Falling for Gods: A Reverse Harem Urban Fantasy (Their Dark Valkyire Book 3)

by Eva Chase

  She paused for long enough that I started to think we were done with the subject too. Then she said, “I have a daughter. Or maybe it’s ‘had’ now. From my first marriage—Hnoss. After Ragnarok, when we were all reborn, she said to me that she thought Odin had more of a hand in events than he was letting on. She wanted me to ask him to—I don’t know. Admit to us what his plans had been? Reassure us about the future? He and I had already been getting closer back then.”

  She dipped her head with a grimace. “I didn’t believe her. I thought she was jealous of the closeness we’d developed, imagining the worst of him to excuse those hateful feelings. We argued so many times, and then she left. She couldn’t stand to stay here while I stood by him. And she was right, this whole time. Maybe not in the anger she held toward him—that will depend on his reasons—but in her suspicions that I denied.”

  The regret in her voice made my stomach clench. If my mother had cared even a fraction that much about me or Petey…

  “She must be in the nine realms somewhere, then, right?” I said. “We’ll find her. You can talk to her, tell her you’re sorry. It doesn’t have to be complicated. You’ve got to at least try.”

  Freya nodded. “I do. I just wish I knew where to start.”

  “We’ll find her,” I said again, firmly, even though I didn’t have the slightest clue how I was going to fulfill that promise.

  5

  Loki

  I shuddered as I came out of the tunnel, sending a quick lick of flame over me to burn away any cobwebs and other debris that might have attached to my body as I’d searched the abandoned mine. The late afternoon sun blazing between the tree branches overhead and the crisply green smells of the forest were a welcome relief. How the dark elves managed not to go completely mad living in dank spaces like that their entire existence, I didn’t know.

  Of course, given the sorts of adventures they’d been getting up to lately, one might make the argument that they had gone mad.

  I’d had high hopes for this old mine. It was only miles from the town where I’d spotted dark elf activity in the past, where Ari and I had noted the symbols the dirt-eaters appeared to be marking on buildings that were a good source of prey. I had to imagine they weren’t carting the vagabonds they captured all that far before hauling them into Nidavellir. There’d even been a few of those symbols etched on a weathered post outside the main tunnel.

  Not a hint of them inside, though. Just like the other eight locations I’d already poked about in. All in all, this expedition had been a flop.

  Nothing else in the area seemed promising. With a huff, I pushed off the ground and strode up into the air, toward the glittering arc of the rainbow bridge Odin had left open for our use.

  The dark elves were sneaky. We knew that. Still, it was difficult to ignore the urge to set a thing or two aflame to vent my frustrations. Not least because I had so many things to be frustrated about. I’d hoped the journey down here would wear away those bitter feelings, but they lingered on.

  Blasted Hod. Blasted Baldur and Thor and Freya too. They had the truth of things right in front of them, had seen it with their own eyes, and still they didn’t dare question their king. Wasn’t questioning all they’d done with me since the moment I’d set foot in Asgard? Over and over again, as if they never quite trusted any of my answers no matter how many I gave them.

  The realm of humans fell away under my soaring feet. I passed through the clouds in the space of a few heartbeats. The softer warmth of Asgard settled around me with a hint of wildflowers, but it didn’t soothe my irritation.

  The scent tugged at my memories. A yearning I hadn’t felt in decades, possibly centuries, rose up. Or perhaps it had been there all along, and I’d simply gotten so skilled at quashing it that I’d stopped noticing it.

  As I crossed the last stretch of the bridge, I considered the city with its gleaming halls, so many of them vacant now. So many gods of Asgard who’d drifted away. Hadn’t Thor and the rest ever thought to wonder why? I’d been glad enough to see most of them gone, but you’d think the others would have taken the time to wonder.

  I veered to the left to skirt the edges of the city. Beyond a small span of forest lay an undulating field, the grass high enough to rustle against my calves as I stalked into it. Sprigs of clover and bluebells and dryas bloomed amid the thin strands.

  On and on I walked, until the grass and the flowers thinned. Most of the vegetation gave way to bare earth mottled with stones, leading down to a desolate shore. Asgard’s sea hissed over the pebbles.

  The boulder stood there still, in the midst of that barren land. Claw marks too frantic and deep for time to have worn away decorated its lumpy surface. I rested my hand on the cool limestone and bowed my head.

  I could still see the way my son had prowled around this boulder, hear the way he’d thrashed his wolfish body against the chains that bound him fast. Chains the dark elves had constructed for the gods with Odin’s approval, if I recalled correctly. One more reason to want to bash the dirt-eaters’ sallow skulls in.

  He’s a danger, the gods had all said. A monster. Fenrir had been no more monstrous than I was. Which perhaps wasn’t saying much. But we’d both been shaped into our villainy by the Allfather in his supposed wisdom, hadn’t we?

  If I’d stood up to him more firmly then, might I have spared my son his fate, even if I couldn’t have changed my own path? I hadn’t thought so back then, but it was hard not to wonder at times like this.

  Prod and jab the ones you dislike until they lash out exactly as you intended, and then act out your horrified surprise: That was the Asgardian way.

  My fingers curled as if I could stroke my son’s thick fur across the ages. The way he’d looked at me when I’d first discovered him here back then, so furious and yet so pleading… My hand balled into a fist.

  There was nothing to be done about it now. That was why I hadn’t let myself dwell on things like this. But the raven’s prison had stirred up far too many memories and brought them into sharply vivid being. I’d lived through too much of my past all over again to keep it buried.

  The memories must have wrapped me up more tightly than I’d realized, because when a holler of my name carried across the field and I raised my head, the sky above me had dimmed to a purple bruise. I pushed away from the boulder and turned around.

  Thor was marching across the field toward me. He slowed to an amble when he saw he had my attention. His ever-present hammer swung from his belt. I’d gone centuries without thinking about how I’d won him that damned thing, and now I couldn’t look at it without feeling the fresh sting of a leather thread sewn across my lips.

  “Here you are, Sly One,” Thor said as he reached me. He surveyed the landscape with a mildly puzzled expression. “What on earth are you doing all the way out here?”

  I glanced at the boulder. “I felt the need to remember. The urge has passed.”

  Thor followed my gaze, and a shadow crossed his face. “It was a nasty trick,” he said. “I should have said so then.”

  “Too late for that now,” I said, but without any rancor. A little of the tension wound up inside me eased. It said something that Thor could stand here and make a comment like that when the beast my son had become had been the one to ravage his own father. How eagerly had Odin welcomed those teeth, the ones he’d planned for and directed there himself?

  Not to mention the fact that the Thunderer had died in battle with another of my children, each of them slaying the other. My offspring had gotten around during that fraught occasion. If Thor could let bygones be bygones, I couldn’t hold much resentment toward him.

  “What brings you out this way, old friend?” I asked, motioning him back toward the city.

  “Freya noticed you returning from Midgard, but didn’t see where you’d gone,” Thor said as we headed toward home together. “I wondered if you’d discovered anything in your search down there.”

  “Alas, not today,” I said. “There’s a
ltogether too much Midgard. I have a few thoughts on where to search next, though.”

  Thor nodded. “If anyone can out-wile Surt and his allies, it’ll be you.”

  We walked on in companionable silence, over the field and through the strip of forest. Thor turned down the pathway, I assumed making for his hall, and I stayed with him on my way to mine. We’d only gone a little farther when he raised his hand to the opposite twins of light and dark, who were standing in one of the smaller courtyards. Standing and looking as if they’d been waiting for us.

  “Trickster,” Hod said in a flat voice, and turned his blind gaze toward Thor. “Where had he slunk off to?”

  “You could ask me that question,” I said, but a prickling sensation shot over my skin. Why would he be asking at all, and asking that way?

  He thought I’d been up to some mischief—or worse.

  Had Thor come looking for me just to hear my news, or had the other gods sent him off to bring me back, to ensure I was staying in line? His company might not have been so companionable after all. My hackles rose.

  “All right,” Hod said. “What have you been doing all this time?”

  “I spent most of the time on Midgard, as I said I was going to, if you’d been listening, Blind One,” I said, managing to keep my voice even. “I investigated several promising locations and determined none of them hold a gate to the dark elves’ realm. Not the most thrilling report, but crossing possibilities off our list is better than nothing.”

  “Freya saw you returning hours ago.”

  “Yes,” I said, and maybe my tone turned a little snippy then. “I needed some time to my thoughts, like anyone does. Do you expect a full accounting of those too?”

  “It was a simple question,” Hod said, as if he were offended by my taking offense. “You can keep your thoughts to yourself, thank you.”

  “Strange,” I couldn’t help saying. “After all the hesitation you expressed earlier about carrying out interrogations, you seem to have no trouble when it comes to me.”

  Even Baldur’s normally placid expression tensed. He raised his hand. “I don’t think my brother meant—”

  “You don’t need to make excuses for him,” I said. “His tongue is in perfectly good working order even if his eyes aren’t. If he wants to explain himself further, let him do it.”

  “Loki,” Thor said. Was that a warning in his voice? I gritted my teeth against the acrid retorts I could have made. One might have slipped free anyway if light footsteps hadn’t pattered along the path toward us right then.

  “What’s going on?” Ari asked, her gaze darting between our faces as she came to a stop at the edge of our cluster. “Did something happen? Has Surt—”

  Her panic dampened the anger that had been flaring inside me. I grasped her shoulder gently. “Nothing’s wrong. There’s no news from Midgard. All seemed well enough when I was down there. We were just having a little chat about unrelated topics.”

  Hod shifted his weight, but presumably he didn’t want to look like an ass in front of our valkyrie. I didn’t know how she’d managed to gain that kind of power over Mr. Dark and Prickly, but by some sort of magic over the last few weeks, she’d softened him. He inclined his head when her eyes moved to him again.

  “It’s about time for dinner, isn’t it?” Thor the Ever Hungry rumbled, and that was an easy subject to agree on.

  “Are you offering to host?” I asked. “Or should I ask, does your pantry hold enough to satisfy more appetites beyond your own vast one?”

  He chuckled and waved us on down the path. “I’m sure I can scrounge up a few scraps to satisfy the lot of you.”

  “I’ve got fresh plums I could bring,” Baldur offered, and diverted to his own home to retrieve them.

  Ari glanced up at me as we meandered along, a hint of worry lingering in her eyes. “You’re sure everything is fine? I’d like to be kept in the loop here.”

  “I promise, anything that relates to our impending war, you’ll hear about it as soon as anyone,” I said. “Eager to smash some more dark elf skulls, are we, pixie?”

  She made a face at me, but at the same time she hooked her hand around her arm. “I’ll be glad when we don’t need to smash anymore. I’m just looking forward to getting to that point.”

  “All in good time,” I said. “I told you they were right to be afraid of you.”

  She looked as if she were going to grimace again, but her lips twitched into a smile so fierce it made my chest swell with affection to see it.

  My valkyrie. And how well she’d done by us so far.

  I only wished I could feel with confidence there was more than that one good thing in all of Asgard these days.

  6

  Aria

  One thing I’d learned during my first venture into Valhalla, all by myself, was that I didn’t need Odin’s presence—or his permission—to go traveling down the branching path beyond the hearth. Without a hint of guilt, I slipped past the early morning sunlight drifting through the hall’s windows and clambered through the opening at the back of the fireplace.

  At the foot of Yggdrasil, the chillier air in the darkness there made me shiver. I focused on the rough but solid bark of the tree rather than the emptiness on either side of it, and set off. The branch Odin had pointed me to when I’d gone scouting in Muspelheim before was… this one.

  I paused for just a moment at the base of the branch, willing my wings to emerge from my back. The straps of my racerback tank top twitched as the feathered edges brushed them. I touched my hair, making sure it was still tightly tucked into the ponytail I’d pulled it into. I didn’t want there to be any chance of anything, including a stray hair, distracting me. My previous trip had made it clear that even a few seconds could make the difference between whether I returned or not.

  Dragging in a breath that tingled through my lungs, I strode down the branch to the shadowy gateway at its end. Without giving myself a chance to consider any doubts, I plunged right through.

  This time, I was ready for the rock dragon. The second I stumbled through into the hot sulfur-smelling air, I heaved myself back toward the cliff it had leapt at me from last time. A ragged protrusion offered a few ledges with a hint of shelter. I ducked under one and gripped the gritty rock, hugging the cliff-face as closely as I could.

  There was a rasp and a warble of wind overhead as the dragon must have shifted from its perch. Its shadow swept over the barren plain below the cliff. But it didn’t roar, and after a minute it wheeled around. The shadow disappeared as it settled back on the top of the cliff with a thump.

  One hand and foot at a time, I eased myself down to the base of the cliff. Setting my shoes carefully to avoid any rattling of pebbles or stubbing of toes, I crept away, staying close enough to the cliff that the dragon shouldn’t be able to see me unless it decided to do a second sweep.

  By the time I reached a point where the cliff curved away from the area where I’d come out of the gate, sweat was trickling down my back. I hurried around the bend to where I’d be completely out of sight and then flapped my wings to send a cooling breeze over my skin, as much as it could cool me in this broiler of a realm.

  There hadn’t been any monstrous guards stationed between here and much closer to Surt’s fortress last time, but I still kept my eyes peeled and ears perked as I lifted into the air and flew on toward the stone buildings I’d found the other day. I intended to get a better look at them this time—and to come back with some information we could actually use.

  To show Odin that whatever information he was getting, staring down from his high seat, it wasn’t enough.

  I skirted the mountains I’d rambled through before and crossed the skeletal forest. The back of my neck itched more than once with the impression of being watched that was becoming annoyingly familiar. After whipping around a few times and not being able to spot any reason for worry, I resigned myself to just living with it.

  If there was someone or something watching me, t
hey hadn’t bothered to attack me during my last trip or so far during this one. Maybe I was just picking up on the attention of some of the realm’s more cautious inhabitants, ones who didn’t want trouble any more than I did.

  At the pointed hills I now knew Surt’s fortress lay on the other side of, I took a diagonal route to my left. The uneven stone walls came into view just as I reached the low cliffs where the second dragon had come after me. Instead of venturing closer and risking drawing the attention of that beast or some other one, I glided onto a small protrusion and folded my wings against my back.

  Loki had given me the sharpened senses the valkyries of the past would have used to scan battlefields and make their choices. I could put those to use here too.

  I studied the shape of the fortress and every movement in and around it. As I intensified my gaze, more and more details came into focus across the distance. The guards by the walls were carrying weapons that reminded me of the ones the dark elves had come at us with the other day, the ones with the fiery burn. A sound reached my honed ears: a heavy clatter that made me think of a rockslide. It seemed to come from the direction of the fortress, but I couldn’t make out its source.

  I checked the top of the cliff for any sign of my draconic friend, and then I leapt to a ledge farther along, and then another, tipping my head to track the sound. It stopped for several minutes, so I stopped too. Then it came again, a little louder. Just over…

  The acrid breeze tugged at my hair as I came to rest on a ledge even closer to the fortress. I braced my hands against the rough stone in case I needed to quickly spring away.

  Just inside the fortress walls, at the edge of a lifeless courtyard, two figures emerged from a patch of darkness—a hole dug into the ground. They heaved a cart with them up a ramp set against the wall and dumped its contents over the top in a cascade of stones, some of them only pebbles, many as big as my head. A wide heap of rubble like that already rested against much of the outer side of that wall. They’d been excavating for a while.