I woke up in the backseat of my car after a fitful few hours’ rest. After dropping Ben off at a crappy motel last night, he’d made me promise to meet him for breakfast. I knew he had questions, and he deserved answers, but I was having second thoughts about seeing him again. I climbed over the front seat to sit behind the wheel and stared blankly ahead, torn with indecision. Why had I stayed when every instinct told me to run? In the clear light of day, I saw him for exactly what he was.
Ben was bait. And I’d fallen for it.
It was just too convenient that I happened to run into him. Mother’s bounty hunters had to be behind this.
It was time to go, right now before I wasted another minute. I cranked the engine and headed north toward Cedar Island like I’d planned. But with every mile, I felt more and more like a heartless jerk.
What if he wasn’t a trap meant to distract me? What if he really was just an innocent bystander? Then I was leaving him to face Mother’s bounty hunters on his own, knowing they would follow my trail and eventually find poor, unsuspecting Ben. They would execute him on the spot, and he’d never see it coming.
“Whatever, Thea, it’s not your responsibility.” I spoke aloud in a vain attempt to convince myself I wasn’t being cruel and ruthless just to save my own neck.
Twenty miles outside of Beaufort, I swerved into a gas station for a quick break.
I stared at my reflection in the bathroom mirror as I busied myself with brushing my teeth and washing my face. After changing into fresh clothes, I ran a brush through my hair and popped into the store for a supply of Diet Dr. Pepper and an assortment of gummies, my favorite travel snacks.
The simple task of gassing up for a road trip made me feel more in control of the situation. I slipped my sunglasses back on and leaned against my car while I filled the tank. I loved to drive. It was my favorite thing about the human realm. I liked nothing more than climbing behind the wheel of my own car, heading out for parts unknown with the wind in my hair—answerable to no one but myself. It was almost as good as flying. The sense of freedom I felt on the open road was exactly what I needed now.
Forget Ben. Let him take care of himself.
I returned the hose to the gas pump and turned around to slip into the front seat, but someone was already there. I jumped back, immediately chastising myself for not paying attention to my surroundings.
“Where’re we going?” Ben glanced over the rim of his dark sunglasses. “You promised me breakfast, Jessica … or whatever your name is.” His smile was disarming, and he was much less intimidating in his human form, even with his tattoo sleeves and nose piercing.
“It’s Thea,” I muttered. “How did you find me?” I leaned over the driver’s side door, refusing to get in the car until we got a few things straight.
“You’re funny.” He grinned, tilting his head back against the headrest. “You think I stayed at that fleabag motel? I’ve been following you since last night, and I’m going to keep following you until you answer my questions, so you might as well take me along for the ride. Or do as you promised and head over to that pancake house across the street and feed me.”
I wasn’t going to shake him like this. “Fine.” I yanked the door open and shoved him into the passenger seat. “Where’s your car?”
“Car?” Ben shook his head. “Why drive when we can fly?”
“You flew here? In daylight?” I stared at him with my hand frozen on the key in the ignition. “Are you insane?”
“Maybe, but I know how to avoid being seen.”
“You’re going to get yourself killed.”
“You underestimate me, Thea. Now, are you going to answer my questions or are you going to keep drilling me about nonsense?”
“You’re annoying.” I started the engine. “I’ll answer your questions, but you have to answer mine too.”
“Deal.” He winked, reaching to shake my hand.
“Just until breakfast is over and then I’m leaving.” I accepted his handshake, ignoring his transparent attempts to charm me.
“We’ll see about that. I can be very persuasive.” Ben slapped the dashboard and pointed across the street. “Let’s eat; I’m starving.”
“With humans, I have no doubt you always get your way, but a Valkyrie won’t fall for such tricks.” I pulled away from the gas pump. If Ben truly didn’t know what he was, I had a lot to teach him over breakfast. But that was all the time I was going to give him.
“That answers one question, then,” he muttered. “We’re not human?”
“Not anymore.” I sighed. “Valkyries have a form similar to humans because our ancestors were once human.”
His brow furrowed. “I used to think I must have died at some point and came back as an angel with no memory of my former life.” He snorted at himself. “So how did we become Valkyries?”
“My turn for a question.” I pulled into a parking spot at the diner. “Where did you come from?”
“No idea.” Ben gave me a look. “I grew up in the foster care system.”
“What does that mean?” I had spent the last three years in the human realm, but my knowledge of their ways was limited to what kind of drinks they liked and how their world revolved around earning and spending money. I also liked Netflix. A lot.
“Nu-uh. My turn. How did we become Valkyries?”
“The old gods made the first generation of Valkyries to do their bidding on the battlefield. We were strong and fierce warriors, but our job was to collect the souls of the fallen and escort them to the hall of the gods in the beyond.”
Ben took a breath to ask another volley of questions, but my stomach growled. “My turn.” I hopped out of the car and headed for the diner.
Once seated in a booth at the back of the restaurant, I gave him a careful look. “What’s foster care?”
“I grew up a ward of the state. No parents. No history. No nothing. When I could no longer hide what I am, I ran away and I’ve lived on my own ever since.” He shrugged. “My turn. You say our job was to collect the souls of the fallen, back when the gods were in charge. What does that mean now?”
“The gods all died ages ago. They nearly destroyed our world with their final war. Those Valkyries who survived the war rebuilt a new world from the ashes of the old one. What was left of it.” I glanced up as the waitress approached. “You really don't know any of this?"
Ben shook his head. "Nothing."
"What can I get you two?" The waitress peered over her glasses at us.
"Pancakes," Ben said. "Tall stack for me with scrambled eggs and bacon.
"Same," I said, "but with cheesy scrambled eggs and sausage."
"And coffee," Ben added.
"Lots of it." I closed the menu and handed it back to the waitress. “And plenty of cream.”
"Warm syrup?" she asked, taking our menus.
"Lots of it," Ben and I said at the same time.
The waitress poured our coffee and left us with the fresh pot before bustling away. I watched her disappear into the kitchen and then turned back to Ben.
"Okay, I'll give you a quick history lesson and then I get three questions," I bargained.
"Deal." Ben sat back against the worn pleather booth seat.
“Right. So.” I took a deep breath, glancing around the noisy café. I hoped I could explain this in a way that would make sense to him. "Thousands of years ago the old gods met their end on the final battlefield. It was supposed to be the end of our world. All the seers agreed on that. There was no way to avoid it. When their twilight came, the power of the gods would die with them, and with their power gone from our world—a world they created—nothing would survive." I took a sip of coffee. I hadn't thought about any of this in such a long time, but all my childhood lessons with Elder Leda came rushing back.
"The Valkyries fought bravely alongside the gods against their greatest enemies—er…” He was going to think I was insane if I said giants, which was the human word for the Jötnar clans, but something was lost in the translation. The Jötnar were large people, but they weren’t what humans thought of as giants. “Um, other creatures of our world,” I said in a rush. “It was our sworn duty to serve the gods until the end. When the father of the gods fell, most of the Nine Realms were hanging by a thread—"
“Nine Realms?” Ben interrupted. “You’re losing me.” His brow furrowed in confusion.
“Our world was once made up of nine separate realms, including the human realm. After the final battle, most of the worlds were destroyed, leaving only one fragment of the place the gods once called home—and the human world which the Allfather protected ages and ages ago. Now all of us coexist in that one fragment of our world as peacefully as we can.”
“And these people of the Nine Realms are all different … creatures? Like Valkyries?”
“Something like that,” I sighed, not wanting to make this more difficult than necessary. It wasn’t like Ben could ever go there. It wasn’t safe for him. “The father of the gods was the only thing holding it all together,” I continued. “At the last moment, when he took his final breath, the first queen of the Valkyries stood with him, poised to take him to the afterlife.
“Some say it was an accident and some say it was a final gift, but when the father died, the power of the gods fell to the Mother of all Valkyries. She became the first vessel for the power, allowing what was left of our world to survive. Our ancestors picked up the pieces to rebuild a world where the gods no longer reigned. Instead, the Valkyrie queens rule over all that remains, holding the power of the gods for all those of the Nine Realms who need it to survive.
“Now, many generations later, the Valkyries have built a powerful empire. Our queen rules over the Valkyrie nation known as Valsgard, and also serves as High Queen over all of the Nine Realms. Each realm holds a seat on the high council and together they rule our world. Every generation, a new queen ascends as the power of the gods chooses a Queen Heir from among the noble daughters of the queen’s blood. The power always chooses the strongest and wisest ruler to be the next vessel. She alone is strong enough to hold the power of the gods in her capable hands, though she is unable to wield it once she ascends to the throne."
I eyed our waitress as she headed our way with the stacks of pancakes, feeling only a little guilty at how much of our history I'd neglected to tell him.
"Can I get you anything else?" the waitress asked, setting a small cup of warm syrup in front of each of us.
"Oh, I'm going to need a bunch of these," Ben said.
"Can we get, like, a pitcher?" I asked.
“Each?” Ben added.
"Of syrup?" The waitress blinked at us.
"Yes."
"Warmed," Ben added.
“Um, okay.” The waitress gave us a skeptical, slightly disgusted look and turned on her heel.
"So that's it?" Ben asked. "We survived a war and then took over for the gods and carried on from there?"
"That's the gist of it, yes." I took a huge bite of cheesy eggs.
“But somehow I ended up here without a family." He gave a deep sigh of longing. "Can you show me how to get back?"
"I get three questions now," I reminded him, snatching the small bottle of syrup just as the waitress set it on the table. She’d only brought one.
"You going to leave me any?" Ben stared at the steady drizzle of syrup I poured over my pancakes, eggs, and sausage.
"Sorry." I finished and handed him what was left of the little pitcher. "I'm obsessed. We don't have anything like this in Valsgard, and I'm a sucker for anything sweet."
"I usually gross people out when I pour syrup on everything," Ben said, filling his plate with the sticky sweet goo. "But syrup on cheesy eggs is a new one, even for me."
"Don’t knock it till you try it."
"Oh, I'm going to try it next time." Ben smiled, refilling both of our coffee cups.
"First question," I said. "How did you manage to keep yourself hidden from humans when you were younger?"
"It wasn't always easy," Ben said. "I was adopted once. But when they realized my hair was full of feathers, they freaked out and sent me back into foster care. I've kept my hair short since then, not letting it get long enough for the feathers to show. But then when I was twelve…” He swallowed and glanced down. “Well, let’s just say sprouting wings doesn’t make puberty any easier so I had to learn to control it. Quickly.”
"Wow, that’s rather impressive,” I admitted, though I struggled to believe anyone could control their Valkyrie so well. “It takes a great deal of focus and will to avoid the change once it is triggered by imminent death.” Maybe it was his self-control that made him seem so … normal.
Ben shrugged as he stuffed a huge bite of pancakes into his mouth. “I guess. I ran away from my last foster home, and I’ve been on the move ever since. I try not to stay in one place too long so no one gets too close, you know.”
I offered him a sympathetic smile. “I do.” I knew exactly what that life was like. Ben was just as lonely as I was. Probably even more so—the poor guy had thought he was an angel all this time. I reached for his hand across the table without even thinking about it. "Now you know."
"You get two more questions," he said, giving my hand a gentle squeeze.
"Do you ever lose control? Of your temper especially?" I asked carefully. Despite all the horror stories I'd heard about male Valkyries like Ben, he didn't seem to fit the mold. At all.
"Sometimes. But no worse than most people, really. Why?"
"I get one more question." I chewed nervously on my lip. "How did you find me and what do you want with me?"
"That's two questions." He pointed his fork at me. "But I'll allow it. I think I must have sensed you somehow. Is that a thing? I don't know how else to describe it, but for the last several weeks I've felt this … dire need to head up the coast. Like a beacon humming in the distance. I just had to find out what it was. Turns out it was you." He shrugged, turning his attention back to his pancakes. "To answer your other question, I don't really want anything from you. You're the only Valkyrie I've ever met. Naturally, I have questions. A desire to connect."
"Connect... Like how?" I frowned. Legends of the male Valkyrie read like a horror story of war, blood, death, and rape. But I just wasn't getting that vibe from Ben. He was genuinely nice. I liked him and it felt so good to talk to another of my kind. But I wasn’t looking to… connect. If I wanted that, I’d go back to Valsgard.
“Like the normal way.” Ben laughed. “Haven’t you ever had a friend, Thea?”
"Yes," I said, my heart clenching painfully at the thought of Morgana and my sister. I missed them both so much it hurt. "But I've been on my own here for a long time now. And I like it that way,” I added firmly. Just in case he got the wrong idea.
Ben was hot with his bad boy vibe, dark features, and beautiful honey-colored eyes that made him seem like a lost puppy. But I wasn’t going there. For many reasons, not the least of which was that he shouldn’t exist. In my world, males were grounded—born without the ability to transform. They were also subservient to the women in their lives, a custom that had made living in the patriarchy of the human realm a huge culture shock.
“Don’t worry,” Ben said with an easy shrug. He leaned forward and winked. “You’re not my type anyway.”
“Oh?” I rolled my eyes at myself for taking the bait. “And what exactly is your type?”
"I like tall, smart women." Ben gave a devilish smile.
"And I like scruffy, strong men with backbone." I made to stab him with my fork.
"Hey, now." He dodged my playful strike. "I like smart blonds who have their act together, you know. Dean’s list, career types with five-year plans, pink cardigans with pearls, just itching to date the guy from the wrong side of the tracks. I'm the kind of guy who needs direction in my life. And I don't know you very well, but you strike me as the type to hunt and maim my type."
"You'd be right about that." I laughed, but it held a note of bitterness. "I'm the sort who needs direction too."
"Cut from the same cloth, you and I." He eyed my leather jacket, silver rings, dark eyeliner, and the metal studs in my ears.
Mother would freak if she could see me now in ripped jeans, grungy tanks, and clunky boots. Sylvi was the sweet, blond, put-together type, perfect with her books and the kind of talents I would never possess. I missed Sylvi, but knew she was finally thriving in her role as Queen Heir. Now that I was out of the way.
I licked the syrup off my fork and split the last of the coffee between us.
"So, what are you going to do now?" I asked. "Now that you know what you are?"
"Same as always, I guess. Unless you care to answer my question now?"
"What question?" I hedged.
"Can you show me how to get back to our realm?"
I swallowed my coffee and sat back against the booth. I could not allow Ben anywhere near Valsgard.
"I'm afraid we're stuck here," I lied, casting my eyes down at my plate. "The bridge to this realm was damaged in the final war, and a few years ago what was left of it was destroyed. Now there’s no way back."
Ben's face fell in disappointment. "Are there others like us? Here in the human realm?"
"Don't know." I shrugged. "I imagine there are some."
"For one tiny moment there I thought I might have a chance to find my family." He breathed a resigned sigh. "I guess I'll never know what happened to my parents or why they left me here to fend for myself. Who does that?" He fumbled with an empty sugar packet.
"Children are greatly revered in our world, especially among the Valkyries," I said.
It was true. Partially anyway. Daughters were greatly revered. Sons were as well, to a certain extent, but not sons like Ben. His mother had failed in her duty to execute him at birth and suffered a Valkyrie boy to live. She had undoubtedly thought abandoning him to the human realm was her son’s only chance at life.
I wished I could tell him just how much he was loved. No Valkyrie would have such love for a son—a dangerous son who would climb over the backs of his willfully slaughtered family to gain power—or so the legends of his kind claimed. Now, I wasn't so sure those legends held as much truth as I'd once thought.
"If your mother brought you here as a child, she was probably trying to protect you." I offered him the vague half-truth.
"I guess I'll never know," Ben said sadly.
And if he was lucky, he never would.