Page 54 of Valkyrie Unknown

If Finn sent her, it was either to fuck me or fuck with me. A distraction, to keep me company while he was out of town?

Except that, when I said his name, she gave me a blank look. “I’m sorry—who?”

She was here on her own. Looking for me. My body reacted like I was twelve and just realizing how much fun pictures of bare boobs were.

Seriously, what the fuck?

“You’re looking for someone who works on cosplay accessories?” When I’d heard Gabby suggest such a thing, I had to hide a smile. I’d been coming here for years, and she knew exactly who I was, even if she wasn’t familiar with themagicside of things.

I used to tell her she didn’t need to screen my clients, but it was nice to have people looking out for me, and she insisted again and again that she didn’t mind.

The new woman’s smile stayed on her lips but faded from those captivating green eyes, and she turned her attention to her food. “No. Thanks, though.”

Time to be more specific. “Enchanted steel with elven grips?” When I learned there was a whole other layer of the world, one with immortals and magical beings that existed in ours, I wondered how I’d never seen it.

I realized quickly that most people never did because they didn’t want or expect to. To someone not in the know, a question like mine would raise an eyebrow at the most. Make people laugh and assume I was joking.

The alluring redhead stopped with a fry full of milkshake halfway to her mouth. She resumed eating without a glance at me and just before the large dollop of strawberry fell to her plate.

She chewed slowly. Swallowed. “Still not interested in costume shit.”

There was a shift in her tone, though. Her disinterest was fake now.

I didn’t play guessing games with potential clients. I enjoyed the work too much, and they tended to be dangerous if I made assumptions. “Don’t freak out about this. I’m not threatening you.”

I reached for the back of my shirt, and her hand flew to her hip. I exposed enough of the gun grip for her to see the runes carved in bone, then covered it again quickly.

“Hmm…” She twisted to face me. “Interesting piece. Where did you get it?”

I took the spot next to her, and my knees bumped hers. An unexpected shock spilled through me, and that screaming inside was back. The sensation that didn’t have words but very much wantedmorefrom her.

“A friend gave it to me when I was younger,” I said. Elven accessories worked best when they were genuine gifts. They could be purchased but never stolen. They lost their power if the exchange wasn’t willing.

“A seer who told you your destiny was predetermined?”

Oddly specific question. Then again, no one looking for me was normal in the boring, human sense of the word. “The person who did that was a god I met at a swap meet.” A ridiculous answer, regardless of it being the truth.

“A god. Really.” Her tone was flat. “Random god was wandering through an oversized yard sale, looking for people to bestow knowledge on?”

“He was looking for someone to give him a blowjob.” My early memories of Finn were fuzzy, thanks to how badly I hated the first few months of sobriety. He was the reason I gave it up, though, and he’d stayed by my side the entire time I was coping with detox and what came after. His request for sex when he and I started talking had been a joke, but this version of the story sounded more interesting thanwe bonded over shared trauma.

She raised her brows, and one corner of her mouth quirked up. “I hope you got paid up front for a favor like that.”

I liked her. Skeptical. Subtle. Perceptive. “I don’t fuck for cash. I didn’t ask for payment at all.” I winced at the half-truth. After the swap meet, we’d continued the conversation in a nearby bar, and I’d let him buy shot after shot, until I was blindingly drunk. That was who I was back then.

If she heard the fib, she didn’t call me on it. “But he’s not the friend you got the grips from.”

“No.” Finn was the one who insisted he was part of my destiny. Thefortune teller. Lucky guess on her part? “Where’d you get yours?”

“An elf working a renaissance fair. Not that I knew that until I got older, and she never aged a bit.”

A vague but potent insistence that I pay attention surged inside me. What the hell?

Yeah, I had a similar story, except that I’d gotten my grips at a gun show. Knowing now how many elves and fae walked among humanity, I doubted it was a rare occurrence. And I didn’t realize back then that the guy wasn’t aging, because I didn’t expect something like immortality to be real. I’d assumed he was one of those people who aged well.

One day, you’ll meet your equal and opposite.That was what Finn told me. One of the things he drilled into my head.Your fate and undoing. Your death. Unless you kill them first.

I was thinking too much. Looking for a reason to not like this woman, because of the inexplicable draw. Maybe I needed to shut off the mental dialogue for a while and appreciate the attraction.

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