“I’m sorry, what?”
“I can’t make him happy, Jace.” After that, the words wouldn’t stop tumbling out. “I can’t give him what he needs. I hear my monster of a dead father’s voice in the back of my head all the time. I jump at fucking shadows. I barely sleep most nights, and on the ones I do I usually wake up swinging at something that isn’t there.” She dug her fingers into her knees. “I’m not worth it.”
“That’s complete bullshit, Val. And I have a hard time believing he wouldn’t have told you the same thing.” She didn’t answer. Realization dawned on Jace’s face. “Val, what did you actually say to him?”
She squeezed her eyes shut. But she figured he’d hear it from Random at some point, and she’d rather he heard it from her first. So she told him. She finished and he didn’t answer. He didn’t even look at her. “Say something.”
“I don’t think you want my opinion.”
She probably didn’t. “Tell me anyway.”
“Fine. You’re being an idiot. Are you a little fucked up? Definitely. But who wouldn’t be in your situation? No one expects you to sweep this all under the rug like nothing happened and suddenly become a suburban housewife.
“Me, Siren, Meredith—we’re all here for you. We all love you. We don’t expect you to be perfect. But you can’t keep pushing us away. Because if you do that, then it doesn’t matter that you killed Elijah, because he’s won. You survived a fucking nightmare, Val. Don’t let him dictate your life from the goddamn grave.”
Valkyrie opened her mouth, shut it. No one expects you to be perfect. She’d expected it of herself. Expected that Elijah’s death would be some panacea that fixed everything, fixed her. That she would emerge from some metaphorical chrysalis and become something new, something he hadn’t made.
But it didn’t work like that. She was still the sum of her experiences. But she was also the sum of her responses to those experiences. You survived a fucking nightmare, Val.
She had. But it had taken Jace telling her that to make her truly see it. She’d done nothing but focus on her failures, her flaws, because that was all Elijah had drilled into her day in and day out.
But he was gone, and she was here. She’d protected the people who mattered to her. She was strong. She’d survived.
And she’d just made the biggest fucking mistake of her life.
If you let me walk out this door right now, I’m done. We are done.
Shit. “How do I fix this?” she whispered.
“I recommend honesty. And groveling.”
“Can I borrow your truck?” She had to go after Random, had to find him before—just before.
Jace sighed, pulled the keys out of his pocket and handed them to her. “Try to bring it back in one piece.”
She clutched the keys in her fist. “Thank you.”
“Good luck. You deserve to be happy, Val. You both do.”
21
Someone pulled the blinds up in Valkyrie’s room, letting in a truly cruel amount of sunshine. She flung her arm over her eyes, shielding herself from the blinding brilliance.
“This has to stop,” Siren said.
“It’s pathetic,” Meredith agreed. “It’s been two weeks. As your friends, we are morally obligated to drag your ass out of bed.”
“Try it,” Valkyrie growled, “and I’ll put you both on the floor.”
“You’re not as scary as you used to be,” Meredith said sweetly. “It’s hard to take threats seriously from a woman who’s been lying in bed binge-eating Doritos, cupcakes, and beer for fourteen days.”
Valkyrie removed her arm to glower at Meredith. It was a mistake, as the vicious sunlight made her squint. “I’ve never had a vacation in my life,” she said defensively. “And I was never allowed to eat Doritos. Or cupcakes. Or have beer. I’m trying to live my best life.”
“Then for goddess sake, try a different beer. Dos Equis is disgusting.”
“I like it.”
Meredith made a hmph noise and turned up her nose.
“And you?” Valkyrie said to Siren. “Anything you’d like to weigh in with?”
“Oh, I don’t know, you two were doing such a good job, I felt superfluous. But since you mentioned it, yes, I’ll second her command to get your ass out of bed.”
“Why? What is the point?”
“This is so cute,” Meredith snickered. “She never had her heart broken as a teenager so now she’s getting to live all of its angsty joys out right now, complete with existential comments about the general pointlessness of life.”
“Thank you for mocking me. Would it kill you to be nice to me? I am genuinely fucking miserable.”
“We know, honey,” Siren said. “We’re here to fix it.”
“You can’t.” Random was gone. She didn’t know where he’d gone when he’d left her, but it wasn’t anywhere in Seclusion. She’d driven the entire damn town twice. And he wouldn’t answer her phone calls. She’d tried to prepare herself for the very real possibility that he wouldn’t take her back. She hadn’t considered that he might never give her the chance to explain anything at all.
He’d always been there when she needed him. He’d always taken her calls. And she hadn’t realized how much she’d taken that for granted until he was suddenly gone.
She might have gone a little overboard with the number of times she’d called him, because he’d eventually blocked her number. She knew, because calls still went through from Siren’s and Jace’s phones. Not that he picked up when she called from their phones, either. And then Siren and Jace had suddenly become very conscious of where their phones were and she couldn’t call at all.
She’d been certain Random would be spearheading the Council’s trial, and had considered ambushing him after one of the hearings, but he hadn’t been a part of them. Siren had gently pointed out that his aunt being on the Council, and Valkyrie being involved in Elijah’s murder, were both conflicts of interest for him. Which was a gentle way of saying he didn’t want to be involved with anything Valkyrie.
She hadn’t even been able to dredge up enough emotional energy to care when the entire Council was definitively disbanded. Since they hadn’t created the adnexus themselves—that creation belonging to the founding councilors a couple centuries dead—they weren’t receiving the highest-possible punishment of death.
They weren’t even going to jail. They were on a monitored probation that forbade them from leaving Seclusion, all were barred from ever holding office in Aspect Society again, and none of them would be released from holding until the adnexus had been destroyed. Something that would happen just as soon as Jace decided he’d run enough theoretical scenarios to reassure himself that his wife’s plan to dismantle it wasn’t going to kill her.
Since Aspect law had no contingency plan in place for a complete removal of the Council, a movement had gone through to vote in an interim figurehead to make decisions until a permanent choice was made on whether to vote in a new Council or change the power structure entirely.
Since it was a popular vote open to every member of Aspect Society, Siren had been elected as that figurehead, which surprised absolutely no one but her. Valkyrie had even managed to stop wallowing in her own misery long enough to cast a vote her sister-in-law’s way. Goddess knew someone with common human decency needed to be in that position.
And what thanks did she get for that support? Siren had now taken time out of her busy schedule of meetings, dealing with bickering Aspect Society matrons, and reviewing every Aspect law on the books, to come hound Valkyrie and make her feel more miserable than she already did.
“Maybe we can’t fix it fix it,” Siren conceded, “but you are definitely not going to win Random back like this. When was the last time you even showered?”
“How should I know?”
“Up,” Siren commanded. “Shower.”
“You’re not going to leave me alone until I do, are you?”
“Nope,” Siren and Meredith chorused in unison.
“Fine. I’ll shower. But don’t expect any further miracles.”
“Grace and benevolence, thy name is Valkyrie Winters,” Meredith said.
“Oh, shove it, Mer.”
“I’d shove you, but you might fall into the hazmat site that is this room and never be seen or heard from again.”
Valkyrie flipped her off and disappeared into the bathroom.
Valkyrie was irritated to discover that showering made her feel better. She was equally irritated to find that the salad Siren presented her with upon emerging from that shower looked appetizing. Maybe she’d taken the Doritos a little too far. She accepted the salad and let Siren and Meredith lead her downstairs to the living room.
Who knew there was an entire world outside her room? She dropped onto the couch and dug into her food.
“I’m clean,” she said around a mouthful of lettuce, “and I’m eating the damn salad. What more do you two want?”
“We’re going to explain how this situation might be salvaged, but you require a great deal of background information you don’t have.” Siren picked up her laptop and turned on the television, which was mirroring her computer screen. The screen read, How it Got Fucked Up and How it Got Fixed.
“You made a PowerPoint? And you went with that title?”
Siren glared. “If you’d read any romance novels, you would know it’s very common for one of the characters to fuck the relationship up seemingly beyond all repair.”
“I read the damn romance novels you gave me.”
“Skipping to the sex scenes doesn’t count.”
“How did you—”
“You asked for the smuttiest books I had and then returned all ten of them the next day, saying you’d finished. Some people might read that fast but you do not.”
Valkyrie stabbed a piece of lettuce with her fork. “I am a technical reader. I needed to learn a new skill, so I read about it. Isn’t that what self-starters are supposed to do?”
“Sure,” Meredith said. “But you skipped half the lesson, and now you’re going to get the summarized version.”
What proceeded was a lengthy number of slides in which Siren had summarized the plot of romance novel after romance novel, followed by the promised how-it-got-fucked-up-and-how-it-got-fixed revelation. After the tenth one Valkyrie’s brain hurt, and she’d secretly Googled The Courtesan Duchess on her phone to make sure Siren wasn’t putting her on about woman-fakes-being-a-courtesan-to-achieve-pregnancy-by-her-husband being an actual book plot.
Finally, the slides were finished. Siren looked her in the eye, as if she were about to make a Very Important Point, and said, “This presentation is meant to help you figure out where you fall on the scale of fuck-uppery, so you can determine the required level of groveling and how you might manage it.”
Valkyrie’s remaining salad lost its appeal and she shoved it away from her. Amusing though the presentation had been, and secretly charmed though she was that her friends had taken the time out of their lives to make it, now that it was over she was just reminded of how depressed she was.
“Look, I understand that I am the asshole in this given scenario. I fucked it up. I get that. But you know what all of these resolutions have in common? Every time the asshole goes to make an apology, the person listens to them. Random won’t talk to me. How am I supposed to fix anything if he won’t talk to me? You’re the one who said I had to stop calling him.”
“If a man blocks your phone number, you are morally obligated to stop calling him. He clearly wanted some space.”
“How am I supposed to give him space and fix things?”
Siren gave Meredith a look that said Valkyrie was a poor student, and clearly hadn’t learned anything from their instruction. “Whatever you did, you’re going to have to find a way to show him that if he gives you another chance it won’t happen again. You need a final romantic gambit. Calling someone twenty times a day is not a final romantic gambit.”
Valkyrie had no idea what such a gambit would be. But... “What if I come up with something and he still doesn’t want me?”
Siren reached out and squeezed her hand. “Then you have to let him go. And Meredith and I will buy you ice cream for a week and watch all of your bad action movies.”
Valkyrie dragged herself outside to the barn. The day after Random had left, Krissi had arrived at Siren’s with the trailer and all four horses. She had guiltily refused to meet Valkyrie’s gaze and only said that Random had asked her to bring the horses from his place to Siren’s.
Siren had been taking care of them during Valkyrie’s fit of self-indulgent convalescence, and she felt guilty when she stepped into the paddock and Azazel and Abbadon immediately descended on her, muzzles bumping her for attention. Lilith and Dagon, always more reserved than the younger two, wandered closer into her perimeter but didn’t approach. Valkyrie scratched Abaddon’s cheeks and the mare shoved her head into Valkyrie’s chest.
Horses. Humanity didn’t deserve them.
“What am I going to do girl?” she asked. “How do I fix this?”
Abbadon huffed out a breath and lipped at the hem of Valkyrie’s shirt. “Don’t nip,” Valkyrie warned. Abbadon knew better but, like all horses, she liked to test her boundaries on occasion to see if they had shifted. Eventually, she got bored and her and Azazel went back to grazing.
Valkyrie settled onto the ground, leaned back against a fence post, and thought. Random had fought for her for over a year. She had said some unimaginably cruel things to him in that year and he’d never given up on her. But she hadn’t let him in during that time. She hadn’t let him bare his truths to her. She had hurt him with snide comments and feigned disinterest, but she hadn’t been able to touch the core of him.
But during the time she’d stayed with him, he’d shared everything with her. Everything he wanted. Everything he dreamed of. The house he’d built for her. The house he’d said he wouldn’t live in with anyone but her.
Then, after he’d waited by her bedside for a week, she’d woken up and told him she hadn’t wanted it. Any of it. That she hadn’t wanted him. And it had mattered more this time because she’d known with full certainty what she was doing to him.
All because she’d been scared. Scared, because she couldn’t love herself so she didn’t understand how anyone else could. Scared he’d leave her. Scared that if she admitted she might be able to have him, have something normal, it would vanish from her grasp. So she’d thrown it away and told herself it was for his benefit.
Goddess, she was an asshole. He probably couldn’t stand to set foot in his own house because of her, and—
The pieces clicked together in her head, then. The house.
“What would you do if I didn’t want it?”
“Sell it. I’d never live here with anyone but you.”
She opened her phone, pulled up Zillow, and there it was. For sale. His house. Hers. Theirs.
She knew exactly what she needed to do.
22
The house had sold. He should be relieved. No, he was relieved. Definitely relieved. He’d turned down multiple offers for no damn reason. Daniel had sent him the paperwork along with a mobile notary on the latest offer and told him point blank that if he didn’t take this one, he could find a new realtor.
So he’d signed the damn papers. He hadn’t even bothered to look at them. It was easy enough to tune out the notary as they droned on and just sign where they told him to. He hadn’t cared who he sold the house to or how much they paid him. He’d just wanted it done, and now it was.
He paced the inside of his hotel room. He didn’t know what city he was in, though he was vaguely certain he was somewhere in Ohio. Soon, he would have to pull himself together. He needed to go back to work—he’d tied up all of his current cases or shifted them to colleagues before allowing himself to sink into total self pity, but at the rate he was going he’d be lucky to have a practice to go back to.
Maybe he wouldn’t go back. He�
��d moved away from Seclusion once before because of Valkyrie. There was no law that said he couldn’t do it again. Except that the first time he’d left, he hadn’t had her. He’d been able to bury himself in other women and pretend he didn’t think of her.
He couldn’t do that this time. Every woman he saw he just compared to her. Every time he considered bedding one he remembered Valkyrie asking him to make love to her.
His phone rang and his heart gave a little jolt of excitement before he remembered it wasn’t Kyrie, that he’d blocked her number. At first, he’d been so angry he hadn’t cared why she was calling. Why she’d kept calling. Then, he’d started living for seeing her goddamn name appear on the screen and he’d known he had to do something, because if he didn’t, one day he’d answer just to hear her voice.
He wanted to pick up and have her tell him that she’d made a terrible mistake. That she knew she’d hurt him and she was wrong. That she wanted him. That she loved him. He wanted her to beg him to come home.
Except they didn’t have a home anymore. He’d just sold it. And Valkyrie Winters didn’t beg. Valkyrie Winters didn’t admit she was wrong. Valkyrie Winters didn’t love him.
Her refusal to ever leave a voicemail was proof enough of all those things. She’d probably only called to alleviate her own guilt, and she’d probably only kept calling out of sheer stubbornness when he didn’t answer. So he’d blocked her number to remove the temptation to put himself through yet another round of misery.
His phone rang again and he glanced at the nightstand where it lay. Daniel.
What now? He resigned himself, picked up the phone, and resumed pacing. “Was something wrong with the paperwork?”
Part of him hoped there was. If he’d fucked it up somehow, he didn’t have to go through with it. Didn’t have to admit everything was all done and tidied, and he had no tie to Kyrie anymore.
“No,” Daniel said, but he sounded questioning rather than certain. “Did you look at the paperwork?”
Valkyrie's Call Page 27
