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My dad almost tossed his drink on the coffee table as he surged for me. His hands framed my face, his calloused hands rough, but his grip the opposite, gentle and fatherly. We stared into each other’s eyes. “You… you’re our lost wingless Valkyrie?”
I smiled and slowly stood, my wings growing out of my back. “Yes, though I’m not so wingless anymore.”
Dad stared, mouth agape and eyes wide as a shield. Then his shock morphed into pride. He shot to his feet and gathered me in his arms for a tight hug. I wrapped my arms around his neck, hugging him back, my chest swelling.
When he was finally ready, he set me back down. I pulled my wings back in and then sat on the couch. Dad grabbed his glass and then used his magic to get more. He handed everyone a full glass. “Today is a good day to use this bottle up, I say.”
Aya happily took a glass. “And we can fill you in while we enjoy it.”
And that’s what we did, bringing Dad up to speed about everything. I also learned he had still prayed to the gods, which added to the convoluted situation of him knowing who Aya was, Aya having suspicions about his identity but never feeling the need to look into it further, and how the two danced around the truth because my father knew Aya was protecting me for some reason, and was afraid if he called her out, she’d stop, and she was afraid he’d try to run with me if he learned the truth.My life would have been a hell of a lot simpler if my family just learned to communicate.
My father scowled. “So a shifter is still after her?”
Aya nodded. “We had an encounter with him today just outside my ward.”
He looked to Tyr. “And you’re here suddenly because?”
Tyr’s brow lifted. “Isn’t it obvious?”
Dad pursed his lips, looked to me, then to Diego, then back to Tyr, and grinned. “Excellent. Double the chance for someone to convince her to give me grandchildren, especially now that I can’t pretend the excuse is that I’m not getting younger, and neither is she.”
“Dad!” I shrieked, my face growing hot. “Can you not? We’re still working on seeing how this goes. There are no plans for grandchildren any time soon.”
Tyr and Diego laughed.Honestly, I should have expected this.
“You keep saying that.” He waved a hand dismissively. “How you see your relationships is your business.”
His expression grew serious. “What is mine… is this shifter bullshit. You said he’s still after her, and there was even an encounter earlier today?”
Tyr nodded. “He got away, but he showed more of his hand than we did.”
Dad looked to me. “You also said earlier that you had a feeling you knew what might be the reason Ingrid turned on us. What was that about?”
“It’s also because of Astrid,” Aya said. “If someone, say the shifter that’s been hunting her every reincarnation, told Ingrid of Astrid’s true identity, then if she were more devoted to FU than her own family, she’d do what was needed to be done.”
“But why?” Dad asked. “What does Astrid have to do with the prophecies Skuld was trying to bring to fruition?”
Her eyes darted to Tyr. “Because, as we said, Astrid is the same Astrid that Tyr loved. And… there is a prophecy out there about Tyr.”
Tyr shook his head. “There are two. They both were told long before Astrid existed, and they were so vague they could have been applied to a number of gods—until I lost Astrid.”
When his Valkyrie falls
The god of war will crumble
“Many assumed that one was about Odin,” Aya admitted. “Seeing as his domain touches many, and he was the only one with Valkyries at the time. But I started to fear it actually meant Tyr when Astrid gained her Wingless Valkyrie name. Unfortunately, I had only come to that conclusion shortly before Astrid died.”
I chewed my bottom lip. Tyr had become a shell of a god after I died. He admitted that all to me.If that one came true, and others have as well, can you actually thwart them?
“What was the second prophecy?” I asked.
“This one we thought was about Tyr and Fen, but we’re now sure it’s about the shifter.”
So wolf and god shall battle
And—
Neither shall prevail
