Page 149 of Valkyrie Unknown

The world swam in front of my eyes, and I dropped to my knees again. The ax fell from my hand and landed softly in the leaves next to me.

This sucks. The thought hit before the pain caught up.

There was so much blood. I’d been hurt before, but it had never looked like this.

"What are you doing?" Finn glanced at me, then did a double take. "Fuck me."

I leaned against a nearby tree. Adrenaline pumped hard and fast through my veins, muting the pain, but I couldn’t move the limb. That couldn’t be good.

Finn gave me a look of disbelief. "Stop fucking around, and heal that."

I ain’t got time to bleed. The line fromPredatoralmost made me smile. “Fuck you.” I needed another weapon. To wield my ax. The lull in the fight wouldn’t last long, and I was with a god who had just stopped hiding how badly he wanted me dead.

"You need to not bleed out on the battlefield." Finn spun away from me as a Berserker wolf charged him. Finn moved so quickly I barely saw it, blocking. Countering. Slicing with a battle ax he’d grabbed from a fallen fighter.

He drove the wolf into the ground with a ruthless efficiency that made my stomach churn, and turned away from the body without so much as a second glance.

Why was Finn protecting me?

I was his only way to Zeke, and out of here.

"Are you still hurt?" Finn made it sound like my injury was an inconvenience rather than life threatening. "You want to be a god? Act like it."

Thank the gods I was still conscious, but my limbs were heavy and my thoughts were fogging. "Why don’tyouheal me?" I countered.

"You know why."

Because he’d rather leave me here to die.

He wouldn’t heal me because very few gods could heal others. I’d been told more than once it was because there was no point, seeing as they were surrounded by other immortals. "Then I’m not the problem, am I?"

"You’re very much the problem." Finn rested the head of his ax against the soft ground and used the handle to lean. "In fact, getting rid of you would solve so many problems."

He needed me. I had to remember that and make sure he did as well, until he told me what I needed to know to get out of here.

The thought was bitter and wrong. What was this place doing to me?

All the other sounds were gone. "What happened to the battle?" I was asking myself rather than Finn. In fact, a lot of questions bounced in my thoughts. Like why did it take me so long to admit Finn never stopped trying to get rid of me.

"Azzie." Davyn’s roar in the distance was enough to bolster me.

"Over here," I yelled back, despite Finn trying toshushme.

Finn clenched his jaw. "The war is gone.Poof. Which means this could be another illusion. You don’t know that’s really Davyn."

I trusted a hallucination more than I did Finn. "Your point is?"Fuck, my arm hurt. That felt real enough.

Davyn stalked into the clearing behind Finn. "What happened?" Davyn’s question was as much growl as words, and he turned Finn in an instant. Davyn’s face was rounder than normal, and his beard thicker. His reach was longer, his nails thick and sharp and shaped like claws. "What did you do?"

I’d only seen him go part bear on rare occasions—he’d kept the beast caged around me for as long as I’d known him.

"She was hurt in the fight." Did Finn just flicker, or was I losing blood?

I hadn’t seen Finn and Davyn fight since the day Davyn joined me at Zeke’s, and without being able to teleport, I doubted Finn would last long. He was already backing up, sliding into a defensive position and blocking with the battle axe.

"What fight?" Davyn didn’t move, but he was focused on Finn. A barely controlled rage radiated from him. This wasn’t the Davyn I saw in our illusion of an apartment; this wasmyDavyn. The hair on his arms darkened and grew thicker and longer. "Why does she have a gash in her shoulder?"

Finn’s knuckles whitened as he gripped the haft of his weapon tighter. "There was just a war here." The derision in his voice was muted by grief.

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