9. Davyn
Nine
Davyn
What was it about this woman? She had an admirable strength and was skilled despite her lack of experience. I also appreciated her quick wit.
None of that was enough of a reason for me to follow her out of Ulf’s warehouse like a lost cub.
When I’d seen her pinned to the ground with a knife though, I was ready to tear anyone apart to save her. If she hadn’t decided on her own to walk away from Ulf, I would have had to carry her out of there.
What was it about her?
“What now?” Azzie seemed to be asking herself as much as me.
Damn you, Aya, for leaving me here . At the same time, I’d rather be here than on the construction site. The manual labor gave me a way to stay active, and that was good.
Traveling with Azzie would be a challenge, which I liked. She’d be a god eventually—not ideal given I was tired of serving them—but I could leave before then.
My bear roared inside, protesting that last thought.
“I’ll train you,” I said. It took me a moment to realize she’d stopped. I turned back to look at her.
She stood in the middle of the packed dirt, staring at me. “A bear says what?”
“What?”
She snorted. “You’ll train me? You’re serious.”
“If you’re not interested, you can go your own way.”
She strode quickly to catch up to me. “I am interested. Please. Yes. Fuck , yes.”
We resumed the stroll toward town. “Great. Let’s not do it here.” I didn’t mean the empty desert between Ulf’s and town; I meant Elko.
“Fine with me. Where’s home base?”
It was difficult for me to believe we were having this conversation casually. We weren’t talking like two people who’d known each other less than a day, under anything but normal circumstances, but as if we’d known each other for months. Years.
Traveling with her felt right, though. Discussing where next was natural. “I have some of my things in Potlatch, Idaho, but it’s more of a rest stop. I don’t have a home base, as such.” I had a home on the other side of the ocean, but it had been decades since I stayed there.
“Rest stop on the way to…?” she asked.
“I have not decided yet. How about you?”
She hefted her bag, adjusting it on her shoulder. “This is home base.”
The backpack?“ Gods , that makes me look positively established.”
“Fuck you, hobo,” she said playfully, and I chuckled. “I have some things in Salt Lake,” she said. “Not a base so much as… I don’t know. Not a real address, though.”
Was that sadness in her voice?
She shook her head hard, and her furrowed brows vanished behind a blank mask. “If we’re not staying here, can you call a god friend or something to blink us to another place? Maybe one with real coffee?”
We reached the edge of town, and turned down a side street, toward the main strip. There were people out and about now. Traffic. Noise. The abandoned feeling from last night had faded, but it was still far from hectic.
“If you’re going to be a nomad and choosy about your coffee, you need a much better idea of where your journey is taking you.” That was my first bit of training. The important part most people didn’t think about.
“I’m not a nomad,” Azzie said. “I’m a domesticated girl who likes to vanish in large crowds and prefers sugar in her drinks and isn’t looking to use her leftover coffee to summon demons.”
For someone who implied they didn’t have a destination, she walked with a great deal of certainty. This path took us toward the casinos, and I wasn’t comfortable with that. “I promise you, any incubus worth his tail wouldn’t touch the shit they have in the truck-stop café.”
“See? That’s my point.” Azzie almost sounded smug. “Besides, you said not here , and if we’re picking a destination anyway, we might as well make a wish list.”
Smart decision, unless we didn’t have the luxury of being that picky. The towns were few and far between out here, and the cities even more so, if we were on foot. “I don’t know that good coffee is worth the cost of calling someone to blink us to a new place.” If this was what Aya charged for bailing me out, I didn’t want to know her fee if I asked her to be our taxi.
Besides, I wanted to keep us off any god’s radar if possible.
Azzie let out a heavy sigh that sounded exaggerated. “ Fine . You’re Sensei now, so we’ll do it your way. Tell me where we’re going.”
“Then what? You’ll blink us there?”
She paused and closed her eyes. Her hand fell to the holster on her hip, and she rested her palm on the knife’s handle. “I thought we’d use a fae door.”
We would do what? I knew what she was talking about but didn’t expect it to be an option. The fae realm was a different plane of existence, which could be accessed through gates they created. Centuries ago, someone had figured out that, if a door was enchanted correctly and the person using it had the right power and knowledge, they could step through one door, pass briefly through the fae realm, and step out another enchanted door somewhere else in the world.
“Do you know where one is?” I didn’t try to hide my surprise and disbelief.
She gave me a puzzled look, and we were walking again. “What? Like it’s a big deal?”
“It is. Yes.” It wasn’t as if the fae realm overlapped this plane, so a door there could lead anywhere here, and this door magic took advantage of that. However, one had to know where to find the gates and have the power to make them lead to the desired destination.
Azzie shrugged. “The blades were enchanted by… someone I used to know.” That sadness was back, but vanished in a heartbeat. “They give me access to some magics. Light healing—very light, not shoulder stab-wounds that are meant to bleed out—and discovering and using fae gates. Far safer than a woman hitchhiking across the country.”
“Safer for the people who might pick you up and piss you off,” I said.
“You thought I was good?” She sounded pleased.
Good brought cockiness with it. I didn’t doubt she could hold her own against a lot of people, but that didn’t mean she was at a point where she could stop learning. Even I wasn’t at that point. “I think you have potential.”
Azzie rolled her eyes and led us up a street that took us closer to the busy part of town. “Careful. You wouldn’t want to make my ego too big.”
“I wouldn’t want to give you a sense of confidence that gets you killed.”
The conversation shifted to our immediate next steps. I was happy to go back to where I’d been. Despite the heat, it hosted open spaces which would allow us to train without an audience.
“Didn’t you say Freya sent you here?” Azzie asked. “And she found you there ?”
That was a fair question. If Aya knew where I’d been, she might not be the only one. “We could travel.” Fae gates were rarely an option for me, and I liked the idea of going some other place in the world without needing to sneak on a boat or owe a god. “Northern Europe is nice this time of year. Australia. New Zealand.” Someplace where the heat wasn’t north of ninety all the time.
“Are you taking advantage of my access to doors, to go on vacation?” Azzie teased.
“I’m simply suggesting we don’t limit our imagination.”
“I don’t speak any other modern languages—I had a hard enough time with Elvish and D?nsk Tunga. The moment I open my mouth, I stand out in most places that aren’t here, even some places that are here, and if that lands me with any authorities, I don’t have a passport.”
Aside from the fact that most fae would be furious to hear her refer to their language as Elvish — “You sound like you speak from experience.”
“Let’s just say I’ve been a few places in my search for answers, and I don’t know any goddesses who will bail me out of jail.”
“That’s got to be one Hel of a story.” I’d ask her about it later, in a less crowded environment. For now, we needed to decide where we were going, and the decision needed to be hers. Loki knew me too well for anything else. “My car is in Idaho. Pick a place, we’ll go grab the car, and we’ll turn it into a training road trip.”
We approached a casino, and the din around us grew louder, the scents in the air more pungent.
Azzie pushed open a door, and a blast of cool air rushed out to meet us, carrying a dizzying selection of sweat, stale food, and distraction. “I’ve heard upstate New York is nice,” she said. “But you should know I don’t drive.”
“Absolutely not upstate New York.” My retort came out harder than I intended. It was an unspoken not-so-secret that Loki and several other gods had a campus in that part of the country, where they raised and trained assassins to kill people like Azzie.
She glanced over her shoulder at me with a puzzled look, as we stepped inside. “Okay. I have my secrets too.”
“Wait. You don’t drive?” My mind caught up with the rest of what she’d said.
She shrugged. “Owning a car is as difficult as getting out of a foreign jail without a passport. Maybe not quite, but… Why would I need one?”
“That’s it. You’re learning to drive.” I hated the thought of doing that to my Ranchero, but Anubis would make things right if she was rough on the clutch.
She cringed. “We’ll discuss that bit. How do you feel about Yellowstone?”
I had complicated feelings about it. Too many people looking for bears, but a lot of the same for me to lose myself among. It was also surrounded by a lot of nothing, and that was advantageous. “Any particular reason?” As long as she didn’t have some sort of attachment to the place that could make us easier to track.
“It’s what came to mind?”
In an instance like this, no particular reason was the best reason. “That’s as good a part of the country to stop in as any.”
We agreed to gather our things from our respective temporary homes, then melted into the crowd.
I kept most of my attention on our surroundings but couldn’t help but appreciate the way her ass swayed while she lead the way toward wherever this door was. She was a beacon in the chaos of this place, her presence muting what might be an overload of input, and her scent soothing my bear.
The path we cut was meandering and casual, rather than a straight line to our destination. Good for her. The last thing we needed to do was draw attention to ourselves.
It didn’t surprise me that a fae door was in here, rather than at the quiet end of town. Large groups of people made it easier to keep from drawing anyone’s eye, and we’d be less noticeable than if we were on an empty street and walked up to a door that went nowhere, walked through, and vanished.
In a casino, it was unlikely anyone was paying attention to us as we approached an unmarked door near the bathrooms and utility closet and walked through.
We stepped out in Salt Lake City. I’d driven through here before, and even stayed a couple of times during one of their spikes in construction. The people were nice, and the surrounding mountains were beautiful and great for roaming when I needed to get away. The fact that there was a temple in the middle of the city, which multiple roads bragged about leading to, reminded me too much of towns I would have avoided in the past.
Azzie took a few minutes to change her shirt and clean the blood from her shoulder. Just because the wound had healed didn’t mean her clothing magically cleaned and patched itself.
Despite her insistence that she didn’t have a home , I got the impression she was more established in this place than she let on. “You seem comfortable here.” I wasn’t judging, simply observing. “Like the streets are familiar, and you come back here a lot.”
Azzie shrugged. “It’s a good place to find work. People who grew up sheltered and don’t want to be anymore. Who need a more worldly friend for a day or two.”
This could be a good fallback location in the future. There was a different kind of scent in the air here. An odd combination of faith and defiance.
We did something similar to take us to Idaho, stepping out of a gate that was a click or so from where I was staying. It didn’t take long for me to gather my things, including the key that led to the small pocket-reality where I kept the rest of my money.
I’d drive us to Wyoming, to get us to our destination, but she was getting lessons after we settled.
Azzie slept in the car most of the trip, and I wasn’t surprised. The magics that had been used on her in the last twenty-four hours were potent, and honestly, I was surprised she’d functioned at all after either attack from Ulf.
It was dark when we crossed the border into Wyoming. I found a motel that didn’t look too seedy, to stop for the night.
I pulled into the parking lot and shook Azzie awake.
She stared at me, bleary eyed, before blinking away the sleep. “What time is it?”
Thank the gods she didn’t try to kill me. “Almost one in the morning.”
“You let me sleep the entire way?”
“You needed it.”
She twisted her mouth and furrowed her brow. “You didn’t dump me at the side of the road so you could go back to your life.”
“No. Whatever comes next will be far more entertaining than building cookie-cutter homes for cheapskate contractors.” As I said the words, it hit me how true they were.
She smiled, and climbed out of the car when I did. We headed into the front office, to find the desk empty and the TV behind it playing a silent version of local weather.
I rang the bell and we waited. Ten seconds. Thirty. A minute.
I dinged the silver bell again, and another minute or two stretched on.
As I reached for it a third time, Azzie covered my hand with hers. “Either they don’t hear, they don’t care, or they can’t get to us yet.” She leaned over the counter. “ Hello .”
“Give me a freaking minute, for fuck’s sake,” a distant voice called back.
She gave me a self-satisfied look and as shrug and shoved her hands in her pockets.
A few minutes later, a toilet flushed in another room, and shortly after, a man wandered into the lobby, still buckling his belt. He looked between Azzie and me and smirked. “One room?”
I didn’t care one way or the other, but Azzie mi?—
“That’s fine,” she said. “Two beds.”
“That’s what they’ve all got.” He snorted and grabbed a key. “Hundred bucks for the night. Checkout is at eleven. We don’t do any fancy continental-breakfast bullshit, but you can get delivery, and the ice maker is broken.”
“Great.” I handed him the cash, and he gave me a key. He only stopped leering at the two of us when he had to look away to use the computer.
Creepy asshole.
“Have a great night,” he offered as we walked out.
I didn’t care what he thought, but I was still figuring out how Azzie reacted to things. As we headed to our room, I said, “People will make assumptions.”
She furrowed her brow. “About…? Oh . You and me.”
“Yes.” I unlocked the door and stepped in first to survey the room and make sure it was safe. All motels in the country must get their cleaning supplies and air fresheners at the same place, given they all smelled faintly of pizza and stale smoke. “So you’re aware, I don’t assume anything of the sort. We’re traveling together for safety and training, no other reason.”
Azzie joined me in the room, and I locked the door behind her. I turned to find her standing closer than I expected. She pressed her body to mine, and heat and desire seared through me.
A purr rumbled from her throat, as she trailed a finger down my chest. “But what if I want you to make assumptions, you big, scary bear?”
Fuck , the teasing was annoying mostly because it was working. My body reacted, and my bear roared with want. I cleared my throat with a loud cough.
She backed away with a laugh. “Your chain is going to be fun to yank.” Her playfulness didn’t hide the hint of arousal drifting from her.
At least I wasn’t the only one harboring a physical attraction. “You get that one time. It doesn’t work again.”
“We’ll see. For the record, people are going to say what they want, and sometimes they say stupid things, and every once in a while it hurts. Gods know the things I heard about my m—” Her playfulness flickered into a frown. “Anyway. I’m a big girl; I can handle it. If it makes people happy to assume you and I are fucking, so be it. I’ve been with far worse than you.”
She had yet to see me anywhere near my worst. “You don’t know?—”
“Stop. I do know you’re not a bad guy, because you’ve saved me twice in the last twenty-four hours—just because—and you drove me here for the same reason.”
“Not just because .”
“Then why?”
I couldn’t answer that question for her because I still wasn’t certain myself what I was doing here and why she compelled me to act this way. I tossed my duffel bag next to the bed closest to the door. “I didn’t sleep last night. Can I trust you while I catch some shuteye?”
“If you couldn’t, would I be here?”
I kicked off my shoes and stripped out of everything but my boxers. I yanked the blankets off a bed I was too tall to sleep comfortably in, and lay on my back on the mattress, my feet hanging over the end. Life had taught me how to sleep on command when the situation called for it, but my mind was roaring with the events of the last day. Why was I here? Why did I keep saving Azzie? Why was I drawn to this woman, and if it was only because of the prophecy, was I signing on to be someone’s tool? Again?
No. That wasn’t what was happening. Not that any of the answers mattered, given that my bear roared in anger every time I thought about walking away from her, and denying the beast was exhausting.