Page 42 of Valkyrie Confused

FOURTEEN

ARNLAUG

The momentthe door closes behind Scarlett, the flask of Olympus wine appears in Pan’s hand.

“That went well,” I say.

“Mmhmm.” He drinks his fill and passes it to me. “Better than I expected.”

I drink and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. “At least she didn’t run away screaming.” Unless… “She won’t try to leave in the middle of the night, will she?”

He sits on the bed and leans back on his elbows. “Nah. She seemed determined. She’ll stay, and she’ll train. Not sure she’ll come with you willingly, though.”

I suspect he’s right, but that’s a problem for another day. “She’s feisty. I like that.”

“That’s not all she is.” He snaps his fingers, and the wine disappears.

I hate when he does this.

“So what now?” I ask.

He pats the mattress next to him. “We fuck. Sleep. Wake up, to train her.”

I approach to stand between his bent knees. “Do you ever lose your erection?”

He rolls his eyes. “Will it make any difference if I do? Scarlett will still be upset, and you’ll still be an asshole. Just an asshole I won’t fuck.”

Not an irredeemable one, though.The errant thought warms me up inside. I didn’t realize earlier, because we had bigger issues to deal with, but that was Pan’s lie—that he thought I was irredeemable.

Like the permanence of his hard-on, this changes nothing. Our differences are still insurmountable.

But when I kiss down his body and take him in my mouth, I can pretend that’s not the case. I can pretend…

He sets an alarm before we go to sleep—not in each other’s arms, but with our backs pressed together and his arm draped casually over my thigh.

When we wake up a little before six, I’m spooning him.

We don’t talk as we get out of bed and pull clothes on. Well, I pull mine on; Pan thinks his in place, because he refuses to get up before the absolute last minute.

When we walk outside, Scarlett is waiting. She’s in sweats, no sword in sight. With her fists on her hips, she looks ready to take on the world. “Where are we training?” she asks.

Huh. Not like we can spar here, where the guests can look out their windows and see us.

Pan snaps his fingers. “I’ll take us to Olympus.”

Scarlett’s eyes widen. “Isn’t that far from— Wait. Take us, how?”

He waggles his eyebrows and holds out one hand to her and one to me.

I take it without hesitation, but Scarlett studies it like it may bite. “I left the sword upstairs. Didn’t want anyone to see.”

Not that anyone else is up and about yet.

“I’ll summon it when we get there.” He tangles his fingers with hers, and our surroundings drop away. It happens more gradually than when he took me to NEON. He doesn’t want to freak her out. More consideration than he’s ever shown me.

I tuck away the petulant thought and drop his hand as the ground materializes beneath my feet again.

I’ve been to Olympus before, but it looked vastly more magnificent then. The top of the mountain is bare now, since the gods moved their base to a separate plane. It works fine for our purposes, especially when Pan raises an invisible barrier around us, to conceal us in case a goat herder finds his way up here.

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