Carnage: Nate Temple Series Book 14

by Shayne Silvers

  Okay. This guy…was pretty damned badass. Even if his plan failed, he’d earned my respect.

  I glanced over at Kára to find her grinning from ear-to-ear, leaning forward to watch the verbal sparring between the two. She licked her lips and I found myself smiling. To finally see someone fighting for me was a soothing balm to my hurt pride. Although Kára was sticking up for my side in this silent battle, the entire situation was a double-edged sword.

  The chasm in my relationship with Callie didn’t revolve around me and my feelings. It took two to tango. Callie shared my same concerns, even though she’d never told me.

  I hadn’t done so either, but I hadn’t really even thought about it until Aphrodite stripped me down and trapped me in her bed. Which, if I was being fair, was much worse than Ryuu leaning in for a hopeful kiss in a romantic Russian roulette scenario.

  “I think we are perfect for each other, but I also fear that we are not,” Callie murmured, obviously struggling to put her feelings to words.

  Kára sucked in a breath, leaning closer. I heard her knuckles crack as she gripped her trident tighter. Ryuu watched Callie, nodding encouragingly. “Thank you for admitting what I have known for some time now,” he said gently. “That is all I ask for—honesty.” He paused, a smile tugging at his lips. “Well, that is not all I ask for,” he admitted, openly grinning.

  Callie blushed, looking down at her boots, fighting back a matching smile. Ryuu did not press her further, because he was not an idiot.

  “I can no longer sense Nate,” Callie whispered. Ryuu’s humor evaporated in an instant, apparently having had no idea. “Gunnar and Alucard are anxious, but I shrugged it off as their typical neurosis related to every half-cracked idea Nate decides to act upon,” she said with a hollow smile. “He’s apparently been missing for over a week.”

  “You spoke with the other Horsemen?” Ryuu asked.

  She nodded. “And Hermes. He said the Olympians were helping search for Nate. To call on them if we needed anything.” She swallowed grimly. “They found him, but he is doing something for them as a gesture of thanks. He hasn’t visited Chateau Falco to talk with Gunnar and Alucard. Why not?”

  I cocked my head. Hold up. I was back now?

  Ryuu frowned. “That…is good, right?” he asked, obviously confused.

  She shook her head. “They say he’s back, but I do not sense him,” she repeated.

  Ryuu grimaced. “What about our own…problems? Kansas City is ready to blow.”

  She nodded tiredly. “I know. But something is wrong. I can feel it,” she said, tapping her chest. “I think it’s a Horseman thing.”

  “Where might he be?” Ryuu asked, no longer focused on romance now that danger was on the table—both with my disappearance and whatever he’d been referring to in Kansas City.

  Callie was staring at the ground. “I do not know. He’s just gone. Maybe he’s in Fae…”

  “No,” Kára growled. I flinched, glancing at her.

  “Or Asgard…”

  “No,” Kára repeated knowingly.

  “Or Niflheim…”

  Kára hesitated, seeming to consider Callie’s suggestion.

  Shit. That was not a good development. Not with Loki and Fenrir holed up there. “No. I’m not in Niflheim, Kára—”

  She disappeared, obviously not having heard me.

  Callie continued, and I let out a frustrated sigh, hoping to listen in for a few more seconds before leaving to warn Loki and Fenrir. “He hops realms all the time, but this feels different.”

  “What can I do?” Ryuu asked solemnly.

  Callie shrugged. “Nate never tells me anything. Never lets me in. How am I supposed to help my friend if he keeps me in the dark?” she whispered angrily, punching her fist into her thigh.

  Friend. She’d said friend.

  I didn’t need to hear anything else. That single word had been more honest than anything else she’d said. It was a painful word, but a necessary one. Just because I agreed with it did not mean I couldn’t look back on old memories with a loving smile.

  I would always love her. Just not in the same way.

  “Goodbye, Callie Penrose,” I whispered, blinking through misty eyes. A great weight shifted from my shoulders as I left.

  30

  I zipped back into my body and shuddered, feeling like I had just slipped into a shirt that was too tight. I controlled my breathing, thinking over the conflicting storm of relief and sorrow over Callie. I embraced it, accepted it, and then shoved it into a room in my Memory Palace for later reflection. I wasn’t running from it, but I was on borrowed time. I needed to be cold, calm, and calculating. There was no room for emotion in the crimes I would soon commit.

  I hadn’t had time to check on Gunnar and Alucard, but I’d unintentionally confirmed my diabolical plan on the Callie front. How I would get one Horseman off the field and out of Zeus’ thoughts for a short while.

  But Kára taking off to search Niflheim for me had cut my astral adventure short.

  I had to warn Loki and Fenrir…

  I realized I was brushing my fingers through my hair, attempting to somewhat tame the chaotic mop, and wishing I had something nicer to wear instead of my stupid robe. Something more elegant and snazzier for—

  I blinked. I was…stalling. Preening. Primping.

  I…wanted to see Kára. I wanted her to see me in all my glory.

  “Get it together, pansy,” I muttered with a macho growl. “You’re dashing, even in a robe.”

  Hell, I wanted to see anyone who actually wanted to see me back. And, preferably, someone I couldn’t put in immediate danger from Zeus. Was a Valkyrie immune to Zeus’ reach? He’d obviously been aware of her activities, but he hadn’t seemed to consider her a friend of mine. Did he not know, or not care?

  Either way, I needed to warn Loki and Fenrir, first. After they were safe, I could sit here and wait for Kára’s imminent arrival without fear over roping the Norse pantheon into my mess. Freya had made it sound like Valkyries were somewhat autonomous—but that they suffered consequences as a result of that freedom.

  Depending on how badly Odin wanted Gungnir, could he force Kára to turn on me? He might view me holding onto Gungnir as a risk worthy of imprisonment—personal feelings aside. His life was literally on the line now that I’d let Fenrir loose.

  She might have to turn me in despite her feelings. I would trade one god problem for another.

  I sighed, climbing to my feet. I made my way out the door and scanned Niflheim. Yahn hadn’t heard me emerge, too focused on the arts and crafts project I’d given him. He looked frustrated. Carl was sleeping nearby, definitely not aware of any inbound threat. Not wanting to shout Loki’s name in case Kára was already circling the skies or spying on our little hut, I reached out to Fenrir, hoping he would sense me through our shared godkiller bond.

  I cursed, remembering the Titan Thorns on my wrists. I reached for the eyepatch hanging around my neck, and slipped it on, not wanting to alert Yahn. I didn’t dare grab Gungnir, even if it would get Fenrir’s attention.

  I ran, aiming for the last place I’d seen Loki and Fenrir while astral projecting. I kept my eyes to the sky, wondering what Kára would look like with wings. I actually hadn’t seen them before. The skies remained empty until I stumbled onto the rock and found Fenrir and Loki staring at a point on the horizon, looking alarmed. I heard a distant whining sound and froze.

  I lifted the eyepatch to my forehead and Fenrir and Loki both jumped, shouting and growling at my sudden appearance. “Valkyrie inbound,” I snapped.

  “Another one?” Loki demanded angrily. “What color hair does she—”

  “It’s a different one. Blonde,” Fenrir interrupted, eyeing the rapidly approaching Valkyrie.

  Loki grimaced, rounding on me. “Give me my robe back.”

  I stared at him in disbelief, clutching the fabric tighter around my body. “No. You crazy bastard.”

  He narrowed his eyes in challeng
e, and I accepted the fact that I was about to wrestle the god of mischief for a ratted, utterly unimpressive robe. And that I was going to win. I wasn’t going to let Kára find me naked in Niflheim. I had enough problems.

  Loki took a threatening step forward and Fenrir growled, grabbed his father by the back of the neck—like a mother wolf—and then disappeared, abandoning me to the Valkyrie.

  “Thanks for considering my safety,” I muttered. “Also, you’re welcome, assholes.”

  I let out a sigh of relief, straightening my robe as if it were a tuxedo at a ball. I faced the inbound blur of light, headed straight for me like a comet. I debated whether or not to slip the eyepatch back into place. Would Kára still sense me and attack the invisible threat on reflex? The alternative was to see how she would react to meeting a crazy man named Peter in Niflheim. I let out a frustrated sigh. “I’m down to my deadliest weapon. My charm.” I glanced down. “And my robe.”

  I paced back and forth nervously, watching the approaching streamer of light. My heart both fluttered and raced, practically hopping up and down from my stomach to my throat. I rehearsed a dozen speeches in about a tenth of a second. Would she kill first and ask questions later? How could I convince her who I was, as quickly as possible? How would I explain my robe? Was my hair a mess?

  I grunted. “Stop making excuses and just admit you want to see her,” I muttered under my breath. “It’s okay to care, idiot.”

  I took a deep breath, feeling a hundred pounds lighter after the pep talk.

  The fog burned away in her wake as if repelled, and the keening wail grew loud enough for me to cringe, sounding like a kamikaze airplane. I stood my ground as the winged figure slammed into the ground before me. I stared in awe as her gleaming, ornate metal wings flared out to either side, beating at the ground to slow her descent, more closely resembling short swords than feathers. The tips were splashed with dried blood, and they glowed like cooling metal in a blacksmith’s forge. They whispered shut like sheathed swords as she rose to her feet and assessed me.

  Although showing its miles, the golden armor seemed to shine of its own accord, even though Niflheim was dim and overcast. Her left shoulder guard was about as large as her head, consisting of staggered layers of gleaming gold. I knew she could modify her armor at will, even making it disappear when necessary. She slammed her trident into the ground and stared at me in silence. I pretended not to notice the crude tower etching on her breastplate, even though it stood out like a sore thumb compared to the exquisite detail of the rest of her armor. I had a more difficult time ignoring the strip of toned abdominal muscles and the sharp curve of her obliques peeking over the waist of her war skirt. Her helm protected the sides of her jaw, but revealed her delicate chin and lips, and teased her glittering eyes. Death by Valkyrie wasn’t the worst way to go down.

  “Hi,” I said. “I’m not who I look like, but I don’t know how to fix it. And I am unarmed.”

  She stared at me from beneath her helm, her blue and green eyes glinting from within. She looked scary as hell, but I felt like a moth drawn to a flame. This was the woman who was scouring the world for me. The Valkyrie willing to risk her soul for me. The woman who hadn’t let death destroy her heart, seeking me out even in her afterlife.

  “Are you a pirate?” she asked in a tone that brooked no nonsense and was almost sharp enough to cut flesh. Reading the confused look on my face, she pointed at my forehead. “The eyepatch. You’re wearing it wrong. Unless you are a cyclops.” She eyed me up and down, smirking faintly at the robe I had valiantly fought for. “Or The Dude.”

  I pursed my lips, tugging the eyepatch down so that it hung from my neck. I straightened my robe self-consciously. This was not how my fantasy had played out. “I am not a pirate or a cyclops,” I assured her. “And I wasn’t in the Big Lebowski. There can only be one The Dude,” I said reverently. She chuckled faintly from within her helm.

  I had to be very careful here. She was looking for Nate, which meant she was very likely to run into Z-Nate, and he was a psychopath. I didn’t just want to convince Kára. I needed to. Otherwise she might fall for Z-Nate’s disguise and rally behind him—against me. The sick bastard would not hesitate to use Kára against me if he learned how she felt about me.

  And I knew Kára had a burning desire to tell Nate how she felt about him.

  I had a million ways to prove who I really was, but I couldn’t be too direct, or she might kill me on reflex, thinking me a liar, or that this was some form of trap. “You were right.”

  She cocked her head and her helmet disappeared, letting her blonde braid fall down her back. “I usually am.”

  I smiled. “About a girl in Kansas City.”

  She stiffened, and I could tell that she was annoyed by her own reaction. “Who cares about Kansas City?”

  I chuckled. “St. Louis is so much better, I agree.”

  She took a step closer, gripping her trident in a threatening manner. “Get out of my way, Pirate.”

  I held up my hands, reminding her that I wasn’t a threat and that I was not trying to stand in her way. “Of course.” She began to walk by me, obviously finished with our little talk. “I just wanted to thank you,” I said after she passed. I knelt down to the ground and poked my finger into the wet earth.

  I heard her pause and, presumably, glance back at me. “For?”

  I finished writing in the mud and stood. “This,” I said, pointing at the ground and backing up a step. Nate Temple was here, was hastily drawn in the mud.

  She spun aggressively, obviously taking my cryptic answer as an implied threat. She saw me standing a safe distance away and pointing at the ground. She followed my gaze, read the words, and tensed. She whipped her trident up and I felt the center prong abruptly pressed against my Adam’s apple—the weapon somehow stretching long enough to cover the seemingly safe distance between us. I’d apparently misjudged, thinking the distance was longer than it was.

  A common malady for males, I’d heard.

  “What is the meaning of this?” she demanded in a frosty, suspicious tone.

  I very slowly held out my hands to again remind her they were empty. “I was just standing there, for the record.” I carefully indicated my mud-drawn sketch with my chin.

  She shot me a baffled look, probably thinking I was touched in the head. Then she grew still, glancing sharply back at the words. “You…were just standing there,” she repeated haltingly.

  I nodded carefully, her trident was still dangerously close to my throat. “Yes. And I don’t normally look like this, but I can’t fix it,” I told her.

  I saw that she understood my meaning, but suspicion prevented her from lowering the weapon. “What do you normally look like?” she asked. I pretended to ignore the trembling in her voice.

  “A handsome son of a bitch who doesn’t know a thing about women. And I’m not a robe guy. Well, sometimes, if the mood is right.”

  She dropped her trident to the ground—luckily it didn’t sever my throat—and took a sharp step closer. “Who. Are. You?” she whispered, clenching her fists at her sides. The fact that she’d dropped her weapon was not an improvement. It simply meant that she was willing to get her knuckles bloody if I didn’t answer correctly.

  “I’m a local at a shitty bar in St. Louis, Buddy Hatchet. The bartender there is a fox, but I’m a wreck when it comes to women,” I said. I didn’t want to go too far and lead her to believe that we now had a chance to pursue a romantic entanglement. I wasn’t going to resort to using her affection against her as a means to get out of my Titan Thorns—

  She tackled me. My head struck the ground harder than I would have personally liked, but it didn’t give me a concussion. It was simply hard enough to let me know she cared. On a hatchet scale of one to the movie Misery, it was a solid six whacks.

  “Nate?” she rasped, her face only six inches away, and her body pinning me down to the cold, misty ground. Her green and blue eyes glistened with frustrated tears, con
fused by my looks.

  “Yes, Kára,” I said with a reassuring smile. “I ran into some trouble and now I look like a douchebag—”

  “Shut up!” she cried out, gripping my cheeks with both hands. “If you lie, you die,” she said, trembling dangerously.

  “It’s me,” I whispered, staring into her eyes so that she might glimpse the man within.

  Her thumbs tensed, squeezing my face harder, and then…

  She kissed me. Fucking hard. But I didn’t care.

  I was momentarily, unequivocally, twitterpated. Bambi’s laughter echoed in my mind. “Sucker!” Thumper thumped, cackling madly. I ignored them, flipping off Disney in general.

  As I was still reeling, she detached from my lips, wrapped her arms around my neck, and collapsed bonelessly atop me, sobbing in unashamed exhaustion.

  I suffered the beating like a man and wrapped my arms around her armored back, hugging her tightly. Even a Valkyrie needed a hug now and then, and no one was watching. She was safe. “Thank you, Kára,” I whispered, relishing in her childlike embrace, oddly touched by her overwhelming reaction. It was one of those hugs that truly felt soul deep. “I really needed this hug,” I whispered. “Even with all the sharp murdery bits. They just prove that you care.”

  She laughed, leaking all sorts of emotions on my neck. “Me, too,” she admitted. “I thought you were dead.”

  “Not yet. But we have a lot to talk about.”

  She stayed where she was, squeezing me. “Not yet,” she whispered. “Later.”

  I froze at the familiar word, suddenly understanding how much different that cursed word could sound—how much of a difference it could make in the right context. Callie and I had pushed our relationship to the side for later, choosing to prioritize the world’s problems.

  Kára was pushing the world’s problems to the side for later, prioritizing this raw moment.

  I grinned like a fool. It was all about priorities.

  “You’re not allowed to see a woman after she cries,” Kára continued, taking my silence for hesitation. “Not until she gathers her composure. That goes double for us strong Valkyrie types. We have a carefully crafted reputation.”