Valkyrie's Call

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by Michelle Manus


  He’d been distracted the last few months. He’d been down the last few days. Lauren Hale was a brilliant reminder that all of that needed to change. It was only natural that he’d floundered a bit after deciding the last year of his life had been a complete and utter waste, but it was time to stop wallowing and set himself to rights.

  A day away from work would be just the thing. He could socialize with friends, if he still had any left after all but ignoring them for a full year, possibly get roaring drunk, and definitely not think about the attractive, infuriating, six-foot distraction that was Valkyrie Winters.

  He looked to Mrs. Harringford, intending to tell her to clear his schedule, only to find her face twisted into the expression that said she had bad news to deliver.

  “There is a woman here to see you.”

  He looked at the empty waiting chairs.

  “She’s in your office. I attempted to stop her but I rather got the impression she would murder me. You pay me well, Mr. Tremayne, but not quite well enough to die.”

  A sinking feeling spread through his gut. “Thank you, Mrs. Harringford.”

  He opened the door to his office. Valkyrie Winters sat in his chair, her booted feet up on his desk, a scowl on her face as she tapped an envelope idly against her thigh.

  Of course, of course when he’d decided to do everything possible to avoid her, the universe all but threw her in his lap.

  “Where the hell have you been?” she snapped.

  “I didn’t realize where I have or haven’t been was any of your concern.”

  So Random was right, and so Valkyrie had been rude. Rationally, she understood that. Irrationally, she’d had to watch through the one-way glass in Random’s office while Lauren Hale flirted with him and it had pissed her off.

  Surely Random wasn’t dumb enough to go swimming in those shark infested waters. Yes, Lauren was all shapely legs and had a sundress collection that brought most men to salivating attention, but she was also a conniving bitch. For years, Lauren had been telling anyone in Seclusion who would listen that she was just the woman to make Random Tremayne finally settle down, if she ever decided to put her mind to it.

  “Is there something I can help you with, Ms. Winters, or are you just here to sit in my chair and brood?” His voice, which usually flowed with warmth and laughter, was a bored, glacial monotone. Almost as if he were imitating, well, her.

  And Ms. Winters? She’d known him since she was twelve and he was eight. Her fingers tightened on the envelope in her hand. She wasn’t here to be irritated by Lauren flirting with him, or to worry about the coldness in his voice. She wasn’t here to worry about him.

  “I’m here about this.” She tossed the enveloped onto the side of the desk where he stood.

  Random glanced at it. She watched him for any flicker of recognition or surprise. All she got was that bored, empty exterior that was so unlike Random she felt like she’d slipped into a mirror-world where everything was upside down.

  “I’m confused,” he drawled. “Have you started a mail courier service, or do you just enjoy throwing things at me?”

  “Tell me you had nothing to do with this.”

  “I have no idea what this” —he tapped his fingers to the envelope— “is.”

  “It’s a letter—”

  “You don’t say?”

  “—that was left in my home. In my kitchen. While I was in the shower.”

  The cold shell surrounding him broke and for a moment he was Random again, her Random, concern painting his features. It told her everything she’d already known in her heart. He hadn’t had anything to do with this.

  Had she really thought he might have, or had she just wanted to see him again?

  He reached for the envelope, clearly intending to examine its contents. She pulled her feet down and lunged forward, snatching it away.

  “Kyrie—”

  She cut him off, because Kyrie was bad, bad news. Kyrie meant his helpful, protective side was kicking in, overshadowing the recent hurt she’d caused, and that hadn’t been her intention in coming here. “Was it you, or not?” she demanded.

  His mouth clicked shut, anger battling against concern. But the concern was still there, and if she was going to get rid of it, she would have to be harsher. She was so fucking tired of being harsh with him. Of delivering the words she knew would strike at his core, would hurt.

  What did it say about her, that she always knew which ones to choose?

  “Are you that fucking obsessed with me, Random? I told you I didn’t want you, so you decided to start playing games?”

  Brown wasn’t a cold color, but his eyes did their best to make it one. He interlaced his fingers together and met her gaze head-on. He was gracing her with his court persona, that air of icy, official detachment that couldn’t be riled, couldn’t be ruffled, and never, ever lost.

  “Someone came into your home without permission. Naturally, you thought of me. Let me clarify this for you, so you never again feel the need to rampage into my office to insult me.

  “Recently, I expressed some affection for you. You responded with a very firm assertion that you would never return that interest and told me to—and I quote—‘Stay the fuck out of my house, Random.’ I have stayed the fuck out of your house. I have not been anywhere near it. I did not send you that” —he nodded at the envelope— “by any means.

  “I don’t stalk women, Valkyrie. You wanted me gone. I’m gone.” He jerked his thumb toward the door. “I trust you can see yourself out.”

  She could. She would. Any moment now. She wouldn’t keep staring at him, feeling like she was about to hyperventilate while he looked at her like she was nothing.

  It didn’t matter. Because she was nothing.

  You’re an arrow, Valkyrie. A blade. A weapon is nothing without a wielder.

  She had been molded and forged by her wielder. She had been pushed to the limits of her abilities and she had come to understand that what her father had told her long ago was true. She was nothing without him. She was good for one thing and one thing only: destruction.

  The man standing six feet away from her was proof enough of that. She stood, walked out, and didn’t bother to shut the door behind her. The letter in her hands took on new meaning as she climbed into her Jeep and drove home. If Random hadn’t left it then somehow, some way, Danvers had.

  Whatever the reason, whatever his impetus to seek her out now, she didn’t care. She only cared that she would finally, finally, be able to confront him. To find out where he held her father.

  And once she did, she would take them both out, and set her world to rights.

  Random considered the fact that he had last taken a vacation when his best friend, Jace, had needed help rescuing his now-wife, Siren, from her kidnappers. He then considered that he couldn’t remember taking one before that, and so deduced that he only took vacations for terrible reasons.

  Admittedly, his regular office hours were so irregular they drove Mrs. Harringford to the brink of insanity keeping track of them, so it wasn’t as if he was a workaholic with no free time, but he didn’t make time off official unless things had really gone to hell.

  He’d just made it official. Mrs. Harringford had made a remark about him sending all of his business elsewhere anyway, so it wasn’t as if she had a lot of rearranging to do, and would he be able to keep paying her salary if he continued to behave like a child skipping school?

  Now that he was sitting on his back porch again, the vacation that had seemed so vital to getting him out of his stuffy office had morphed into the oppressive certainty that he had nothing at all to do. The entirety of his life for the last year had been focused on one Valkyrie Winters. Even when he’d tried to focus on other things she’d crept back in. His Aspect hadn’t been above tugging him toward her every time she’d overextended herself and hadn’t slept or eaten in two days.

  It was why he’d started the stupid breakfast ritual. At least if he went to her house every
morning and cooked for her his magic stopped waking him up at one in the morning to send him over there, where she was inevitably training while on the verge of passing out. She’d claimed she threw his food away, but he’d known otherwise when he’d finally started getting a good night’s sleep again.

  A flicker in his peripheral vision was his falcon, Nelsen, who dove to the porch and dropped a bleeding mouse at Random’s feet.

  “Thanks Nelsen, but I’m not hungry. You have it.” Random’s Aspect flared, twisting the words into something the falcon could understand. Nelsen retrieved the mouse and carried it off a ways before he ripped into it.

  Random had found the bird when he was eight, right after his mother had died, a fallen nestling with a broken wing. Not even his Aspect could twist itself to the healing arts of Siren’s Life Aspect, so he had sought out all information he could on caring for wounded birds. He’d needed the falcon to survive because his mother hadn’t, and he’d wanted desperately for the bird to understand he was trying to help it.

  That was only the second time in as many days that his Aspect had ever manifested. Eight years old was an abysmally late age for manifestation by the Society’s standards. They had taken to calling him a dud by that point, even though all signs had indicated he’d had Aspect, it just didn’t work.

  Aspect fell into dozens of categories: Elemental, like Jace’s affinity for water and lesser affinities for earth and air. Truthfinding or Tracking like Meredith’s. Battle Aspect, like Valkyrie’s, whose power poured itself into the strength of her body, the balance of her blade, the speed and certainty with which she moved. The common denominator being that each discipline was highly defined.

  Random’s Aspect didn’t fit neatly into any mold—it just tried to make the things he wanted to happen, happen. Which was why his healthiest, most steadfast relationship was with a seventeen-year-old falcon. They were known to live around twenty years in captivity, and though Nelsen wasn’t quite in captivity, the additional care the bird had received showed in his health.

  Even so, Random knew it was only a matter of time before his oldest companion was gone. He had his best friend back, now that Jace had decided to return to Seclusion permanently at the behest of his lovely wife, and he had a handful of other friends. He wasn’t alone—wouldn’t be alone, when Nelsen died. But he’d hoped to have something more, something permanent, when the time came.

  He still remembered every moment of the night he’d thought all his dreams about Valkyrie were coming true. He’d once buried those dreams at nineteen, when Jace’s departure from town had meant Random hadn’t had any reason to be around Valkyrie anymore. That was when the silly idea that she was somehow meant for him had been exposed for the schoolboy crush it was.

  Fast-forward several years and her father had disappeared. A month after that disappearance, Random’s Aspect had killed his motorcycle engine and left him stranded on the road for Valkyrie to find. She’d driven up, told him to get in her Jeep, and the world had just...stopped. He’d had to admit that it had never been just a schoolboy crush, and he hadn’t buried anything at all.

  When she’d driven him to his apartment and told him to take her inside, he’d barely gotten in the front door before her body had been perfectly, gloriously pressing against his. A part of him hadn’t been able to believe it was actually happening.

  So much so that he’d stupidly told her things he shouldn’t have, and she’d shut down. He’d watched it happen. One moment she’d been with him and the next she had just been...gone. And no matter how hard he’d tried, he couldn’t bring her back out.

  In fact, it would be more accurate to say that the harder he’d tried, the more withdrawn she’d become. He’d been stupid enough to keep trying for the better part of a year, stupid enough to kiss her at Jace’s wedding. For a moment, she had kissed him back, and he’d thought she felt something for him—but then she’d turned around and refused him so completely that the only logical response was to give up.

  His phone buzzed and his friend Kagen’s name flashed across the screen.

  Hey, we’re going to Finnigan’s later, you in?

  Random did not feel like going out. But sitting on his porch all day, alone, doing nothing, smelled strongly of a level of pathetic he had no desire to descend into. He had taken a vacation to do something, hadn’t he? Frankly, it was a miracle his friends were still talking to him. He was typing in a rote acceptance when his Aspect flared, reminding him that Finnigan’s was classy and respectable, and he wanted neither of those things.

  Make it Savado’s and I’ll be there. Savado’s was about as far from respectable as bars came.

  Done. Ellipses appeared on the screen, before: Carli’s bringing a friend.

  Random groaned. Ever since Kagen had married Carli, the woman had become obsessed with the notion that Random would turn into a nice, reasonable human being if only he found his own marital bliss, and she had proceeded to parade a string of women in front of him, all presumably willing to take the job.

  I’m not interested. He didn’t get an answer to that, so he added, Seriously. Carli brings a friend, she’s Carli’s problem.

  The last thing his evening needed was another bloody female. He should just stay home. Not risk it. But he had to get on with his life at some point.

  Tonight was as good a night for it as any other.

  3

  Savado’s was a behemoth of an establishment situated in a converted warehouse. It sat off to the side of the highway, about a mile outside of town, and it attracted the sort of clientele who would frequent a bar that wasn’t anywhere near another business. It was ten thousand square feet of undivided space, its only organization into sections provided by the intended use of a particular area.

  To the right of the entrance sat a scattering of high tables and dart boards. The far wall opposite the entrance housed the establishment’s first bar, the wide area in front of it marked out for dancing by the shift in flooring from tile to wood, the latter marking out a large, rectangular area in front. The second bar lounged in the corner left of the entrance and looked out on the sprawl of pool tables that claimed dominion over that side of the warehouse.

  Valkyrie made her way to the first bar. She took the seat at the end, ordered a beer she didn’t drink, and scanned the crowd. The place was a nightmare for keeping track of anyone. The sheer physical size alone made it almost impossible. It had a secondary entrance to the one Valkyrie had come through, and over half a dozen doors marked “exit only.” On the one hand, all of those things were convenient if she needed to disappear. On the other hand, they were horridly inconvenient if she intended to gain the upper hand on Danvers.

  The place was filling up, but it wasn’t yet so packed that a methodical sweep of the establishment was impossible. Her aim in arriving an hour early had paid off—she hadn’t recognized anyone yet, as Danvers had claimed she would, so she’d arrived first.

  At least, she didn’t recognize anyone until she swept the billiards area and her gaze snagged on a pool table. More specifically, on the figure bent lazily over it.

  Random.

  Her first thought was that he couldn’t be here. Her second thought was that Danvers had used Illusion Aspect to wear Random’s face for the evening, except Danvers wouldn’t be hanging out with Kagen and Carli, and Danvers wouldn’t have a brunette practically plastered against him.

  Her third thought, if she could really be said to be thinking at all by that point, was that she wanted to go insert herself between him and the brunette.

  Mine, her body, her Aspect, insisted. He was hers, and whoever the fuck that woman was she had no right to be so close to him, almost touching him, breathing the same air he did. Valkyrie’s hand clenched around the pint of beer in front of her.

  Random made his play, smoothly sinking the eight ball in the corner pocket. The brunette clapped, turned, and revealed the face of Lauren Hale.

  Aspect coated Valkyrie’s fist and the pint glass in her h
and exploded. Shards of glass dug into her palm and drops of blood swirled to mix with the amber beer spreading across the bar. The barkeeper took a step toward her, towel in hand. Then he saw the look on her face and backpedaled so hard it would have been comical if Valkyrie hadn’t been so angry.

  She grabbed a nearby container of napkins and dumped it onto the mess. All that did was make it so that, instead of a spreading pool of beer, she had a mountain of beer-and-blood-soaked napkins. Wonderful.

  What the hell was wrong with her? Random wasn’t hers, wasn’t even close to hers.

  Liar, her body whispered. He’s yours, you made him yours.

  Despite her internal disagreement with herself, she wasn’t so distracted that she didn’t notice when someone moved into her personal space behind her.

  “Need some help?”

  “No,” she replied without bothering to turn around.

  “You sure?” The man stepped around to face her, a fresh napkin container in his hands. He looked to be in his early thirties, and she supposed he was good looking if you were into generic mundanity that looked pretty enough but had nothing unusual to recommend it.

  “You can move along,” she told him. “I’m not interested in company.”

  Typically, a well-placed glare was enough to drive most men from her. She’d long ago realized she exuded bitch to such a level that the average male never even bothered to approach her. The ones who did tended to either be very drunk or possessed of massive egos. Unfortunately, Savado’s at night had plenty of men who were both.

  “Oh, I think you are.”

  She looked him dead in the eye, prepared to tell him to fuck off in no uncertain terms, when his image flickered, revealing the face of the Council’s former scribe, Gary Danvers, for all of half a second before reverting to the generically attractive façade.

 

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