Page 6 of Valkyrie Restored

“Did you say our neighbour?” I couldn’t begin to fathom what Elin—our only current neighbour in residence—could have done to work him up so much. Although with his mood, it wouldn’t have taken much. For all I knew, maybe she breathed in his vicinity.

The few times we met her before the heavy fall and winter hunting season set in along with the winter polar bear sightseeing tours, ice fishing, and the wilderness exploration adventure tours we started a couple of years ago, she seemed sweet and shy, barely speaking more than a few polite words. Although the words she did say were insightful, intelligent, and lacked the hint of scorn or intolerance that many people in today’s world sported.

In fact, everything about her screamed calm, smart, and reclusive. It was why the few times we were at home instead of working or enjoying the opportunity to swim in the lake in our shifted horse forms without fear of being seen, we hadn’t bothered to go visit her. We liked the calm and smart part, but wouldn’t dare to intrude her reclusiveness. With what we were, we understood the need for privacy. Although we did keep tabs on her through our town gossip machine—Daisy when we were in town. If she’d needed help with anything we would have done the neighbourly thing and helped.

“Yes.” He began to pull the supplies out of the bags, tossing them into storage compartments or into the doorway of the cabin. “She was wandering around in the woods and came upon a bear. And the silly thing didn’t even move. She just stood there, looking at it without a care in the world.”

“Did you say a bear?” I had to double-check. While the local area publications stated there were bears in the area, I’d never seen one here. And there definitely weren’t any in the woods near our house.

“Yup. And before you ask, it wasn’t natural.” He stood in front of me and held my face within his hands. To a passerby, it would have appeared to be a lover’s moment—and not to say that we weren’t lovers because we had been for centuries—but in this case, it was his way of showing me how important the information was. “Can you tell me why our sweet, shy,human, neighbour would attract the attention of one of the gods? Because while the god wasn’t there, the bear was certainly under the influence of one.”

“What the fuck?” My Scottish burr made an appearance. I hadn’t lived in Scotland for almost five hundred years, but at certain times, when my emotions ran high, it came out. “What would they want with her?”

He dropped his hands from my face now that he knew I was taking the matter seriously. “That’s what I want to know. And she didn’t even realize.” He turned away from me and walked in the cabin, calling out over his shoulder, “Instead she was too busy checking me out.”

“She what?” I traipsed behind him into the cabin. “What do you mean she was checking you out?” I mean, I understood where she was coming from. Even after all these years together, I still took every opportunity to watch the sway of his tight ass as he walked or how his back muscles rippled with strength as his lifted objects. It wasn’t my biased opinion about his ruggedly good looks either. I often saw women watching him, but never had he sounded so smug and exasperated about it. Not even when he caught women watching me as well.

It was all part of who we were. Mythological creatures in today’s world. As a kelpie, I’d been born with looks that were meant to attract women. It was how the legends were started about kelpies luring women into nearby lakes to drown them before consuming their bodies. The reality was far from that although there had been—like in every society—some who were killers like that.

And while Hurrit wasn’t a kelpie, he was something similar, a spirit who controlled the Elk dogs—horses. They lived in the lakes and could take on the Elk dog form. Although in his case, the good looks came from the genetics of his Indigenous background instead of a way tolurewomen.

He turned, resting his hips against the counter in the small galley. With his arms crossed over his chest, my mouth watered a little at the sight of his biceps. “I mean, I had to speak to her a couple of times before she responded to me.”

“You mean she was under the bear’s thrall?” I smirked as I leaned against the opposite counter, mirroring his pose.

He raised an eyebrow as he glared at me. His lips twitched as he tried to keep from smiling at my insinuation of her mental status at the time she supposedly “checked him out.” I waited, staring him down with a grin on my face until he cracked, a soft chuckle escaped his mouth before he turned serious again. “I checked, wanting to make sure the bear hadn’t done anything, but that wasn’t the cause. When she finally met my gaze, her cheeks turned a delightful shade of pink.”

“And what did you do?”

He unfolded his arms and turned his back to me, busying himself by putting the remaining supplies into the cupboard. “I stormed away when she acted like a simpering human and wouldn’t tell me why she just stood there.”

The pieces clicked in my head. The reason for his prickly attitude despite the swim in his horse form. For a man who attracted women like flies, he didn’t know what to do if he returned their attraction. In all our years together, I couldn’t remember him ever dating a woman without my help in setting him up. The same was true when we shared, the women involved were all from my doing, not his. And even his short-lived dating relationships never seemed to progress must past the initial lust stage of heightened sexual activity.

“You like her, huh?” I tried to act nonchalant about my question, but inside I worried. If he was finally falling for a woman, what would it mean for us? Would he want her all to himself or would he be willing to share? I just wanted to know where and how I would fit into the picture?

He slammed the drawer closed and dropped onto the bench seat by the dining table. “No. No I don’t…” He hung his head. “But there is something there. She’s attractive, but that’s not it. There’s lots of attractive women out there. It’s more like I was drawn to her, like I couldn’t stay away.” He fisted his hands in his loose, long hair. That alone should have worried me because Hurrit always kept his hair back in a braided ponytail unless we were in the lake or in bed. Although many times he kept it back in bed as well since it gave me something to grab.

I dropped into the seat across from him. We were tight on time as it was, needing to get everything stored and set up before sailing down the lake to Gimli where we’d pick up the charter group. The time we did have, didn’t account for a long, drawn-out discussion, but I couldn’t let this go. I needed to understand what happened to cause this reaction or I’d drive myself crazy all day. I wasn’t normally jealous—after all this time I felt secure in our relationship—but like he said, this time it felt different. It didn’t help that we always felt like there was something missing from our relationship. Like our pieces didn’t line up exactly even though we knew they went together. It was like there was a lingering ghost of someone or someone between us. Just a shimmer that appeared in certain lights. Was she the ghost?

“Is this a new feeling? Or did you feel this way when we met her the few times last summer and fall?”

“I, uh, the strength of it is new.” He lifted his head. Guilt and resignation written all over his face. “But, looking back, I felt a little of it earlier.” He reached across the table to take my hands in his. “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything earlier. I know I should have told you about it. I just assumed that it was like all the other times where I was attracted to someone beautiful, but within minutes forgot all about them. And the fact that we didn’t see her all winter helped me to put her out of my mind.”

“Is this why you’ve been so moody lately? Were you wanting to see her?”

“No. Maybe. I don’t know.” He gave my hands a squeeze before letting go. “While I was out swimming, I felt a need to get to shore. I thought that maybe you were in trouble, but it felt a little different. My feet led me to the clearing with her and the bear. At first, I didn’t even see the bear. I only saw her. Standing there amongst the brown and the green with the sun beaming down on her red hair, lighting her up like a goddess. She didn’t look mortal at that moment. And then the bear roared, breaking me from the spell I’d been under. And that’s when I felt the power coming from the bear. Once it left, so did the power, but she still looked radiant.”

Fuck.This was worse than I thought. I’d never heard him talk that way before about anyone. I don’t think he even talked about me this way. To be pulled from the water because she was in danger… massive. It meant they were destined for each other even if he didn’t recognize it. I didn’t know what to say. Fate didn’t like people interfering with their plans. But what was their plan here? Was I supposed to be the one to break the news to myhusband,that his one who aligned with his pieces, what the human world in literature called a fated mate, had been found? And what about me? Would this be the end of us? Did I have afated mateout there as well?

In my five-hundred-year banishment, I’d never longed for Scotland and the community of other kelpies before. Not after they turned their backs on me when Brigid decided that I’d broken some unwritten, arbitrary rule and needed to be sent across the world to live out my days. But now I wanted them. I didn’t know enough of our true lore. I’d been too young, too brash at the time, thinking I could learn it all later. But later never came and now I was stuck without the information I desperately needed.

As a child, the adult relationship structures were normal. We didn’t know anything different or how it all worked. There were often large groupings of adults with various strengths of bonding, butI didn’t know how it all worked. The closest thing I could come up with in today’s world was that they were a giant polycule, but that was a guess which didn’t help me to understand what my future could be.

Without that knowledge, there was only one thing I could do. I needed to face this scenario head on. And to do that, we needed to spend more time with her. Maybe then I’d feel at ease with the whole situation. “We’ll need to invite her over for supper sometime. Get to know her better.”

“No.” He jumped to his feet and leaned over me, crowding me with his body. “We don’t need to do that. You’re mine. You’re who I want. Not her. Staying away is the best way to handle this.” He gripped my chin before taking my mouth in a brutal kiss, staking his claim, his ownership of me. Not giving me a chance to even open my mouth for him, he forced his tongue in, subduing any potential protests I had about his manhandling of me. I let out a groan, turned on beyond belief. We’d had some steamy encounters and some hot angry sex over the years, but this was different. This had an edge of desperation, of fear to it.

He dropped his hand to my jean clad groin, running his fingers over my erection before giving it a hard stroke. I melted into him, wanting more. Needing more. My own fears came out to the forefront, desperate for him to prove his words to me in action.

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