by Sedona Venez
I sighed with relief. “Thank goodness.”
Göndul continued. “This is no time to relax. You must prepare to defend yourself. Not all of the nine can be trusted.”
“You mean they plan to kill me,” I stated flatly.
Gunner’s fists clenched. “Exactly, and this you cannot allow. The Valkyries need you alive.”
My eyes narrowed, noting that she said need, not want. There was a big damn difference between the two.
Göndul looked at me with anxious eyes. “My visions have shown me things to come… blood, death, and sorrow.” She raised her hand toward me in a comforting gesture. “This is your test. Do not fail.”
The sky darkened. The moonlight shone down on them, casting ominous shadows. They looked at each other sadly.
“Our time is up. We must go.” Gunner looked at me worriedly.
My fingers gripped the railing. “Go? You can’t go. I need you.” I wanted to jump down and go with them. “I don’t think that I can do this.” I swallowed hard. “I don’t know what I’m doing.” My fingers trembled. “I know everyone believes that I have this… power, this thing within me, but maybe you are all wrong.”
Göndul sighed. “We are never wrong.” She pressed her palm toward me.
I felt the power shimmering in me, trapped. “How can I even defend myself if I don’t know how to use it? Is it like waving your hands and poof, it’s there?” It was frustrating not knowing.
Gunner laughed bitterly. “Poof? We are not witches. When the time comes, your powers will emerge on their own.”
I arched a brow. “On their own?”
Göndul looked at me serenely. “It’s like breathing. It comes naturally.”
I rubbed my face with frustration. “Oh God, I’m in trouble. Nothing comes naturally to me except singing.”
Gunner’s lips curled up into a genuine smile. “Exactly. When you sing, you feel. You let it flow through you. You know when the note is right or wrong and you adjust it until it feels just right.”
I just stared. I understood what she was saying, but applying it was very different.
“You’ll be fine. We have faith that you’ll do the right thing.” Göndul paused. “Know that, through it all, our strength and love will be with you—always.”
Suddenly their bodies convulsed and wings expanded from their backs, flapping frantically. They grunted as if they were in tremendous pain before a blinding gold light singed my eyes. Blinking, the two ravens croaked before taking to the air.
As I held back the tears, never had I felt as alone as I did right then.
Walking back into the living room, I heard the call of something ancient in my blood… I knew the time was coming near to fight, to rise against my enemies, and I had no intention of losing. Such a heavy burden was placed upon me, but I knew that I was born to fight, to conquer… to rise. I was going to survive.
I plopped down tiredly onto the love seat. My back straightened when I heard the hushed voices of Matt and Parker outside my suite.
“I still cannot believe Nick’s dead. Mason deciding not to avenge Nick’s death is sacrilegious. He’s weak. To think that he will someday lead all tigers as king is some frightening shit,” Matt hissed.
Nick’s dead? Tucking my legs under me, I listened attentively.
“Will you shut the hell up? If anyone hears you, it’ll be both of our asses ripped to shreds,” Parker responded.
“I don’t care. His decisions have been clouded by his obsession with that Valkyrie mutt and our Alpha is no better,” Matt spat. “To send our women away from the protection of our pride is ridiculous. They’re more concerned about protecting that Valkyrie mutt.” He scoffed. “She would’ve been dead by now if it wasn’t forbidden by Mason. It’s like she’s his little pet Valkyrie.”
Parker growled low. “Well, it gets worse. I heard the Alpha planning the mating of the Valkyrie and Mason at next month’s full moon. She and Mason will rule when he steps down from the position of Alpha.”
“To hell we are,” I mumbled under my breath.
Matt’s cold laugh sent chills down my spine. “You mean if the Others don’t kill her first. I have never seen such chaos over one woman. In a matter of hours, her presence has ripped apart our pride and caused the New York Council to break a pact that has been in existence for years. How is that even possible?”
Parker laughed bitterly. “Anything’s possible now. We’re at the top of the food chain, yet we’re taking orders from that fucking vampire. Shit is going downhill fast.”
I heard the hurried tapping of heels across the marble floors. “Move!” Skylar screamed hysterically before the door slammed open with a loud crack.
My back straightened at the sight of a wild-looking Skylar. Her normally well-groomed hair was a cloud of crazy. Her face was flushed. Her eyes darted around the living room before her heated stare pinned me to the love seat.
She was pissed. Shit! This couldn’t be good.
Skylar slammed the door shut, pressing her back against it as her chest heaved. It was as if the door was the only thing keeping her from tearing into me.
“You! I thought that we could be friends,” Skylar screeched, glaring at me with utter hatred in her eyes.
Uh-oh, this didn’t sound good. Standing up quickly, I held out a placating hand. I sure as hell did not want to rumble with a crazed tiger, but I would defend myself if she tried to attack.
“What are you talking about?” I whispered shakily.
Her head tilted in a pure animalistic way. “You’re nothing but fucking death and destruction.” She was shaking with rage as tears streamed down her cheeks.
I released a long-suffering sigh before responding with an impatient voice. “You’ve got to calm the hell down, Skylar. This is not like you.” Gone was the jovial, bubbly woman. Now I was trapped in the suite with a raving lunatic.
“You don’t know shit about me. So don’t act like you do.” Skylar wiped her face impatiently. “If you did, then you wouldn’t be standing there with that pathetic look on your face like some damn victim.”
I curled my lip. “Okay, now you’re just being a bitch.”
“All these years waiting for him to finally mate me… Gone… He’s just gone. I should have known something was wrong.” Skylar clawed at her chest. “The empty feeling. The migraines. All bonds with him broken.” Her eyes were wild and feral. “They sent what was left of him in a fucking box. A box!”
I started to walk toward her, freezing at the menacing growl rumbling in her chest. Okay, this was not going well.
“Nick. He’s dead. I’m so sorry, Skylar. Really I am.”
“You can take your unfeeling words and shove them up your ass, Infinity.”
My pulse raced at her confrontational behavior. She was pissing me the hell off. I tried to calm down, but frankly, it was hard as hell and getting harder by the minute. Stepping back, I eased myself onto the plush loveseat, crossing my legs, locking eyes with her.
Skylar’s eyes dilated before she lowered them. A move I recognized as submissive in nature. My body buzzed with strange energy. Now I was in the position of power, and I did not intend to relinquish that control, ever. My ears rang when Skylar’s heart began to beat quickly.
Skylar cleared her throat. “Something’s different about you,” she mumbled under her breath.
Remaining silent, I smiled. Damn right something was different. The exhilaration of my supercharged senses was thrilling. I could hear and smell things that overwhelmed my senses. I could hear the subtle rub of fabric as Skylar shifted nervously. I smelled a sickly scent wafting through the air I couldn’t put my finger on… Wait… It was fear. She was scared of me. It was demented, but I actually languished in her fear and my dominance.
My breath caught when I heard a low growl rumbling in my chest.
Skylar’s eyes widened. “Are you growling at me?”
I uncrossed my legs, clear
ing my throat. “Apparently, my wolf has picked an awkward time to emerge. However, this is not about me right now. It’s about you marching in here acting like you want to kick my ass.” I arched a brow. “Now is that how friends act?”
“Don’t presume to tell me how to act. Nick was a good man.”
I looked at her sardonically. “Uh-huh.” Yeah right. Mason is a sociopath and Nick was his sidekick. Birds of a feather and all.
She wrung her hands. “He would’ve come around eventually. He would’ve mated me,” Skylar said with a trembling voice.
“Are you trying to convince me? Or yourself?” I responded coolly.
Skylar snarled. “To hell with you.”
I shrugged. “I keep it real. You and I know Nick wasn’t a saint, and he sure as hell didn’t deserve your devotion.” I pursed my lips. “You told me that yourself.”
From the sob story that Skylar told me—when she was saner than she was now—Nick refused to mate her because she was a hybrid. What type of bullshit is that? What was worse was that he had slept with most of the females in her pride. Why in the hell she would even lower herself to hold on all these years, waiting for him to come to his senses, was beyond me. It just seemed clinical and cruel the way he boldly dashed away her hopes of a life together when she was the sweetest person I knew. Skylar was also giving and selfless. She did not have to keep me company when everyone is this compound treated me like a leaper.
Skylar also was patient as she had explained all about the mate-claim rules. Like how there were two types of mates, true-mates and mates. The Immortals bound true-mates together. The most rare mating. Essentially, finding your true-mate was like finding-a-needle-in-a-haystack impossible. And lastly, a mate-claim was only acknowledged under the power of the full moon, binding the mates under the eyes of the Immortals.
I continued. “You also told me that challenges between shifters were fairly common.” Nick just met a shifter who was much more powerful. It was the law of the jungle. The strongest survive. It was harsh but true.
Skylar eyes widened. “He had nothing to do with this dispute over you. They killed my mate because of you,” she screamed at me hysterically.
Skylar was coming unhinged.
I pointed at her. “You need to take that down a notch.” I reached down deep, tugging at the strength bubbling within me. Skylar looked at me warily as if she could sense my power. “Now let’s calm down and back up a minute.” I arched a brow. “Who’s they?”
Her face twisted with a cruel look of hatred in her eyes. “The wolves who killed your mother.”
My fingers curled into the flesh of my thighs, controlling the need to leap at her and break her neck. “Boulder and Torch?” God, this was going to get real ugly and fast.
Skylar paced back and forth like a mad woman. I tracked her warily with my eyes. If this was what losing a mate did to you, I wanted nothing to do with it.
Her face twisted with pain. “A note.” She laughed hysterically. “Boulder Vigari sent a note with the body remains. Challenging Mason for you. Totally ridiculous.” She stopped eyeing me. “I hope Mason kills this Boulder Vigari, tearing him into little wolf pieces, and then you’ll understand the pain of losing a mate.”
My body tensed. Something in me stirred at thought of Boulder dying. Leaning back, I controlled my breathing. “Are you seriously blaming me for this? I asked Mason to let me go, but he refused. For that matter, I asked you to turn a blind eye, allowing my escape, and you wanted nothing to do with it. So don’t blame me for something that was not my doing.”
She totally ignored my logic, pointing at me angrily. “Your mere existence is evil.” Her eyes widened as she wrapped her arms around her body, rocking back and forth. “I feel it now more than ever. Darkness. You will be our destruction.”
My fists clenched, feeling the weird onslaught of all her rage. I didn’t like this new development. The detox from the drugs was awakening something in the pit of my stomach that I didn’t like, raw rage. I squashed the urge to attack before responding coolly. “You’re angry and hurt. I get that, but blaming me for Nick’s death is going too far.”
“Oh, I blame you for everything.” She laughed hysterically. “For Nick’s death. For all of the females being torn away from their home, the only place they have ever known. All because of you.”
Oh God, I was going to be stuck here with Mason by myself. This did not bode well for things to come. “I don’t understand.”
“You don’t understand? Your mate,” she spat with vehemence, “somehow convinced the idiot New York Council to void the peace pact between the New York tiger-shifters. You get that? Years of peace ruined because of you.” She pointed at me. “What the hell do you have that would make them do that, Infinity?”
I swallowed hard and rubbed the back of my neck. “Obviously, I don’t know, Skylar.”
She scoffed. “Yeah. Okay. Right. You’re a liar too.”
“I’m not a liar. Never have been and never will be.” I sighed heavily. “I’m not asking you to understand, just listen. Do you understand how disorienting this all is?” I gestured around the suite. “My world has been turned upside-down. One minute I’m a human. The next I am this Valkyrie-wolf thing. I have enough shit to deal with, believe me, without the weight of knowing that some Council just destroyed some pact because of me.”
Skylar looked at me with agitation. “That’s the problem, Infinity. You don’t know shit. You can’t spend your life with your fucking head in the sand, hoping all this shit will go away, because believe me, it won’t. It’s only going to get worse for you and everyone around you.”
“Tell me something I don’t know. I need to get out of this make-believe Other bubble that Mason’s created. Help me escape.”
“Believe me, if I could, I would throw you at the feet of that damn Council, but Mason would kill me if I even tried.” Her eyes widened. “I begged him to throw you out, to end this madness, but he says he loves you. He says that you are his mate.”
I sighed heavily. “Skylar, he doesn’t love me. He wants to possess me. He’s not my mate. I belong to someone else.”
“Well, the only person who believes that… is you,” Skylar bit out before turning on her heels and stomping out of the suite, slamming the door.
I felt raw and shaken. What the hell was happening to me? To my life? I needed air. Jumping up from the sofa, I stomped over to the door, yanking it open. Parker and Matt stepped forward, blocking my exit.
“Inside, Valkyrie.” Matt growled.
I lifted my chin defiantly. “No. Mason gave me permission to leave this suite at any time. And I need to leave this damn room right now.” I marched around them, not giving a crap. I was irritated, tired, and just damn through with being in tiger land. “You’re not allowed outside,” Parker barked.
I rolled my eyes. Idiot. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
I ran down the stairs, needing some space, ignoring the hostile stares from the servants as I marched down the narrow hallway that connected to a rarely used wing of the castle that Skylar assured me I was welcome to use. The wing had interconnected rooms that branched out like a honeycomb, but there was one room in particular I was interested in right now, the huge ballroom with a gorgeous grand piano. I pushed open the door, looking over my shoulder at the displeased enforcers.
“I got it from here. Thanks,” I said sharply, readying to slam the door in their faces when Parker jerked the door open. I eyed them impatiently. “Okay, I’m at the end of my patience with you guys. You and I both know I can’t run. One foot out this door, you got me. One step out those French doors”—I nodded my head toward the shadows always lurking on the grounds—“and they got me. Now, step the hell back and give me some damn space.”
I slammed the door in their faces. Ridiculous. Like I could actually run. If I could, I would’ve done it hours ago. Besides, I wasn’t stupid. The tigers resented my presence and would relish ki
lling me with the excuse I was trying to escape.
I looked around the grand ballroom, heading toward the piano, when I heard a loud voice. Mason’s voice. I sat down on the sofa, eavesdropping. This super-hearing thing was coming in handy. Concentrating, I focused on lowering the volume of his voice, which was blaring in stereo.
“How long?” Mason asked sharply.
“Less than twenty-four hours. That’s all that you have before this place will be under attack,” a man responded with a voice dark and gravelly.
I knew that icy voice from somewhere. Its remnants slithered all over my body, making my stomach clench with fear. Frozen like a rabbit, I trembled, trying to sort through my anxiety. I needed to leave, go hide in my suite. My mind rebelled; I couldn’t do that. I was not that woman. I wouldn’t let them dictate my life or shroud me with fear. I was not a victim. I was a fighter. My mother and the Valkyries would not stand for anything less.
“And the supply of RejuvX bullets?” Mason asked.
What the hell was RejuvX?
“Your enforcers are unloading them from my truck. By the way, I just raised the price. It’s triple the cost I originally quoted. There’s a supply-and-demand issue.”
“Triple? That’s fucking outrageous,” Mason snapped.
“Take it or fucking leave it. I don’t give a shit. Whether you survive this attack is not my problem. I care about one thing—her.”
“You said you had this situation under control,” Mason responded sharply.
The man responded in a bone-chilling way. “I did. That was before you let your emotions dictate your actions. You took who Boulder believes is his mate and he wants her back. Now.”
Mason hissed. “I’ll never let her go. I’ll cut her into pieces and send her back to Boulder in little bags before that happens.”
My breath caught in my throat, his words locking my limbs into place. Anger settled into my stomach. How dare he treat me like some possession he could control and kill at will? I did not belong to him. Shifting, I settled comfortably against the sofa, dissecting his words.