Dark Devotion: Dark Series 3 (6 page)

No!
“But—”

“No, Tove. This is not up for discussion. I forbid it.”

She could see the hardness in her father’s expression, knew that his mind could not be changed. Whatever protests she had died on her tongue. Instead, she sat back in the chair and looked away.

“All right. All done. Go on now,” her father said, sounding weary. “Change your dress and wash up. Dinner will be ready soon.”

The steady pounding of her feet on the pavement was a sound Mav had missed hearing. She didn’t know how long she’d been at it, but by the way the sun was dipping down into the horizon, it must have been at least four hours. She hadn’t run like this in a long time – not since the first threats to Bryn and the other Valkyries.

Over their thousands of years of existence, nobody had managed to scare Bryn the way Loki had over a month ago. It was only now that she was starting to loosen up, and apparently the first matter of business for this new, relaxed Bryn was to force Mav to take a whole day and night off. But Mav had dug in her heels and refused. Instead, they’d come to an agreement: she would take only half a day off and Bryn would just have to accept it. The fact was, Mav’s job was to protect Bryn and the only way she could do that was by being wherever her leader was.

After Korvain moved in, it helped to ease the burden on Mav. Bryn was happy for the first time in a long time with him; he had saved her life when nobody else had been able to. Although their relationship was built on deceit to start with, Bryn had forgiven him and it was stronger than ever now.

Mav ran down Boylston Street until she hit Boston Common, slowing her pace to a fast walk. Despite the fact that she was a goddess, she had to remain in the best shape possible in order to protect Bryn and the remaining Valkyries. It was a fallacy that the gods had superior strength. They all still bled just like everyone else, and you were only as strong as you allowed your muscles to become.

As her breathing returned to normal, she looked around. There were still a lot of people in the park bundled up in heavy coats while Mav ran in black shorts and a skin-tight running shirt. She checked her watch for the time and started jogging back toward the club. She wanted to get in another weights workout before she started at seven.

Dodging cars as she crossed over Tremont, Mav weaved between the pedestrians, finding herself coming up on the alleyway that led to the back entrance of the club. She punched in the code on the door and stepped inside. Moving on autopilot, she walked down the long hall, heading toward the elevator. She was still lost in her own head, her mind on the dream she’d had the night before. She had not thought on it for centuries, but for some reason she had dreamed of the day she awoke to discover everyone she’d ever loved was dead.

“Gunner?”

Maverick stopped dead, the sound of the name Odin had given her when she became one of his Valkyries bringing her up short. She hadn’t been called that since the Fall.

From inside her office, Bryn said, “Sorry, but I was calling you and you couldn’t seem to hear me. Can I speak to you for a moment?”

Retreating back a few steps, Mav leaned against the jamb, her arms over her chest. Mist – Bryn’s second-in-command – was sitting in the chair opposite the desk, a tablet on her lap with a spreadsheet open on the screen. Mav nodded to the other Valkyrie before turning her attention to Bryn.

“How was your half day off?” Bryn asked.

“Unnecessary.” After all, it wasn’t as if she’d had much of a choice in the matter. All it did was give her time to think about the biggest mistake she’d ever made in her life.

Bryn’s mouth flexed into a small smile. “Well, you still have another two hours of it so don’t even think about coming back down here early.”

Mav nodded and turned back to the elevator. As she rode it up, her watch started beeping, telling her that her heart rate had dropped by more than thirty beats a minute. She silenced the device and stared at her reflection in the polished elevator doors. Although the image was distorted, she tracked the dark gray aura hovering over her head and shoulders; it was a slightly darker shade than it had been a month earlier. The doors sprang open unexpectedly – Mav too lost in her thoughts to even notice the elevator had slid to a smooth stop on the top level.

She stepped into the hallway, pulling her apartment key from the concealed pocket in her running shorts. Once inside, Mav went straight to the free weights she had set up against the far wall. The abdominal bench and flat bench were in the center of the room and her latest purchase – the leg press machine she had punished her body on every day since she bought it – was on the opposite wall.

After two hundred barbell rows, she did another two hundred lunges before finally finishing with her usual five hundred push-ups. With sweat pouring down her temples and rolling off her chin, she finished her last push-up and collapsed back onto her ass. Hauling herself off the ground, she swiped the towel from the top of the dumbbell rack and wrapped it around her shoulders. She had just enough time to get cleaned up before her shift started. She showered quickly, and dried off just as fast. Running her hands over her freshly shaved scalp, Mav looked at herself in the mirror, eyeing her aura warily. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, then let the breath go.

In her room, she dressed with military quickness and precision, pulling on the skin-hugging leather pants and black tank top she wore at the club. Out of habit, she swiped her index finger over the tattoo on the side of her neck and summoned her black sword. It materialized in her hand, the weight and smell of it as familiar as the contours of her own face. Twisting her wrist from side to side, she studied it, checking it over for imperfections that it would never have. The steel had been forged by the most skilled blacksmith, but that was not what made it so deadly. Afterward, Odin had beaten the metal – not with a hammer – but with a magic only he could wield. With it, he crafted a weapon that was deadly to anyone who received a scratch from it, but he had paid dearly for doing so.

Touching the tattoo once more, the sword disappeared. Mav sat down on the edge of her bed and pulled on her boots, lacing them up tightly. The final thing she put on was the weapon holster Bryn had insisted all her security wear. Mav couldn’t see the point of having it. Why give a wolf another pair of fangs when they already had a full set of teeth?

Still, she slid in the Beretta and snapped the clip in place.

She left her apartment and took the elevator down to the club level. Walking into the Eye, she saw the head of security – a human named Mason – standing at the base of the stairs leading up to the upper levels. Mason was the only human who knew about Bryn and the other Valkyries. An ex-Marine, he had taken a knock to the head in Iraq which resulted in him being able to hear the thoughts of the gods – not that he knew that at the time.  

In the last few weeks, Mason’s aura had started to change color from a murky brown to a vibrant red. Eir, the goddess of healing, was responsible for that, and Mav was glad that somebody had found love and happiness. She nodded in Mason’s direction, moving toward the front door. Even though he was technically her boss, Mav didn’t answer to him. Her loyalty – as it had always been – was to Bryn.

Mav stepped up beside the guard Bryn had assigned as her replacement for the night. He glanced at her briefly, handing her the clipboard with the names of the parties still to come through the doors.

“Any problems so far?” she asked.

The guy cringed at the sound of her voice.

 
Yep, that’s a real confidence boost right there.

“Nothing.”

Mav nodded, her eyes scanning over the sheet of paper. Just over half of their expected groups had already entered the club. “You can leave now,” she said to the human, still staring at the list of names. She didn’t need to look to know a halo of dark yellow was surrounding him; she made him nervous. He let out a small relieved breath and turned away, getting lost in the crowd.

Mav’s focus turned to the line of people waiting to get in. It ran the length of the front of the building and down the side out of sight. Two-thirds of them wouldn’t get in tonight – the Eye was always filled to capacity by the end of the night – yet they always tried to sweet talk her into letting them in.

“Nice ink.”

Mav’s gaze found the guy who decided to get chatty with her.

Human.

Mid-twenties.

Too cocky for his own good.

He had a swagger about him, and Mav had seen it all before.

“I said, nice ink,” he repeated, flashing his pearly whites this time around. Too bad for him that no amount of dental work would convince her to reciprocate. She stared at him, hoping he had the common sense to stop trying to engage with her. The human’s smile faded and he broke eye contact.

About fucking time
.

Mav waited until the line started to get antsy before she began to let people in. Mason had already told her they were only half full, thanks to the tech she had in place in her ear. Motioning to the group of women at the front of the line, she studied them as they stepped inside. All of them were already buzzed, but they were only interested in having a good night. Mav fell into the comfortable rhythm that work could offer her. It was a far cry from the warrior lifestyle she’d lived and breathed before, but this was her life now. The age of the Valkyries was over.

Odin longed to return home to Boston, but the news he’d received from the Norns kept him in Chicago. For the past few weeks, he had been following Loki’s movements, always remaining hidden from sight, either in the back of his armored Mercedes or safely within the confines of his luxurious hotel room.

The trickster god had been wreaking havoc here in a way that Odin knew too well. Loki had been playing with the humans, assuming the identity of a businessman called Henry Craine in order to interact with two Mares who seemed to have piqued his interest. Odin had yet to figure out what part they’d play in Loki’s overall plan though.

Discovering the identity of Fenrir’s son was like looking for a needle in the proverbial haystack – tedious – yet it was a necessity if he was to find a way to finally kill Loki. He stared out the window as Hunter, his driver, drove them down into the university village. It was early evening, and there were a lot of people walking around in small groups. Odin noted that most of them were young men.

That was when he saw it.

“Stop the car, Hunter,” he said, sitting forward in his seat to get a better look at what had caught his attention. Wrapped around one of the lamp posts was a poster advertising an event that was taking place that night. Odin looked at his watch. Less than an hour until it started. “Hunter, I want to go to the UIC Pavilion.”

“You got it, boss,” Hunter replied, pulling smoothly back out into the traffic. As the car traveled closer and closer to their destination, Odin began to fidget, tugging at the cuffs of his shirt and loosening his tie. The car glided to a stop, and he took a moment to look through the dark tinted window. If Frigg were still alive, she’d claim that he was being paranoid, but it was his paranoia that had saved his ass more times than he could count.

Hunter came around to open the passenger door. Odin stepped from the car and shrugged deeper into his sable-trimmed cashmere coat, trying to shake off the chill of the Chicago air and the anxiety suddenly pressing on him. He hated being exposed.

He studied the large round UIC building in front of him. The front half was made of glass, the remaining half a red brick that reminded him of Boston. There were people everywhere, all of them jostling to get inside. A flyer skidded across the ground, wrapping around Odin’s pant leg. He scooped it up and looked at the poster promoting the mixed martial arts event.

All sound ceased to exist and Odin’s world tilted on its axis. On the flyer in his hands, his son’s hard face stared back at him. Every inch of his arms was covered in tattoos, the ink depicting everything from Odin’s Valkyries riding across the heavens to lightning boiling from the clouds with a violent and bloody battleground beneath. Taking up the entirety of his chest was Mjolnir, Thor’s war hammer.

Odin had not seen or spoken to his son since the Fall. He’d heard rumors, though, that Thor had been spotted in different places around the world: Athens, London, Moscow, Sydney and Ontario – just to name a few. Odin had spent many days in each of those cities, but he’d never been able to establish a connection, to find him, so he had dismissed the rumors as exactly that – rumors.

And now he had found him – finally. Determined to warn his son about Loki’s presence in Chicago and his desire for revenge, Odin began walking in the direction of the doors, but a familiar caw stopped him and drew his attention. Sitting on the top of a nearby traffic signal was one of his ravens. He’d only called his birds, Huginn and Muninn, back into service within the last few weeks; Odin needed more than one set of eyes and ears out there for him. Muninn’s oily black feathers puffed up then resettled as he waited for his commands.

Odin looked around quickly to see if anyone was paying him any attention, then to the raven he said, “Keep looking for Loki and the two Mares. If you find any of them, return to me immediately.”

Muninn squawked before taking flight. Odin smoothed the collar of his coat and started toward the building once more. Walking through the doors, he saw there were stalls set up selling t-shirts with promoter logos all over them. He bypassed the merchandise stands, following the steady stream of people entering through a secondary set of doors into the arena. A security guard stopped him before he could walk through.

“Hey, man, you got a ticket or what?”

Odin turned to him. “No. Where can I get one?”

“Box office is out the front,” the guy replied, pointing back the way Odin had come. He was already reaching for the next person’s ticket as Odin retreated back outside. He didn’t have time for this. Stepping away from the crowd, he faded into the arena.

Inside, the noise was nearly unbearable. Thousands of people were milling around the tiered seating rising up on three sides of the room. In the center was an eight-sided ring on top of a four foot high platform. Surrounded by a chain-link fence covered in black vinyl, the letters
XFO
were printed in the middle of the ring. Hanging from the rafters were three huge screens, currently showing advertisements for other fights coming up.

 “Ladies and gentleman, ten minutes to go. That’s ten minutes before our first fight begins,” the announcer said over the PA system, his voice booming into the mass of noise. Moving through the crowd, Odin selected a seat a few rows behind the judges and sat down.

A man wearing a suit stepped into the ring and a hush fell over the crowd. Into the microcell phone he said, “Good evening, folks, and welcome to the University of Illinois at Chicago. We have six bouts lined up for you tonight, each consisting of five five-minute rounds. The final fight is for the XFO Middleweight Championship …”

*

The crowd erupted into cheers. Thor could hear them clapping at a frenetic pace even down in the locker rooms where he and his combined corner and cut man … woman … was taping up his fists.

“Big crowd,” Lilith murmured, pulling another long strip of tape off the roll and tearing it with her teeth. Thor glanced at the goddess and grunted. “Nervous?” She wrapped the tape around his hand, securing the gauze bandage already in place.

“What do you think?” he shot back.

She shrugged, unaffected by his bad mood. “This guy is twenty-two and oh.”

“So?”

Lilith glared at him. “You might actually have to work to win this one.”

“It’ll be nice for a change then,” Thor replied, squeezing his hand into a fist to test the tension in the tape. “Do this one again. It needs to be tighter.”

Lilith rolled her eyes and started pulling off the tape.

“You can be a real bitch sometimes. Do you know that?”

She cocked a brow at him. “Good thing you’re an asshole so you don’t give a shit how much of a bitch I am.”

Thor tried to stifle his smile. The goddess had a point.

Outside, the sound of the announcer hyping up the crowd intruded on Thor’s pre-fight tranquillity. “And now, introducing our first fighters; in the red corner, fighting out of San Diego, California, at five foot ten, weighing in at one hundred and eighty three pounds…”

“How’s the knee feeling?”

Thor had torn his ACL a couple of weeks before. Being a god, he’d healed in two weeks from an injury that would have sidelined most humans for up to six months. “Fine.”

Lilith finished the strapping, shaking her head at him. “Asshole,” she muttered under her breath.

Even though she was just as surly as he was, Thor couldn’t have prepped for any fight as well as he did without her there. One of the other fighter’s corner men came into the room, knocking on the jamb a couple of times to get their attention.

“You got any tape I can borrow?” he asked Thor, completely ignoring Lilith. Thor looked over at the goddess then back to the human.

“Ask her. I don’t know,” he replied, sitting back to watch the sparks fly. Lilith was overlooked by every man in the sport unless they were looking to get their cocks sucked. The guy’s eyes shifted to Lilith, his gaze drifting down to check out her tits. The goddess’s anger boiled over. A full roll of tape was suddenly sent flying, hitting the guy in the face. It dropped to the floor with a
thud
.

“What the fuck?” the human bellowed, stepping into the room and getting up in Lilith’s grill.

Lilith stood toe-to-toe with the guy, her petite hands curling into fists. “You fucking misogynist bastard!”

“You raging bitch!” he yelled back, his face getting redder and redder. “Women have no place in this sport unless they’re on their knees.”

Lilith threw herself at him, tackling him to the ground. A flurry of punches rained down on his face and body. Thor stood to pull her off him. The female could inflict a hell of a lot of damage when left unchecked. Hauling her up, he held her back while the other guy recovered. He had a bloody nose and a busted lip. He pulled himself off the floor and retreated from the room, Lilith throwing more insults involving him giving fellatio to a goat.

Thor chuckled, releasing the goddess. “You’re a hellcat, aren’t you?”

Lilith grinned. “You’re only just realizing this now?” she said, going to the ice bucket and putting a few cubes into a towel. She held them over her knuckles for a moment. “I think I broke my hand punching that bastard’s hard head.”

They fell into their usual pre-fight routine with Thor putting on some headcell phones and cranking up 50 Cent’s “Patiently Waiting”, while Lilith pulled out a worn and dog-eared paperback and curled up in a chair in the corner. Half an hour later, an official came and checked Thor’s wraps. With about twenty minutes to go, Thor got Lilith to massage his legs, making sure his muscles stayed limber.

“Thor, you’re up next,” Lilith said, interrupting his thoughts. He looked at the muted TV hanging on the wall. The final match before the main event was coming to an end. The goddess threw him a sponsor shirt and picked up his towel. Together they made their way to the start of the tunnel, waiting for their cue.

Ten minutes later, Thor was walking toward the ring. People were crammed into the venue, spilling over the barricades. A lot of women were leaning over the railings, trying to touch him. Lilith did her best to make sure he wasn’t harassed too much, but whatever. This was a part of fame he just had to deal with.

His career as a mixed martial arts fighter had been gradual. He’d had to work his way up through the training gym just like any human would have. He’d spent years learning Muay Thai, kickboxing and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu along with other similar disciplines until finally someone had taken notice of him. And although he was still the god of thunder, Thor’s superhuman strength only manifested when he was holding his war hammer, Mjolnir.

The ringside physician looked him over, asking him to squeeze his hands, breathe in deeply a few times. He finished by shining a flashlight in his eyes. Obviously satisfied Thor wasn’t carrying any glaring injuries, the physician gave him the go-ahead to continue. Thor took off his shirt. Some women standing close by screamed when they saw his naked chest. His tattoos always got him a lot of attention. Lilith applied petroleum jelly to his eyebrows to stop blood getting into his eyes and again to the bridge of his nose, then took his shirt from him. Thor climbed into the ring, pacing his side of the mat.

The announcer stepped into the center after him, his microcell phone in hand. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is the main event of the evening! Introducing first, fighting out of the blue corner with a professional record of twenty-two wins, no draws, one no contest; he stands five feet seven inches tall, weighing in at one hundred and seventy pounds; fighting out of Sao Paulo, Brazil. He is Anderson Souza!”

Thor watched his opponent waving to the crowd. He was confident and Thor couldn’t wait to beat it out of him.

“And now, introducing his opponent,” the announcer said. “Fighting out of the red corner with a professional record of thirty wins, no draws, zero no contests; weighing in at one hundred and eighty-five pounds; fighting out of Chicago, Illinois, presenting the former XFO lightweight and former XFO welterweight champion, Thor!” The cheer that greeted him was deafening. From the corner of his eye he saw a woman flashing her tits at him, but he kept his focus on Souza.

The match began with Souza coming at him, trying to get them down on the mats. The human was good at grappling, having obviously perfected the art of Jiu-Jitsu, but Thor had the superior strength. By the end of the second round, he’d put Souza into three submission holds, but the Brazilian had broken free each time. Thor had let him, of course. He wanted to give everyone value for money. They traded blows in the fourth round, and by the fifth, Thor had had enough. He got Souza into a chokehold against the cage and it was all over.

The roar that filled the arena made Thor’s ears throb. He stood back while the physician hopped into the ring and checked the downed man. Lilith slapped Thor hard on the back and thrust his sponsor’s shirt at his chest.

“Great win,” she said, grinning. She was on a fucking high from the victory, and so was he. Souza regained consciousness a few minutes later. He got to his feet and walked to Thor with his hand extended.

“Good fight,” the guy said as they embraced quickly.

“Yes,” Thor agreed. It was a good fight. Souza’s team crowded at his back, pulling him away while the announcer stepped toward Thor. Pulling the shirt over his head, he waited for the post-match questions.

“Thor, this makes your record thirty-one and oh. How does that feel?” The guy shoved the mic under his nose.

“Great.”

“You didn’t look stiff out there at all.”

“That’s because I wasn’t.” Nobody other than Lilith knew about his torn ACL. Everyone else thought he’d just sprained his knee and was out for a few weeks while he rested up.

“Did you have a plan coming in tonight?”

“To win.” Sometimes Thor hated these post-match interviews. All he was here to do was fight.

The announcer hesitated, probably sensing he wasn’t going to get much more out of him. “Well, it was a great fight. Congratulations.” He turned to the crowd and raised Thor’s arm into the air. “Ladies and gentleman, your XFO Middleweight Champion – Thor!”