Page 1 of Before the Bond Breaks
PROLOGUE
MAZE
Vanaheim, 200 years ago
My skin prickledwith corrupted magic as I walked down the hall leading to the Valkyrie Prime Marton’s chambers. The air was too still, too heavy, like the walls themselves held their breath. Dread festered in my gut, and it was spreading throughout my body the closer I got. I’d walked these halls since I was a child, yet tonight the magically charged air nipped at my flesh. A warning? Maybe.
My boots struck the marble floor in even rhythm, though my pulse beat faster with each step. The Prime, who was also my mother, should have been awake, should have met me at her door before I crossed the threshold. She always knew when I was near. Always. Plus, she was expecting me. We were going to work on the final preparations for the soulbond ritual for Talon and me.
A soulbond between the shifter Alpha and me, the Valkyrie High Marton and Prime Heir, would implement the fated bondbetween the Valkyries and the shifters. It would merge our clans together, helping the shifters balance their magic andfylgja—animal spirit guides—and create a new breed of warriors to guard the Prime and Freya, goddess of love, beauty, magic, and war.
Yet tonight, my mother didn’t meet me at her door. In fact, there was no noise coming from inside her rooms.
Why is it so quiet?
I reached the hand-carved, double doors and felt the weight of silence press harder. My hand hovered at my sword hilt, though my gut already knew steel would be useless against what waited inside.
The door groaned as I pushed it open.
And my world shattered.
Mother lay slumped across her divan, her body twisted, her hair spilling like a river of silver light across the cushions. Her eyes stared upward, unfocused; her lips parted in a breath that would never come again.
Pain and anger tightened in my heart, quickly spreading through my body. My lower lip trembled as I moved closer to her.
No, this can’t be happening.
My vision blurred with tears as I knelt beside her. My hands shook as I reached for hers. Cold. Too cold. My chest tightened even more until I thought it might split open.
The chamber stank of blood and burned magic, acrid and sharp on my tongue. The wards that should have kept her safe were torn apart, shredded from within. Her grimoire was gone.
So was her magic. Whoever killed her stole it. I couldn’t tell if the extraction of the magical essence killed her or something else. It really didn’t matter to me, because the murderer will meet his end.
Grief threatened to take me to my knees, but grief would not bring her back. I forced it down, burying it beneath the only thing that could keep me upright. Rage.
And there, beneath the stench of death, lingered another scent. Faint but unmistakable.Balder.
Balder was my mother’s lover and had been for years. Mother had loved him, trusted him. And that love had betrayed her.
I closed her eyes, swallowing the scream that clawed up my throat. He killed her. He stole from her. He thought he would walk away untouched.
Not while I draw breath.
An hour later,I stood in the great hall with the Valkyries and shifters, fury rolling off all of us in waves, making the air crackle with barely leashed magic.
Freya stood at the front, her beauty sharp and terrifying in her rage. Her magic was a chaotic wave that crackled in the air around her. She didn’t need to name the one responsible. Every soul in that chamber knew Balder had done it.
I turned to my sisters. Candra, Nicky, Kyley, Sybil, Rina, Jessica, Winter, and I were the Prime’s inner circle. Their eyes met mine, unflinching, their loyalty burning like fire. The weight ofgrief pressed on each of us, but they stepped forward without hesitation to join me in hunting down the traitor.
I pushed my grief away and focused on my sisters. “We will search the Nine Worlds and everywhere in between until we find him.”
They bowed their heads, binding themselves to me with unspoken oaths. My sisters in blood, in arms, and in vengeance.
“The rest of you remain. Defend Vanaheim. Protect Freya.” I caught Talon’s fierce gaze, and my chest squeezed. The thought of leaving him was like slicing open my chest.
Talon crossed the great hall to me. Taking my hands in his, he pressed a kiss to one of my palms, then locked gazes with me. “Make him suffer.”
I stepped closer to him and kept my voice soft so the others wouldn’t hear. “They need you more than I do.”
