Valkyrie Crowned

by Allyson Lindt

  Especially standing in a tacky club he’d sworn he’d never visit, facing a pair of gods he’d rather not associate with. He’d known Frey was in the city. It was why Starkad ultimately settled here with Kirby. No one looked too closely at Chicago. No one could, because it was Freyr’s realm.

  According to Gwydion, they’d been roped into an agreement to protect Freya, the goddess who turned her back on them when they asked for the same. The story was, Aya couldn’t help them before because helping to seal Malsumis away prevented her from speaking against any of the other goes who were part of the ritual.

  Starkad’s wolf didn’t want to buy it, but he leashed the reaction. It was a good enough story to believe.

  Now she was out with Min, trying to find Kirby and Brit.

  None of that explained why there was a Noble here. Starkad wouldn’t go through Fenrir to get to her. Not now, at least, given what he and Fen just went through. But Starkad was furious that she’d hacked his home security system, and even more bothered that Gwydion seemed to have accepted her so quickly.

  In fact, the only thing Starkad understood completely was the snarling in his head. Kirby.

  The air crackled, raising the hairs on the back of his neck, and Aya appeared in the middle of the room. Alone. She met his gaze. “We found them. Min is with them. We need to go now.”

  Fucking right, they did. Starkad’s questions and concerns would wait. He stepped toward Aya.

  “Your arm.” Gwydion reached for him.

  Starkad fixed him with a glare, and a growl rumbled up from his chest. He didn’t give a fuck if this made his arm worse.

  Gwydion took Aya’s hand instead of pushing the issue, and Starkad did the same.

  Nothing happened. What were they waiting for? “Let’s go.” Starkad’s command was rough.

  “I’m trying. I can’t.” Aya clipped off the words. “I can’t feel Kirby anymore.”

  “You know where she was. Take us there.” Starkad just needed to contain his frustration a little longer.

  Aya shook her head. “There’s a giant black spot where she was, as though that part of the globe—half of Utah—has ceased to exist. I’m not physically capable of traveling there. Something is stopping me.”

  Frey joined them. “Maybe with both of us. Show me.” He rested a hand on her shoulder.

  Nothing. The glare of neon on dark tile didn’t even flicker.

  Frey stepped back with a shake of his head. “It’s like that part of the world has been ripped away. It doesn’t exist.”

  “This is ridiculous. Did a part of the world just vanish, Dahlia?” Starkad didn’t want to ask her, but if he remembered anything about her, she was digitally plugged into everything.

  She looked as startled to be addressed as he was that he had to address her, but she shook it away and turned to her tablet. The longer she typed and jabbed at the screen, the deeper the creases in her forehead grew. “No. Everyone’s talking about quakes and floods and all sorts of unnatural things, but nothing unusual is coming out of Utah.”

  “But something is coming out of it,” Gwydion said.

  “Yes. Normal stuff. Streaming. Chatting. Signals by the billions.”

  Starkad wasn’t in the mood to figure this out. “If it still exists, we can get to it. Take us to the edge of the blank spot.” They’d walk in, the way they did on the TOM campus.

  “I’ll wait here, in case anyone comes back.” Frey stepped away.

  Fine with Starkad. They needed fighters on this trip.

  NEON vanished, replaced with dry, hot air. Freedom, fouled by magic. Starkad wrinkled his nose. Dirt spanned out in every direction, blending into red-rock mountains, pausing at the scrub brush and freeway, and then continuing.

  “Where did you find Kirby?” Starkad asked.

  “Salt Lake,” Aya said.

  Gwydion had his phone out and pressed to his ear. “Min’s not answering.”

  Based on the scenery, they were hours away from their destination, even driving at top speed. “On the TOM campus, teleporting was possible inside the barrier. A few steps forward, and we can finish the journey.” Starkad could almost taste their destination. His Valkyrie.

  Aya stepped away from them and strolled several meters, before walking back. Her expression wasn’t promising. “The void—whatever it is—it follows me. It’s like it encircles me. In there, nothing around me exists. I only know the two of you do because I see you.”

  “According to my GPS, we’re about four hours out. Let’s go rent a car and drive.” Gwydion jerked his thumb toward the freeway.

  Instinct wanted Starkad to shift again. To run. But they were more than ten times farther from their destination than he and Fen had been from town in Norway. It felt ridiculous—pedestrian—to rent a car and drive, when they were working with gods who could fly and teleport. But life was ridiculous sometimes. They headed toward the freeway and followed the signs to the closest town.

  “Your arm looks worse.” Gwydion probed the blackened flesh.

  Starkad jerked away. That was the least of his concerns. “It feels fine.” It didn’t quite. In fact, it didn’t feel like anything. He was breathing, though, and could fight and shift.

  “I never realized you were a masochist,” Gwydion said.

  A strained laugh escaped Starkad’s throat. He was the ultimate masochist. The sadist in him had spent centuries torturing him, in favor of losing himself.

  Gwydion glared at him. “Just because you’re fine now doesn’t mean you will be later. Next trip could take that arm off. Dahlia said those bullets could kill you.”

  “I’ll deal with that when it happens.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Kirby

  There weren’t many places that held negative associations for Kirby. Sure, she had a lot of bad memories, but most of those stemmed from a campus that should no longer exist. Which for some unfathomable reason had been recreated someplace else.

  The odds of her landing in a second bad-memory place in twenty-four hours seemed astronomical. Yet here she was, searching the house where her memories came back, for security reasons. The house where Brit landed solidly in her life again. Where Kirby discovered what Starkad had kept from her. Where—

  “Are you all right?” Min’s soft question startled her.

  “Mm.” She struggled to grasp enough thoughts to put them in words that would make sense. The house was as clear as it could be. She didn’t think for a moment that Magnus had just let them walk away, but that meant any external threats were most likely held at bay.

  Kirby wandered back into the living room and perched on the edge of the couch. “Apparently, I can’t escape my ghosts,” she said as Brit returned from her own search.

  “Boo?” Brit gave her a dry smile. “Rest of the house is clear.”

  “I’m sorry.” Min settled next to Kirby, his thigh pressing into hers.

  The closeness was comforting. Part of her wanted to be pulled into his lap. To curl up there and vanish from the world until the end of time.

  She sank back, letting the cushions swallow her. “The memories here aren’t as bad as there. At least here...” The words that rose to her lips tasted melodramatic. But they were true. “That last night, I was a part of TOM. Before Starkad pulled me out. When I—” Killed myself. “That was the end of my life.” Literally. Emotionally... “What came after... I wasn’t living; I was surviving. Questioning. Lost.” But this house— “I was reborn here.” Kirby gestured broadly.

  Min was a part of that, with his kindness showing her what such a thing was like when there were no strings attached. Brit played a large part in Kirby’s re-emergence into living, as well, though not in such a positive way.

  Kirby looked at Brit. “When you shot Starkad... Mark...”

  “I still don’t know why you let me live.” Brit made herself comfortable in the chair near the couch.

  Min rested his hand on Kirby’s knee, drawing slow passes with his thumb. It might be
a warning, for her to temper her words. It felt more like reassurance and support.

  “I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve asked myself that,” she said. “The best I’ve got is that I’m currently glad I didn’t make a different decision.”

  Brit’s smile came easily.

  Min shook his head. Was he judging Kirby after all, for struggling with a question like that? He couldn’t be.

  “Yes?” Kirby asked.

  “It’s nothing.” Min squeezed her thigh.

  “It’s obviously something.”

  His smile was soft. “I’ve tried for so long to understand the two of you and the way you toss around conversation about death so easily. I still can’t think in those terms, but I know why you do, and I don’t judge you for it.”

  That was the first time he’d ever said something like that and Kirby believed him. She leaned her head against his arm, focusing on the electricity that flowed between them.

  Brit played with a loose thread on the arm of her chair. “It’s funny—for everything they taught us growing up, how to live was never really on that list. Not how to live for ourselves, anyway.”

  “They really didn’t.” Kirby hadn’t thought of life at TOM in those terms before. “In fact, it’s been so long since I have—I mean really lived—that I don’t remember how either.”

  “Longest you’ve ever made it?” Brit asked.

  “Before I died? Not counting my first life...” Kirby wiggled her fingers, pretending to count on them. “How old am I?”

  Min slid his hand under hers, raising both to kiss the back of her knuckles. His silent support was soothing and alluring.

  If Brit was bothered by the display of affection, it didn’t show in her expression or movements. “Ever wonder what it would have been like to be normal?”

  “Sometimes. More than sometimes. For a long time, I pretended things were normal with Starkad.” Living in the suburbs, pretending to be a happy little family.

  “You wouldn’t be happy with normal. Either of you.” Min’s tone was low and thoughtful.

  Brit shook her head. “No. Not knowing what I know now.”

  Kirby had thought she was happy in her past lives. Technically, that meant she was, but as she looked back, something had been missing. More than just love. Depth. Reality.

  “Not to make this dark by bringing up your death—though who are we kidding, it’s already floating in the shadows”—Brit’s chuckle was flat—“but if you hadn’t hit immortality in this life, if your death started the cycle all over again, how many more lives do you think until you fell in love a fifth time? A sixth? I assume the collection of lovers grows as time goes on.”

  Kirby had never thought of her lives in terms of who she fell in love with. Or that they were all immortal, even if they hadn’t started out that way. “Mathematically speaking? Three more lives. Do you think I’ve deprived someone of their immortality, or would have fallen in love with a god next?”

  “Maybe Magnus could do the math on that for us. She does love her data.” Brit was subdued, but not in bad spirits.

  Min adjusted his position, to grab Kirby’s hips and slide her into his lap. The warmth of his chest pressed into her back, and his presence was a shield from the world. “I’m willing to make that sacrifice.” His words rumbled through her.

  She had to process what he meant. “You’d have a random stranger, one, two, maybe three hundred years down the line, give up their immortality for mine?”

  “Without question. I’m not taking their life, just removing their chance at eternity, so I can keep you in mine.”

  That was almost too sugary. Kirby was fond of extra sweet, though. “Do you think this ever ends? Not my reincarnations, but... these wars? Prophecies? In-fighting among the gods?”

  “It doesn’t.” Min’s answer wasn’t the let-down she expected. “It takes different shapes, but it’s always there.”

  “The question is, can you turn your back on it, once you’re not directly a part of it?” Brit said.

  Kirby hesitated. “I want to live. But I want the same for others.”

  “No one says you can’t have both.” Min sounded perfectly reasonable. “There’s always downtime, especially in centuries-long wars. Now is a perfect example.”

  “But there’s so much darkness in the uptime.” Kirby could live in the shadows, but some days it was exhausting.

  Min trailed his lips along the back of her neck. It was a comforting, no-demand gesture. “You’ve never had good times?”

  The question was likely rhetorical, but it was worth lingering on. “Those six months in the fae realm.”

  Brit’s frown was hard to interpret.

  Kirby selected another good memory. “Ordering cake to a random hotel room, in a random city, and trying every flavor. Some of them with the help of kisses.” That had been the night, years ago, when she and Brit confessed their feelings for each other.

  “You don’t hate that memory?” Brit was surprised.

  For so long, it had tormented Kirby. “I do... and I don’t. I hate what happened to us.” The betrayal that came after. So much pain. “But I enjoyed the moment, and I want more of them.” That was both easy and terrifying to admit.

  “There will be more chances for good memories, even among the bad.” Min was infuriatingly right.

  Kirby loved it.

  “This morning was fun.” Brit grinned.

  Kirby couldn’t argue. “Yeah, it was.”

  Min’s grip on Kirby’s hips tightened. “This morning, as in an hour ago? When you were being shot at?”

  “Before that.” Kirby didn’t have to ask what Brit meant, because their cohesiveness was where the fun came from.

  “Clicking,” Brit said.

  “Knowing what you were thinking.”

  “Instinct kicking in. No second-guessing.”

  Like the old days. Before it went bad. Correction—before Kirby realized it had always been a little bad. “We make an amazing team.”

  “When I’m not fucking up,” Brit said.

  Kirby didn’t want to be the one to say it, but she wouldn’t argue Brit’s response.

  “Since we’re speaking of the past,” Min said, “I’ve been curious about something. When I found you again, months ago, you didn’t remember me, but you remembered the bondage.”

  And she’d craved the pain. She still did. “Therapy. Starkad introduced me to it, to teach me I had control over who and what caused me pain.” Physical pain, anyway. “It helped. Until I broke our agreement.” She bit back a bitter laugh. “It feels like it was so long ago. After that, pain was an escape, but it stopped healing.”

  The silence that met her confession drilled into her soul. She didn’t owe anyone an explanation, but one forced its way out. “I’m coping better now. With all of it. Not as in, Oh my god, I’ve completely recovered, but facing the past that put me in that frame of mind is becoming easier.”

  “You could have gone in the opposite direction.” Min’s tone was without judgment. “Asked some god to numb you. To take away the mental agony.”

  There had been so many times Kirby wanted the world to stop. The grief. The anguish. The hatred. Life. She was grateful now that it had all continued—the good and the bad. “I’ll work through it. It’s the only way. Like with Brit. Each time she does something right, it becomes easier to forget why it was all wrong.”

  “I’m not asking you to forget,” Brit said.

  “Forget is the wrong word. How about, it’s easier to remember why we used to be good?”

  “In other words, what you’re saying”—Min stood her on her feet with no effort—“is you need to do the good things again and again, have them go well, to assure you they’re good things.” He stood as well, pressing into her back and sliding his palms to rest on her stomach. The embrace was safety and intimacy and promise.

  Disbelief mingled with amusement and heat, as Kirby leaned back into him. “I’m sorry. Are you actually
trying to seduce me? Now? While we’re baring our souls and being hunted by multiple gods for reasons that are questionable at best?”

  “Yes.” There was no hesitation or apology in Min’s reply. “You prefer to shoot things, to solve your problems. I prefer fucking. The three of us have the entire house to ourselves, and memories to reshape.”

  Brit’s laugh was strained. “No offense. You’re a wonderful guy. But you’re not my type.”

  “My dear, I’m everyone’s type.” Min’s voice was silk and chocolate and seduction.

  Kirby bit the inside of her cheek, to hold back her amusement. She knew where this was going.

  Pink flooded Brit’s cheeks. So unlike her. “You don’t... That is... You’ve got...” She gestured at her crotch.

  She must actually respect Min. Then again, Kirby knew that. Brit and Min had formed a bond of trust and friendship, in their time together.

  “You have a penis.” Kirby didn’t want the awkwardness to stretch on too long. “That’s what she’s trying to say.” She felt lighter, like she could breathe. The mood in the room had flowed into pleasant and secure.

  Brit shrugged. “It’s true. I only play straight when I have to.”

  “Neither of us minds if you watch.” Min was unfazed.

  Kirby liked the idea, but not the assumption that Brit wanted to stick around and be excluded at the same time. “That feels a little rude.”

  “It sounds a lot tempting.” Brit bit her bottom lip.

  Min twirled his finger, and Kirby’s wrists were bound. A whimper escaped her throat. “You’re still welcome to join in,” he told Brit. “I promise to keep my hands... Well, not to myself, but clear of you.”

  The desire that raced through Kirby was intoxicating and familiar. Safe but terrifying. She tasted lust, and the anticipation of pleasure. Of pain. It wasn’t the same as the first time she’d encountered Min, though. Or even as what she and Brit shared last night.

  Kirby didn’t want to escape in this feeling. She had no desire to get lost in the moment. She wanted to enjoy the good while it was here, despite the bad out there.