Shannon gasped and jerked awake.

Tl'oghk'etnaeyen, in brindled dog form, was sitting nearby, a sheepish mastiff grin on his jowly face. “Welcome back.”

“You…” she sputtered, jumping to her feet and knocking her camping chair over in horror. She glanced down at herself, found that she wasn’t dressed in a black leather corset and nine-inch stilettos, but patted her T-shirt and jeans down just in case anyway. Then, returning her attention to the dog, she froze. He’d trapped her in her own mind. With just a touch…

Suddenly, it occurred to her just how dangerous a feylord really was. Sure, he wasn’t constantly threatening to eat people or rip them limb from limb or suck them dry or cut them in half, and he certainly couldn’t knock down a house with a foot, but suddenly all those idle threats to ‘mindweave’ someone into a cockroach were making a lot more sense…

He could, she realized, kill with a touch. Or render someone a drooling idiot. Or give them intense pleasure…

“How about Option Three?” Tl'oghk'etnaeyen said warily.

Shannon swallowed hard, realizing how closely the feylord was watching her thoughts. Listening… Because she couldn’t hide anything from him.

Just the understanding that her mind really was that naked to him made her heart start to pound with the onset of that all-too-human fear response—this time facing a new kind of predator. Something higher on the food chain. Something that could simply think her to death, or worse. Shannon’s anxiety ratcheted up, realizing just how dangerous this particular creature really was. If a mind-magus could touch her and trap her in her mind, hold her hostage, what else could he do? He already forced people to act out his will by accident…

Unbidden, she remembered something he had said, earlier, his voice heavy with regret. “And very hard to make friends. Once most people figure out what I’m doing—even if it’s on accident—they want nothing to do with me.”

Her eyes met his and she saw the sadness there. He knew what she was thinking—and he knew she would probably want nothing to do with him ever again. She watched him turn away to pick at the sand beneath him, mouth set in unmistakable grief.

It was his obvious misery that brought her thoughts of his dangerousness to a crashing halt. He’s cursed to look like a dog and I’m the only goddamn intelligent being on the planet who can hear him when he talks—the rest just hear a dog barking. He still hadn’t explained that one. He’d shown her, though, and she’d watched in fascination when Tl'oghk'etnaeyen had approached two dozen people in a row trying to get their attention and tell them, gee, he wasn’t canine, and all he got for his efforts was people shouting at Shannon to ‘control her dog’ or the barghest patting him on the head for ‘properly terrifying the Firstlander pussies’. And with even his family turned against him…

I’m the only one he’s got.

Very carefully, Shannon picked up the chair she had knocked over and put it back in place beside him. Then, pointedly, she sat back down beside him.

It was her legs coming to rest in front of him once more that made the feylord glance back up at her, his dog-brown eyes curious, even puzzled.

“I figure,” Shannon said, trying to relax and ease the tension she felt, now that she truly understood how dangerous he really was, “you know the score.”

“The…score?” Tl'oghk'etnaeyen asked, frowning.

“Not without my permission,” Shannon said.

The feylord’s jowly mouth fell open. “Then…you’re not mad?” The hope in his voice was painful. It was then that Shannon realized he had made a gambit by taking her to his mindscape, and he had fully expected her to hate him afterwards.

“Oh, I’m mad,” Shannon said. She allowed herself to grin at him just a little. “But I’ll punish you later.”

Immediately, his eyes widened, and it surprisingly wasn’t with excitement, but rather, with wariness and even fear. “So…” he cleared his throat uncomfortably, “About that… You had me gagged earlier so I couldn’t address this properly, but I really would prefer not to try anything like that in person for, oh, another hundred years or so, considering a young vampire queen’s propensity to lose control and kill their—”

Shannon narrowed her eyes at him and he swallowed hard.

“At least…uh…not until you lose your virginity?”

Again with the virginity! “Look,” Shannon said, “I think you guys are blowing that way out of propo—”

But the feylord’s attention had shifted to something out in the river. Or, rather, above the river… “Ohhh shit.” He jumped to his feet and scrambled backwards.

Unnerved by a feylord’s sudden anxiety, Shannon twisted to follow his gaze. At first, all she saw was the gigantic column of black, turpentine smoke. Then saw the three shimmering shapes flit down the column of smoke like human-shaped licks of flame and she stiffened. “Wait. Are those—”

“Gaia’s tit,” Tl'oghk'etnaeyen cried, backing up beside her. “Those are Valkyrie, shit!”

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Shannon blinked. “So?”

“So, he is an Odinson. They are daughters of Freyja.” The way the feylord said it, he was explaining how to breathe.

“So? That’s good, right?” That was, after all, what Björn had told them all he was trying to accomplish.

“No.” The feylord just shook his head slowly, his jowly mastiff jaw hanging open as he stared at the fiery boat. “Not good.” He shook his big doggy head. “I can’t believe he actually managed to do it. It’s not been done in ages.”

Shannon glanced at the people gathered around the ‘feast’. None of them seemed to have noticed the three ethereal women stepping from the column of smoke and into the fire. “Is it safe? I mean, should we try to get these guys out of here?”

Tl'oghk'etnaeyen looked over his furry shoulder at the group of twenty-two ‘revelers’ that Björn had managed to coerce, bribe, or guilt into seeing his ‘couch-man’ off. Most were facing the tables, loading up on food or drink, not even watching the burning ‘boat’ that their ‘very special’ friend had insisted on burning with a ‘fake corpse’ out in the river as part of a ‘school project’ studying ‘obsolete Viking rituals.’

“I could just tell them all to leave,” he offered.

Shannon considered. “Björn probably wouldn’t take that well.”

“I could make him take it well,” Tl'oghk'etnaeyen said, growing increasingly agitated as he watched the scene unfold. “It’s not safe for them here.”

“Yeah, but…” Would it be safe for them if they ran? The idea of Björn chasing down the onlookers who left and slaughtering them for being cowards or backstabbers or pussies.

“I would stop the barghest from hunting them,” Tl'oghk'etnaeyen said.

“Stop mind-reading me!” she gritted.

“Can’t help it,” he said distractedly. “Have you been listening to the oaf and his stories of the Valkyrie? Things are about to get ugly out there and these people aren’t safe. I’ll mind-weave him into a toad if I have to—we need to do something.”

She grimaced, not really liking the idea of constantly jerking Björn around with mind-games. The one time he’d called Tl'oghk'etnaeyen on it in the middle of the boat storage lot still stuck with her. “Okay, but if he figures out what you’re doing…” she said.

“I’ll deal with the Odinson.” Tl'oghk'etnaeyen turned towards the gathered fishermen, who were by now starting to notice the three flame-wreathed women walking across the surface of the water to stand over Björn and their jaws were falling open. Several were pointing and reaching for their pockets.

“Oh shit, don’t let them take pictures!” Shannon said as soon as she saw phones coming out.

“Okay, guys,” Tl'oghk'etnaeyen said, “put the cameras away and calmly walk away. Nothing interesting happening here. Go home and forget this happened.”

Immediately, the crowd took on a bored nonchalance, showing complete indifference to the confrontation between the barghest and Freyja’s messengers. They began putting their plates and cups down and started to leave.

“You could at least make them clean up a little,” Shannon muttered, watching several of them drop their plates and cutlery where they stood and start walking away like mind-controlled zombies. Which, she realized, was probably exactly what they were.

“Oh balls, they’re starting to argue,” Tl'oghk'etnaeyen said, watching Björn and the Valkyrie. He turned to face her, looking nervous. “Hey, Shannon, it might be a good time to—” Tl'oghk'etnaeyen hesitated, frowning as his eyes caught on four other men that were approaching the festivities from the forest, walking nonchalantly through the milling crowd as it walked away. The men were dressed in matching, top-end hunting gear, their camouflaged clothes looking almost tailored, though they carried no guns, just… Compound bows?

“Kesani'aan?” Tl'oghk'etnaeyen whispered, getting off his haunches. “But…”

“Huh,” Shannon said watching the closest man raise his bow, “and here I thought it wasn’t hunting seas—”

“Run!” Tl'oghk'etnaeyen cried, ducking even as the man expertly drew and released an arrow at the two of them.

The man’s arrow missed Tl'oghk'etnaeyen and took Shannon through the gut in a startling, hammer-like blow, pinning her to the canvas chair and knocking her backwards. Shannon grunted at the sudden, blinding pain in her spine, but when she tried to get out of the chair, the barbs of the razor-sharp arrowhead caught on the canvas, and she merely pulled the arrow deeper into her gut as she dragged the chair a few feet, then fell to her knees. At the same time, back on the river, Björn had started shouting profanities and was grabbing one of the Valkyrie by the head, slamming her into the riverbed again and again…

“Kill each other,” the hunter that Tl'oghk'etnaeyen had called Kesani'aan said calmly.

The fishermen that had been walking away from the catering tables hesitated, then glanced at one another in confusion.

“I said kill each other,” the tall, Athabascan-looking man snapped.

One of the men pulled out a pocket knife. Another slowly reached down for a rock, though they looked stiff, fully aware that they were being compelled. Several others reached for rocks, still hesitating and glancing at each other.

“Throw rocks at the men with bows!” Tl'oghk'etnaeyen cried, having jumped down over the river bank and out of a direct line-of-sight from the compound bows. “Hit them as many times as you can!”

Immediately, every man in the group bent, grabbed stones, and started throwing them. The four men, who had turned their attention back to Tl'oghk'etnaeyen, shouted curses and ducked as a hail of rocks started hitting them in the head, shoulders, back, chest… He really is good at that, Shannon thought, baffled.

Tl'oghk'etnaeyen used the distraction to rush forward across the gravel beach and break the arrow off where it caught the chair.

“They’re going to have hounds,” Tl'oghk'etnaeyen whispered. “We need to get your barghest to—”

Then, on the river, there was some sort of eerie, crystal-sounding thunderclap and the barghest started throwing a tantrum on his boat, flinging apart the burning pyre and screaming curses to Odin.

A green arrow slammed into Tl'oghk'etnaeyen’s hand, making the feylord scream and scramble away from her.

“Come on!” he cried, pulling her forward.

Shannon stumbled back to her feet and ran, tugged along by the feylord’s ‘jaws’ on her hand.

“Get Tl'oghk'etnaeyen!” The one called Kesani'aan shouted, raising a bow and firing again, making the feylord cry out and roll backwards in the gravel to avoid it.

“Ignore the mortals!” Kesani'aan said. “Call in the hounds!” Behind them, the other three hunters were cursing, ducking stones and casually picking off fishermen with arrows as if they were targets in archery practice. One of the four raised a silver whistle to his lips, and an ethereal sound punctured the treetops, followed by the instant braying of hounds.

“Come on,” Tl'oghk'etnaeyen cried, lunging back over the lip of the riverbank and pulling her faster as he led her along the edge of the slough. His wounded hand he cradled against his chest, not even bothering to try to remove the nasty, notched blades from his flesh. “Run! As fast as you can!”

And, like her feet had caught fire, Shannon ran. Faster than Tl'oghk'etnaeyen, an arrow’s glowing green fletching jutting from her stomach, having absolutely no control over her feet, she ran.

And, for once, Shannon wasn’t pissed at the feylord for spelling her mind. She quickly outdistanced him, the trees and undergrowth flashing past in a wave of green.