Chapter 9
CHAPTER
NINE
Sylvara didn’t mind the lightning. It struck her and did nothing but tickle.
The fire, on the other hand, fucking hurt.
She swore as she rolled to put out the blaze lighting up her thighs and did her best to ignore the pain. Rolf laughed above her, dancing from tree limb to tree limb while flashes of fire and lightning lit up the forest…that didn’t burn.
If she hadn’t realized someone was screwing with them deliberately, that might have clued her in.
She also knew exactly who’d set her up to burn.
“Danica, you bitch, I’m coming for you,” she yelled.
A familiar throaty chuckle told her she’d hit her mark.
“Who’s this Danica?” Rolf yelled as a lindworm carcass fell and nearly crushed her. “She sounds fun.”
More laughter from the forest spirit Sylvara had come to find. Annoyed, yet also exhilarated, because Sylvara loved nothing more than a good fight, she threw herself into the battle and lifted into the air on wings of golden energy.
Unlike what common fiction would have people believe, valkyries didn’t have feathery wings. They were made of energy, derived from a warrior’s power. Sylvara loved nothing more than flying, freedom in the clouds unlike anything she could ever touch on the ground.
Add some combat to that and she’d found her own Valhalla.
She shrieked and let her lightning bite into a few lindworms circling Rolf.
“You play too much,” she scolded when he jumped to knock away a lindworm nearly on top of her.
They crashed into each other, and as he thinned their enemies’ numbers, Sylvara stared around her, looking with her inner ability to detect power, the way she scouted a bloodied battlefield for worthy souls to take to the next realm.
She spotted a bolt of hidden energy deep inside a thick tree and flew to it, hovering nearby while Rolf fought the rest of the lindworms.
“I’m going to give you to the count of three,” she growled. “Then I’m going to electrify this tree—because it will burn—and watch you turn crispy. And while you writhe and beg for mercy, I’ll just laugh and laugh and tell everyone I know what a lush you really are.”
A tall woman stepped out of the trunk of the tree, a part of it before she turned elf-like. Not exactly a dryad, Danica was a forest spirit who communed with life in all its forms.
She was also a poor loser and hateful bitch who needed to stop running away when she couldn’t pay her bar tab.
“Hey.” Sylvara landed on the ground and walked up to the woman, annoyed to see Danica was using the energy around her to remain several feet taller and bulkier when she normally appeared thin and smaller, the size of a sprite a good head shorter than Sylvara.
But this large, she provided an excellent target.
Sylvara punched her in the face.
Rolf landed next to her and winced. “That has to hurt.”
They watched as Danica’s face crumpled in on itself then reformed, her flesh looking wooden, with cracks in the bark-like texture of her skin repairing and turning a rich brown fleshy tone once more.
Her mossy green hair sprang back to life, framing a beautiful face.
She wore a linen tunic that barely covered her boobs and ass—both features filling out under Rolf’s stare.
“Oh, a vampire.” Danica tittered. “Do you like us green and brown, baby?”
Rolf cocked his head. “You know, I’ve never gone vegan before. I’m usually all about the red.” He slid a sly glance at Sylvara before beaming back at Danica, whose return smile upped in wattage.
“Oh my god!” Sylvara blurted.
“God? Which one?” Rolf asked.
She ignored him. “Are you flirting with him?” She took a step closer to her friend. “He’s a vampire, Danica. Have some pride.”
Rolf scowled. “Hey. I’m standing right here.”
The forest spirit sighed. “Sorry. It’s been a while. I’ve been lonely.”
“Not so lonely you didn’t skip out on paying your share of the drink bill last month. Funny. I haven’t seen you since.”
“Ha. Yeah. Well, um.” Under Sylvara’s glare, Danica groaned. “Look, if I tell you what I know, can that make us even?”
“Maybe. But this intel had better be good.” Sylvara crossed her arms over her chest. “I had to convince Hlokk not to rip out your petals and roots. She was not happy to get blamed for the fight you caused when you ran.”
Hlokk, whom Sylvara often called Aunt Hlokk, was a fun gal with a reputation for killing and/or breaking people who crossed her.
She’d once gone up against a small group of rogues, including a vampire and a gargoyle, somehow managing to kill the blood drinker while also wounding the gargoyle. Legendary by anyone’s standards.
She was also a mean drunk.
Danica turned yellow. Horrified, she whispered, “Hlokk? It wasn’t my fault. It was Ylvari’s. She set me up to lose a drinking bet knowing I had no money on me.”
“Ew. Is your friend rotting?” Rolf asked.
“Worse. She’s realizing the error of her ways.”
Danica shuddered. “Please don’t mention me to Hlokk.”
“I want to hear this info you have first.”
“But—”
“All of it, you green ho.”
“Mean.”
“Yet true.”
“Ouch.” Rolf watched their banter with glee. “Will either of you be fighting naked any time soon?”
Danica suddenly turned green and brown once more and smiled. “You wish.”
“Danica, focus.”
She shrugged. “Okay, Sylvara. Relax, girl. You seriously have no chill.” No longer acting scared or so dramatic, Danica apparently decided to play ball. “Rumor has it you’re after a Bloode Stone.”
“That would be correct.”
Rolf frowned. “Who knows we’re looking?”
“Everyone. There’s a bet going that the strigoi tribe will be the first to find it. But the revenants are better odds since everyone knows how smart and devious they are.”
Rolf straightened. “What?”
“Seriously? You didn’t know that all the vampire tribes are on the hunt for the thing? See, one of the gods told another god, who told a godling, who was overheard by a satyr, who told a lycan…”
“Not good.” Rolf shook his head. “If that many people know, everyone knows.”
Sylvara groaned. “This is going to take forever.” More forced time spent with Rolf.
“We not only have to find it, but we have to find it before someone else does. Whoever grabs the last stone will want to make a trade for the others. And if vampires find it, they’ll be impossible to deal with.
I mean, the battles to get the stone will be awesome and destructive.
But Hecate and Varu weren’t kidding about us needing to find it ASAP.
We don’t have time for vampire decimation right now. ”
Sylvara huffed. “This was supposed to be easy. Find Jormungandr, we find the stone.”
“Oh, I can tell you where Jormy is.” Danica smiled. “He’s so cute. Rumor has it he’s a fun guy.”
“You would think so.” Loki’s son had a temper and an odd sense of humor. He’d probably think the world ending—without his interference—was hilarious.
Sylvara had met him once. And once had been enough. Talk about a plotting, evil bastard. A lot like his dad but without all the funny jokes. Just treachery and ill intent. And he’d wanted a date. Ha. As if. He really hadn’t liked her telling him no with that punch to his face.
“Where can we find him?” Rolf asked. He didn’t seem so lighthearted anymore.
Interesting. Maybe he did care about saving the world.
“I can tell you where he was,” Danica answered. “Last I saw him, he was with Hades, betting on The Games.”
“Hades?” Sylvara frowned. “Shouldn’t Hecate have been able to find him then?”
Rolf swore. “Not if those games have a capital G.”
“They do.” Danica clapped. “I can give you a key to the right dimension for the right price.”
Sylvara didn’t like the way her friend was eyeing the vampire. “Hlokk,” she reminded her.
That sudden pale yellow of her complexion returned before evening out once more.
Danica did not want to meet up with that valkyrie any time soon.
“Fine. Here.” She broke off a piece of her hair that formed into a mossy key and handed it to Sylvara.
“Use this on the third door in the back of Wydner’s Tavern in Hill Song in the Shadow Court. ”
“Wait. That’s Dark Elf territory.”
“Well, yeah. How do you think I got the invite? Not from the light elves.”
Rolf grimaced. “They’re so prickly.”
Danica nodded. “Besides, you two will need a little break. The sun’s coming out.”
Rolf yawned. “I was going to mention that.”
“I’m heading out. Feel free to use my place. It’s small but comfy.” She nodded at the massive trunk behind her, in which a door suddenly appeared. Then she took a step toward Sylvara and pouted.
With a sigh, Sylvara held open her arms. “Fine. Just once.”
Danica squealed, leaped into her arms for a fierce hug, then shimmered into light and disappeared into the ground. The tree before them rumbled, and the tinkle of a laugh whispered in its leaves, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
Danica laughed again before fading away.
“Freaky little forest spirit.” Rolf entered the tree ahead of Sylvara.
As if he could talk. Freaks of a feather…
She followed him and shut herself in with the vampire, wondering which fate she’d pissed off so badly as to be enclosed with Rolf for an entire day.
Before she could warn him to behave himself, she found him dead asleep on the only piece of furniture in the small place.
A bed barely big enough for two made of knotted wood.
The headboard was draped in lush vines lit with tiny moon pixies for dim illumination.
A mattress of down bound by spidersilk linens fitted out the rest of it.
For a hideaway in the Forbidden Forest, the bed was topnotch.
Sylvara stared at the hunky pain in the neck she’d been forced to partner with and forcibly slid him over as far as he would go. Which wasn’t far enough.
He didn’t resist, a limp deadweight.
“I could kill you right now.” She studied him, and once again, an image shimmered above him. A picture of a male slightly different from the one he presented to the world. Bigger, almost regal, too handsome to be real, with dark hair, not light.
The mark on the back of his hand glowed a bright blue before fading. And then it was just Rolf, a hint of mischief on his face even in sleep.
Sylvara wanted to know more, but a yawn took her by surprise. She realized it had been several days since she’d last slept. With Rolf out cold, she should do her best to rest before they found their next battle.
In the Greek Underworld, apparently.
Sylvara set her ax by the doorway for protection and climbed into the bed next to the unmoving draugr.
Before she could question the wisdom of slumbering next to the enemy, a sudden exhaustion hit her hard, and she fell asleep.
The god of dreams glared down at the two most stubborn individuals he’d had to deal with in a while. And that was saying something.
The Norse had always been more troublesome than those Morpheus normally worked with, and since their patron god of dreams, a dwarven goddess by the name Njorun, was working overtime dealing with the problematic dark elves, he didn’t blame her for avoiding Sylvara.
Valkyries were an entirely different headache he didn’t envy. But since this one came as part of the whole “end of the world” package, he’d handle her then remind Njorun she owed him one.
The draugr, though, was truly Morpheus’s cross to bear since he’d made that deal with Hecate. He had a bad feeling Rolf would be the most difficult of his Night Bloode kin. Typical tricksters. Always making things harder than they had to be.
He shook his head and stared at the pair on the bed, wondering if they knew what the mark on their hands meant.
Wondering if they’d discover the true meaning of togetherness before it killed them or drove them mad.
With a grin, he snapped his fingers and slid into his realm, where he ruled supreme. “Time to find out.”