Truth's Heart (The Valkyrie's Passion Book 3): A Valkyrie/Shifter Romance (16 page)

He had to find his brother and beg for Baldur's forgiveness.

~   ~   ~

Magnus

I howled as the pain gripped me. I writhed on the ground, my body refusing to move. The electricity had coursed through every part of my body. All my nerves ached. My heart stuttered in my chest. I gasped for breath, struggling to move.

I couldn't. So I donned the wolf's cloak.

Fur sprouted from my body. My vision dimmed red. I howled again as the fury burst out of me. My body grew stronger, faster, agiler. I was the wolf. The Einherjer of Raven. My teeth hungered for blood and my claws yearned to tear flesh.

Ignoring the ache covering my body, I gained my feet. My Valkyrie hurtled past, borne by powerful winds. She slammed into the ground with a grunt. Bolts of lightning cracked down out of the blue sky, trying to kill my Valkyrie.

My gaze fixed on Frigg and her wand. The crone tried to kill my Valkyrie. I howled for her blood and charged across the grass, Heimdall's ax leaving a trail of rainbows in my wake. The crone's eyes were fixed on Raven.

I leaped.

Her gaze turned from Raven and fixed on me. Her eyes widened. I savored the fear in her eyes. I held Heimdall's ax. I would kill the crone for hurting my Valkyrie. I howled again, letting her know my fury and rage.

Her wand pointed at me and fire exploded in my face.

~   ~   ~

Raven

I groaned as I sat up, my armor rattling. I shook my head, trying to clear the fuzz away. My ears rang, a high-pitched hum that I ignored as I stood up. Truth's Heart on my finger pulsed and throbbed, the magic eager to counteract the Brisingamen.

I cast my eyes about the battlefield. Fire exploded, engulfing Magnus. I gasped, my heart clenching in fear. Magnus's furry body emerged through the fire. He held the ax before him, the rainbow light streaming around his body, protecting him from the flames. He howled and landed before Frigg, his ax swinging at the old woman's flesh.

I winced. Frigg was just another victim of Loki's lies. Only Loki should be killed, but she was too much of a threat to ignore.

The earth burst up at her feet, a gray, rocky wall separating Magnus and the crone. Heimdall's ax crashed into the barrier. It cracked. Magnus howled and struck the barrier again and again, pulverizing the shield into dust to get at the witch.

Magnus would be fine. I needed to deal with the Lokis.

Tyr and Loki-Odin dueled, the pair evenly matched. I wasn't worried about the god. My sister was the one in trouble as she fought Loki-Baldur. The Brisingamen made Loki's clones impervious to wounds. He let Brynhilda slam her sword into his guts and Sayyid massive, clawed paws to rake across his flesh. By letting himself be hit, he could respond and injure my sister and her werebear Einherjer.

Blood streamed down Sayyid's hulking, brown-furred body. He roared as he kept slashing with powerful swipes that should have torn massive chunks of flesh from Loki-Baldur's flesh. But the bastard only laughed.

“You cannot hurt me,” he exclaimed. “I am a shade. I have already died. Why do you force me to hurt you?”

“We see through your lies, Loki,” snarled Brynhilda.

I was the only one that could hurt Loki. Magnus occupied Frigg. She no longer threw spells down at me. I was free to charge in and kill the next Loki-clone. I raced across the battlefield, my sword gripped in my hand.

“Loki!” I snarled, my anger boiling out of me.

The confidence on Loki-Baldur's face vanished. His already pale features seemed devoid of any color now. He cast a gaze at Frigg and cursed as the crone threw elemental magic at Magnus to keep the berserked werewolf at bay.

“Mother,” Loki-Baldur gasped. “She is coming to slay my shade. You must deliver justice. Please, Mother.”

But Frigg did not hear Loki over the claps of thunder and roar of fire about her. I grinned, savoring the fear in my enemy. He had been so confident when he appeared at the hot springs to taunt me. The prick thought he had won.

I was more than happy to disabuse him of that idea.

Loki-Baldur raised his glowing sword as I swung my weapon. Our blades met in a flash of light and a scream of the dying. Dark flames burned hotter as I grit my teeth and kept pressing against his blade. He groaned, struggling to hold my sword at bay.

“Please, Mother,” he shouted, his voice scared and cracking like a boy's.

“That's right,” I grinned. “Be afraid. I am Raven, daughter of Sigrid and Ragnar. I am here to mete out the justice for Baldur, Owen, Thor, and Lynette. I will kill you, Loki.”

“How?” he demanded, taking a step back, yielding to my strength. “What did the dwarves forge for you?”

“Truth.”

Loki-Baldur's eyebrows furrowed. Confusion stained his light-blue eyes. Then his body flickered for a heartbeat. It was like he tried to teleport, but the ring kept him in place with a flash of gold. The fear blossomed in his eyes as he realized there was no escape from the truth.

“Raven,” Loki-Baldur said, licking his lips, “let's not be hasty. Killing me would be such a mistake. There is so much I could do for you.”

“Like?” I demanded.

“I could give you gold and jewels.”

“Not a jewelry kinda girl.”

“Power. You could rule Midgard. Or one of the other worlds. You could make them better places with your kindness. You have a great heart, Raven.”

“Sounds like a headache,” I shrugged.

“What can I give you?” he demanded.

“You could undo the villainy you committed,” I snarled. “You could restore Odin and Baldur to life. You could bring back my sister Lynette and her Einherjer. You could see that Thor breathes again, and all the blood staining my hands is washed clean. Can you do that?”

“Of course I can,” Loki-Baldur said. “Hel is my daughter. We can convince her to release their shades and restore them to life. It'll be simple. Just lower your sword and we can stop fighting.”

“But you're a liar, Loki, remember.” A vicious grin crossed my lips. “You tell naught but lies.”

I swung my sword again. He flinched, parrying with his own.

“She is my daughter,” Loki-Baldur protested. “The souls of the dead are in her care. She can release them. I never lie, Raven, when I can use the truth. I will give you my word, lower your weapon and I shall undo all the villainy you claim I have committed. And not just their souls. Your parents'.”

“Are dead. You cannot bring them back. I will not be tricked again.” I hammered my sword at him, driving him back. Brynhilda and Sayyid watched me. My sister's eyes were fierce, her grin vicious. “There is no escaping, Loki. There is no lie you can tell or trick you can perform that will—”

The ground shook hard. I stumbled in mid-swing. I tried to catch myself but the ground moved beneath my feet. I fell onto my back with a loud clatter, my breath bursting from my lungs. Loki-Baldur drew back his sword, triumph burning on his face.

“It seems I do have a few tricks left,” he laughed.

His sword lunged at my chest.

A man hugged Loki-Baldur from behind, wrapping strong limbs about him. The hug pinned Loki-Baldur's sword arm to his sides, stopping the blade's lunge before it could find my flesh. A face, similar to Baldur's, but lacking the subtle qualities that made Baldur's beautiful and this new man's only average. A cloth wrapped about his eyes.

“Hother?” I whispered.

“I am so sorry, brother,” sobbed the blind god, his arms tight about Loki-Baldur. “I did not know. Truly. I thought the javelin would bounce off of you. You were supposed to be impervious to anything of Midgard. Please, brother, please. Forgive my stupidity.”

“Get off of me,” Loki-Baldur snarled. “You do not have my forgiveness, but my curse.”

“Brother,” groaned Hother, his tears leaking from beneath his blindfold. “Please. I love you, brother. I never meant you harm. I beg of you for your forgiveness.”

Loki-Baldur struggled in Hother's grip. I recovered and lunged with my sword. It pierced Loki-Baldur's chest. The trickster's eyes widened as he stared at the darkly burning sword buried into his heart.

“No,” Loki-Baldur groaned.

“Yes,” I smiled as I twisted her blade. “Only one left.”

Loki-Baldur howled in pain. He convulsed in Hother's sobbing embrace, and then his body became lumpy clay. The features softened and then the third clone of Loki crumbled into wet lumps of clay in Hother's arms.

“No,” the blind god sobbed, holding the clay to his chest. “No, brother, no. Please. I'm so sorry.”

~   ~   ~

“No,” Baldur screamed, his voice full of pain. The heart-rending sound cut through Frigg's mad terror as she dueled Magnus.

Frigg's heart clenched at the sound of her beloved son's death kneel. She slammed a violent swirl of wind into the Einherjer, throwing him away as her gaze found Baldur. He stood in Hother's embrace, the treacherous Valkyrie's sword impaled deep into Frigg's beautiful son's chest.

“No,” she croaked, her hand going to her breast as her heart seized. The shade of her son had been slain and—

Baldur turned into a clay figure before sloughing into piles of wet mud that squeezed through Hother's arms and hands. Frigg's breath caught. He eyes widened in horror. An anger seized her heart and then burst out of her in a scream.

“Loki! My Brisingamen!” She recognized the clay figure. When she possessed the Brisingamen, before it was stolen from her, she had made clay clones just like that, allowing her to be in multiple places, to appear different and hide her aging flesh. She had long suspected Loki of its theft and her own husband's complicity in the action.

And now Loki had used it to pretend to be her dead son.

“You tricked me,” she hissed, turning her gaze to the shade of her husband dueling Tyr. “Loki.” Magic gathered around her. “You are a thief and a murderer. It was you! The Valkyrie told the truth. You poisoned me with lies and...”

Her eyes widened. The world shook again.

Jormungandr burst through Valhalla. The mighty hall's timbers splintered into kindling that crashed around the towering bulk of the wyrm. A cloud of dust billowed from her husband's collapsing hall. Loki's foul child rose high into the air as it crawled out of the ruins of the hall. The dust washed over Frigg like a crashing, brown wave breaking on the shore.

Jormungandr roared. Asgard shook.

“I've unleashed the end of the gods,” Frigg realized in horror. Her wand slipped from her grasp as the mighty wyrm crashed onto its belly, crushing Baldur's hall in another explosion of splintered wood and dust. “I've killed us all.”

Chapter Twenty

Magnus

Heimdall's ax almost fell from my grip as I stared at the massive wyrm that had burst through the ground. It seemed as long as a ten or fifteen-story building and thicker than any house. It had three jaws that split open the entire front of its body. Each triangular jaw was lined with jagged teeth as big as my body. The wyrm bellowed as it slithered forward. Thick, writhing tentacles lashed out from its armored body, destroying everything they touched. The surviving ruins of the two halls were torn down, the logs hurtled at the other buildings.

The beast reveled in destruction.

My fury almost slipped from me as I stared at the massive thing. The hatred I had for Frigg had vanished as fear almost consumed me. How could we fight something that huge? That massive?

Odin strode forward, his body flowing like worked clay until the handsome visage of Loki emerged, dressed in his impeccably tailored, Italian suit, a cocky smile on his face. He marched without fear toward the wyrm, his disguise finally abandoned. Did the Brisingamen still protect him?

Could I kill him?

“Jormungandr, my son,” Loki greeted. “How wonderful it is to see you.”

Jormungandr? The Midgard Serpent? My bowels clenched. The worst monster of Norse mythology had been freed from its prison in the roots of the Yggdrasil. Its massive body slithering up the trunk of the World Tree had been the source of Asgard's shaking.

“I've killed us all,” Frigg moaned behind me. “We are doomed. The World Eater has been unleashed.”

“How I missed you, my son,” Loki said as he the massive wyrm. “I—”

A massive tentacle cracked into Loki's chest. The wyrm roared as it sent its father flying across the ground. Loki screamed in pain and crashed into the wall of a hall with a loud snap of bones. He screamed in agony as he fell broken onto the porch. When Loki abandoned his transformation with the Brisingamen to greet his son, he left himself vulnerable. But as much as I wanted to race over there and rip off his head, the reality of Jormungandr was too much of a threat to ignore. Its tentacles slashed out and destroying more buildings as it slithered around to face us.

“He'll consume all the worlds,” Frigg shouted, the crone racing up beside me.

Tyr joined her, his face pale. “He will keep eating and eating until he has devoured everything. We must find a way to stop him here.”

“My madness doomed us all,” Frigg wept.

“We're not doomed yet,” Raven declared, striding up to my other side, so strong and fierce. She nodded at me.

I snarled back.

We charged Jormungandr.

~   ~   ~

Raven

We all charged at the wyrm as it slithered towards us. The ground shook with its every movement. Thick tentacles crashed towards us, forcing us to scatter. Sayyid roared with rage as he tore into one tentacle. My sister's sword slashed and hacked while Frigg's elemental magic crashed into the purple, armored hide.

Blinding light crashed into the wyrm from the other side. A beautiful, frail woman, her face smeared with ash and tears, threw more light at the beast as she stood beside a funeral pyre. The widowed goddess's light was as ineffective as Frigg's magic.

My sword slammed into a tentacle. It was thicker than my body. My sword bit deep. Purple ichor squirted. A horrible stench filled my mouth. I tried not to gag as I swung again, severing the tentacle. The appendage writhed and slammed into my stomach.

I grunted as I was thrown back into Magnus. His furry strength seized me, cradled me, and set me down on the ground. “There must be a place of vulnerability,” he snarled. “We have to find it.”