He lay his head back, closed his eyes and prayed to The Mother, Lilith, prayed for wisdom and strength, for he had neither at that moment. Everything in him was a tangled cacophony of chaos and he was lost in it.
He dropped his face into his hands.
“Please don’t let her die because of me.”
There was no answer.
There never was.
Part II
Chapter Twenty-Four
The world was a pale glow of approaching dawn when Valkyrie pried her eyelids open. The room was vaguely familiar despite being bathed in a dark pool of shadows. Her body ached in ways it never had and there was a pull in the back of her navel that was quickly filling her with an anxiousness she didn’t like. It persisted even as she forced herself upright, ignoring the whisper of sheets as they slid down her fully clothed frame to pool into her lap. Her movement jostled the figure curled up on the other side of the bed.
“You’re awake.” Gideon pushed up as well, his dark profile a rigid shadow. “How are you feeling?”
Memories of the previous night swayed before her mind’s eye, like watching the events while swinging. It all teetered and blurred in too many places.
Valkyrie rolled her gaze over her room at Final Judgment. Absently, her hand went to the place between her breasts. The fingertips massaged the ache there.
“How did I get here?” she wondered. “There are holes...”
There was a quick flash of Gideon’s face, of his mouth under hers, his breath warming her skin. Just as quickly, it was gone. Valkyrie wasn’t overly surprised. It wasn’t the first fantasy she’d had of him, nor, she surmised, the last. But it was such an odd time.
“What happened?”
His features remained tense, the way people looked when they were about to deliver heartbreaking news.
Her stomach dropped. “Gideon?”
He reached for her. His fingers were blocks of ice against the side of her face. “It’s all right,” he murmured.
Her insides turned cold. A sour paste filled her mouth, making the bile brewing at the back of her throat impossible to contain. Bells shrilled between her ears in a screech of panic.
“What is?” She demanded, the tremor difficult to miss. “Why is there pain...?”
Her hands were caught when she started to yanked the covers off. His grip was a little too tight, a little too anxious.
“I’m so sorry, Kyrie...”
“What...?”
An unimaginable chill swept through the room with an angry vengeance. The darkness pulled closer about the bed despite the blinding blush pinkening the windowpane as dawn climbed higher across the sky. Her hands shook as she kicked free of the sheets and pushed unsteadily to her feet. Someone had removed her boots, her blades were silver slivers of steel on the nightstand. Her feet pressed flat against the hardwood.
The place between her legs spiked with her first steps and she gasped, pitching forward to brace herself against the side of the bed. Her knees wobbled even as her hand went to cup the mound beneath the soft leather and felt the tenderness there. Her breathing raced from her lungs in tufts of air that sounded much louder in her ears as the sickening realization finally hit home.
No. Please, no.
“Valkyrie, wait—”
There were tears blurring her path as she stumbled her way to the washroom. Her heart muffled the bang of door striking plaster. She hit the wall with her shoulder, all the while fumbling with the fastens on her pants.
She had no idea what to look for, or what to expect when she forced the leather down around her knees. But she knew, even before it struck her that she wore no panties.
Her vision dimmed. The room tilted dangerously to one side. Her kneecaps struck the marble, but the pain was nonexistent. She couldn’t breathe.
“Valkyrie!”
Gideon was there, scooping her up and pulling her into his lap. His embrace was suffocating.
“It’s okay,” he ground into the top of her head. “It’s okay.”
“Someone touched me,” she gasped, not seeing how anything was okay. “I’m ruined.”
“Valkyrie...” The pain wrenching his features emulated hers exactly.
“Who did it?”
He seemed unable to move, or speak. He watched her as though somehow her suffering were tearing him in two.
“Who?” she screamed at him.
The muscles in his jaw bunched once before he spoke. “I did.”
It was as though he had taken his blade and thrust it deep between her ribs and straight into her heart. The pain of it was insurmountable. It was without measure or name. It echoed through the room and through her skull like shards of fragmented glass.
He had done this. He who had been her one and only friend. He who had been the only person on earth she had ever truly trusted with every part of her. He had betrayed her in a way that could never be repaired. He had marked her for death.
The world gave another shudder.
“You?” Her voice refused to rise above a whisper.
His head began to rock slowly from side to side, his pleading features saying everything before his words could.
“I...”
The pathetic sound broke her.
With an unhinged shriek that ripped from her very soul, Valkyrie scrambled out of his hold. Her fist caught him in the jaw; every ounce of her strength going into that single blow. The attack sent him to the ground with a reverberating bang that shook the floorboard beneath her feet. His blade tumbled out of his pocket and Valkyrie dove for it. The hilt was warm. Then she was on him. He made no move to defend himself when she thrust the dagger under his chin.
“What have you done?” she screamed at him. “Was everything you said, everything we shared a joke? Do you hate me so much?”
His gray eyes never lifted from hers, the anguish in them palpable. “I don’t hate you.”
“Then why?” she demanded. “Why would you do this? Why would you ruin me?”
There was a trickle of blood running down his chin from the gash on his lip. It stained his teeth when he spoke again.
“Forgive me.”
Tears spilled from her lashes and dropped onto his face. Each one caused him to flinch as though they were acid hitting his skin.
“How can you ask me for such a thing?” she half growled, half moaned through her teeth. “Do you know what you’ve done? Do you understand...?” She couldn’t seem to catch her breath. The very air around her was too thick to inhale. “You’ve killed me. You’ve taken away everything.”
“Kyrie...”
“No!” She pressed harder with the blade point. A fine ribbon of blood rolled down his windpipe. “I will never forgive you. I will hate you until my very last breath.”
“Then kill me.” The request was made so low, she nearly didn’t hear him. “I would rather die.”
The hand clutching the blade trembled. Part of her ached to thrust it deep into his heart, to cut it free from his body like he had done to her.
“I would never give you that mercy,” she whispered. “You deserve to live forever with what you’ve done.”
The laws of her people were clear, obey without question and die with honor. From the moment Valkyrie had met Gideon, nothing seemed clear. His very presence had stirred something in her that was so incredibly forbidden, and maybe that was why she had always been so drawn to him. He made her want to succumb, made her want to forget. He was everything she should have considered dangerous and yet, she had secretly longed for the nights they patrolled together, because no matter how insistent the voices in her head were to stay away, that he could destroy her, she had never believed them. She had truly believed that Gideon would never harm her. But he had. Again and again. Never physically, until now.
The link to a Harvester’s power was through her virginity, through her purity. It was how they could take souls to heaven. Their chastity was what gave them strength, speed, and agility. Without it, they were practica
lly mortal. She was useless to her people, to her father. The fact that the man who had ruined her wasn’t even one of her kind was a betrayal her father would never forgive. She would be executed at dawn.
Yet despite this knowledge, Valkyrie knew it was only a matter of time before her father became aware of her situation and sent her sisters to get her. The only thing left to her was her pride and the small shred of dignity she mulishly clung on to; she would not be dragged before her father, shamefaced. She would go to him herself, explain her case, and accept whatever punishment he deemed appropriate. Even if that was death.
Her fingers went to the six fine lines running lengthwise across the toned muscle of her bicep. Each one was a shade paler than her own skin tone and blazed bright. Losing them was the thing that hurt more than anything else. She had worked so hard to earn each one. She had suffered so much. All of it had been for nothing.
Out of a habit she had grown attached to the last little while, her fingers went to the other mark, the intertwining knot of roots seemingly burned into the soft tissues of her inner forearm on her right arm. She vaguely recognized the Celtic shield of the water creatures and the intricate symbol for eternal that banded around it. She had seen the mark twice before and both times it had been seared into skin just like hers.
She traced the risen bump with the pad of her thumb, her mind lost in her problems.
Climbing out of the shower quickly, she dressed, adamant to find the person responsible for her suffering and demand answers.
The invisible cord attached to the back of her belly button gave a tug of recognition, delighted by the idea of seeing him, even though she knew she was furious with him.
This doesn’t change anything! The voice in her head retorted vehemently. He still betrayed you.
She would confront him first. Then she would face her father.
Valkyrie left the boundaries of her room and ventured downstairs. The catacomb of corridors and stairways rang with a silence she was quickly becoming accustomed to. Her father’s great hall was always filled with the clang of metal, the raised voices of those in debate and the occasional cries of the damned. There was never silence. Never peace.
The northern manor, while sprawling and vast, held a warmth that radiated through the walls. There were no cold stones and glowering statues, but rich hardwood lined with soft carpet and paintings of meadows and beautiful ladies reading in golden sunlight. It had the feeling of comfort and family. This was not a family who lived for the blood of battle. They lived for each other.
Valkyrie had never felt so alone, or so uncertain.
She found the Maxwell family in the dining area as they seemed to always be. Kyaerin, Liam, Reggie, and the banshee child sat at one table cluttered with papers and coffee mugs. Imogen, Reggie, and Kyaerin were going over applications. Magnus sat one table over with Octavian, heads bent over a chart. They seemed to be immersed in the fine lines Octavian was drawing across the page with a pencil. Gideon seemed to be the only one not doing anything. He sat at the window table, an open bottle of bourbon in front of him. Riley sat next to him, so close that she was practically in his lap. Her thin arms were around him like a pale sash against his dark shirt. Her chin rested on his shoulder and she was murmuring something Valkyrie couldn’t hear. Whatever it was, it had Gideon shaking his head.
“Valkyrie!” Beautiful in a way only a water creature could be, Kyaerin spotted her first, her blue eyes pools of motherly concern and affection. “How are you, love?”
The woman irritated her. It was irrational and possibly petty, but no one had any right to be that cheerful or that caring. Yet the woman was constantly balancing between the two like a frail little bird unable to decide which branch she liked better.
It wasn’t as though Valkyrie were averse to kindness. She just didn’t know how to respond to it. She had never been loved. Not by her father. Not by her sisters. Her mother might have loved her. If she did, she never said as much to Valkyrie. She certainly never worried the way Kyaerin seemed to always do. There were days she wanted to scream at the woman to stop caring, but the thought of Kyaerin actually listening made Valkyrie’s stomach hurt. The small, weak part of her she fought so hard to smother and kill glowed a little every time she was treated like she mattered. Yet, just as quickly, the feeling was stomped out before the smoke could turn into an unstoppable fire.
“I’m fine,” Valkyrie muttered, trying to keep the edge from her tone.
Kyaerin didn’t seem to believe her. She exchanged a glance with her husband that was returned with a loving brush of lips across dainty knuckles.
The unabashed show of affection was another thing Valkyrie didn’t quite understand. The two were always touching, always kissing, always peering into the other’s eyes as though someone had hung the very universe in the other’s gaze. They wore their weakness like a badge of honor that glinted a little too brightly for the world to see. She knew it would eventually get them killed, because, despite what they thought, love was not a weapon. Love hurt. It caused irreparable pain and suffering. Love was not to be trusted. She more than anyone knew that.
“Is everything all right, Valkyrie?” Liam’s tone was genuinely concerned. His soft, brown eyes assessed her.
All eyes were riveted on her now, watching and waiting for an explanation. It was stewing at the back of her throat to tell them all to mind their damn business, but couldn’t find the energy.
“I need to see my father,” she said evenly. “He will undoubtedly send someone else in my place to help with the hunting.”
“Someone else?” Kyaerin got to her feet and approached her. “Is something wrong?”
Unwillingly, Valkyrie found her gaze darting over the other woman’s shoulder towards the man across the room. He was no longer looking at her, but staring intently at the bottle between his long hands. His brows were furrowed. His lips pinched thin. It was difficult to determine whether he wanted another drink, or to smash the bottle into a million pieces. Possibly both.
Valkyrie looked away. “Nothing’s wrong,” she lied. “I need to go.”
She edged around Kyaerin and started for the front door. Her strides were quick, practically sprinting. But even then, Magnus beat her.
“You can’t,” was all he told her in a low, tight murmur.
“Get out of my way,” she warned him in the same whisper.
His head turned ever so slightly in the direction of his brother, seemingly waiting for something to happen. When nothing did and Gideon remained slouched in his chair, Magnus’s dark eyes returned to Valkyrie with a frustration she knew all too well.
“If you return to your father, you will be killed. You know that.”
She met his gaze squarely. “It is what must be done. I have dishonored my father. I let down my people. I must accept my punishment.”
“That is crazy!” he hissed savagely.
Valkyrie lowered her voice even further so the words were shredded through the tight clamp of her teeth. “If I remain, your family will be slaughtered when my father comes to get me. He will spare no one.”
“You would be amazed at how well my family can take care of themselves and each other,” he replied. “That now includes you.”
An inexplicable tightness closed her throat, making speech virtually impossible. “I’m not your family.”
“That mark on your arm says otherwise,” he countered. “You are my brother’s mate, that makes you my sister and a daughter to my parents. We are not like Harvesters, we protect our own.”
“Your brother betrayed me.”
Magnus shook his head. “No, he didn’t.”
She started to ask him what he meant, when Kyaerin spoke from behind her, reminding her they weren’t alone.
“What is going on?”
Magnus was watching her, possibly expecting her to tell them the wonderful news of how she was now part of their loving family. But she refused to. Despite whatever he might say, or think, she couldn’t stay. Her fa
ther would send an army to retrieve her and the longer it took, the worse the punishment would be. Not just for her, but for Gideon and his family. Her father would make them suffer. He would burn Final Judgment to the ground if it meant getting her back. She had already shamed him, letting her go now would forever mar him in the eyes of the people. He would never stand for that.
“I will tell them,” Magnus threatened.
Valkyrie shot him a look of resentment. “You can’t keep me here, Caster.”
He shook his head. “I won’t let you leave, either.”
“I am trying to protect your family!” she snarled back at him.
He merely shrugged. “So am I.”
“Magnus!” Kyaerin’s tone was impatient.
Magnus straightened and folded his arms over his chest. He arched an eyebrow as though to say, your move. And Valkyrie had to stave back the urge to kick him.
“I think someone needs to start telling us what’s going on,” Liam commanded in a voice that left no room for argument.
Neither Valkyrie nor Magnus were willing to be the first to speak. Both stared at the other in a silent battle of wills to see who would break first. Both knew the other wouldn’t; if there were two people who were trained to handle severe torture and continue to keep their secrets, it was them. Neither would break first.
“It was me.”
Just like that, all attention was snapped away from them to the sullen figure in the corner, idly picking at the label on the bottle.
“What was you, Gideon?” his father asked.
Gideon scored at the creases on his brow with the tips of his fingers, leaving red welts in their wake.
“I touched her.”
The look through the room was one of confusion. No one understood why that was such a horrible thing. She was already his mate, touching her was an acceptable thing. They didn’t realize that was not the sort of touching he was referring to.
Gideon's Promise (Sons of Judgment Book 2) Page 34