by Mina Carter
Herja was the strongest of us, tales of her life used to scare Valk-born girls. She was what we all aspired to be…ruthless, unbeatable in battle, beautiful… the epitome of Valkyrie womanhood. Looking into her face, with it’s even features and perfect skin, I couldn’t help turning my chin a little so the ruined half of mine fell into shadow. I wasn’t ashamed of my wounds, not really, but faced with her cold, perfect beauty… yeah, I have the same insecurities as any woman of any species.
“Want to tell me what you’ve been up to, Tove?” She pronounced my name evenly but I didn’t miss the glance toward my cheek.
Our names are Asgardian in origin, chosen to exemplify our best features. Herja means “devastate,” a well-fitting name she’d chosen for herself after a tragedy years ago, and she certainly lives up to it. She’d once famously left a swathe of destruction through Europe collecting souls for Valhalla…. Those world wars? Fucking gold dust to a soul collector.
My name was a different story. I’d petitioned to change it many, many times but the council had always denied permission. According to their infinite wisdom (aka, they were all dickheads), I deserved to live with it because my own stupidity had rendered it ironic and ill-fitting.
Because Tove? Yeah, it means beautiful, something that I most definitely am not. Not anymore. How’s that for fucking ironic?
I felt my expression tighten, and I lifted my chin. Standing here stark-bollock naked didn’t bother me one iota. Standing stark-bollock naked without a blade in my hand in the middle of a bunch of hardened killers? That bothered the ever loving crap out of me.
“What the hell are you doing here, Herja?”
I didn’t bother answering her question. First, it was bloody obvious what we’d been doing… and second, Herja hated any interspecies “fraternization” with a passion that rivalled the heat of a thousand fiery suns, so her question was a bait. Without making it obvious, I scanned my peripheral vision for Zane.
He was off to one side, slumped half naked between two of Herja’s she-goons. There was blood across his chest, but I wasn’t sure if it was his or belonged to one of the goons. Fear rolled down my spine but I fought it back.
At least he was still alive. That hadn’t been a given. Herja had a lady boner for tracking down and punishing any Valkyrie who got together with any man not Valk-born. A human she’d just about tolerate. Just. Unless she was in a mood. Then all bets were off. And she was in a foul mood most of the time. Generally, the Valkyrie got off with a heavy punishment, but her lover? I’d seen and done some nasty shit in my time, but the stories of what happened to them turned even my stomach.
The sight of Zane like that, unconscious and helpless, hit me deep in the center of my chest. I’d known him less than a day, but the thought of him gone, dead, broke something deep inside me. It was like my heart had been ripped right out of my chest to leave a great, ragged hole. It was the kind of feeling I’d heard those who’d lost their soul mates talk about… those who hadn’t gone mad anyway. But that didn’t make any sense. Zane wasn’t my soul mate. He couldn’t be. He was a vampire.
“I didn’t think I’d see the day when I had to check up on you, Tove.” Herja folded her arms, her expression filled with disgust as she looked at me. “Really? With a filthy vampire?” Her lip curled as she looked me up and down. “Mind you, with your… issues, he was probably the best you could get, but that’s no excuse. You know the law.”
“It’s not a fucking law,” I snapped back, giving the woman next to me the side-eye when she moved as if to grab me. She stopped, dead, worry in her eyes. I turned back to Herja. “It’s just you forcing your own prejudice on the rest of us. Before you took over, there were no issues with interspecies couples amongst the Valkyrie. Were there?”
I might not have been armed, but that didn’t mean I was helpless. And they all knew it. I wasn’t one of the thirteen council members but every one of them in the room knew my bloodline was impeccable… and powerful. My mother had been on the council, and her mother before her, as far back as our records went.
“It’s always been frowned upon.” Herja lifted her chin and glared at me. I was right and she fucking knew it. “We need to keep the bloodlines pure, not tainted with filth like this,” she spat in Zane’s direction.
“Pure?” I couldn’t help it. I laughed. But that’s always been my reaction to stressful situations and, unfortunately, authority (and the reason I’m not on the council). “How about fucking inbred?”
Her expression blanked for a moment and I knew I had her.
“Pure,” Herja hissed again, her eyes wide and more than a little crazy. “Never again will any of our women be forced to endure the touch of base creatures, to be rut upon and forced to bear filthy half-breed bastards. We are Odin’s warriors, divine and incorruptible… the Allfather will ensure our daughters are bred true.”
“Really?” I gaped at her in shock, my mouth running away with me again. I couldn’t help it, not with stupidity like that. “Do you even understand genetics?”
Her response was a snarl, which I took as a yes or that she didn’t care either way. Her next words struck ice and fear into my heart.
“We will remain pure, and those who break the law will pay.” Her gaze flicked to the slumped form of Zane, and the sheer hatred there took my breath away. “He will pay…”
Venom dripped from her voice as the sword slid from the sheath on her back with a rasping sound. Fear held me paralyzed for a moment as I realized that she really meant it. She was about to execute him right there in front of me. Her expression twisted into a rictus of fury, and with malice she stalked toward her prey.
Looking into her face, I realized this was about far more than Zane and me. There was something else going on here…something darker and more dangerous. Rage, fury, malice, resentment and frustration all rolled into one and hardened her expression as she lifted her blade. She wasn’t seeing Zane, that I was sure. Instead, she was somewhere else… seeing someone else.
Shit. My throat closed over, cold fear rolling up my spine. The last thing I needed was this situation getting all mixed up with some crazy vendetta of Herja’s. Whatever Zane was, whatever he’d done, I couldn’t let her do this. I couldn’t let her slaughter him in cold blood.
The psychopomp side of my nature demanded to know why not. I’m a collector of souls, and he was a dead creature… something that shouldn’t be suffered to live.
He’d felt plenty alive enough last night, the little voice in the back of my head argued, and deep down I knew it was true. He played a vampire well, excellently in fact, but he wasn’t one, not really. Whether he knew it or not, there was something else beneath the vamp mask that was vital and alive. The thought of him not being that way anymore… that wasn’t happening. I couldn’t let her kill the man I lo…oh shit, did I love him?
My world stopped dead as emotion burst through the center of my chest like a spear-strike to the heart. It was impossible but I did. I loved him… more than that, my soul resonated with his, with the soul he wasn’t supposed to have.
The soul that would be extinguished by Herja when she killed him and refused him entry to Valhalla as I knew she would. We’re not supposed to. Our place is not to judge souls but simply to shepherd them on to where they’re intended to be, but it’s possible to “lose” a soul. Unanchored to either this plane of existence or the next, it weakens and fades until there is nothing left.
Not. Fucking. Happening.
“Stop!” I threw as much compulsion in my voice as I could, enough to hold a host of Einherjar from Valhalla itself. Herja’s arm stopped in midair, the woman herself frozen as I stepped forward.
Shock reverberated through the room, a murmur going through all Herja’s goons as I held their leader, our leader, in thrall. I ignored them and stepped forward. Inside, the sensible part of my brain screamed blue murder, telling me I was a fucking idiot. Which I was. I’ve always maintained a low profile, shielding my abilities from the Waelcyrie, ou
r battle testers, so that no one was aware of the full extent.
In the cut throat world of Valkyrie politics, believe me, that’s wise. Too many good Valkyrie I knew had met their ends in back alleys somewhere against demons that shouldn’t be loose outside the prison of the third hell.
By stepping out of the shadows, revealing what I could really do, I was totally fucked and I knew it. But screw it. Someone had to stand up to Herja sometime. Although I knew I was dead for this—there were far too many of them here for me to take on alone—I had to do something. Someone had to draw the line against this madness, one that would doom our race into inbreeding and insanity, and it looked like that someone was going to be me. I was a dead Valkyrie walking now, but maybe, just maybe if I could make it all about me, Zane would make it out alive.
In for a penny, in for a fucking pound.
A moment’s concentration, a pull on the power of Valhalla, and I clad myself in armor, blades in my hands. I felt more than heard the whisper of shock that rolled around the room, and even Herja’s eyes widened, about the only body part she could move locked into rictus as she was.
“Stalemate,” I said quietly, stepping up to the woman. I didn’t touch her. Her power was only just contained by my compulsion so anything would break the spell. I figured I only had a short while to get to her before all hell broke loose.
“This isn’t right, Herja, and you know it. End this madness,” I pleaded. “Whoever you think he is, he isn’t… whatever this is about, don’t let the past dictate your future.”
It didn’t work. I knew it wouldn’t as soon as the words left my lips. Her eyes were cold and hard. Too late I realized that they were also calculating. Why I didn’t think and realize that Herja was a sneaky-ass bitch, I didn’t know but… I didn’t. I should have known that she’d have a backup plan. I should have known that I hadn’t escaped the notice of the Waelcyrie and that she’d planned accordingly before facing me.
I’d already started to turn as the pop-pop-pop of transport spells sounded behind me. Fuckers had been hiding, waiting for the right moment to drop in, and the last thing I saw was an armored fist heading for my face.
Then there was nothing but the inky blackness of unconsciousness.
Chapter 5
Valkyries en-masse were way more powerful than Zane had expected. They’d dropped into his bedroom without so much as a by your leave, hit him with some kind of freeze spell and yanked them both from the bed.
Slumped between two of the she-bitches, he had no control over his body but he could hear everything. Everything.
Including Tove pleading with some delusional bitch about laws he didn’t understand. To be fair though, he didn’t care about their crazy ass rules. All he cared about was getting free of this gods-damned spell, handing them their leather-clad asses on a plate, and then saving his woman.
The spell held him motionless but his snort was loud and clear in his head. Him, acting the hero, the full on white knight rescuing the damsel in distress routine. Only he was no goody-two-shoes hero and he was fairly sure if he described Tove as a damsel in distress she’d gut him.
But still, she was his… His to protect and love.
Love.
The word took him by surprise for a second but just as instantly, he accepted it. Vampires didn’t have soul mates, but he wasn’t just any vampire. He wasn’t just a vampire. So why shouldn’t he have a soul mate. One he needed to protect from this nest of vipers.
Being surrounded by them was odd. In his capacity as earl of the city’s vampires, he’d been around pretty much every type of paranormal there was. From shifters, through pixies, right the way up to Sidhe from the Unseelie court (once, and it had scared the ever-loving crap out of him), he’d seen them all, but none of them had given him the same weird, shivery feeling over his skin that the Valkyries did.
No, not weird. It wasn’t an odd or uncomfortable feeling. Instead, it was a familiar one and, as they spoke, there was an echo to their words. Crap, they must have hit him hard if his ears were ringing like that. He tried to shake his head to clear it, but whatever spell they’d used still held him fast.
“This isn’t right, Herja, and you know it. End this madness,” Tove pleaded. Her voice was low, but he could hear the fear in it. How, he didn’t know. He shouldn’t have been able to tell… not after the less than twelve hours they’d known each other, but he did. “Whoever you think he is, he isn’t… whatever this is about, don’t let the past dictate your future.”
There was silence, and he cursed his confinement. Dangerous tension built in the room. A tension that spoke of bloody and brutal violence, one that said he and Tove were going to die tonight.
He swore in his head, railing against the fact he couldn’t do anything but hang there, useless, as his woman pleaded for his worthless life. If he could have spoken, he’d have told her not to bother. He was happy to give up his life provided she could escape.
Pop-pop-pop.
The rapid fire sounds and the pressure in his ears was the same that had roused him from sleep a second before he’d been hit with magic. More of them had arrived. He heard Tove turn and gasp and then the meaty smack of skin on skin and a thud as though a body had hit the ground.
“Thank Odin for that,” the one Tove had called Herja snapped, obviously released from whatever spell Tove had hit her with. “I thought she’d never stop talking. Stupid bitch has no idea what’s good for her.”
“What should we do with her, council leader?” a new voice asked, one so laden with obedience, he had no doubt that if asked later she’d have seen nothing without checking with her leader.
“Shackle her up and transport her down to the second level.”
He felt more than heard the horror emanating from the women around him. The one holding his left arm murmured, “But council leader… the second level is for hardened crimina—”
“SILENCE!” Herja bellowed, her voice high and almost hysterical. “I will not be questioned, by her or anyone. Do I make myself clear? Or would you like to join Tove down on the second level?”
She chuckled cruelly. “Perhaps the masters down there will take note of what that changeling demon did to her face and make sure both sides match. Then not even filth like this will look at her without being sick.”
Rage hit Zane hard and fast. The fact that the woman could stand there and laugh about another’s misfortune sickened him to his stomach. Vampires were cruel, but as beautiful as their dead forms were, they never laughed about disfigurement. Yes, they might use torture…they might rip their victims’ throats out…but disfigurement was something they wouldn’t entertain.
Pressing his eyes shut, he formed the rage within him, shaping and channeling it in the same way an explosives expert shaped a charge. He built and fed it, a process that took a matter of seconds.
White-hot and incandescent, he’d always held his anger in check. Especially after three incidents in his childhood had left vampires of his father’s court worse than dead. His rage had twisted their bodies with pain, locking them inside frozen forms as they screamed. They’d tried staking, burning, decapitation… anything and everything that would kill a vampire… nothing worked. They just kept screaming. Always screaming.
With the sound of those screams in his head, he released his temper. It burst from him like a reactor core going critical, blazing through him to burn the spell they’d used from his body.
“What should we do with him?” The question came from one of the Valkyrie farther back in the room. Most hadn’t spoken but it made no difference to him. He wasn’t an earl for nothing. Every breath they took, every beat of their hearts was like a billboard announcement, and not one of them would escape his wrath.
Not. One.
“Oh, don’t worry.” Herja’s heels tapped on the wooden floor as she approached. “I’ll deal with him.”
The air moved, the surge of blood telling him she’d drawn her arm back to deliver the killing blow. With a snarl,
he exploded into movement, shaking his two captors off like a dog would water from its coat, and surging forward.
He had a brief glimpse of a classically beautiful face, eyes wide with surprise, before his clawed hand wrapped around her throat.
“Deal with me?” he snarled. “Pray tell me, how do you plan on doing that?”
A rush of blood to one side made him snap his head up. He met the gaze of a Valkyrie trying to sneak up on him.
“Don’t,” he warned softly, his tone low and dangerous. No glamour in it, he didn’t need it, just the implicit threat that he would tear their leader’s throat out there and then. Which he would. His claws itched to rip through the skin, and his fangs ached where they were hidden in his gums. He transferred his attention back to Herja.
“Now… I wonder what would happen if I killed a Valkyrie,” he mused, his voice so low and soft it would have had half his court running for cover.
Tilting his head, he studied her expression, which was stuck somewhere between anger and frustration. “Would one of these lovely ladies here collect your soul and take it to Valhalla? Or don’t you guys go there?”
Her sudden paleness and the terror that flared in her eyes gave him his answer. “Oh my, you wouldn’t, would you?”
Yanking her forward, he brought her nose to nose with him and looked deeply into her eyes. He pushed at her mental barriers with abilities not precisely vampire but not anything else either—something somewhere between the two.
“You’ve broken all the rules, haven’t you, Herja? You don’t deserve heaven or Valhalla or whatever you call it, and you know it. Don’t you?”
“Filthy creature!” She got it together enough to spit, right in his face.
With a sigh, he reached up and wiped the spittle from his face. “Now, that’s just not nice, and as your host, I feel I must insist on courtesy.”
“Fuck you!” Her face had gone purple, destroying any illusion of cool beauty. An appearance that was a mask, hiding the twisted ugliness of her heart and soul.
