“What are you—“
“Nothing she won’t recover from. Just a little disciplinary action.” Mark let go of Brit. “For everything she’s done to me. To you.”
She hasn’t done anything wrong to me. The protest stuck in Brit’s throat. Why couldn’t she say something? Why couldn’t she stand up for Kirby?
Brit describing her feelings about the situation was nothing compared to living them. Fear, disgust, and bile rose in Kirby’s throat, and she swallowed them back. Brit had betrayed Kirby. She knew it. She hated everything about it. She couldn’t stop the heavy blanket of remorse and self-loathing that wrapped around her. Binding her thoughts and limbs. Choking her until she wobbled on her feet.
“Are you all right, sir?” His name was Richard. He’d been in some of Brit’s classes when he was younger. Kirby had even trained him, but she didn’t remember his name. Brit did.
His question helped ground Kirby. “I’m good. It’s weird, being back. But good.” She needed to get it together now. One thing Brit was infinitely better at—hiding how she really felt.
They reached her room, and she thanked Richard, then closed herself off from the world. The apartment was barren of personal effects. There was furniture. A stack of bedding sat on the mattress in the bedroom. All of Brit’s stuff was gone.
Not that she’d had anything she cared about. She expected the mission when she gave her own location to Starkad to be her last here. She’d left things behind—photos, books, trinkets—but it had all been disposable.
Here in the silence, it was easy to let the past wash over her. So many feelings. She dropped onto the bed without making it, and bathed in emotion. She wasn’t supposed to be here.
Never again.
Kirby had told herself that about Brit.
Brit had told herself that about Mark.
He’d fucked Brit here. So many times. She hated him for it. Hated herself for not doing more to stop him. Hated everyone around her who saw, but let him assault her anyway, because maybe Brit would suffer enough to lose her ranking.
Looking back it was easy to see she could have done something. As she relived those moments, the fear that kept her paralyzed while he pounded inside her was still a potent copper tang on her tongue.
The knock that yanked her into the now was a welcome relief. She didn’t care who it was; it wasn’t Mark.
She opened the door. “Cyclops.” She used his call sign with the fakest of genuine-looking smiles. What the fuck was he doing here? He was another of the snipers. Like Brit, as inner circle as it got—one of Hel’s Nobles.
Hel had encouraged them to pick names for each other. During training, this guy had had a habit of hitting the target’s eye. Right eye, every time. It became his trademark shot, and the name Cyclops stuck fast
Kirby had never had a call sign. She led the pack, but she’d never been part of this group. Partly Hel’s doing, she assumed. And probably just as much her own.
Cyclops’ grin was as bright and cheery as Brit’s, and likely just as insincere. “Welcome back, Kitten. We missed you.”
Bullshit, they did. Brit was Kitten because one of the other women—Venus—had compared her to one after Brit pulled some dirty moves in a sparring match. Venus’s exact words had been, She only looks soft and fluffy. She’ll tear your throat out, just like a kitten.
“Same.” Brit meant it even less than Kirby expected. The only time Nobles were nice to her was when they needed something. Typically, they were happy to look the other way while she struggled.
“I relieved Richard. Figured you might want a friendly face standing watch, your first day home,” Cyclops said.
“Be careful with that. He’s Loki-assigned.”
Cyclops’s smirk grew. “So I hear. We only let Loki think we answer to him sometimes. And we won’t make a habit of this, but if you ever need some alone time, let us know.” He didn’t have to define us. He meant any member of the nobility.
“Thanks.” She wished she could believe they really had her back. That would make life here easier.
He waved a casual hand. “You’d do the same for us. Rumor is you came back. alone?” As in, without her partner.
“It’s true.”
“I’m glad. We all are.” He stepped back. “Get settled and we’ll all catch up in a few days.”
There wasn’t much for Kirby to do, as far as getting settled was concerned. Her dresser and closet had been stocked with the standard uniform, a few workout outfits, and the kind of plain white panties and bras that were super sexy to someone with the right fetish.
It all fit right and didn’t itch, so she wasn’t complaining.
The next morning, Kirby’s schedule was open. She wasn’t going to be assigned to any missions or a new partner. Even if they trusted her, there was no one to pair her with who sat at her skill level. She needed to get into Hel’s office again, but had to wait until she wasn’t being observed twenty-four-seven.
Her options to fill her days were working out, target practice, and reading. Books called Kirby’s name; she loved historical romance. Reliving those time periods of her past lives, even if they rarely got the details right.
Brit preferred older books. She’d devoured everything she found in the campus library that had to do with the gods. She even hit up the fantasy novels and comic books, looking for hints. She’d been searcing for ways to destroy the gods who made up the TOM board for a long time. Maybe she’d missed something, though. In the prophecies or somewhere.
The library would wait. Brit had a routine when she wasn’t prepping for a mission, and it was time to get back to it. Coffee in her room. Copious amounts of water. Shooting range by seven thirty—after the early risers, and before classes started. Brit didn’t mind putting on a show, which was what happened if she hit the range while younger students were there, but practice time was for practicing.
Kirby was good with a little more isolation. Nobility were the only people allowed to keep firearms in their rooms, but no ammo was allowed in living areas. Brit had lost her AUG on her last mission, but it would have been confiscated like everything else she returned with. She’d have to borrow a range gun.
She arrived to a blissfully empty outdoor range and checked out a Desert Eagle .40, an AUG, and two-hundred rounds for each. The scents of grass and gunpowder lingered in the air as she walked to a station. One of the few memories of this place Kirby didn’t mind.
She stepped up to the farthest lane from the entrance, and settled her things in the steel booth.
Kirby ran through two magazines of ammo with the forty as a warm-up. Casual shots, to test the weapon’s weight, recoil, and sights. It was definitely a range weapon, with a warn barrel that had to be aimed three degrees to the right and up five centimeters, to hit the target.
When she was comfortable with what this gun could do, she moved into speed trials. It had been too long since she timed herself. The results ought to be interesting. The exercise was simple—load two magazines, work through them in rapid fire, then reload both and repeat. The stopwatch in each lane was voice activated, so she’d call Start and Stop for each iteration.
Kirby finished the exercise once, and her time was faster than it had ever been. That wasn’t possible. She had kept up with her skills, but not like this. Four more times, and each time fell in the same Kirby’s Personal Record category.
But, of course it did. She was Brit, and Brit was a better gunman.
She was prepping to follow a similar routine with the AUG, when the range buzzer sounded to indicate someone else was entering the area. She stepped back from her booth to see an entire company of grunts streaming through the door. She should have had the field to herself for at least another half an hour. Time for Kirby to leave.
Min-as-Erek stepped into view. He was talking to and laughing with someone else. His gaze flicked over her with no recognition.
Their commander barked off spots for each of them to fall into, placing Min directly next
to her. This might not be a setup, but it sure felt like one, and if looked like a duck and quacked like a duck...
Brit would stay if a random company showed up. She didn’t care for the interruption, but finishing her regimen took priority.
Kirby stayed. As she got comfortable with her assault rifle, the sound of magazines clicking into place and gunshots ringing out said she wasn’t the only one.
She moved on to testing her speed. She was on the routine for the fourth time, when she realized all other gunfire had stopped. The stopwatch read off her time, and a chorus of surprise rippled through her new audience.
“And that, privates, is why the sergeant is nobility,” their commander called. “Maybe someday, with enough practice, one or two of you will be good enough to lick her boots.”
Kirby mentally rolled her eyes, but beaming warmth spread through her. She moved back to make eye contact with Commander Gary. “Unlikely.” Her tone was friendly. It was time to wrap this up. Sharing the field was okay. But her presence was distracting them, and she wasn’t here as an exhibition piece.
Next up—stretching, a full run around campus, a shower, and finally her first meal. She took the fruit, toast, and massive pile of scrambled eggs back to her room. Another perk of being nobility.
She settled into the chair next to her desk to eat. Her muscles were tired, but energy raced through her body and mind, carried on the comfort of knowing what each next step was in her day.
Library time. The words screamed in her skull like an alarm. If she didn’t go now, Mark—
Was gone. He wasn’t going to be knocking on her door. Barging his way in. Insisting they hang out to strengthen their bond as partners. None of that would happen ever again.
The impulse to leave now itched in her veins, despite her knowledge. It clawed at her throat and hammered in her ears, until she couldn’t focus on anything else.
“Library it is,” Kirby announced to the empty room. She’d wanted to go anyway.
The campus library was filled with an amazing collection. Fiction; non-fiction; one disguised as the other to an outside observer, including mythology, prophecy, and everything else religion- and spirituality-based TOM felt was appropriate to fill the shelves.
Rows and rows of wooden bookshelves lined the main floor, as well as the five above that. Private study rooms dotted the outside walls, and long wooden tables sat near the front desk.
The third from the doorway was Brit’s favorite. When she sat there, she gave off the appearance of a model soldier and student, and was always in public view. Mark had rarely approached her this way.
A knot formed in Kirby’s gut, from Brit being sucked into the memories, and from herself that Brit lived it. Kirby had hated Mark and the harassment, but he’d doubled down on Brit. It only got worse when Kirby was gone.
She started in the same place Brit always did. Religious History. In this library, that included glorified tales of Odin, Freya, and Thor—the backstabbing, egotistical asshole. If modern fiction writers had any idea who Thor really was, they’d relegate him to a worse villain role than they put Loki in.
Kirby grabbed three heavier books that Brit had been over several times, about gods who had died in the past. Brit was convinced there was something here, but she could never find it. However, where Brit was looking for information about destroying a god, Kirby wanted to know if any had been brought back. It would take time to read through all the material, and while she was on a tight timeline, she also wasn’t doing much else within it.
Odin’s death was covered in great and gloriously accurate detail—not a surprise, considering where she was. He’d been a willing blood sacrifice in Thor’s name, in a time of war. That wasn’t the kind of thing anyone was meant to come back from; it diminished the sacrifice.
Malsumis had been sealed away by Vidar, Hel, and others. She remained trapped. A footnote said her imprisonment might have driven her brother insane, but there was nothing else about the brother.
Neit, from the same pantheon as Gwydion, had died in the Second Battle of Moytura, and remained deceased. Kirby had known him in one of her early lives. He was fanatical about war, but nice enough when there wasn’t a battle raging.
Quetzalcoatl sacrificed himself with regret and shame, and never returned.
Balder was still dead, killed by mistletoe—a feat Loki was so proud of he’d named an entire organization after the plant. The Titans had never been freed from Tartarus. Prometheus was eternally bound. In fact, Loki was the only god she found in the pages who’d once been bound and was now free.
Over the next few days, Kirby easily fell into Brit’s old routine. The familiarity of it was calming, even with the overlying shadow of oppression that came from being here.
She didn’t find anything new in the books, though. Between Kirby’s experiences in her first life, and Brit’s existing knowledge, everything she consumed was old news. If she had time to read every book in this library, she might find something.
But if she didn’t figure out Hel’s plan soon, almost every person on this campus would die. Regardless of how Kirby felt about the place, her gut churned at the thought of that much loss of life for a god’s need to live.
Chapter Sixteen
Brit recognized that Min was good company. Appreciated his kindness despite the fact that he was her jailer. Was even starting to see him as a friend.
But she didn’t realize just how much she enjoyed finally having someone decent to spend time with, until he was gone.
Spending most of her time in her current room in Aeval’s castle was still a better situation than so many she’d been in. She’d been given a wide roaming range. She could walk to the workout room where she’d sparred with Kirby, and to the kitchen.
Gwydion brought her books on a regular basis—she wasn’t picky about content, as long as she could read something—but she went through those quickly, and he didn’t tend to stick around to make conversation.
Brit was lonely. She hated the silent, gnawing pit that grew inside, devouring her, when she had to spend days at a time by herself. TOM gave her so many skills, but they stole an important one from her—she didn’t know how to exist alone, with only her own thoughts for company.
The knock on her bedroom door was a relief. It would be Gwydion, and she’d appreciate the visit even if he only stayed for a few minutes.
She set aside a book she hadn’t been paying attention to anyway. “Come in.”
When Starkad stepped into the room, surprise jolted through her, mixed with equal parts excitement and fear. Something to do. He hadn’t hidden his disdain in her time here, and butting heads with him was a fascinatingly frustrating challenge.
He was dressed casually, in jeans and a T-shirt one size too big, to hide a gun nestled against his back. He was going out in public, and he wanted to blend in. As much as was possible for a modern-day Viking. “You up for a mission?” he asked.
She laughed. Had he grown a sense of humor overnight?
He raised an eyebrow.
“You’re serious?” She could get out of here for a little while? “Why?”
“Before he left, Min gave us everything Erek knew that had the most remote chance of being useful. We’re going after a book he overheard a Noble team talking about, and you may have insight.”
Of course. It was all about what she could do for him. Did she care about his motivation, if she got something positive out of it?
“And I figure even kittens need to get out sometimes.” His tone was flat.
The anger and hurt that surged through her at his use of her TOM call sign caught her off guard. Why had she shared that piece of information with him? “Don’t. Never call me that again.” She forced calm through her veins, one agonizing centimeter at a time.
“Noted. The offer stands. Are you interested?”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
“You don’t want details?”
Brit yanked on her shoes, and twisted her hair up
under a cap to hide the blond. “You’ll give them to me. We’ll talk as we walk.” Her loneliness was already sliding away. She could lock it in the back of her mind for a while.
“Wear something baggy. I have a jacket for you,” Starkad said.
In other words, Brit needed to hide who she was and would be carrying a weapon. She almost asked if he was serious a second time, but she didn’t want to give him a reason to change his mind.
She joined him in the hallway. “What do I need to know?”
“A seller in Spain has the book TOM is looking for. They have buyers coming to view it tomorrow. Assumption is, it’s a team. The bookseller is also a friend of Gwydion’s, so we get to look at the book today. We go in, we examine it, we get out.” Starkad led the way toward a part of the palace Brit hadn’t seen yet.
She got to do all sorts of new things today. The cloud that had settled on her mood was lifting. “But there’s a possibility it won’t go smoothly.”
“Always.” But he thought this risk was notable.
Enough to arm her? She knew it but didn’t quite believe it. Did this place have an armory? How wicked would that be—a faery palace with a room full of weapons? Non-iron weapons? An obsidian handgun hardly seemed practical, though it might be pretty. They probably had a lot of Glocks with titanium barrels and firing pins.
They rounded the next corner. Oh. It was the hallway leading to the conference room she’d seen when they first arrived. If this was the biggest disappointment today, she’d take it.
Gwydion was waiting in the room, a number of items on the table in front of him, including holsters, a pair of Glocks, and an oversized hoodie. He wore a suit. It might make him look tame, if it weren’t for the tattoos peeking up over the collar of his shirt. Kirby would love that look. Could Brit get tattoos on an immortal body? Obviously there was a way, if Starkad and Gwydion had them, and she still scarred.
Would she do that just to catch Kirby’s attention? Not just, but it would add weight to her decision.
Why was she even considering it? Kirby was done with her.
Valkyrie Concealed Page 11
