Page 49 of Valkyrie Renewed

“I swear, one of these days we’re going to find where you store all your shipfics,” I said.

Tyr’s eyebrow lifted. “Shipfic?”

“Fictional writing for her shipping habits,” Astrid explained.

He shook his head. “You’d be looking forever for nothing, then. That’d be all done as commissioned art.”

Aya unapologetically pointed his way in confirmation. Astrid laughed, and I groaned. “I don’t want any of those awful visuals in my head.”

“Any juicy thoughts are all your own, and you should share them with the class.” Aya winked. “Especially any that include our favorite redhead.”

I choked on a laugh. She would be so brazen as to say that in this setting. Astrid’s face turned as red as her hair and she growled Aya’s name in warning.

In her irritation, she hit a small stack of photos, and one fluttered off the counter onto the floor. I scooped to retrieve it, finding myself looking at a pale, smiling woman with wavy copper hair.I wonder who this is.

I jumped when a cacophony of sounds assaulted my ears. Phones went off like crazy, sending Angel into a fit. Tossing the photograph onto the island, I rushed over to my phone. My screen glowed with a warning message:

MISSING HIKER

My attention snapped up when Astrid answered a phone call. She spoke urgently with Officer Rory on the other end. My pulse spiked as she confirmed information and then hung up.

“Ten-year-old boy,” she said, already getting into motion. “His family was camping up on the mountain where he went missing, about three hours ago. The rangers requested our immediate help.”

I angled for the door. “I’ll get the vehicles ready.”

Aya volunteered to collect the gear, and Astrid needed to change and gear up Angel.

“What can I do?” Tyr asked, rising from his seat.

“Have you done search and rescue before?” I asked.

He nodded. “A few times.”

That was good. More trained eyes to help, the better. “Come with me to get the vehicles ready. We may not use them, depending on where the hikers went into the mountain, but we like to make sure we have them, just in case.”

Carrie came around the corner. “I’ll clean up the kitchen. Go find that child.”

Chapter Eleven

Diego

I wanderedthrough the dark house, sleep far from my mind. The search earlier was still too fresh of a memory. We’d found the boy, not unscathed from a nasty fall he’d taken into a ravine, but alive.

Angel’s impeccable find record remained near perfect. To this day, I still didn’t understand how she was this good at finding people. But it was thanks to that record we’d been called in so early compared to other SAR teams.

I paused at the base of the stairs in the foyer when I noticed a light on the back deck. Had we left a light on? Then Angel appeared in one of the windows. I cocked my head.The hell?

Walking through the house, Angel greeted me when I opened the door. “What are you doing out here,chica?”

“Diego?” a quiet voice said.

I snapped my attention to my right, finding Astrid curled up on the swing she and her dad built together. I then glanced down at myself and winced. “Sorry, I didn’t expect anyone to be up.”

She chuckled. “Like you didn’t walk around half-naked in your boxer briefs in college.”

I grunted. She had a good point. I’d gotten rather comfortable living in that apartment.

“Besides…” She stuck her leg out. “I’d be a damned hypocrite if I got on your case this time.”

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