Valkyrie's Sacrifice: Paranormal Romance (Academy of the Immortals Book 3) Read online

  I dress quickly, easing into the soft pants and perfectly fitting vest. I place the gifts from Morgan in the vest pockets; the small pouch and the book. I shove my feet into the boots, lacing them tight, then attach the sheath to my thigh. The blade’s magic hums with energy.

  A quick glance in the mirror startles me. I see the woman I once was before all of this; before Andi died, before the Morrigan, before grief and despair. I’m no longer posing as a girl in the Academy, I’m a woman, a Valkyrie, a warrior.

  And it’s time to kick some ass.

  I linger outside the bedroom door, possibly more afraid of this first battle than any others.

  Marshal.

  Is he an enemy? A spy? Is this all a trick?

  I push open the door and look at the wounded Immortal. He doesn’t look like any of those at the moment. Although his body is still magnificent--lean, hard muscle--it’s obvious that he’s weak from the severity of his injury. The cut on his lower abdomen is deep—disturbing. The poison eats at his flesh. A bowl of hot, steaming water sits on a table at his bedside, a stack of clean cloths next to it.

  Standing over him, I reach out and touch his cheek. He’s still feverish. I run my fingers down his arm until I reach his hand, which I take in my own. He’s unresponsive, lost somewhere in deep sleep. The ache in my heart tells me this is the first of many challenges. If I could do this without him, I would—but Morgan made it clear. Marshal is part of this, and I have to wake him—heal him.

  I muster the courage to do what I need to do.

  “I try to imagine what you were like back then,” I say, my voice shaky in the quiet room. “A powerful knight, smug and sure. I think of you riding into your village on the back of a horse. Armor shining, sword on your back, eyes glinting with mischief.”

  I place a hand over his heart. It thumps evenly, but slowly.

  “Gods, I would have hated you. Pillaging for fun. Attacking for the thrill. You told me you never took from a woman unless she wanted for you to. I want to believe that, but I also know for you it’s all about the conquest, about taking what isn’t yours.”

  Back at the Nead, he’d coaxed me with his wicked smile, his lithe body, and gave me a way to feel when I’d been lost to despair. I’d wanted it—and it made me consider that I could have been just like those women from centuries before. I’d wanted him. And he wanted me to want him.

  Maybe they were the same?

  I push down the sheet, revealing the severity of the wound. It’s awful. Red and swollen. It’s a testimony that whoever gave it to him wanted him dead. I take the cloth and dip it into the water, then without hesitation, I press the heat over the wound. His body trembles, the muscles tensing as he quakes. On instinct, I use two fingers and touch the puckered skin, pressing down. Thick, yellowish infection oozes out. It’s foul and reeks of death. I wipe it away with the towel and repeat the action over and over. Heat, pressure, clean.

  The process goes on for a long time—the infection deep, possibly down to the bone. With every emission his color returns. His heart beats a little faster and the fever wanes. At some point the nurse returns, carrying clean water and fresh cloths. I use them all.

  I’m not exactly sure when the skin starts to repair itself. Sometime after the fluid stops. I continue cleaning, wiping, occasionally feeling his forehead. Pressing my lips against the smooth skin to feel for fever and a different kind of spark flickers between us.

  I hover my mouth over his, lips nearly touching, our breath mingling. “It’s time to wake up, lover. The boys need us, and I need you. We’ve got a war to win.”

  Slight movement on my back draws my attention and I see his hand raised, fingers touching the exposed skin above my hip. I look back at him and his eyelids flutter.

  “Is that you, Valkyrie?” he asks, voice strained. “Or did the gods send me an angel to carry me off to death?”

  “Same thing, dumbass,” I reply, choking on my emotion. “But it’s not time to take you to Valhalla, even if you did manage to earn your place.”

  “Are you sure? Because this feels a lot like my idea of heaven.” His eyes dart down to my chest and he licks his lips. At least we know he didn’t suffer a personality change during his illness. “Although, you’d definitely be wearing less clothes.”

  I slide my hand down his side and push a thumb into his still-healing wound.

  “Mother—” he shouts, wincing in real pain. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Please never do that again.”

  “Don’t be a dick, especially when I just healed you.”

  His forehead creases. “You what?”

  “Nothing.” I stand, needing a little space from him. I pour him a cup of tea—something the nurse left and told me to serve him if, and when, he woke. It’s brimming with heat, but I carry it over. “Can you sit up?”

  He struggles but manages, sweat appearing on his brow. His chest heaves from the exertion and I worry—I worry that he won’t get better fast enough.

  “Drink this.” He eyes me and the cup warily. I sigh. “If I wanted to kill you, I could have done it while you were unconscious.”

  His lips curve somewhere between a grimace and a grin. “But where’s the fun in that?”

  “Gods, you’re insufferable.”

  As I hold the cup, a memory comes to mind. It’s of me and Miya in the tea garden—of him offering me tea and the way it provided me a little peace. A reminder that this is a ceremony, a bonding of its own.

  Marshal raises an eyebrow. “Well, are you going to give me the cup?”

  I shake my head and hold it to him, the way that Miya had held the cup to me. Marshal blinks, realizing something is transpiring.

  I lean forward, offering him the tea.

  Quietly, all snarkiness gone, he drinks; allowing me to serve him. As the moment passes his color restores, and before my eyes, he becomes nearly whole again.

  “Thank you,” he says, handing me the empty cup. Our fingers graze and a shiver runs down my spine. “After what happened at the Academy, you had every right to let me bleed out.”

  “True,” I say, placing the cup on the tray. “Unfortunately, because the gods love irony, I need you.”

  His eyes sweep over me, and I know he truly feels better because I swear the sheet over his groin tents. Even on death’s doorstep, he’s a horny asshole.

  “Not like that,” I say before he makes me change my mind. Marshal doesn’t know about the bond and how we’ve determined that together we provide the balance needed to win this thing. The same way Morgan and the Guardians did with the Morrigan. It’s sensitive information and I’m not about to share it with him. Not until I really trust him. “I need you to show me how to get back to the Academy.”

  “Oh.” His expression falls. “Of course. It’s the least I can do.”

  “I’ll send some clothing in for you, and when you’re ready, we can leave.”

  He nods. “I won’t be long.”

  I walk toward the door.

  “Valkyrie.”

  I turn and see that he’s swung his legs over the side of the bed and has a grimace on his face.

  “Thank you,” he says again, looking more human and sincere than I’ve ever seen him.

  I nod and exit the room. Morgan told me to heal him, to use him, but she also told me to trust my gut. My gut tells me that Marshal is still a wild card and until he proves otherwise, I can’t let my guard down.

  4

  Luke

  We’ve combed the Academy, room after room, looking for any sign of Hildi or Marshal. They’re not in the classrooms, or bedrooms. They did not go to the portal that leads to the tavern or the hidden passage to the training room. Elizabeth checks the room she shared with Hildi over and over, but comes up empty handed every time.

  “You looked in the library?” I asked outside of Marshal’s rooms. My search had been pointless, the room was wrecked.

  “Yes, every nook and row. Nothing.”

  The floors shake. It happens every f
ew minutes now. A painting on the wall falls, crashing to the ground. The frame cracks and splits apart.

  “Let’s head to the instructor’s hallway,” I suggest, stepping over a statue that has shattered into a million pieces.

  “Been there.”

  “Well, let’s do it again.”

  She sighs. We’re both irritable and this entire thing is futile. Regardless, I lead the way, walking down the hall toward the wing where the instructors had their rooms.

  What am I doing?

  The question haunts me with every step.

  Why am I allied with the side that will surely lose this war?

  That has already lost two of their strongest players?

  I know the answer, I muse, stepping over a fallen statue.

  Stubbornness, mostly. Oppositional defiance is the other.

  I refuse to be a pawn in this game—not for the gods. I’m well aware that there’s no circumventing their whims. But my father. The gods-damned Devil himself. Lucifer Morningstar. The fucking prick sent me here to be slaughtered and sacrificed. His son. His Nephilim son. He loathes the human in me and what better way to get rid of me than to toss me in a game I’d surely lose.

  I push open a door and look inside. Nothing but a mess like every other room in this building.

  “Anything?” Elizabeth asks.

  “No.”

  The walls whine, shuddering with a quake. I reach for the door frame, holding tight to keep upright. Elizabeth does the same across the narrow corridor. Our eyes lock as the tremor lasts longer than the one before. Understanding flickers between us.

  We have to leave. The thought leaves an empty hole in my stomach.

  As soon as the floors are stable, I say, “Elizabeth—”

  “No,” she replies, dashing to the next door. She flings it open. Then darts to the next, continuing her search.

  I run after her, striding down the stone floors on legs much longer than her own. She’s just flung open another door when I catch up, placing my hands on her shoulders.

  “Elizabeth,” I spin her around, “we have to go. I know we aren’t what the Legion wants, but we’re better than nothing.”

  Her eyes are glossy, tugging on that human heartstring I’m cursed with. I look away, up and over her head. Across the room something catches my eye. “What…”

  I step around her and into the room. It’s Miya’s room. Bare and utilitarian. My eyes are glued to the painting on the wall. Unlike every other object in the Academy that has fallen, cracked, shattered or has been destroyed, it’s firmly affixed to the wall.

  I hear Elizabeth follow behind me as I approach the painting. It’s a serene setting, lush with color. My eyes are drawn to the painting—but it’s more than that—it’s a feeling. Calm peacefulness rolls over me, a sensation I haven’t had in weeks. I reach out my hand to touch the canvas and the image blurs.

  “Elizabeth,” I whisper, wondering if what is happening is real.

  “I see it.”

  The urge to step forward is strong, overwhelming really. I’m mid-step when another quake starts to ripple through the foundation. Elizabeth’s hand grips my arm, clinging to me. My heart seizes, knowing for certain that if I step through this portal, the Academy will fall and we’ll never get back.

  “Hold onto me,” I tell her. “Don’t let me go all the way through.”

  “What? What are you doing?” she asks, fear in her voice.

  Without another word, I plunge my head through and shout, “Valkyrie! Hildi Axel! Are you here?”

  The landscape swirls around me—I’m neither here nor there. The tug of both worlds is excruciating. Painful. My ears pound, and my skin stretches. I feel Elizabeth’s fingers digging into my arms and my legs wobble from the quake. I give it one more shot.

  “Valkyrie!”

  The tug from home drags me away from the portal. The sound of rushing fills my ears but then, faint, like I’m hearing it through a storm, “Luke!”

  I feel the brush of fingertips, warm and strong. I grasp them, unsure who answered my call. There’s no time to check. I yank backwards, dragging myself out of the portal with such force that I fall to the ground. I land on both hard and soft, Elizabeth cursing in my ear. A second later, a weight lands on me, followed by a heavy blow.

  I blink looking up into crystal blue eyes, our bodies plastered together.

  “I found you.” I brush the hair off her face, trailing my fingers down her cheek. She’s warm, soft, real.

  “You did.” She grimaces. “That better be your fucking sword, Marshal.”

  I hear a chuckle and the relief of weight as the knight lifts his body off of Hildi’s. A moment later Hildi is pulled off of me.

  I roll over and search for Elizabeth.

  “Are you okay?” I ask the fairy, but she’s already leapt off the ground, wrapping her arms around the Valkyrie. Marshal catches my eye and nods his thanks. He’s pale, but alive.

  There’s no time for celebration as the building takes a heaving, deep sigh.

  “What the hell was that?” Hildi asks, eyes wide.

  “The Academy is falling,” Elizabeth replies.

  “Something happened when the temple opened.” My explanation is cut off by a massive, floor-shifting earthquake. “We have to go—now.”

  Hildi searches the room behind me, eyes darting around. “Where is the Legion?”

  “They went into the Temple when the gate opened. Armin left us here to find you.”

  “They left? All three of them?” She doesn’t try to hide the fear in her voice.

  “They had to,” Marshal says. “The apocalypse was starting.”

  “But we’re supposed to do this together.”

  He holds her eye. “We’ll find them.”

  Another shudder, this one bigger than the last. So strong the painting—the portal—falls from the wall and the canvas rips.

  Hildi stares at the painting and swallows thickly before asking, “Where do we go?”

  “To the temple,” I tell her, “from there, we can find the others.”

  “Do you know how to find them?”

  I don’t answer and lead the way into the hallway. I hear the footsteps of the others as we race down the narrow corridor. At the stairs, I turn, steps trembling under my feet, clumps of rock falling from the ceiling. If Hildi was unsure about the urgency of our situation, she isn’t now, keeping up with me as we run down the main hall. Dead bodies litter the floor, our former classmates that lost their lives as the gates began to open. I jump over a shifter from my Theory class, and step on the hair of a girl that flirted with me in the dining hall. I shore up my nerve and go straight to the staircase that leads to the door we’d opened once before. The one that leads to the Abyss. Right here is where I picked sides.

  I’m at the open doorway when I hear a massive rumbling and the air fills with dust. Glancing back, past Elizabeth and HIldi, just beyond Marshal, I see the exit has caved in. There’s only one option now.

  “Luke!” Hildi shouts even though we’re feet apart. “Do you know how to find them?”

  I shake my head. “No. I don’t.”

  She swallows again, and nods, fear briefly flickering in her eyes. It’s gone a second later, and she pushes past me to run down the curved stairs. The gate that she’d fought so hard to keep closed is wide open, the black inky cold of the abyss seeping into the stairwell.

  The temple is just beyond.

  “Are you ready?” she asks, looking over her shoulder. I sense Marshal and Elizabeth behind me; I don’t know if they nod or even acknowledge her. We’re not in a place to make a decision, there’s only one option. The Academy is falling. There’s only war and destruction ahead.

  “I hated this place,” she says, hand on her blade. “I came here prepared for a fight, honestly, to die. It ended up being something different—a twisted game with rules I didn’t understand. I’m not a kid, I sure as hell didn’t want to be a student. Roland is a pathetic dirtbag. Victorine
is a monster and they tried everything they could to bring me down, to bring us down.” She looks at me and Elizabeth. “I had no idea I’d find new allies, friends, and that was worth it.”

  With a deep breath, Hildi faces forward and does the one thing I know she never wanted to have to do. She crosses the threshold of the gate, and we follow her into the Abyss, leaving the Academy behind.

  5

  Hildi

  The hair on the back of my neck stands on end as we pass through the Abyss, a reaction from the last time I was here—when I killed Headmaster Gardener for trying to open the temple. It’s still bitter cold and the wind howls in my ears, but something is different—an eerie calm that sets me on edge. I keep an eye out for the six-eyed monsters flying in the air.

  “They’re gone,” Luke says, sensing my anxiety. “Victorine used the little furballs she tested in the challenges to fight against the bloody monsters. It was basically a slaughter that allowed everyone to get through.” He steps over a body, school necktie still hanging under an indistinguishable face. “Well, almost everyone.”

  A bone-vibrating rumble comes from behind us and we all stop and look. From this angle, all we can see is the walls surrounding the Academy. They shudder and shake, sending pieces of stone into the watery trenches of the Abyss.

  “How did it happen?” I ask. “How did Victorine get the key?”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t know. It happened quickly. The school was still reeling from the attack on Elizabeth at the challenge and then you vanished. Word traveled through the school that the gates were open. I was in the training room with our allies when it happened. Elizabeth was still recovering from the challenge. Rupert and Agis didn’t hesitate, jumping straight into the fight. When we saw what was happening, Armin told me to go get Elizabeth and to wait for you. Marshal was injured, and Miya carried him out of the Abyss. The next thing I knew, they were all gone, and unfortunately no one told me where either of you had been taken.” He gives me a quick glance. “I was worried we’d never find you.”