“Then stop complaining,” I hiccupped and leaned on my elbows. “Did you bring dinner?”
“If you mean another bottle, no, I didn’t. I’m ordering Thai. You need real food in that belly, Raven.” He helped me to my feet, and I swayed as the world tilted around me.
“I’m on a liquid diet.”
“You’ve been on a liquid diet for weeks. I can’t search for them on my own,” he growled as he held me up. “You can’t quit on them.”
“They’re dead,” I huffed. “Your sister killed them.” I hung my head, and he put my arm around his neck and picked me up.
“We don’t know that. You gave up after a month of searching.” He carried me to the bedroom we shared. We’d been sharing a lot of things as of late. “I know my sister, and what she said was true. If she needs them as insurance, she’s not going to kill them.”
Fen swiftly placed me on the bed and began to remove my clothes. Once I was naked and shivering, he took off his own and carried me to the shower where he cleaned me up and washed my hair.
It hadn’t always been like this for the last two months. I’d tried at first. The first month, I went throughout all of Limbo looking for Hel and the others, but it was as if they’d disappeared. There wasn’t a single trace. I even banged on the gates of Valhalla for help, but I got nothing. Once the city was back up and running, I went to the Underground and hired every witch and warlock I could find to help find my friends, but they all failed. This was beyond their reach. This was old Norse magic no supernatural on Midgard knew how to work.
After a month of trying, I gave up. The guilt ate me from the inside out—I couldn’t take it any longer. I wasn’t strong enough and I gave up. Fen kept trying. He had hope. I didn’t understand why he cared. He didn’t care for this realm or my friends, but he wanted to stop his sister. I was surprised when he chose me. We still haven’t spoken about it. He searches for the others and we fuck. That’s it.
“Raven,” he whispered as I stood under the water, slowly sobering up. “We can’t keep—”
I crashed my lips to his to shut him up. Every so often, I felt him wanting to end what we had going on and what we had was all I had left. I had to stop him from saying anything else.
He slid his hands over my wet body and gripped my hips before pushing me against the bathroom wall. I wrapped a leg around his waist, allowing him to position himself at my entrance. He slipped inside, and I expected it to be hard and fast like usual, but instead, Fen moved slowly. I felt every sensual inch, and it drove me wild. His lips left mine, and he kissed his way down to the crook of my neck. With each delicious thrust, his breathing became faster as he chased his release.
“Fen!” I cried when I couldn’t take it anymore, and he drove into me one last time, taking me over the ledge with him.
When we cleaned up and dressed, Fen ordered dinner and we sat at the table to eat. It was quiet as usual as I stirred my Pad Thai until I made a mess of it. I wasn’t very hungry and there was a bottle of whiskey with my name on it waiting for me.
“I got a lead,” Fen blurted out, breaking the silence. “It’s not much, but there were some hellhounds spotted in Muspelheim.”
I snorted. “That’s not out of the ordinary. It’s the world of fire.”
“Which is why I said it’s not much but it’s still a lead. She could be hiding in the most obvious of places.”
“The most obvious place would be to hide in the Underworld,” I retorted.
“Then why don’t we go check?” Fen leaned forward and stared into my eyes. “Don’t give up on your friends, Raven.”
I threw down the chopsticks and pushed away from the table. “Why are you helping, Fen? What’s in it for you?” I slammed my hands on the table. “I don’t understand your motives.”
His nostrils flared. “I don’t have a motive. I thought by now you would have known that. We’re on the same side!”
I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands. “Which is what I don’t understand!”
He pulled my hands away from my face. “What’s so hard to understand, Raven? That I could actually care about you? Is that really so crazy?”
I shook my head. It was crazy, but I couldn’t say it aloud. Fen and I had been enemies since we met. Anything else sounded absurd. But I couldn’t deny how he’d treated me and how he took me in after everything. And after it all, I fuckin’ trusted the bastard.
“We have no one, Fen. I’ve tried going to my sisters. They won’t help.”
He threw his napkin on the table. “I figured as much. You valkyries never liked to get your hands dirty when it mattered.”
My face reddened. “I did speak to Hildr. She said something I didn’t understand. I haven’t thought about it until now.”
“What did she say?”
I bit my bottom lip. “She told me to find the others. I don’t know what she means though. And she said it in secret.” I explained to him how she had whispered it in my ear and then covered her right eye as she backed away so our sisters couldn’t see. When I finished explaining, we sat in silence for a few moments.
“It definitely sounds like it has something to do with Odin,” Fen said as he covered his right eye. “The whole eye thing is a giveaway.”
“I don’t want to pay him a visit, not yet.”
“You might have to,” he said. “I think Hildr was giving you something since they couldn’t help. This could be something, Raven.”
I shook my head. “But it won’t help us find Charlie, Will, and Verdandi.”
“It’s a start, and that’s what we need.” Fen began to collect the dinner plates.
He was right. I’d given up too easily on my friends and I needed to try harder.
They were out there, and I needed to find them. And I would.
The Rise of the Valkyries
1
I felt like I was in my own personal sauna. The sweat that came out of my pores was excessive but necessary. It had been weeks since I’d had an ounce of alcohol. Quitting wasn’t the hard part; the detox was, and I was still struggling. But I was better than I was before. I could at least leave Fenrir’s apartment without going to the nearest bar. I had to get clean to be able to do what I had to do. We tried figuring it out on our own, but we were running out of time. This was our last resort to save them.
The Norns’s entrance to Limbo was unprotected until the Norns were reborn, so it was easy for me to enter undetected. Fen and I’d been using the entrance a lot these last couple of months. Not many people knew where it was located, so it was relatively safe. The Yggdrasil tree was still located in Portland’s Tualatin Mountains, hidden in the depths of the West Hills. The hike was no walk in the park, but having done it so much, I could do this trail in my sleep.
Yggdrasil was as big as a skyscraper and could reach the sky above, with a rune carved in the middle to protect it from evil dwellers. It was the only protection the tree had since the Norns were killed by my father, Odin.
Not wasting any time, I placed my hand on the tree and let it pull me inside to Limbo, where the entrances to all the nine realms were. It was incased in a gray fog, and all that was visible were the doors to the realms. But I wasn’t traveling. Not today. I was here to see someone.
I hurried through Limbo, ignoring the sounds of the lost souls that roamed the vast void, and headed for my target. I passed the golden gates to Valhalla, and my heart ached. I’d come to my sisters in a time of need, and they’d shut me out. At times, I wondered if I’d made the right choice in leaving Valhalla for a second time.
Up ahead as the clouds cleared, I saw the steel bars of a cage. Two birds flew manically inside, as if the cage were not big enough to hold them, and there was a man, seated on the ground in the center. His head was bowed in defeat. He wore the same slightly wrinkled, royal blue tunic that I last saw him in, and his hair and beard had grown now to his chest. I could see the gold eye patch covering his right eye. But he was no man. No, he was a god, and one I m
ust tread carefully with.
“Odin,” I called out as I stopped a few feet away from his prison.
“I expected you much sooner, Hrefna.” His voice was gravelly, as if he hadn’t spoken in a while.
“You shouldn’t have expected me at all.”
His shoulders shook. “And why is that? Eventually you’d need me. A child always needs their father.”
My face heated more than it already was, and I fumed from the inside out. He was no father to me. “I don’t need you,” I growled.
He lifted his head to look at me. “Then why are you here, Hrefna?” He gave me a small smile.
I didn’t want to play Odin’s games. A straightforward approach was best, even if I was showing all of my cards.
I covered my right eye with a cupped hand and looked at Odin and said, “Where are the others?” It was the same message my sister Hildr gave me in secret before I left Valhalla. She told me to find the others. The missing eye meant it had something to do with Odin, which brought me back to why I was here.
Odin’s smile twitched as he watched me. I let my hand fall from my face, and I stared back at him. His ravens—Hugin and Munin—stopped flying above him and landed one on each of his shoulders.
“Don’t hold back now,” I said, not breaking eye contact.
His smile turned into a smirk, and he shrugged. “I don’t know of what you speak.”
I rushed forward and gripped the bars on either side of my face. “Yes, you do, you son of a bitch!” I yelled. “Tell me where they are!”
“Do you even know who they are?” He raised an eyebrow.
I shook from head to toe with rage as I clenched my teeth, unable to answer him. He was right, I didn’t know who they were. I was bullshitting my way through this in hopes he’d have one decent bone in his body and help his daughter.
“I didn’t think so.” He sighed.
“I remember,” I blurted, the memory rushing through my mind in spurts. His eyes widened just a fraction but not enough to give anything away. “I remember centuries ago, Midgard was at war when Kara and I heard the scream of a girl.” It all came flooding back to me. “Her father had been killed just outside of the battlefield—a rune carved into his abdomen and one eye plucked out. Just like the murders you pinned on me. The girl said it was because of her, because he wouldn’t give her up. Kara killed her before she said anything else. Did you kill the girl’s father?”
“We live long lives, Hrefna. Our memories are unreliable.”
I shook my head. “I went to you about what Kara did to that girl. I told you I thought there was more to that man’s death, and you gave me lashings for it. But it was you all this time. It’s your signature.”
He chuckled. “So now I have a signature like a serial killer. Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”
“Who was the girl, Odin? Why was she important?” I felt like I was getting close. I could feel it, but my memory wasn’t the best. She said because her father wouldn’t give her up; the question was, why would Odin want her?
“You’re grasping at straws,” he said, his eyes avoiding mine. Straws my ass. I was hitting a nerve.
Find the others. Find the others. Find the others. Find the others.
Holy shit.
“She was a valkyrie, wasn’t she?” My grip on the bars tightened.
Hugin and Munin began to squawk wildly on his shoulders. They took flight and flew above his head in a circle.
Find the others.
“There are more out there, like that girl? There are more valkyries in Midgard that don’t know,” I said with wide eyes.
Before I knew what was happening, Odin was on his feet and at the bars, his hand through them and at my throat, squeezing tight.
“I should have killed you when I had the chance,” he growled as he lifted me off the ground.
I gasped my last breath and reached for his hand at my throat, trying to pluck it off me. I kicked my legs out, but he was much stronger than I was. I jabbed my elbow on his forearm, but I was starting to weaken.
“You’re sticking your nose in something you have no business in, Hrefna,” he murmured. “Now you’ll lose your life for it. Such a shame. I had high hopes for you, I really did.”
My honey-brown wings burst out of my back, and I started to flap frantically, hoping the force would pull me away from him, but he was too strong. He flexed his grip on me, and I felt my eyes bulge and my sight dim. My wings fell limp down my sides, and my body sagged, no longer fighting him.
Someone cleared their throat. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Fen’s voice came from beside me. I opened my eyes and saw the tip of a sword at Odin’s throat. He was frozen. It wasn’t just any sword; it was the Sword of Souls. The one weapon that could kill Odin.
Odin released me, and I fell to the ground, right on my ass. I sucked in a load of air and then began to cough.
“You all right, Raven?” Fen asked, not having moved the sword. I was still in a fit of coughs, so all I could do was nod and give him a thumbs-up. “And here I thought you’d play nice, Odin.”
“And I thought you two were enemies,” Odin replied. “The prophecy was true after all.” Odin was obsessed with the prophecy that Fenrir and I would team up and kill him. It was why he’d tried to get me killed or locked up by the humans. He’d pinned such horrific murders on me just to stop a prophecy that only brought me and Fen together.
I got to my feet, clearing my raw throat. “No one was trying to kill you, Odin. You made yourself a target. You made that prophecy come true.” My voice came out hoarse.
Fen put a soothing hand on my back, and Odin didn’t miss a beat.
“I see you’re more than just friends,” he said. “As your father, I do not approve. I wonder what Loki might think.”
Fenrir brought the sword back up to his throat. “Don’t you dare mention my father.”
“Stop, Fen.” I put a hand on his, lowering the sword. “He’s just trying to get a rise out of you. Don’t give him the satisfaction. I got what I needed. Let’s go.” I didn’t want to stay a second longer for fear of what Odin might say or do.
We turned to leave when I heard him shout, “You think you know it all, but you don’t! Don’t go looking for them, Hrefna!”
I hated my birth name.
I didn’t bother looking back.
“How are you feeling?” Fen asked as we entered his apartment. “Did he hurt you?” He touched my neck where I was sure a bruise was forming.
“I’m fine.” I brushed him away. “Why were you there anyway?” I followed him to the bedroom and watched him undress from his fitted dark jeans and black shirt. He scratched at his beard; he was due for a trim. He quickly changed into some sweats and threw me a pair of pajamas.
“You were taking too long. I got worried.”
I laughed. “I was not taking long, and you know it. You were worried I was drinking, weren’t you?” Fen bit his lower lip, and I knew I’d hit it right on the money. “I’m not mad; just be truthful.”
He sighed. “Fine, Raven. Yes, I was concerned your father would drive you to drink. There, I said it.” He plopped himself on the bed in defeat.
I went to stand between his legs and wrapped my arms around his neck. “Thank you.”
His brows furrowed. “What?” he asked in confusion.
“Thank you for looking out for me. Had you not been there, I don’t know what I would have done. So, thanks.”
“You’re not mad?”
I shook my head. I wasn’t mad. Fen had done so much for me these past couple of months; I knew that whatever he did, it was with good intentions. He’d gotten me sober and kept me sober and was helping me find my friends. Will, Charlie, and Verdandi were still missing—kidnapped by Hel, Fen’s sister. There was a time when I’d given up on trying to find them because I thought they were dead, but Fen didn’t let me. They were out there, and we were going to find them. It was why I went to Odin today. Now that I knew who th
e others were, we might have some help in fighting Hel.
“If there are other valkyries out there, where are they?” I mused. I’d told Fen everything that’d happened on the car ride back to his apartment. “And why would Odin let them be raised in the human world?”
“Maybe he didn’t know,” Fen said. “It’s possible he fathered more children than he could possibly keep track of. Some fell through the cracks, and when they were old enough to get their wings, that’s when he found out.”
“Makes sense, but where are they? How did we not hear about them?”
“Hildr knew,” Fen said with a knowing look. “So did Kara.”
I was the one out of the loop. Who else knew about this? “Even if we find them, they’re not trained. They won’t be able to fight against Hel.”
“Then we’ll train them.” Fen grabbed my hands. “I heard rumors my sister is making a move soon. We must prepare.”
I stared into Fen’s eyes. There would always be a small part of me that worried if he’d betray me or not. He’d done so much for me, but I sometimes wondered if this was all a ruse, a part of a long con. He’d done it before, so it wouldn’t be a first. But I’d be stupid to fall for it again. So, I did something I hadn’t done in a long time. I looked into his soul. I scanned his chest and dug deep where his soul was, and I saw the gray-blue aura that swirled there in front of me. It was nothing like the dark mass I’d seen when I first met him, which should have been my first clue, but it still wasn’t clear. The gray meant he was still at a crossroads, but of what? The blue was the only glimmer of hope I had that he wouldn’t betray me again.
“What’s wrong?” He tilted his head to the side as he watched me watch him.
I gave him a sad smile and shook my head. “Nothing. I was thinking, the best place to find out about the valkyries is if we pay a little visit to Asgard.”
Fen stilled. “Raven …”
“What?”
He pushed me away and stood from the bed, running a hand through his hair. He placed a hand on his hip and started to pace. “I haven’t been to Asgard in a long time.”
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