Kirby shimmied into the dress, which fit perfectly. Almost as if it had been tailored for her. She gave Min a suspicious glance, then turned her back to him. “Zip me up, handsome?” She poured a Midwest twang into her request.
She wanted to pump Min for more information about their destination and next steps, but Daz made her uneasy. When Min tried to bring up the topic, she silenced him with a hand on his thigh and a subtle shake of her head.
When Kirby was barely a teenager, she’d been saved from foster care by the god Loki. He’d promised her a new home where she could learn to be a superhero, and young-Kirby loved the idea enough to ignore her cynicism.
The reality had been much darker. The Order of Mistletoe had an academy where assassins were trained, attached to their organization. Their mission was eliminating potential gods, based on a series of ancient prophecies, so the gods at TOM could retain their glory and immortality.
They framed it as saving the world from new danger, but Kirby had seen the truth. She just wished she’d seen it sooner. Years ago, before she was betrayed by Brit, stripped of her rank, and tried to end her own life.
These days trust was a commodity she was stingy with. It kept her alive and sane.
Less than half an hour later, Daz pulled the SUV into a municipal airport. The location eased Kirby’s mind. She wasn’t in the mood to deal with airport security and dozens of people. What comforted her more was walking toward the small plane with steps pushed up to it, and seeing Starkad waiting. He’d upgraded his clothing from bullet-hole filled, to a button-down shirt and slacks. Fucking hot.
Brit was by his side. She hadn’t gotten the same tailored-gown treatment. She wore one of Kirby’s T-shirts, torn intentionally, to drape off one shoulder. Her denim skirt was ripped as well, leaving the bottom edges ragged and barely covering her ass.
It would have been kind of sexy, if Kirby was in the mood to notice. Jealousy spiked through her when Brit wrapped herself around Starkad’s arm and leaned into him. Brit was playing a part, and would continue to do so until she had the all clear. Knowing that didn’t soothe Kirby.
“Thank you again,” Min said to Daz.
Daz’s smile almost lit up the interior of the car. “Of course. I’ll park, then go talk to the pilot and ensure we’re ready for flight.” The moment they stepped from the SUV, he pulled away.
He didn’t make it far. Three police cruisers rolled into sight, lights flashing, and blocked his path.
Chapter Two
Every muscle in Starkad’s body twitched from the adrenaline coursing through him. Nothing about the last couple of days had gone right, and he didn’t expect the universe to start complying now. He was driving, with Brit in the passenger seat. They’d walked several blocks to a waiting car and gotten out of the neighborhood on a route the police weren’t checking yet.
Brit was fidgeting. She had changed into some of Kirby’s clothes, and ripped them to show off more skin. She and Kirby would play the part of escort for the evening, until they were in the air and clear of immediate danger.
Starkad had changed as well, into a tailored outfit that screamed money. He wasn’t worried about his safety. A few hours ago, she shot him at point blank range. The bullets knocked him down, but that was the worst he suffered.
She and Kirby felt the brunt of the fallout. When Kirby thought he was in danger, it triggered the return of her memories from her past lives. They all spilled back at once, including the excruciating pain that came with each of her previous deaths. She’d magically inflicted that same agony on Brit.
They’d been dealing with those events when Mark ambushed the house.
Starkad would rather have Kirby by his side under all circumstances, but especially now. Not that this was a good time to talk about her recovering her past lives; she’d be as on edge as Brit was, watching their surroundings and flinching at every noise and movement.
He had Brit with him instead because he trusted Kirby, and he didn’t want to let Brit out of his sight until she was on her way for good.
He was grateful she’d taken care of the Mark situation. Points in her favor.
“What are your plans for me?” Brit asked.
Get her as far from Kirby as possible and let them get on with their lives. Separately. He didn’t know Brit, beyond her combat prowess and the damage she’d done to Kirby. She was another body. After so many centuries alive, he’d go mad if he let his heart bleed for every random person he encountered. “What kind of a response are you looking for?” he asked.
“If you’re asking seriously, I didn’t think I’d have a say in the matter, so I haven’t given it any consideration. If you want my facetious, off-the-cuff answer, give me twenty grand and drop me in Paris.”
“Done.”
Brit scoffed. “What?”
“I can have traveler’s checks and a new ID waiting for you in Paris. From there, you’re on your own.” It sounded like a best-of-all-worlds solution to Starkad. That should make him nervous, but he couldn’t afford to second-guess everything.
“What’s the catch?” Suspicion lined Brit’s question.
No catch, just one requirement. “You don’t go looking for Kirby. Ever.”
Silence stretched through the car. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Brit fiddle with the newly frayed edges on her skirt.
“Deal.” She didn’t sound so certain.
He wasn’t giving her a chance to change her mind. Fortunately, they were at the municipal airport. He parked and joined Brit in front of the car. They were the first ones here, as was the plan. He’d have a hard time standing still until Kirby and Min arrived.
Brit fell into her role easily, and he did the same, pasting on the happy mask of a guy who was going to get his money’s worth from his date tonight.
Another vehicle approached the private hanger, and Brit tensed against him. He couldn’t be wound any more tightly without shattering.
The high-end SUV stopped, and Min helped Kirby out. She was wearing gold satin that hugged every curve, and showed off how stunning and honed her body was. Her gaze flicked over him and Brit, and a frown crossed her face before she let Min wrap an arm around her waist.
Red and blue flashed in a slow strobe over the area, and Starkad clenched his fist. Police. He should have expected that.
Three cop cars skidded to a stop, blocking the ground exit and the runway.
If there were any group he’d choose to be with when he was surrounded by police, it was this one. The thought wasn’t comforting.
Three officers stepped from their vehicles, all of them with their hands hovering near their holstered weapons. The man in front focused on Starkad. “Evening, sir. I’m sorry about the delay. We’ve had some trouble in the area over the last couple of days and since you filed this flight plan in the last hour, we have a few questions for you before you take off. Once we’re done, you can be on your way.”
Some trouble was an interesting way to phrase two shootings downtown in the last few days, and a murder less than an hour ago.
Starkad made sure to keep an appropriate amount of disdain on his face and nodded at Min. “It’s my buddy’s plane.” He pushed a waver into his voice. “You’ll have to talk to him.”
The officer raised his eyebrows, and his colleagues moved their hands nearer to their weapons. “Can I see some ID, sir?” Officer One didn’t sound so friendly, as he addressed Min.
Min raised both hands to shoulder level. “It’s in my front jacket pocket. I can grab it, or you can.”
Officer Two drew his gun and leveled it at Min. The tension on the airstrip was almost tangible, and most of it radiated from the police. Starkad hid his twisted amusement, as Officer One drew closer, his gaze never leaving Min. The guy had no clue that, if Kirby deemed him a threat, he was dead the instant his firearm was within her reach.
Since she’d ascended, she didn’t technically need the gun, but she might not know that yet. And he’d never, across any life, seen her
use a Valkyrie’s power to take life off the battlefield. For this Kirby, if she thought someone was going to open fire, this was a battlefield, and whoever took the first shot had initiated the war.
Officer One grabbed Min’s wallet, and nearly dropped it again in his haste to step back. His eyes grew wide when he opened the leather trifold and a stack of cash greeted him. He thumbed over the wallet contents, then extracted a business card and a driver’s license. He looked between them and Min. “Is this you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m sorry to have wasted your time.” Officer One shoved everything back in twice as fast as he’d withdrawn it, and handed Min’s wallet back. “You and your... friends have a lovely evening.”
Min’s smile grew. “Thank you, officer. Do you have a business card or phone number? I’d like to let your chief know what a pleasure it was speaking with you this evening.”
Officer One fumbled in his own wallet and finally retrieved a card that he handed to Min.
Starkad bit the inside of his cheek, to hold back the laughter. He’d forgotten how much fun it was to see Min throw the weight of his company name around. Especially in response to prejudice and assumption.
With the police gone, Starkad and the others boarded the plane. There was minimal conversation while they prepped for takeoff and taxied down the runway.
When they were in the air, Kirby looked between Min and Starkad. “Can we...?”
“Speak freely? Yes,” Starkad said.
Kirby was tense. It wasn’t obvious, but after so many years with her, he knew how tightly coiled her body was under the calm facade. “Where’s Gwydion?”
She’d asked for Gwydion first when she woke up after recovering her memories, too. A fact that still gnawed at Starkad. He expected things to be tense between them when her past came back to her—Starkad had kept her at arm’s length physically for years. Much to her dismay and his discomfort.
Starkad had his reasons for not fucking her, but that didn’t mean Kirby would see things that way when he had a chance to explain. “He stayed behind to deal with the police, and hasn’t shared any other plans with me.”
“I see.” She frowned.
“Though, whatever he’s doing probably involves making his way back to you.” Starkad wouldn’t withhold that knowledge out of jealousy, regardless of temptation.
The corners of Kirby’s mouth tugged up, but she stopped the smile before it formed. She focused on Min. “I thought I knew who you were. After that cop’s reaction to your wallet, I’m thinking there are still secrets.”
“You don’t remember.” Min frowned.
Frustration flashed across her face.
“I don’t remember.” Brit huffed. “I have no idea what ninety percent of this is. Why did Officer Friendly look like you could destroy his world with your thumb? Does your business card say Big Mighty God on it?”
Min tossed her the wallet. She’d find the same thing the officer did—that Min was president of one of the largest investment companies in the world. His money had been behind ventures that connected people to the internet back when it was new, and more recently, the biggest social media platforms.
Brit twisted her mouth when she landed on the ID and business card, and she handed the wallet back.
“I do remember. A... pool.” Kirby trailed off.
Min tucked his wallet away again. “And you remember sunbathing naked in it? The L.A. riots?”
The color drained from Kirby’s face, and she nodded slowly. “It’s all real, isn’t it? Everything tucked in my head.”
“Yes.” Starkad couldn’t fathom how much her mind was trying to process. He had a hard enough time holding onto the last few decades, and her entire history of thirteen lives had been shoved back into her head at once.
Kirby rubbed her palms up her face, then dragged them back down again, a long sigh escaping through her fingers. She stood and walked from the passenger cabin of the plane.
Silence settled in again.
“Will she be all right?” Brit asked softly.
Starkad had been asking himself that for far too long. He went in search of Kirby. Fortunately, no matter how nice the place was, it was still a plane cruising at 45,000 feet, and she didn’t have many places to go. Technically, she could fly with her summoned wings, but they would have noticed the cabin depressurizing if she’d stepped out the door mid-flight.
He found her in the next room, thumbing through mini liquor bottles secured behind the bar.
She extracted one with a deep amber label, and set it on the bar top. “Brit’s being awfully quiet. No demands. No accusations. No self-righteous indignation.”
That was one piece of news he could get out of the way quickly. “She and I talked on the way here. She’s going her own way, complete with a promise to not pursue you.”
“You talked without me?” Kirby fiddled with the bottle, clanking the plastic against the counter. “Which makes sense. It’s her life. Her decision.” Her agreement didn’t erase the conflict from her expression. “I want to ask you so many things, but I don’t know where to start.”
“Pick one. We’ll go from there.”
Kirby shook her head. “I’ve said too much already. Today. In the past. So have you. Things that can’t be taken back, and can’t be healed by a series of past lives that look more to me like a vivid movie than memories.”
“Are we done speaking, then?” He’d fight a decision like that. But she was as addicted to him as he was to her. She’d never made a secret of it.
“I don’t know,” Kirby said.
Starkad brushed his fingers over the back of her hand. She jerked back as if she’d been shocked. A stony mask slid in quickly, and she leaned back against the far wall. That hurt.
“I’ll answer the question you asked when you woke up,” he said.
Why? That was the only thing she’d said to him the first time she regained consciousness after becoming a Valkyrie again.
“I don’t even know what it was in reference too. Everything I can’t vocalize now, I suppose. And I swear to Freya, if you say—”
“I was just doing what I thought was best?”
She scowled. “Yeah. That.”
“I’m not going to say it.” Starkad had beaten that phrase to death, and he didn’t believe it himself anymore.
“I don’t know what to tell you. What to ask.”
Starkad ached to cross the divide between them. To lift her chin and gaze in her eyes. To fall into what they were in their first life. Before curses and immortality and losing her so many times.
But they’d never have that again. They could have something better, or their romantic relationship could be dead in the water.
“I loved you so much when you were Ruby,” he said. “What you did for me? I would have done the same for you and more, without hesitation.” He was a berserker. A warrior who had fought for his god and his faith without question, and centuries ago had died a glorious death on the battlefield.
Kirby had been the Valkyrie he loved. She stopped one of her sisters from takin him to Valhalla, defying Odin, and had given Starkad immortality to ensure they’d always be together.
As punishment for her insubordination, Odin cursed her to be reborn and die again and again.
“You would have done the same for her. Not me. And you did. It’s why you were on that battlefield.”
Not quite, but close. Odin had been her god. Her master. And Starkad served the Allfather because she did. Starkad had fought in any battle he could find, regardless of the cause; he’d been made for war. As had Kirby. Once he met the Valkyrie and fell in love, he chose his sides for her. “It’s true.”
She crossed her arms, hugging herself. “What would you have done if you found Brit in the bottom of that shower, instead of me?”
She’d fast-forwarded to this life, when he’d found her nearly dead after she slit her own wrists. Not enough time had passed to diminish the terror he felt that night, when
he saw her on the shower floor, blood caked to her skin and clothes, her skin as pale as the white tile she sat on.
It was his fault she’d been with TOM. He refused to extract her when they recruited her at thirteen. He’d told Min and Gwydion it was the best place for her to learn to defend herself. The only way to keep her from dying again.
Starkad never expected the experience to break her.
“I’ve told you, she’s nothing to me,” Starkad said. “She was a student who registered on my radar because you cared. I kept contact with her because she reached out to me with information about how to get back at TOM. If I’d found her there, I would’ve called for a campus doctor. I would have mourned her life if she didn’t survive and her sanity if she did. And I would have grieved for you in your pain.”
“You weren’t saving me that day. You were saving Ruby.” Bitterness spilled from Kirby.
Starkad wished he could argue. He was tired of the half-truths and misdirection. “It’s true. But I know you now. What I do, all of it, is for the woman I love—you.” He’d tried to hard to keep is distance, even after he saved her. But living so closely with her, seeing the fierce soldier mingled with the passionate woman, he couldn’t help but give her his heart again.
“Fuck you.” She choked out the words. “You don’t get to say that, after denying it for so long. And don’t you dare tell me you were doing any of this to keep me safe. I would hurt a lot less right now if I were dead. You did this for you.”
Another truth he wished he could deny. “I did a lot for selfish reasons—all having to do with keeping you in my life and alive. I won’t apologize for that. I’m only sorry for one thing.”
She raised an eyebrow and met his gaze.
“I’m sorry I pushed you away. I thought, if I didn’t love you—if I resisted the pull—it wouldn’t hurt so much when you died again.”
“When. Not if.” She’d caught his slip. “Surprise. I’m not going anywhere in this life. I’m done dying.”
He hoped that was true. He prayed for it on a regular basis, to any god who would listen. “Then we’re in uncharted territory.”
Death in the Night (Legacy, #2) Page 2