A/N: It was only when I came to post chapter 18 that I realised I'd never posted 17. I apologise. But on the up side, double upload!
I lay on the ground, my bruised and battered body aching as I stared up at the vampire, the god, as he loomed over me. I wanted him to do it; to plunge his sword through my throat and end me. I wanted Woden to win. He'd defeated me, and even if I had to suffer Tiw for eternity, at least my task would be over. Finally, I'd found a failure I could accept.
Only he didn't kill me, and when one of my pack attacked his Consort, he turned his back on me, trying to get to her. My heart sunk like lead, even as I reared up into wolf form, knowing that if I let the opportunity pass me by, Tiw would take his rage out on more than me alone. So I pounced. I collided with the man whom I admired far more than the master I served, whose Consort I didn't want to bereave, and I clamped my jaws around his neck.
Killing Conn O'Dowd took a single moment.
Killing Woden took nothing more than one good tug to sever his spine.
And I hated myself for succeeding.
Backing away from his body, edging away as Fríge threw herself forward and tried to wake him, to heal him, desperately calling for help, and I wondered if it wouldn't have been better to condemn my pack. Should I have fought and been prepared to pay the cost of retaining my morality? Was there something I had missed? Would that have been easier for my conscience to bear?
I longed to go to her, the widow whose pain was my doing. I wanted to pull her away from Woden's body, to tell her I was sorry, to tell her I took it back. I wanted to turn back time. Already, I wanted to turn back time.
When she looked up at me, there was hatred in her eyes. Hatred, and a fury so potent it terrified me. Even while Tiw raged, I had never seen in him the firestorm I saw in the rage and despair which showed in Fríge's expression as she knelt in a growing pool of Woden's blood. When her hands began to glow, balls of flame flickering into brilliant life at her fingertips, it was all I could do to bark an order to retreat.
She had promised to bring a rain of fire down on my pack if I took from her the man she loved above all else. I'd doubted her. I'd though her too kind to mete out such a cruel, uncompromising punishment, but right then, as her anguish engulfed her, I feared her wrath far more than I feared Tiw's. She could easily accomplish what he had failed to do when he set fire to The Pit. So I turned. I ran. Following what was left of the Devil's Water camp's residents into the trees, while balls of fire exploded around us, killing more. I ran, because I needed to protect my people from Fríge's revenge, but in my heart I wanted her to take her vengeance out on me. I deserved nothing less.
Gods, what had I done? How could I come back from what I'd done?
A quickly as the scene began - the brutal memory which twisted my gut in horror, even though I'd moved passed it - changed again. Fenn guided his memories as though they were a slide show of suffering, of fighting to survive while in the eye line of a monster. I had heard much of his story before, but actually seeing in play out in my minds eye, and feeling each injury in my bones, was different. It was worse. And despite what he'd done, I admired him all the more for having survived, fought, proven himself more than worthy of my love.
"You will kill her, wolf. You know what will happen if you don't."
I shook my head at Tiw's insistence. "I won't. That was not the arrangement the Chief made. My task is done. My role in this is done. You have Woden's soul, he is no longer a threat to you, and his widow is fading day by day, if rumours are true. I'm not going after her. You don't need to go after her. I'm done here."
