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Reaper's laughter booms across the table, dispelling the tension between Damrion and Adriel.
"Why here?" Adriel asks. "Of all the places she could appear, it just so happens to be Seattle?"
Reaper's laughter dries up, everyone at the table falling silent as we contemplate the question.
"The Blooded have been drawing closer to Eitr for years," Damrion finally says. "If she's one of the five, perhaps she feels the same pull to us that they have."
It's the one mercy we've been granted, though I'm not inclined to call it that. We spent centuries combing through every corner of this world in search of the five, looking for any clues to their whereabouts, waiting for their arrival. None ever came. Until Abigail. Until now.
If the portal spit us out here because this is where they were meant to appear, it begs questions I'm not sure I want to ask,let alone answer. Like whether the Forsaken were the ones who trapped us as we've always assumed, or if it was some built-in failsafe of the Gods, ensuring we had no choice but to help fulfill the prophecy. We swore our allegiance to Valhalla and the Valkyrie long ago. Best not to start questioning our choices now.
Panic surges through me out of nowhere, hitting like a bomb blast in the center of my chest. It strikes deep, slicing through every thought and every sensation, stripping me right down to the bone.
For a moment, I'm not at the table with my brothers. I'm in a dark hallway, stumbling away from a man three times my size. He leers at me, pale hands outstretched as if to grab me. My mind is fuzzy and clouded, my steps uncoordinated. My body doesn't work the way it should. But I know I don't want him to touch me. I know terror. I feel it now, clawing up my throat as realization dawns.He drugged my drink.
Oh, God. Please, help me.
The image winks out, leaving my field of vision black. The sense of terror doesn't go with it. That still surges through me, pumping through my veins as if it'smyfear,mypanic. It isn't. It'shers. I still feel her in my head, scared and alone.
I jump to my feet, hands raised to callMagnand mylyststålto defend her against the bastard who thinks he can take what a Valkyrie hasn't offered. I'll split him open from groin to throat, the foul, evil littledrittstøvel.
"Nei!" Adriel grabs my arm. "Nei, Dax."
"Slipp meg fri!"
"Nei, Dax," he says softly. "If you channel, you'll start a panic in here."
"She's already panicking," I growl, trying to fling his arm off.
"Who?"
"Valkyrie." I jerk out of his hold, but I don't reach forMagnagain. The instinctive urge to kill has diminished, though it isn'tgone by far. He's drugged a Valkyrie.MyValkyrie. Whoever he is, he'll die for that before the sun kisses the horizon. But I need to get to her first. Protect her. That's my job now. My life for hers. My soul for hers.
Ah, Gods. I need to get to her.
"Valkyrie? Youfeelher?"
"Ja. She called my soul."
Every one of my brothers looks shell-shocked. I don't blame them. In all the time the Fae guarded Valhalla and the Valkyrie, not a single Valkyrie ever called the soul of a Fae. Odin forbade it. We were sworn to guard all of Valhalla, not a single Valkyrie. Had one called a Fae soul, that Fae would have let the nine realms burn to ash to protect her and her alone.
"I guess the Old Laws no longer apply," Malachi says dryly, as if reading my mind.
They haven't applied in a long time, not since Odin and the Æsir walked the realms.
"Faen," Damrion curses.
I leave them at the table to process my revelation, stalking toward the hallway to find my Valkyrie. I'll process later. After she's safe.
To their credit, my brothers are at my back within moments. We move through the bar as one. People instinctively move out of the way, parting like the seas to allow us through. A few murmur complaints. One woman makes a pass at Reaper, who simply steps around her as if she didn't speak at all.
"Prick," she shouts after him.
"Sounds like she knows you personally," Malachi whispers, ribbing him.
He grunts in response, making the mischievous warrior chuckle.
Several couples are pressed against the walls in the narrow, shadowed hallway, dry fucking as if they're in their own privatechambers. I push past them, focused on finding the Valkyrie I still feel as if a current of power runs between her soul and mine.
