Valkyrie Divided (Pyralis Book 2)

by Brandy L. Cunningham

  Rafael’s pale blue eyes winced at the sting in my words. “Valkyrie, I have always known your soul would be divided, but I have never lost hope in you, I have never believed you would stop being good.”

  I chewed my lip in annoyance. Behind the Fiddler, Aeron’s eyes watched me, the fiery ring in them brightening, and the feral look darkening his normally stoic features. “I’m glad someone believes in me.”

  Without looking back, I stalked from the tent, my long black hair falling down my back, swaying in the light breeze. I could feel Aeron’s gaze on me, burning my skin everywhere it touched. Outside the tent, most had returned to their own business, but a few lingered. They cast looks of hope and suspicion on me, and I wanted nothing more than to block them out. Rafael had used the right word for me. Divided. That was exactly what I was. My soul was torn in two, ripped and shredded and bloody. It was stained with the innocent human lives I’d taken during my time as Hell’s puppet, and it was stained by the blood of my own kind.

  I wondered if I was created for the sole purpose of killing and destroying. Here I was, trying to play the part of the hero, the savior, but in reality, I knew I was more likely to be the one to kill off mankind than to save it. Inside of me, a war raged. It was bloody, and brutal, it was never-ending. Would I ever make it out of the dark hole I was trapped in, or would I rot in there, along with the side of myself that wanted the world to die? Closing my eyes, I willed the anger in me to calm, because I knew how chaotic the effects of that anger could become. The last thing I needed was to cause an explosion right there in the middle of the camp.

  On legs that ate up the ground in long strong strides, I left the others behind. I didn’t care what Rafael said. I would not be babysat, no matter how much at risk I was. What no one ever seemed to take into account was how much worse of a risk I was than any risk I faced. I was the one they should worry about. The amount of anger and hunger in me was building again, and if I didn’t do something about it soon, they would be the ones to pay. I hiked my way through the thick forest that kept our camp hidden. I could have flown, it would have been faster, but I needed to feel the exhilaration of stretching my legs, of exhaustion and exertion.

  Outside the forest, the wind was rougher, wilder without the protection of the thick trees and mounting boulders. It thrashed about me, stirring up dirt and hurtling it at me. My hair whipped about my face, stinging my eyes and tangling around my neck. I paused on the crest of the final incline, peering down at the deserted town in the valley below. Last time I was here, this town had been a busy, bustling place full of both humans and others. Now, the emptiness of it was thick, loud, and depressing. Wind tunneled through streets and into broken windows, whistling and bellowing as its acoustics changed with its path.

  Slowly, I moved down the rocky slope, and into the shadowed streets. I looked into windows and found only empty darkness there. My internal grid was quiet, confirming the lack of lives left here. Bodies still littered the streets, and the scene was gruesome, even for me. In the center of the town, growls greeted my ears, and I observed a pack of wolves as they ripped and tore at the bodies of the fallen humans. I knew these were not the wolves I knew. These were not shifters, but simply animals, surviving. They watched me wearily, feeling threatened by my presence, but wise enough not to tempt me. I left them alone. Someone had to clean up the mess of death that covered this world.

  I felt like I walked through a graveyard, where the houses stood as the tombstones, and the asphalt was the graves. Some of the houses stood perfectly intact, while others had burned, or been ransacked. Claw marks ran down the side of one wooden home, the door torn into splinters, blood staining the walls and the street outside. My anger began to abate, being slowly oppressed by the evidence of our new reality. My world had changed so much in the past year, and so much of that was my own fault. Sadness became my companion as I ambled through the silent streets. It wasn’t complete silence that I found here, however, because I could still hear the screams of those who had died. I could still smell the odor of their fear and their blood.

  At the far end of the town, a towering church stood, its tall pointed ceiling hosting a formidable bell tower. I was surprised it was still standing, with only minor evidence that anything had occurred here. Stepping beneath the tall bell tower, I leaned my head back, glancing upward. A stone figure perched on the edge of the tower, it’s fearsome gray face like a wild rabid animal, it’s bat-like wings raised as though it was about to take flight. Inhaling deeply, my nostrils flared, and I was aware of a heartbeat. With a sigh, I turned and slumped against the wall. He would come down when he was ready. At first, I thought he had followed me, or been sent by Rafael to babysit me, but I quickly realized that was impossible. I would have seen him enter the city.

  It didn’t take long before the stone figure shifted, his bones crunching, and he swooped slowly down to land beside me. I looked over at him, amused by his decision to remain in Gargoyle form.

  “Chandler.” I watched him, waiting to see if he would shift, but instead, he chuffed at me in anger, his long pointed ears pinned back on his thick neck. His wings shook in agitation, and his long tail twitched side to side. I smiled at the unhappy display. “You’re beginning to remind me of a certain black cat…”

  It was all the goading it took. In a flash, he shifted to human, and he stood there glaring at me in anger, his body naked and tense. I knew he was angry with me.

  “Do not EVER compare me to that damned cat!” he spat the words at me, and I couldn’t help the twitch of my lips as I tried not to laugh.

  “Chandler, calm down please.”

  “Calm down? Are you fucking kidding? First, you get taken by some demon creature, then, you come back all…all evil and shit, and then, you let everyone think you’d died for good, and you want me to fucking calm down?!”

  Okay…I think it was safe to say he was a little pissed off at me. I was used to the handsome brooding Gargoyle, but I wasn’t used to this angry side that practically spat vehemence at me.

  “Chandler, I did what I had to do. If I hadn’t given myself over to that demon, he would have destroyed every Witch in the area.”

  Chandler cursed, and hit the brick wall of the church in a moment of uncontrolled temper. When he removed his fist, a hole gaped at us, small bits of brick and mortar crumbling to the ground. His eyes flashed white as he fought the urge to shift to his baser animal form.

  “Like hell, Val. Stop hiding behind your excuses. You gave in to your darker desires, and we both know it. I’ve known you had another side since I first sniffed you out in New Orleans. It was more subtle back then, but it was still there, lurking under all that pretty pale skin.”

  I sighed. My eyes held his, as they slowly returned to their gray hue. With a shrug, I replied, “All right, Chandler. You’re right. Is that what you want? You want to hear me admit it?”

  Chandler’s anger seemed to gentle, and he moved in to sit beside me. Even after all I had faced, it was still difficult for me to sit beside my friend in his naked state and keep a straight face. I have to admit, the temptation to peek at certain parts of him was distracting. Nothing about Chandler was unattractive. Trying to keep my eyes where they belonged-on his face-I studied him. He had changed a little. His once short cropped hair was now shaggy, hanging around his ears and sticking up in all directions. I smiled at the bed-head look, and noted the scruff that had grown in along his jaw.

  “It’s not so much that I need to hear you admit it, but Valkyrie, you need to acknowledge that there is another side to you, that there is both good and bad in you, or you’ll never be able to control it. Do you think there is no bad in me? I’ve done things too, Val. Don’t you remember how it was when first we met?”

  My mind flashed back to a time not so long ago-yet a time that felt like an eternity lay between it and the present-and I smiled. Chandler had been this puffed up boy ready to take on anyone, ready to defy the rules and take whatever he wanted. In fact, I had
been afraid he was going to rape me, but now that I knew him, I couldn’t imagine that he would actually go through with such a thing.

  “You were a pretty messed up kid.” I chuckled and nudged him in the arm with my elbow.

  Chandler rolled his eyes in exaggeration. “You’re one to talk Val. There you were, frightened, dumb as the day you were born, and in flames you didn’t even understand. Even back then, though, I knew you were…something else.”

  I glanced at my friend, and watched as his body stiffened and his eyes flashed white. Around the same time, my internal radar clicked on, and my senses flared to life. I felt my fangs lengthen of their own accord, and I heard the heart beat that thudded softly nearby.

  “I think we have company, Val.” Chandler was close to shifting, and though I knew it would be better if he did, I found myself placing a hand on his arm to stay his shift.

  “Give it a minute.” I winked, but I could tell by the look on his face he didn’t understand. I knew who lurked in the dark, and for whatever reason, I wanted to mess with him.

  It didn’t take long for him to materialize from the murky recesses around the empty shell of the town in which I sat, but when he did, I felt that stirring in my groins, and I felt that increased tempo of my heart. Apparently it was communicated through my fingers, because Chandler turned to me and he lifted a brow at me in both curiosity, and interest.

  Out in the dark, about a hundred feet or so from us, Aeron stepped into view. I can’t say for sure whether I was happy to note that it was the old Aeron that I saw, or whether I had secretly yearned for the Fenix. He was dressed the way I’d grown accustomed to from him: designer jeans and a black button up dress shirt rolled up at the elbows, of course. He was like a walking advertisement for sex, lust and danger. He had tamed his longish hair, and it was pushed back off his face, curling slightly around the ears, its deep blond color seeming darker in the lack of light.

  His jaw still held a slight shadow of stubble, and I found myself longing to feel that roughened hair rubbing along my breasts and down my body again. The mere thought caused a shiver to course through me. Aeron’s eyes, however, hadn’t returned to normal, and I realized that they probably never would. Now that the Fenix had been awakened inside of him, those mosaic eyes of his would forever be haloed by that fiery ring, but that was ok, because I found myself drawn to them even more. He held my gaze for a moment that seemed to last much longer than in reality, and I heard the caress of his voice in my mind.

  “Have I interrupted something?”

  My body purred in response to his voice, the deep timbre like a hand tracing along my skin, even as my mind rebelled from the accusation in his words.

  “Nothing that can’t be finished later…” I’m not sure why I felt like goading him, perhaps the angry side of Aeron stirred my attraction, I’m not sure.

  Aeron’s eyes flashed brighter, and his jaw ticked, no doubt from trying to keep himself under control, and he released a long slow breath. Smoke swirled out on his breath, and I tilted my head slightly in fascination.

  “Don’t fuck with me, little Pyralis.”

  My lips formed a wicked grin as my eyes challenged him. “Oh, but I already have…Aeron.”

  I watched the way he froze, the way his pants tightened along his pelvis as he grew hard, and the muscle that hardened in his jaw as he tried to ignore my words. Somehow, seeing that merely reminding him of the sex we had shared evoked such a response made me feel powerful.

  Beside me, Chandler chuckled. “I think I should leave the two of you alone…”

  In unison, both Aeron and I said, “No!”

  My gaze left my friend’s and returned to his, and it was interesting to know neither of us trusted ourselves to be alone together.

  Aeron cleared his throat. “Rafael has a message he would like you to take to the Lucina, Valkyrie.”

  I frowned. “Why can’t he just send someone else? There are hundreds of Gargoyle down there who’d be happy to deliver the missive.”

  Aeron sighed. “The Lucina refuse to let us near their queen, they said only the Pyralis may come.”

  This was new information to me, and I frowned deeply. “What are you talking about? They are on our side.”

  Aeron shrugged. “Supposedly, but after your little…deviation from the light, we have had little contact with them. They request your presence.”

  I sighed. Yet another ally I had to confront over the actions I’d made. I rubbed my forehead, not looking forward to this encounter. “Okay.”

  Flanked by Aeron on my right, and Chandler on my left, I glided through the darkened sky, feeling the breath of cold air stinging along my body as my black velvety wings pumped up and down in the air. I spared a glance toward Aeron, fascinated with the crimson sheen of his wings. Like mine, they were feathered, but unlike me, he didn’t have a Reaper side. Pulling my gaze away from him reluctantly, I glanced at Chandler, calling out to him.

  “What happened with Alysia? I thought the two of you liked one another.”

  Chandler’s muzzle crinkled up and he managed to shift just his face so he could speak. “Didn’t really work out. She was cool, but…just not my type I guess.”

  I sighed. I had really hoped something would bloom between the two of them. “Oh, that stinks. I’m sorry.”

  Just then, a shiver raced down my spine, and a sensation ripped through me, like claws grabbing hold of my mind and trying to rip it from within my skull. Releasing a soft cry, I lost my concentration, my wings seized up, and I began to plummet toward earth. In my head, I could hear his voice, it’s gravelly sound like nails dragged across a chalkboard, it grated on my ears, and made bile rise in my throat.

  “My dark princess…did you think to escape so easily?”

  I cried out, fighting the tug he held on me, but he was imbedded in my soul, in the very fibers of my being, and the string he had sewn into me was still there. I was being pulled like a yoyo, reeled in only to be spat out again, spinning out of control until his dark desires were fulfilled. The evilness of him permeated my soul, connecting with the side of me who enjoyed being bad, and I fought them both with everything I had. Flames burst out across me, engulfing me, and my bones shifted and snapped, my fangs growing and piercing into my bottom lip because I was biting down in pain.

  “Stop!” I screamed the words, but I knew they were futile. He was stronger than me. His desires were stronger than mine.

  My eyes began to drift closed as I slowly lost the battle, but then an overwhelming heat enclosed me, and suddenly, it wasn’t pain and darkness I felt, but sweet warm love. Like a beacon of light in the dark, it called me home, the scent and feeling wafting to my nostrils, entering my soul and chasing away the dark. My eyes snapped open just in time to look up into the fiery orbs of Aeron’s eyes as our bodies crashed into the asphalt streets of a city below us. He had wrapped his arms around me, and we were cocooned in his fierce crimson wings, but I smelled the scent of his blood as the force of our impact ripped his wings apart, and I heard the sound of bones shattering and splintering as his body absorbed the force of our landing.

  His eyes held mine, and he whispered against my ear in a rough voice. “Don’t let the darkness consume you. Fight it. I will see you again soon.”

  My mouth gaped open as his body burst into flames, bright, hot crimson flames that reduced his beautiful broken body to ash. I sat there amidst the pile of ash that belonged to the man that I loved. Yes, I loved him. I hated him too, but the love overpowered that. My jaw tensed and tears stung my eyes. This was the second time he had died, and both times were because of me. With an anguished scream, I beat the ground with my fists. I hated this. I hated that he kept having to die for me. I tried to calm myself, reassuring my heart that like me, he would be back, but the truth was, I knew virtually nothing about Aeron, so how could I be so certain? Beside me, Chandler placed a hand on my shoulder.

  “Come, Valkyrie, we need to get to the Halls of Lucina, quickly. There are
others about, and I sense evil nearby.”

  Looking up at my friend, I felt battered and bruised, and my heart was bleeding, but I too could sense others, and right now, I didn’t think I could face them, so I nodded and allowed him to lift me into the air. My body needed to heal, but I wasn’t sure my heart ever would.

  ͼ ͼ ͼ ͼ

  22

  Scent of Memories

  We didn’t have to go underground to find the Lucina this time. They were out in droves, patrolling the streets, standing atop buildings like perfect picturesque angels on guard. When Chandler landed, I was still a little dazed, but my body had healed and I was grateful to be able to stand on my own two feet. Glancing at the Gargoyle stationed beside me, I smiled at him. I often took him and his loyalty for granted, although I didn’t mean to. He had been with me since the beginning, and his ancestors long before this lifetime.

  Nephilim descended on us from each direction, and I stood tall, not sure what kind of attitude to expect from them. I certainly wouldn’t blame them if they didn’t trust me anymore. The first to approach me was Thane. With his sky blue eyes, he assessed me, looking for signs that I couldn’t be trusted. I held his gaze, standing my ground. After a lengthy silence, his eyes roved the rest of me, and he chuckled.

  “Valkyrie, always a pleasure. I am glad to see you have escaped the clutches of Hell. There were rumors circulating…”

  I allowed my own gaze to travel over the hard planes and corded muscles of his half-naked body, before replying, “And you as well, Thane. Unfortunately, most of what you heard was more than mere rumor. I admit I had a moment of weakness, when I couldn’t combat the evil.”

  Thane’s eyes widened such a miniscule amount that to a mortal eye it would have gone unnoticed, but not to me. He seemed to recover quickly, ducking his head in acknowledgement. “I see. Come, my queen awaits you.”