Valkyrie's Call

by Michelle Manus

  “You could try,” he snarled. “You’d never manage it. You’d never find Elijah without me.”

  She shrugged, to all appearances unconcerned. “Want to find out?”

  “How is it going?” Mia asked. She was five feet three inches of curvy, bubbly excitement, and Random was not entirely sure they were far enough away from his table that Kyrie wouldn’t feel the waves of enthusiasm radiating off the woman.

  “You mean how was it going before I left my date at the whim of another woman?”

  Mia rolled her eyes. “You’re avoiding the question.”

  “It’s going just fine.”

  “That was convincing. You don’t sound happy. You don’t look happy. Why aren’t you happy? I have it on good authority you were making out in the parking lot—speaking of, what are you, sixteen all of a sudden?—and you were holding hands, so what’s the problem?”

  “The only problem is the length of time I have been gone from my date.”

  Mia crossed her arms. “This isn’t one of those hetero male things where you finally secure the affections of your beloved and then decide you don’t want her anymore, is it?”

  “Of course I still want her.” A little too much. “But I am fairly positive she doesn’t want me.”

  “She ordered for you, didn’t she? Accurately, I’m told.”

  “It’s hardly a sign of true love that she can pick a menu item for me and goddess, woman, do you have that poor server reporting our every interaction back to you?”

  “Poor nothing. Liam is well-paid and—”

  “Walking toward us like his ass is on fire?” Random suggested.

  Liam came to a breathless halt in front of them. His eyes darted between Mia and Random, as if unsure which of them to address. He eventually settled on the space between them. “There’s someone here.”

  A vague feeling of unease crept up Random’s spine, even as Mia said, “You’re going to have to be more specific than that, Liam.”

  “At the table. With Ms. Winters.”

  Random was already moving when he felt Valkyrie’s Aspect punch the air. It roiled through the restaurant like a dark cloud, a swift-moving storm of her fury. He rounded the corner to the aisle that led to their table, and the cold violence in her eyes told him precisely who sat across from her.

  Her gaze flicked to him for less than a second, but he read the message in it loud and clear: Back off, I’ve got it handled.

  He couldn’t back off. Not even for her. Because it was her. His Aspect sensed a threat to her and surfaced with a vengeance, a tidal wave spurred by the winds of her anger. His need to protect her was instinctual, undeniable.

  The restaurant’s windows rattled in their frames, as if set in motion by the beginning tremors of an earthquake. He heard hairline cracks etch through the glass, had no doubt the windows would have shattered if Kyrie’s Aspect hadn’t streaked forward and wrapped around him.

  Her power slid over his skin, strong as steel and soft as spider silk, more heady than any wine. That touch alone might have been enough to bring him down, to dim the red haze in his vision long enough for him to accept that she didn’t want his help. But she didn’t stop there.

  Her Aspect found his own and brushed against it, a tentative question and an offer. He couldn’t have rejected her even if he’d wanted to. His Aspect opened to her completely, invited her in, and she came. Their power twined together, merged, until he couldn’t tell where his ended and hers began.

  Disbelief coursed through him. Blending like this was personal, intimate. Like opening up the darkest parts of your soul to another and asking them to accept you. This was something lovers did. True lovers, partners who trusted each other implicitly.

  She wound against him like a caress and he felt what she wanted from him in that connection: Calm, her power whispered. Don’t give him anything.

  He couldn’t be calm. But he could give her the veneer of it, if that was what she wanted. He straightened his tie, slipped his hands into his pockets, and walked to stand next to her.

  The face Danvers wore was much younger and handsomer than the one he’d chosen the previous evening, and Random could guess how this altercation would be taken as it made Seclusion’s gossip rounds.

  “You’re in my seat,” Random said. His tone was mild, but his power thrummed along beneath it, twined with Valkyrie’s.

  Danvers leaned back in the chair. “Am I? One could argue it was mine, first.”

  “It was never yours, and it never will be. You should leave. If I lose my temper, I can’t guarantee you’ll make it out in one piece. If she loses hers, I assure you that you won’t.”

  Random had lost track of Mia when he’d made for the table, but she appeared now, two burly individuals behind her. StellaMia’s wasn’t a club, so they didn’t have bouncers, but Mia had found the nearest available approximation.

  “You don’t have a reservation,” she told Danvers, her voice brittle. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

  Danvers smiled. “I see my welcome has worn out. I look forward to calling your bluff, Valkyrie.” He stood and looked at Random, his mouth curling up in a sneer. “Tremayne. I dislike it when people borrow my property without asking. You’d be wise to rid yourself of it.”

  The words were so detached that Random didn’t understand what—who—Danvers had meant by “property” until the man was halfway to the door. And though it was undoubtedly the reaction he’d counted on, Random couldn’t stop the anger that fueled his response.

  His Aspect detonated.

  11

  Valkyrie felt for all the places where her and Random’s Aspects connected and clamped down. What had promised to be a truly spectacular—and spectacularly stupid—retaliation simply...dissipated.

  It startled her so much she almost dropped the connection. She’d been prepared to throw her strongest shields around him, but it was as if his Aspect had recognized it would have to go through hers, and wasn’t willing to do it. He was still furious, his power simmering just below a boil, but he was contained.

  Only the thinnest sliver of his power escaped, and DuPont’s muffled curse a moment later told her well enough where it had gone. The top of DuPont’s wine glass was cracked, and the jagged edge at the rim had cut his lip. The small wound bled more profusely than one might expect, and he had the restaurant’s fancy cloth napkin pressed to the wound.

  The woman who had told Danvers to leave rushed over to DuPont’s table, and he spoke irately at her while she removed the offending wine glass and made apologies.

  “Stella or Mia?” Valkyrie asked Random.

  “Mia.” He bit the two syllables off. He hadn’t moved from his place next to her chair. His face was bloodless, his lips pressed into a thin line.

  Valkyrie had been told before, and often, that her rage was a suffocating force. She had an inkling of what that felt like now, sitting next to Random. It was as if she lay in the shadow of a mountain, waiting to see if it would topple over onto her. She understood, suddenly, why people fled when they saw her coming. Why Jace, and Random, and Meredith had been the only people who could stand to be near her when her temper rose.

  Because if she didn’t know that Random would never take his anger out on her, every hackle in her body would be standing on end. As it was, it was still uncomfortable, and she didn’t know if her need to reduce his tension was because of that feeling, or because of her Aspect still tangled up with his.

  But because of the latter, she understood what would ease it. Random responded best to physical touch. He was not, she thought bitterly, a creature made to be alone. Not like her.

  She took his hand. His fingers threaded reflexively through her own, and his tension eased a fraction. He shook himself, like she’d woken him from a trance, and shifted to look at her.

  “Perhaps now would be the time to leave?” Her gaze flicked pointedly to where Mia was leaving DuPont’s table, broken wine glass and bloodied napkin in hand.

&n
bsp; “I’ll make our excuses to Mia,” he said smoothly, but his fingers tightened on hers. “I think it would be best if you didn’t let me go, just yet.”

  She understood he wasn’t talking about his hand.

  “I won’t.”

  As he dropped her hand and walked after Mia, she let her Aspect curl a little more snugly around his. Because she wanted to. Because she could. Because, for the moment, he had accepted her, and she wanted to memorize the feeling.

  Even if she took care of Danvers and Elijah, even if she found freedom, she knew she would never do this with another person again. Would never be this close, this connected, to anyone else.

  She still couldn’t believe Random had let her do it, but he’d taken her in as easily as he’d allowed her power to join with his property wards that morning. As if she belonged with him.

  She’d done it because she’d needed the reassurance that she could stop precisely what she had: Danvers taunting Random into a reaction that would get him killed.

  She hadn’t expected to like it so much. She hadn’t expected him to ask her to keep doing it, for any reason.

  She didn’t know how she was going to let him go.

  There was no good way to explain to Mia what had happened, so Random didn’t try. He made his apologies for bringing an unpleasant situation into her establishment, filched Dupont’s bloodied napkin from the trash, and tried to remember that DuPont’s blood was the actual reason they’d come here in the first place.

  Mission accomplished. He should be happy.

  He was furious. Kyrie’s power stroking alongside his own was all keeping him in check. It was the only thing that had stopped him from going off the proverbial deep end earlier, and he was grateful for it, since even he would have a difficult time explaining to the head of the Council why he’d thrown all his Aspect around in public in what would, to the casual observer, look like nothing more than a pissing match between two men over a woman.

  Fortunately, Valkyrie had locked him down tightly enough that no one but her would have felt how close he’d come to losing it. They’d have felt her power, but people expected public threats from Valkyrie—no one would think she’d have actually done something with that power in public.

  She stood when she caught sight of him, a question in her eyes. He answered with a nod. As they walked out, the too-interested gazes of Seclusion’s elite upon them, he slid his arm around her waist. He needed to feel her—safe and warm and alive beneath his touch, and no one’s property but her own—and once they were out of the public view he wouldn’t have an excuse, wouldn’t have her permission, to touch her anymore.

  They reached the car too soon. Neither spoke as he saw her safely into the passenger side before taking his own place behind the wheel. He didn’t ordinarily break the speed limit but he did so now, taking the curves of Seclusion’s back roads at highly inadvisable speeds.

  They were halfway back to his house before she asked. “Did you get it?”

  He reached into his blazer pocket and pulled out the damn napkin, placed in the plastic Ziploc bag he’d conveniently found in the trash next to it. He didn’t quite throw it at her, but it was close. A touch more force and he couldn’t have passed it off as a toss.

  She caught it, stared at it, didn’t say anything. Not that he could blame her.

  He pulled into the garage, turned the car off and stared at the steering wheel, hoping it would impart some calm or wisdom to him he couldn’t otherwise seem to find.

  “Are you okay?” she finally asked.

  “He called you his fucking property.”

  “I’m aware.”

  “You’re not a thing, Kyrie.”

  “Also aware,” she said softly.

  “Does he know?” He turned to look at her. “Tell me he doesn’t. Tell me he doesn’t know you’re his daughter. That he didn’t sit there and treat his own child like that.”

  “I can’t tell you that, Random.”

  “The son of a bitch deserves to die.”

  “Yes, he does.”

  He didn’t understand how she could look so calm, so controlled. “How do you do it?” he asked. “How do you sit there and keep it contained like it doesn’t fucking matter?”

  She snapped, then, and he was selfishly glad, so relieved to see any emotion from her, anything other than that implacable calm she wore like a second skin. “Because what I feel has never mattered, Random. What I feel only gets me in trouble.”

  His gaze dropped to her lips and lingered. Fuck it. “And what do you feel when I do this?” He leaned across the console and took her mouth with his. He wasn’t gentle, wasn’t restrained, and she returned the kiss with the same ferocity. When he drew back, they were both breathing heavily.

  “Everything,” she whispered.

  He’d expected any answer, save that one. “You’re killing me, Kyrie.” He brushed his nose against hers, his Aspect mimicking the gesture against her power. “Tell me I don’t mean anything to you. Tell me you don’t want me. Tell me if I walked away right now, you wouldn’t care.”

  Valkyrie closed her eyes and pressed her forehead to Random’s. It should get easier, telling him the things he’d asked her to. She’d done it before and she’d thought, if she did it enough, that one day she would wake up and believe it was true. But all being around him seemed to do was prove that it wasn’t.

  “I should tell you that. But I can’t seem to make myself do it, tonight.”

  He pulled back from her and got out of the car. She didn’t have time to feel angry or hurt at the abrupt withdrawal because his Aspect moved around her, a reassuring caress, and then he was at her door. She let him open it and draw her out, let him take her hand as they walked inside his house, even though there was no one here to put on a show for, no appearances that needed to be maintained.

  There was only him. Only Random.

  He shut the door behind them and drew her to him, his hands on her waist. His thumbs traced the muscles on her stomach. The way he touched her, reverently, made her feel beautiful. Desired.

  She wanted to kiss him again. She wanted to forget everything and lose herself in his body. But she knew it wouldn’t be fair to either of them right now. Because the way Random had reacted to Danvers tonight, the way his power still twined with hers, the emotion in his voice when he’d spoken to her in the car—well, she was starting to think maybe she’d been an idiot. That maybe, just maybe, if a man spent a year trying to prove he loved you, it was because he did.

  And in this moment, with her emotions on edge, she might be willing to admit she felt the same way. But tomorrow? She didn’t know about tomorrow. Because he would always be safer without her.

  If he did love her—if he did, then she’d hurt him. Badly. She didn’t want to hurt him again. But every nerve ending in her body pulled her to him. She pressed her face into the curve of his neck and shoulders, so she couldn’t be tempted to kiss him again. So she wouldn’t have to see whatever passed through his eyes when she spoke.

  “I want you.” Even that admission was hard enough to put into words. “But I’m not thinking clearly.”

  It was something she would never have felt comfortable enough to say to another man. But he was Random and she knew, somehow, that if she was honest with him in this moment, he wouldn’t let her down.

  “I don’t think either of us is thinking clearly right now, love,” he murmured.

  “So what do we do?”

  “You act like I know what I’m doing.” She felt his smile, even if she couldn’t see it. “The truth is, I’m just as lost as you are. But if you’d let me, I’d like to hold you for a while.”

  That sounded more intimate, more dangerous, than sex. But she didn’t want him to let her go. Didn’t know for certain that if he let her go, she wouldn’t leave this house and do something very, very stupid.

  “Okay.” The word was barely more than a whisper, and if her face hadn’t been right next to his, she doubted he would have heard.
He led her to his bedroom, and she was eternally grateful he didn’t turn the light on, didn’t talk while they took off their shoes. His hand found hers in the dark as they climbed into the bed.

  She’d always had this image of herself as some hulking barbarian, too large to be held. As if being spooned was something reserved for petite, magazine-cover-pretty people. Turned out she was wrong. Random’s arm came around her stomach and he tucked her against him. His legs fit with hers and his head rested on the pillow behind her, his breath a soft warmth against her hair.

  She felt his heartbeat against her back, felt the rise and fall of his chest.

  “Don’t run away,” he whispered. “Not again.”

  She almost didn’t answer, because it was easier to simply lie here with him and not talk. Because if she never talked about that night, she never had to learn the truth. “You ran away first,” she said softly.

  “I’ve never run away from you, Kyrie.”

  “Not physically.” She swallowed. She’d started this, so she had to get the damn words out. “But it was on your face. After we—when we—you know.”

  His arm tightened around her. “I don’t think I do.”

  Goddess, he was going to make her say it. “When we had sex. You realized I’d been a virgin beforehand and it freaked you out. And I thought—I always thought that’s why you were so attentive after.”

  He didn’t say anything for a long minute, and she had the distinct impression he was struggling for emotional control.

  “Kyrie, please, for the love of our probably-made-up goddess, please tell me you didn’t think I professed to love you because I took your virginity.”

  She shrugged. It had seemed logical at the time.

  “You weren’t the first virgin I’d slept with. I didn’t tell any of them I loved them. And you can’t honestly believe that I, of all people, hold virginity sacred. I’d have to be ten kinds of hypocritical.”

  “I remember the look on your face.” It was burned into her memory, the way his expression had shifted when he’d seen the blood between her thighs. “I’ve never seen you look like that. You were horrified.”