Truth's Heart (The Valkyrie's Passion Book 3): A Valkyrie/Shifter Romance (12 page)

The kiss was fake.

Loki. Surt's words jolted through my mind: “He didn't pay me enough to fight such annoying maggots.”

Loki-Magnus's hands slid down to grab my ass, pulling me against the familiar, hard bulge beneath the jeans. The bastard took my lover's form to seduce me. My anger burst inside of me, pouring lava through my veins.

I held my right hand before Loki-Magnus's stomach and summoned my sword.

Fire swirled and then the blade materialized. Loki-Magnus stiffened as my sword appeared inside his chest, impaling him in a heartbeat. He released me, stumbling back. Red blood gushed out of his chest right below the tattoo of dragon holding the woman. Truth's Heart burned around my finger.

“Raven?” Loki-Magnus asked, his eyes filling with pain, shock painting his face. “What? You...” Betrayal accused me in his eyes. It was a perfect act.

“I know it's you, Loki,” I snarled. “I know my wolf better than you think.”

“No,” croaked Loki-Magnus. He staggered back, leaving a smear of blood on my burning blade. The screams of the slain cackled louder as Loki-Magnus stumbled off the blade and fell on the ground. Blood bubbled out of his lips. “It's me.” Loki-Magnus reached for me, his fingers pleading. “Wh-what did you do, Raven?”

Tears burned in his eyes. He struggled to touch me with his hand. The hurt painting his face smothered my anger. I swallowed. He had to be Loki-Magnus. I wasn't being paranoid. I didn't stab my lover. I stabbed one of Loki's doppelgangers.

“I...I...love you, Raven,” he croaked. His body shuddered. He opened his mouth and coughed up blood. His eyes locked on mine. They twisted in pain, accusing me. I stared into them, searching for the truth.

Please, please, be Loki.

“You're Loki,” I repeated, forcing myself to keep looking at him even as my heart screamed at me to save him.. “And when this form dies, you won't be getting it back. It's gone forever, Loki.”

Loki-Magnus's eyes widened. He clutched the wound. “How?”

Relief swept through me. The pain turned to fear. Loki-Magnus let out a groan of pain and he shuddered. His breathing became a wet wheeze. I moved closer and knelt beside him. I stared down into those fearful depths.

“I found a way to kill you, Loki,” I hissed. “You are going to pay for all the blood you forced me to spill.”

Loki-Magnus let out a final breath. And then his body blurred and rippled. The clothing faded, the body shrunk. The skin became a sallow-gray, smooth and hairless. The features of the face dulled to the merest hints of eyes, nose, mouth, eyebrows, and cheekbones. The ears were tiny bumps. The body appeared made of clay, sculpted into the rough shape of a man, a canvas that could be molded into any form.

“One down,” I groaned then forced myself to stand on my aching knee. I looked around. The dust had cleared. The black, glassy spire rose to my right. Where was my Magnus?

Chapter Fourteen

Magnus

The touch of soft hands stirred me. A beautiful voice called to me. A voice that should fill the night with song. The hands held my face, fingers caressing me. My eyes fluttered open. A black-haired woman stared down at me, her blue eyes glistening.

“My beauty,” I croaked. “My Boudica.”

Raven leaned down and kissed me on the mouth. The warmth of her lips shocked energy through my aching body. I forced my right arm to move. My hand seized the back of her neck, holding her to my lips as I savored the feel of her silky lips and savored her taste.

“It's you,” she grinned, tears raining out of her eyes and splashing on my cheeks. “It's you.”

“Who did you think...Loki?”

“I killed one of his forms pretending to be you.” Her smile was vicious. “I watched him die with fear in his eyes. He knows we can hurt him. He knows he's not invulnerable.”

She kissed me again. Her tongue thrust into my mouth as her arms hugged me. I fought against the groan as my ribs, broken again, ached my side. The pain was worth it to share this moment of victory with my Valkyrie.

We had dealt Loki a powerful blow. We had sent him reeling.

Raven broke the kiss. “Sorry.”

I guess I didn't hide my pain as well as I thought. I caressed her cheek. “Don't be. I needed to feel alive. Help me up.”

I grit my teeth against the pain in my ribs as she sat me up then slipped beneath my arm. Together, we stood. I leaned on her. It was nice having someone I could lean on every once in a while. I had always been close to my brothers in the Black Wolves, but I never could have shown such weakness to them. I had to be the strongest always. The alpha. 

Raven didn't think I was weak because I needed a little help right now.

“How do we find our way back?” Raven asked, looking around at the plain surrounding the black spire.

The dust had settled. The ground was marred with craters and snaking cracks caused by Surt's footsteps and punches. But the spire looked undamaged. And there was no sign of the giant's massive body.

“Did you kill him?”

“Loki didn't pay him enough to deal with me stabbing his shinbone,” Raven laughed. “He stormed off to pout.”

I grunted and winced at the pain racing across my ribs.

“You need to stop being hit in the chest,” Raven said. “You're too heavy for me to carry you like this all the time.”

“I'll work on it,” I groaned. “Let's find the back door we came down. From there, I can get us back to the Yggdrasil root.”

“Then it's back to Washington,” Raven sighed. “It seems pointless for us to have even left.”

“We wouldn't have met the dwarves,” I shrugged. “You wouldn't have gotten Truth's Heart. That seems fairly important.”

“Yeah, I guess it does.”

We walked in silence as we circled the spire. The pain eased in my chest. It was nice having superhuman healing powers. I just wish those powers kept me from having cracked ribs to begin with. I guess a few broken ribs was a small price to pay to survive being punted by a giant's fist and thrown half a mile.

When we found the back door, I turned in the direction we came and sighted on the nearest pool of bubbling magma. It was a trick I learned. To keep a straight line, you pick on object or landmark that lies on your bearing and walk to it. When you reach it, you find the next distant object on your bearing. You keep repeating until you get where you're going. 

That was how I led us away from the Yggdrasil's root, and that was how I planned on getting us back to it.

It wasn't long before I didn't need Raven's help to walk. The burning in my side softened into the occasional stab of pain. My steps grew firmer. The water provided by Alfrik helped. It was cool and washed away the dust clinging to my lips. My steps grew stronger, but I was loath to stop leaning on Raven.

I liked it. There was something intimate about relying on someone else, to have someone I trusted absolutely.

The spire dwindled behind us as we navigated around the bubbling pools of lava and tried not to inhale the sulfurous reek that perfumed the plain. There were traces of our original walk out to the spire, our footprints scraping through thicker piles of the rusted-iron dust.

“I guess you know what you were doing,” Raven said. “I think that's the root ahead.”

“You have sharp eyes,” I frowned, seeing nothing about more pools of lava that stretched towards the distant horizon.

“It's something gray rising above the pool.” She looked up at me. “You are older than me. Maybe you need bifocals.”

“I'm seven years older than you,” I grunted. “Hardly an old man.”

“Mmm, you'd be a sexy old man though,” she giggled.

“You don't have a secret daddy fetish, do you?” Magnus asked. “It gets weird when a girl asks you to spank her ass while she calls you daddy.”

“Eww, no,” Raven grimaced. “But, well, maybe you could spank my ass sometimes. Haleigh told me she likes it when Kris does it. Particularly when they're doing it doggy style.”

I slid my hand down and squeezed her ass through her jeans. “I can do that for you.”

Her cheeks blushed, and we trudged in silence. Above the pool, a line of gray became distinct, rising out of the lava and twisting before it faded out of existence. We had found the Yggdrasil root. I was eager to leave Muspellheim behind.

~   ~   ~

Raven

“So, how do we get on that?” I asked, looking up at the root. It rose ten feet high, out of reach of both of us. We couldn't get to the base. I didn't think either of us could take a dunking in lava.

Magnus looked up at it, his hand rubbing at his whiskered chin. “It's really all up to you, Raven.”

“What do you expect me to do? Fly up there?” I glanced at Magnus. “I'm named after the bird. It doesn't mean I can fly.”

“Flying's not involved.” He turned to me. “I'll boost you up. You grab it, then you lift me.”

Her eyes widened. “You have a hundred pounds on me, Magnus. How am I supposed to haul you up?”

“You're a Valkyrie,” he grinned then cupped his hands before him. “Come on. This is the only way.”

I glanced up at the root, then down at him. He had to be crazy. I wasn't stronger than normal, right? Just tougher. There was no way I could lift that much weight. He had to weigh 225 pounds or more. It wasn't physically possible for me.

“Come on, Raven,” he grinned. “We have to try.”

“Okay,” I sighed. I put my left foot into his cupped hand. I grabbed his hair as he suddenly lifted me up. I squeaked, swaying as I struggled to stay balance.

“Let go of my hair,” he groaned. “And reach up.”

Swallowing, I did, my body shifting as he lifted me higher. My hands reached up for the root. I was all too aware of the pool of lava bubbling happily away only feet from us. If I fell wrong, I would find out if I was lava proof.

I did not want to find that out.

My fingers reached. I snagged the rough, gray bark of the root. I gripped it and then swung my legs up, wrapping them around the root and hugging it as I dangled beneath it. I shifted my weight and then hauled myself onto the root's top.

“This is not going to work,” I moaned.

“It will,” Magnus snarled as he changed. He became the furry werewolf. He growled as he crouched and leaped for my dangling hand.

Magnus jumped higher than a normal human. If his ribs weren't still tender, I was sure he wouldn't need my help at all. My hand snagged his paw. I groaned as his weight wrenched at my shoulder. My body twisted on the root, the bark rasping against my jeans and right arm. I yelped as I kept a tight grip.

My hair fell in my face and mouth. I sputtered to spit it out while Magnus swung on my arm. “I can't,” I screamed. “You're too heavy. My arm's gonna rip off.”

The pain in my shoulder swelled. Magnus growled and then kicked his legs violently forward, swinging his body on my arm. He twisted his body, hooking the root with his foot above my knees and below my lone elbow. He twisted in a way only a werewolf could, his back almost folding in half, and then he let go and gained the root, crouching on it.

“See,” he grinned at me. It was a strange sight, his lips curling back to expose his fangs, a long, pink tongue lolling out.

“Good,” I groaned. “Help me up now. You almost dislocated my shoulder.”

“You were strong enough.” He reached out as he changed back, grasping me with his human hand and hauling me up before him on the root. He stood right before it merged into misty nothing leading off to the Bifrost and back to Midgard.

“Let's never come here again,” I told him, “unless we bring a step-ladder. I'm not doing that again.”

“When we stop for the night, I'll massage your shoulders.”

“I'll need my whole body massaged,” I muttered. I glanced at the place where reality melted away. “Well, let's get this over with.”

Chapter Fifteen

Raven

Magnus and I stepped off the Bifrost into Midgard together. The curtain parted, and a chill engulfed us. Birds sang in the trees, welcoming the sun rising and spilling her light across the world. The hot springs below had been cleaned up. Thor's body had been removed along with the wreckage of Magnus's bike. Steam rose from the warm water, forming a mist that spilled out onto the man-made rock wall constraining the spring.

“Hello, sister,” a cold voice said.

I jumped as Magnus snarled. I shifted on the Yggdrasil's root. Stepping up to the spring from three directions were two women and a man. The women were tall, fierce, both with blue eyes and black hair. They looked enough alike to be sisters. A scar marred the cheek of one, pale against the rage burning in her face. The other had her black hair gathered in a single, thick braid that fell over her left shoulder. The last figure was a burly man, wearing only a pair of jeans, his skin ebony, his head shaved, and his body covered in so many scars.

“Sister?” I swallowed, tensing as I stood on the root. My eyes widened as the ring tightened and pulsed on my finger. The women almost looked like me. The same high-cheek bones, the same raven hair, the same chins. The differences were subtle, the woman with a scar had a large nose, the woman with a braid thin lips.

“Valkyries?” Magnus demanded.

A flaming sword sprang into the scar-faced woman's hand, silver and bright, her fire burning pure, not corrupted by Gungnir's victims. The man crouched. He had a wide face and snorted almost like a bear.

“And one of them has an Einherjer,” Magnus added.

“You're my sisters?” I said, my voice cracking as I gazed at them. I could see my mother in their faces and my father in their stances. “I...I...”

“Our parents lived a thousand years,” scar-faced growled. “Did you think you were their only daughter?”

“I...” Tears burned in my eyes. I leaped down from the roots and landed in the warm water. It sank up to my waist, soaking my pants and splashing around me. “I didn't know.”

“Raven,” Magnus snarled, dropping after me as I waded through the water towards the scar-faced woman. “Stop.”

I ignored him. I had family. I opened my arms wide.

Then froze.

The scar-faced woman's sword leveled at my chest, her feet shifting into a fighting stance. I swallowed, reading her body posture. She was tense, ready to ram that sword through my chest. My arms faltered.