Will frowned but followed along. “His name is Tyler Davenport. He’s been with the force for three years. I put a tracker on his car to keep an eye on him.”
“You really love those trackers, huh?”
He gave me a small smile. “They can come in handy.”
I went to my bag and pulled out a clean set of clothing and began dressing in front of the detective. The towel that had been wrapped around my naked body fell to the floor, and Will stared for a split second before gulping and looking away. I enjoyed making him nervous. Humans were funny like that, and after the day I had, I needed a good laugh.
“You okay?” I feigned innocence.
“Raven …” was all the detective said, as if that was answer enough.
“What? Is it because of the towel?” I burst out into laughter once I couldn’t contain myself any longer. “Calm your tits, Will.”
“I’m just trying to be respectful,” he said, flustered, and ran a shaky hand through his hair. “So … what’s the deal with that guy?”
I quirked a brow, and Will jabbed a thumb toward the living room where Fen and Charlie waited.
“He’s an asshole. Don’t mind him.”
“Are you a thing?”
“Fuck no,” I scoffed.
“Didn’t you—”
I quickly placed my pointer finger on his lips. “Do not say what I think you were going to say. That … incident is going to be thrown into the vault where we’ll never speak of it again. Understand?”
Will rolled his eyes. “Fine.”
“Now, what are we waiting for?” I smirked. “Let’s go get this bastard.”
Just so my objections are on record, I was absolutely against this idea. If I weren’t so outnumbered, I would have put my foot down. But no. Here I was, after seventy fucking years of secrecy, and I had a whole goddamn team of people in on the mystery.
“This is ridiculous. Let’s just kill the human and move on,” Fen said when we pitched the idea of confronting the CSI. Will was tracking his movements, waiting for him to leave the police station.
“We cannot go around killing people!” I said.
“You used to do it all the time!” Fen argued.
My face turned red, and I didn’t want to look at Charlie and Will’s reactions. It was a past I wasn’t proud of.
“It’s not the same,” I gritted through my teeth.
“Why not? Because you’re no longer being rewarded for collecting souls?”
“That’s enough, Fenrir!”
He rolled his eyes, emotionless to the nonsense he was spewing. He had no regard for human life. The thought crossed my mind and made me do a double-take.
When did I start caring for the humans again? This whole situation had me screwed up.
“Raven!” Will called out. “You’re going to want to see this.”
The wolf and I went over to him and looked over his shoulder. Will had set up Charlie’s laptop to follow Tyler’s movements. We watched a blinking red dot as it remained still on top of a map of the city of Portland.
I pointed at the computer screen. “What are we looking at?”
“Tyler’s location.”
“And?”
“Don’t recognize it?” He raised a brow.
I looked deeper but couldn’t figure it out. I shrugged when Fen tensed beside me.
“Bloody hell,” he growled as he stomped away, snatching his jacket from the couch and heading toward the door.
“Where are you going?” I called after him.
“To his warehouse,” Will answered. “Tyler is at his warehouse.”
Following the wolf, I grabbed his arm and pulled him to a stop.
My grip tightened on Fen. “Are you fuckin’ kidding me? You’ve been playing us this whole time?”
Fenrir snatched his arm away. “I do not associate with humans,” he said as he scoffed at Will. “They’re beneath me.”
“Then what the hell is Tyler doing there?”
Fen straightened, his eyes piercing me with a dark look. “That’s what I intend to find out.”
The four of us—to my dismay—drove to the warehouse where we’d first found out who Fen was. With my hoodie over my head, I sat in the backseat with Fenrir, trying to avoid the traffic cameras. It was dangerous for all of us to be together. If Fen and Charlie were caught with me, they’d go down as accomplices for not turning me in. I didn’t even want to think what would happen to Will. He had more to lose than any of them.
I attempted to convince Charlie to stay behind, but I could feel her desire for danger. She’d lived such a mundane life, she was starting to crave excitement. This girl needed a hobby.
With our heads lowered, we made a dash for the warehouse after parking in the closest spot to the building. Will and Fen had bickered the whole ride, blaming each other for gods knew what. I tuned them out as I prepared for what would happen. Tonight would tip the scales either in our favor or against them. Whoever this Tyler was, he’d have some answers I so desperately desired. I needed to interrogate Tyler, but I also needed to be able to stop Fen from killing him. It would be hard doing both at the same time. Fen was brash and acted before thinking. We had to be smart or this could all fall apart.
We entered the building and followed the narrow hallway that led to the first floor. An opening up ahead had a faint glow and when we got nearer, we found a human under the light. I assumed it was Tyler. He was young, no more than twenty-five years old. His eyes were glossed over, unblinking. His body sagged in defeat, and it appeared he’d been expecting us. With a dagger in one hand, his shirt had been ripped in the middle and the rune was carved in his abdomen.
“Tyler?” Will approached slowly. His hand rested lightly on top of his gun while the other hand was outstretched for the CSI. Will approached him like a feral animal, but we stayed behind. “Drop the knife, Tyler.”
The human didn’t move. He only stared ahead aimlessly. Blood was everywhere, dripping from his wounds. He would eventually bleed out if we didn’t get him to a hospital. It was a miracle he could stand on his own. While Will tried to talk some sense into him, I felt inside for his soul, but there was nothing. I couldn’t get a reading, and that worried me. Nothing should be able to stop me from feeling a soul. It was impossible.
Unless he was already dead.
The idea made my hands sweaty as I thought about all the possibilities. If Tyler was already dead, someone was controlling him. How?
Will took another step forward, and Tyler raised his empty hand to his face. Will froze.
“Easy, Tyler. Don’t do anything stupid.”
But the human would.
I scrambled to come up with a plan to stop him beforehand, but I couldn’t think of a single thing. All I could think of was that damn knife raised near his face. My stomach dropped. Someone was pulling the strings because Tyler was no longer in control of himself.
Without trying to attract too much attention, my gaze slowly trailed around the empty warehouse. My vision was limited in the dark, but whoever was controlling him had to be nearby. All I saw were empty crates and dust. There wasn’t a single alcove where someone could be hiding. I wondered if Fen was thinking the same thing. He had to be.
I jumped a little when Tyler unexpectedly swiveled his head, his empty eyes meeting mine. “Hrefna,” he garbled.
I was momentarily stunned. My mind raced, and I swallowed a few times before responding.
“Yes, it’s me.” I went and stood beside Will whose hand was still on the gun on his hip. “Tell me who is doing this to you. Who is killing innocent people?” I didn’t care that I was practically begging. The desperation was clear as I pleaded with Tyler.
“You are,” he mumbled.
I shook my head. “No, Tyler, it’s not me. I think it’s the same man who killed you.”
Will’s head snapped to me, and Charlie’s voice hitched. Fen was quiet. He’d figured it out.
“It’s you. You are broken,” Tyler mut
tered. “You’re no longer Hrefna.”
“I am, Tyler,” I whispered as I walked closer to him.
“Traitor,” he accused before digging his finger into his eye and ripping it from his socket. It all happened so fast, I hadn’t seen it coming. For a human to pluck out his own eye without flinching was both disturbing and impossible.
“No!” I yelled, reaching my hand out as if I could stop him, but there was too much space between us.
Tyler collapsed to the ground, and it felt as if the air had been sucked out of me. It was like I’d been punched in the gut. He called me a traitor. Was it because I betrayed my sisters? I couldn’t imagine them doing all of this to teach me a lesson. Valkyries were aggressive and to the point. We weren’t into riddles and games; it was a waste of our time. So who had I betrayed that would feel so much hurt they would put on this whole elaborate show? Not even Fen had these capabilities. My memory was shit, but I knew I’d never done anything to the wolf to label me a traitor.
Before Will checked his pulse, I already knew it was a lost cause. The human was dead—he had been before we’d arrived.
“At least we didn’t have to kill him ourselves,” Fen mused as we returned to Charlie’s apartment.
“Not funny,” Will said through gritted teeth.
“That wasn’t humor, human. That was a relief. Thank fuck.”
The detective turned lava-red, and Charlie gripped his arm to stop him from doing whatever he was thinking about. Fen needed to stop baiting him.
I couldn’t deal with their bickering. Bigger things were at work and we were nowhere near figuring it out.
I paced the room and could feel Charlie’s eyes on me. I knew what I needed to do and so did she. My gaze trailed over to her, her knowing stare making me groan.
She raised her brows in a knowing look. “You know what has to be done.”
That caught the guys’ attention and quieted the room. I pursed my lips. I wasn’t sure how Fen would take it if I told him. Will would have no clue, and we’d be here for hours just breaking it down.
“I’m going to see the Norns.”
“No. Hell no,” Fenrir said. “You do that and our deal is off.”
Will’s brows furrowed. “Norns?”
Charlie was nice enough to pull him to the side and explain who they were.
“Why the hell would you want to subject yourself to those witches?” Fen whispered angrily once Charlie and Will were out of earshot.
“Because they can help me … us.”
Fen shook his head. “They’ll know who you are, and those crones love to gossip. Are you prepared for that?”
“I’ve already gone to see them.”
“For fuck's sake!” He threw his hands up in the air. “What else haven’t you told me?”
“What haven’t you?” I countered.
His jaw ticked, but he kept quiet.
“It doesn’t matter. I couldn’t give them what they wanted.”
“So why the hell are you going?”
“I now have something to bargain with. A favor from a valkyrie is worth a lot, as you probably already know,” I said, narrowing my eyes.
Fen’s breath hitched, and I wasn’t sure if he was upset or shocked. I didn’t have the opportunity to ask because a loud tap on Charlie’s living room window drew our attention.
She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose as she and Will came toward us. “What was that?”
Another loud tap sounded.
“It’s something at your window,” I said. I walked to the window and drew back the curtains. The room fell silent as a raven pecked at the middle of the glass. Over and over, its beak hit the same spot as if trying to make a hole. Another raven flew behind it, waiting.
Hugin and Munin.
“Oh my gosh,” Charlie gasped. “Is that—”
“Yes.”
“It can’t be,” Fen whispered.
Tap tap tap. Tap tap tap. Tap tap tap.
On and on it went until finally, the raven fractured the window, making a small, bullet-sized hole in the middle of the glass with spider cracks shooting up from the center.
“Shit,” I muttered.
Hugin and Munin flew in front of the glass, observing our reactions. From where we stood, the cracks in the window resembled an eye.
“Odin is here?!” Fen shouted.
“Odin as in the Odin?” Will’s mouth hung open.
I ignored them. What did it all mean? I wanted to believe it was a message from my father. That he was looking out for me or was watching—which he was—but I needed more than that. I needed his help.
“It’s no longer safe for you,” Fen said as he gripped my arm, nearly dragging me out of the apartment. “We have to go. Now!”
I snatched my arm away. “I’m not going anywhere. I have nothing to fear from my father.”
“You should fear him! Do you see that?” he yelled, pointing to the window. “You’ve been marked! There is your answer, Raven. Your own father wants you dead!”
“Bullshit!”
He gave me a dry laugh. “Are you really that naïve? You might have once been his favorite, but daddy dearest no longer cares. Odin did the same thing when he sent my sister to the Underworld. He marked her, and now he’s doing the same to you.”
I let out a harsh laugh. It was almost hysterical. Fen was speaking nonsense. Of all the valkyries, I was the one Odin would protect. I kept repeating that to myself, and it was almost as if I were trying to make myself believe. Did I?
“I stayed on this shitty realm for him. He wouldn’t do that to me.”
“Odin is killing people and framing you!”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“Fine,” he relented. “Don’t believe me? Let’s see what the Norns have to say.”
17
Flashback
A blood-curdling scream ripped through the night air, stirring Kara and me awake. We’d been camped out not too far from the battlefield waiting for the battle to commence and had both dozed off for a little while.
“What was that?” I turned around. “It seems like it came from the opposite end of the battlefield.”
“You might be right,” she said.
We grabbed our things and headed east, away from the bloodshed. With a running head start, we shot up into the air. Our wings swung back and forth, the sound thundering in the night, and the faster they went, thicker slices of wind hit my face.
The humans had been at a standstill for hours, and we were the only ones who’d stayed behind to wait. I’d been bored until the scream. My skin had gooseflesh as I grinned in anticipation of what we would encounter. I wanted action tonight—I craved it.
“Down below.” Kara pointed to our right. She drew her white wings back and dove to the ground. I followed suit, and we landed on the ground with a loud thud not too far from where a girl knelt beside a body. Retracting our wings, we gave the mortals the ability to see us.
“What’s going on, girl?” Kara spoke roughly as she stomped around the clearing searching for any other souls possibly in hiding.
The girl, who couldn’t have been more than fifteen years old in human years, sobbed over the body. Her left hand was placed over the man’s face, the other on his stomach. She wailed into the night with so much melancholy, I thought she’d die right then and there. She peered up at me as I walked around to get a better look. Her pleading green eyes were like glass as tears glossed over them. Her bottom lip trembled, and I knelt opposite of her. There was something familiar about her I couldn’t place my finger on. Slowly, I retracted her hands and was stunned at what I saw.
The man had a rune carved on his abdomen that meant mortality and pain. His face was worse—one of his eyes was missing. The girl only watched my reaction.
“Kara!” I called to my sister. “What is this?”
My sister’s eyes widened for a moment before she composed herself.
“Mortals dabbling in things
they should not is what this is,” she said as she grabbed the girl by her forearm and hauled her up to a standing position. “Who is this man to you?”
The girl never stopped staring at me.
“My father,” she trembled. “They killed my father because of me. He wouldn’t give me up—”
“Enough,” Kara grunted.
“No!” the girl shrieked. “It was—”
The girl raised her free arm into the night sky before Kara took hold of her head and shoulders, snapping her neck. She crumpled to the ground beside her father.
“She was about to tell us something,” I said calmly, desensitized to Kara’s random killings.
“I’d said enough. Just like her father, she doesn’t know how to follow directions. It doesn’t matter anyway. It is not why we’re here.”
I raised a brow in question, but as the commander of the valkyries, she didn’t owe me an explanation.
The squawking of birds behind me caught my attention. On a tree branch stood Hugin and Munin, watching the whole interaction.
“Of course, you’re here.” I rolled my eyes. “You’re everywhere.”
“That is their job, Hrefna. You’d best remember your place.”
“Yes, sister.” I nodded stoically.
“Good,” she said. “Hugin, go tell Father what you saw.”
Hugin squawked before he flew away, leaving Munin with us.
“Are you sure this is humans meddling with things they shouldn’t?”
Kara’s face tightened as if I were the one now meddling in things I shouldn’t, which I shouldn’t, but something bothered me about this interaction. It didn’t feel like a random killing. That girl knew something. Either way, it was my job to know.
“I have no doubt. Stories of Norse gods are a favorite among men. Their imagination typically gets the best of them.”
That much was true. If Kara believed it was nonsense, it was. Just another death on the battlefield. I went to reach for the man and the girl’s souls, but my sister stopped me.
“Go on ahead. I’ll take these.”
The Last Valkyrie Series Complete Boxed Set Page 13
