Total pages in book: 40
Estimated words: 37864 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 189(@200wpm)___ 151(@250wpm)___ 126(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 37864 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 189(@200wpm)___ 151(@250wpm)___ 126(@300wpm)
And yet...and yet knowing that he found pleasure in pleasuring Abigail fills me with pride.
I turn and stride away, reluctantly leaving Abigail crying behind the closed door.
Damrion follows, his steps heavy, as if he knows another argument is brewing between us. When do they not when the two of us are involved? 2500 years, and we still fight the same battle.
Love will do that to a Fae. So will hatred. Some days, I no longer know which I feel for our leader…or so I tell myself.
When I’m honest with myself, I know it’s a lie. I love him still. I always have.
I step into the first empty room I find, standing aside for him to enter. His arm brushes mine, and I grit my teeth, steeling myself against the rush of emotion—the phantom ache that nearly drives me to my knees.
I fucking hate that I still feel it. That a simple, innocent touch nearly brings me to my knees while he stands unaffected behind his fucking walls. If I could hate him for it, I would. But I’ve had 2500 years to resign myself to the fact that hatred remains ever elusive where this Fae is concerned.
“What is it this time, Adriel?” he asks, turning to face me, resignation stamped into every beautiful line of his face.
“She’s hiding something,” I growl, my temper flaring in the face of his stoicism. When we’re with her, he allows himself to forget for five minutes that he hates himself and relax. But with me, he hides behind those damn walls as if they’re his only salvation. “You felt the same thing I did. You tasted her tears. Something is wrong.”
“What would you like me to do? Force the truth out of her?” One brow arches as if the thought amuses him. “You know as well as I that she tells us only what she wishes us to know. That’s always been her way.”
He’s right, damn him. From the moment she appeared in Eitr, she’s hesitated to tell us too much for fear of the consequences. She’s wise far beyond her years and understands too much of what’s at stake—perhaps more than anyone. The more we know about the future, the more we risk changing it...helpful when you don’t want certain events to come to pass, but damn inconvenient when they need to occur.Abigail guards those events carefully, her stewardship over our future unshakable. For someone so tiny, she’s a dragon.
“What is the plan?”
“We promised her that we would find the Valkyrie. We’re going to keep our promise.”
I scowl at him. “We can’t leave her, Tori, and Rissa here alone, especially when we don’t know what she’s hiding, Damrion.”
He meets my gaze, his golden eyes burning with frustration. Once upon a time, he sought my counsel. Now, I think he’d rather rip off his fingernails than listen to it. I suppose fighting him on everything for two millennia probably led here, but someone needed to do it.
He’s stubborn and unyielding. He clings to honor and the Old Ways, though they no longer serve us. There are no Gods any longer, no Valhalla, and no oaths. We’re on our own in this war, stranded on a planet that doesn’t even know we exist. Most of the time, I think he forgets that.
"I’m aware, Adriel," he replies sharply. "But we can't abandon a Valkyrie to the Forsaken, either."
"Like you abandoned me to the Jötunn?" I spit, my voice dripping with venom as bitter memories claw at me. I know it’s not fair even as the words leave my lips, but I don’t call them back, either.
I’ve been at war with this Fae for millennia because of the choices he made. Nei. Because of the choices we made.
We were happy, damn him. Even with war raging around us and the destruction of Álfheimr looming, we were happy. After centuries of dancing around one another, pretending we didn’t feel the way we did, for one bright, shining moment, we had everything.
At least, that’s what I thought. I would have died for him, given up everything. But he couldn’t get out of his own way, not even to save my life.
Our souls were bound to one another. Our oaths to Valhalla should have forbade it, yet the bond formed anyway. I felt him in my soul and threw the doors open wide. But he never let me into his.
For years while in captivity, the thought of him kept me alive. I waited for him to come for me. I prayed for him to come. And he never did.
Eventually, I had to face the cold, hard truth. He wasn’t coming because he was never going to accept our bond. I was nothing more than his shameful, dirty secret.
Realizing that nearly killed me. Once upon a time, I wanted to rip my own fucking heart out just to stop the pain. For centuries, it hurt worse than anything the Jötunn ever did to me.