragged his eyes away. “You can’t give me my wolf, old bitch. It’s just some dead thing to hate me and rot on me. I wouldn’t be a wolf, just another fucking monster, the same on the outside as you on the inside.”
Rose’s scarred mouth twisted angrily, and she yanked on her lead. The collar cut into the Old Man’s throat, and he reluctantly shuffled backward as she reeled him in. “I would have spared you for my grandson’s sake,” she said. “But I can find him another wolf. Maybe Lachlan, once his skin grows back. He’s not a skilled lover, but he’s pathetically grateful.”
Gregor curled his lip at her.
“You think we won’t kill him because he’s our da?” he asked as he edged to the side. “After what you’ve done to him, it’s a mercy.”
Jack scrambled to his feet and took the other flank. He shifted to the side to minimize the swathe of ground on his blind side.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw one of the monsters charge toward them, bone claws dug deep into the frozen ground. It opened its mouth to roar, and a Sannock stapled it shut with a broken stick shoved through its jaw and up into the roof of its mouth. The monster’s teeth snapped together on its tongue and punched through the pink muscle. Its eyes bulged out and blood oozed out of the corners as it squealed in shocked pain.
The Sannock dragged it back into the snow, into a shadowy diorama of alien shapes and howls.
“Oh no,” Rose said, sickly surprise layered over her voice. “I don’t care how this plays out. Betray him, little pups, or die at his teeth. Either will send him back to me.”
She hauled back on the lead to pull the Old Man onto his knees. He choked on the bite of the collar and the snarl that wanted to escape his throat. Rose leaned down to press her lips against his ear. “Rip them the fuck apart and bring me their skins. I have a baby to birth.”
The lead dropped from her fingers, and she stepped back. She gave them the finger and then stalked away. Two prophets scurried up to her, one of them with blood matted on his arms from clawed fingertips to elbows. Monsters loomed out of the snow after them, frost crusted like scabs on their battle. The prophets took Rose’s arms and hurried her away between the monsters, who glowered at the wolves but backed up after their makers.
A snarl ripped from the Old Man’s throat as he lunged forward.
“Da,” Jack pled as he stepped back. His chest hurt. He didn’t know if it was the cold or grief. “Please. I don’t want to do this.”
Split lips peeled back from broken teeth, and the Old Man lunged for him. Jack scrambled backward and banged into a tree that he’d forgotten he couldn’t see on that side. He ducked as the Old Man swung a clumsy, clawed hand at his head. Hooked fingers dug into the bark of the tree and ripped a chunk out of it.
Jack scrambled out of the way, and Gregor grabbed him by the arm to haul him to his feet.
“It’s not our da,” Gregor said grimly as they backed away. “And you’re not much fucking use without teeth, brother.”
The back of Jack’s neck burned. He reached around and felt splinters dug into the base of his skull. His fingers came away wet and bloody.
“What if she wants us to kill him?” he pointed out. “Maybe it’s part of her plan.”
Gregor made a sour sound in his throat and pulled away from Jack as the Old Man tore a thick branch off the tree and threw it at them. It arced between them and crashed into the ground in a spray of splinters and snow.
“You think we have a choice,” Gregor asked as he shook the bark and ice from his hair. “If we want to get my baby back and put Rose down, we have to go through the Old Man. Better us than one of her monsters.”
Jack laughed bitterly. “Keep the killing in the family?”
Gregor shrugged and stooped down to grab a sharp sliver of the broken branch. They both knew that was exactly what they had to do and that Gregor was right. Jack was more use with teeth. His wolf pushed at him in agreement, fur rough against the inside of his skin. It just didn’t feel right, not without… saying something.
