Page 8 of Valkyrie Confused

Scarlett gives an appreciative nod. “What else do you do around here?”

I shrug one shoulder. “Everything. I cook, serve, clean the rooms, arrange bookings, and make supply runs.”

“Wow.” Scarlett widens her eyes. “Now I am impressed.”

Which is why I won’t tell her Iwillmost of those chores done. Never the cooking, though. ”What can I say? My talents are inexhaustible.”

She nods. “So I see.”

Not yet, but she will, and then she’s going to redefineimpressed.

“And what brought you and your talents to the area?” she asks. “Or are you local?”

Only in the vaguest sense. IamGreek. “My story is kind of similar to yours. I couldn’t take the city life any longer. Too bright. Too loud. Too chaotic.” I mean, don’t get me wrong. I love chaos. As long as it’s of my own making. “I needed to get away. Reinvent myself.” Hence the additional two letters to my name. “Here, I can breathe.” It's amazing what the daily contact with nature has done for my powers. I’ve gone from sensing lust to being able to recognize all emotions. I can still only amplify desire, though. Perhaps because I’ve never cared to try with any of the other feelings.

And there’s the extra perk of working at a guesthouse with such a turnover—an endless pool of bed companions. Fun with no strings attached. Best medicine for a broken heart.

Which mine isn’t. Just a little battered and bruised. That mess with Arnlaug was hundreds of years ago, after all. When he chose being Odin’s bitch over a life away from gods and their arrogant, controlling asses.

But back to the stunning, eloquent, mysterious woman beside me. She’s studying me with such intensity, her liquid hazel eyes might as well be drilling holes in my skull.

“Trying to read my thoughts?” I joke, but I’m more unnerved than makes sense. I’ve been around for a couple millennia, and except for the sex, mortals are to me what pets are to them. Scarlett… In this analogy, she’d be a pet dinosaur, if humans and the great lizards coexisted. And part of me feels like shecansee inside my head. It’s the sense of being around raw power, but I don’t recognize the type.

She smiles, and the red on her cheeks deepens. “Sorry. Author brain took over. I was thinking you could be the inspiration for my next protagonist.”

I give her that smile I know can melt through anyone’s defenses. “Is he a sexy rogue with killer abs?”

She scrunches her nose. “Sure. And also, he loves the sound of his own voice. And uses long looks and fraught pauses to appear mysterious, though he is in fact silly and playful.”

My chuckle is cut short when she says, “At first, I was considering you for Apollo, but you’re obviously Pan.”

Tension pulls my back ramrod straight. She knows who I am? Then why the charade?

“I’m sorry.” She waves one hand in front of her face, as if to clear the air between us. “My current series is all about mythological creatures, and I need a Greek god for my new book.” Her blush is the most alluring thing I’ve laid eyes on in my very long life. “When I saw you yesterday—earlier?—all shirtless and with the sun behind your head, you made me think of Apollo. I mean, I’m an author. I get inspiration at the most random of places.“

Her effort to brush off the fact that I’m her muse makes me smile. “Being compared to Apollo isn’t something I mind.” Looks-wise, at least. Women and men fawned over him as much as they did over me, although he wasn’t near as fun as I can be. “But what made you recast me?” I ask. Is she a type of seer I’ve never encountered before? Or is she playing me, fully aware of who I really am?

Nah. She can’t bethatgood. I’d have some inkling she was lying.

She gives a shrug that draws my gaze to her full breasts, the nipples threatening to poke through the fabric of her pajama, before I train it back to her face. “I don’t know,” she says. “It just feels more… right.”

Undoubtedly.

Her not knowing who I am evens the field and makes things infinitely more amusing.

“And what does your Pan do?” I ask. “Does he get the girl?”

Another shrug. “Kinda. Not sure how, yet.”

Onlykinda? Bet I can change her mind on that, and it’ll be fun for all involved. “Who else is vying for her attention?”

“Oh, a Berserker,” she says, and a chill rolls down my spine. “I don’t have a name for him yet, but he’s pretty.”

Pretty?I can’t think of a single Berserker who’d appreciate that descriptor. Swallowing a snicker, I press on. “So she has to choose between a funny, sexygodand a pretty beast of a man?”

Her blush darkens, and she ducks her head, curls coming loose from their rickety perch atop her head, to cover her eyes. “It’s not really aneither-orkind of romance.”

My eyebrow creeps higher before I can stop it. No judgement here—in my youth, I hosted orgies, afterall. I’m surprised. That’s all. I should know better, though. Not like people walk around wearing signs withI HAVE A FOOT FETISHorTHE MORE, THE MERRIERaround their necks, and I’ve personally witnessed oodles ofupstanding citizensgleefully seek debauchery at any opportunity.

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