Page 40 of Valkyrie Confused

I see the two of them fucking. Fighting. Arnlaug walking away.

Iknowwhat's happening, even without sound. Arnlaug chose duty over love. Still, I hate that I can’t hear what is said almost as much as I hate that I can’t walk away too. My legs won’t move.

Even if they would, where would I go?

Arnlaug is in battle again. A redheaded woman. A man almost as tall as him, slicing his sword across one of Arnlaug’s arms and then the other, nearly severing them.

I don’t want to be seeing this. I rub my eyes, but nothing changes. I don’t know how I’m still standing.

Am I still standing?

Pan, running with horses that turn into men. Him, lying in the midst of hundreds of naked, undulating bodies. No, not in their midst. He’s tangled with them. They’re worshiping him.

A twinge of jealousy mingles with fear, but both sentiments are drowned under something else.

Recognition.

I’m familiar with this world. I haven’t experienced it, but I’ve written it in my books. I feel a connection to it. To the Valkyries in the cave. To the Berserkers. To the god of lust.

This is all real. These are memories. Not mine, but memories, nonetheless.

Pan and Arnlaug are telling the truth.

The realization screams in my head, before the images fade away and the itch in my shoulders finally subsides.

The panic doesn’t, though.

“Breathe.” Arnlaug’s hand on my arm burns, but his proximity soothes my fear, instead of adding to it.

Unless that’s Pan, messing with my feelings.

Wait. Can he do that, or does he just make people horny?

Has he been making me horny all this time?

Yes he has, but I doubt he had to use his powers for it.

“What happened?” he asks.

How to put this into words? “I… saw things. You. Both of you. How you were.” How they can be. “And Valkyries. And a dragon. And I’ve dreamed some of those things before, though never in such detail. It was always blurrier. Vague. I thought it was my overactive imagination. But this— How?” I don’t know what I’m asking, but I need a thread of logic to cling to.

“Valkyrie dreams?” Arnlaug mutters.

“We’ll deal with this together,” Pan says, and that may be the sexiest thing ever, because it wraps me in a blanket of safety.

“Are you doing this?” Do I mean the vision part or the calming-down-despite-all-the-crazy part?

He shakes his head and gathers me close, pressing me to him. “No. This just… is. I didn’t know what you were till after you got here. Nyx—“

“Nyx knew?” My voice reaches my ears shrill.

I want Arnlaug to keep touching me, but he drops his hand and backsteps.

Wait. “Is shetheNyx too?” I ask.

I’ve cried on the shoulder of a primordial being?

Two such beings, maybe? How old is Pan?

---