“Do you know what her plans are? Why she’s doing any of this?”
He shook his head. “No. And neither do my brothers. That’s the scary part. They’re in this without understanding the final payoff. Unlike them, however, I chose not to surrender. I will do whatever I can to keep you and Pink Lady safe. Hrista will stop at nothing to hurt you and kill you, especially now that you’re here.”
“Why are you helping us, Brandon? Why not just fall in line with the others? Honestly, I wouldn’t blame you, especially at the risk of becoming a shadow hound,” I replied.
He brought a hand up, ever so slowly, and tucked a lock of pink hair behind my ear. The mere touch of his finger made my skin sizzle, sending electrical currents through my whole body. My breathing stopped. Everything and everyone disappeared, and only Brandon and I remained, if only for one short second.
“First of all, it’ll piss off Hrista,” he finally said. “There’s nothing I want more than to see that bitch fall flat on her face. Second, I seem to have developed a soft spot for pink-haired Daughters. It’s not something I have any control over, I’m afraid.”
A sweet ache cut through my chest, my stomach tightening while my frantically beating heart made its way up my throat. What could I possibly say to Brandon now? Where were my words, anyway?
There wasn’t anything coherent floating around in my head. The only thing I could offer was a warm smile, hoping it might tell him more than my missing words would have. The faint brush of his fingers against my earlobe persisted with a delicate tingle, and a quickening pulse drummed in the back of my head.
This Berserker was different from the others. Yes, he was dark and extremely dangerous. I knew little about him. But I owed him a lot, and I wanted to peel away the layers of darkness he’d surrounded himself with until I got to the truth. The truth that made him who he was.
Thayen
“You shouldn’t have come here,” Myst said to Regine after a long and awkward silence. Neither had said much since Astra had taken Brandon outside. I had a feeling both Valkyries were shaken up by Brandon’s revelations about Hrista. Regine seemed to be having a particularly hard time digesting the concept. “Now you’re stuck like me.”
“And us,” I interjected with a dry smile.
Regine shook her head, her blue gaze flickering white, often. It spoke of her fluctuating emotional state, but I wasn’t sure what she was dealing with, specifically. Had I just been told that the sister I loved dearly was behind this mess, I probably would’ve been hurt and angry. Confused. Yeah, that was likely true for Regine, too. “I had to come,” she replied. “You’d been missing for a long time, and Edda spent her days and nights combing through Purgatory trying to find you.”
“What is Purgatory like?” Viola asked. She’d settled by Isabelle’s side, her pink glowing hands moving up and down the sentry-Druid’s body to try and speed up her recovery. She’d just discovered that the runes on her skin didn’t stop her from healing others—perhaps that had been because HQ wasn’t aware of her healing abilities. Or maybe they hadn’t considered it a threatening ability. It didn’t really matter, as long as she was able to help Isabelle, who was constantly fading in and out of consciousness, much like Voss and Chantal. I wasn’t sure she could do much to help her wake up sooner, though, but we’d all agreed it was worth a shot. Isabelle had been missing for the longest, and she must have seen and heard enough to help us make more sense of this place—at least that was our collective hope.
“You’ll find out someday,” Regine shot back, apparently irritated by the question. “It is not for me or my sister to divulge such secrets.”
Viola frowned slightly. “I was just asking. Relax.”
“How can I? Some Berserker just told me my beloved sister is responsible for this new hell!”
Myst squeezed her shoulder gently. “And it’s their people she has been tormenting,” she reminded Regine. “They have enough on their plates already. If this is, in fact, the work of one of ours, then it’s our duty to make sure they get to the truth and protect their world from whatever Hrista has planned.”
After earlier disappointments, I felt like I finally had something solid to hang on to where Myst was concerned. She hadn’t come to us easily, and maybe things would’ve gone more smoothly if she’d helped us sooner. But I’d also learned to make the most out of what we’d been given, and Myst was practically saying she had our backs. It mattered more to me than I’d thought.
“You believe Brandon, then,” Regine gasped. I empathized with her dismay, but Regine hadn’t seen what we’d seen. She hadn’t experienced the horrors we’d survived. Worse things were probably just around the corner, and this particular Valkyrie had shown up late for the game. It didn’t mean she wasn’t a welcome addition to this odd crew, however. We were in dire need of strong allies.
“I need to see for myself,” Myst replied. “But I will not exclude any possibilities.”
Jericho and Dafne exchanged glances. Soph and Richard were looking at me.
