Page 46 of Valkyrie Confused

I let a little tooth show in my smirk. “You haven’t tried to take her yet.”

I intercept the four young women who checked in yesterday halfway to the stairs leading to Scarlett’s apartment. “Hold on, ladies.”

“Hi.” The one leading the charge blushes. She slows her step but doesn’t stop until I hop into her path and hold my arms out. “We were just going to see if Scarlett wanted to come out for coffee with us or maybe meet up later, for lunch.” Her drooping shoulders and the way she avoids looking me in the eye belie her chill response.

“Ms. Rivers has a very busy schedule, I’m afraid,” I say in the stuffiest tone I can muster. “You may join her for dinner, though. Say at seven, in the dining room?”

Let’s hope Scarlett doesn’t blow a fuse when I tell her she’ll be entertaining her fans tonight. She’ll already be cranky that the afternoon training session won’t allow her to have dinner at six.

The girls thank me with beaming smiles and finally turn to leave. I stay in place and watch them head down the slope that leads to the villageplateia. The central roundabout, where the village's few restaurants and cafés are.

When the four of them round the bend and I’m convinced they won’t be making a run back to Scarlett’s, I use my powers to straighten their rooms, and then head back to bed. I have a couple hours to fuck, before I start prepping lunch.

Arnlaug is asleep, and growls when I try to wake him, so I sneak his copy ofThe Berserker Who Loved Meout of his backpack and start reading. It’s a good book. Fun and sexy, and remarkably spot on when it comes to Berserkers. I almost regret having to put it down and go makebriam—the Greek or Turkish take onratatouille—a quick cheese pie, and a couple salads. No other starters today. I’m too busy thinking of the Berserker in my bed and the Valkyrie upstairs, to come up with anything fancier.

Unsurprisingly, Scarlett doesn’t show up for lunch. I make a tray for her and take it upstairs when I’m done serving the guests.

She’s dressed when she comes to the door this time, and barely spares me a glance, her focus on her phone. “Thanks,” she says. “Smells great.”

She doesn’t even look at the food.

“Everything okay?” I ask. Maybe things are finally sinking in, and she’s having a delayed reaction to them? Is late-onset denial a thing?

“What?” She glances up. “Yeah. Fine. I’m just doing some research.”

“For the book? Arnlaug and I can help with some inside info.” Wearethe inside info.

She purses her lips. “No, not for the book. Thanks again for the food. See you in a few hours.”

That’s my cue to leave. “Before I go, you should know you’re having dinner with your fans tonight. I told them to be down at seven.” I grab this morning’s empty dishes and all but blink down the stairs before she has time to react.

There’s no timid knock at five. More a pounding, threatening to wake up the entire village from their afternoon nap.

“Ready or not, I’m coming in,” Scarlett bellows.

She marches in without waiting for a response. Is that disappointment on her face when she sees both of us dressed? “Well, let’s go,” she says. “And where’s my sword?”

Her posture is nothing like it was this morning. She seems much surer of herself, and that continues when we’re on Olympus and she has her sword in hand. I won’t say she has an expert grip on it, but she doesn’t drop it on her first attack, and she even slices into Arnlaug’s fatigues once, for which she profusely apologizes.

If I hadn’t spent a month around her already, I might not notice her pained grimace. She’s been doing her ten-minute Tai Chi routine religiously every morning, and taking the stairs up and down a few times a day has helped her physical condition, but that sword is too heavy to be swung for an hour nonstop, let alone for two hourly sessions on the first day of training.

“Why not try another approach this time?” I ask from my comfy armchair. “Maybe a little running and stretching?” I look at Arnlaug. “You’ve thrown her in at the deep end.”

He gives me a perplexed look but shrugs. “Let’s start with running a couple kilometers. Warm up,” he tells her.

“Isn’t that a little more than a mile?” Scarlett gulps. “Can’t we just do the stretching?” She throws her sword to the ground, and Arnlaug’s head may explode.

“You don’t toss your weapon to the dirt,” he grunts menacingly.

Scarlett whirls on him. “Are you fucking kidding me? You did that a million times this morning.”

“I wasn’t droppingmysword,” he snaps.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t dropyoursword, either.”

Delightful as this is, we’re losing sight of our goal. “How about you stop bickering and run from there to there”—I point between a bush and a cluster of rocks, about a hundred meters apart—“half a dozen times?”

“That sounds more doable.” Not if she keeps sprinting the distance. She’ll get winded soon.

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