AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I know,” I said, spinning around his next attack as the blade struck the purple stone behind my head. Charlie could run, but the Valkyrie wouldn’t hide for long. The Valkyrie wanted to fight Ales. But it didn’t want to fight with the steel in my hand. It wanted the sword at Ales’ back.
Twirling around his side, I slipped my hand over the golden-winged handle at his low back, drawing his second sword. “I was just waiting for you to get tired.”
The Valkyrie hummed and pulsed, loving the feel of it. I kept my steel sword in one hand and my Valkyrie blade in the other. I flipped the golden hilt in my hand and tilted my head. “Why did you bring this if we are just practicing today?” I asked as I struck with my left hand. It was Charlie talking, but it was the Valkyrie striking.
Ales defended the attack, but it was too late. His steel sword fended off my practice sword as I placed the tip of the Valkyrie blade over his throat. She was just as clever as him.
“I thought they were too dangerous,” I crooned.
Ales stilled as I scraped the blade up his neck, drawing a thin line of red in its wake. “It’s here just in case,” he said.
I took the steel blade a breath away from his armored chest. “You think the Raiders will attack today?”
“We must always be ready for an attack.”
I lowered the Valkyrie tip from his throat. “We don’t need the sword. I haven’t sensed them since we left earth. I’ll know when they connect to me. When they do, then we will fight.”
I thrust the tip of the Valkyrie blade into the sand, all the way to the hilt. The attachment to the sword was concerning and increasingly difficult to fight the longer it was in my palm.
“Is that Charlie talking or the Valkyrie?” Ales said.
Fuck!
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I suspected when the Valkyrie hesitated while changing Danny. Even a baby Valkyrie wouldn’t do that. It would pull our strength and use the aether to shield death from him without pause. Something in you held back, even when taking from me. As if you didn’t want to take too much. Valkyries don’t think this way. They take what the need.”
“Maybe I’m different than the Valkyries you know,” I said.
The light of the Valkyrie speared into my lungs, searing my insides. Don’t lie to him.
Ales’ cunning eyes flared with life, pulsing silver. “Is that so?”
Ales stalked closer and scraped his fingers down my wrist. The light sparked on my skin in its wake. It burst free from the surface, despite my clamp upon it. His touch was the balance of pain and pleasure. I wanted more.
“You are different, Charlie,” Ales purred.
He knew the mortal was in charge.
I pulled my hand back. “You’re right.” I stepped away from his body. “The Valkyrie lives inside me, but it’s Charlie calling the shots right now.”
I waited for his wrath. He had searched so long for one to awaken, and I was all screwed up. Nothing like what they needed, or he expected.
“Strange,” he said.
Not the reaction I expected.
“You’re not mad?”
Ales edged a step closer to me, reaching for my hand again.
I pulled back.
Ales shook his head. “You don’t find this… interesting?”
“Depends on your perspective, I guess. Have you ever heard of this happening before?”
Ales seemed to be intrigued by every detail on my body. His eyes searched mine then strayed down my arms. He watched me with curiosity. “No. And I’ve lived many millennia. The mortal is destroyed when the Valkyrie awakens, always.” Ales began to pace the sand. “I should have found you years before. Even across many worlds, I should’ve sensed you when you awoke, but your mortal side shielded me from you.”
