The truck was definitely following me. I glanced in the rearview mirror again. Stepping on the gas, I picked up my speed. Tiny increments, I reminded myself. I couldn’t let whoever was behind me realize I’d noticed.
After leaving my very last shift at Harkers Tavern this afternoon, I made a few stops before heading back to the motel. I allowed myself to be distracted with thoughts of everything I needed for the big move to New Orleans with Ben. We were leaving tomorrow and I was so excited, though I still couldn’t believe Ben had managed to talk me into it. The boy was certainly persuasive.
We had plans to get an apartment and there would be plenty of opportunity for jobs in my line of work. Maybe I could even open my own bar one of these days—if I decided to make the human realm my permanent home. I wasn’t sure when it happened, but Ben had crept his way into my life and my heart like the lovable little brother I’d always wanted and never had. He was my best friend here, and I couldn’t stand the thought of leaving him all alone. I had to return to Valsgard someday, but that didn’t mean I had to stay there. The longer I lived among humans the more I could see a life for myself here. It was easier. No one expected anything from me. A simple life without the pressure of royal obligations was a tempting possibility.
After leaving the grocery store, I felt the telltale signs that someone was following me. My ice cream dinner was melting in the backseat, but I kept driving, moving farther from town. And Ben. I had to protect him at all costs. The truck still followed, far enough behind to avoid drawing notice—but I lived my life watching my back.
I cursed myself for staying in one place too long. I should have left Harkers Island with Ben weeks ago like I’d planned when it was just me. Mother’s bounty hunters were predictable, and I had always stayed two steps ahead of them … until I grew complacent. Now they were going to catch up with me and Ben would pay the price for my mistake. Unless I could lead them away.
“How long have they been watching me?” Icy dread slid down my spine as I watched the truck with the darkened windows. It wasn’t just me they would be after. They could already know about Ben. They could be going after him this very minute.
Regret stabbed at my heart as I tapped on the gas again. I had to get back to the barn. It was time to go and it looked like I was going to have to leave Ben behind. At least I’d prepared him for this, but he never took my warnings seriously enough.
I grabbed my phone to call him. My heart hammered in my chest as I listened to the ringing. I breathed a sigh of relief when he picked up.
Hey, this is Ben. I haven’t listened to voicemail since the turn of the century. If you actually want to talk to me send a text, otherwise, don’t bother calling back.
“Ben, you have to get out of Harkers Island. Now!” I tossed my phone in the passenger seat and smashed my fist against the steering wheel. “Stupid humans and their stupid technology! I knew what I had to do, but I didn’t know if I could bring myself to leave Ben and save myself.
Take him with you.
My foot pressed down on the gas. I had to try. But if we were going to run, I needed my things—my beautiful convertible and all my important documents, not to mention the money I had stashed in the barn for just this reason. I kept driving, leading my pursuers on a merry chase just to buy myself more time to think. A desperate plan formed in the back of my mind. It was reckless and risky, but it was our only shot.
“How did I get so careless?” I muttered to myself, heading for the side road on the outskirts of town where the train tracks flowed into an old rusty bridge. The kind where the road just barely dipped below the tracks in an opening big enough for most cars. But not for large, overcompensating trucks. I could lose them there, cutting through the old junkyard to ditch my car. Once I was in the air, I’d lose them long enough to stop by the barn and figure out where to meet Ben.
The truck was gaining on me. They knew I was onto them by now, but I had the advantage. Once I was on the other side of the bridge just ahead, I was home free. My body was already humming with the onset of my transformation. My skin prickled, responding to the adrenaline coursing through my veins. I just needed a brief window of opportunity to get ahead of my pursuers and I would be in the air. No matter how talented Mother’s bounty hunters were, they would never be as fast as a royal in flight.
The hum of two motors sent my gaze back to the rearview mirror, but the truck was the only vehicle behind me on the long, dark road. Darting a glance in each direction, I saw them ahead. Motorcycles. They’d come from behind, racing around me. They were going to cut me off at the bridge.
I screeched to a stop in the middle of the road just a few yards from the bridge that would have saved me. I was cornered, but not about to give up.
The familiar tightening of my shoulders had me out of the car before anyone from the truck could make the first move. The junkyard just beyond the tracks would give me the cover I needed to transform.
Legs pumping and lungs burning, I ran. I would not lose after all this time. They would not drag me back home. Not without a fight. Whenever I decided to go home, it would be on my terms and no one else’s.
“Princess Alithea, wait!” A familiar voice carried on the wind, but I didn’t hesitate. This was do or die and I wasn’t falling for a dirty trick.
“Amara, Vendela, follow her!” a harsh voice barked out orders.
The motorcycle engines ripped through the night, but they didn’t approach me as I ran up the embankment and across the tracks. My hands and feet lengthened, making my boots tight and painful. I stumbled as my eyesight shifted from human to Valkyrie.
“Your Majesty! Please?” the familiar voice sounded closer. My pursuer was on foot behind me, his long legs eating up the ground to catch up with me.
Fiske? What was he doing here? He was the very last person Mother would send to bring me home. Was this some kind of joke? I fell to my knees; the excruciating pain of too large feet stuffed into my leather boots was too much.
“Go home, Fiske.” My voice grated with the stress of my transformation and the ring of my authority over him. “Tell Mother to give up. I’m not returning. Not yet.” I managed to kick my boots off and scrambled down the other side of the tracks.
“Alithea, we are not your mother’s bounty hunters,” said a big brute of a man. “Stop running like a child and face the consequences of your actions.” Like a Viking from the old legends, he stood at the top of the tracks, a disapproving, hulking shadow in the flood of headlights.
Who did this guy think he was? I whirled around in a rage, my back ripping open to release my wings. I crouched, about to shoot up into the sky where they would never find me.
“No, Alithea!” Fiske shouted. “Sylvi sent us.”
My wings fluttered in agitation and my fists clenched, ready for a fight. “She wouldn’t send bounty hunters after me. My sister respected my decision to leave.”
“She’s desperate.” Fiske took a hesitant step forward into the light. “I have a message from her.”
“What?” the big man in charge demanded. “The princess entrusted a message to you?” He took a menacing step toward Fiske and I flung myself in front of him. I hated everything he represented, but I wasn’t about to let this brute harm the boy I was once meant to marry.
“Don’t come any closer.” I took a step back, forcing Fiske backward behind the wall of my wings.
The bounty hunter ignored my warning and stepped toward us. I could see his face in the light now. His Berserker eyes heated with the rage of the beast inside him. Like all of his kind, he had the eyes of a predator, and more muscle than brains. I knew better than to trust a Berserker with their animalistic natures and disdain for powerful women. Valsgard and Úlfaheim were mortal enemies. Why would Sylvi send someone like this to find me?
If I were smart, I’d be in the clouds by now, but Fiske’s words anchored my feet to the ground. Sylvi wouldn’t send bounty hunters after me without good reason.
I turned in a circle, keeping Fiske safely behind me. I was surrounded. A blond Berserker woman dressed in furs stood with a pair of daggers in her hands, and another dangerous, dark-looking young woman I couldn’t place closed in on me.
I still held the upper hand as the only one with the ability to fly. That was indeed a telling clue here. In recent years Mother sent female Valkyrie bounty hunters. Vicious ones who would make escape difficult in this instance.
This ragtag team didn’t make any sense—and that alone felt like Sylvi was trying to tell me something. The ferocious Berserker man and woman—and Fiske, of all people—waited impatiently for me to make the next move. But it was the quiet, regal-looking young woman I couldn’t take my eyes off of that gave me the most concern. Her slitted green eyes flashed in the headlights and her long dark hair fell in a tumble of wild braids down her back. Her flawless ebony face held a fathomless expression. Dressed in leathers and with a feral glint in her eye, she was by far the most dangerous, I realized with a start. Dragons were rare, and they only associated with those they were completely loyal to. I didn’t want to cross this woman.
And Fiske. Poor, unsuspecting, boring Fiske. He’d grown into his lanky height, a handsome young man now, but what kind of insanity had he gotten himself into with this group? And how had he made it across the bridge in one piece?
“I just want to give you the message,” Fiske said, shoving back the fall of sandy blond hair from his face as he stepped in front of me. “That’s the only reason I’m here. Sylvi knew you’d pause long enough to wonder why I came.” He held out a folded piece of parchment with a shaking hand. “She really needs you, Alithea. We all do. We’re desperate.”
“Give it here.” I held my hand out, keeping an eye on the male Berserker. He was the one in charge here. Sylvi might have sent them, but that one couldn’t be trusted.
I snatched the rumpled parchment from Fiske and stepped back, running my thumb over the indigo wax seal. Glancing at the silver ring on my index finger, I confirmed it was a twin of the one that had made this imprint. Sylvi’s ring. I broke the seal and scanned the contents. It made zero sense—or it wouldn’t to anyone who didn’t know my sister as well as I did.
“What does it mean?” Fiske asked.
“You’ve seen this?” I demanded, turning my accusing stare on him.
“No!” He took a step back. “Of course not. I just know Princess Sylvi, so it probably doesn’t make much sense.”
“It doesn’t. Unless you’re me…” I took a step toward the headlights.
Sister,
I know you aren’t three yet, but I need you to be purple. Come where the diamonds are in shadow and do not ever forget that you are half of a whole. Our house is no longer gold and indigo. I can’t do this without you.
The Druid is not your foe. He would have the world see him as the color of midnight, though he is really a warm brown and lovely shade of azure.
Sylvi
Classic Sylvi. I understood what she was asking behind all of the seer waffle, but to anyone else it was pure and utter nonsense. She was begging for help, asking me to be brave enough to return home before I was ready. But the gold and indigo bit had me worried. Those were the colors of the Ahlstrom dynasty—my family. I didn’t want to consider what it might mean if our house was no longer under the gold and indigo banner of the Ahlstrom Queens.
“Why is your Queen Heir asking for my help?” I folded the paper and stuffed it in my pocket.
“If you come with us, I will brief you,” the Berserker said, taking another step toward me.
I threw my hand up. “I’m not talking to you, Berserker.”
“You may call me Druan, Princess.” His white teeth flashed in the headlights.
Ignoring him, I turned toward Fiske. “Answer me.”
After a moment’s hesitation he responded. “Sylvi isn’t your mother’s heir.”
“Of course she is. That’s why I left.” I walked away from that role three years ago. The instant I left the Nine Realms and the power of the gods, the role would have fallen to my more suitable sister—there was no other vessel strong enough to take my place.
“In your absence, … we’ve been at war,” Fiske said. “Your Majesty, please, you must come home. We need you. Your mother won’t last much longer.”