10. Azzie
Ten
Azzie
There was a mostly naked man lying on the bed next to me, and I shouldn’t give a shit.
Except that he was hot. Really hot. Well built. Scarred. Tattooed.
And his boxers did a poor job of hiding his half-erection.
It wasn’t as if I was going to fuck him. Not if I was learning from him or traveling with him. Both presented too many possibilities complications, and none of the bad things that might happen were worth indulging in lust.
Knowing I couldn’t touch wouldn’t stop me from appreciating the view.
Not that I had the attention span to do that the entire time he slept. Instead, I grabbed my bag, and pulled a book from a zippered pocket inside the main pouch. The notebook was thicker near the edge than the spine, thanks to the extras tucked between its pages.
I sat cross-legged on my own bed and unwrapped the strap keeping the leather-wrapped journal together and holding onto its contents. Setting the spine on the comforter, I let the book fall open, the same way I did each time I looked inside the pages.
Tonight, it landed on a page with a sliver of plaster cast sandwiched in place. An ache spiked inside at the reminder of Davyn’s breaking my arm, and the sight of my mother’s stilted script on the page. This was one of her visions.
The book was filled with prophecies—both the originals and Mom’s—about me. There were pages dedicated to each one, including notes about theories, discoveries, and possible alternate translations.
Mom’s handwritten notes were everywhere, and sometimes seeing it hit me hard. The pain at thinking about her hadn’t been as fresh as in the last few days in a while, and I didn’t care for it.
I forced myself to read the words, rather than focusing on my emotional reaction, and frowned at a poem I’d forgotten about.
When your life is laid bare
And you feel time has stalled
The road to nowhere
Will grab you by the balls .
The last line made me smirk. Mom wasn’t nearly as poetic as the original prophets, and a lot of the time I was grateful for that. It would’ve been nice if she could’ve been more clear though. Sometimes, she’d glimpsed entire scenes, and other times, it was only the words that came to her.
Over time, she and I had made various assumptions about what this snippet meant. Was it about Davyn? Did she get the wrong spelling of bear in there? Or was I grasping at straws to make things fit when they shouldn’t?
My gaze flitted between Mom’s vision and the piece of cast. “How much did you see that even you didn’t understand?” I muttered at the empty air.
Not that Mom was going to answer me.
The page wasn’t as helpful as I hoped.
I shook the gloomy memories aside and repeated the process of setting the closed spine on the bed and letting the book fall open. It landed on the same page again. There was nothing here I needed to be reminded of, aside from that prophecy, and figuring that out was an exercise in assumption, at best.
I closed the notebook and let it fall open again and again, and every time, it opened to the same page. What do you want me to see ? I’d rather shout the question, but that would wake up Davyn.
Fuck randomness. I manually flipped through the notebook, and when a glimpse of intricate line art caught my eye, I paused. The two page spread was all art, like the line version of a beautiful fantasy painting. Warriors on an urban battlefield of crumbling buildings and slipping out from alleys.
Several of the fighters were winged, and wearing intricate chainmail armor. When my broken arm was healing, Mom had me studying meditation with Shaolin monks. One of them had drawn this for me when I told him I loved Valkyries.
Mom was furious that I let him draw in my prophecy journal, and I’d argued that maybe this was a prophecy. It wasn’t as if she saw them all.
I traced my fingers lightly over the image now, not making contact with the lines. Stories about Valkyries were my favorite back then—women warriors who were strong enough to fight, but chose to help instead.
Since then, I’d learned that wasn’t the reality. Valkyries were created by Odin and bound to his will and did what they did because he said so.
I still liked the original fantasy though.
Moving on.
I picked a different page, with information I’d learned from a former teacher about how potentials had come into their destiny in the past.
I tried to focus on the words, but none of it made sense tonight, despite my having half of the text memorized. The day had been too distracting, and my mind kept drifting back to my exchange with Ulf about how much I believed. To the things Davyn said about Loki and why Davyn was sticking with me.
To my reason for removing all the protective wards a few months ago. This was what I wanted—to stop waiting for the prophecies and actually do something. They were happening now . I’d found Davyn. Loki was actively looking for me.
This is exciting. And terrifying. What am I doing? I flipped to the beginning of the book, the prophecy about Davyn, to refresh my memory. The original was vague, the way all of them were, but it didn’t hold the same menace as the others about me.
In fact, I wouldn’t even be sure these were about me, if Mom’s visions hadn’t overlapped the dragons’ prophecies. How did other people know which visions applied to them?
The embers of the shield of flame will dim
The darkness will flood in
As the guardian takes his light
The general will rise
And the walls will become one with the shadows
There were notes in the margin like at her weakest, guardian = Davyn? And shadows? The first note was from Mom, and I’d put a question mark next to it, because I hadn’t been at my weakest for a long time. Guardian and general also had question marks, as neither of those were things I wanted or needed.
Many years ago, when Mom started this book, Davyn was the easy part to figure out. She saw him distinctly in her visions, and he came to us. After I met him myself and knew what he looked like, I drew sketches of him. Not good ones—I wasn’t an artist—but I’d done it anyway.
Was I missing anything when it came to him? Was there anything I’d forgotten that was important now?
Davyn stirred, yanking my attention from the pages, and giving me a glimpse of the clock on the nightstand. I’d been reading these same words for that long? His movement as he got up was at the edge of my vision, but something on the page called to me. What was it?
I felt and heard him move closer, to stand behind me as much as was possible while I was seated. “Is that supposed to be me?” he asked.
I glanced again at the barely-more-than-a-stick-figure of him. “It is.”
“Remarkable likeness.” His tone was dry. “Do you want food?”
I sniffed the air. “Do you want to take a shower?”
“You’re quite the critic. Give me ten minutes.”
This arrangement was odd. The entire experience, in fact. I met this man less than a day ago, and now we were sharing a room. He’d slept next to me. He was leaving himself exposed.
No. That wasn’t right. I was the one who was exposed, despite the way things looked from the outside. I was vulnerable, and I was fulfilling the prophecies. On purpose. Taunting events to happen.
Ulf’s voice was in my head, asking me how real I believed this all was.
I was less certain than before I met him, and I didn’t like that feeling. It meant this was a mistake. It meant I’d wasted my life. It meant the people I’d lost died because people died, and not for some greater purpose.
Fuck .
“Are you all right?” Davyn’s question drilled into my thoughts, startling me.
I shook away the haze and looked up at him. And up. And up. He looked even better, wearing nothing but a towel. “I’m fine,” I said.
“Are you considering kicking me out or leaving me here and walking away?” he asked.
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
Did his answer hurt? Leave me relieved that I wasn’t the only one?
I didn’t know anymore. “Why?”
He huffed and strolled past me to his side of the room. With his back to me, he grabbed clothes from his luggage and dropped his towel.
Nice ass . And was that a hint of cock between his legs, as he pulled on clean boxers? Damn . He yanked on jeans, too, and I pushed my gaze back to my prophecy journal when he faced me again.
He sat on the edge of his bed. “I spent centuries doing what one god or another told me to. I got tired of it, and I stopped. Somehow, I keep getting sucked in. As an example, I’m here because Freya sent me to you.”
“But that’s not why you’re staying.” I had to force myself to keep from holding my breath as I waited for his answer. I needed him to say no .
“No.”
I let out a quiet exhale.
“I’m staying because…” He frowned.
Wrong place to stop. “Why?”
“There’s that question again.” He turned his attention to his hands, as if they were suddenly the most fascinating thing in the room.
I shrugged. “I’m a curious lady.”
“Because this is interesting. You’re interesting. If I were to make all my decisions based on defying the gods—walking away from this prophecy thing, for instance, simply because they want me here—that would be as bad as staying because they want me here. So I’m doing this because I want to, instead of because they said so.”
I huffed a laugh of understanding. “Fair enough.”
“I’ll ask you the same thing. Why are you here with me?”
The same thing I’d been asking myself all day, and despite having an answer, could I explain it to him? “You’re going to train me. You saved me. If the prophecies are going to come for me, I’m done hiding. You’re part of that.”
“Hmm.” That was the most generic grunt ever. Davyn nodded at my book. “Those are notes about the prophecies? Because if we’re going to travel together…”
He needed to know the things I did. “I’ll fill you in on all of it, if you’ll tell me what you know in return,” I said.
He grabbed a menu off the nightstand. “Agreed. Now, food. We can get breakfast sandwiches delivered. Tell me you’re not a vegetarian.”
The shift away from difficult questions was welcome. “I’m a big fan of big meat.” I could go back to teasing.
He gave me a raised-eyebrow look and shook his head but didn’t successfully tuck away his smile. “Do you have a favorite?”
Just because I didn’t plan on having sex with him didn’t mean I couldn’t have fun with him. “Double sausage.”
“They have bacon,” he said through a chuckle.
My stomach grumbled and ruined the moment. “That’ll do.”
While he called in the order, I reached for my wallet. My paycheck would last a few weeks, and then I’d need to find work again.
Davyn hung up, and pushed my hand away when I tried to give him my share. “I’ve got this,” he said.
“I pay my own way.” Always. I had to call in enough favors, looking for Ulf and other answers, that I didn’t need to add someone else picked up the tab for dinner to my list.
“This morning, this is on me. You don’t owe me.” Did he read my mind?
I could argue, or I could concede. I chose the latter. While we waited for our food, I showed him the pages I’d been studying about him. He didn’t have much to add, but he did sound impressed I’d uncovered so much.
I had to give credit to everyone who helped me, as well. Enid. Rayne.
“Regardless,” Davyn said. “There are gods who have spent a millennium learning about the prophecies surrounding them, and they don’t have this depth of information to show for it.”
“They’re not asking the right questions or people.” The way I understood it, a god’s arrogance could keep them from doing a lot of reasonable things.
When our sandwiches showed up, I put the book away, while Davyn paid for the food. I scooted all the way back on my bed, to use the headboard as support, and he sat across from me on my mattress. For a few minutes, the only sounds in the room were of us eating.
“For the record,” I said when my stomach was full enough to stop complaining, “when this whole thing is done, whatever I become, I won’t ask you to do anything. Not that you would, but… If I had the power, I’d free anyone from their bonds who wanted to be freed.”
“When you defy fate like that, it’s called altering reality .” Davyn paused, and creases grew across his forehead. “Though I suspect, if anyone could do so by sheer force of will, it might be you.”
My cheeks heated at the compliment.
“I’ll take you up on your offer,” he said. “If I hadn’t already decided to work with you, I’d do so now, simply to see what happens next.”
I liked that idea far more than I should, given my dedication to staying detached. It wasn’t as if we were dating or friends or even fucking. This was an agreement between two people who just wanted the past—the ancient past, written by ancient beings—to move on, so we could have our lives back.
We finished breakfast as a yawn threatened to split my jaw. “ Fuck. I can’t believe I’m still tired.”
“You’ll catch up soon enough,” he said. “Right now, take advantage of the fact that you can rest undisturbed.”
Despite being confident in who I was and things like my sexuality, I wasn’t quite as bold as him when it came to stripping off everything without a care for who was watching me. But I did leave my weapons, jeans, and shoes by the bed and climb under the covers in a T-shirt and panties.
I gave my knives one more glance.
“You have to trust me if we’re going to do this,” Davyn said. “I slept next to you. You already slept next to me.”
“You were driving, and you also sleep with your weapons.”
He nodded. “I don’t have much of a choice when it comes to that.” Given he was his weapon.
It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him. The problem was the opposite. I barely knew him, and I was willing to do this, and that terrified me.