by Eva Chase
If this went well, we’d all be returning to report to Odin on our success. My pulse thrummed faster as we glided around the edge of the plain and soared toward the fortress’s flank. The guards along the wall were shouting at the giants, who’d nearly reached the steaming moat of magma. They were bringing up the draugr—several lurching figures had already emerged from a hollow beside one of the buildings. My heart stuttered.
“Hurry,” I said. “They’re summoning the army.”
I flapped my wings even harder than before. Thor surged ahead of us, raising his hammer. We threw ourselves over the stinging heat of the moat, and he let out his battle cry.
I moved automatically now, swinging the short sword I’d grabbed from Valhalla. It might not have the history of my switchblade, but for this battle, I was going in fully armed. Around me, my other gods whipped their magic at the first of our targets, a patch of earth just a few feet from the corner of what looked like barracks.
Fire and light and shadow twined and caught hold of Mjolnir, which smashed into that spot with the force of four gods—and whatever a valkyrie could provide. The ground lurched, and cracks spread across the rocky terrain.
A shout came from the front wall. They knew there was more trouble now. I veered to the right, my wings straining with the effort, and my companions moved with me. We hurtled toward our next target.
With another blast of magic and hammer, the rocky ground all across that side of the fortress’s yard shattered inward. The building beside us sagged as the cracks spread beneath its foundations. Gritty dust burst upward with the collapse. I swiped at my eyes, yanking myself around.
“This way!” Freya called, her sword gleaming as she jabbed it ahead of her.
As we sped around the building toward the back of the fortress grounds, pounding footsteps approached. I dodged the shriek of a crossbow bolt and ducked beneath a searing flame flung from one of Surt’s magicked blades. The top of my wing stung where the magic grazed it. Thor shouted again, and we propelled our united force at the motley crew of guards who’d left the giants to tackle us.
The smack of the gods’ magic sent them toppling. We wheeled around to aim another blast at the ground. More cracks spidered across the stone surface. A faint groaning reached my ears—the draugr, realizing they were doomed?
They’d been human once, but Surt had turned them into monsters. I steeled myself for the next strike and the next, letting out a cheer as more of the dark rock crumbled down into the hollow depths beneath it. Loki motioned to us, and he and Baldur lashed out together, sending a flood of glittering flame through the caved in terrain. The few boulders that had been shifting went still, scorched black.
Just two more spots to hit—around the front, where the giants were roaring even louder now. We hadn’t seen Surt yet, which seemed to show what Muninn had said was true. He wasn’t here to rally his troops or to fight us off himself.
Surt’s surface level guards were stepping one way and another, nearly colliding with each other, not sure which threat to deal with first. A growing horde of draugr shuffling up from the caves nearby milled around them. A few of the giants had managed to hurdle over the magma moat and were wrenching at the drawbridge. The creak of its hinges told me it wasn’t going to hold much longer.
“Push them back, push them back!” Loki cried with a gleeful grin, pointing the guards toward the giants as if he and the other gods really were allied with Surt’s side. The giants who spotted him let out bellows of rage. We didn’t want to still be here when they broke through.
Thor shook his head at the trickster, but he was smiling too as he shouted for our next blast.
The ground gave way under the feet of the guards who’d been rushing at us. They and a bunch of the draugr above toppled down into the caverns. Other guards charged at us from the opposite direction, but Freya and Tyr were there with their swords to fend them off. We hurled one last missile of power at the final spot the dark elves had marked for us.
A pit opened in the ground at the foot of the great tower of Surt, in the middle of his fortress. The tall structure teetered forward. My breath hitched as its front wall started to spill down into the pit like an architectural landslide.
Thor raised his hammer again, and I moved into battle position, even though I couldn’t really help with this part. Another wave of flame crackled over and between the rubble.
We’d done it. We’d battered Surt’s hall and torched his army.
Or had we? As I spun around, ready to find the gate to Asgard that must lie in the wreckage of that tower, a faint scraping sound reached my ears through the din. My gaze leapt to the cliff just behind the fortress walls.
There was an opening there. An opening that led to another cavern? The dark elves hadn’t mentioned anywhere else Surt had stashed his undead soldiers, but they might not have known—or they might have been hedging their bets.
Loki darted over beside me. His ears, even sharper than mine, must have caught the noise too. “Burn and smash it?” he suggested.
“You read my mind,” I said.
At his gesture, the others swept over the back wall with us. Loki led the attack this time. “Incinerate them!” he shouted with a slash of his hand, and we all launched ourselves at the cliff face as one.
A wave of fiery flickering light seared across the landscape and into the opening. Something hissed and crackled on the other side. From the swell of light, the flames had burst into an inferno within.
Thor had thrown his hammer at the same moment. It slammed into the cliff just above the entrance, and a real landslide poured down. With a thunder befitting the thunder god, a shower of boulders and smaller rocks piled over the opening.
“The gate,” Baldur said, turning toward the ruin of the tower. “I can feel it—all of them. They’re this way.”
“We haven’t dealt with Surt,” Thor grumbled, smacking his hammer against his broad palm.
“That was the whole idea,” Loki said. “We’ve devastated the army he spent decades building. We can hunt him down and skewer him in good time.”
A giant’s triumphant bellow and the crash of the drawbridge told us we might be skewered soon if we stuck around here any longer. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s go home.”
26
Aria
Asgard really could be a lovely place when you weren’t spending every spare moment preparing for a zombie invasion. I squirmed deeper into the soft grass, my head resting on Thor’s thigh, my feet tucked under Baldur’s arms where they were both sprawled in the field with me. A warm summer breeze drifted over us, and no sound interrupted my relaxation other than the chirping of a few birds gliding by.
Why had I ever found the idea of feeling this close to my gods scary? This was exactly where I was meant to be. I could feel that with every particle of my valkyrie being.
“Okay,” I said. “It’s decided. I think I’ll just stay in this position forever.”
Thor chuckled and brushed his hand over my hair. A short distance away, Loki perked up, shaking off his thoughtful reverie.
“But there are so many positions we haven’t had the chance to try yet, pixie,” he said in his smooth sly voice.
I rolled my eyes at him as well as I could while I was lying down. “Just let me enjoy the moment, okay?”
Soon, we were going to have to get back to work tracking down Surt. The war might be over, but there was nothing stopping the giant from gearing up for another attack while he was still on the loose. Baldur had suggested it might lighten all our spirits to take a day to recuperate before we started on that next quest, and I wasn’t going to argue with that. Even if I wasn’t sure my spirit could ever be totally “lightened” while the giant who’d meant to tear apart this world and my former one was still free somewhere, probably fuming at us.
A black form swooped by overhead—a bird that wasn’t just a bird. Muninn had been reacquainting herself with Asgard, switching back and forth between her forms at random, as f
ar as I could tell. She’d admitted to me this morning that she’d never experienced the realm of the gods as anything but a raven before now.
“You know what we could really use?” Hod said from his spot behind me. “Some of that fine mead, the kind we saved for the celebratory feasts.”
Loki shot him an amused look. “You are not who I’d have expected to hear that suggestion from, Dark One.”
“I can appreciate a good beverage,” Hod said, matching Loki’s playful tone. “Shouldn’t you be able to figure out where we can get some, Sly One?”
Thor stirred. “We do have an excellent reason to celebrate.”
I waved them all off. “You can have the mead. Just bring me a beer while you’re at it. Or a rum and Coke if that’s on offer.”
Baldur squeezed my foot affectionately. “You might not say that after you’ve tried proper Asgardian mead.”
I grimaced. “After the amount of time I’ve spent in Valhalla in the last couple weeks, I think I’ve gotten my fill through osmosis. Don’t you drink anything other than—”
A crackling sound broke through our banter. I stiffened, my head jerking up.
A torrent of fire was coursing against the sky, over the trees at the edge of the field.
My pulse hiccupped. I scrambled to my feet alongside the others. “Odin!” Tyr hollered.
The torrent arced and descended toward us, a bridge of flames. And standing at its crest was a burly man with a gray beard and a sword dancing with its own fire.
“Hello, Asgard,” Surt roared. “I’ve finally come to finish what I started.”
* * *
Will Aria and her gods survive Surt’s last stand—and how much will they lose along the way? Find out in Waking the Gods, the fourth and final book in the Their Dark Valkyrie series, coming later this fall. To be notified when Waking the Gods is available, click here!
If you’re a fan of reverse harem paranormal romance, why not check out Eva’s new series, The Witch’s Consorts? You can grab the prequel story FREE here!
Consort of Secrets excerpt
Want to get a taste of Consort of Secrets, my gothic-flavored witchy reverse harem paranormal romance? Enjoy the first chapter below…
CONSORT OF SECRETS
1
Rose
To a stranger, Hallowell Manor would have looked like the kind of place where dark deeds happened. You know: skeletons bricked up behind the tall foreboding walls. A madman prowling in the attic beneath the steeply sloped roof. Cheating lovers pushed from the turrets’ arched windows to their death. Although as far as I knew none of those things had actually happened there.
Let’s just say the house had a lot of character.
My father pushed the control on the Bentley’s dash, and the automated gate whirred shut behind us. The car turned along the drive through the falling twilight. As the house loomed over us, my heart lifted with anticipation.
I wasn’t a stranger, and to me this place was home. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t set foot on our country estate in more than eleven years. The manor and the massive property around it had set the stage for my fondest childhood memories. Through all that time in Portland, through my studies and the dinner parties and the strolls through fenced back gardens, part of me had always been waiting for the moment when I’d return here.
“That is an eyeful and a half, now isn’t it?” Philomena said in her lilting British accent. She craned her neck as she peered out the window. “Just ripe for adventure.”
“I’m supposed to be settling back in, not stirring up trouble,” I said.
“Oh, I’m sure we can find time enough for both, Rose.” She shot me the classic Phil expression: lips curved, brows lightly arched, brown eyes sparkling with mischief.
Dad parked by the garage. A couple of the staff were already hustling over to retrieve the few pieces of luggage we’d brought with us instead of sending it ahead. My stepmother let out a slow breath, her pale blue gaze fixed on the house.
“Well, here we are,” she said. Her tone was so dry I couldn’t tell whether she was expressing relief or trepidation.
I found it safest to care about Celestine’s feelings about as little as she cared about mine—which was essentially not at all. Ignoring her comment, I pushed open the door and stepped out onto the pavement. The cool breeze of the early spring evening teased through my hair. I pushed the black tumble of those locks back over my shoulders and drank in the lush green scents of home.
The tang of fresh paint reached my nose. The staff must have been touching up the outer buildings to prepare for our arrival. The once-green slats of the garage walls now glowered a deep maroon.
Something deep in my chest twisted. The change jarred with my memories. But it couldn’t stop the image from rising up in my head of the last time I’d seen the boys, standing just a few paces from where I stood now, watching a car very much like this one carry me away.
I jerked my gaze away before Dad or Celestine could notice me looking. It was the company I’d been keeping all those years ago that had prompted our move to the city. Better if neither my father nor my stepmother suspected how much those memories still meant to me.
Dad typed a quick message into his phone and tucked it into his slacks pocket. Probably letting one of the many people he did business with know he’d be available for conversation and negotiations within the hour. Celestine smoothed her hand over her sleek silver-blond bob and wrapped her slender fingers around his. He directed a quick but warm smile over his shoulder at me, and we started toward the house.
“Good Lord, it looks even bigger from out here,” Philomena said, clutching her expansive skirts with one gloved hand while she braced the back of the other against her forehead. She stared up at the manor. “Are you absolutely sure you didn’t forget to tell me you’re a duchess or a marchioness or some such?”
I swallowed a laugh. “I promise, I’m nothing by regular standards. In witching society, I guess we’re about on the level of a viscount?”
“Hmm.” She glanced at Dad. “I hope you’ll forgive me for saying I have always thought your father would look rather tempting in a proper tailcoat and cravat.”
“Ugh. I’ll forgive you if you promise to never mention finding him ‘tempting’ ever again.”
Philomena just smirked at me. It really was a good thing she was only a figment of my imagination and not someone Dad could actually overhear.
Phil’s insatiable exuberance had practically made her leap out of the book she starred in during the gazillion times I’d read it in the last seven years. I hugely admired her habit of speaking her mind unfiltered. But it wouldn’t have gone over any better in my society than it should have in hers, if her regency romance had been particularly true-to-reality.
Trust me, if you’d met the company I’d had in Portland, you wouldn’t blame me for plucking my best friend out of the pages of my favorite novel instead. The girls from the witching families around the city had all been as alternately judgmental and fawning as my older stepsisters. As far as they’d been concerned, I was either a country rube to look down on or a Hallowell they should suck up to. Sometimes both at the same time, which had thrown more than one of them for a loop.
But they didn’t matter now. I was home.
The staff had opened up the manor’s broad front door. Golden light spilled down over the front steps. My gaze caught on the tiny crack that ran through the second from the bottom.
How many times, long ago, had I sat there and traced my finger along that spidery line? A voice that wasn’t Philomena’s swam up in my head from the past. Are those stairs a lot more fascinating than they look, or do you figure you’d like to come have some real fun?
My fingers curled toward the sleeve of my sweater. I had one of my ribbons wrapped around my left wrist, like always. “Rose’s little fashion trend,” my stepsisters had liked to comment with a giggle.
We stepped into the grand front hall. The porters hefted our luggage up
the wide, velvet-carpeted staircase to the second floor. The cherry wood of the banisters and the wall paneling gleamed.
“I hope the journey was smooth, Master and Lady Hallowell,” our estate manager, Meredith, said, welcoming us in. She’d come ahead with the rest of the key staff that moved with the family when we relocated from one property to another. They’d have spent all day setting the house in order for our arrival.
“And for Rosalind as well,” she added with a quick wink. Now with only a few streaks of gray left in her white, braided hair, Meredith had been with the Hallowells for generations. You could say she’d raised me alongside my father.
My stepmother considered the grand front hall and sniffed. “I don’t like to see a painting askew the moment I step inside,” she said in the icy voice she usually used when speaking to Meredith.
She glanced around to confirm none of the unsparked staff were nearby and motioned the gold-framed artwork that had provoked her displeasure. The gesture turned into a quick flick of magic. The painting shifted straight without so much as a touch.
Celestine looked at Meredith with a slight arch of her eyebrows, as if to remind the manager that a lesser witch like her couldn’t afford to use her own magic that flippantly. “I hope the rest of the house is in better shape. Double-check the main floor rooms, will you?”
The corners of Meredith’s mouth tightened only a smidge. “Yes, Lady Hallowell.” Her gaze slid past my stepmother to my father, the man she considered her real employer. He nodded, but he gave her a wry smile at the same time as if to apologize.
As Meredith bustled away, a sallow, gangly figure appeared at the top of the staircase. “I’ve seen to it that all your office materials are as they should be, Lady Hallowell,” Douglas, my stepmother’s primary assistant, called down.