As soon as the gateway snapped shut, I let out a long, even breath. Seeing my mother and the rest of the valkyries had been painful but oddly cathartic. It wasn’t like ripping open old wounds, because the wounds had never healed. Instead, I’d just let them fester and rot for centuries.
Now, I felt like I could finally let them heal. They’d always be there, and I was sure I’d occasionally irritate them. Badb was right; I didn’t belong with the valkyries any longer. But that didn’t mean I didn’t belong to anyone.
I had Bryn, who was already such an amazing and strong person in her own right. Then I had Nemain, Magos, and everyone that came with them.
I subtly glanced at Badb and Niall.
People could be your home as much as a place, and I had finally found mine.
“What’s our next move?” Niall asked, drawing me out of my self-reflection. His eyes met mine, and I was surprised by the unwavering support I find there.
“We need to uphold our side of the agreement,” I said. “Find and end Gullveig.”
Badb made a noise of agreement and tossed her raven-feathered cloak onto the back of the couch before walking into the small kitchen off the living room. Niall and I hovered around the island while Badb tossed things from the fridge onto its butcher block top.
I picked through the food, which was basically all different types of meats, before grabbing the cured salami.
Niall frowned at the selection of meat.
“Badb and Nemain are feline shifters,” I told him. “You get used to eating a lot of meat around them. Although, Nemain has a little more variety since she operates a half-way house for vampires.”
Badb snorted at that before reaching back into the fridge and grabbing a bowl of cut-up fruit and placing that in front of Niall.
“Kalen prefers vegetarian options over meat when given the option.” She shrugged.
“Since Nemain is back, I’m assuming Pele is as well?” I asked.
Badb shoved a handful of smoked salmon into her mouth and closed her eyes as look of pure rapture came over her face. After a minute, she finally looked at me.
She blinked. “What?”
“Is Pele back?” I asked again with a bemused smile.
“Oh,” she said around a mouthful of food. “Yes, but she’s probably with Nemain. If Kalen’s not back yet, they’re likely still with the dragons.”
“Pele promised to get me information on Gullveig in exchange for my time in the seraphim realm,” I explained. “But Asmodeus might be able to help me if Pele’s busy.”
I didn’t understand what exactly was going on with the dragons. Clearly, things hadn’t exactly gone to plan in the dragon realm. But I needed to deal with Gullveig first before I could help Nemain and Pele. Gullveig was only going to increase her attacks on me, and it wouldn’t be long before she started targeting others.
She had already expressed some interest in Bryn. The last thing my friends needed was my problems exacerbating theirs.
They wouldn’t see it like that, but I would. Plus, Gullveig was the last piece of my old life that I needed to put to rest. I needed to finish this.
I eyed Niall as he methodically went through the fruit bowl, sampling each type of fruit. When he tried a piece of pineapple, he frowned and looked at the remaining pieces like they were a personal affront to him.
Badb followed my gaze and then we looked at each other, understanding passing between us.
“He can’t stay here,” Badb said immediately. “No offense. I’m temporary halting my plans to slowly cut him apart piece by piece, but I don’t trust him either. I don’t care how good of a lay he was for you.”
Niall’s hand’s froze halfway to his mouth before he slowly lowered the strawberry back to the bowl.
“What exactly are we discussing?”
“I need to go to The Inferno. It’s a local daemon bar that Pele operates,” I explained. “Her second-in-command should have the information I need to find Gullveig. But you can’t come.”
He opened his mouth to argue, but I cut him off.
“Aside from the fact that both fae and daemons frequent the bar, and they might be able to pick up on your devourer nature, you physically won’t be able to enter. Pele put some heavy duty wards in place to prevent anyone with devourer magic from entering unless they’ve specifically been approved.”
“And how does one get specifically approved?” He arched a dark eyebrow.
“Pretty sure the fucking you gave Sigrun will help with that,” Badb said wryly.
I gave her a stern look, but that only made her smile.
“We’ll figure that out later,” I said. “I promise we’ll figure things out with Nemain soon. But the negotiation to protect the Yggdrasil realms is dependent on me ending Gullveig. And now that I’m reasonably confident Badb won’t hunt you down and hack off your head”—at this, Badb shrugged noncommittally—“I think we need to prioritize hacking off Gullveig’s head. You can wait for me at my place.”
Trepidation rippled through me at the idea of Niall seeing my cottage. He’d already seen me naked, and had tasted and worshipped every inch of my body.
But for some reason, him not only seeing my home but being allowed to explore it without me there made me feel all kinds of vulnerable. I wasn’t used to feeling that way, and I really didn’t like it.
Still, he had to stay somewhere while I went to The Inferno, and my place made the most sense.
“I’m taking this with me.” He clutched the bowl of fruit to his chest, and Badb rolled her eyes.
“Fine.” A gateway opened behind us, revealing a flowery meadow and my cottage behind it. “While you go to The Inferno to speak with Asmodeus, I’ll track down my wayward mate and see what he’s done with your furry companions. Wait for me at the bar, and I’ll bring them to you.”
“Alright,” I agreed and reached out to grab a piece of what appeared to be dried venison from the butcher block. “I hope for all our sakes that Kalen kept Viggo away from Jinx. He was in a piss poor mood when I left, and they don’t mix well on the best of days.”
Badb huffed. “Knowing my mate, he made sure they did meet, and then he sat back to enjoy the fireworks.”
When I stepped out of the Badb and Kalen’s apartment, I was surprised to find myself only a block away from The Inferno.
We were still in the supernatural part of town that kept all humans out with a simple keep-away spell. But Emerald Bay wasn’t home to that many regular humans anymore.
Mortals were odd creatures. At one time they had all been well aware of the supernatural beings that roamed their lands. They even worshipped some of them as gods and feared others as monsters. Then their fear turned into hatred and they started burning anything with magic they could get their hands on before they stopped believing in magic entirely.
The fae and daemons made it clear to everyone who came to the human realm to not flaunt our otherness, mostly because they didn’t want to deal with a bunch of panicking humans. But now we could almost walk around as our normal selves and the humans would find some way to rationalize it.
Elisa and Bryn had gone to some event called “Comic-Con” and everyone had complimented them on their amazing cosplays. Bryn’s wings in particular had been a real hit.
Still, most mortals grew uneasy around areas of concentrated magic. And Emerald Bay had a very high population of magical beings these days.
The only humans who remained were ones with small magical gifts themselves. They felt more at home here, with us nonhumans, than they did around their own kind.
I nodded my head in greeting as I passed others on my way to the bar.
The presence of an exiled valkyrie had caused a bit of a stir when I first started coming here more often, but the locals were used to me now.
Unfortunately, so were the lokis, who seemed to take a perverse pleasure in annoying me.
Then again… they kind of took a perverse pleasure in everything.
“Sigrun!” a group of young and very drunk daemons screamed as soon as I stepped foot inside The Inferno.
A table full of what appeared to be water nymphs looked at the daemons and then at me. Something about the one with brunette hair, innocent brown eyes, and ridiculously large breasts seemed familiar to me.
Don’t do it, I narrowed my eyes at them.
Their cupid bow mouth smirked at me, and then they raised their pint glass in the air.
“SIGRUN!” the table full of nymphs that definitely were not nymphs screamed. This only encouraged the daemons to cheer again, and soon the bar was full of drunkards chanting my name.
My stare connected with one of the daemons who was tending the bar. Asmodeus’s turquoise eyes lit up with amusement, and they tilted their head towards the dark curtains that separated Pele’s office from the rest of the bar.
Just as I took a step towards the office and the blessed silence it offered, the sinfully pretty nymph popped up in front of me.
“Are you leaving?” they asked in a breathy voice. “Won’t you join us for a drink at our table? We’d love to enjoy the company of a strong and mighty valkyrie.”
They sucked in their bottom lip as they looked up at me with eyes that somehow managed to be both innocent and devious at the same time.
“Sten,” I sighed. “I don’t have time for your bullshit right now.”
They didn’t bother changing their shape, but they immediately dropped the whole “sex kitten vibe” they had going on and just gave me an annoyed look.
“Damn it,” they said. “You and Nemain always spoil my fun.”
“Maybe because your idea of ‘fun’ usually comes at our expense?” I crossed my arms as I glared at the loki.
Delicate fingers scratched their lush brown hair. “You… ah… still annoyed about the other week then?”
“When you and your buddies kept annoying my apprentice until she started thrashing you around the bar and got herself banned for a week?” I leaned forward into their face. “Yeah, Sten. Still a little annoyed.”
“We just wanted to play with the pretty vampire!” Sten blew out a puff of air, knocking away the strand of hair that had fallen in front of their face. “Your little valkyrie just needs to lighten up.”
“The pretty vampire politely refused your advances.”
Elisa was a little more adventures than Bryn, but she was head over heels in love with my apprentice, and I knew she’d do nothing to jeopardize their relationship.
I knew how lokis worked. Sten wouldn’t drop this. I needed to give them something else to focus on.
“There’s more than one pretty vampire around here,” I said slowly. “One who actually looks a lot like Elisa, but doesn’t come with an overprotective valkyrie girlfriend.”
Sten pondered this for a moment. “Pretty boy.” They snapped their fingers. “Misha!”
I mentally sent an apology towards Misha. But he was an adult with no attachments, and maybe he’d enjoy the attention of the lokis.
“I have business to attend to.” I stepped around Sten and tossed over my shoulder, “But I’ll suggest to Misha that he should come here more often if you back off from Elisa and Bryn.”
“Deal!” Sten said cheerfully. “And tell him to bring the adorable shy one, too. I adore the shy ones.”
“Sure thing.” Sorry, Damon, I laughed under my breath as I brushed the curtain aside and stepped into Pele’s office. Maybe the two young vampires would appreciate the break from babysitting the terror that was Isabeau.
As soon as the curtain closed, the raucous laughter and loud conversations became nothing more than muffled background noise.
Instead of sitting at the chairs arranged in front of Pele’s dark wooden desk, I walked over to the large archway that took up a good portion of the back half of the office. The gateway was currently shut down so no one could enter or leave through it.
Travel between the realms was controlled by the fae and daemons… unless you happened to know two feline shifters who could open gateways on a whim.
Noise from the bar briefly filtered in as the curtain was once again swept aside.
“Need to go somewhere?” Asmodeus asked.
I peered over my shoulder and raised an eyebrow at them. “I don’t know. Do I?”
A close-lipped smile flashed across their face. There and gone in a blink. Asmodeus purposely walked across the office and took a seat at Pele’s desk.
Today they were dressed in their standard conservative business attire, which meant they weren’t expecting Pele to be back anytime soon. Nemain had been the one to clue me in on Asmodeus wearing more… alluring clothing on the days they were planning on working closely with the future head of the Daemon Assembly.
Once she told me, it became easy to pick up on the small tells that revealed just how much in love Asmodeus was with Pele. What none of us could figure out was if Pele knew this and how she felt about it.
I had no interest in sticking my noise in their business. Unfortunately for them, almost everyone else in our social circle felt differently. Last I checked, there was a betting pool going on that even my young apprentice was involved in.
“You found something?” I quickly stepped to the desk and sat down in one of seats, leaning forward eagerly. “Can you point me to a realm?”
Asmodeus pulled out a map and stretched it out across the desk. “She’s in Acleonia. There isn’t much left of the realm, devourers swept through it centuries ago.”
They pointed to a valley that was nestled in-between two mountain ranges.
“Here, to be precise. I didn’t want to risk traveling there to confirm on the off-chance she would detect my presence and move somewhere else. But Nemain or Badb should be able to open a gateway close to her location. According to my records, Nemain did a job there for Pele a decade ago.”
I blinked in disbelief at the map and then at the daemon sitting before me. Asmodeus leaned back in the chair, looking quite pleased with themself.
“How?” I demanded. “Gullveig has been shielding herself from all types of tracking spells, and she’s careful about who she does business with. How did you find her exact location?”
“To be fair, this is an educated guess on my part,” they said. “But I’m quite confident that I’m right.”
I waited for them to continue, still not quite believing that they’d found what I’d been searching for so easily for months in a matter of weeks.
“You mentioned that a huldra was part of the attack that took place at your cottage previously.”
“It wasn’t really an attack,” I clarified. “Gullveig used the draugr to distract me while the huldra and dwarves just ransacked my place.”
“Regardless.” Asmodeus waved a dismissive hand. “The huldra was clearly working for Gullveig. Yes?”
I nodded, furrowing my brow.
“Huldra’s have a tendency to shed a lot of hair. Some of the strands they shed contain DNA. I went to your place while you were gone and collected those strands. Then I used the DNA that was present in some of them to craft a locating spell specific to that particular huldra.”
A smug, close-lipped smile spread across their face.
“There is no reason for the huldra to be in that particular realm, but that is where they went shortly after the event at your cottage, and they haven’t left it since.”
Despite it being an educated guess, I knew Asmodeus was right. The huldra rarely left the Yggradsil realms, and when they did, it was almost always to come to the human realm. But they didn’t bother much these days because the huldra preferred temperate forests over cities, and there weren’t many of those left in this realm that weren’t tainted by humans.
Another thought crossed my mind, causing unease to slither through my veins. My fingers brushed against the back of my neck where a small circular symbol was branded into my skin.
“This spell you used,” I said slowly. “It differs from the locating spells that rely on blood?”
They nodded. “Those spells pull the magic that is contained in someone’s blood and track that. Mine only cares about DNA.”
Shit. Blocking blood magic was a difficult; the daemons had the market cornered on creating counter spells, and they were expensive as hell.
After getting tracked down multiple times by young valkyries who wanted to make a name for themselves by bringing me down, I’d gotten a counter spell branded on my skin. It wasn’t as powerful as the one Nemain had gotten centuries later, but it was good enough to keep most of the valkyries from tracking me down.
Most of those in the magical community wouldn’t think to combine science with their craft. But it was unlikely that Asmodeus was the first daemon to do this.
I pursed my lips. Once the use of DNA became well-known in the daemon circles, other species would follow suit.
“How can it be blocked?” I gave Asmodeus a flat stare. “And how much will it cost me?”
A rare genuine smile spread across their face, causing their turquoise eyes to light up even more against their dark mahogany skin.
“Consider this one on the house.” They held their hand out, palm facing up, and a metal cylinder flew from one of the shelves to land in it. Brilliant orange flames sparked to life in their other hand, and they held the end of the seal over them.
I looked at Asmodeus with surprise and suspicion. They were being awfully cavalier about showing off their abilities. In all the time I had known them, I’d never once seen Asmodeus use their fire magic even though I knew they had it. I had no idea until now that they were also telekinetic.
Them revealing their abilities was a deliberate choice on their part; I just didn’t understand why.
The flames receded into the stamp with a pop, and Asmodeus held their hand out to me. I looked at their extended hand and then met their gaze, holding it once more, a question in my eyes.
“A war is coming,” they said quietly. “Balor is coming. I can see all the pieces he’s moving around. The alliances he’s forming. If we don’t make alliances of our own, we will fail. There aren’t many people I trust. I’m aware that you and I don’t know each other that well. But I also know what you’ve done. The choice you had to make.”
I went still at their words. While I wasn’t surprised that Asmodeus knew that Thor had been my bond, and that I had been the one to end him, something in their tone told me that they fully understood what it had done to me.
Killing someone you loved was hard. It cleaved your soul in two and left you holding the pieces. But that was the easy part. It was learning to live with what you had done that felt impossible at times.
“For that alone, I would consider trusting you,” they continued. “The fact that Nemain, our sometimes paranoid, prone to violence, and almost never-trusting Nemain considers you a friend and an ally… That’s enough for me. We need to trust each other in this.”
The corners of my mouth quirked up into a grin. “She really does live and breathe violence. Maybe the kids are right that she needs therapy.”
Asmodeus let out a light, almost delicate snort. “Pretty sure that’s what her sessions with Pele are for.”
Right. I’d almost forgotten that Nemain and Pele were a thing. Sort of. I didn’t really understand how two people could be friends who occasionally slept together without it becoming more than that. But somehow, those two had been during it for centuries.
I chewed on my bottom lip. If there ever was a time to ask and sate my curiosity, it would be now.
“That doesn’t bother you?” I asked, and Asmodeus’s dark brows rose in confusion. “That Pele and Nemain are…” I searched for the words that Kaysea like to use. “Friends with benefits?”
They shook their head, amusement dancing across their face. “Polyamorous relationships are common amongst daemons.”
“Huh.” I placed my wrist into Asmodeus’s still outstretched hand. “You guys are weird.”
They raised a brow. “Valkyries bond their soul to another and then literally die to awaken their powers. Also, you lot reproduce asexually by stealing bits of pieces from others. I’d wager your magic steals DNA in that process because valkyrie daughters are not exact copies of their mothers. And you think polyamory is weird? Might I warn you about stones in glass houses?”
They chuckled and pressed the stamp firmly into my wrist, it was warm to the touch but didn’t burn. Magic tingled against my skin as they held it there.
After a moment, they raised the stamp, and I pulled my arm back. The faint markings of a DNA strand with a circle around it were imprinted into my skin. It still tingled, but I knew from experience that it would fade within a few minutes.
I met Asmodeus’s stare once more and grinned. “It’s taken me some time, but I’m beginning to realize that life’s more fun when you’re weird.”