Valkyrie's Call

by Michelle Manus

  He hadn’t liked Kyrie and Jace’s father when he’d thought the man was just an asshole. But if there was something more going on, he couldn’t walk away. Not when her psychopath of a biological father was in the mix, too. Because Kyrie wouldn’t ask anyone for help, and he was the only one suicidal enough to try to make her accept his.

  That decision made, it was easier to take an emotional step back from the situation and think logically. “What does he want?”

  “What?”

  “Danvers. What does he want? You wouldn’t have gone to meet him if he hadn’t dangled an offer in front of you. Tell me what he wants and we’ll figure out how to proceed.”

  Valkyrie’s blood chilled. “We are not proceeding. You wanted to know what was going on, I told you. That was the deal.”

  Random shoved his hands into his pockets and leaned against the kitchen’s breakfast bar, his entire body going liquid and relaxed. That was bad. The more calm and seemingly indifferent Random got, the more dangerous he became. It meant his brain was working overtime.

  “We didn’t have a deal, love.”

  She used to watch him in court. Whenever she’d had a really shitty month, she would quietly hunt up his schedule and slip into the back of the courtroom, careful not to be noticed. The cases he took weren’t always easy to listen to, but he was—smart and calculating and graceful. He cared about people, and it made him relentless in his pursuit of justice.

  Whenever he had a really difficult case, he would look just like he did right now. And when he looked like he did now, he never lost.

  “You said you’d leave it alone if I told you what was going on.”

  “No, I told you to give me a reason not to call the Council. So far, all I’ve heard are a litany of reasons to call them.”

  “It isn’t their concern.”

  Random arched an eyebrow at her. “The man who is number one on the Council’s most-wanted list is in the stronghold of their territory and it isn’t the Council’s concern?”

  “They’ll only get in my way. This is personal.”

  “Not a good enough reason.”

  “Fine. Call them. I’ll deny everything. There’s no evidence. He’ll have Scoured the scene, there won’t be anything to Track. It’ll be my word against yours. And Meredith won’t Truthfinder this mess because she still wants to be BFFs with me.”

  “Then I’ll call Jace.”

  “Don’t you dare.” She hadn’t been through everything she’d been through, hadn’t sacrificed everything she’d sacrificed to protect Jace only to have him thrown into a scenario likely to get him killed.

  The intensity of her refusal was a tactical error, however. She knew it by the way Random’s gaze sharpened, and though recovery was likely impossible, she tried anyway. “He’s on his honeymoon. Don’t bother him over something trivial.”

  “I don’t think he would consider his sister being on an apparent suicide mission trivial. If that’s the lever I have to pull, Kyrie, I’ll pull it.”

  He would, too. She saw it in his eyes, in the set of his jaw, and didn’t understand it. Didn’t understand why he cared what happened to her.

  He’d said he loved her. A year ago, a lifetime ago, he’d said those words. But he hadn’t meant them. He couldn’t have meant them.

  She straightened her shoulders. “What will it take to keep you from calling him? What’s the deal, Random?”

  “The deal, love, is you tell me what he wants from you. We agree on a plan, and I am glued to your bloody side until this is over.”

  “I don’t need your help.”

  “Don’t care. Take it anyway, or I call Jace.”

  The muscles in her shoulders bunched. Either she refused, keeping Random safe and risking Jace, or she kept Jace safe and risked Random. Jace wasn’t a fighter. Oh, he had many of the necessary skills—Elijah had seen to that—but his heart was never in it. Random’s Aspect made him difficult to counter in a fight, and his mercurial nature made it impossible to predict what he would do in any given situation.

  Random was the obvious choice, on paper. She didn’t want to choose at all. But if she refused, if he did call Jace, Random wouldn’t simply wait quietly for her brother to come home. He’d sunk his teeth into this problem and he wouldn’t let it go. If Random was going to be involved in this, she’d have a better chance of protecting him if she kept him with her. And if she wanted to protect him forever, she’d just have to make certain she accomplished her objective.

  “All right. Fine. We work together, and Jace doesn’t hear about any of this. Ever. That’s the deal.”

  “Agreed. We can discuss the particulars tomorrow. It’s late and you’re barely standing—”

  “I’m fine,” she said automatically, even though he was right. Because she’d never been allowed to admit she wasn’t fine. Because any sign of weakness she’d ever shown had always been met with punishment.

  “Forgive me,” he said, his voice laden with sarcasm. “Of course you are fine. Should I pretend I’m barely standing and you should go to sleep because I need to? Will that do it for you?”

  She didn’t dignify that with a response. The keys to her Jeep were in the middle of the living room floor, no doubt dropped when Random had dropped her. She retrieved them. Random put himself in front of the door and leaned back against it, arms folded across his chest.

  “I can’t go home and sleep if you don’t move away from the damn door.”

  Not that she’d get any sleep at home. The house was too large and empty and filled with memories she didn’t need to relive. It had been bearable when Jace and Siren had been living there, but they’d moved out months ago because they were normal human beings who wanted their own space.

  After their departure, it had been bearable because Random had started showing up every morning. Knowing he would be there had kept her from feeling like she was walking through her own tomb, just waiting for the silence to kill her.

  “What part of ‘glued to your side for the duration of this mess’ was unclear?”

  She narrowed her gaze. “I assumed you meant when I was investigating. You didn’t specify otherwise.”

  “Mine was an all-encompassing statement. Failure to specify was on your end.”

  “You want me to live here?” Incredulity twined with stupid pleasure hit her like a strange, wondrous cocktail. At that moment, it didn’t matter that he only wanted her to stay because of some sense of obligation toward her. It only mattered that she wouldn’t have to go home to the vacant emptiness that awaited her there.

  “I recognize it isn’t the luxury you’re accustomed to,” Random bit off, and she realized too late how her words must have sounded, “but I hardly think it’s slumming it. My bedroom is through there.”

  He pointed to a short hallway across the living room. Every nerve in her body went on high alert. Surely the whole glued-to-her-side thing didn’t literally mean at all hours of the day and night? The idea of being in the same bedroom with him, in the same bed, sent an ache of longing through her, which in turn produced a feeling of sheer panic. She struck back out of self-preservation, her voice cold and harsh.

  “To be clear, I agreed to work with you. I didn’t agree to anything else.”

  She regretted the words the instant they left her mouth. Random stiffened, and she thought he would have looked less hurt if she’d hurled him off a two-story building.

  “I’ll be on the couch. You have the room to yourself.” His words were perfectly even, the smooth monotone that came out when he was angry but holding that anger inside him.

  “Random.” His name was the only word she could form. She wanted to say she was sorry, that she knew he would never use leverage over her for that purpose. He’d never tried to force her to do anything. She had always known that if she told him to leave her alone, he would. It was why it had taken her so very long to do it.

  He watched her, waiting for her to continue. But she didn’t have anything else to say. Bette
r, if she had hurt him. Best, if she had finally hurt him enough he wanted nothing to do with her.

  “Go to bed, Kyrie,” he said softly. “I can’t talk to you anymore tonight.”

  For the first time in her life, she did what she was told without even wanting to argue. She fled for the relative safety of the bedroom and the closed door it put between her and him. Unfortunately, it took less than a breath inside it for her to realize nothing about this room was safe for her. It felt like Random, and when she kicked off her boots and climbed into the large four-poster bed, the sheets smelled like Random.

  She stared at her carefully bandaged hand, remembering the feel of Random’s fingers against her skin, the gentleness with which he’d cleaned the shallow cuts. She wanted everything she’d been terrified of minutes before. She wanted him in here with her, next to her, touching her. The weak part of her whispered that he was already in danger. That he was involved in this mess now and sleeping with him couldn’t possibly make him any less safe than he already was.

  But even if that was true, it wasn’t safe for her. Having him again would only make her want him again. Random didn’t do long-term. She’d never seen him with the same woman for more than a month. His tenacity in hounding after her stemmed from a misplaced sense of guilt, and she didn’t want to be anyone’s pity-fuck. Least of all his.

  She buried her head in his pillow, breathed in his scent, and knew she wouldn’t sleep.

  Random stared down the hallway where Valkyrie had disappeared behind the closed door of his bedroom. Every time he thought she couldn’t possibly manage to hurt him more, she outdid herself. That was his Kyrie, always reaching previously unimagined heights.

  He should have just climbed into the damn Jeep with her and let her drive back to the Winters’ estate. It would have been better than seeing the contempt on her face at the thought of spending a night in his home.

  From the moment he’d started designing the house, he hadn’t bothered to lie to himself. He’d built it for her. Goddess knew he had no need of a sparring room with several weapons racks, or the ten-stall barn out back that was currently empty.

  He’d even chosen the damn interior design with her in mind. All dark wood floors and cabinetry and gray-toned blues because she didn’t like anything bright. He couldn’t build her a mansion—he didn’t have the kind of money the Winters or Meredith had, the kind of money that ran in the old Aspect Society families—but he’d done well for himself. He could give her the things he’d thought were most important to her.

  And she’d curled her nose up at the thought of staying here for a few hours.

  He couldn’t even be mad at her about it because she’d never once pretended to want anything he could offer. The only hope she’d ever given him was a few months of not outright refusing his attention.

  He picked up his phone and called his real estate agent. A groggy voice answered and he belatedly realized it was past midnight. Still, he’d already made the call. And the man had picked up.

  “Daniel, it’s Random. I need to sell my house.”

  Several beats of silence followed this announcement. “The house you just moved into?”

  “Yes, that one.”

  “So you want to take the condo in town off the market?”

  “No.” He’d had sex with Kyrie in that condo. He was never setting foot in it again if he could help it. “Sell that too.”

  “Okay, if that’s what you want. What should I be on the lookout for?”

  “Lookout for?”

  “For your new residence? What did you have in mind?”

  “Nothing. Don’t look for anything.”

  The pause that followed had a weight of concern, transmissible even over the phone line. “Mr. Tremayne, are you feeling well?”

  “Perfectly well.”

  “Why don’t you sleep on this decision,” Daniel said, his voice trying a little too hard to be calming.

  “I don’t need to. Just put the house on the market.”

  “I’m going to hold off on that. Why don’t you think about it for a week and call me if you still want to sell. Maybe talk it over with someone.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Maybe someone professional. Goodnight, Mr. Tremayne.”

  The line clicked. Great. Now Random didn’t have the peace of mind of knowing the house was going on the market and his real estate agent thought he was having a mental health crisis.

  He tossed the phone on the kitchen counter in disgust. Then he rolled up his shirt sleeves and pulled the mixing bowls out of the cabinet. He clearly wasn’t going to sleep tonight. He might as well fucking bake something.

  5

  Valkyrie woke—which was a surprise in and of itself because it meant she’d actually slept—to a mixture of delicious scents that had made it past the closed door into Random’s bedroom. She opened the door and ghosted down the hallway on bare feet, the soft wood warm beneath her skin.

  She took a moment to appreciate it. Did the man have to own her dream home? Why couldn’t he still be living in the impersonal condo where they’d—no. She was not going to relive that memory. But at least the walls there had been an irritatingly bright white, the floors uninspiring brown tile. This house, with its cozy, muted colors, its warm wood floors and elegant but understated design, wrapped itself around her like it was made for her. Like it had been sitting here, waiting for her to come home.

  She got a mental grip on herself as she hit the end of the hallway, and stopped dead in her tracks. The kitchen bar was littered with baked goods. A pie with a latticework top crust sat next to a platter of iced brownies, which in turn sat beside a plate of scones. A casserole dish of what looked like frittata perched on a cooling rack. Random was in front of the stove, his back to her, the smell of bacon sizzling from the pan in front of him.

  Guilt twisted through her. Random cooked all the time. He only baked when he was upset or stressed, and by the looks of it he’d been going all night. She hadn’t seen him bake this much since the week before his and Jace’s last-year Academy finals.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

  The stiffening of his shoulders told her he hadn’t realized she was there until she’d spoken, which wasn’t really a surprise. She’d moved soundlessly out of habit, and Random had a tendency to get lost in his own head.

  “For what?” He didn’t turn, just methodically flipped the bacon in the skillet.

  Everything, she wanted to say. “I don’t know.”

  He shook his head and flicked off the burner. “Coffee’s made, if you want some.”

  The coffeemaker rested on the counter next to the stove, between Random and the refrigerator. She would have to go stand next to him to get it. It felt too personal, too domestic. She’d slept in his bed, for goddess sake, and now she was going to go pour her own coffee like she had a right to be here, a right to stand close enough to him to lean in and kiss him good morning.

  The thought sent a knife of pain through her chest. Domestic bliss had never been high on her list of life’s priorities. Hell, it had never been on the list at all. Even in those rare moments when she’d allowed herself to admit she was human, that she did have wants, those wants hadn’t extended to ever imagining something like this.

  Simplicity. Comfort. Shared spaces.

  To imagining that she would even want something like this. She thought that if she took Random out of the equation, replaced him with anyone else, the whole domestic thing wouldn’t appeal anymore.

  But standing there, watching him, it had a draw she couldn’t deny. She wanted him to want her here. In his house, in his bed, in his kitchen. She wanted to know that if she walked over and stood beside him, he would want her to kiss him good morning.

  She acknowledged the desire and then let it go, arranging her face into the mask that had seen her through so much of her life. It had taken her years to perfect it, to make it so expressionless that her father could no longer tell what she thought, what s
he felt. It was her battle mask, and if this wasn’t a battleground, she didn’t know what was.

  She set her shoulders and walked to the coffeemaker.

  Kyrie stood next to him like it physically pained her to be in close proximity to him. She pulled a mug from the wooden rack beside the coffeepot and filled it. The movement was graceful. Not in a delicate, polished way, but in the way that strength and surety, the way that something deadly, was graceful.

  She was close enough he could wrap an arm around her waist, tug her to him and kiss her. Here she stood in his kitchen, in the house he’d built for her, and none of it was the way he’d imagined. He’d known he was an idiot for building it in the first place, and he’d been okay with that, with the knowledge that she would likely never set foot in it, no matter how badly he wanted her to.

  He’d just never imagined that he would find himself in a situation where she was here, but she didn’t belong to him. So it might hurt her to stand next to him, but it hurt him, too. Because this was so close to everything he’d wanted, only it wasn’t.

  The doorbell rang.

  He barely had time to register the sound before she was across the room, a dagger in her left hand, her Aspect gathering around her like a storm cloud. She peered through the front door’s peephole, her body a single, taut line of alertness.

  His own Aspect hadn’t flickered with any of the warning signs it traditionally produced when danger was near, but then, while his Aspect tended to do what it thought was best for him, it could also be overly focused on what he wanted. Since the person he wanted most in the world was standing ten feet away, looking like the Valkyries she was named for, it was possible his Aspect could have been too misdirected to notice an approaching threat.

  But he doubted it. Because the only thing he wanted more than Valkyrie here, was Valkyrie safe. So he wasn’t surprised when she relaxed a fraction and opened the door. No one stood outside. Instead, a manila envelope lay on the doormat. She stepped over it, her gaze sweeping the area beyond.