Page 86 of Valkyrie Unknown

I knew one thing—I needed her by my side. Despite not knowing where that feeling came from, it was too potent to ignore. The thought of not seeing her again sent an unfamiliar rage through me, as if I’d destroy whatever took her from me.

That alone was a good reason to not listen to whatever impulses I had.

Davyn paused in shoveling food into his mouth long enough to rest a hand on Azzie’s arm. “You and I need to regroup.” He was only speaking to her. Finn and I didn’t matter in his world, and he wasn’t trying to hide that.

“This isn’t a matter of just you and me anymore.” Azzie dropped one eaten-clean rib on top of another, starting a pile. “Zeke and Finn are a part of anything that happens next, whether or not you try to cut them out.” As she talked, she sucked her fingers clean one-by-one.

There was no way I was turned on by that in the middle of all of this.

I was.

I shook the thought away and focused on my meal and her words. “Where are you going, anyway?” I asked. “Davyn said your apartment was trashed. Someone was looking for you there.”

“It also means there’s a good chance the attack was because of me.” Azzie’s voice faltered.

Davyn shoveled in more food. “If your point is they knew where you were, draugar here means they also know you’re here.” He was clearly a man practiced in holding serious conversation while stuffing his face. “Not a lot of gods control the undead. Odin was one of the last and with him gone, that leaves Loki and not many others.”

As he finished taking a drink, Finn’s glass hit the table hard, clattering and shaking everyone’s food. He gave us a tight smile. “Oops.”

I backtracked over what Davyn just said. “Loki is looking for you?” I didn’t know much about any of these immortals beyond what Finn told me, but I’d heard a couple of my clients talking about Loki.

That was bad news.

Azzie gave me an apologetic half smile. “And he’s a huge part of why I wanted to leave before anything happened.”

Reality was sinking in. Not just that my life had been turned upside down since meeting Azzie, but that she was used to the chaos enough that she expectedsomethingto happen. “Do you do this every time the bad comes after you? Leave, I mean.”

“Most of the time, yes. It’s smart to find a new place to be when someone who wants me dead finds the old one.”

Fuck. The longer she talked, the more real this situation became. When I met Finn, I didn’t have to deal with this kind of acceptance. The way he gave me knowledge meant it was all just there. Like I’d always known it.

This was more of a dawning feeling. I was a part of their world now—Finn’s, Azzie’s, and Davyn’s. Growing up, so many of the people Mom knew expected an attack around every corner. They were certain the end of the world was coming, and I’d gotten tired of it. None of the bad things they were looking for were going to happen.

Except that apparently the end of the worldwaslooming, and the next person I met could be the one who wanted to erase me, just not for the reasons any of those people from my past believed.

“Why are people—gods, whatever—hunting you?” I asked.

“Azzie specifically? The prophecies.” Despite the barbecue sauce smeared across his chin, Davyn made me sound like the dolt with his reply.

Azzie glanced at him, and smirked, a snicker slipping out. “You’ve got…” She trailed off.

“What?” He didn’t look amused.

“Just… Sauce.” She pointed at her own cheek.

He swiped the back of his wrist over the stain, not making a difference in any way. “So?”

She dipped her napkin in her water, and wiped the orange smudge off his skin.

No, really. What were these two? I had a feeling that was a question neither of them could answer. “Everyone keeps talking about prophecies. What’s the end game? Are they just random snippets that wreck people’s lives? Do they all paint a story when you put them together?” And why wasn’t that part of the knowledge Finn shared with me when he showed me who he was? What those ancient texts said I could be?

“Ragnarök,” Davyn said.

I knew that word. “The end of the world?”

“The rebirth of the world,” Finn said. “Some gods will be replaced by new ones—like you—and the old ones don’t like that.”

“Like Azzie,” Davyn corrected him.

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