The Mercenary's Valkyrie: Book One

The Long Road

We rode until I could feel Parsnip's heaving breathing on my legs and I could not stand for it a moment longer.

We were in the eastern reaches of the deep forest. Ravensbrooke was miles from us now as we had rode through the night to escape the guard. Warm sunlight had begun to break through the tree canopy and tease my skin.

I breathed in long and hard, closing my eyes and letting it relax me before the shadows stole it away. When it was finally hidden by the leaves above I opened my eyes and found the immortal stared at me curiously.

But the moment my eyes met hers, the wonder vanished and the emotionless mask was back so quickly I thought I had imagined it all.

"I enjoy the small things." I shrugged.

"And I, the large things!" Kaden blurted, holding his gloved hands out as if he were groping a pair of breasts.

John bent over his horse cackling at the buffoon. I rolled my eyes all the way to Valhalla and back. The Valkyrie simply pulled her hood lower and muttered something about mortality.

But that only made me speak the question that had been on my mind since I had met her...

"How old are you really?" I asked her quietly.

The laughing continued and the men paid little attention fortunately. This was something I knew I could only glean from her ever endless pool of secrets. She spoke so alienated from us all the time. I had to wonder if she ever was a mortal...

I saw her shoulders tense at my words. Even her breath drew in.

She pulled her horse up slightly so it walked level with Parsnip. My mount then proceeded to puff out a snicker in greeting to her dark war horse. It whinnied back and flicked and ear in its own greeting. Friends already. If only the Valkyrie was that amicable.

"Why does that tug the edges of your curiosity?" She sighed.

"You told me that every Valkyrie begins as a mortal. You speak—you act as if you never were one."

Her eyes shot to mine, darting between them as if in fear. As if an unraveling of her past had occurred and she had no control over it.

"Perhaps it was so mundane I repressed it." She said too quickly.

I raised a brow. "Impossible. You would not be as you are, if that were true."

"When did the small mortal start attaining such large perceptiveness?" She deadpanned with a flat look.

"Small?" I scoffed. I shook my head. "No. You stray us from the point."

"I propose a counter point."

My brows drew together in suspicion. "And what would that be, immortal?" I said slowly.

A devilish smile crossed her features. "A trade. One answer of mine, for one of yours." She said simply.

Of course. I could not play this game and give her nothing in return.

"But surely you know everything of me?"

"As I have told you, I only know that which concerned your rise to immortality. That included very few things about you as a human, Tayah Ashrive."

The sound of my name in that melodic song that was her voice sent heat through my body. I suddenly looked out at the trees for distraction from the maddening being.

"What is your true name?" I murmured, looking out at a grassy meadow between the trees.

Silence. It continued until I thought she would not answer.