Page 31 of Valkyrie Restored

She chuckled before clasping her opposing wrists and stretching her arms over her head. “Then I’m all yours.”

Despite being a horse, a growl left my chest. I wanted her. I needed her. I crawled onto the bed, hovering over her. Her eyes darkened, drawing me in. I leaned closer.

“Eh-hem.” Arran cleared his throat, knocking some sense into me. We’d made a plan, a pact of sorts, not to take things too physical until we told her everything. It wouldn’t be fair to her in case she wanted to leave us. I’d agreed to the plan, but looking at her, staring up at me with a look of adoration, the softness of her smile, it made it hard to remember why I was holding back.

Instead of taking things too far, I pressed a kiss to the tip of her nose before pulling back. I snagged her hand and pulled her off the bed with me. “Come, let’s show you the rest. Then after a snack, there’s something we’d like to show you outside.”

Aran gave a quick jerk of his head in surprise as we walked past but remained quiet, proving I was right to move up our timeline. But his reluctance was an issue I needed to deal with, I just didn’t know what to say. All the words I had; he knew them. He’d been the one to use them on me, to talk me down when I didn’t believe. Yet I needed to try. So while we showed Elin the wing on the right, I wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “Stop being me, you broody bastard. It’ll all be alright. I promise.”

And I believed it… right up to the moment we stood outside near the water as we prepared to reveal our true selves to her. Then the fear took over.

21

Elin

I stoodon the edge of the shore near the windsock, wrapped up in my winter coat, boots, and gloves. It wasn’t extremely cold, but the wind had a bite to it. Questions raced around my mind like a hamster on a wheel. Why did we have to come outside to talk? And why on the edge of the water? It wasn’t like I could see the open water from this spot. All I could see was snow and small rises in the ground from this vantage point.

Not that those two questions were the only ones I had. What did they want to talk about ranked high on the list? So did the question about why Arran was acting so strange. My normal jokester and happy-go-lucky guy, the one who was touchy feely, barely touched me since we landed. No, that was wrong. He’d barely touched me since him and Hurrit left my house after the supper we shared two nights ago. It hadn’t bothered me at first since we were all so busy finishing up different projects so we could take this trip. Stores clamoured for extra stock in preparation for the various Thanksgiving and harvest festivals in the area and I’d wanted to complete them so that Daisy could distribute them for me. She’d offered after I told her about my quasi-impromptu vacation. The extra hours meant that I’d crawled into bed last night alone and without having seen either Hurrit or Arran. Even this morning, I only received a chaste kiss on the cheek from him before Hurrit led me to the aircraft. There’d nothing since we landed, causing all my previous doubts to surface.

“Are you okay? Cold?” Hurrit rubbed his palms up and down my arms. Although I wore a parka, neither he nor Arran even wore a coat.

“I’m fine, but aren’t you cold?”

He shrugged, kissed my forehead, and then winked. “I’m good. Besides, we’ll soon be wearing even less.”

Before I could ask for an explanation Arran called him over onto the ice. Only the soft murmurs of their voices carried on the wind. I shuffled my feet. Why were we out here if they weren’t going to talk to me? I mean, they’d made such a big deal about needing to be outside to have this conversation, yet, here I stood, metaphorically twiddling my thumbs.

After a number of hand gestures by both, some nods, some shrugs, and many covert glances at me, Hurrit wrapped his arm around Arran and pulled him back to me. When neither one of them spoke, I stomped my feet to get some feeling back in them.

“If we’re not going to have this conversation, I’m going to head back to the house. The hot tub is calling my name.” I spun on my heel only to be pulled up short when Hurrit grabbed my arm.

“Please don’t leave just yet. There’s something we need to tell you, to show you, but we’ve never done this before. And we don’t know where to start or how to say it.”

My gaze darted from Hurrit to Arran and back again. Only Hurrit would meet it while Arran stared past me at the snow. My self-confident guy looked like a shell of himself, and I found myself reaching out to grab his hand. “I may not be the best at telling people things, but I’ve found that it’s easier when I don’t think about it and just blurt it out. Sort of like ripping off the Band-Aid.”

“We’re not human.” Arran pulled his hand from mine, shoving it into the front pocket of his jeans.

My mouth dropped open.Did he say they weren’t human? He’s got to be joking, right? Or has my brain stuff started producing auditory hallucinations?

“It’s true.” Hurrit took a step back, widening the gap between us. “The world isn’t what you thought it was.”

“Those stories about gods and goddesses, they’re all true. All those mythological creatures are real, lass.”

I stared at them for a full minute before the laughter bubbled up in me. Gods. Goddesses. Mythological creatures… as if. That was the very definition of mythological. It was something fabled, fictitious, not true. Obviously they were joking with me, I just didn’t know why. “Seriously guys? That’s why you brought me out here? Okay. You’ve had your fun. Now can we go back into the house and get into the hot tub?”

Hurrit and Arran shared a look that wiped the smile off my face and silenced my chuckles. Neither one of them had ever looked more serious. Not even when Arran explained how they had a quasi-open relationship and wanted me to date them.

“You-you’re serious?”

They nodded.

“B-but how? Why?” As I asked those questions, something unnatural came over me. It felt like all those times when I’d come across those wild animals that shouldn’t have been there or when things tried to pull me under the water. All those times when I was supposed to be scared, panicked, and yet I remained unnaturally calm, that’s how I felt at the moment. Like what they said was true and I had no reason to fear it.

“All the old stories are true, lass. The world is a lot larger than you originally thought. There are witches, demi-gods, and many different types of creatures that walk around with human skin on so that they can blend it. But for the most part, we keep our world a secret from those who aren’t a part of it. You’ll be one of the few humans who are aware of this world.”

I nodded. My heart plodded along and so did my breathing. It was only one small spot in the back of my mind that was freaking out. Everything else acted as if this was already common knowledge. “If you’re not human, then what are you?”

“That’s what we wanted to show you. It’s why we’re outside.” Hurrit and Arran began to strip off their clothes, handing them to me.

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