Valkyrie Concealed

by Allyson Lindt

  “We’re getting ahead of ourselves. Why now?” Min asked.

  Fair question. Would they believe Brit’s answer? “In the warehouse, the soldier I shot, wasn’t surprised to see me alive. He said, The faithful will return. And the other one said, For Death, before he shot me.”

  “Hel was a goddess of death. I don’t see what’s so unusual about TOM killing in her name.” Min’s tone was kind, but the interruption was irritating.

  “For Death isn’t Hel’s thing,” Kirby countered. “That’s not something we were taught.”

  Gwydion shrugged. “Maybe it was just that one guy’s thing.”

  “I think it’s part of the ritual.” Brit raised her voice, to speak over everyone else. “I did a lot of reading on that campus; most of it about how gods are killed. They don’t come back, but a sacrifice in their name is powerful. You can’t deny that.”

  “We covered this two seconds ago. That’s not how Hel referred to herself.” And there was Starkad’s input.

  Brit didn’t expect this to go easily, but she’d hoped for a little bit of give. “Are you going to ignore possibilities because they came from me?”

  Starkad said, “We might,” at the same time Min said no.

  “We’ve all been searching for months for answers about how Hel may return. This is something we haven’t encountered before now, and if there’s even a possibility it means something...” Please, someone, draw a reasonable conclusion from this besides me.

  Kirby stood. Not that she needed to, in order to have all eyes on her. “We need a way to work with someone inside, who’s high enough up on the ladder they have access to high-ranking information. If there’s anyone left like that who isn’t a fanatic, we don’t have any way of knowing. This is the same thing that’s stalled us for months—we don’t have a way in. Has that changed?”

  Silence fell over the room. That probably didn’t happen very often. Brit could go into TOM, but there was no way they’d trust her to be a double agent. It didn’t matter how sincere she was about not betraying them again.

  “No one at TOM knows Brit is still alive, do they? We’ve kept her hidden...” Bless Min.

  Starkad’s laugh was expected.

  Kirby’s hurt a little more. “Yeah... no.”

  “I may have a way to send you in.” Min focused on Kirby. Even seated, he commanded as much attention as she did.

  “How?” Starkad asked.

  Gwydion slammed his palms into the table hard enough to startle. “Nope. No. Hell no. Hell the fuck no. She’s not walking back into a situation that almost killed her.”

  A new flavor of envy tickled Brit’s tongue. What would it be like, to have someone so dedicated to her well-being?

  “We have to hear Min out.” Doubt sneaked into Starkad’s voice.

  Kirby stared at her fingernails, picking at the edges. “Do we?” Her voice was barely a whisper.

  Gwydion grabbed her arm and tried to tug her toward him. She pulled away.

  “This is the kind of thing you need to be in for more than one-hundred percent.” Min looked between Kirby and Brit. “Both of you.”

  Intriguing...

  “Then I suppose we’d better listen.” As Kirby scrubbed her face, her hands distorted her sigh. “How do I get onto campus, and what does it have to do with her?”

  Her? Hello, disdain.

  Min closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them again, he stared at the table. “Ka. It’s the spiritual doppelganger of a person, and it only emerges once they die. It can be bestowed on an object or another person, to keep the original individual’s life and visage alive.”

  Pieces were appearing in Brit’s mind, but she couldn’t make them quite fit.

  “’S’plain, please?” Kirby asked.

  “Brit has died. Her ka has been released. I can give that to Kirby. She can become Brit and return to campus, and I can become the gunman who shot her.”

  “No.” Starkad shook his head. “I gotta agree with Gwydion on this one. If you can do that to Kirby, you can do that to any of us. There’s no reason to send her back in there.”

  “I’m sorry. Since when do you have that kind of say in how I execute my part of any mission?” Irritation crept into Kirby’s voice and mingled with hesitation.

  Min pushed back from the table, towering over everyone. The subtle power struggles in this conversation were fascinating, but his presence was impossible to ignore. “I don’t recommend it for anyone else. Kirby and myself is already pushing limits, but it’s the best chance we have. This isn’t just assuming a body; it will give Kirby a copy of all of Brit. Her memories. Her emotions. Kirby’s dealt with multiple memories before, and I’ve done this as well. If you haven’t had someone else’s life shoved into your brain, while you’re infiltrating a campus full of trained killers isn’t the time to start. There will be no more secrets. Which is why Brit has to agree as well.”

  Well... fuck. Everyone had secrets. Most of Brit’s biggest dealt with her own insecurities. Kirby. What she hated about her life. “Show of hands. How many people here would willingly let someone—an ex-lover of all people—live in their heads?”

  “I’m only barely accepting the other dozen lives I’ve lived. And they were mine,” Kirby said.

  Min sank back into his seat. “That’s not a definite yes from either of you. We’ll find another option.”

  Brit caught Kirby’s gaze and held it. So this was what it felt like when the room collectively held its breath. It was beyond terrifying. So much more than hiding from a few pissed-off gods. Overwhelming, compared to planning to betray Hel.

  “We need the room.” Kirby never stopped staring at Brit. She pointed a finger at Starkad. “It’s not a request.”

  He kissed the tip of said finger. “Hurt her if she tries anything.”

  “She just recovered from the last injury,” Kirby said. “Go.”

  All three men left the kitchen. That was power—another kind Brit would never wield.

  Kirby finally sat again, and the energy seemed to drain from her limbs. It would be a mistake to assume she’d let her guard down, but she looked exhausted. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like I was shot in the back of the head?” Would this be similar to Starkad’s interrogation earlier? “Except, that’s not true. My throat’s a little scratchy, but I’m combat ready.”

  “I’m glad. But I’m wondering about you.”

  What? “I’m fine.” The lie came out sounding like one, and Brit winced.

  “You’re allowed to say if you’re not feeling all right. No one here expects you to think this is an ideal arrangement. You’re being held captive, regardless of the amenities, and even though you can’t die, you have no idea if you’ll be let go in the future. Today, for the first time, you faced off against the people you were raised with.”

  The events of the warehouse flashed in Brit’s mind. That split second of hesitation, when a soldier recognized her. When she recognized him. The memories of training together. The competition. The camaraderie. The instinct that squeezed her finger down on the trigger regardless.

  “Second time,” she said.

  “Right. At Kyle’s house.” Sympathy flashed across Kirby’s face, before her mask slid back into place. She excelled at so many things, but hiding her emotions had never been a top-notch skill.

  Brit would have preferred if it were. If she didn’t know Kirby felt anything beyond disdain for her.

  More silence. More staring. Kirby would talk soon, to clear the air. Unknowingly pulling Brit out of reliving that instant in the warehouse, over and over. Where she looked someone she’d trained with in the eye, and put a bullet in his head.

  But the silence sank into Brit’s bones, leaving headspace for the echo of bullets biting into concrete. The taste of gunpowder in the air. The grunts and thunks as bodies hit the floor.

  “How do you do it?” Brit had to speak, to keep from picturing the mission. “You’ve killed—what?—mor
e than a dozen of us. Them. And you kept going after each one.” Brit had killed over and over, but she’d never looked one of her own in the eye and pulled the trigger before.

  Kirby frowned and chewed her bottom lip. “It’s only been eight. I tried doing it from a distance. The first team I went after, I set up like you and I used to. But sniping them felt wrong. Like I was still trapped in their training. I couldn’t do it a second time. I couldn’t execute them from a distance.”

  She blew a puff of air up, knocking aside a loose strand of hair on her face. “Maybe it was the Valkyrie in me, already shining through, or maybe I’m just a different kind of fucked up. I had to look them in the eye. I owed them that respect. The chance to face their attacker. An opportunity to change their minds.”

  That almost made sense. Leave it to Kirby to make face-to-face execution sound noble.

  “You know they’re not going to. Change their minds, that is,” Brit said. “That breaks our training.”

  Kirby’s smile was sad. “You and I did.”

  “After I helped them take everything from us.” Brit had never admitted that out loud before. That she realized how much of the blame lay with her. She’d alluded to it with Min, but pushing the words past her lips was almost freeing.

  “I know most of the teams would never take that offer. More of the soldiers might. Campus police. The students who are still enduring the suffering and indoctrination. And even if every single one I encounter spits in my face, I owe them that. They were my brothers and sisters. Those who are committed can’t be allowed to live. Not with what they’ve been molded into. There are days I question if I should be allowed to.

  “But they deserve to know why they’re dying. And the ones who want out should have that opportunity as well. Which is why we have to find a way back onto campus.”

  Brit agreed. She believed in so little anymore, but if there was an opportunity to save even one other person from what she or Kirby went through, it was worth it. “Does it ever get easier? Killing them?”

  “You tell me. How many potentials have you taken out?”

  More than she could ever atone for. So many lives gone, at the whim of the gods. “I’ve lost count.”

  “No you haven’t.”

  Brit didn’t have a counter to that. The number was as etched in her mind as it had been in the barrel of her AUG. Fitting that she lost the gun the same day she took her last shot on TOM’s behalf. “This is our best chance, isn’t it? To save as many people on that campus as we can.”

  “I don’t know how else we’re going to get in there. We don’t have the years it will take to find that one person who’s like us. Who wants out. Who’s not going to lie about it, one way or the other. And those kids... They were lied to. Promised a glory they’ll never have. Tortured to mold them.” Kirby’s voice faded and the creases in her forehead deepened.

  “Some people thrived. Mark.”

  “That wasn’t thriving. He was as fucked up as the rest of us. He just addressed it differently.”

  This wasn’t an easy decision. “If we do this, I’m letting you live in my head. Or letting me live in yours.” The idea was terrifying, but with a hint of hope. Kirby would see Brit was sincere. Unless Kirby still didn’t interpret any of Brit’s thoughts as genuine.

  Then there were the thoughts that were old but still existed. The bitterness. The resentment. The desperate longing. If those were in Kirby’s head, would she see that they’d faded, or would Brit’s everything be fresh and new?

  “I’ve always wondered...” Kirby sighed. “I’ve always wondered why you did what you did. How much of what you say now is real. If any of it ever was.”

  The love was always real. The words screamed in Brit’s mind. She’d said them so many times already, they wouldn’t carry impact. Especially not today.

  “This isn’t how I wanted to find out,” Kirby said.

  But they were out of options. It didn’t matter how they wished things would go. What an ideal scenario looked like. These were the cards they had, and holding them too long would get more people killed. “If you agree, I’ll agree.”

  “You don’t want to be the bigger person and sign on first?”

  Brit laughed. “When have I ever been the bigger person? I’m about to let you climb into my brain.”

  “And I’m about to walk into a place run by gods who have looked to kill me since before I was born.”

  Kirby rarely looked vulnerable. The entire time they were in school, when they went on missions, even in bed, she always carried herself with a kind of impervious strength. But right now, if Brit squinted hard enough, she might see every little chink in Kirby’s armor.

  They really had both changed in the last few years.

  Brit pushed back from the table, walked to where Kirby sat, bent at the waist, and brushed her lips over Kirby’s.

  Kirby pulled away. Was Brit about to get slapped? Kirby rested a finger under Brit’s chin, turned her head a fraction, and kissed her on the cheek.

  It wasn’t what Brit hoped for, but it was far more tender than she expected, and it hummed under her skin and in her heart. She returned to her seat. “I’m in.”

  “Me too.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Kirby wasn’t roaming the halls tonight, and Starkad and Gwydion weren’t in random parts of the castle, doing research. Both men were in their temporary room with her, shooting her frequent, worried glances.

  She didn’t want their concerned looks. Not because they were unappreciated, but because the entire situation sank into her bones, reminding her of what she was about to do—go back to the one place she swore she’d never return to. As the one person she’d once upon a time sworn she’d never forgive.

  She sat on the bed between the men, pretending she was watching the TV. She didn’t even know what was playing. An old Planet of the Apes movie. Or a new Conan one. Or something about being on Mars?

  “I don’t want you going back in there,” Gwydion said.

  It was a relief to hear him say so. A few hours ago, when she and Brit announced their decision, everyone agreed this was the right route to take. It wasn’t enthusiastic, but consensus was there.

  “Why are you agreeing?” she asked.

  “Because I know why you’re doing it. Because it’s not my decision. Because I’d never expect anything less than all-in from you.”

  “I’d rather be going in your place.” Starkad gently squeezed her thigh.

  Kirby couldn’t imagine. Not under these circumstances. “You really want Brit’s thoughts in your head?”

  “Maybe in Min’s place, watching your back.” Starkad’s laugh was strained.

  Kirby leaned forward, crossing her legs and resting her arms on her thighs. “Me too.”

  Min wouldn’t hurt or betray her; she wasn’t concerned about that. But this was a war zone, and she didn’t trust anyone more than Starkad in dangerous situations.

  “You’re struggling with this.” Gwydion moved to kneel in front of her, and met her gaze.

  What Kirby intended to be a laugh came out as more of a strangled sob. Struggling. Understatement of the decade. Life on campus had been hard. Not the military training—she wouldn’t have wanted that to be easy—but life. The cliques. The competition. Mark. Brit.

  “I’m scared shitless.” She didn’t mean to be quite so honest. “There are days I barely believe who I am, and only some of that has to do with my past lives. The rest of my doubt comes from there. And now I’m going back. Pretending to be someone I’m not. Like that wasn’t hard enough the first time around.” She hugged herself to stop the shiver that wanted to race through her, but there was no suppressing the reaction.

  Starkad pressed into her back, wrapping his arms around her and squeezing tight. The gesture wasn’t a solution, but it helped hold her together. “Min wouldn’t offer this if he thought there was any chance—”

  “You can still change your mind,” Gwydion said.

  She coul
d, but she wouldn’t. Had it really only been a few months since she thought fear was delicious? A delicacy to gorge herself on? “I trust Min when it comes to this. But I can’t...” If she followed this path, she’d have to acknowledge the swirl of thoughts in her head. Give them names. Recognition. “What if I get caught? What if I get people killed? What if I come back and you’re not here?” The last one scared her the most. Rationally it wasn’t a possibility, but she was terrified that—

  This was the only time since her first life that she’d lived long enough to truly enjoy her time with Starkad. If she didn’t come back from this, would the connection she had with him and Gwydion be the same in her next life? Would she lose any chance of figuring things out with Min? What if she didn’t come back at all? No more lives. No more chances.

  Once upon a time, that would have been a comforting thought, but now...

  “Hey.” Gwydion cupped her cheek, drawing her back to the now. His touch was comforting. Grounding. “We’ll be here. Always. That never changes. It never will.”

  He stood, tugged her to her feet, and cradled her face. The soft brush of his mouth over hers was more of a suggestion than a reality, and it drew a gasp from her. He leaned in for another kiss, claiming her lips and pouring his soul into the connection. Into every nibble and touch and caress of her tongue with his.

  There was no comparing sex with Gwydion to sex with Starkad, beyond saying they were both amazing. They were dramatically different lovers, and being caught between them was the ultimate experience in spicy-sweet.

  So when Starkad dug his fingers into her hips, she groaned with anticipation. He pressed into her back, gripping her with a ravenous possession that both bruised and enticed. He dragged his teeth along her shoulder, and she felt the sharp point of a canine.

  There were some hard rules, when it came to the pain he inflicted. The biggest one was no knife play. Kirby sometimes still felt the tug of wanting to cut, and Gwydion insisted on no blades in the bedroom.

  Starkad had enough control over his transformation to only summon the bite, and he toed the line of that rule. His bite pierced her skin, sending a sharp sting of pleasure jolting over her, and licked the tiny wound clean, making her shiver. The connection that flowed between him and Kirby when he did that hummed through her veins and painted her world in vibrant colors.