For some reason, Luke felt embarrassment. “It was just a hunt.” What more he should have been doing, he couldn’t say, but now that they were back in the hall it seemed a frivolous way to spend his days. The occasional hunt, of course, why not? But to do it day after day...what was the purpose?
He felt a strong sense of discontent, and more—the feeling that something vital was very near...just beyond his grasp.
Val frowned. “Are you displeased, my lord?”
“Displeased?” He laughed shortly. “How can I be displeased?”
“Perhaps the mead is not so sweet tonight?”
The mead came from the goat Heiðrún, who feasted every day on the branches of the tree Læraðr. It was not possible to be less than heavenly.
“The mead is very fine,” he said.
“Is the meat not to your liking?”
The meat came every night from the eternal beast Sæhrímnir. It was not possible for it to be less than perfect.
“The meat is delicious as always,” he told her, though as he said it a strange thought ran through his head: But I’d kill for a double cheeseburger.
He had not the slightest idea what that meant.
Val had a look on her face that he recognized: half hurt, half scheming. “Then perhaps it is me you find lacking.”
Luke knew better than to go there, and besides, she didn’t mean it in the slightest. Suddenly he was itching to be alone. No, not alone, exactly, but...oh, hell, he didn’t know. But there was no point in talking to Val about it. He played with a loose strand of her hair. “Now you jest. You are the most desirable woman in the world.”
It was so easy; she immediately smiled, and preened under his hands. He kissed her fingers, and then said, “Perhaps you are right—the mead seems off tonight. Is there another batch in the kitchen?”
The Valkyries took orders from no one, but they took great pride in their table service.
“As you wish,” Val said haughtily. “I will return.” She snatched up his tankard before she stalked away toward the kitchen.
Luke sat back, sighing. He’d pay for that later, he was sure, but at least he had a moment now to just...well, he didn’t want to do anything in particular. He felt very far removed from the revelry around him, in a different world, even.
And there was again that nagging sense of something important just beyond his reach...something vital...
He felt movement behind him and smelled the lightest, sweetest scent, like honey.
Honey...
He turned, and saw a Valkyrie standing behind him, a lovely creature with creamy skin and fiery red-gold hair. She was in breastplate and skirts like the others, but there was something different about her. She stood looking at him almost shyly—and that was a first big clue; shy was not a word he generally associated with Valkyries. He had the strangest feeling that...
That what?
She lifted the chalice in her hand and said, “I saw you had no drink.”
Instead of telling her that he was being taken care of, he reached and took the heavy chalice. His fingers brushed hers and he felt a thrill through his entire body. “Thank you.” He lifted the cup and drank and somehow the mead was sweeter than it had ever been.
He lowered the cup and looked at her. “I haven’t seen you before,” he said, which may or may not have been true; he rarely differentiated between the Valkyries and had also learned it was not wise to spend any time looking, anyway, given Val’s temper.
She blushed, a strangely familiar sight that for some reason stirred him. “You’re always occupied,” she said.
He laughed. “That’s one word for it.” He didn’t regret the time he spent with Val, how could any red-blooded man? But suddenly he felt that he had been missing out, perhaps, or maybe something even beyond that.
“Are you new to the hall?” he asked. He couldn’t believe he wouldn’t have noticed her as she stood out so completely from the other Valkyries.
“I... Yes.” She looked at the floor.
Things were always so exactly the same in the hall that it took Luke a minute to recall how Valkyries came to be. Then he remembered that some of the Valkyries, like Val, were Eternals, and others were like the Einherjar: strong women who had died gloriously and were chosen by Odin as his female warriors.
“So...you died recently,” he said, and the thought of it was sad.
She bit her lip. “It felt like it,” she admitted, and she looked at him with such sadness that he felt a stab of pain.
* * *
Aurora couldn’t stop looking at him; she felt she hadn’t seen him in forever. Which was actually fairly true. It had technically been less than a day, but every day in Valhalla was an eon in earth time. That’s why the warriors forgot their earthly existence so quickly and completely. Their own day together might as well not have existed.
And yet, he was looking at her as if...
Her heart beat faster.
“You don’t look like a Valkyrie,” he said.
She glanced around her nervously. “I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it.”
“Why don’t you not get the hang of it?” he said abruptly.
She looked taken aback. “I don’t understand.”
He spoke urgently, as if they might be interrupted at any time. “What I mean is, don’t be like the others. There’s no reason to change.”
Aurora’s heart was racing. Luke was looking at her now in that way that he had, that made her feel that she really was a goddess of time and space.
“I have seen you before,” he said slowly. “I know you.”
They looked at each other in the light from the fire and the glimmering suspended swords, and it was as if they were alone, suspended in time...
Yes, Aurora thought, prayed...
And then she saw a too-familiar figure pushing through the crowd, a look of sheer fury blazing on her face.
Val.
“I...I have to go,” Aurora stammered to Luke.
He caught her hand as she turned to go, and there was a shock of electricity between them. “Please don’t.”
She could see he was about to say more but Val was almost on them and Aurora knew she couldn’t stay.
“The moon path,” she whispered to Luke, and turned into the crowd and fled.
* * *
Luke stared after her a stunned beat and then started to go after her...only to be seized from behind.
He turned to see what was holding him and saw Val, drawn up to her full height. “What the hell were you doing with her?” she raged at him.
“We were talking,” he said mildly. Even for Val, this was a bit over the top. “Is there something wrong with that?”
Val stared at him. “It depends,” she said, backing off slightly, but narrowing her eyes. “What was she doing here?”
Luke looked back at her, perplexed. “She’s a Valkyrie. A new one. You would know better than I would.”
Val opened her mouth, but shut it again, apparently thinking better of what she had been about to say. Luke knew that look. She was hiding something, but for the life of him he couldn’t understand how it mattered.
Or does it? he suddenly wondered. Does Val know something I don’t?
Val’s face changed completely then; she looked charming and winning again.
“Oh, well, the new ones,” she said dismissively. “They don’t understand that there are rules.”
“So you don’t know her?” Luke asked, trying to make the question sound as innocent as he could make it.
“There was a whole slew of them that arrived yesterday.” Val tossed her gleaming black hair back over her shoulders. “I’m not surprised they’re out poaching.”
She reached for his hand and put the cup she was holding into his palm, closing his fingers around it. “The first cup of the new batch. I hope it pleases you.”
She had gone to some trouble, and Luke felt a twinge of guilt. He lifted the cup to his lips and took a swallow.
&nb
sp; It was, of course, excellent. Ambrosial, even.
He lowered the cup and looked down at Val. She was looking so hopeful...
“Perfect,” he assured her.
“Anything for you, my lord,” she said demurely, a total act, which nonetheless aroused him.
* * *
Aurora ran through the halls emblazoned with shields and out through one of the sets of golden doors.
To be out of the hall was a relief; to be away from Luke was agony.
She ran down the stairs and into the field...then stopped still, her breath catching in her throat. Luke was there, standing under the tree, waiting for her under the moon.
Then she recognized Loki, still in Luke form. She almost burst into tears right then; it was just too much to bear.
“Oh, Loki, please stop. Stop,” she said, and hated that her voice trembled.
He spread his hands. “I’m sorry, sweet. I tried to detain her. She caught on to me somehow.”
He patted his arms, his chest. “And I thought it was a great likeness, myself.”
“Can you just...please take that off?”
He gave her a martyred look. “If you insist.” And just that fast, he was himself again—wiry, manic, impetuous and thoroughly exasperating. But at least she didn’t have the ache of looking at Luke and knowing she couldn’t have him.
“I take it things didn’t go so well,” he said unhelpfully.
Hadn’t it? Not the way she was feeling. But...there had been a moment that Luke had looked at her as if he almost remembered. Her heart beat faster, thinking about it.
I need more time, she thought urgently. I just need more time. She tried to ignore the fact that she had been saying that same thing for days now, or centuries, in Wyrd time.
“I held Val up for you,” Loki said. “For all the thanks I got.”
“You held Val up?” Aurora repeated dully. “Like that?”
“No, actually, I changed the plan at the last minute. As Balder,” Loki said, naming a god who was one of Odin and Frigg’s sons, Frigg’s favorite.
For a moment Aurora forgot her own troubles as she stared at him. “You glamoured as Balder?” Impersonating a god was a serious offense; she couldn’t even imagine what Odin would do to Loki if he or one of the others ever caught him at it. “What if you’d been caught?”
Loki grinned, preening a little. “But it’s so much fun, especially playing Mr. Perfection as not so perfect. Besides, I think Val’s always had a thing for him.”
Aurora wrenched her mind off Loki’s hijinks and back to her own dilemma. “That’s exactly what’s wrong here.” She paced in agitation. “Val doesn’t love Luke—she’s distracted by any god or man who crosses her path.”
Loki held up his hands. “You don’t have to tell me, love. A few more minutes and she would have been all over me. Er, Balder.”
Aurora looked at him with sudden hope. “Could you do it again?”
* * *
In the hall, Luke looked around at the tables full of his brother warriors, now tanked to the gills, singing, laughing, chasing Valkyries. A normal night in the hall.
“You just don’t seem here tonight,” Val complained. “You’re not still thinking of that greenhorn, are you?”
“Not at all,” Luke said instantly. “I was recalling the hunt.”
But inside he was racking his brain. What had the Valkyrie who was not a Valkyrie said? The moon path.
Now why did that sound so familiar?
A memory tugged at him, then danced just out of reach—silvery moon shining on long flowing hair...
Damn it. He couldn’t remember, but he was sure that he knew the other Valkyrie.
The moon path, he thought again.
There would be a moon tonight.
He had to get outside.
Val shook him, exasperated. “Where are you?”
“Thinking,” he said, and he suddenly closed his hands around Val’s waist and looked into her eyes, then ran his thumb along the lovely line of her jaw. He leaned in to speak low into her ear. “Why don’t you find a couple more pitchers of mead and meet me in my rooms?”
Val pulled back on his lap and looked sharply into his face. He stared back at her with a smile curving his mouth, and apparently she was satisfied, because she kissed him hard, then stood, straddling him, her perfect breasts exactly at his eye level.
“As you will, my lord.”
Luke watched Val slink through the revelers, and despite the abundance of Valkyrie beauties in the throng, she still caused male heads to swivel in her wake.
Not this time, he told himself. I’m going to find her.
Luke walked out of the noise of the great feast hall, out of the imposing halls of Valhalla, into the surreal loveliness of Asgard at night: the gold-glowing tree of Glasir, the flower-fragrant fields beyond leading to the cliffs that surveyed the vast sea between the worlds.
The moon was climbing, high and full, and it did cast a path—a clear, luminous, guiding path. Luke felt an excitement and impatience, the feeling of adventure.
Even...destiny.
He didn’t know where he was going; he was just following the moon. The air was cool and sweet, constantly moving with a teasing breath.
He wasn’t walking, wasn’t running, but striding, impatient, and yet sure.
He reached the edge of the cliff...and stopped, looking out at the great sea of Asgard, phosphorescent under the blue-white moonbeams. There was nowhere left to go but to step out onto the light of the moon, shimmering above the water.
But he was alone.
He looked around him, letting his heart rate slow. Disappointment crashed in on his thoughts. He had been so sure...so sure.
And then there was the lightest step behind him, a caught breath.
He turned, and she was there.
No longer in warrior garb, she wore a simple white tunic that flowed over her body, leaving her arms and shoulders bare. Her gold-red hair rippled down her back like fiery water, the same molten color as the leaves of Glasir.
“You’re no Valkyrie,” he said huskily.
“Well...no,” she admitted. “Is that bad?”
“Oh, no. That is so, so good,” he said, and stepped toward her. “I do know you, don’t I?”
She looked up into his face, her eyes clear and shining in the moonlight. “Do you?” And it seemed to him she held her breath.
“I’m not sure I even know who I am,” he admitted, and it felt like he might be telling the truth for the first time in...ages, at least, if not his whole existence.
“Maybe you can remind me. Let’s see,” he said, and stepped toward her, and circled her in his arms.
He felt her in his very blood as he pulled her against him—the softness of her skin, the fragrance of her silky hair.
He bent to kiss her and the touch of her mouth was like fire and honey at once, and he felt himself harden and shiver and burn all at the same time.
And as Luke tasted her lips he remembered. He remembered her standing at his bedside, promising to take care of him. He remembered her crouched over him in the fog on the pier as he lay bleeding, vowing that she wouldn’t let him die.
As the kiss deepened and their bodies entwined, he remembered her sitting close to him in the library and his hormones rushing like a tidal wave as he leaned over her and kissed her and knew it was her first-ever kiss. He remembered tasting her mouth again with the scent of roses all around him and feeling that he’d met his destiny.
As their bodies melded into each other and she opened herself to him, he remembered making love with her in the lodge with the shadows of the sequoias outside. He remembered that she knew him better than anyone. He remembered feeling certain that she cherished every thought, every idea, every happiness and every sorrow, every inch of his body and every atom of his being.
He remembered feeling loved like never before and never again, and he responded, not just with his body and his manhood, but his whole heart and soul.
He kissed her, and his hands couldn’t get enough of her—the silk of her cheek, the trembling of her throat as he kissed her there, the celestial softness of her breasts as he cupped them in his hands and felt her desire.
They stood shaking in each other’s arms, bathed in the moonlight, and Luke stroked the curve of her hip and her back. “I can’t believe I didn’t remember.”
“You weren’t supposed to remember,” she said softly. “No one wants anyone to remember.”
“I died,” he said.
“Yes.” She had tears in her eyes.
“But I had so much more to do,” he said, feeling dazed. He looked at her. “We had so much more to do.”
“Yes,” she said, and touched his lips with her fingers. He bent over her and kissed her, exulting in the feel of her body rising to meet his.
When he finally drew back he looked down at her, into her eyes. “I’m not going to let you go again.”
She said nothing, and he frowned. “What is it?”
“I can’t stay,” she said. “I’m not dead, but I’m no longer Eternal. I will have to return to Midgard, to earth.”
“Then I’ll go back with you. This is no life, to just do nothing but revel all day, hunt and drink and carouse. There’s serious work to be done on earth—bad guys to catch, arms dealers to put away, plots to foil. We’ll just go back.”
She looked away, and he shook her gently. “What?”
“It’s not like that. Mortals don’t go back and forth.”
“Then someone’s just going to have to make an exception,” he said with such conviction that she laughed. He bent and kissed her again, then they stood for a minute, in each other’s arms, looking out on the moon over the shimmering sea.
“Our moon,” he said, and she smiled at him, her heart full.
Then they turned from the cliff...
And found themselves facing Val and a whole line of warriors.
Val stared at Aurora, and her face was lethal. “Odin commands your presence,” she said softly.
Chapter 21
It was a whole different and dreadful feeling, being escorted into the hall by a brace of warriors. The shields on the walls and on the ceiling, the suspended swords, all now seemed ominous. Aurora tried to tell herself that it was just one more hurdle they had to get past; at every single turn they had managed against the odds—this was just one more thing to do...
Goddess of Fate Page 18
