Dead Embers(55)

A frost giant.

They were shape shifters. Probably a talent Loki had inherited from his birth mother. And this particular frost giant had taken the form of Brody to lure me here. We had been right; this whole thing had been way too easy.

Instinct took over and I reached for both my swords, drawing them in one fluid movement, as ready as I'd ever be for a battle with a frost giant. I kept my eyes trained on the Brody-giant, glad he didn't look like my little foster brother any more.

The frost giant began to grow in size, so gradually I almost missed it at first. But soon I faced a seven-foot ice giant, and all I wanted to do was run. His thighs bulged with great big muscles larger in girth than I was. Shuddering with fear, I lifted my chin and stared him in the eye. His eyes roiled like the frigid Arctic seas.

I wanted to circle him, but I really had nowhere to go, cramped in this room, which had seemed large to begin with. Now, though, with the frozen giant occupying so much more of the cell, I had my back to a wall every way I turned. I felt closed in, as if he would soon grow so large I'd have nowhere to go.

The giant towered over me, and stood so close I could have sworn I was breathing the same air as he was. In fact, I was pretty certain I was breathing in the icy air he'd just exhaled.

Ick.

But I had better things to worry about than personal space. I had nowhere to run; he could reach me no matter where I went. Suddenly I knew exactly how Jack felt when he escaped his giant by hightailing it back down the beanstalk.

My maneuverings with my swords were useless. The giant advanced one small step and thrust a finger at my chest. In all this time he hadn't said a word, just watched me with his hooded, iceberg eyes. Now he spoke. "Valkyrie, you are not going to escape from me." His voice rumbled, the sound of ice avalanching down the side of a glacier.

He snapped his finger at me, and I flinched. At first nothing happened. And then my blood ran cold. The tip of his jagged, broken fingernails pointed at me, edged with blue, as if his blood were made of midnight ink. Terror weakened my resolve; I was stuck in this cell, no way out, and nobody coming to my rescue. Ice crystals began to form on the surface of his pale skin, creeping along like a living thing. The icicle-finger flowed forward, lengthening, seeking me out. I blinked, frozen into place by the horror of the growing blade of ice.

The giant laughed, and the triumphant noise echoed around the room, almost spearing my eardrums with its sharpness.

The sound drew my gaze to his face, and our eyes locked. In an instant, I was lost in a swirl of fear and ice.

Held within his thrall, it felt as if I stood outside my body, unable to do anything but calmly watch as the frost giant thrust his icepick closer and closer to me. I didn't try to evade the evil shard. I couldn't. I shut my eyes as he stabbed his icy fingertip into me.

Coward.

I didn't care. If I were going to die, I preferred not to see the whole slice and dice of it. I expected the blade deep within my heart, and clenched my muscles to receive it.

What I didn't expect was the sudden stabbing pain in the top of my left wing. My eyes flew open. I twisted to look at the damage, feeling so utterly helpless. The frost giant had impaled my wing to the wall. Thankfully, he'd missed any major bones; the frozen blade pierced only a little flesh and slipped between my feathers.

I thrust away from the wall, wincing at the burst of pain that flared in my wing; the blade of ice broke and I was freed. Launching into the air, I hoped some height might give me an advantage. A sob of pain escaped my lips as I flapped my damaged wing. The frost giant just gazed up at me, an unexpected look of pity in his eyes, as if he felt sorry for my weak attempts at saving myself when both he and I knew I hadn’t a hope in hell of getting away.

That only made me more angry.

Come on, you great big ice-block. There's more to this Valkyrie than you think.

But before I got the chance to wipe the floor with him, the giant ran at the wall beside me and used the solid concrete to bounce off. He launched himself at me. I gasped, shocked, as he flew forward, impossibly fast, knocking me out of the air. I tumbled to the ground, helpless and hopeless.

I fell in front of the door, a crumpled heap of limbs and feathers. As I stumbled to my feet, I noticed two things, and both froze the blood in my veins.

One was the frost giant, who smirked and slowly returned to the body and form of what I thought had been Brody.

And the other, more important thing was the shadow—a patch of darkness that reflected against the tiled wall.

The shadow closed in on me.

Hands shoved me forward, and I threw my palms out to prevent my face from smashing into the bare concrete. I reacted too late.

Rough hands thrust a dark hood over my head, and I was plunged into a semi-darkness that both disoriented and infuriated me.

Anger stirred that strange latent strength I had, and a scream of fury bubbled inside me. I growled and struggled, trying to turn, but my attacker landed a powerful, stunning blow to my back. Was it just luck that his blow landed right at the center of my shoulder blades—right where my wings connected within my body and a complex set of nerves and muscles resided? I writhed in agony, shafts of icy pain running up and down my spine while my wings lay limp around me, like those of a dying moth.

A new, sharp pain flared in my shoulder, as if the angry point of a needle had pierced my skin. My attacker had injected me with something. My wings struggled and fluttered at my back, reflecting my fear, my worry. A dull ache built up in my throat, and when I swallowed, it felt pretty much like I'd swallowed my whole tongue.

Despite the darkness of the hood over my head, I began to see stars. Tiny little stars like millions and millions of golden dust motes. Only they kept getting bigger and bigger.

And then they all suddenly went out as I slipped into a sea of black.





Chapter 42




Sounds bombarded my ears, demanding my attention. I struggled to identify the muffled noises while grasping at the threads of my slowly reawakening consciousness. But I was still too groggy, and it all blended into one garbled mess.

Precious seconds ticked by before I registered the hard, ridged surface beneath my legs and hip. My wings, crushed beneath me, cushioned my upper back against the discomfort, though one of them ached from my recent entanglement with a certain frost giant.

The hollow sounds of a car engine and traffic filtered to my buzzing ears. So, at least I knew I was being driven somewhere. But why? Had this all been a setup just to capture me? Or was I just incidental?

Unable to see anything, I tried to relax, to force my breathing back into a more even pattern. The gentle sideways sway of my body made it clear I lay in some kind of vehicle. A truck or van, from the feel of the bed of iron beneath me.

My hands and feet tingled, bound too tightly, and the heavy weight at my hip confirmed my sword remained untouched. Strange they hadn't removed my weapon. I needed more information, and panicking got me nowhere.

I listened. And a strange awareness took over me. My breathing softened until I could barely hear my heartbeat any longer, and yet the rhythm of three different, nearby hearts filtered through to my inner ear. It seemed more as if I'd sensed the sounds rather than heard them. How was this possible?

Each heart beat to a slightly different rhythm. One sounded so odd I wouldn't have been surprised if it suddenly stopped mid-beat. He needed a doctor. Stat.

A second heart palpitated wildly. I was comfortable in assuming that guy was scared gutless. The third heart tapped away in an even, consistent, almost mechanical fashion. As if no stress touched him, no fear plagued him.

I now knew there were three abductors within the confines of the vehicle. Three men who knew how to incapacitate a Valkyrie. That knowledge made my own heart beat faster than was safe. I'd been so stupid. I should have gone back, found out what had happened to the rest of the team. I should have had backup when I entered Brody's cell. Now look what I'd gotten myself into.

My determination, even after getting separated from my team, had been for nothing. There had been no Brody, just a frost giant lying in wait for me, pretending to be my foster brother. If Brody was really a frost giant, I'd happily eat my sword.

My heart plunged. The kidnappers must have known where we were at all times. The more I thought about it, the more I suspected a set up. Surely Karl and Erik and their teams had taken the necessary precautions to verify the security of the mansion? But the whole abduction process had seemed way too easy. Was it really possible I'd been set up?

My thoughts went straight to Karl. And then I shook those suspicions from my head. Maybe I didn't like the guy, but just because he got my hackles up didn't mean he was a traitor. Besides, I wasn't the best judge of character, what with the whole Mika debacle.

The driver took a sharp left, throwing me into a roll across the bumpy metal floor. I slammed into the opposite wall, cracking my temple against bare metal. Warmth bloomed on my forehead, and I knew I was bleeding.

The van straightened, and I tried to stop my body from rolling back to my old position, but momentum took over and my body tumbled, unchecked.

My torso hit something solid, and one of my captors, the one with the sluggish heartbeat, grunted. Before I could properly register that he was actually seated right beside me, he growled and smashed his booted foot into the side of my face, catching my lip and splitting the soft skin. Rubber treads dug into my cheek, and I tasted copper and dirt as my split lip gushed, mixing with whatever coated the thug's boot. I would've shuddered had I been able to, but all my body and mind were capable of was to blink and swallow.