Page 47 of Valkyrie Confused

And she does. She pants for the two last laps, while Arnlaug easily jogs beside her. The tables are turned when they start doing stretches. Scarlett easily touches her toes with her knees unbent, both when she’s standing and when she sits on the ground, legs spread. She’s bendy. Another point in her favor.

Arnlaug, on the other hand, is as unyielding as his loyalty to the one-eyed prick he worships. I’ve seen him bend more in bed. He’s not giving this his all. Is he allowing Scarlett a win?

Interesting.

What’s more interesting is that he leans down to help her up. And she pulls, twists, and tosses him over her head.

This is fun.

Scarlett hops upright. “I can’t believe this worked.” She bounces on the balls of her feet. “Come at me,” she tells Arnlaug, who looks as stunned as I feel.

“Who taught you how to do that?” I ask.

“YouTube. TikTok. Google. I spent eight hours researching combat. You know, theauthorway.” She looks entirely too self-satisfied, even when Arnlaug lunges at her, wraps his arms around her waist and uses his weight to propel her to the ground.

“Hey, I wasn’t ready for that.” She smacks his arms.

He lets go and springs upright. “That was the point.”

“Do it again, now that I’m expecting it.”

They give one hell of a show, with most moves ending with them in a heap on the ground. In between attacks, he teaches her how to better distribute her weight as well as how to throw a pretty solid punch, and she takes to the latter like a duck to water, making contact once with his jaw and once with his side.

And the sicko is turned on.

That’s me. I’m the sicko. Okay, Arnlaug too. His hard-on is hard—ha—to miss, and unlike me, he can’t conjure a book to hold in his lap.

Scarlett isn’t unaffected either. Her breathing hasn’t picked up only because of exertion. She’s devouring him with her eyes as he lifts the hem of his T-shirt to wipe the sweat from his brow, exposing his sculpted abs and the Yggdrasil tattoo over his heart, and her desire is so potent, it clogs my throat and clouds my mind.

The next four weeks are going to be torture if I have to keep watching but can’t touch her.

Then again— “Hey, let’s see how you do against both of us.” I don’t know which of them I’m talking to; I just want to join them.

Their synchronizedcome-hithergestures would be infinitely more delicious if our grappling involved nudity, but showing Scarlett how to evade attacks on both sides will suffice. For now.

She ducks and twirls and kicks, and she’s not very good at any of it, but she’s determined. The Valkyrie fire burns inside her, even if her powers haven’t kicked in.

Arnlaug sees it too. He’s frugal with praise, but he grunts his approval, and his touch lingers when he corrects her pose. He’s into her, and sooner or later, he’s going to have to stop lying to himself about it.

“What time is it?” Scarlett half-asks, half-groans. “It feels like we’ve been at this forever.”

I glance at my watch—hey, I’m a god, but I appreciate Swiss craftsmanship. “Fuck.It’s six thirty. Dinner is served at seven, and I haven’t baked the quiches yet.”

“Not the quiches,” she deadpans.

“You mock, but you have a dinner date at seven.” I tug her to her feet and hook a finger through Arnlaug’s belt loop, to get us all back to my room.

He breaks away as soon as my floor solidifies beneath our feet. “What date?” Yeah, that didn’t sound jealous at all.Eyeroll.

“Her fan club,” I tell him. “You can eat with them too, so you growl if they get too chummy. You know, act as the muscle.”

“Need to clean up first.” He nods at Scarlett. “You too, Stinky.”

She brings the back of her palm to her forehead and pretends to faint. “Dear Lord, he cracked a joke.”

I guffaw, but Arnlaug remains stone faced. “I was completely serious. You need to shower.”

She flips him the bird. “Yeah, well,Idon’t have an acre of body to get clean. I only need ten minutes.”

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