Cimmerian Shade: A Limited Edition Paranormal Romance & Urban Fantasy Collection

by Kiki Howell

  She was jostled not much later than when she’d first closed her eyes, hoping Madde hadn’t hurt Aaron.

  Big brown eyes met hers. Not her sister’s green hazel eyes. Huge brown eyes in a bear’s head.

  She swallowed as she watched the bear morph into a man. A big man, muscular and mean-looking. The nightshade was still active enough to make panicking something she couldn’t quite remember how to do. Maybe she was hallucinating.

  “She’s drugged, I ken.” The bear-man looked at a wolf close by. The mean expression he’d worn morphed, much like him, into concern.

  The goats neighed with all their might at the invasion, but Adala knew from the way the wolf looked at her—a laser-like focus on just her—as well as the bear-man staring down at her, they would leave the goats alone. She could feel her heart pound in panic but couldn’t do a damned thing about it, sometimes not even able to keep her eyes open.

  The wolf transformed in front of her, also turning into a man. A naked man like the bear-man.

  Adala tried to turn away from the wolf-man but could only mumble something incoherent.

  The wolf-man gently turned her face toward him, gazing down at her intently. One eye blue. The other brown. “She looks unharmed.”

  The bear-man nodded. “Still, let’s get her out of here.”

  “Right.” Wolf-man smiled. “I’ve never met a Valkyrie before. She’s pretty.”

  The bear-man grinned too. “Yeah, makes ye think twice about dyin’ ifn’ ye see someone like this at the end.” He was putting on a pair of jeans, laughing.

  That accent. Adala hadn’t heard it in...centuries. Almost Highland Scottish but with a slight lilt similar to Scandinavians. Pictish? Were these men ancient druids?

  She twitched, trying to get her body back under her own volition. “Mmphhhhr.”

  The wolf-man shuddered. “Been ages since I’ve been round another female that wasn’t a Fury. Even the sound of her mumblin’ does somethin’ to me.”

  Bear-man shook his head at his companion, then squatted near her, caressing Adala’s cheek. “Don’t fret, little Valkyrie. Believe it or not, we berserkers are here to help ye.” He cringed. “She doesna look like she believes me at all.” He laughed as he stood and put on a T-shirt that read, Montana State University Grizzlies.

  Adala swallowed as the bear-man picked her up, his companion getting dressed in short order. Oh goddess, what were they going to do to her?

  Chapter Seventeen

  AARON RELEASED A broken breath, so relieved to see a black Pegasus in the backyard as he walked close to the house. The big horse flicked its wings a couple times as it munched on the grass.

  He’d beg Adala to forgive him. He’d plead. He’d...Jesus, he’d been a shit.

  He’d freaked out pretty good. All that officers’ training down the drain in a monumental temper tantrum. And why he’d freaked had humiliated him even more than the tantrum itself. He’d wanted to blame her for the death of his men, when, more than likely, she’d been a comfort to them. He didn’t know how it worked, but he was almost certain that his men, once they saw Adala, would have been grateful for an angel to caress them.

  He hadn’t said anything about that to Mack, who he’d called when he’d walked away from Adala. He hadn’t told his group therapy leader very much other than he wondered if he was falling in love when he’d completely lost his shit and made up reasons to yell at her.

  Mack had met him at a diner, his graying hair neatly tied back, smiling warmly after Aaron had told him the gist of what had happened.

  “I’ll get to that yelling part, Aaron, but I wanted to apologize to you and the group for our last session. I just...the fact is having people in your life, opening up to them, it does help.”

  “Yeah, until you fuck it up.” Aaron had hidden his frown behind his coffee cup.

  Mack wryly smiled with a slow sigh. “We all fuck things up. All of us do. Even your girl, I’d bet.”

  Aaron shook his head. “Doubt it. She’s kind of perfect. Well, she’s perfect for me, and I accused her of manipulating me, which I don’t feel she did. I accused her of lying. I accused her of—”

  “You were a shit to her is what you’re saying.”

  “Yeah. Total dick. I said things I don’t even think. I said things I didn’t know I could say.”

  Mack nodded. “Well, even if you hadn’t served, that part is normal. A lot of guys and gals do shit like that.”

  Aaron glanced down. “I never have. And I just did it to a woman...I think I love.”

  Mack reached over the table and pounded Aaron’s knuckles as he held on to the coffee mug. “Congratulations.”

  “But I fucked it up. I yelled at her. I fucking yelled at her. She doesn’t deserve that.”

  “Nope, she doesn’t. But you can work on that. Make sure you don’t do it again.”

  “Yeah, but why I did it...I was looking for...I don’t know...looking for an out. Looking for someone to blame. But more than that, I just felt so...Okay, so after we...so we had an intimate moment—”

  Mack smiled wider, softly chuckling. “Gotcha.”

  “We were, you know, vulnerable, and she was kind of freaking out.”

  “Why was she freaking out?” Mack’s smile vanished.

  Aaron hadn’t known what to say, but things just spilled out. “Okay, so she’s got a history too. She was hurt once. Real bad. And something about that...it’s like we just get each other. And all my panic attacks were gone. I could breathe. I felt—fuck, I felt cured, you know?”

  Mack’s jaw ticked, but he nodded.

  Aaron shook his head. “Maybe I was trying to make what we had a fairytale, because I hoped I was cured. But after she freaked out, I remembered...I didn’t exactly relive what had happened in Afghanistan, but I relived the feelings. Every single one of them. I didn’t see Rodriguez’s dead body, like I usually would. But I felt like I had. And I screamed at her.”

  Mack nodded. “First, yeah, apologize to her for doing that shit. I know you feel bad about it. Let her know that. Second, getting intimate, getting vulnerable, dude, that’s huge. You’re making leaps and bounds of progress. And third, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to live in a fairytale. Fuck man, I do too. I want a beautiful blonde princess with sad eyes to rescue me from myself.” He looked like he’d just admitted too much with his wide gray eyes. After a sip of coffee, he continued, “And after last week I was thinking about why fairytales are so attractive. Because the moral of the story is the answer for our own lives. Sure, I’d like a pretty princess to rescue me from the dragons inside, but the moral is: I need saving. So, here comes the hard work of saving myself while keeping myself open and vulnerable, even if it doesn’t feel safe, so she can help but not save me.”

  Mack was hell-on-wheels good with points like that. Aaron knew he was right. He’d always known it, that he didn’t need someone to save him. He would save himself. But being open and vulnerable to another who could help...that was the hard work.

  And he was willing to do that kind of work.

  He just hoped Adala would forgive him for being such a shit.

  He opened the front door to the house, feeling a feminine presence in the kitchen. That and he was pretty sure he heard her cooking something. Please let her forgive him. Please. Please.

  He’d made plans to have extra sessions with Mack, maybe even talk to Adala about going to a few sessions with him. Anything so he might never yell at her again.

  “Honey?” he called out, walking into the kitchen.

  Her back was to him. She had on her little Valkyrie outfit, the one that looked like a Roman legionnaire had lent it to her. But from that alone, he knew she wasn’t...herself. She looked so much like Adala, but as she turned, he could feel a wave of coldness he’d never felt from her.

  That should have tipped him off that something wasn’t right. But he was so excited to talk to Adala, so excited to apologize and see if she would forgive him. So he just stood there as whoev
er she was smiled like she was going to sink her teeth into him.

  In a blur, she was suddenly on him, taking him down with one jump, holding his neck with her hands as she pummeled him to the ground.

  But then she looked confused, releasing her hold around his throat, furiously touching his shoulders and neck again and again.

  “You’re not dead.” Definitely not Adala. Whoever this was had a rough, crackly voice. “And have you been taking steroids? You got huge. Did you get some work done? You look younger. A lot younger.”

  He blinked, not at all registering what she was saying. “You’re not Adala.”

  “You broke my sister’s heart, motherfucker.”

  He blinked again. “You swear. For real swear.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Yeah, my sister and all the other dísir are adorable with their fake swearing, but I really swear, motherfucker. Sometimes. And right now seems opportune for it. You broke her heart! If you kill her, I’m going to—why aren’t you dead already?”

  “You came here to kill me?”

  She sighed. “I worried that by sleeping with my sister, you might have become immortal-ish. But a girl can hope to kill with one touch the boy who broke her sister’s heart.”

  He coughed. “I’m immortal?”

  She sat on his stomach, one very boney shin poking into his gut, and frowned down at him. “Yeah, Luke’s immortal now. Seemed to get bigger, stronger, like you. Apparently his aging has rewound too. Again, like you. So I guess you are too.”

  “Jesus...holy...what does that mean?”

  She grabbed him by his shoulders, picking him up and smashing him back into the ground. “The fuck I know, asshole. It means I can’t kill you by touching you, but I probably could by beheading you.”

  He swallowed, panicking, wondering if she was going to try.

  She shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Adala would kill me if I killed you for real.”

  “So—wait. You were just testing me before by touching me?”

  She frowned even more, then slowly stood, extending a hand out to him to help him up. “I guess. That and I think I should beat the piss out of you for hurting my sister.”

  For whatever reason, he took the hand offered and stood as she glared at him.

  “Do you know who she is, asshole?” she yelled. “Don’t you get it? She’s...sensitive and you need to protect that so she keeps being the beautiful, sensitive Valkyrie she is. Or whatever she is now that you magically got her wings back. And you yell at her after you have sex? You know that was her first time, shithead? What kind of asshole yells at a lady after he beds her?”

  He wanted to smile, liking that Madde had used the phrase “bed her” because it sounded so medieval and wonderful. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “Sure. Right. You didn’t mean to push away the world’s most perfect female. But you did.”

  He nodded. “I did. I fucked up. I fucked up so big. I want to ask her to forgive me.”

  Her green hazel eyes narrowed all the more, obviously not believing him.

  He sighed. “I can’t believe I did what I did. I really can’t. I talked to my therapist—”

  “You see a therapist? Good, you’d better see a fucking therapist. Anyone who dares yell at my sister is a crazy son of a bitch.”

  He nodded. God, she might become his sister-in-law if he could talk Adala into giving him another chance. He couldn’t help but like Madde. She wanted to protect Adala as much as he did, and he would never fault anyone for that.

  “I’m sorry.”

  She sighed. “You’re going to say that to my sister?”

  He nodded. “And a lot more. I never want to do that again. Never. I’ll do anything to make sure it never happens again.”

  Her shoulders slid down a few notches with another breath. She took a step away from him, folding her arms over her chest. “It was me.”

  He tilted his head, wondering what she was talking about.

  She rolled her eyes. “Besides my sister, I was with you too in Afghanistan, that battle. I’m sorry for your losses.”

  “You were there too?”

  “Yes. We were doing our job. You know we’re there to give comfort, asshole. Not to kill anyone.”

  He nodded. “I know. I mean, I didn’t, but I put that together. I’m sorry.”

  “I saw the way my sister looked at you.”

  “How was she looking at me?”

  Madde stepped even farther away, her shoulders hiking again. “I’d never seen her look so...taken. She was besotted, watching you. We know you did everything you could to save those men.”

  God, it sucked, talking about his past. Validating, but it sucked all the same. However, he didn’t feel a panic attack coming on. He didn’t feel a wave of anger ripple through him.

  “And I thought,” Madde turned slightly, frowning at a piano, “you saw her too. I could have sworn you were looking right at her after you’d put the last of your men on the helicopter and had been told to get on yourself. You turned—”

  He remembered.

  He’d stepped onto the running board of the copter, turning and sitting on the edge, so bone-weary he wondered if he would fall out of the aircraft as it lifted up. She’d been there, Adala, lunging for him, as if to catch him if he fell. He’d straightened, blinking, thinking he was dreaming, seeing such a beautiful woman, wearing a little Roman legionnaire outfit. She’d smiled at him, and he’d wanted to touch her. He’d reached out, but the helicopter took him away from her.

  It hadn’t been a dream. It was real.

  Madde shrugged. “I’ve never seen a mortal man have the capabilities you did, seeing my sister. I guess I thought it meant something. So that night, I snuck into your barracks and gave you one of her feathers I’d saved. I just...I thought the way you looked at each other that it had to mean something.”

  “You gave me her feather?”

  She frowned at him. “Yeah, and don’t make me regret that I did.”

  He smiled at her, feeling something lodge in his throat. “I won’t. I’ll be a good man to your sister. I swear. If she lets me, I’ll do everything in my power to make this up to her.”

  Madde sighed. “Okay, I’ll take you to her and you’d better grovel, man, just grovel.”

  His smile widened. “I will. I promise.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “THERE.” ADALA POINTED at her iFairyPhone’s screen. On it played the slow-motion image of Aaron as he carried over his wide shoulders his sergeant safely into a helicopter. It was the video that had flashed across multiple news stations when he was about to receive the Medal of Honor. Although she felt a tad juvenile, she’d saved the footage and watched it night after night. Until she’d met him in person. Then she’d gotten to watch him in real-time.

  Yes, she was head over heels for that jerk. She still hurt. A lot. Still, it felt good informing the berserkers about Aaron, how he wasn’t brainwashing her, how he was actually a hero.

  “That’s him.” She smiled proudly at the two men, er, guys.

  They straightened from hunkering down to see her small screen. She really had to upgrade to Skuld’s newest version of cell phone. It had a much bigger screen. But she liked this one because she’d stitched some flowers around a fabric case for it.

  As soon as she’d become more conscious and formed complete words, she’d stopped the guys from racing through the French countryside and had asked them what the hell—yes, hell—they were doing.

  Erik and Sven—Good, Norse names—had told her, “We’ve been sent by the Furies to rescue you.”

  “From what?”

  “A bad man.”

  She’d laughed and had to show them just how bad Aaron was.

  They were in an old ski hut that had seen better days and was closed due to the late spring’s unseasonable heat. Not a soul around. But she felt safe with these weirdos. They were, after all, trying to “save her.”

  “I know that guy,” Sven said, pointing at
the screen. He smiled at Adala. “I mean, I don’t know him personally, but...yeah, I’ve seen him on the news. Even up in Iceland, they had broadcasts about what he did, how he single-handedly carried all his elite unit away from a firefight.”

  She nodded sadly. “Yeah, he hates talking about that.”

  Erik, the taller and bear-like guy, straightened even more, his brows furrowing. “I’d bet.” He sipped in a breath. “Okay, little Valkyrie, we were given orders to get ye somewhere safe—”

  “My sister saw to that when she drugged me in the meadow.”

  “Why’d she drug ye?” Erik asked.

  Adala placed a hand over her heart. It stung. Felt marred. But it was still beating. Maybe because she refused to think it was truly over between her and Aaron. Or maybe because she was pissed he’d been a wee bit of a jackass.

  “She thinks Aaron broke my heart.”

  “Do ye have a broken heart?” Sven, with his two-colored eyes zeroed in on her, his big frame cutting out the sunlight pouring into the hut as he stepped closer. And closer.

  Erik smacked him against his shoulder. “The woman may have a broken heart. But now’s not the time to play Casanova.”

  “But if she’s hurting”—Sven pointed with his big meaty hand in the general vicinity of Adala’s chest where her T-shirt read, “Love Sucks”—“I can be of big comfort. And by that I mean I’m rather big, if you catch my drift.”

  Adala laughed despite herself. “I catch it. And I’ll be fine.” She rolled her eyes.

  “Sorry, Adala, we have not been around any other female for...a long time. Other than the Furies.” Erik frowned at his friend.

  “The Furies?”

  “They’re the ones who told us that a man was brainwashing ye.”

  Adala frowned herself. “Does Aaron look like the kind of guy who brainwashes?”

  Erik and Sven looked at each other and shook their heads.

  “Why would the Furies tell you that?”