Of Gods and Monsters

by Susan Harris

  “You have already promised not to kill me because the vampire asked it.”

  Erika chuckled. “I promised not to kill you. I never said I wouldn’t hurt you.” To prove her point, Erika let go of the girl’s hair for a split second, and a different dagger that appeared from nowhere lodged in the girl’s thigh.

  The traitor screamed, reaching to pull out the dagger, but Erika yanked it out for her. The girl bucked and tried to stem the bleeding as Erika began to circle around her.

  “When will Odin strike?”

  The girl clamped her mouth shut, then screamed again as Erika slashed at her shoulder.

  “I will ask one more time, then I start peeling skin off with my fingers. When will Odin strike?”

  “He has no timeframe.”

  A bitter lemon taste coated Melanie’s tongue, the first swirl of magic pumping in her veins. “Lie.”

  Erika slashed out again, this time on the girl’s cheek, and the scent of blood made Melanie growl and snap at Erika.

  “I can’t fucking concentrate if you keep carving her up and presenting her like a Happy Meal on legs.”

  “Then I just need to start breaking fingers. No big deal.”

  Truth.

  Melanie knew that Erika was vicious, but seeing it was another thing altogether.

  “Does Odin have any other surprises planned?” Erika asked quietly, deadly.

  “No.”

  Again, bitterness on her tongue. “Lie.”

  Erika had the girl’s hand in hers a second later, and she crushed the bone like it was nothing more than a chicken bone. The girl writhed, tears in her eyes, but she did not scream this time.

  Melanie needed to hurry this up, stop this interrogation before the girl had any more bones broken or blood spilled. Closing her eyes, Melanie drowned out the voices of the others. In her mind, she pictured her magic like a slice of code for hacking, all lines of data that a normal person would not be able to decipher, then when she tweaked at the magic of it, she felt her skin flush, the magic surging inside her, wanting to get out.

  Was this what it felt like for Ricky? In a constant struggle for control with a vital part of himself. She understood him now in a way she hadn’t before, because right now she felt drunk on power.

  Opening her eyes, she looked at Marya and tested her magic. “Tell me why Odin waits.”

  The girl shifted in her seat, trying to clamp her mouth shut, so Melanie asked again, with a little more magic in her voice. “Tell me why Odin waits.”

  “His army is not complete.”

  Melanie shuddered under the push back from the truth. She kept going. “What does he need for his army to be complete?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The girl again spoke the truth, sweat breaking out on her forehead as Melanie dug a little deeper, blood starting to trickle from the girl’s nose.

  “Is there a way to defeat him? Odin?” Melanie asked, her feet moving closer to Marya.

  “Yes … but I don’t know how. He kept that from me.”

  Truth in every word. With every word spoken, the magic wanted more.

  “Who knows?”

  The girl gritted her teeth, the sound of her molars grinding as she tried to keep her mouth shut.

  “Tell me,” Melanie snarled, not recognizing her own voice.

  “No one. Anyone who knew is dead.”

  “Who knew?”

  The girl didn’t answer, so Melanie grabbed her magic in her mind and forced it into the girl. She jerked back and forth, fighting the compulsion until she suddenly halted and uttered a single name.

  “Tyr.”

  Then she sagged as if she was out cold, and Melanie stumbled back, a little horrified by what she had done. Her hands trembled, even as relief washed over her. Tyr had known how to stop it, and he had sent Donnie on his quest. The way to winning was within their grasp, and Melanie knew that they would come back.

  They had to.

  Melanie was happy that it was over. They could lock the Valkyrie up until it was all over and try and rehabilitate her maybe. Odin had brainwashed her, and Melanie knew what that was like. When she was a young woman, Greg DeShane had brainwashed her, disguising it as love, and she had ended up breaking the law for him.

  This girl was no different.

  “Take her outside, General, and call her sisters.”

  Wait, what?

  Erika had the semi-conscious girl over her shoulder a second later, Ever trailing after her. Loki got to his feet with a little touch of sadness in his eyes as Derek reached out and placed a hand on Ever’s cheek.

  “Do you really have to do this?”

  The expression on Ever’s face flashed from stoic to sad while she took her sword in her hands. “It is the way of Valkyrie. She must be punished for her betrayal.”

  Melanie made to follow when Caitlyn stopped her. “You do not have to bear witness to this. Even if you cannot stop it, you do not have to see it.”

  Shaking her head, Melanie replied, “I know this is war. I know that terrible things will happen and people will die. I have to see it to believe it. I have to play my part, even if I lose a little part of me in it. I can’t run from all the horrible things that are going to happen, even if I think the terrible things are going to be done by family.”

  They all converged on the street, and Melanie glanced up at the beat of wings as the Valkyrie descended on the street. Melanie saw Marcel flinch as he laid eyes on Kenzie, her black wings nothing more than a streak in the never-ending night.

  The hulking Valkyrie Danae dropped first, her cream-colored wings folding into her as she stepped onto the ground. She was followed by Almira, the quiet warrior who Melanie had learned from Kenzie liked books better than blood. Then Rebekah before Kenzie herself dropped.

  She stumbled on the landing, a sheepish look on her face as she glanced toward Melanie, then her face froze as she took in Marcel standing beside her, then the younger vampire standing beside him.

  Kenzie blinked as the younger vampire ran his gaze over Kenzie before saying. “You have changed since we last laid eyes on one another.” His accent was thick, like he had learned English as a second language.

  Kenzie rolled her eyes. “You look the same. Suppose that’s to be expected with you being a vampire and all.”

  The vampire chuckled, a throaty sound that sent a blush to Kenzie’s cheeks. Then Danae called her name, and she turned her attention back to the scene playing out before them.

  Erika had Marya on her knees in the middle of the road, as if she were praying for mercy to her sisters. The remaining Valkyries formed a wall behind Ever, facing Marya as the rest of them stood on the pavement and waited for everything to unfold.

  “Marya has betrayed our laws, where loyalty to our sisterhood is absolute. She conspired with the Allfather to kill me, to take the throne for herself.” A growl started up between the Valkyries, and they were silenced by Ever’s raised hand.

  “She refused to speak the truth until it was pulled from her. I promised not to kill her, on behest of the vampire Melanie Newton-Moore. However, her betrayal cannot go unpunished. So Marya will receive the most severe of our punishment.”

  Marya sucked in a breath, her small frame trembling.

  “For her grievous acts of treason, Marya is to be stripped of her wings, her powers and any magic that would mark her as Valkyrie. She will wear the scars on her skin as a reminder that she forsook sisterhood for power. And it was her undoing.”

  Erika muttered a few words, and wings of white and auburn sprang from Marya’s back. Ever lifted her sword, the blade glinting in the moonlight. A caw rang out above them, two birds circling, watching as Ever stood behind Marya, the sword twirling in her hand.

  “You will live the rest of your days as a human, alone. And when your time comes, we will see if you have repented enough to gain access to Fólkvangr, for you will never be worthy to enter Valhalla again. Have you anything to say?”

  “I go to deat
h with no fear in my heart, for I will be rewarded by him in Valhalla when he is victorious in battle.”

  Donnie

  * * *

  The midday sun blinded Donnie as he jumped backwards at the sound of a horn blaring. The driver of the bicycle swore at him in a language he sort of recognized, but his immediate panic at the fact he was standing in daylight and not frying his ass off meant his brain was in too much of fight or flight mode to translate it.

  He glanced around, trying to get a handle on where he was, why he was able to stand under the full force of the sun and not burn to ash. His eyes darted around as cyclists ambled down the streets until he saw a flash of black curls striding across a bridge straight in front of him.

  Caitlyn?

  He tore off after her, calling her name as he slipped in and out of the crowd, losing sight of her, but the way men and women turned in the path he was traveling, he knew they were looking at his mate.

  For a terrifying moment, Donnie thought he had lost her, yet there she was, standing before an impressive-looking cathedral like the goddess she was, a smile on her lips and a goddamn heart that he could hear beating.

  “Perhaps if you lighten the shade of gray in the sky, then the gargoyles would appear fiercer.”

  The words were spoken in French, yet Donnie understood completely what she had said. Caitlyn was looking at an artist who didn’t even glance in her direction when she spoke to him. The idiot snorted at Caitlyn, shaking his head before he retorted, “Mademoiselle, I draw what I see, what I feel … perhaps, if my art is not to your liking, you should move on elsewhere and leave me to my own devices.”

  His mate laughed at his words, that throaty laugh that Donnie loved to drag from her. The sound of her laughter dragged his gaze away from his artwork, and he looked at her in surprise. Caitlyn gave the artist a smile, apologized, which his woman never did, and asked if he would have coffee with her to make amends for her ill words.

  Extending her hand, Caitlyn introduced herself, and the man took hold of her outstretched hand. She asked him his name, to which he replied, “Sebastian Hardi, Lady Caitlyn. It is my honor to meet your acquaintance.”

  Donnie sucked in a breath, and the man glanced in his direction. Donnie took in his appearance. It was hard not to compare himself to Sebastian, for it was something he did almost unconsciously at this point, a thing he kept mostly to himself, for he knew how much it would hurt Caitlyn.

  Where Donnie was all broad shoulders and thick thigh, this man was a thin wisp of a man, slightly smaller than Caitlyn when she wore heels. His spectacles had slipped down the bridge of his nose, and his eyes held an intelligence that Donnie would never have.

  The image of Caitlyn slipped away. The sights and sounds of what Donnie now knew as a Parisian street vanished too, leaving Donnie standing in the midday sun, facing the ghost of the man he feared the most.

  “I would have missed her, had she not spoken to me that day.”

  The other man’s voice was gentle, as if he wondered how to talk to him, the other man in Caitlyn’s life. Did the fact that Sebastian claimed her first mean that Donnie was the other man, always in his shadow?

  Sebastian chuckled. “Does she know that you see yourself as the other man? I am flattered that I can be nothing but dirt and bones and I still hold sway over people I have not met.”

  Donnie blinked as Sebastian read his mind and was pissed that he had.

  “Now you know what others feel when you take a thought they meant only for themselves, oui?”

  Donnie didn’t answer Sebastian, yet he walked closer to him as the man leaned against the bridge, his elbows resting on the rail. He glanced to his side, and Donnie followed the path his eyes went to see Caitlyn retreating, but when she peered over her shoulder, a bright smile on her lips, Donnie knew the smile was not for him and it fucking burned.

  “I wonder why is it that your mind did not conjure Cain for this little quest. He is responsible for the woman you know now, not I.”

  Donnie knew the answer before he replied to Sebastian. “Cain never had her heart. You did.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  Donnie said nothing as Sebastian pushed off the rail and began to walk, giving Donnie no choice but to trail after him. The man whistled as he walked, hands shoved into his pockets as he ambled along the roads until they came to stand in front of a house.

  “This is the home we shared together. Where we first lay as man and wife, where we rocked Jessamine to sleep. She kept it; did you know that? She still keeps a staff on-site. It was the first place she returned to when she came back to Paris.”

  Donnie hadn’t known that, but it didn’t surprise him in the least. Caitlyn had known happiness and sadness inside that house, and she would not have been able to sever the ties that bind her for nobody.

  “I never had a proper home until Caitlyn found me. I don’t understand the need to hold on to a building for sentimental reasons. But Cait is different from me. Sometimes I think she was blessed and cursed to have known love like the one you two shared.”

  Sebastian chuckled as he pushed his glasses up his nose. “Ah, mi amour always had a soft heart for waifs and strays. She was always trying to feed the world and spending time taking the children off the streets to rehome them. My love was too kind of heart.”

  Was that what he was, a stray for Caitlyn to adopt? Was that all he was? Why did this still haunt him?

  “It is because you are a bastard that no one wanted. Even now, having met your own bloodline, they keep you at arm’s length. Tell me, Donnie, when you allowed yourself to be beaten in the streets, did you want to die that night?”

  Donnie growled in his throat at the harsh words spoken in Sebastian’s gentle tone. “I was good at only one thing my entire life, and that was rugby. When they told me I couldn’t play anymore, I knew that I’d probably be dead in a year, and I had no one who would care if I went then or in that moment.”

  “You didn’t fight back.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  A silhouette appeared in the window of the first floor, and Donnie knew it was Caitlyn. He knew the outline of her curves, had kissed and touched and coveted each part of her until he knew her skin as well as his own. A peal of a child’s laughter rang out, and Donnie froze, watching as the shadow scooped up a smaller frame and they spun, the laughter cutting through him.

  “This is the night it started. When Cain first invaded her dreams. Do you think it ironic that the vampire she allowed herself to feel something for has the very same power as the man who stole away her happiness?”

  Jesus, that hadn’t even dawned on Donnie, that he had somehow gotten the same gift as Cain. It made him sick to his stomach, wondering if Caitlyn would think less of him now. If she would fear him like she had once feared Cain. Would Donnie himself be the cause of her night terrors?

  “What if I told you that if you let me walk into the house now, that Cain would never find her. We would welcome our son and perhaps more children. That Caitlyn would never step foot in Ireland. That she would stay human and mine and happy. Would you let me walk inside that door, even if it meant you died alone in an alleyway?”

  Donnie was floored by Sebastian’s questions, and at first his mind screamed no, no, he wouldn’t be all right with never knowing Caitlyn, of never having her say “I love you” or never hearing the way she almost whispered his name when they were in bed.

  He thought back to when he had chased after her, when she returned to Paris to hunt down Cain and they had talked, really talked for the first time in twenty years. They talked about his life before, when he was human, how much of a dickhead he had been, and his woman had turned to him and said, “And then I made you a monster.”

  Donnie had taken her in his arms, positioning her so she looked him right in the eyes as he told her, “I started living the moment you made me a vampire. It was like I was asleep and you woke me up. I became the man I am today because you saved me. Every good thing that happened
to me happened after my heart stopped beating. And I will always be grateful that I found you.”

  And he meant it. His life had truly begun when he died and was reborn. Part of him selfishly didn’t want to say yes, to tell Sebastian to walk into the house so that instead of Caitlyn losing her entire family, he would simply lose her. Would she say yes, if given the choice?

  “She will never know. It will be as if she simply took another path. The lives she had in Ireland would not exist. Those she impacted would not know of her. Kenzie Blake would have lived a full life with her family.”

  “But both Melanie and me would be dead.”

  Sebastian shrugged. “Probably. Maybe. I know only what I know now. If I stay out this night, I meet the vampire Cain and I invite him into our home. He tries to seduce my wife and then, inside that very room where the love of our life dances with her child, her belly rounding with another, she will watch us be butchered. If you had the chance to make her happy, would you?”

  A tumble of thoughts and memories spilled into his mind, of breakfasts and dinners, of movie nights, of heated glances and I love you’s. He didn’t know how he could give them up, because Caitlyn was ingrained in his heart and soul.

  “She won’t even know she ever loved you.”

  His mind played out an argument they had, when he had made the foolish mistake of suggesting that they could adopt a child, when Caitlyn had lost her temper and he his, when he had felt so lost and couldn’t figure out how to help her, the distance between them more so after they had mated.

  “Seeing you with Zach and how happy you were, and I wanted to make you that happy again, because you certainly aren’t happy with me.”

  But Caitlyn had told him she had loved him … was he still that little boy who stood at the children’s home and watched other kids get adopted and longed for someone to love him enough to call him theirs? Was he clinging to the only love he had known because it seared him right in the heart to think that he would never hear the words je t'aime tumble from her lips?

  Glancing up at the window, he studied the silhouette and let his shoulders sag. He would do anything to make her, his Cait, happy, and if that meant he had to die alone in an alleyway, never knowing true love, then so be it.