Shielded: A Valkyrie Saga Book 1

Allure - Chapter 15

I couldn't stop thinking about what Ray told me her father forced her to do. My nightmares were filled with a beautiful green eyed little girl drenched in blood within a makeshift ring. And the way that she reacted when Con had called her Killer just about ripped my heart out. Ray actually held herself responsible for what her father had compelled her to do. Not even The Law did that. It was the Valkyrie that did the compelling that was solely responsible for whatever actions they forced on another person.

I wasn't used to dealing with this kind of secret, and keeping something from my telepathic brother was messing with my head. I needed a distraction. I needed to focus on something other than Ray. My sanity depended on it.

--Max

I had thought that after everything I had on my mind that I would have trouble sleeping, but exhaustion both mentally and physically took over and I got a full seven hours of sleep. I woke up with my alarm and headed to the truck stop for my normal morning routine. I had to carefully unwrap my perfectly healed hand and save the gauze to rewrap it after my shower because I didn't have any spare gauze. I would have to stop by the store later and get some bandages because these were inevitably going to get dirty.

I picked up coffee and juice at the truck stop and walked over to Jack's trailer. Amy gave me a big hug making me feel bad for causing her any worry at a time like this. I didn't have another shift at Polly's until tomorrow, but I would bring her a cinnamon roll for Friday morning as an apology. I could tell that Jack was on high alert for any gossip involving Amy and when we disembarked from the bus, he told me that he was going to eat breakfast with Amy and her friends this morning. I was just about to join them when I saw Blake standing a few dozen feet away scanning the sea of students getting off the buses.

I waved to Jack and headed over to say good morning to the more easy going Berg twin. Blake gave me a heart stopping smile as soon as he spotted me and he held out his arms in invitation. I decided to take him up on it and walked straight into his embrace and wrapped my arms around his waist as he engulfed me in a hug. He was so tall and wide that it felt like I was completely surrounded by him and the clan bond surged through me. 

God this felt good. It felt right.

"Good morning, Baby Girl," Blake murmured into my hair and I smiled into his chest. He was the first person to ever give me a nickname. I kind of liked it.

"Morning, Big Guy," I replied and when I pulled away Blake presented me with a brown paper bag.

"Compliments of Elijah. Max trusted me to make sure you got it." I took the bag and looked inside to find a foil wrapped sandwich and bottle of cranberry juice. Just like yesterday, the sandwich was warm to the touch. It would appear that Elijah has decided it is his responsibility to make sure I didn't go hungry. Not that I was complaining. I unwrapped the foil to find an egg, sausage, and cheese sandwich on an everything bagel. Ten times more appealing than whatever the cafeteria was offering this morning.

I started to eat my breakfast sandwich and asked, "where is Max?" Blake was just opening his mouth to tell me when an idea struck me. This was a perfect time to test if I really did have the Tracking Gift. 

"Wait! Don't tell me," I practically shouted before bringing up a picture of Max's face in my mind and asking my body to find him. I felt ridiculous while doing it, but as soon as the thought of finding Max entered my mind, I felt certain that I could find him if I just started walking into the school. I followed my instinct through the front doors, passed the north cafeteria and the senior lockers, left down the math hallway, and into the library.

I glanced back to see that Blake was following me with a concerned look on his face so I gave him a reassuring smile before heading to the second to last row of bookshelves in the non-fiction section. There I found Max bending over Annabel as he fused their mouths together. One of his hands was braced on the bookshelf while his other was fisted in Annabel's long red hair. Both of Annabel's hands were exploring Max's muscular back under his shirt. I was so excited that my experiment worked that I didn't even care that I was interrupting Max's private time with his girlfriend.