Total pages in book: 51
Estimated words: 47068 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 235(@200wpm)___ 188(@250wpm)___ 157(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 47068 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 235(@200wpm)___ 188(@250wpm)___ 157(@300wpm)
Forsaken walk the earth. She isn't safe. It's my job to make her so.
"Easy, Dax." Malachi holds his hands up as if to show he means us no harm. "Easy."
Skíta. Of course, he means no harm. He's Fae, no more capable of harming a Valkyrie than I am. And this girl may have been born three hundred years too late, but she's one of the strongest Valkyrie I've ever met. The blood of her foremothers runs strong in her veins.
"Beklager," I murmur to Malachi, forcing the possessive, protectiveness down into a little box. I can examine it later, marvel at it when she isn't in danger. "I wasn't thinking."
"No harm, no foul. But we need to go," he says. "Half the neighborhood heard him screaming."
Ja, they did. Right before she burned him to ash with nothing more than the Light of her soul.
I glance back down at her, still reeling at her power of her Light. My cock still hard at the sight of her. Gods. She's beautiful. She's young and innocent, her soul untouched by shadow.
"We need to get the fuck out of here," Reaper says from behind us. "Half the people inside heard whatever just happened out here."
"Forsaken," Damrion growls.
"Skíta. Here?"
"Ja. Trying to kidnap the Valkyrie."
I rise to my feet with her in my arms, turning to face my brothers. All four turn curious gazes on her. I fight the urge to snarl at them, instead tucking her carefully against my chest. No one says anything for a long moment. They just stare at her, at us, as if shaken by the sight of her in my arms.
Sirens ripping through the night shake them from whatever burdens their minds. I can guess the direction of their thoughts anyway.
She looks nothing like the Valkyrie who dedicated their lives to ferrying souls across the Veil, taking pride of place in Valhalla with the warriors they brought home to defend the realms. And yet she may be the strongest who ever lived.
If the other four are even half as strong, the prophecy didn't just spin out the women meant to reopen the portal and restore balance. It spun out the five strongest Valkyrie ever recorded to stand against the dark. It spun out the brightest Lights the realms have ever known.
If they fail, the nine realms fall to darkness. There is no battle after. No next coming. No more chances. This is it.
And somehow, her soul is bound to mine. There's a reason Odin decreed that the Valkyrie and Fae would never be soul-bound. I'm no more capable of letting her put herself in danger to fulfill her sacred duty than I am of wielding my lyststål to end her life.
It's the Fae way. It's always been the Fae way, as much a part of who we are as the power we wield or the Light we shine into the realms. It is who we are at our core. And my brothers know it just as much as I.
To protect her, I'll let the realms burn.
"Adriel, Malachi, take Dax and the Valkyrie in the SUV," Damrion says, stepping forward. "Reaper and I will draw attention away until you're safely out of the city with her."
Reaper grins, always down to be a distraction for the cops. I think he gets off on taunting the human authorities. He's been doing it for centuries.
I stride with the Valkyrie toward the Forsaken's SUV, climbing through the door he tried to push her through just a few short minutes ago. She doesn't stir or make a sound. Malachi jogs around to the passenger side before climbing in, leaving Adriel to drive.
He slams the door behind him, meeting my gaze in the rearview mirror. He doesn't say anything. For several long moments, no one speaks.
And then Malachi mutters a curse. "Since neither of you want to say it, I will. The Forsaken walk the earth again."
"Ja. And a Valkyrie soul-bound a Fae," Adriel adds softly.
My gaze falls to the woman sleeping in my arms, my heart thudding against my breastbone hard enough that I feel it for the first time in millennia.
"Ja," I whisper. "A Valkyrie soul-bound a Fae."
Chapter Two
Rissa
"Valkyrie. Elskan-ljós."
Something warm drifts down the side of my face, pulling me toward the surface. Except I'm more comfortable than I've ever been in my life, and I don't want to rejoin the land of the living. Not yet. I was having good dreams.
Those don't come often.
Usually, I dream of terrible things that leave me gasping for breath and shivering in the dark. Wars and death and a plague of evil falling over the land. I've had the same dreams since I was a little girl. They used to terrify me. Now, I just wish they'd stop.
"Wake up, elskan-ljós."
I groan, burying my face in my pillow. A rich, masculine scent tickles my nose. It's all over my pillow, as if someone other than me has been sleeping in my bed. Except there hasn't been anyone. There never has been.