Why him?

Honestly, I hadn’t a fucking clue. All I knew was that of the dead creatures around me, his touch was the only one I could tolerate. Something about the guy was different than the rest. Some…spark in his baby blue eyes made me want to get closer, find out all his secrets.

Don’t get me wrong. I’d had that feeling about a guy before. But on a normal day the need to discover everything about a man usually ended with me ripping his heart out through his chest wall to see what it looked like. Because, let’s be honest, there’s nothing more intimate than knowing what a person’s heart looks like as it beats its last, is there? No? Just me then. Okay, I’ll readily admit that after years of doing this job, I’m not exactly up on what’s appropriate in polite company.

Big, bad vamp stepped up to the edge of the circle, which gave me the opportunity to study him closer. My night sight was excellent, a distinct advantage in my job I can tell you, so I saw him as clearly as though he stood in daylight.

Handsome as fuck in that clean-cut Hollywood kind of way, he was tall and broad-shouldered. A snappy dresser in a black silk shirt and black pants…. what was it with Vampires and black? Seemed as soon as any of them rose again they gravitated to one wardrobe choice. Any color, as long as it was black… he had the kind of physique that indicated he’d spent some serious time with weights at some point.

Huh, must have been a gym bunny before some vamp had opened a vein to turn him. Unless—and this was an outside thought—some enterprising soul had started a gym chain for the health-conscious bloodsucker. Since the creatures could bench press small cars without breaking a sweat, what they’d use for weights boggled the mind.

I shrugged one shoulder as he stepped up to the edge of the circle. “Because you’re kinda cute and, unlike cupcake over there…” I jerked a nod toward the baby vampire. “You look like you’ve got some experience under your belt and, well, you know… a lady needs a man, not a boy.”

My voice had dropped to a sultry purr at the end and as I watched, the tones with their hidden compulsion had their desired effect. His blue eyes widened fractionally and his nostrils flared. He couldn’t seem to stop the half step forward that brought his toes almost to the edge of the blood circle.

Just one little step over, sweetheart. And I’ll be free as a bird…

Or wouldn’t. As soon as the thought of plunging my hand through his chest and ripping his heart out crossed my mind, I realized I couldn’t do it. They had one of my kind prisoner somewhere and I needed to find her, fast.

Valkyries aren’t born… exactly. Well, we are, obviously. We don’t spring forth fully formed. The Valkyrie have children the normal way, like humans, but not all Valkyrie-born become full Valkyrie. They have the potential to become one, like the rest of our kind, but it takes a specific set of circumstances for a Valk-born to make the transition.

We have to die.

Yeah, you heard me right. We have to die to transition. A bit like vampires although it’s more we live, we die… and then we live again but in like full on fucking HD. We’re stronger, faster and a hell of a lot harder (read impossible) to kill. We become Odin’s chosen warriors, although, to be honest I don’t know any of us who have actually seen the Allfather.

So basically it boils down to this. If these bloodsuckers had a Valk-born and they killed her, if somehow she died and they got vamp blood into her… yeah, I don’t even want to think about what sort of damage a Valk/vamp hybrid could do before we put her down. It would be uuuugggggllllleeee on all sorts of levels.

“A man, is it? Oh, I’m definitely all man, sweetheart…” The gorgeous vampire in front of me breathed, his gaze latched onto my face. I’d seen that look on men before. Kinda glazed over as their pricks took their higher brain functions for a joyride. The rest of my sisters called me the Black Widow because I used my feminine wiles to bring my prey into thrall and then killed them.

Which was a total fucking joke.

The sexy act was just that, an act. A defense mechanism to cover… I turned my head slightly so the hidden side of my face was the farthest away from him and extended my wrists to cover the movement. If he saw what I really looked like, he wouldn’t have anywhere near the same reaction.

I was no oil painting. An encounter with a changeling demon years ago had seen to that, and ever since, I’d kept the scarred half of my face well covered to avoid giving people nightmares. Unless I wanted them to die of fright, that was. But I didn’t want tall, blond and fancy to die of fright or due to me ripping his un-beating heart out through his chest.

So I watched and didn’t do anything as he reached past the magical barrier and wrapped the silver chain delicately around my wrists. Curiously, he didn’t seem to be affected by the silver but I’ll be the first to admit, I don’t really know that much about vampires. They have no souls, so in my day-to-day life, they’re not high on my list of priorities unless they get in my way.

The magic from the circle altered and snapped around my wrists instead. Tensing my arms, I tested the hold. It was good, still strong. Crap, whichever of my kind they were drinking from, she was powerful. Perhaps even as powerful as one of the thirteen sisters who ran the council…

“So…” I drawled to break the silence. “You got me tied up and at your mercy, handsome. Whatcha gonna do with me?”

* * *

Zane had no idea what he planned to do with the Valkyrie. All he knew was that he couldn’t let her go. For one, she would turn around and cut a swathe through his court, leaving death and destruction in her wake as she searched for the Valkyrie she thought he had captive.

That’s what he told himself anyway. That as a good earl, he was simply thinking of the safety of the court. It was more than that though. He’d never seen a Valkyrie, not in the flesh anyway. He’d seen them in his dreams aplenty… and sometimes out of the corner of his eye in the night.

Shrouded by darkness, the rest of his brethren didn’t see them, but he did. They were all beautiful, if hard-faced, women dressed in leather and covered in enough weaponry to arm a small regiment.

Much like the beauty walking behind him, her wrists manacled by the spelled silver chain. He cast a glance over his shoulder, watching as she stepped out of the darkness and into the soft light cast by the hundreds of candles dotted around the cavernous interior of the court.

It suited her, the warm light caressing her elfin features as she looked around the room. Her dark hair fell in loose waves around her shoulders and half across her face like a forties starlet, stopping him viewing her beauty in its entirety. For a moment the temptation to reach out and brush the hair back behind her ear almost overwhelmed him, but then he remembered that invading the space of a creature with no natural predators was probably not the best idea he’d had today. Even chained by spelled silver, she was more dangerous than anyone he’d ever met, and given his social circle… that was saying something.

“Welcome to my humble abode,” he said with a smile, sweeping an arm around to indicate the room and its occupants. Silence had fallen at the entrance to the little group, all eyes on the curvy, leather-clad woman next to him. He felt their interest, the air vibrating with tension even though no one moved. That didn’t mean a thing. Vampires were fast as all hell, so any one of them could cross the distance in the blink of an eye.

Ignoring the attention from the massed vampires around them, she looked around and nodded. “Cozy. It suits you.”

“My Lord, you shouldn’t have! You spoil us.”

At the sound of the deep, gravelly voice behind him, Zane couldn’t stop the slight flicker of his eyelids or the tiniest of sighs.

Darius.

If there was one constant in the world it was that in any group of people, whatever their species, there was always…always… an asshole. Vampires were no exception, and in the court, Darius was that asshole.

Only made a decade or so ago by one of Zane’s own fledglings, he had ideas above his station, always pushing against Zane’s edicts and decisions. At first it had been low-level shit but over the last six months or so, Darius had become bolder and way more vocal. Never within Zane’s hearing though… he wasn’t that stupid, or suicidal. His insurrections were always hidden away in the shadows where he thought he was safe.

“Spoil you how, Darius?” Zane turned, his gaze cold and hard on the other man.

Darius was tall and broad shouldered. Like most vampires turned after a certain age, he looked to be in the prime of health. There was no pale skin, or sickly countenance. Apart from the black on black clothing, he looked as far from the movie depiction of a vampire as it was possible to get.

A smug little grin on his face, he looked between Zane and his captive. “Spoil us by bringing us such a delectable little morsel as this.”

He made to step forward, his eyes full of lust as they swept over the Valkyrie. Zane snapped a hand out, stopping the other vampire in its tracks. Not by touch. He didn’t need to do anything as common as use physical force. Instead, power swelled around him, the energy reaching out to hold Darius in its clutches.

“Morsel?” he asked, one eyebrow arched delicately.

All around them, he felt the collective horror and careful drawing away of the rest of the court. This was a dance they’d seen before, and one no one wanted to get too close to. Because the colder and quieter Zane got, the more dangerous he was.

Darius, it seemed, hadn’t got the memo. His smile grew broader, if a little confused. “Of course, My Lord. What other reason would you bring such a beauty, one who is not of the brethren, among us if not to share her blood?”

Zane barked out a laugh, the harsh note rebounding around the cavernous space. “Share her? You really are a special kind of stupid, aren’t you, Darius?”

For a moment he considered snapping the silver chains that bound the Valkyrie beside him and letting her loose to tear Darius limb from limb. To watch her doing what she did best… dispatch dead creatures to the afterlife. Consign them to dust and fragments of bone.

The problem was, once she was done with Darius, she would decimate his court and finally, she would turn on him. And then the shit would really hit the fan.

Curling his hand, he tightened his grip on the power around Darius. The vampire jerked, taking a step forward as though he were dragged. Fear entered his eyes as he clutched at his throat before he remembered he didn’t need to breathe.

Zane’s lips quirked. The newly dead were so damn predictable, clinging to the preconceptions of their mortal lives. It took them a moment or two to realize they were different now. Dead, they would “live” forever… But eternal life was not the same as immortality. Vampires were just undead until someone made them totally dead.

He curled his fingers again, feeling the power in the air respond as he dragged Darius forward until they were nose to nose.

“M-my My Lord,” he stammered, managing to gasp out the words despite the death grip Zane had on his throat. “Earl Zane, please. I meant no offense… j-just—”

“Enough.” The softly spoken word fell like a death knell in the silence of the room. “She. Is. Mine. And I do not share. In fact, I do not even feel like sharing the sight of such beauty with an unworthy worm like you.”

Sudden panic filled Darius’ eyes. A tiny little grin crawled over Zane’s lips as he dropped the guard he kept around the darkness and rage in his soul and let it loose. It snapped and snarled, biting and clawing its way free to the surface. All the pain and rage of a creature half dead and half collector of the dead was concentrated in the hands he raised to Darius’ face.

And he drove his fingers into the softness of Darius’ eyes.

They gave with a pop. Blood and jelly oozed over his fingers as the vampire screamed with pain, writhing in the magical grip Zane held him in. Scooping the remnants out, he smeared the sticky mess over Darius’ cheeks.

“There now… much better,” he crooned, patting the other vampire’s shoulders. But it wasn’t enough. Darius could no longer look on his Valkyrie with lustful eyes, but he still had those memories locked away in his brain. He could pull her image from the records stored in his skull and lust over them.

Not good enough.

With a roar he pulled back his hand and drove it, fingers first, through Darius’ ribcage. Skin split like an over-ripe peach, the bones crunching and shattering as he reached deeper. Flesh gave, muscles tore and the air filled with screams as his fingers wrapped around the cold, still heart within.

Without a pause, he twisted and pulled, yanking the dead organ free and holding it up to show the rest of the court.

There is one thing the films and shows did have right. Vamps had a tendency to explode in flames and dust when staked, decapitated… or their hearts were ripped bodily from their chests.

Darius was no exception. His mouth opened in a final, soundless scream as black ash flowed over his skin until it covered him completely. Then, like lava pushing through the Earth’s crust, fire followed, red lines racing to converge.

There was a bang, and Zane brushed what was left of the fledging vampire off his shirt.

Behind him, he felt the myriad gazes of his children but paid them no mind. The interest from the Valkyrie, though, did make him turn his head to find her watching him.

For a moment he didn’t want to meet her gaze. He was a monster and he knew it, but for some reason he didn’t want to see that truth reflected in her eyes.

He didn’t want to see her fear or her disgust.

And he didn’t know why…

* * *

Fuck me. Tall, blond and vampy was so… cute when he was mad.

I watched as the vampire lord made short work of the guy who had challenged him. Well, as challenges went it was minor, but even I could tell there was some history there. Like a shit-load of it. A shiver rolled over my skin as he crushed the creature’s heart right there in front of its face and it exploded into dust.

Odin’s tits, nothing got me going like a good kill. Ridding the world of one more dead creature… it was almost as good as sex.

It was why a lot of us preferred to hunt alone. Well, those of us who were straight, that is. I had a couple of sisters who were a couple… they hunted together (and presumably fucked right after) but the rest of us were up shit creek without a paddle. We were not exactly gentle when it came to sex, and most species were too easily damaged to keep up with us, so they’re out. And Valkyrie males were as rare as rocking horse shit.

So rare, in fact, there were no records or stories about them. I’d only ever heard of one, in a story one of my aunts told of her childhood. Her cousin had been born one of a twin, the brother a Valk-born who had become full Valkyrie. But males were way more powerful than females when it came to our species, so powerful even an immortal body couldn’t hold it all in. Then one of two things happened…

They burned out, leaving a charred ruin of a corpse, or they went mad. The first option, as cruel as it sounds, was better. A Valkyrie gone mad? Anything, and I mean anything and anyone, became a viable candidate for Valhalla. When that happened we ended up with a shit-ton of souls going the wrong fucking way and a creature that could take on a fucking army and win to take down. Add in the fact said creature can’t be killed? Yeah, that’s why we preferred them to burn out.

My captor turned to me slowly, his gaze downcast as he looked at his hands. They were covered in a fine coating of dust—the remains of Darius, the unfortunate douche-bag of a vampire.

“Zane…is that your name?” I asked when he didn’t seem like he was going to move or speak. Vamps were like that sometimes. They could go as still as statues and stay that way for hours. Unbreathing, unblinking…

Except, he was breathing. And I could hear his heart beat. Slower than a mortal’s, closer to the rhythm of my own, but beating nonetheless. Had he done that to make me feel better? More comfortable? He needn’t have bothered.

Vampires didn’t scare me… for fuck’s sake, not even angels scared me. I’d tangled with both those from on high and the fallen to recover souls that were mine. And angels? Scary fuckers at the best of times. Put them in a bad mood? Extinction level event, let me tell you.

He looked up, and I was caught in his blue-eyed gaze. And the darkness that swirled there. It wasn’t just darkness, it was loneliness… and that I understood. That I understood only too well.

“Yeah. It is,” he said, his voice rough and nowhere near as smooth as he’d been when I’d first seen him outside the circle. “Yours?”

I blinked for a moment, wondering what the hell he was on about, and then I remembered my question.

“Uhh…Tove.”

Hell, talk about an awkward reply. I reached out and took his hands in mine, only hampered a little by the chain around my wrists. The enchantment tickled a bit but not much, and it was fading as the minutes passed.

Half an hour or so and I wouldn’t need it. That’s about how long I figured it would take for the enchantment on the silver to degrade enough for me to snap it. I said before that males of our species are more powerful?

Well, we’re not all created equal. I’m certainly not one of the big thirteen who run the council, but I’m no small fry either.

There aren’t many of us who are tasked with running demons down for one reason. No, three. You need some serious power backing up some solid fighting skills… and you need to be as crazy as fuck.

I luck out on all three. With extra helpings of crazy as fuck.

“Tove? That’s your name?”

His gaze latched onto my face, interest in his baby blues. With a start I realized he was closer than I’d thought. Somehow he’d managed to take a step, linking his fingers through mine.

Crap…vamps shouldn’t be able to do that, not to me. Never to me.

His fingertips whispered over my cheek and I froze, reactions hijacked by primal instincts of the male-female sort.

“It’s a beautiful name. A beautiful name for a beautiful lady.” He smiled, and his face transformed from merely handsome to stunningly beautiful. A visage worthy of an angel… right down to the darkness of lust in his eyes. Angels are not all sweetness and light as certain holy books would have you believe. They’re always just one step from losing it and becoming Fallen.

My heart leaped, heat thrilling through me. He held me captive with that burning gaze as he leaned down. He was going to kiss me, that much was obvious. My eyelids fluttered down without permission as my body softened and leaned into his. I hadn’t felt a man’s touch for so long… it was like I craved it, overriding all my higher brain functions to get what it wanted.

Then his hand moved, brushing the hair away from my jaw.

“What the fuck!” Panic set in and I slammed my hands up, breaking his hold and shoving him away hard. He hurtled backward, toward one of the concrete pillars dotted around the room.

Shitshitshit.

Time slowed as I waited for him to slam into the concrete, an impact that would damage even a creature as hardy as a vampire. There was nothing I could do. I’m fast, but nowhere near that fast…

He flipped in the air, as though his center of gravity had switched from the floor to the pillar. He landed lightly in a crouch, gaze meeting mine. Holy shit, he shouldn’t have been able to do that.

I didn’t waste time asking questions. With a twist of my wrists, I snapped the silver chain and sent a bolt of power hurtling his way. I didn’t wait to see it hit. I didn’t need to… I never missed. Turning, I beat feet. I had a sister to save and vamps to dust if they got in my way.

My job. I had to do my damn job.

Even if all I wanted to do was turn around and kiss the face right off Mr. Tall, blond and fangy…

* * *

I tore through the warehouse like a tornado. A woman on a mission. The vampires kept out of my way, mostly. Those that didn’t got the sharp edge of my knuckle-blades. Think… knuckle-dusters with sharp edges. When I get bored with them, I have combat knives sheathed either side of my spine.

Yeah, when I fight, I fight up close and really personal. Some of my sisters use swords and axes… Not me. I prefer to feel that tiny breath out when the blade slides in, the sudden widening of the eyes as the body realizes the blow is a killing one. I like to see death as it rushes inward in an unstoppable wave. We Valkyrie have been called death angels more than once. I find that description entirely accurate.

And right now, I could think of nothing I’d like more than to track down every single dead creature in this place and make them deader. That’s probably not even a word but I don’t care. It’s the only one that fits.

I tore down corridor after corridor, senses cast widely to catch a hint of where they were keeping my sister. If she was a Valk, even a Valk-born with the tiniest amount of our blood, I’d be able to find her.

That’s the thing about us, we can feel each other, like super Valkyrie sonar or something. It’s similar to the feeling we get when souls need to be collected for Valhalla but stronger. Way stronger. Forget blood hounds, there ain’t nothing like a Valkyrie on a hunt.

I worked another corridor, kicking in each door and checking rooms just in case they had her behind another sort of trap. A devil’s trap with her own blood wouldn’t work. They’d have to have something else set up. But what?

Three doors to go and I was beginning to think I wasn’t going to find her. Had they moved her… had Zane called ahead and had them sneak her out the back or something?

Shit, I really should call this in but I couldn’t. My phone had bitten the dust when that Legere had jumped me, taking the hit when the thing had tried to drive six-inch talons through my chest wall. I know I said I can’t die, but I’m not immune to pain, and claws through the chest? That shit fucking hurts. So I was kinda glad the metal and plastic got it, even if it put me up shit creek without a paddle right now. No problem. I’m used to dealing with things myself. On a hunt, things can go sideways really quickly, so I’m nothing if not adaptable.

Something caught at the edge of my senses and I froze. There was a terrified looking vamp crouching in the corner of the room, watching me through wide eyes as it tried to work out why I’d stopped instead of plunging my blades through its heart. That’s another thing the films have wrong. It doesn’t need to be a wooden stake, anything through the heart will dust a vamp.

It started to creep toward the door and safety, freezing as the movement got my attention. I glared for a moment and then waved at it dismissively. It needed to fuck off. I had bigger things to think about. Like the tiniest whisper of familiar feeling that indicated someone of my bloodline was close.

I turned on my heel and headed back out into the corridor, chasing down the feeling. It was faint but I had a bead on it, ignoring the rest of the floor and working my way up to the roof.

My steps got faster, the corridors and stairwells merging into a blur as I ran. The roof meant one thing…they were moving her. My heart stuttered a little in my chest. I couldn’t allow that to happen. Couldn’t allow her to stay in their clutches in case she was still just valk-born. If the worst happened and she died… I burst out the last door and out onto the roof. The cool night air wrapped around me as I stopped to get my bearings. Spinning on my heel I scanned the rooftop. The feeling was so strong I had to be about on top of her… so where was she?

“What the hell?” My eyes narrowed. The rooftop was empty. There was nothing. Zip. Nada. AKA… fuck all.

A shadow on the left detached itself from a deeper pool. All my instincts on alert, I swung around, blades at the ready as a figure emerged from the darkness. It resolved into that of a man, tentacles of night sloughing away from his tall, broad-shouldered frame to reveal Zane.

The crease in my brow deepened to a pit. “How the fu… you should be dead. I hit you. I know I did.”

He shrugged and strolled forward, his loose-limbed stride waking up all my female parts and making them tingle. I tried to ignore them. Fuck’s sake, all the guy was doing was walking… I should not be on the edge of orgasm just over the way he put one foot in front of the frigging other.

“Can’t kill the dead, darling. You should know that.” His voice was low, controlled, and the look in his eyes was dangerous. Ruthless. Focused.

On me.

I took a step back before I could stop myself. Before he’d been laid back and affable. Charming and cutesy, for all he was a vampire… Now? The all-American jock look was somehow darker and more dangerous. He wasn’t cute or charming. He was something else entirely. Rage and lethality rolled off him in waves as he stalked toward me. The danger drew me like a moth to a flame though, everything female within me wanting to poke the tiger until it snapped and I saw the real man beneath.

“No, but I can make them deader than dead.” My voice was equally as careful as he stalked around me. No point in running. Not until I knew for sure what was going on. Because something was. No vampire, not even a high muckety-muck vampire earl, should be able to take a power-bolt like that and live to tell the tale.

“Which you, patently, are not. So what the fuck are you?”