Tracked: A Valkyrie Saga Book 2

Chapter 20 - Battle Lines

She was a magnificent creature of fire and pain who was just now coming into her own. She was letting these weak sniveling people dampen her fire. I had no choice but to take her away from their weakness and foster the anger inside of her because her anger was breathtaking. Under my careful tutelage, she will thrive and bloom into all that she was meant to be. She will be a terrifying queen to behold and the world will bow at her feet.

--Alexei Vasiliev, King of the Kingdom of Russia

Alexei was so intent on watching me during the rest of the plane ride that I had decided to heavily cloak myself for the duration of the trip. At first, the crazy king went damn near insane with worry when I disappeared, but when his struggles caused him to bump into my shield he came to the conclusion that I hadn't just decided to commit suicide by falling from an airplane. After a few minutes, he calmed down and tried to engage me back into a conversation with him, but I was done talking to him. I just wanted to get home, hug the guys, burn this ridiculous dress that I was still in, and sleep for a full twenty-four hours straight.

I worried about the guys. I worried about Amy. And I ran my conversation with Jack through my head so many times that it no longer made one lick of sense to me. Eventually, the plane started to descend and I resumed my death grip on my knife still lodged in the couch. I don't think I like flying.

When we landed, I finally looked out the window and was taken aback by what I saw. It looked like damn near the entire Blade Clan along with multiple people I recognized from the Collins' Royal Guard Clan were lined up in attack formation behind at least a dozen large black SUVs. I scanned the faces until I found the twins wearing matching expressions of anger and determination next to a pissed-off-looking Derik. My guys were standing next to Hernan Collins and Edison Greer.

The tight vice around my heart eased at the sight of the rest of the guys and I was even thankful for the ridiculously large rescue party. Alexei Vasiliev and the rest of our kidnappers were no longer going to be my problem. I was more than happy to let the Royals deal with this mess. When the plane came to a complete stop I sat up in my seat and looked around expectancy, thinking that either the rescue party would try to board or we would start to walk off the plane but nothing happened. I turned around to look at Elijah only to see that he had the satellite phone pressed up to his ear and he was murmuring but I couldn't make out what he was saying.

I finally focused back on Alexei only to find that he had his gaze locked on the three men that were still pressed to the wall of the plane near the entrance. I had totally forgotten about them and felt a little bad that I had left them that way for the past three hours. However, right now they didn't seem to be too bothered by it. They were doing a fair share of their own murmuring in Russian and I didn't like the glint in Alexei's eye. They were up to something. Suddenly, I wished Felix was here so that he could use his Communication Gift to let me know what they were saying.

I was just about to say something to Max when movement out of one of the small portal windows caught my eye. The guys, Sean, and about ten other Valkyries were approaching the plane in what I could only assume was some sort of tactical formation. Personally, I didn't know what the big deal was, all of the bad guys were in my Shields. Did they really need nearly fifteen people to take them into custody? For that matter, I wonder if they would, or could, do to Alexei and his men. I mean Alexei was a king in his own right. Could the Collins' Royal line hold him for kidnapping us? He did return us and we weren't hurt. What was going to happen here?

I knelt on the couch and pressed a palm to the window as I watched the progression of Valkyries in black run up to the plane. Elijah moved up to the front and released the large lever on the wall and a door sized panel folded out from the plane. Elijah shuffled back until he was standing protectively in front of me and then the narrow plane was filling with people.