Page 174 of Valkyrie Unknown

She twisted her mouth. “Why not?”

I don’t want you to end up like Gudrun. I couldn’t say that aloud. Azzie wouldn’t understand. I couldn’t explainif I love you, I ignore what you can and can’t do, and if you do that, I’ll lose you.

“Because the people you fuck are temporary in your life.” I hid my wince as the words passed my lips, but I couldn’t ignore the hurt that splashed across her face.

“Not Zeke.” Azzie’s voice was soft.

She’d stayed with him so far, but it wouldn’t last. It couldn’t last.

I kept my mouth shut.

“We’re— He and I— Promises have been made.”

This wasn’t how I wanted this conversation to go. It ached that she was pulling away from me, and this would make the gap between us worse. “I’m not saying it to be cruel, and it’s not any sort of accusation. The last few years with you… You’re my pack. I won’t give that up. Won’t give you up.”

One corner of her mouth tugged up. Her sword vanished. She wasn’t wearing her knives, and she didn’t sheath the blade or so much as twitch in her current position, but her practice weapon was gone. She didn’t look surprised.

It seemed she’d learned some things in the last couple of weeks.

Azzie hugged me. The embrace was quick and she pulled away before I could return the gesture, muttering,me too.

I wanted her that close again, for longer. When we met more than three years ago, we’d adapted to each other quickly, and now there was a chasm between us that I didn’t know how to process. A problem I couldn’t fight into submission.

“What I did in there, what Zeke did, we should be able to do that still,” Azzie said. “But I’ve been trying and I can’t.”

“Your sword vanished. I assume you’re responsible for that.”

Azzie licked her lips. “Yes, and I’m starting to get a sense of how that works. I can’t heal though. Not the way I did in there. The axe from Loki is gone.”

“That’s probably not a bad thing.” I tried to keep my tone light. When it came to the weapon, I was more concerned she’d ever been attuned to it enough to grasp it from nowhere, than I was that it was gone now. “How do you know you’re not healing the way you were?” Did I truly want to know the answer to that question?

“I don’t go easy when I train.”

She never had.

“We’ll figure this out. It’s what we do.” How was I supposed to do that? Help her get stronger and at the same time keep her from fights and situations that were a threat?

Azzie sank into a nearby rock, and pulled one knee to her chest while she used the other on the ground to stabilize herself. “I don’t know what to do. When I let the cards fall where they will, the people around me get hurt and killed. Actively pursuing my fate isn’t any better.”

I’d never really considered how hard it would be on a person to know from the moment they were old enough to understand that they were destined for more. Possibly for godhood. She never deserved that.

She handled it better than most would, though.

“You keep doing the best you can,” I said. “You help people. You improve yourself. You be you.”

“You make it sound easy.”

“It’s not.” Life wasn’t easy. “If it were simple, you wouldn’t grow.”

“You’ll be here, though. Won’t you?” In that moment she looked meeker and more vulnerable than I’d ever seen her. “I don’t want to do it alone.”

I wouldn’t let that happen. “I’ll be here. Always.”

Forty-Eight

Zeke

It was disconcerting knowingAzzie was a house away...Feelingher presence.

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