by Brook Rogers
The next morning, my fatigue from the night before had largely vanished. If that was the result of discharging a huge amount of energy, I wasn’t sure I wanted to sign up for it again. How had I managed to do it in the first place? I kept my hands locked to my sides, scared to even look at them. Gods, what if I accidentally shot my eye out?
Valkyrie magic was all internal. It governed our transition to ravens and, for all valkyries except me, the ability to release and retract wings while in human form. I didn’t have a clue how to push magic outside my body.
Sighing irritably, I rolled off the couch. I just had to carry on with my original plan and not flap my hands around recklessly. Yeah, no problem.
I stepped out of the office to find Shereen still awake, staring pensively at the ongoing repair work.
“Sorry about this,” I said.
She sighed. “In all honesty, it was worth it.”
I blinked. Things with the brothers must have been a lot worse than she’d let on.
“I appreciate your help, Ray. Those dragons were a couple of weak-minded thugs, and the whole town was afraid of them. It’s been coming for a long time, but I’m glad you were here.” She turned to me with a watery smile.
“You think they killed Jack?” I asked, but deep down, I already knew the answer.
“Yes, he wouldn’t have left any other way. I worry about who’ll move in and take their place. This . . .” She motioned to our surroundings. “It’s all I have. I’m proud of it, and I want those girls in there to be proud to call it home. If I can’t protect them, it’s all pointless.” Her shoulders slumped.
“What about Handlebars?”
She snickered. “Dale is gonna love that nickname. He’s been great. I just don’t know if he wants to stick around for the long haul.”
The insecurity in her words made me sad. But then I grew angry. Damn those men who, over the course of her life, had made her feel as though she wasn’t worth staying for.
I placed my hand gently on her arm. “What I saw last night was a man who definitely plans to stick around. He cares about you, Shereen, and he doesn’t run from trouble. You could do a lot worse.”
Her lip trembled slightly, and then she grinned. “Thanks, Ray.”
I pulled her into a tight hug. As we stepped apart, she wrinkled her nose and eyed my crusty ensemble.
“Got a shower I can use?”
Laughing, she grabbed my hand. “Follow me.”
After a private shower in the communal bathhouse, I finally felt like a real person again. The day really started to shape up with the cup of coffee Handlebars had waiting for me when I came to collect my supplies. He was helping Shereen, along with some residents of the town, haul away the last broken pieces of the Lucky Strike. The vampires had all retired before dawn, but they’d gotten a lot done.
As much as I wanted to stay and help, I also had a deadline. When I told them that if I didn’t make it home by tomorrow, the entire valkyrie population just might march into Hell looking for me—my scary-ass Grand-mère in the lead—they couldn’t get rid of me fast enough.
The temperature rose steadily, and before long, sweat was dripping off my chin. The terrain became less flat, and stunted trees replaced the bushes as the miles rolled by. It was midafternoon when I finally made out the shapes of tents and wood shanties at the foot of the looming mountains, along with the figures of a few people tending fires and moving about the individual camps. Finding the fire demon was going to be like finding a sock the dryer ate. Too bad it was all I had to go on.
It wasn’t long before I reached the first tent. A heavyset man in overalls sat before a fire, chewing on a toothpick and roasting some kind of meat.
I tried to appear friendly. “Hello there. Are you having any luck?”
He eyed me warily. “Not for a while. What brings you out here? You wantin’ to stake a claim?”
I wiped the sweat from my brow and propped the sawed-off on my shoulder. “I’m trying to find my friends who already have a claim, but they just said to meet here. I guess ‘here’ was a relative term.” I snorted humorlessly. “Maybe you can point me in the right direction?”
The lie rolled smoothly off my tongue. When people have to work hard for a valuable commodity, they don’t like the idea of sharing. If he thought I was joining an already established dig, he might be more generous with his knowledge.
Rolling the toothpick to the other side of his mouth, he studied me. The deep wrinkles on his darkly tanned face spoke of a hard life spent working outside. I’d bet there was some brownie heritage in there too.
After a few seconds, he answered, “There’s a big group working a cave farther up the creek.” He took the toothpick from his mouth and pointed off to the left with it, toward a large plume of smoke climbing into the air. “Might be them?”
I thanked him and headed off. I was just clearing the edge of his camp when he called out, “They aren’t the friendly sort.”
I paused, then flashed a thumbs-up behind me in acknowledgement before continuing on. The concealment rune for my weapons didn’t work in other realms, so he’d seen exactly what I was carrying and still issued the warning. That made my nerves jangle. Hopefully there’d be a way to scout out the situation so I didn’t walk into anything blindly.
Chapter 11
The goddess of luck must have been smiling on me, because as I topped the next rise, a copse of trees separated me from the encampment. The best option would have been to wait until dark to slip in close, but time was growing scarce. It had to be now.
I slung my pack into a nearby crater and stripped off my weapons, then dragged a leafy fallen tree limb over everything to conceal it. Since my clothing—and small things in my pockets or hair—was all that could make the shift with me into my other form, I had to leave everything else here.
Relaxing into the change, I opened that box inside me that contained my raven. She burst forth in a plume of onyx feathers, and I hopped across the uneven ground to get momentum before launching into the sky. Flying was immensely satisfying—like a delicious full-body stretch after a good night’s sleep—and I hadn’t shifted since the night of the werewolf incident. No wonder it felt so good.
The trees ahead were spaced far enough apart that I could navigate between them without having to go over their tops, which ultimately provided better cover. An odd green glow filtered through the foliage, growing brighter the closer I got to the camp. Just before I reached the edge of the tree line, I landed, then slowly worked my way from branch to branch to a point where I could see what was going on more clearly.
A cave about thirty feet up from the base of the mountain was emitting the green glow, and a handful of people were gathered around its mouth. While I watched, a cart on rails rolled out from inside the cave, and one of the people came forward to dump it. A few others worked to fill smaller buckets with the cart’s contents, carrying them to a different location farther away. Small dirt piles peppered the mountainside.
Typically, the dirt and rock brought out of a gold mine would be put through a sluice run, which would separate out the valuable gold from the other debris using water. I hopped around looking for it, but the only sluice run I spotted was empty and dry. Whatever this group was after, it didn’t appear to be gold.
A deep rumble came from within the mountain, and the group working outside the mine shouted as a billow of dust belched out, momentarily blotting out the green light. Another group of people stumbled out after it, coughing and waving their arms.
More yelling. The cave group turned and angrily pulled their shirts or handkerchiefs over their faces, then slowly plodded back into the mine. Judging by their stiff-legged march, none of them were happy about it.
No fire demons stood out, but even from this distance, the leprechauns and kobolds were obvious. A satyr was among those who moved the piles, his hooves clattering on the rocks as he made trip after trip. No doubt if I were closer, I’d be able to see the pointed ears of the
overly tall elves. Most of the people working this site were Fae.
It was extremely unusual for so many different kinds of Fae to work together like this. The elves and leprechauns still hated each other because of what happened during the Battle of Treen’s Gorge. There was no way they would ever willingly work this close without bloodshed. Something wasn’t right.
A loud bang sounded below the unused sluice, and a slender man with orange hair stormed out of the miner’s shack located there. He scrambled up the embankment to one of the elves and started to gesticulate wildly, poking the elf in the chest every so often. They both looked angry.
I was searching for a way to get close enough to hear what they were saying when the limb I was standing on exploded. I jumped into the air on reflex, but they must have anticipated that move, because the second stream of magic nailed me in the chest.
Flapping erratically, I struggled to get up and out of the tree, but limbs were fucking everywhere. The initial sting where the magic had hit me morphed into a tingling numbness that spread fast through every nerve. I started to lose control of my wings. Panicked, I strained with everything I had to make them respond, but suddenly all sensation in them was just . . . gone.
I kicked uselessly, spinning as gravity took hold. My body bounced off branches, flipping me this way and that, and all I could do was ride it until I finally crashed into the ground.
My heart pounded like a herd of running horses as my eyelids grew heavy. Everything was paralyzed now. Not being in control of my own body was becoming a real theme these days.
A shadow loomed over me—a woman, her long pale skirt nearly touching my beak. She smiled down at me victoriously right before my eyes slid shut.
I woke up chained to a chair. My arms screamed from being jammed behind me for gods knew how long, and the rest of me ached like one continuous bruise, but I thanked the Fates I was able to feel again.
Those dull, easy pickups for Enforcement were looking pretty good right about now. On a positive note, at least I was alone.
Had they put me inside the mining shack? Rough-hewn boards on the walls and floor made up the interior, and gold pans of different sizes hung on the wall, along with a dented cooking pot that had seen better days. A single window faced the cave entrance, where the workers continued to haul around their dirt. Since I wasn’t still in my raven form, I assumed that when I lost consciousness, I changed back. Or maybe they’d forced me to change back magically.
Rocks littered the surface of a crude wooden table beside me. Were they searching for some type of stone then? Something knocked at my subconscious, urging me to remember, but I couldn’t manage to make the connection.
Frustrated, I scanned the rest of the room for anything that might help me escape. Unfortunately, no one had left a pair of bolt cutters or keys hanging conveniently within reach. A battered trunk against the far wall looked promising, but trussed up as I was, getting to it was an impossibility. I sighed, irritated.
My mind drifted to my captors. The woman had been beautiful, almost ethereal—her golden hair long and flowing, her skin so flawless it practically sparkled, her teeth white and perfectly even. Who the hell was she? Her outfit made it obvious she didn’t do manual labor, but I suppose you didn’t have to resort to that kind of thing when you were gorgeous and powerful to boot. In any case, she obviously didn’t want me here mucking about in her business, which made me want to know what she was doing even more.
And what about the man—the one yelling at the elf? How did he have the kind of authority to treat a Fae like that? How was he connected with the woman?
The scuffing sound of the door interrupted my thoughts.
As if I’d summoned him just by thinking of him, the yeller walked in and slammed the door behind him. He ripped a hat from his head and threw it in the corner, revealing curly hair that had to be the most unnatural shade of orange in existence. Pointed ears peeked out from under that unruly mop, but he radiated power I’d never experienced from any Fae before.
His eyes lit on me, and he frowned, as if just remembering I was in here. “Who the fuck are you working for?”
I just stared at him blankly, but my lack of response only agitated him.
Moderating his tone to sound friendlier, he tried again. “I don’t want to get ugly about this. Just answer me—who sent you?”
“How about you tell me why your girlfriend shot me out of that tree?” I exploded, the injustice at my treatment getting the better of me.
“You are in no position to ask anything.” A big blue vein stood out on his forehead, and his voice started to rise again. “You’re with Infinity, aren’t you?”
My eyebrows jumped up. Here was someone who actually knew about the mysterious company I couldn’t find anything on. Unfortunately, my reaction only served to convince him he was right. He grinned smugly.
“That’s enough, Aaron.”
We both jumped at the voice. Craning my neck to look behind me, I saw the woman from earlier. How did she get in here? The shack only had one door, and I was facing it.
“I apologize, Your Highness,” the man said, dipping into a bow.
My gaze jumped from the door back to the man. What did he just call her?
“Check the progress,” she told him. Her clipped words demanded immediate obedience. Without replying, he left to do her bidding.
Silence reigned after the door closed; my breathing seemed unnaturally loud. I shifted in the chair, trying to relieve some of the pressure in my shoulders.
The woman came to stand in front of me and clasped her hands at her waist. “You’re not Infinity. We both know that.” Leaning forward until her face was only inches from mine, she made a humming sound. “I feel it.”
I arched a brow, not at all sure what she was talking about.
Her smooth forehead wrinkled in confusion. “Oh . . . it’s not complete?”
This lady clearly had some screws loose, but she smelled really nice. Like wildflower honey. She straightened and tapped her lips with one finger, studying me as if I were a bug she planned to squash.
Unease prickled down my spine.
Reaching out, she placed her palm on my chest—right where the bonding rune was. I stiffened as energy passed from her hand into me. Gentle at first. Probing and circling. Then it tightened like a fist. With an unexpected jerk, she tried to rip something from me. Something deeply rooted that didn’t give much.
Panic whipped inside me, but confusion held me still.
She switched tactics. Instead of trying to force it from me, she pulled slowly and steadily. The anchoring tendons of my very essence began to stretch uncomfortably, and panic gave way to undiluted fear.
“Come now, just let go,” she cooed.
Her words sounded garbled as I began to thrash wildly. Fuck sitting here and just letting her take my soul—because that was exactly what she was trying to do.
Rage and pain coalesced into a single narrow point of focus, and I hung on tightly to those roots. Her eyes flashed green. Dark ribbons of magic slithered down her arms to wrap around my throat, cutting into my windpipe until I struggled to draw breath. One of the anchors inside me ripped loose, the connection shriveling to nothing. Gone. A crushing sense of loss overwhelmed me, and a tear rolled down my cheek. The pressure in my head started to build, but my hands were trapped at my back.
A snarl, then she hissed, “You fool! Stop now, or you will bring him here.”
Lungs burning, I sent what remained of my waning energy down the strained fibers in an attempt to reinforce them. She was so strong. My hold slipped fractionally, and a second root popped free. Blackness danced around the edges of my vision, and another tear slid down my face.
I gathered up the pressure—that strange new power—inside me and tried to push it at the last of the strands, but it stubbornly wouldn’t budge. I tried pulling instead. Nothing.
There would be nothing left of me if she broke those last moorings. I wasn’t ready to die.
Desperation drove me to beg for help, and I pleaded with the power to save me.
As if it heard my request, the magic slowly unfurled, ready, preening. It trickled down into my chest like warm molasses, twined possessively around my center, and melted into the damaged threads. Immediately, the strands grew stronger.
Turning, the power traveled up to the woman’s viselike grip of energy and began to eat through it in big, sizzling bites. Then, suddenly, it rushed out of me to follow the connection to its source. With a boom and a bright flash of light, the stretching agony stopped.
I could breathe again.
My lungs sucked in huge, glorious gulps of air as the chains holding me fell away with a clunk. The woman stood up from where she’d landed in the corner. Scorch marks marred her fine clothing, and smoke curled from her hair. She appeared more than a little shocked. And pissed.
Aaron burst through the door, breathless. “Your Highness, they’ve found it.”
She gave me a stare filled with absolute hatred, and then she simply vanished.
Aaron’s widening eyes darted from me to the chains now puddled on the floor. He hurried back the way he had come, his pounding footsteps fading into the gathering darkness of night.
Something cool and wet slid over my lip, and I slowly wiped my nose, coming away with blood. I tried to stand, but the room spun precariously on its side.
A huge arm wrapped around my waist, righting me.
Had there been anything left in me to do it, I would have screamed. Or fought. But I was scrambling just to hang on to consciousness. My head weighed a ton. I caught a glimpse of a familiar scar slashing through an eyebrow. Gods, he was so warm. My teeth were chattering. Why was it so cold in here?
He scooped me up and kicked the door shut. A portal was rapidly shrinking behind him, and he shuffled us over to the trunk, which turned out to be full of bedding. My fuzzy head was having a hard time stringing coherent thoughts together.
