What's Up, Buttercup? (Vexatious Valkyries Book 1)

by Jane Cousins

  “Where?” Brodie looked around at the desolate landscape. Perfect for a prolonged battle campaign but hardly picturesque.

  Stephanie’s gaze flicked to the west and stayed there before she’d consciously made a decision. “That way. I’ll be back before supper is over. Save me some ale and steak.” She was already moving, determined not to be cornered by Eznelda. Deliberately avoiding the surprised gazes of her fellow Valkyries as she strode out of camp. She was going for a nice, simple walk. Heavens, they didn’t have to look at her like she was losing her marbles.

  Yeah, nothing to see here. She was not going crazy or anything, she was totally imagining the weird pull that was determinedly tugging at her senses. Hmmm, but it really didn’t explain why she was going for a walk in the dark, alone, heading in the exact direction from where the inexplicable tugging feeling was coming from.

  No, it was nothing more than coincidence.

  Stephanie believed in many things. Her Goddess and Creator, Freyja. Her hatchets. Her Valkyrie Sisters. But she didn’t believe in coincidences. So she’d find what, or who, was fucking with her, and she’d teach them to never mess with a Valkyrie Warrior again. It seems that she hadn’t finished spilling blood today after all. That, if nothing else, lifted her spirits.

  Chapter Three

  Stomp. Stomp. Decapitation was too quick for whoever was taunting Stephanie. Stomp. Stomp. She’d take their fingers first. Stomp. Stomp. Their tongue next, so she wouldn’t have to listen to all the blubbering and pleading. Stomp. Stomp. Then she’d lop off their hands. Stomp. Forearms. Stomp. Upper arms. Stomp. Make them dance around like that black knight from the Monty Python sketch. Stomp.

  Grrr, Stephanie had left the desolate, flat, desert wastelands long ago and now found herself clambering up a steep pathway, higher and higher up the side of a mountain. She’d long ago morphed her shellan in to a tight fitting tank top and short-shorts for comfort. Her gold boots transformed into sturdy hiking boots.

  Well, at least she was getting a good work out.

  She ground her teeth together as the rough, steep pathway came to an abrupt end. Yet, as she looked up at the sheer cliff face, she knew she needed to keep climbing higher. Damn it.

  Blonde ponytail streaming behind her, Stephanie leapt up and found the first hand hold. Her left boot managing to find a small crevice. There, another hand hold higher up. Then thankfully a helpful crack in the solid rock that meant she could her haul herself upwards another two hundred feet or so, using her legs, back and arms for leverage.

  The night sky was now a dark, dusky crimson and the moons were high overhead, pearly pink and glowing softly. With one final heave over a jutting ledge, Stephanie clambered to her feet, hatchets in her hands. Time for some lopping and then some dancing.

  Huh? Okay, that was disappointing. There was nothing to see but outcroppings of spiky, orange, weed-like plants, straggly brown bushes and rocks. Lots and lots of rocks strewn across the flattish plateau.

  What, in the name of Freyja, was going on?

  The tug. That pull. It continued to gnaw at her. The closer she had gotten to her current destination, the worse it had become. The imperative to find whoever was causing the feeling growing stronger and stronger with every step she had taken to get here. And now she was here. At the top of the highest mountain, in the middle of nowhere. There was no where else to go.

  Magic. Trickery. Something weird was going on. That alien tugging feeling had evolved the closer she had gotten to her destination. There was still an edge of frustration present but now it felt vaguely… sexual? Which was beyond stupid. But then so was walking ten miles in the dark and climbing up a mountain.

  Stephanie roamed the craggy plateau searching for some sign, some indication of why she’d been pulled… lured here. She clambered over large rocks. Kicked aside smaller ones. Checked behind the thorny bushes to ensure no one was hiding in the dark shadows.

  This was the definition of anti-climatic.

  Absently, Stephanie disappeared her hatchets and tightened her ponytail, releasing a deep sigh of irritation. Crap. Of course luring a Valkyrie to an isolated spot in the middle of nowhere took guts and perhaps a touch of insanity. Maybe whoever was behind this just needed some incentive to approach.

  Stephanie raised her arms and stretched, ensuring the moonlight lit her impressive rack to perfection. Turning, she dropped her arms and contemplated the desolate wastelands far below. Come on. Come on. Sneak up behind me, you manipulative bastard. Let’s end this farce. Five minutes ticked by. Ten, nothing.

  Crap. She could have been sitting by a roaring fire right now, digging into a juicy steak and swilling down cold ale. Grrr, if only incompetent Eznelda hadn’t assigned Guzbal to be grill master this campaign and had remembered to check the ice wagon box on her supplies inventory.

  No, she was not going to think about how a volunteer roster of eager and proven camp managers would work so much better than their current approach. How some of her fellow Valkyries loved bullying the transport and set up company. Treasuring the food and beverages, ensuring only the best grill masters were assigned to cover meals and that there was always plentiful amounts of ice to chill their even more plentiful amounts of ale.

  Enough. No one was here. Stomping across the uneven rocky plateau, Stephanie was determined to ignore the gnawing pull that was doing strange things to her innards. Her gut clenching, it felt like large, awkward creatures with wings were flapping around inside her. Lower still, between her legs, a small, throbbing ache had set up shop. By the Sword. What was her problem? Was she ill? Did she need to get laid?

  Heavens, it was only day three of this interminable campaign. Could she manufacture a reasonable excuse to leave early? Hmmm, on the other hand, there were plenty of eligible men… or should she say Demons, in the vicinity. What little she’d seen of her opponents, without blood obscuring their features, Conflict Demons looked like most male humans. Better still, while she’d been thrusting her hatchets into various parts of their anatomy, she had noted that they on the whole tended to be tall, and quite sturdy of frame.

  Which was an important factor for a Valkyrie to consider when choosing a male to bang boots with. There was nothing more wearisome than accidentally breaking a fuck buddy’s ribs or legs and having to listen to them whine about how they were in too much pain to continue with the fucking. Men, such wusses over the slightest of boo-boos.

  But these Conflict Demons, they could take a beating. In fact, they seemed to enthusiastically seek one out. Surely, come tomorrow on the battlefield, she would encounter a suitable candidate. Then it would merely be a matter of subduing him and dragging him off somewhere private, behind a pile of unconscious bodies or such. Then she could proceed to screw him until this annoying ache was sated.

  Yes, she liked that idea. Expedient. Making use of the resources at hand.

  Even better, once she was finished and had attained her happy ending, she could kick the Demon unconscious and just throw his body on top of the nearest pile of casualties. No awkward after-sex conversations. Or worse, having to listen to some awestruck Demon, whose world she had just rocked, stutter out his undying gratitude and clumsily try to get her contact details. Just in case she ever wanted to hook up again.

  Yeah, like that was ever going to happen.

  Valkyries were many things; loyal, dedicated, highly skilled, bloodthirsty, pragmatic and fierce. But they tended not to date. It just wasn’t in their nature. Stephanie considered men excellent stress relievers when it came to fucking. However, she didn’t want to know their names, or pretend to care about their feelings.

  It wasn’t unknown for a Valkyrie to find a mate. When they did, those relationships tended to be fierce and fiery. Though just as many of her Sisters chose to remain single and play the field for their very, very long lives.

  Settling down? Choosing one partner? Mating? Stephanie couldn’t imagine it. Going home to the same person after every battle? It sounded… boring. Though the mat
ed couples she knew seemed anything but unhappy. They even claimed the sex just got better and better over time. Stephanie found that hard to believe.

  She was pretty sure she would never mate. She was a Battle Valkyrie, hear her war cry and tremble in fear. She would be footloose and fancy free until she took her dying breath, she was sure of it.

  Just as she was sure this whole night time excursion had been a complete waste of time. What had she been thinking? Well, she’d been hoping it would be a trap and she would get to kill someone. Disappointingly, that didn’t appear to be the case.

  Perhaps it was a practical joke instigated by a few of her Sisters. No doubt when she returned to camp they would be laughing their heads off at her expense and congratulating one another on the success of their scheme. Damn, she loved those heifers.

  Yeah, it was past time she headed back to camp. Where she belonged. Where she would ignore all the little irritants; the rough towels, the itchy sheets, the overcooked meat, warm ale and Theomore’s fierce screams as she engaged her enemies in her sleep.

  Stephanie had taken only five steps towards the edge of the plateau when the ground beneath her abruptly began to shake and a loud roaring sound battered her eardrums, echoing across the night sky. What, in the name of Freyja, was that?

  Stephanie stumbled slightly to the left, trying to remain upright as rocks danced and bounced in place. Abruptly, with no warning, the ground beneath her hiking boots disintegrated and she found herself falling, dropping into the pitch black below.

  Oh, shit!

  * * *

  Galen tossed his head back, sending water droplets flying. Settling back into the shallows he smoothed back his wet hair, lounging against the rock retaining wall. Watching the lazy curls of steam rise slowly from the surface of the hot spring. The lights from the lanterns hanging from the walls cast flickering fire across the glossy, dark surface. The spring, being quite large and rather deep, except for the section he was currently inhabiting, had become his favourite place to be of late.

  Three days of drinking, brooding… he meant plotting, and he was still no closer to resolving his problem. He couldn’t claim he’d miraculously gone into remission, his erratic, impatient behaviour put lie to that.

  He, who had always prided himself on his superior control, his stability, knew that he would be incapable of pretending he had been granted even a temporary reprieve from his condition.

  It would be useless to run. The Queen had spies everywhere. Besides, in his devolving state, just where could he hide out and not eventually draw attention to himself?

  He envied those of his brethren who had been saved from the Berserker aspect of the condition thanks to being claimed by a mate. There was something about that claiming that calmed and tamed their inner Demon. Perhaps on some primal level the Demon knew that all that new strength and raw power needed to be channelled in order to protect their mate, and future spawn. That in order to do so, balance and control was imperative.

  Hmmm, he’d always considered the Knustabber stage of his evolution to be inevitable. A gift, not a curse. Yes, it could be a crap shoot for those of his kind triggered prior to being claimed. Inevitably forced to make some tough life decisions. Stay single, turn full on stabby and join the Berserker Unit. Or, assuming they could find a willing partner, accept a forced melding, and live an eternal half life. Blunted taste buds and a weakened, subdued inner Demon.

  Fuck, he’d been so cocksure, positive that he would one day, when the time was right, far in the future when he was done sowing his wild oats, be claimed. Immediately soon after his melding, as nature intended, he’d wake up one morning to find that he’d achieved Knustabber whilst he slept.

  He was a Demon Prince. A fearsome divorce attorney. And quite frankly, one kick ass Conflict Demon. Renown for starting fights will little more than a slight sneer and a raised eyebrow.

  Where had the last four hundred years gone? Okay, he could be forgiven the first one hundred as he grew, matured. But seriously, the last three hundred, he should have been out there searching for her. Not indulging in every hedonistic vice a Conflict Demon could.

  It had not just been a sheer kick in the guts to discover six months ago that he had been triggered, that he was officially on the stabby fast track. No, it had felt like a betrayal to his inner Demon.

  That first morning, when he’d only suspected something was wrong, he’d felt the sharp edge of its claws, as if it wanted out. Which was ridiculous, they were one. However, thinking back on it now, his inner Demon must have twigged to his new condition and was instinctively already on the hunt for the cure… a mate.

  Shit, and neither one of them was happy with the only pathway open to them. A forced melding performed by the Queen’s Shamans, which would grant him control but would effectively… lessen him, leashing his inner Demon.

  Fucking hell, where had he left that bottle of whiskey? Grrr, on the other side of the hot spring. Double fuck, he was almost completely sober. A state only slightly less abhorrent at the moment than remaining unclaimed and entering a forced union.

  His inner Demon furiously raked its claws against the inside of his chest. It was too much. He, who valued control above all else, suddenly his life was nothing but black ice mountain curves. Where was she? Where was the one to claim him? Where was the woman he was born; Fated to love, protect and cherish?

  Galen tossed his head back and growled. A primal sound emerging from his throat. Vibrating off the surrounding cavern walls. Transforming the formerly glassy surface of the hot spring, sending water rippling outwards and sloshing over the low retaining walls that contained it.

  What had begun as a howl of pure frustration, of desperation, quickly turned into a demanding, insistent sound, full of need, anger, and yearning desire. Around him rocks began to fall, from the walls of the cavern, and from the ceiling. Somewhere, back towards the spacious living area, Galen heard a thunderous cascade of heavy rocks tumbling, slamming to the ground, but he couldn’t seem to stop. Didn’t want to stop.

  Maybe if he kept on roaring, the pain, the need, would dissipate and this all-consuming, clamouring ache in his gut, in his loins, would lessen, just for one fucking minute.

  Suddenly a waterfall of debris crashed into the spring off to his left; rocks, dirt, followed by what looked and sounded like a woman yelling, before she hit the pool and disappeared beneath the surface. By Lucifer’s left ball. What the fucking hell?

  Galen’s mouth snapped shut abruptly. Had he imagined her? He rubbed at his eyes, blinking. Maybe he wasn’t as sober as he thought. He looked around for some sign that he hadn’t just gone insane and was now seeing women dropping from the sky. But the cavern was suddenly eerily quiet. Dust tainted the air, so he hadn’t imagined the falling debris. But the surface of the spring was once more glassy and still. The lights from the lanterns dancing unbroken as they were reflected back from the mirror like surface. Steam welling upwards in lazy, curling drifts.

  He couldn’t recall if hallucinations were part of the Knustabber package if you were an unclaimed male or not. Given the stigma attached to the condition, it wasn’t something male Demons tended to sit around talking about. Perhaps he really was going insane. Perhaps he’d entered the full blown stabby level. Maybe next he’d be drooling and stuttering.

  What he needed was some whiskey. Yes, alcohol to dull the pain. A lot of alcohol. Galen had only just shifted his weight, intending to push off from the wall, and swim across the spring, when a woman emerged from the water right next to him. Her right hand clamped around his throat with a vice like grip, the pointed spike on top of her war hatchet suddenly only inches away from his eye.

  “Move, and you find out what it feels like to have your brain skewered.”

  “Who… you… wha-” Bloody hell, it was official, he was drooling and stuttering. Lord below, please don’t let him be hallucinating. She was a vision. The promise of death evident in dazzling baby blue eyes catapulting her into gorgeous status.
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br />   “Who the hell are you? And where the fuck am I?” In a brief glance Stephanie took in the hurricane lanterns ringing the hot spring. Her worrisome long downwards dirt and rock slide had dumped her out into some underground cavern. Thank Freyja, for the water breaking her fall. Even better, she had a conveniently located male to torture all the answers from that she required.

  She stared into his dark, ink black eyes. Little flames seeming to dance in their depths, reflected from the lanterns. Other than his initial surprise he was handling the situation well. No panic. No pleading. In fact, he looked kind of happy, the edges of his surprisingly sensual lips tilting up at the edges.

  That did it. This handsome devil, with the liquid midnight dark eyes and broad, muscular, bare chest had to be involved in bringing her here. “Why are you smiling like that?”

  “Seriously?” A fine dark eyebrow arched upwards briefly. “I’m lying here, minding my own business, and a gorgeous, six-foot Valkyrie quite literally drops into my lap. Me, naked. You, somehow wearing a skimpy bikini. I’d have to be dead not to be enjoying this particular moment.”

  “That can easily be arranged.” Damn her shellan, it had automatically transitioned to suitable attire the moment she’d hit the water. Though why the hell it had conjured up a tiny red and white gingham bikini was anyone’s guess. “Tell me, did you have anything to do with luring me here?”

  “No, unless you are a big believer in the power of prayer.”

  Blast. This close she could smell the whiskey on his breath. What, in the name of her Hatchets, was going on? A trek through a desolate wasteland. A two mile climb up a treacherous mountain. Then a freefall down into the bowels of a mountain. Only to land in a hot spring occupied by a drunk, and yes, admittedly, gorgeous Conflict Demon, who wasn’t giving off the supervillain vibe she’d been expecting.

  “What the hell is going on?”

  Galen couldn’t believe his good fortune. The Fates had delivered… finally, on his pleas to them. “What’s going on? Seems pretty obvious to me.”