Valkyrie Concealed Read online

  “You got anything?” Starkad’s voice echoed, once from behind her and once in her earpiece. He must be on the phone with someone else.

  Azzie’s odd behavior was the reason Kirby was here. Other, more direct extraction teams had been sent to retrieve and relocate most of the potentials, but anytime someone found Azzie, she dropped off the radar again.

  The Followers of Urd had decided to keep their distance once she was located this time. Send in people who were adept at sticking to the shadows and blending into crowds. With Kirby’s training as an assassin and Gwydion’s power to make most people forget he was in any given location, this team became the logical choice.

  “Keep me posted,” Starkad said. He joined Kirby again. “We wait until we have more information.” The echo was more obvious with him closer.

  “A guy can only drink so much coffee in a single sitting.” Gwydion’s tone was light.

  Kirby liked having them both here. “So maybe switch to lager in a couple of hours.”

  “Real problem solver, you are,” Gwydion said.

  She’d been concerned about Gwydion’s joining them—he was only unobtrusive to people who weren’t looking for things that were out of place. That meant he stood out to any TOM operative. However, since they were looking for a woman who’d led a normal, suburban life, not someone trained from childhood to hunt gods, he shouldn’t register as important on Azzie’s radar.

  Having both Starkad and Gwydion nearby kept Kirby’s thoughts from drifting into places they shouldn’t on a stakeout. Mostly. If she followed the tangents long enough, she always landed back on the last time she and Starkad were protecting this potential—when Kirby realized her ex-girlfriend was the person feeding Starkad information, and Brit was suddenly an unshakable part of Kirby’s life again.

  Even after Kirby thought she was dead, Brit came back. Min had told Gwydion, who in turn told Kirby, in the most literal game of telephone ever.

  And Kirby had agreed to see her again at some point. To not kill her on sight. Why did Kirby keep letting her live, after the betrayals?

  The most recent one was to save me.

  Or Kirby was suffering from patterns of abuse.

  “You’re distracted.” Starkad was sympathetic. He felt her mood shifts now too.

  Though she suspected this one was obvious. “I’m alert enough.”

  “You’re thinking about her. You don’t have to see her again.”

  “For someone who insists they don’t care who or what she is, you spend an awful lot of time keeping her out of my life.”

  “Shooter.” One of Starkad’s nicknames for Kirby when they were on mission. His use of it was a warning for her to be aware of her surroundings. It was also his way of changing the subject.

  Kirby’s attention never left the street, and neither would Starkad’s. “You brought it up. Now we finish the conversation,” she said.

  “There’s more to say?”

  “I want you to admit it.” Kirby’s own words surprised her.

  “Admit what, exactly?”

  “You know what.”

  “What about you and Min?” Starkad countered.

  Interesting left turn. “I own the way I feel about him.” That was what she wanted to know—how did Starkad really see Brit? “He’s an obsessive fuck who refuses to see my point of view.” Except he’d gotten it at least a little, when he realized his guy betrayed him to see Kirby destroyed.

  Starkad adjusted his position. “I’m an obsessive fuck. You’re—”

  “Yes?”

  “Obsession comes with the territory.”

  Gwydion snorted in her ear. He must be loving this exchange. One of his favorite hobbies was making Starkad squirm. Though she’d discovered over the past few months the roles were reversed behind closed doors, when clothes started coming off. Gwydion was the reason Starkad had proposed bondage and pain, as a way to help Kirby with her PTSD. In the not-so-distant past, Starkad had done the same for Gwydion.

  “Yes, I’ve got my obsessions too.” Kirby recognized that. “But he doesn’t understand mine, and I don’t get his. I’ve never made a secret of that. How do you really feel about Brit?”

  Another sigh, this one heavy and defeated. “The only reason she’s still alive is because of you. I would have had her taken out years ago, for what she did to you, but you were the one who was wronged, and I wasn’t going to take the choice of her fate from you. That doesn’t mean I want her anywhere near you.”

  Any retort Kirby had died in her throat. She was finally hearing the full truth.

  “Shooter.” Starkad’s tone was serious now, and a different kind of tension radiated from him.

  She gave her scope her full attention. Sure enough, a familiar redhead was strolling toward where Gwydion sat.

  A smile on his face, he rose to meet her halfway.

  Two men materialized from the shadows, and Azzie had Gwydion pushed back against a wall, knife to his throat.

  It all happened so quickly, Kirby’s mind raced to process.

  Pull the trigger.

  She wasn’t supposed to shoot a potential, and Azzie probably couldn’t hurt Gwydion. But the prophecies had her destroying a trickster god, and they might not be talking about Loki after all.

  “The young lady would like you to put down the gun and join us on the street.” Gwydion’s voice came clearly and calmly over the earpiece.

  Why didn’t Kirby hear the young lady make the request?

  She felt Starkad move. He’d be racing downstairs for ground support.

  She steeled her voice. “Tell the young lady I have a bead on her and I’ll cover you with her brains if she doesn’t back the fuck up.”

  “Don’t do that,” Gwydion said. “I hate cleaning brains out of clothes.” He repeated Kirby’s message.

  Azzie held her hand over her shoulder, knuckles in Kirby’s direction and middle finger extended.

  Well, that was a fuck up. Kirby knew better than to make a threat she wasn’t prepared to act on.

  A hiss in her ear told her Starkad was close. Which meant she had another option

  She didn’t like this path, but it was their best choice. She’d gotten used to the fact that she couldn’t do it without feeling the pain herself. She didn’t like hurting others this way, though. Torture wasn’t her thing.

  It was all psychological, and she’d take the pain away as soon as she was next to Azzie.

  Kirby focused on her past lives and the death that accompanied each one. She summoned memories of the pain and shared that pain.

  Azzie’s dagger clattered to the ground. She screamed, her agony screeching through the earpiece and up into the window, where Kirby sat.

  No one in the nearby café so much as blinked. Gwydion was good.

  Starkad got the drop on one of the men and pinned him to the ground.

  The other man dug his elbow into Gwydion’s throat. “Make it stop.”

  Gwydion raised his hands in surrender. “Holy shit. Finn?”

  “Davyn?” Starkad’s mutter added to Kirby’s discomfort.

  She hadn’t heard that name in centuries. Not since her first life.

  “Stand down,” Starkad said.

  Chapter Two

  The fifteen seconds it took Kirby to pack her gear felt like an eternity. She wanted to blame Min for this, as she raced to the street. Not because it was actually his fault, but because he was in charge of relocating potentials, and that made him a convenient target for any potential-gone-wrong situation.

  She was on speaking terms with him, at a professional level. He hadn’t pushed the We promised to love each other for eternity angle since she sent him away. When he’d told Starkad this girl expected to be relocated, Kirby asked how.

  Min’s response? I don’t know. I didn’t push for more information. He didn’t pry into potentials’ lives, as long as they were out of danger.

  Look how well that worked out.

  Kirby sprinted past Starkad, Davyn’
s eyes growing wide when he saw her. She pulled up short when the stranger stepped between her and Azzie.

  “She can make it stop, Finn,” Gwydion said.

  Great. Everyone knew someone.

  Kirby knelt in front of Azzie and extended her hand, but she didn’t make contact. She hated bartering with relief from pain, but she was dealing with a potential god killer, and her men’s safety was a higher priority than Azzie’s. “Promise me you’ll hear us out when I take the pain away,” she said.

  Azzie gave a slight nod.

  Kirby brushed her fingers over Azzie’s forehead and visualized drawing out the pain.

  Azzie gasped and dropped her head. She shot out her hand and grabbed Kirby’s wrist, digging her fingers into the tendon.

  So much for hearing each other out.

  “You pulled a knife on one of my men.” The words were supposed to sound businesslike, but Kirby couldn’t hide her possessiveness.

  “He’s a god. Gods are trying to kill me.” Azzie met her gaze.

  This was a lot more work than picking an assassin off a potential and moving on. None of the others Kirby saved in the past few months were this much effort. It was refreshing to finally run into a potential who was taking some initiative.

  “Min sent us,” Kirby said.

  “Nice guy, but a lot of people have tried to kill me since he found me.”

  Kirby hid a wince. They should take this conversation some place less public. Gwydion could keep them masked for a while, but she didn’t like being so exposed. “Yeah... He feels real bad about that. But regret doesn’t solve problems.”

  Azzie raised her brows. She was probably Kirby’s physical age. In some ways, she looked it. But her expressions, the way she held herself, and the hint of an easy smile that lurked behind her expression, made her appear a lot younger.

  Then again, Kirby had a dozen other lives behind her, adding to her age. “You promised to listen to me.”

  “Can you teach me that take-away-the-pain trick?” Azzie let go of her wrist.

  Kirby grasped her hand and pulled her to her feet. Kirby would have asked about the inflicting-the-dozen-lifetimes-of-pain trick. “Probably not. It’s kind of instinct. I touch you, I think about making the hurting stop, and it happens.”

  “Neat.” Azzie looked at Gwydion. “Is the coffee here any good?”

  The men had all stood down, though the one who’d turned on Gwydion didn’t look happy about the truce.

  Gwydion shrugged. “I’d rather have a stiff drink at this point.”

  “It’s nine in the morning,” Starkad said.

  Gwydion stared blankly at him. “And your point is...?”

  “Probably the only time you’ll ever hear me say this—I’m with him.” The thin man with the pale hair—Finn—nodded at Gwydion. He spoke with a heavy Irish accent.

  “You’re alive. And you look like you,” Davyn said.

  Kirby turned to face the berserker. He was at least twelve centimeters taller than Starkad, with a bear-like build. His berserker form was that of a bear. He’d been an ally in her first life. But a lot could change, especially with the centuries that had passed since.

  “Same to you. Are we...? Are you...?” She didn’t know the best way to ask, Do you serve a god who wants one of us dead? He’d always been fiercely loyal. “Who are you fighting for these days?”

  Davyn nodded at Azzie. “Don’t hurt her again, and you and I won’t have a problem.”

  He worshiped a twenty-five-year-old redhead? He must fit in great in this world.

  “We need something other than alcohol or caffeine.” Kirby didn’t drink, and the last thing this group needed was to be more on edge.

  Azzie gasped. “We should have donuts.”

  Hard to argue with that. Sugar didn’t solve problems any more than regret did, but it tasted better, and it softened the blow of a lot of things.

  Kirby gestured toward a donut place a few blocks away. “I’m in.”

  Finn stayed by Azzie’s side as they walked, and insisted he wanted Gwydion in front of them.

  That must be an interesting story. On the surface Gwydion was the least threatening of their group. Sure, he could summon the trees to fight on his behalf, but someone would have to know him, to know that.

  Davyn fell back, watching. Kirby and Starkad joined him. His gaze was fixed on Azzie. The only time he took his eyes off her was to do a quick survey of their surroundings. “Thought searching for her would have driven you mad a long time ago,” he said.

  “It almost did,” Starkad said.

  Kirby had heard so many stories of his past. They’d shared a lot over the last six months. “I didn’t think there were any other berserkers left.” They were tough, but unless they were like Starkad—cursed by a god or something similar—they weren’t immortal.

  “There are a handful of us. It’s...” Davyn sighed. “Long story. And not nearly as heartwarming as lovers who spent centuries searching for each other. The tail end of my immortality is a blood oath to her mother.” He nodded at Azzie. “A promise to watch over her.”

  That could explain why he was so protective. A blood oath was an unbreakable bond. Going against one meant violent pain and torture, ending with death. But there was more in Davyn’s gaze than just a guardian watching over a ward.

  “I’m glad you’re still around,” Starkad said.

  Davyn smiled. “Same for both of you. Not around us—we’d like to leave you soon. But it’s good to see the two of you together.”

  “Agreed. To all of the above.” Kirby tangled her fingers with Starkad’s and leaned against his arm. A group like this, full of people various gods wanted dead, was a bad thing to keep together for any length of time. Kirby would stay with Azzie to establish if she was better off on her own or under Urd’s protection. Though, she seemed to be doing just fine right now.

  At the donut place, Kirby ordered them a dozen assorted, and they pushed a couple tables together in the back corner of the dining room. They made an interesting sight. Davyn and Starkad next to each other, the beasts inside almost peeking through—wolf dining with bear. Azzie sat between Davyn and Finn, looking like she had two scary guardian angels. Or demons.

  Kirby suspected Azzie wasn’t as helpless as the picture painted. Finn was casting dagger-like glares at Gwydion, so Kirby sat between the two men.

  “No one’s noticed us since we approached you outside.” Finn turned back to Gwydion. “I assume that’s your doing. Glad you can do something useful.”

  What a charming asshole. “I take it the two of you know each other?” She gave Gwydion her attention. She preferred his company over most on any given day, and today that was multiplied. In past lives, he had a similar accent to the new guy, but he could adopt most English-speaking accents without issue these days.

  “Fionn McCool is a hunter,” Gwydion said.

  Kirby swallowed a snort at the name. She understood it didn’t have anything to do with how it sounded in a modern tongue, but she couldn’t help her amusement.

  “It’s Finn.” He switched his hard glare to her. “And what are you supposed to be?”

  “A Valkyrie,” she said.

  “Sure.” Disbelief dripped from Finn’s reply. “There are no more living Valkyrie. They all died.”

  Kirby had no idea if this guy was familiar with the prophecies of Urd—those that said Azzie would become a god, or those that talked about Kirby—but reincarnation was rare and impressive regardless, and she wanted to see him flinch. “So did I. Many times.”

  “Oh. You’re her.” Finn’s antipathy vanished.

  Azzie broke a piece off a donut. “He’s a big believer in the prophecies.” She popped the cake in her mouth.

  “And you’re obviously familiar with them.” Now that the introductions were out of the way, Kirby could get down to why she was really here. Perfect segue.

  “My mother was...” Azzie sighed. “I don’t know what you’d call her. She had visions. She r
aised me on them. They filled in a lot of blanks between the quintets Urd wrote about me.”

  That explained why she hadn’t been surprised to see Min. It also showed how much of a believer she truly was. Kirby didn’t know if the prophecies were of the going-to-happen-regardless variety or were the self-fulfilling sort. Most of them were difficult to interpret, and only some had come true.

  Azzie crossed one arm over her body and dropped her hand to her hip. A sheathed axe appeared, handle against her palm. “I’ve been training to defend myself most of my life.”

  “An axe?” They hadn’t taught her to fight with an effective weapon? Kirby looked at Davyn. “Was that your idea?”

  “Not everyone can incapacitate people with their minds.” Finn sneered.

  “No. But most people can hit center mass at close range with a good handgun.” Kirby knew how to use an axe. She’d learned in her first life, and honed her hand-to-hand combat skills in this one. But if she didn’t have to take the risk, she wasn’t going to.

  “You sound like—”

  Finn settled a hand on Azzie’s arm, silencing her. “How beautifully impersonal,” he said to Kirby.

  “Death is always personal. Anyone who’s taken a life either knows that or has taken too many.” Kirby didn’t like this guy. And if they believed Azzie was supposed to take on Loki, why hadn’t they given her more practical training?

  “We need to move you some place safer.” Gwydion was ignoring the donuts and pretending to ignore Finn. The irritation bristling under his skin was almost tangible. At least to her.

  His statement was a giveaway too. They didn’t need to relocate Azzie. If she was safer on her own, they could leave her be. They were here to warn and assess.

  “Because someone sold her out?” Davyn asked.

  Finn nodded. “Loki knew where she was, less than a day after FU relocated her. Hel never lost track of her.”

  Kirby wasn’t interested in this becoming a dick-measuring contest. Gwydion and Starkad did that once, at Gwydion’s insistence. Starkad won, but Gwydion had the girth over length. The atmosphere here wasn’t charged with the same kind of humor.