Page 68 of Valkyrie Confused

“My turn,” he says, and I know better than to point out that he didn’t really give me an answer. He tilts his head to the side, studying me. “What made you think you could fuck my Valkyrie and get away with it?” His voice fills the cavern and my head and my chest, and no blank sheet or green meadow can keep it from that little box of secrets I’ve been clinging to.

“I didn’t—” What?Didn’t mean to?I didn’t exactly slip and fall into her ass.Didn’t know she was yours?I knew. All Valkyries are his, even though the ones with the apostates follow a new master. “I didn’tthink,” I yell, so he can hear me over the echo of his question.

“And why didn’t you think?” His voice is even louder, pounding inside my skull, drilling for information.

This isn’t the time to point out that—as per his words—I wasn’t created to think. I try to stand, but his power holds me pinned down, on my knees. It’s my turn to ask a question, but I focus on survival. “Forgive me, AllFather,” I all but scream, but it doesn’t reach my ears.

“That’s not an answer.”

The cave rattles. The ground shakes. I’m going to die here.

“Why. Didn’t you. Think?” Odin demands.

My head will explode. He’s going to end me.

I won’t go out like this. I have earned a warrior’s death, not having the life snuffed out of me by my creator’s hand. Not because I dishonored myself by betraying him.

I force air into my lungs. If this is where I become undone, I can’t keep lying. Not to myself, and not to him.

“I didn’t think,” I grind out, “because I fell in love with her.” I barely manage more than a whisper, but with the din around me abruptly dying, it may as well be a scream.

“You fell in love with her?” Odin’s voice is deceptively low. I think he’s going forkind, but the threat beneath the mask tightens around me, as suffocating as his exhibition of power was. “You believe your will—your heart,your mind—is yours to do with as you please?” His laugh is sharp.

I straighten, but I don’t climb to my feet. More insolence isn’t going to do me any good. “I didn’t think,” I say again.

His scowl deepens. Can’t he tell my remorse is honest?

Is it?

“Pity.” His smirk looks like he doesn’t know the meaning of the word. “If youdidthink—if you remembered whom you belong to—you wouldn’t have forced my hand.”

A chill rolls down my spine. He’s not talking about ending me. He’d have done that by now.

“You chose another god over me, and you chose a Valkyrie over me. I can forgive her; she didn’t know any better. But you will suffer. And this time, you’ll make the right choice.”

“No.” I do stand now, though I still won’t look him in the eye, as a show of deference. “I never chose Pan over you. I walked away from him because he stood in the way of my serving you.” It hurt me then, and it hurts me to remember. It took all I was to make that choice, and I thought I’d never have to repeat it, but here we fucking are.

Odin’s bark of laugh is devoid of mirth. “You walked away from him, but youneverleft him behind.” He comes off like a jilted girlfriend, not the ultimate god in all planes of existence.

Has he always sounded like this? Was I just too blinded by loyalty to notice?

“The apostates have gotten to you,” he says, conversationally. “They’ve twisted your view of me. Made you doubt me. Their words wouldn’t have found purchase if Pan hadn’t tainted your heart with discontent.”

“Pan hasn’t— It’s not like that.” I need to find better words, if I’m to spare both Pan and myself Odin’s wrath.

I blink, and Odin is right in front of me. So close, I see the galaxies swirling in his remaining eye.

“But he has.” He presses his palm to my chest, over my heart. “He’s been plaguing your thoughts, sowing seeds of betrayal for centuries.” His hand is hot. Scolding. And getting hotter by the second. It doesn’t just burn my skin; it sizzles all the way to my core, drowning me in agony.

I try to step back, but I’m not in control of my body. Except for my head, which I shake, sending a jolt of pain through my skull.

Odin does have a point, though. Pan was never subtle in his distrust of him.

Did he erode my relationship with my god?

No. I’d never in a million lifetimes believe that to be his fault.

“Of course he did,” Odin says, as the searing pain from his hand engulfs me. “He pulled you away from me.”

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