Waking the Queen (4 page)

 But I remembered my alarm clock going off, I remembered guzzling a protein drink and I remembered pulling the last sealed envelope out of my father’s possessions. I left it on the bed. Had I dreamed all of that, too?

 The other choice was this had all happened. I was walking around without a heart in my chest. Cute, blond and deadly had disappeared and the scarred man in front of me thought he was the goddamned Phantom of the Fucking Opera singing songs in my head.

 “Do you know me?” he asked, his voice like whiskey sex, sliding over my skin in a caress.

 I found I could speak now, but I was still frozen where I stood. “Should I?”

 A bleak smile splashed over his twisted mouth. “Oh yes, Darkyrie.”

 My father had told me stories of Darkyries, Valkyries, werewolves and faeries. Myths and monsters were my father’s favorite topic. He’d told me stories no one had ever heard of before, yet this man had. I wondered if he, too, was something different, something else. Something like me. “Why is that?”

 “You really don’t know me, Helreggin?”

 He knew me. Not as Officer Brynn Hill of the KCPD, but as Helreggin, Darkyrie and shield maiden of Hel. Something warm and unnamable surged inside me at the knowledge that I wasn’t alone. But I didn’t know who he was and he’d just killed what I suspected was a Valkyrie.

 “My name is Officer Hill. My credentials and badge are in my jacket pocket.” I would have pulled them if my limbs hadn’t been frozen in place. Or maybe my .40. He was obviously a killer and I valued my own life more than I did the knowledge there were more things like me on the earth.

 His eyes narrowed in on where my shirt had been torn open when Astrid stabbed me. He grabbed at the opening and jerked it wider, the fabric ripping in his big hands. His fingers were on my chest, reading the lines of my newly healed wound like Braille.

 “She took it,” he growled, still tracing his fingers over where my heart had been. “When I find her, I’m going to kill her.”

 “You already did,” I blurted, wanting him to stop touching me. His touch was like nothing else, not even his sinful voice was as terribly wonderful as his touch. I’d never understood the big deal about touching, fucking. It was all a mechanical exchange of fluids to me. Until now. I had no control over my body’s reaction. This
want
. It intrigued me and pissed me off at the same time.

 He drew his gaze back up to my eyes and his fingers stilled, but he didn’t stop touching me and I didn’t want him to stop.

 “Helreggin,” he hissed, as if he knew exactly what I was thinking and it made him angry.

 “Brynn,” I corrected.

 “You really don’t know me?” He inspected my face, obviously for some evidence of a lie.

 “I said as much, didn’t I?”

 He laughed then, the bitter sound reminding me of the edge of that shiny sword Astrid had. “The gods are conspiring against me. I really wanted you to know why I’m punishing you.”

 I flashed back to my negotiation training and knew I had to keep him talking until I could figure a way out of the situation. “So why don’t you tell me? What is it that you think I need to be punished for?”

 He leaned in nearer to me, our faces only inches apart. I could feel his breath on my lips. “Look hard, Darkyrie.”

 “What am I supposed to see?”

 “
My goddamn face
.”

 His scars. “And you believe that’s my fault?”

 He grabbed my hair and jerked my head back hard. “Believe?” he snarled. “You invaded my village with your war wolves and executed my mother. You set our hut on fire all in defense of your god.”

 Feeling crept slowly back into my feet, my fingers. His rage had started to crack whatever control he’d held over me.

 “Look at my credentials. My badge. I’m a cop.
Detective
Brynn Hill. I came here to follow up a lead on Astrid Johanson and the homeless vets she’s been killing. I have never seen you before.” I spoke in a soft, soothing tone and reiterated my previous points gently, but firmly.

 “Your father’s mortal name was Erik Hill—”

 Oh, fucking fantastic. Another whack job obsessed with my father’s macabre fame. Then he said something that shocked me from my inner diatribe, but I was sure I couldn’t have heard him correctly.

 “What?” I demanded.

 “Pay attention, Darkyrie,” he commanded and the way his voice wrapped around me again, I couldn’t have disobeyed if I’d wanted to. “He’s in the lightning.”

 
In the lightning.

 
I’d believed it for so long, taken comfort in the storm, felt close to my father when the skies opened up with all the fury of hell. The storms in this part of the country were like nowhere else and that’s why I’d stayed in Kansas City. Especially on an April afternoon when the sky would turn curious shades of greens and yellows and tornadoes would spew forth tearing at the ground, the horizon, and anything that stood in their paths. They were especially lovely cloaked in rain and thunder—and the lightning I knew carried my father.

 He couldn’t know. He just couldn’t. Lightning was an easy comparison to make after my father had been electrocuted. Yet even as I had these thoughts, I knew the time for disbelief had passed. I’d experienced things this morning that were outside the realm of human reality, but I’m not human. I never have been. Whoever this man was, he wanted me dead.

 “The light of understanding blooms bright in your eyes, Darkyrie. Do you know who you are?”

 I considered shooting him, but my bullets had been worth exactly shit with Astrid. I had to make him angry to get him out of my head and escape.

 “What I am,” I wet my lips as I spoke, “I hunt the things that go bump in the night, pretty boy. If I did kill your mother and burn your home, w
hat did you do to deserve it?
”

 My words had the desired effect and the strange paralysis that gripped me shattered with his rage. I used that opportunity to bring my knee up hard into his groin. Whatever creature he was and whatever his power, he was still male.

 He doubled over briefly, but it was long enough for me to launch myself forward and send him crashing to the hard cement. I straddled him, my knee in the small of his back and pushed my fist into his neck to keep him immobile while I cuffed him.

 I had a shield guard in my pocket used to protect us from direct contact with bodily fluids when rendering CPR and when he opened his mouth presumably to threaten me, I shoved it inside. His power was obviously in his voice and I wasn’t taking any chances. I ripped a strip off his t-shirt and tied it around his mouth.

 If Grimes ever bothered to make an appearance, I’d say the perp had been spitting. Of course, I’d have to find a way to pry that shield guard out of his mouth before we got to booking. Maybe I’d just shove the spit hood over his head, but I had to keep him from… What the fuck was I thinking? I couldn’t take him to booking; I couldn’t—or rather didn’t know how to—kill him. What the fuck was I going to do with him?

 Damn it,
where
was Grimes?

 I shook that thought off. What could Grimes possibly do to help me? I a shield maiden of the underworld, Queen of Hel. Grimes was just a human. If I’d been human too, I might have wished for my father. For his voice, his guidance, his knowledge. He’d know how to kill this motherfucker. He knew how to kill everything.

 Maybe killing this guy seemed a little extreme, but he’d already said he was going to torture me, take
my
life. He obviously had the tools to do it and I had no knowledge of how to defend myself because I hadn’t come in to any of my power yet.

 Containment was going to be a challenge, maybe even impossible. I could try to knock him out and run like hell until I had a chance to regroup, figure out what the fuck was going on and exactly who he was—and more importantly, how to kill him.

 “Damn it, Hill. What are you doing?” Grimes’ voice startled me and I looked up to see him in the entryway with his gun drawn.

 “What’s it look like? I’m subduing a perp and he’s resisting.” But he wasn’t. He hadn’t struggled at all. Now, other cops would have seen this as a stroke of luck, but not me. In the five minutes I’d talked to this guy, I knew he’d never give up.

 “Is that a gag?”

 “He was spitting.” I hopped off him and dragged him to his feet, taking care not to meet his eyes when I spun him around.

 Shit was about to pop off. My captive had some reason to comply and whatever it was, I was sure I wouldn’t like it.

 “Why didn’t you call for back up?” Jason never lowered his gun.

 “Because you were already supposed to be here.” I scowled.

 Jason closed his eyes for a moment. “Did you see Astrid?”

 “I did.” She’d fucked my world up but good, hadn’t she?

 “And?” His tone was expectant and the way he said her name… it set off warning bells.

 “And what?” I narrowed my eyes at him, studying him more closely. What sort of answer was he looking for? Had he been part of this?

 He fired his weapon without warning and the strange, scarred man with the beautiful voice crumpled, surprise scrawled on his twisted face and dark green blood pooling around him.

 “Run!” Jason snarled.

CHAPTER THREE

 “
W
hat the hell was that?” I demanded as Jason shoved me into his car.

 “A clusterfuck, that’s what.” His familiar face was set into cold stone, even his blond hair not daring to move out of place.

 “Not really an answer, Grimes.”

 He shoved the key into the ignition and as soon as the engine roared to life, he tore ass out of there. Jason didn’t look at me and didn’t speak further.

 “Where the fuck were you? I could have died.” When all else fails, play the guilt card. I didn’t use it often, but with Grimes, it was my ace in the hole.

 “No, Hill. You’re a goddamn Darkyrie. They don’t die, they just get angry.” He swung the car around a corner and bumped my head on the window.

 The one man I thought had been a constant had lied to me. About everything. He knew what I was. Who I was. He’d obviously set me up to be alone with Astrid. I still didn’t know if what she’d done to me would help me or hurt me in my ascension. She was a Valkyrie, and as a Darkyrie, I was her polar opposite. I had no reason to trust her and she had no reason to help me. And Grimes… damn Grimes. He’d betrayed me. Something in my chest twisted, but it couldn’t have been my heart because it was gone and after Thora, my father had promised I’d never have to feel anything I didn’t want to again. He always kept his promises.

 If I’d been a different sort of female, I might have cried. But there would be no tears. No demonstrations of feeling. I’d do what I had to do until I could get somewhere safe.

 “Slow down. Jesus.” I had so many questions, but I wasn’t going to ask him. I was going to take it all in stride and excise him like a cancer. Betrayal burned like a branding iron even after I’d decided to cut off any emotion.  

 I’d let him inside, I’d even told him about my father. Granted, he would have found out eventually, he was a cop, but I’d confided in him. I hid my rage in the cloak of my usual unfazed demeanor.