5. Davyn
Five
Davyn
More than a decade ago, I let obligation convince me that it was smart to go behind a mother’s back, to offer sparring lessons to a child who wasn’t ready.
The woman I met tonight wasn’t the same person. She had the same color hair and eyes. The same name. That was where the similarities ended. This Azzie could hold her own in any number of fights. I didn’t need to see her combat skills; they were obvious in her movements.
She was confident. Strong. Intelligent.
She was also breathtaking in her grace and beauty.
It was a good thing she left. I didn’t have any more interest in watching over her than she did in being watched. What kind of immortal wanted to be a babysitter? Especially to a grown woman? I was made for war.
Granted, those weren’t the wars that were fought anymore, and the reminder made my bear roar to be free.
I wouldn’t be sleeping tonight, and even if the bar was still open, I doubted I was welcome there. I wasn’t interested in pacing in this tiny room. The casinos were too crowded and loud for my senses.
The gas station truck stop at the edge of town had a coffee shop as well. I’d head there, drink a few cups, and keep an ear out for anyone going my way, so I could hitch a ride back to my life.
I left my room key card in the little box in the front office and walked toward the gas station. I reached my destination, asked for a booth near the entrance so I could hear people coming and going, and ordered a pot of coffee.
The leather under me was cracked with age, and the stuffing held the scents of all of those who sat there before me. Grease—both from the kitchen and the trucks out front—permeated the walls and the air. The slot machines running along the front window played an occasional tone. Digital devices begging for someone to pay attention to them.
The obligation I’d felt for Azzie back then wasn’t because of the prophecy. I was the one who put her in danger. That applied today as well, but from what I’d seen, she was more than capable of handling things herself.
A nagging bit of me said I needed to go after her. That I should insist she and I travel together. That even if she was destined to come out on top?—
“Davyn. How long has it been?” The man that slid into the bench across from me was the other subject of my thoughts. His appearance had changed since I last saw him. Today he sported shaggy blond hair and a poorly kept mustache, and he was wearing a flannel shirt and a baseball cap.
Loki could change his appearance at will—though only his face, not his body or clothing—and it must be killing him to wear this look. Not that he fit in here for an instant.
I rolled my eyes. “That stopped being funny centuries ago.” By that I meant the implication that we hadn’t seen each other in ages. “Correction—it was never funny.” It had only been a few months since I talked to him.
“Yeah, but it really pisses you off.” Loki plucked an artificial-sweetener packet from the bowl of them and let it float in the air in front of him. As he twisted his finger, it twirled, faster and faster. It would be hypnotic if I cared.
The paper vanished, and fake sugar crystals flew everywhere.
Except at him.
Aside from our most recent encounter, I hadn’t seen him in fifty years. There had been intense, passionate, no-holds-barred hate sex. “I stopped giving a fuck what you do a long time ago,” I said.
“Did you? Then why are you here?”
After the sex, the two of us had talked. Reminisced. Relived a past romance that had been dead for centuries. We’d also brought up the prophecies.
I poured more coffee into my mug. “They have the most mediocre coffee for a hundred miles in any direction. Why wouldn’t I show up for that?”
Prophecies were vague. Open to interpretation. Whether it was because the dragons liked the riddles or because didn’t have a specific interpretation either was a mystery. That night, though, Loki and I had compared notes about the ones that directly involved us. We figured out that the woman in one of his was the same as in mine, and we had good reason to believe most everyone had interpreted both wrong.
We didn’t have any idea what the right interpretation was, though.
At the end of that night, I realized Loki had been about to walk away from the idea of this mysterious woman who was meant to destroy him. To bring him to his knees. He’d all but given up on any of the prophecies.
Something we discussed, though, as we lay basking in the afterglow of a good grudge-fuck, changed his mind. It set him on this path again, filling him with the determination to find Azzie. To kill her before she could get to him.
That was why I felt obligated to protect her. That was the reason I approached her mother.
“Hmm…” Loki dragged out the sound. “Your bullshit is as compelling as ever. Because you’ve always given a fuck where you drink coffee.”
“I’m allowed to change.” I understood something about Loki that most got wrong. He learned a long time ago that so many people expected him to lie, he would tell the truth most of the time to throw them off course.
Given the mood he was in now? I needed to believe most things that came out of his mouth. Or at least consider them.
He twisted sideways in his seat and leaned against the wall with a smirk, just as the waiter brought him a fresh mug.
“Lord of mischief.” The waiter-slash-host-slash-cashier winked at him.
Loki smirked. “You have no idea.”
The guy walked away, to collect payment from someone else, but he glanced back at us twice.
“Are you flirting with him?” I couldn’t hide my disbelief. “He’s a child.”
“Do you expect me to wait until they’re fifty? One hundred? They’re so fragile, they’re not much fun at those ages. He’s old enough to know what he’s doing when he consents.” Loki closed his eyes. “Thirty.”
He couldn’t tell people’s ages with any sort of magic, regardless of what he pretended, but he was a good guesser and ever better at getting people to give him information.
“Did he tell you that?” I asked.
Loki poured a generous helping of sugar into his coffee and sipped, not hiding his smirk. “When he was asking if he could get me anything to drink, a co-worker wished him happy you’re-officially-old day . He’s too old to be twenty and too young to be forty. Why do people love the tens so much?”
“You’d have to ask people.” I set a bill on the table to pay for my coffee and stood. “I’m done here.”
Loki put down his cup. “She vanished. One minute she was there, and the next she was gone. But a woman who prefers to travel on foot can’t have gotten far in the last hour.”
I paused. That was a mistake. I should have said, Don’t know whom you’re talking about , and kept walking.
My hesitation gave me away. Told him I knew he was talking about Azzie. I might as well ask my question. “How did you know where she was?”
Loki didn’t have the power to sense magical auras, but he probably had someone working for him who did. It was no coincidence we both found her tonight, though.
He sipped more of his coffee.
I clenched my fist. If I choked him, would that give me more satisfaction than it would him? It wasn’t as if the action would kill him, but it might get him off.
He finally set down his mug. “I didn’t. But I almost always know where you are, Lover. Until you vanished from my view after the last time we spoke. I’ve been worried because I couldn’t sense you. What if something happened to you?”
There was the lie. He wasn’t above those when they served him. He didn’t give a shit about me personally.
He’d found me tonight because I took off the necklace. The one I gave to Azzie.
Worse, I’d just confirmed for him that I’d found her. That he had.
“Fuck you.” I left the diner.
I’d done it again. Said something that would send him after her. If I tried to find her and warn her, all he had to do was follow me.
If I left her alone, all he had to do was ask around. A woman like Azzie would leave an impression.
Every instinct told me to go after her.
She was hidden again, though. She was safe from magical gazes, as long as I kept my distance.
If I wanted to protect her, my walking out of town and not looking back was the best way to do so.
In the gas station, I grabbed a backpack from the shelf, several bottles of water, and a lot of jerky. I didn’t expect to be walking long before I found a ride, but if I had to go a couple-hundred miles on foot, I could diminish my discomfort a little.
It was a shame I couldn’t call another god to blink me out of here. Those I knew were like Aya—too interested in meddling—and as likely to try to trap me here as to help me get somewhere else.
I stepped outside and the heat hit me like a wall. I’d need to stick close to the road to hitchhike. If no one picked me up, walking back to Idaho in the desert with no relief from the weather might not kill me, but it would make me a severely grouchy bear.
For the next few hours, I lingered at a picnic bench outside the truck stop, keeping an ear and eye out for anyone heading north. By the time the sky turned from black to gray, I hadn’t spotted a single vehicle heading in my direction. Did I need to compromise and grab a ride to a different place, to find more options?
Most of the overnight drivers were gone, and the traffic had thinned out. What was I feeling?
Relief.
I needed to find Azzie. Loki and others were going to hunt her regardless, and my staying by her side would help her odds.
Besides, there was a tug inside, urging me to track her down.