Valkyrie Condemned, page 4
I handed her items one at a time for her to put away. “I wouldn’t miss this for anything.”
She hummed “Time Warp” as she put collectibles in their spots. Seeing her like this, content and in her element, was one of the best sights I could witness.
While we were working, Caleb returned. The look he gave me was one of caution, but his greeting to Mia was friendly.
I didn’t like having him here—ever but especially now. He was a threat, even if I had yet to prove it, but there was a compelling air about him. And he was attractive. Not in the all-consuming way Mia had my attention, but pretty to look at.
“You’re in a good mood,” Caleb said to her.
She twirled, still humming the song, and grabbed his hand. “Thac is taking me to see Rocky Horror.”
He gave me another appraising look, his gaze lingering longer this time.
I stared back, challenging with my gaze.
Caleb turned back to Mia. “You’re a lucky girl.”
She pulled him into the dance for a few steps before letting him go.
A spike of possessiveness pierced me at the sight, and I had to clench my jaw to bite back the hands off, that tried to force its way out. I wouldn’t rip his hand from hers. Mostly because she’d already let go, but the insistence was still necessary in my head.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I fished out the device.
Where are you? Ronan asked.
I typed a quick reply. Be there in ten.
“I have to run,” I said to Mia. “Work beckons. I’ll send you details about the show.” I kissed her on the cheek. As I walked from her shop, I forced myself to leave the thoughts of mine behind me. She wasn’t. She couldn’t be.
It might take more than a few solid thoughts to convince myself of that, though.
THREE
CALEB
Heat.
So much intensity.
I tried to push the traces of my dream aside, but I still felt it everywhere. The splash of blood on my arms. The clawing need throbbing in my cock. The pain. The desire.
The details of what I’d envisioned in my sleep were gone, but the feelings lingered on my skin. I forced my eyes open and ignored the ache of my insistent erection as I sat up in bed. It had been a long time since I had a dream like that, and I didn’t care for it at all.
Usually the simple decor of my room—plain pale walls, plain pale sheets, soft gray carpet and as few possessions as possible on the bookshelves—was enough to ground me and quiet any stray thoughts. Tonight, it was more of an assault on my senses. The copper tang of a good fight lingered in my nostrils and a roar echoed in my ears. A battle. A vicious one.
I could taste salt and sweat and blood. Could see it splashed in ghosted images across my room. And the rush that tingled on my skin had my gut churning with nausea and the reminder of how much pain I’d caused people when I was younger.
A glance at my phone told me it was three in the morning. I wasn’t going back to bed anytime soon. Instead, I forced one foot in front of the other and into the bathroom.
Stripping out of what little clothing I slept in brought back another surge of disgust, on a wave of my subconscious thought. My half hard dick gave a weak salute. The temptation to walk across the hall, to see if Mia wanted to help me address the erection, surged forward on a wave of want.
Moments like this, when my willpower was weak and my mind was exhausted, it was a struggle to ignore my attraction to her. She wasn’t interested, and she’d laughed off my advances more than once, so these days I limited the suggestions to teasing.
And pretended I could sate the desire for her by jerking off to fantasies of her tight, slick pussy wrapped around my dick, after she and I retired to our own rooms at night.
I ignored my bastard of a cock as I stepped into icy cold water. The chill jarred me the rest of the way to consciousness and left my teeth chattering, but it didn’t rinse away the dense cloud in my mind.
I dried off because it was necessary to keep me from getting sick when I went out in the cold, and not because I had any motivation to add another layer of sensation to my already overloaded body. Coming down with a cold would mean fever dreams and that was the last thing I wanted.
I dressed in heavy jeans and a sweatshirt, and grabbed my coat. A walk would help me clear my thoughts and if it didn’t, the weather might numb them.
Mia’s bedroom door was closed as I crept into the hall. Even if the thought of waking her up didn’t fill me with immense desire, this wasn’t something I could talk to her about. We shared a lot—I knew who her father was, and she knew how much I’d struggled with my sexuality in the past, thanks to a religious upbringing and the serious trauma of losing my first not-boyfriend to suicide.
But she wouldn’t understand the lingering guilt. That when my defenses were down and I was exhausted, I would hover on that line between being disgusted by the man I’d been, the man who was willing to hurt anyone and anything to feel, and wanting to embrace him again. She’d had her beliefs questioned again and again, and somehow still believed there was enough good in the world to save it.
I hoped she was right.
An icy blast hit my face as I stepped outside. Something to focus on that wasn’t inside my head. Thank you, God. No place was open this early except the convenience store at the corner of the street Mia’s shop sat on, and a diner five blocks over.
Neither one of those would offer solace.
I tried to focus on anything outside my mind. The crunch of ice under my boots, as I trudged down the road. The way the streetlights reflected off patchy snow in large circles. Sometimes I’d step into a patch of darkness, or a flickering ring of light—a metaphor for my life?
We lived at the edge of the city, and my aimless wandering took me past an assortment of old brick buildings mixed with new glass and concrete.
I stopped at the sight of concrete steps to my right. The church.
My adopted parents had raised me to love their god. As a teenager, I realized I was attracted to men as much as I was to women, and the conflict their faith caused with my desire had wreaked havoc on my thoughts. I lashed out in a search for answers, and all these years later I still regretted the things I’d done swinging from one extreme to another.
I turned to face the building, letting my gaze follow the spires up to the sky. Even in the darkness, the stained glass above the entrance sparkled with a haunting beauty. The intricately carved doorway seemed to beckon to me.
As a child I thought peace was inside that building. As a young adult, I only saw it as torment. These days, it was simply quiet, and sometimes my brain needed that.
I’d tried more than a decade ago to crawl my way back to faith, but I’d changed too much. Seen too much. And I’d spent the past several years trying to find the balance between violent, angry me, and the me who just wanted to live and let live.
A sharp chill raced up my spine, as a bird cawed from the shadows.
Inside would be far better than outside, so I strode quickly up the steps and through the front doors. I slipped into the chapel, letting the warmth penetrate my icy skin. The pews were empty, aside from one priest sitting up front and praying. The air in here was comfortable, or would be soon. Once my thoughts calmed. Once I found my center.
Once the faint images and drive for fire and ice stopped flashing in my mind.
I shed my coat and set it on the pew next to me in the middle of the chapel, then took a seat. Hands clasped, and forearms resting on the back of the bench in front of me, I bowed my head.
I didn’t have the same kind of faith my parents did. Life had shown me too much, for me to blindly follow their religion. But there were still pieces I believed were right and real. Concepts like kindness and acceptance that were worth hanging onto.
Please. Fill me with your peace. Calm my fractured soul. I’m your humble servant. All you ask is yours. Please grant me this in return.
I didn’t know who I was praying to—their god or another. The words made me feel like someone was listening, though.
“Oh.” A soft voice disrupted my prayer.
I looked up to see a woman about my age standing a few rows behind me.
She must have moved like the wind for me to not have heard the door open and close when she came in. I tried to focus on her, and for a moment a blurred image overlapped her face. I rubbed my eyes to rid them of the dragon from my dream, and this time she was just her.
“Sorry.” She ducked her head. “I didn’t mean to intrude. I was just surprised to see anyone else here.” Her pale skin had red splotches, presumably from the cold. Platinum blond hair peeked out from under the hoodie pulled over her head.
And there was a sadness to her. I wasn’t sure how I knew, but I’d always had an instinct for things like that—sadness, despair, confusion. Feelings I understood more intensely than I wanted to.
Perhaps listening to someone else would help ease my burdens. “There’s room for both of us.” I gestured at the vast, empty space with only two people in it. “Or I’m here to listen if you need an ear.”
“I won’t disturb your time with Him.” She slipped into a pew across the aisle, and sat, her coat pulled tight around her and her gaze on the crucifix that hung at the head of the room, behind the altar.
I returned to my meditations. As I recited memorized prayers in my head and grounded myself in the room around me, the oppressive dream slowly bled away, and calm slipped into my thoughts to take its place.
“Peace is not where you’re seeking it.” The words were whispered in my ear, carried on a soft, unfamiliar voice.
My eyes flew open, and I scanned the room. The woman was gone, and the sky outside the windows was pale gray, instead of black and suffocating.
How long had I been here?
I grabbed my coat and stood to tug it on. When the rustling of my movements quieted, a soft sound reached my ears. Crying?
I turned and was surprised to see the blonde was still here, but she’d moved to a back pew. Her sadness and feeling lost were tangible, not just because of her tears.
I moved closer, and sat next to her. She didn’t look up.
“I’m happy to listen,” I said. “In here, anything that’s said is between us. It never leaves these walls.” Once upon a time I was going to be a priest. I’d even gone to seminary for a few years. I was going to make my parents proud, finally.
Though I’d fallen away from the religion, I still believed people should have a friendly ear when they needed one. But I also believed whoever was listening should only listen and not judge.
She let out a slow sigh. “This isn’t the kind of thing I can talk about.”
“Okay.” Pushing wouldn’t do me much good. Being here would.
“Not because I don’t want to, but… It’s hard to explain.”
I nodded, though she wasn’t looking at me. “I understand.”
“You really don’t.” Her laugh was bitter and tainted.
I did. There were a lot of things I couldn’t talk about. Things most people should understand, but so very few of them wanted to see.
“Do you ever feel like your entire life has been a lie?” she asked.
Most definitely. When I started to recognize my bisexuality, I wondered why I’d been cursed, and when I swung away from the guilt, I wondered why so many people insisted loving someone with the wrong genitalia wasn’t right. “Yes. For me, in some cases it was a matter of needing to shift my perspective, and in other cases, there were falsehoods I needed to accept.”
She finally looked up at me with eyes so bright, so clear, they looked like chrome in this lighting. She tilted her head, and they went back to blue. “I think this is a case of both, but I’m not sure… What if I can’t accept it? How do you look reality in the eye and say, I see you, but you’re a lie?”
That wasn’t the kind of question that had an easy answer. If I were talking to a friend, someone who understood my sense of humor, I’d quote Seth Gecko in From Dusk Till Dawn. I don’t believe in vampires, but I believe in my own two eyes, and what I saw is fucking vampires.
I doubted this woman would appreciate the reference, or that it was relevant. “You don’t. Not if you know it’s real.”
“But what about faith?” she asked.
Faith lies. People lie. Life is a series of chances to adjust our perspectives and learn and grow, and if there is a higher power out there, don’t you think that’s what they want for us? “Each person’s faith is personal. The right answer for me may not be the right one for you.”
“What if someone proved to you that dragons were real?” she asked.
I swallowed my chuckle. As a child, I would’ve followed that person anywhere. “Dragons are as real as Santa.” As I spoke, a forgotten snippet of my dream clanged in my head. A phantom ache echoed in my fingers.
She gave me a smile that didn’t reach her eyes and stood. “Thank you for listening.” She walked from the church.
Chase her down. Learn more. Make her prove it.
The insistent voice in my head wasn’t mine. It was the same roar I gave into when I was younger. The temptation that used to tell me the endless nights of fighting were all right. The pain—mine or someone else’s—was worth it.
That worked for some people, but it had nearly destroyed me. Especially the violence. The world didn’t like a violent man, even if the people I acted out against asked for it or deserved it.
I certainly deserved it.
An ache in my palms, a dampness, jarred me from the thoughts before they could spiral. I flexed my fingers and looked at my hands. Were those claws retracting? Actual cuts in my skin?
No. Another look didn’t show either one to be true, but blood welled up in my palms from wounds that didn’t exist.
The dream slammed into me again, knocking my thoughts off-kilter, and I forced it aside.
Time to go home, drink a lot of coffee, and make sure I stayed alert and conscious for the next several hours. Long enough to shake off this disconcerting feeling.
FOUR
MIA
I swore I heard Caleb get up at a horrific hour this morning, but I hadn’t been able to shake off the sleep enough to check on him. He was gone when I finally got out of bed around six. Wherever he’d gone, I hoped he was all right.
Some mornings it felt like everything was moving in slow motion. Even though I had an employee opening the store this morning, and my schedule was my own, everything was taking just a little too long.
The whole tone of the morning was I’m running late despite only being beholden to me and my own time.
My shitty dreams weren’t helping my fractured brain any. Half the night my subconscious taunted me with images of Scarlett’s new Valkyrie life. Kirby, who supposedly gave Scarlett her powers, was there. I’d never met the woman, but my mind had given her a face, apparently.
The creepy one-eyed guy from the shop two nights ago was there too, along with a pair of ravens.
And the entire scene was a massive battle straight out of a comic book. Vast and ridiculous, like in a Marvel movie, but I was stuck in the middle of it. I was lost and confused and didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to fight. I wanted to heal. Help.
Save.
It was the kind of dream I should be able to shake off, but the helpless feeling lingered while I got ready for the day, and even after I stepped out into the cold, to head to the coffee shop down the street. As I walked, I flipped through a short stack of hardback graphic novels I’d gotten in yesterday afternoon.
I pushed through the front door of the coffee place with my shoulder, the way I had dozens of times before.
A sharp, “Watch it,” yanked my attention from the books, and I fumbled to keep them from falling from my arms.
“Sorr—” The apology died on my lips when I found myself face to face with someone I’d never met, but I felt like I knew as well as anyone. According to my subconscious, this was Kirby. “I dreamt about you.”
Idiot. Why was I such a dunce sometimes?
Someone hit my shoulder hard, catching me off-guard and knocking the books from my arms. “Damn it.”
The random man kept walking toward the counter, not sparing me so much as a glance.
“I’ve got it.” The man with maybe-Kirby crouched and had most of the books gathered before I could move. He finished, stood again, and handed me the stack. He was barely taller than me. Probably about as wide, but his bulk looked like solid muscle. The blond hair, tattoos peeking up above the collar of his shirt, and faded scars made him look like a modern-day Viking.
When he handed me my books, his jacket sleeve pulled up above his gloved hand, exposing his wrist, and I swore I caught a glimpse of twisted, metallic looking flesh. If he had a prosthetic, he didn’t move like it.
“We were looking for you.” Maybe-Kirby’s voice drew my attention.
Me? Why in God’s name…?
Fuck. “Did something happen to Scarlett? Is she hurt? I was just talking to her yesterday.” Did Pan know? Did Arnlaug? “Wait?” I didn’t even know this was Kirby. And if it was, “Why did you come to me to tell me that?” Yeah, Scarlett was my best friend, but an in-person visit, when Scarlett had other people in her life who she was closer to—who she lived closer to…
“Scarlett’s fine last time I checked.” Maybe-Kirby almost sounded amused. “I’m here to talk to you.”
That didn’t sound right. The maybe-queen-of-the-Valkyries and her scary man wanted to talk to me. Did Valkyries have queens? If they did, she was waiting for my answer.
“I was about to get some coffee, if you want to join me. Unless you’re leaving,” I said.
“We’re staying.” The man spoke with the authority of someone used to being listened to.
The woman offered her hand. “I’m Kirby, by the way.”
“Mia.” This was such a strange encounter. Then again, even magical creatures deserved politeness—That was something my father told me many times as a child.
