Valkyrie Unknown (Valkyries Rising #2)

1. Davyn

One

Davyn

A thousand years ago, when Odin gifted me the power of a Berserker, he should have warned me. Warned me that not dying a glorious death in one of his wars—that surviving hundreds of years—would mean growing strong enough to live forever.

Or close enough.

Now I existed in a world where wars were fought using machines, and the streets were filled with people who no longer worshiped the old gods or believed those gods ever existed. Fighting for fun here meant throwing a few punches and kicks, maybe pinning someone to a mat, and then shaking hands and walking away.

I stashed my borrowed tools in the same place all of the other temporary workers were returning theirs, and then joined the line of men in front of the wooden skeleton of a house, to get my pay for the day.I didn’t need the money, and I’d hand it to someone else after we left the job site, but people stopped trusting me if I did the work and didn’t ask to be paid.

People were weird.

The chatter around me was mixed, and the English overlapping Spanish was aural chaos. I processed both bastardizations of the original tongues without an issue. Over the centuries, I’d fought against and alongside a dozen or more different nations, some of which no longer existed and none of which resembled what they were back then. Back when it was normal for a man to become a wolf, or a bear like me, to charge into a heated battle and tear their opponents limb from limb. When even a friendly fight meant tearing my opponent apart, knowing that they too would heal when the match was over.

That wasn’t the way people fought anymore, and for me to cling to it was dangerous. The blood lust always called to me.

Jobs like this one, where we worked outside and pushed our physical selves hard all day, helped with that. I was creating, bringing this house to life with my fellow grunts. The grit of dirt coated my tongue, and the stench of sweat filled my nostrils and sated part of my beast, if not all of it.

A nearby conversation took on an edge, catching my attention and drawing me out of my musings. Santos, one of the day workers who was temporary like me, was arguing with Jay, the man who hired the group of us outside the hardware store.

“I. Don’t. Understand you.” Jay’s voice leaked derision.

“ Pay me .” Santos’s response was in Spanish.

Jay shoved him in the shoulder, and my bear roared in my head at the thought of a fight—at the idea of teaching this man there was a price for enacting injustice.

A century ago, that roar was impossible to silence. I could control the beast now, as long as I didn’t let it out. With a calming breath, I stepped out of line and joined the pair. “Is something wrong?” I asked.

I was at least fifteen centimeters taller than anyone else here, and Jay clenched his jaw when I approached. He’d been happy to pick me up. I was a big white guy and spoke fluent English. The temptation to make him regret hiring me flowed in my veins.

“He pocketed a couple of the tools.” Jay spoke with the confidence of an idiot. “I’m not paying him for today.”

Santos radiated anger. “ Why won’t he pay me? ”

“ He’s a greedy asshole who thinks what he does gives him power over you. Also, he said you stole his tools ,” I said in Spanish.

Fighting with different armies and drinking with them after meant learning to communicate with them. The languages hadn’t been easy to learn, but I’d had centuries.

Santos gestured at himself. “ Does he think I stuck them up my ass? Look at me. I’m not carrying any tools .”

A good point.

“What’s he saying?” Jay demanded.

I turned to the foreman. “He wants to know where you think he’s carrying said tools.”

“He stashed them off site, to come back for them later.” Jay gestured toward the road, where the only things nearby were his truck and a few house frames. “Both of you move. Neither of you is getting paid today.”

Fucking—

I fixed Jay with the hard stare most men tended to wet themselves over, and pushed a hint of bear-growl into my voice. “How about you pay everyone what you promised plus a bonus, and I don’t tell your boss that the tools are in the box in the back of your truck?” I didn’t know that was what Jay had done, but experience said it was as good a guess as any.

“I— No—How dare you?” Jay’s stammering helped confirm my assumption.

“What?” Said boss wasn’t far away. He glanced at us then stalked to Jay’s pickup and threw open the metal plated carrier in the back. He pulled out a powered drill, and then several other tools, which had been available to us on the site today.

“I told you he stashed them somewhere.” Jay pointed at Santos.

Greg—the boss—lunged at Jay. “You fucking asshole.” He punched Jay once and pinned him to the side of the truck. “How long?”

Gods damn it . The hint of a fight called to me. It would be so fun to step in. For the justice of it, but also for the fight. To teach this arrogant man a lesson.

I cracked my neck and turned away, as the shouting continued behind me—something about how my daughter should have known better and stupid fucking old man , with several of the temp workers chiming in both in English and Spanish.

The workers would get paid. They’d see to it. But I couldn’t be here because a light brawl would become a war, blood would be shed, and I’d spend a few days sitting in a jail cell trying to explain why I didn’t have ID and why they couldn’t find me in their computers.

I walked off the job site, and down a sidewalk that was only a few weeks old, next to asphalt that hadn’t been here much longer. The scents of tar and oil filled the air, and heat radiated from the blacktop, baking the dirt that lined the path. Over the next few months, all of these plots of land would be filled with wooden skeletons of houses covered with plastic armor and windows that amplified the giant yellow ball in the sky.

Today, I’d head back to the hardware store where I parked my Ranchero and decide whether this town was worth staying in. There weren’t many contractors in a place like this, and after today, Greg and his men would remember me. I wasn’t interested in gaining a reputation.

Something didn’t smell right.

I sniffed the air.

Which never smelled right anyway, but there was something hidden among the modern scents. Ice and ozone and perfumed clay.

And cat fur.

Freya.

I followed my nose to see her leaning against a sign proclaiming Model Home Coming Soon.

“Aya.” I didn’t understand the way some of the immortals chose to shorten their names, but she and her twin, Freyr, had always been two of the more adaptable gods. Not that it was a high bar. A god was built on the faith that created them. To change meant to risk losing themselves. Then again, given the way the world had grown, to remain static meant death.

So few mortals followed the old ways anymore.

“What can I do for you?” I asked, as the scent of blood drifted toward me. Jay’s, in fact. The fight I left behind had grown more serious, and I itched to go back. Seeing Aya reminded me why I shouldn’t, since she was whom I called after I got involved in the last one.

Being beholden to the gods was one of the worst things I could do. I’d spent centuries trying to escape exactly that.

She pushed away from the sign and strode toward me. Blond dreads tied the rest of her hair back from her face. Her jeans and the T-shirt that read NEON on it in purple and blue letters made her look like a twenty-something mortal, rather than an ancient goddess of war and fertility. “I found her.” She saved the words until she was next to me, and she said them quietly.

“Good for you.” I turned and walked in the other direction, ignoring the twist in my gut.

Freya’s— Aya’s —growl rivaled that of her brother’s mate, Fenrir. She fell into step beside me, matching my quick pace. “If I found her, someone else will.”

Regardless of what a nagging conscience tried to tell me, it didn’t matter. The her in question was in her mid-twenties and the subject of several prophecies, including one that said I would protect her until she reached full power.

What did full power mean? I didn’t have a clue. No one did when it came to prophecies. They were widely accepted to be open to interpretation, though her mother assumed the words meant she’d become a goddess.

“Someone else will find her regardless, and she’ll cut them down.” The prophecies were vague there as well, but they all implied she would survive.

Aya huffed. “You owe me, Davyn.”

“I owe you for bailing me out of jail. That’s not a fucking life debt. It’s when I buy you lunch next time you’re in town. Speaking of—let’s go get a burger, then you can be on your way.”

“Davyn, please. Go meet her. Introduce yourself. Let her choose if she wants your protection.”

I’d already tried to protect her. When she was much younger, I approached her mother—a seer who knew her daughter was destined to be more. Let me train her. Let me teach her to fend for herself.

Her mother had refused. She’s a child. Regardless of what her future holds, I’m not turning her safety over to an immortal who can’t control himself when he’s a bear .

I could have argued that she was wrong about my control, but she wasn’t. Most berserkers lost control when we shifted into our bear or wolf forms. The more primal instincts took over, and we were animals.

I looked for Azrael myself and found a slight girl with more nerve than most adult men. Every time I walked away for years, duty drove me to go back to her. To fulfill my destiny and to make up for the fact that I was the reason at least one god hunted her. Over and over the compulsion to protect her yanked me back, until I had to approach her personally a few years later. I offered to teach her to spar. I didn’t hold back enough, and I broke her arm. The instant her mother found out, I was banished from the girl’s life.

Which was fine. I’d faced my fate and been released from destiny. The child was a stranger, like any other on the street. I didn’t wish most mortals harm, but millions of people had died from millions of things in my lifetime. If I let all those deaths eat at my soul, it would drive me insane.

I fixed Aya with a hard stare. “She’ll be fine without me, regardless of who finds her. She’s destined to protect the world, not die.” I turned away again.

“There are fates worse than death, Davyn.” Aya brushed the back of my neck with her fingers, and a shiver of ice raced down my spine. “I’m not sorry.” Her voice was distant.

A ripple disrupted my sight. The heat still beat down on my face, but instead of looking at sidewalks next to empty home lots, I was staring at a freeway running through sagebrush and tumbleweed. I turned around and found myself staring at a sign that read Elko ELEV 5060 .

Aya sent me to Nevada. Fucking?—

I sighed and started walking toward town. Only some immortals had the power to teleport from place to place in the blink of an eye, and I couldn’t do anything like that. While I didn’t need the day’s pay, I didn’t deal in bank cards, and the only cash I carried on me was enough to get me through a day or two. I couldn’t just walk into a bank and get more money; I needed access to a key that was with my things, back in my apartment in Idaho, to get to the magic vault where I kept my valuables.

When I made the decision to keep in touch with Aya, I didn’t expect her to use the knowledge of my whereabouts against me.

This had to be where Azzie was. I wasn’t going to look for her. I’d catch a bus out of here and head back to my place.

When I reached the bus station, I discovered it was only a stopping point. No new passengers were picked up here, and the next bus wouldn’t be through for two days, anyway.

The train station wasn’t much better.

There was a regional airport, but getting to any other destination would cost me far more than I carried. At this rate, I was better off walking to a bigger city. Aside from the fact that it was the middle of summer, and I wasn’t made for this weather. Even when I wasn’t in my bear shape, the heat was too intense.

I grabbed a motel room for the night. Tomorrow I’d see about grabbing a ride with a trucker. That wasn’t new to me. There was a bar away from the small strip they called the tourist part of town, so I made my way there. At least I could drink and eat well while I waited.

Next time I saw Aya, she was getting a piece of my mind.