The howling invaded my head, my body, my heaving lungs, filling me with horror until I drowned.

“Make it stop,” I begged, but the wind stole my very breath.

Lightning lit the world and I screamed. The handsome warrior who held me turned into a monster with a scarred face—the left side still firm as a young, rugged man’s, the right melted like tallow left too close to a fire.

I clawed at the arms around me, broad and wickedly strong. I broke free, and fought backwards through the wind. And then—

The ground beneath my feet slipped away. The howling stopped. I fell, the wind rushing past me. Night had come, but some evil magic blotted out any moonlight. Someone was screaming, the voice sucked away into the void. My hands clawed at the darkness. Not even the stars would witness my death.

Something struck my body, large and solid as a boulder, but warm. An angel?

A grunt, and the large, black being wrapped itself around me, just as we hit the earth—

Pain. My body rang with the blow, my limbs numb from the cold air and the fall.

Was I dead?

My shocked lungs filled with air. More pain, but a good, alive sort of pain.

I rolled off the soft ground where I’d landed, feeling my arms. My head throbbed, some blood trickled down my bare leg. My shift was torn, dirty, but unscathed. I’d survived.

At the base of the cliff, the air was clear. The moon and stars shone as if they’d never been blotted out. The cliff towered over me, dark and looming as if it might fall and crush everything at its feet. I’d tripped and fallen from the edge, high as an eagle’s nest above me.

How was I alive?

A groan shattered the calm. A black shape lay where I’d fallen, a twisted mass on the rocks.

“Oh no.” I fell to my knees, nausea washing over me. Someone had caught me midair. Not an angel. A man. I stared at the mangled evidence.

“Oooh,” he moaned again. He seemed to be alive. But it was not possible.

I scooted closer to the dying man, scouring my memory for his name.

“Haakon?”

“Oh love,” he groaned, his breathing labored. “Next time we dance, let's do it far from the edge of a cliff.”

I let out a little sob.

“You all right?” he asked.

My body throbbed as if I’d been beaten, but nothing seemed broken, or even bloody. Unlike him. “I’m… alive. But you—we fell. How…” The sheer rock face glared down on both of us. “How did we survive?”

“Caught you,” he rasped. “Broke your fall.”

“Oh no,” my hands fluttered over his body without finding a safe place to land. The warrior lay twisted on the stony ground, thick, dark liquid seeping out from under his broken form. Blood. So much blood. I could not fix this.

“I'm sorry,” I gasped. “I—panicked.”

“Not your fault. The wind—”

“It’s gone now.” The otherworldly howling had fallen silent. The night sky looked normal, the air fresh as a light rain fell.

“Safe now,” Haakon caught my hand and gripped it with surprising strength. Warmth surged through me at his touch. I blinked back tears, on my knees, mourning this man I barely knew.

A finger brushed wet away from my cheek? “Why so sad, lass?”

“You’re hurt,” I choked out. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him he was dying. “It’s my fault. I ran—”

“Of course you did. We haven't had the best of introductions.” A crooked smile flashed onto his face, in between grimaces of pain.

My laugh broke the wall of tension in my chest. The broken man before me had to be crazy, jesting at a time like this.

“Do not worry,” he said. “I’ll be alright. Berserkers have survived worse.”

A mad man, then. I scooted closer and wiped some of the blood on his face with the edge of my shift.

“If injuring myself brings such care, I would’ve run off a cliff sooner,” he joked through bloody lips.

“Shh. Don’t talk now. Save your strength.” It was a miracle that he even could speak. I kept my eyes on his face instead of his twisted body.

He stayed silent as my fingers and the rainwater smoothed away the bloodstain, but turned his head once to kiss my fingers playfully. I choked back a broken laugh. Who was this warrior who joked in the face of death and great pain? Our fight in the abbey seemed ages ago, and somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to hate him.

When the blood was mostly gone from his face, I sat back.

“Thank you, lass.”

“I wish I could do more.”

I winced as a cough racked his body, his face contorted in pain. The end would be soon. I should say a prayer. The clouds parted and the moon came out, I gasped.

Was it a trick of the light, or had the cuts on his face closed?

“Haakon!”

I jumped at the shout from above.

“Here's help,” Haakon said. “Be calm.”

A second later, the scarred warrior came down, scaling the cliff, finding foot and hand holds on the slick rock with only moonlight as his guide. Many feet from the ground, he tensed and flung himself back. I bit back a shriek, but he landed agilely on his feet and strode to our side.

Haakon’s body was still twisted, but the gash on his head had healed. I stared and he winked at me.

“What are you?” I breathed.

“Your saviors,” Ulf’s grim voice made me scramble out of his way. He knelt at Haakon’s side. They look at each other in silence, as if communicating silently.

I wrapped my arms around myself, shivering more from worry than cold.

Ulf looked back at me. “Come, lass. You may as well fix what you’ve broken.”

I stared at him as Haakon laughed, coughed, and said, “She doesn’t know what you mean, brother.”

The scarred face held no sympathy for me. “Both of Haakon’s legs are broken. Probably his back as well. Where does it hurt?” The last question was for Haakon.

“Everywhere,” Haakon grinned and grimaced at the same time.

“Try not to move. We need to straighten your legs before they heal crooked.” Ulf rose and stalked around the prone warrior, taking inventory. Blood stained the rocky ground around Haakon. His jerkin was ripped and torn and damp with blood. At one place, the skin gave way to a flash of white that might have been bone.

Clutching my stomach, I edged away.

“No,” Ulf snarled at me, and I froze like a rabbit faced with a wolf.

Haakon grabbed his comrade’s arm. “Do not frighten her.”

Ulf pulled out a knife and cut away Haakon’s bloody jerkin. In a few seconds, the leather lay in shreds around Haakon’s brutally broken body.

Cursing, Ulf put a hand against Haakon’s side. “Brace yourself,” he said gruffly. “I must push the rib back.”

A ragged pause, and Haakon nodded, then roared as Ulf pressed the protruding bone back into place.

When it was done, Haakon panted, face white with pain. The rib no longer stuck out, but his chest looked like meat. My hands covered my face, but I peered through my fingers, unable to look away.

“Don’t just stand there,” Ulf snapped at me. “Help me.”

I took a step back.

“You did this to him, damn you—”

“Ulf. No. She is our mate,” Haakon gripped his friend’s hand, and let if fall, too weak to do more.

“What can I do?” I squeaked. It was my fault this man was in so much pain. On the cliff I wanted blindly to escape, but if I knew what the cost would be, I would’ve bided my time.

“We must set his leg,” Ulf rose to crouch further down Haakon’s body. He touched Haakon’s knee and the suffering warrior grimaced. “We should wait until your back has healed. But then we will have to rebreak the bones that knit together wrong. Can you feel your feet?”

“Aye,” Haakon closed his eyes. “Just do it.”

“All right.” Ulf stripped off his own jerkin and repositioned himself at Haakon’s knee. “Cry out all you want. No need to brave.”

Haakon replied with a string of curses comparing the scarred warrior to a castrated rabbit.

His bravery called me to his side.

“I need to snap the leg back into place,” Ulf told me. “otherwise it will heal this way.”

I nodded.

“Are you going to faint?” Ulf’s harsh voice matched the look on his scarred face.

I shook my head. “I’ll pretend it’s a butcher’s cut.”

Ulf’s brows went up, but Haakon laughed, a pained, rattling sound. “Good lass. You’re braver than most. Besides, I already feel like a piece of meat.”

“All right,” Ulf knelt down, placing his bloody hands on the leg. “Let’s get this over with. Grasp his ankle, girl.”

“Laurel,” I corrected. “My name is Laurel.”

Haakon wheezed again, an almost laugh. “She speaks her mind.”

“I would rather she obeyed.”

“I’m not very good at obeying, I’m afraid.” My wild feelings unleashed my tongue. “If you wanted a docile girl, you should’ve left me in the kitchen, and carried off someone else.”