Chapter 21
TALON
The warehouse sat at the end of the lot, concrete walls scarred with old graffiti, the windows painted black to hide what waited inside.
Larc’s magic cloaked our group as we crossed the open stretch.
The evening air held a slight chill with the tang of dark magic.
When we reached the building, Larc and Nicky split off toward the back entrance.
Maze cut a glance my way, narrowing her blue eyes. The stink of eitrborn filled my senses. They were close, somewhere past the loading dock. At the corner of the building close to the front entrance, I held a hand up and closed my fist, signaling her to halt.
Two guards stood on either side of a dented steel door. Neither blinked. Their focus locked on the perimeter, movements too coordinated to pass for human. As I studied the beasts, I noted they were too controlled. But not in the sense that they were in control.
“Do you think Balder is controlling them?” I asked Maze.
She nodded. “He’d have to in order to keep them in line. Corrupted magic is worse than a feral shifter.”
“What’s the plan?”
She snapped her gaze to me as if not expecting me to give her the lead. Why wouldn’t I? She was my mate, and I trusted her with my life. Besides, she’d been tracking Balder for the last two hundred years. She knew his patterns better than I did.
After a moment, she smiled. “Let’s have some fun.”
Then she shifted into a raven and flew around the corner and landed on the pavement a few feet from the eitrborn. The guards stared at the raven, and one of them tried to shoo it away. Maze screeched at them and took flight. Instead of flying away, she charged them.
Fuck. That was my cue. In a flash, my wolf rose and took over. The shift was painless and quick, and within seconds, I prowled closer while Maze dive-bombed the eitrborn’s heads, drawing them away from the door. That gave me access to sneak up behind them and attack.
With a low growl, I launched myself at the closest guard, slamming into him. He fell foreward, but my wolf didn’t give him time to recover before attacking again.
Don’t bite him. Their blood is poison.
The reminder made my wolf growl because he wanted to rip the fucker’s head right off. I was so on board with that, except for the fact that their blood would either kill me or corrupt my magic.
Shifting back to human, I sent a blast of power point-blank into his chest. His body jerked, and he dropped, already dead before he hit the ground.
The second eitrborn guard was trying to blast Maze with magic, but her raven form was too fast, too cunning.
“Maze, stop playing with him. We don’t want to draw attention just yet.”
The raven squawked, then flew straight up into the air. She shifted back to her human form, while her wings stayed and grew to support her larger body.
I used to love watching the Valkyries train and fight in the partially shifted forms. While Valkyries weren’t shifters, they had the ability to take on animal forms. Most preferred birds of prey.
Hovering in midair, Maze lifted her hand and pushed out her command of will magic into the guard. Her voice came low, a single word, “Obey.”
The guard’s face blanked as he froze in place, mouth slack. Maze pulled her dagger from the sheath on her thigh and threw it. It hit the guard right in the heart. Before he fell to the ground, she threw a blast of fire at him.
Once Maze was on solid ground, her wings folded and disappeared. She turned and three a fireball at the other eitrborn, then sent me a smug smile. I shook my head and opened the warehouse door.
Inside, the warehouse stank of old chemicals and the rot of eitr. The lights overhead flickered, casting sickly bands along the corridor. We advanced toward the center room where Balder was preparing his ritual.
Four eitrborn stood guard at the opening of the hallway that led to the center room. Maze and I flattened ourselves against the wall, waiting for the beat where they’d turn away.
Instead, Maze raised her hands, fingers splayed. Blue light flickered at her fingertips, runes burning with each pass. She whispered a chant in Old Norse. The spell wove itself tight, threads of power illuminating the air in front of us.
I braced myself behind her, both palms pressing firm to her shoulders. I grounded my energy and channeled it into her spell, letting the two magics collide.
The effect was immediate and brutal.
The blue of Maze’s runes flared, then blanched to white. Every eitrborn in the hallway seized, bodies snapping rigid. Their eyes rolled back as the spell took hold.
Instead of freezing them, the magic twisted inside their heads.
Sudden madness. The eitrborn turned on each other, jaws unhinging, hands clawing at the nearest target.
Skin ripped, black blood sprayed the walls, and the corridor devolved into carnage.
The sound of flesh tearing and bone crunching filled the space.
Maze stumbled, nearly dropping as the backlash hit. I steadied her, my hands never lifting. Her spell amplified off my ground, and for a second the world throbbed with raw, perfect violence.
The eitrborn shredded one another, tearing their own kind limb from limb. Those who survived the initial slaughter staggered, faces wrecked and wild, then finished what remained. The distraction worked better than I’d hoped.
We pushed through the chaos, careful to avoid the black mess pooling under the dead. I kept Maze moving, one hand on her back, the other ready to draw a blade if the spell faltered.
The main chamber opened at the end of the corridor, and at the center was a wide altar ringed by a pit of green-glowing runes carved into the floor.
Balder stood behind the altar, hands braced on either side of the Severing Stone.
Bryna stood at his left, power curling off her fingers in steady pulses.
The room reeked of spent magic. Every rune lit the air with a sallow, sickly light. The stone beat with its own rhythm, hunger and promise in every pulse.
Balder looked up, a smirk playing across his lips. “It’s about time you got here.”
Maze squared her shoulders and stepped forward with her chin high, and I flanked her. “You’re not going to win, so you might as well hand over the stone.”
Balder’s eyes glittered. “You think you can stop me? Foolish. This world should have evolved centuries ago. The Norns and the Prime forced us into chains with their soulbonds and emotional slavery, all for their own ends. Tonight, I take it back. I break the link and claim what should have belonged to me from the start.”
Bryna refused to look at Maze as she continued to thread her magic into the spell. The Severing Stone glowed brighter, veins of power crawling across its surface with every word Balder uttered.
Movement behind the altar caught my attention. Larc and Nicky.
If Maze saw them, she didn’t let anyone know it. She focused on Balder and spat out her reply. “You lost this fight the second you shed innocent blood and stole from us. We’re not letting you finish the ritual.”
Balder’s patience ran thin in his next words. “You never learned to think beyond tradition. But it ends here—for all of you.”
He snapped his fingers. The blue chaos spell Maze had woven evaporated.
The brawl in the corridor stilled, the surviving eitrborn bracing for new orders.
Then, from every hidden door along the chamber, a fresh horde poured in—dozens, maybe more.
Their magic stank, the air warping as rows of blank-eyed monsters filed into the space, encircling us tight.
I pressed my earpiece. “Winter. Now.”
The reply was instantaneous. “Portal opening.”
A seam ripped open in the air at the far end of the room.
Blue light shimmered, then split wide open.
Valkyries and shifters poured from the rift, weapons drawn, every step measured for war.
Jenson led the charge, Candra at his side, with the rest of our clans fanning out behind.
Nicky and Larc rushed forward to join the others, cutting a path straight through a knot of eitrborn.
Chaos erupted. The Valkyries hammered into the enemy line, magic crackling at their fingertips.
Shifters shifted mid-sprint. Jenson’s white wolf form blurred as he carved a path through synthetic flesh.
Larc’s shadow magic slipped in and out of sight as he cut through the monsters at the edges of the battle.
Maze kept moving forward. I matched her stride, both of us angling toward the altar where Balder had already begun the final sequence. Green energy arced between his palms, feeding the stone, warping the runes on the floor.
Bryna lunged at Maze, blade flashing in her grip. Maze anticipated the attack and blasted Bryna with a surge of Command. The impact sent Bryna stumbling, but she shook it off, hate burning in her eyes. The two warriors crashed together, old loyalty drowned by the violence of the moment.
I kept my focus on Balder. He chanted the spell, each syllable ratcheting the pressure in the air. I ducked the swipe of an eitrborn’s claws and grounded its magic with a direct pulse to the chest, then sent another blast of magic into the monster’s sternum, sending it flying.
The stone absorbed Balder’s power, every beat growing more erratic with every beat . I charged full-force and unleashed my grounding power straight at Balder’s core.
The hit landed hard, throwing Balder backward, his body slamming into the altar. The ritual faltered, and the green energy crackled wildly, losing form. I leapt and seized the Severing Stone, yanking it free and wrapping it in a warded cloth I conjured from raw will.
Bryna and Maze fought on the floor, every move a clash of bodies and power. Bryna’s attacks came fast. She wielded a poisoned blade, each thrust aimed to kill. Maze countered, deflecting with forearm and magic, sweat streaming down her face as she absorbed the tempo of the fight.
Balder recovered faster than I expected. When I spun around, blade in hand, he’d vanished. No scent, no shimmer, nothing.
Bryna drove the dagger forward, aiming for Maze’s heart.
Maze reacted on instinct and caught the blade with her bare hand, twisting it aside.
Blood welled along her palm. But before Bryna could pull free, Maze blasted her with a final, ruthless charge of magic.
The energy buckled Bryna’s body, seizing every nerve and burning through her like wildfire.
Bryna’s eyes went wide, lips parting in shock. Then her body crumpled, the spell wringing the last tremor from her frame before silence descended.
Maze stared down at Bryna, chest heaving, the cut on her palm still bleeding. Grief and duty warred across her face. It wasn’t easy for her to kill one of her own, even if that person had betrayed her. Mazelina Valen was not as heartless as she liked for people to think.
The warehouse fell silent. Eitrborn corpses carpeted the floor, the Valkyries and shifters circling to regroup and tend the wounded. The runes on the altar faded, and the Severing Stone went dormant in my grip.
Smoke curled along the ceiling, mixing with the stink of blood and scorched eitr.
Around me, Valkyries and shifters limped or crouched to tend the wounded.
Some barely held themselves upright. Others worked with mechanical focus, dragging the fallen into rough triage lines while Candra and Jenson cleared the last of our enemies from the corners.
Maze knelt by Bryna’s body, face unreadable but for the hard set of her mouth. Her hands shook barely as she pressed them to Bryna’s chest. Bryna’s eyes stared up, wide open, the fury and hope that once lived there erased by death.
I crouched beside Maze, my gaze locking on the cut on her palm. Blood streaked the skin, the wound shallow but ugly, already swelling at the edges from Bryna’s poisoned blade.
I caught Maze’s wrist before she could pull away. My grip was careful, but I forced her to stay still while I checked the damage. Her pulse hammered under my thumb, but she glared at me, blue eyes daring me to scold her.
“I’m fine,” she said, voice ice-cold.
I bared my teeth, a growl rumbling through my chest. “You’re bleeding.”
She leaned in, lips finding mine with sudden ferocity. The taste of her cut through the haze of battle—salt, sweat, the edge of loss. When she broke away, her voice dropped to a whisper. “I’m fine.”
I cleaned the wound, using my magic to draw out the poison. Maze didn’t flinch, even as the pain must have burned. Her jaw tightened, but she let me finish wrapping her hand in a strip of cloth torn from my own shirt.
Bryna’s body sprawled at our feet, the old loyalty and betrayal both heavy in the air. Maze didn’t look away, but her voice softened just a fraction. “She was one of ours. Even if she forgot it at the end.”
I nodded, having nothing to say that would make it easier.
Across the warehouse, Winter and Quil herded survivors toward the portal, blue light flickering as the gateway stabilized. Nicky limped, one arm slung around Larc’s shoulder as my brother half-carried her. Jenson barked orders, his presence the backbone for every shifter in the room.
I helped Maze to her feet. She swayed, exhaustion carving deep shadows under her eyes. I caught her waist and steadied her, refusing to let her collapse after everything she’d just survived.
We joined the others at the edge of the portal. The hum of magic vibrated in my teeth, the air already bending around the mass of bodies pressing close for escape.
Before we stepped through, I pulled Maze tight against my chest, breath warm in her hair.
“Balder got away.”
Maze didn’t hesitate. “We’ll get him.”
That we would. Maybe not today or next week, but we would stop him.
We stepped through the blue light, the rest of our team closing ranks behind. The world shifted, leaving the warehouse’s pain and ruin behind.
But the promise of the hunt burned in the space between every heartbeat.
Maze’s hand locked in mine, and I squeezed her fingers.
The war wasn’t over. But tonight, we’d taken a piece back.