Page 70 of Valkyrie Unknown

The man looked me over. “You been huntin’ or something?”

“Yeah. Unplugged for more than a week.” I should be grateful that was an easily accepted response in a place like this, but I didn’t give a fuck what they thought about my extracurricular activities. I needed to know, “what happened?”

“Ah, man. You’ve gotta see this.” The customer grabbed his purchases and made way for me, as he jabbed at his phone. “There was a huge thing downtown there. Like gunshots downtown. An explosion. They called in the FBI. ATF. Homeland Security.”

Azzie. I handed the cashier a hundred. “For the food, and gas on Eight. Keep the change.” I followed the man to a path out of the flow of foot traffic. “Where downtown?”

“Watch this.” He tilted his phone toward me.

As I watched, a flash burst from a second-story window, and a large cloud of smoke and raining brick followed. Any peace I’d found on my trip vanished. That was directly in the middle of her route to work. “When was this?”

“A couple days ago. They still don’t have answers. People are pissed.”

The video kept playing. It was a compilation from several people of the explosion and the chaos that followed. I couldn’t help but search the crowds for her face, but I didn’t see her anywhere.

I grabbed his phone.

“Hey.” He reached for it, and I stopped him with a glare.

My brain stalled. I didn’t know her number…or anyone’s number. We lived in the same apartment, and I hated phones. Why hadn’t I memorized her number?

Fuck.

I shoved the man’s phone at him again. “I’ve gotta go.” I sprinted to my car. Each second it took to fill the tank drew another growl from me, and the instant it was done, I yanked the nozzle free, spilling gasoline everywhere.

Seconds later, I was peeling out of the parking lot, and hitting the freeway. It had been a long time since I was so desperate to get somewhere this quickly, but the next eighty or ninety miles were Hel.

When I reached town, entire streets were blocked off, and traffic moved at a crawl. The last mile or two to the apartment took an eternity. The scents of panic and ash lingered in the air.

So did something else. Something—someone—I hadn’t smelled in a long time. Another Berserker. A wolf.

Not Ulf. Not one of his pack.

Starkad.

How…?

In a way he wastheBerserker. Not necessarily for who he was, but centuries ago, a Valkyrie defied Odin to keep Starkad from dying in battle. Kirby had been cursed for her insolence. Killed by Odin’s hand and sentenced to an eternity of death and rebirth.

But she’d left Starkad immortal at a much younger age than he should’ve been, and the rumor was, he was worse than most when it came to his bloodlust and need for the fight. All because every time he found her in one of her lives, he lost her again.

Why was he in town? Why did his scent linger in the air over several blocks as if he was still here?

I didn’t care that over the centuries he’d refused to side with one god or another. I was concerned that he’d never had a loyalty outside of Kirby, and that meant he could be hunting Azzie as easily as he could anyone else.

Except explosions weren’t our thing. It didn’t matter how much control a Berserker did or didn’t have—we all preferred our fights to be hands-on.

If he got in my way trying to find her, to keep her safe, I’d worry about him. Otherwise, I didn’t fucking care what Starkad was up to.

When I reached the apartment I shared with Azzie, my bear was ready to claw its way out of my skin. Her scent lingered here, but it lay under others as if she hadn’t been here for days.

The front door was ajar, and I burst through, ready for a fight.

Chaos met me, bleeding with an unfamiliar person’s smell. Couch cushions were torn apart and bookshelves smashed. There were holes punched in the walls, and the whiteboard Azzie made us keep on the fridge for notes was blank and broken.

Where was she? The longer the question went unanswered, the louder I wanted to roar.

I found my phone half under the fridge, glass cracked by what looked like someone’s heel. I pressed the power button and muttered a string of curses mixed with prayers. The screen flashed for a moment, then went blank again.

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