“Are you the bad guys?” I murmured, worried that Helen had come for me sooner than expected.

My abductor chuckled. “I’d like to think we’re the good guys—or girls, actually.”

“Who are you?” My lids closed, and a persistent sleepiness softened my bones. The kidnapper answered in a distant voice, but I caught one familiar word before I went completely under.

“Valkyrie.”

Chapter Twenty-eight

I woke to see a small figure sitting in a chair next to the bed I now occupied. Her outline was fuzzy, like an old TV set receiving a bad signal. I blinked a few times, and the room stopped spinning. I blinked again until the figure came into focus, revealing a woman with short, dark hair and Asian features. She noticed I was awake and closed the book in her lap. She leaned forward and smiled. “Solina Mundy,” she said. “My name is Tori Ito, and I welcome you to the Aerie of the Valkyries. I deeply regret your coarse treatment earlier, but maybe you understand our precautions. You have quickly become a dangerous individual.”

“But reasonable,” I said, holding my throbbing head. “You could have tried talking to me first.”

“There was no time.” Tori winked. “Like wayward children, we decided to act first and apologize later.”

“I’m not sure I forgive you,” I said, scowling. “You’ll need to explain a lot more.”

“I agree.” Judging by the architecture and furnishings, Tori and I sat in the bedroom of an elegant but very old home. The window showed me the gray blur of a distant ocean. From the angle of my view, I guessed the house sat on a precipice high over the water—on a cliff, maybe.

“Where are we?”

“California,” Tori said. I waited for her to give me something more specific. Instead, she stood and went to the window.

I flipped back the covers and grimaced at my wrinkled and garish red dress. Next to the pale linens and somber furnishings, I looked cheap. Well, I had looked cheap before, in Vegas. Now I just looked trashy. Tori wore a dress that reminded me of a Greek goddess, and the white fabric illuminated her skin and dark hair. She was a complete contrast to me. Grace and elegance.

I tiptoed across the room and stopped at her side. “Am I a prisoner?”

Tori turned to me, a sad smile on her face. “We don’t intend for you to feel like a captive. We hold your life dear and want to see you better protected. The sons of Odin fail you, which puts us all in danger.”

I had no reason to trust Tori, but if she wanted to kill me, she’d had the perfect opportunity while I lay senseless during my journey from Nevada to somewhere on the coast of California. If she intended bad things for me, would she have left me unbound and unmedicated? Skyla had said she thought she might be a Valkyrie. If Tori was anything like Skyla, then I was in good hands. Or so I hoped.

“I wouldn’t say that to their faces,” I said.

Tori chuckled. “They are prideful and quick to anger, no?”

“Do they know you have me?”

“We left sufficient evidence. If they don’t already know, then they will soon enough. It doesn’t serve our cause to have them distracted, searching false leads in their hunt for you.”

“Will they try to take me back?” My heart squeezed at the thought, for Skyla most of all. For the men, however, my feelings were mixed, owing in part to the lack of trust and respect between us.

“The gods are possessive. They will come for you, and we welcome them. It may be time to rekindle our alliance.” Tori shrugged and changed the subject. “But that is only speculation. We have more immediate things to worry about.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“Training you.”

“Training me for what?”

“Survival, of course. But we will discuss this later. I imagine your head hurts, and I can hear your stomach rumbling from here. Would you care to eat?”

Until Tori asked, I hadn’t noticed, but at the thought of food, my stomach growled again. “I guess I would.”

“Why don’t I show you the bathroom? You can bathe while my sisters and I prepare supper. I’ll have someone bring you something for your headache.”

“Then we’ll talk?” I followed Tori across the room into a hallway floored in slate tiles. My bare feet cringed at the cold.

“We’ll talk, and I’ll give you a tour, maybe a little history lesson, too.” Tori motioned toward a doorway. I peered into an austere bathroom; no full-body jets here, only a plain white toilet, sink, a single-stall shower, and a small showerhead. Before she left, Tori gestured to my lurid attire. “I’ll also send something for you to change into.”

After Tori left, I stripped off the dress and dreamed of chucking it into a fire. Instead, I balled it up and tossed it into the bathroom trashcan. “Good riddance to bad rubbish,” I said and stepped into the shower. Never was that cliché more appropriate.

After dinner, Tori led me across an open yard to a large outbuilding resembling a barn. I was right about the house – a huge mission-style mansion – sitting on a cliff; the ocean waves crashed like cymbals one hundred feet below. “The Valkyries were Odin’s battle maidens,” Tori explained as we walked. She raised her voice to carry over the roar of the wind. “He tasked them with the duty of selecting the finest of human warriors to fill his halls in Valhalla and prepare to fight on his behalf during Ragnarok.”

I checked to make sure, but yes, Tori had managed to relay her information with a somber face, making me inclined to respect her rather than laugh at her. “So, you are not those same Valkyries from Odin’s days?”

“We are not the same Valkyries, as you are not the same Sol. We inherited the birthright. We train and teach each new generation so none will forget. If the sons of Odin require our assistance again, we will be prepared.”

“How do you find your sisters?” I asked, thinking of Skyla.

“We’ve traced the bloodlines. A record is made every time a new daughter is born.”

“Have you ever lost anyone?”

Tori stopped us at the entrance to the barn and crossed her arms over her chest. “What is the purpose of your questions, daughter of Sol?”

“Daughter of Sol?” I grimaced. “Really?”

Tori blushed. “I’m sorry, sometimes we get caught up in the old ways, living out here in obscurity. Solina, what are you trying to ask me?”

“It’s probably nothing, but I have a friend I think you should meet. She’s fierce, and I think she would fit in your ranks.”

“It’s unlikely that we’ve overlooked one of our sisters, but I would be happy to meet her if the opportunity arises. What’s her name?”

“Skyla. Skyla Ramirez.”

“It isn’t familiar to me.” Tori waved a hand, dismissing the thought, and pushed open the barn door. She showed me a room full of modern exercise equipment, weight machines, fighting dummies, gym mats—more paraphernalia than I wanted to catalogue. Two women in fencing gear sparred against each other in one corner of the room. To our right, another pair went through a series of motions vaguely resembling martial arts.

“Wow,” I said.

“Yes,” Tori agreed. “This is where we train.”

“Obviously. Y’all take yourselves pretty seriously, don’t you? I’m not really a fighter.” I followed Tori as she picked her way through the room, clearing a path through yoga mats, jump ropes, hand weights, and resistance bands. “Always thought of myself as more of a lover.”

Tori glanced at me over her shoulder. “Why can’t we be mighty both in battle and in the bedroom?”

I blushed. “That isn’t what I meant.”