Truth: A Valkyrie Saga Book 3

Chapter 8 - Tracking

Before I met Ray, I didn't believe in love at first sight. I believed that love was carefully cultivated and grew stronger over time. That was how things had developed between Derik and me. Slowly over time, we grew to love each other deeply. But the first time I saw Ray as she rested under my favorite tree I felt this immediate and strong pull towards her. At the time, I had just figured it was because she was a female Valkyrie and my biology was pushing forward evolution's agenda. Now I was questioning everything because I felt that same exact pull towards the absolutely gorgeous and slightly feral man standing tall before me now.

He was stunning. Or rather, I was completely stunned by him.

I wasn't sure why, but I did know that my life unalterably changed the moment I set eyes on him.

-Elijah Nilsen

When we arrived in the void the first thing I noticed was the two people that I didn't know in the room. One was a man and one was a woman. Both had deeply tanned, almost brown skin and long hair that was so black that it almost looked blue in the sunlight shining through the wall of windows in Hernan's office. They were both relatively young, maybe a couple of years older than me, and both had this indescribable wild energy about them. Like if they weren't quite of this world.

As soon as Derik and I entered the void, the two strangers briefly looked us over and then returned their sharp gazes to Elijah and Blake. Their faces were slowly morphing from anger to something that looked like shock, and I didn't like it. They were the ones spying on what could be considered our people. If anyone should be angry in this situation, I was pretty sure it should be us. And why were they shocked by Derik and my arrival? I didn't think it was the normal awe over me being a girl, because they clearly had at least one girl of their own.

"It's not possible," the woman said and the man's features started to return back to their originally angry ones. Strike that, he was way more upset now than he had been before. The wild energy that surrounded him seemed to grow impossibly stronger, and matching Kukri blades materialized in both of my hands without me directly calling for them. But the man didn't even acknowledge the fact that I was now armed. He was still completely focused on Elijah and I started getting a panicky feeling about all of this.

I looked over towards Elijah to see if I was missing something in this situation and saw that he had his head tilted to the side and he looked as if he was concentrating. He must be reading their minds, and trying to decide what to do next. This is what Elijah excelled at. Reading the situation and coming up with a plan. I needed to slow down and trust that he knew what he was doing rather than run into this situation with blades blazing.

Max and Connor came running into the room followed closely by Sean and Mathis. The more people that showed up in the void, the angrier the man seemed to get. The woman had an opposite response. Her eyes just got wider and wider until she lowered her head in a sort of bow in Elijah's direction.

I was so confused.

"It's not what you think," Elijah said in a soft voice that conveyed a huge amount of empathy that further confused me. Why did it sound like he was siding with the Hidden guy instead of us? Not that I thought we should just attack them outright, but something had happened to the entire Rebec Clan all those years ago and these people didn't look exactly welcoming. I wanted answers, and these people were the first lead that we had.

I took a step forward and the rest of the guys including my uncle and grandfather followed my lead. The two Hidden were clearly outnumbered and I liked that we had the upper hand in this situation.

"I think I am just beginning to understand. And I will not take this betrayal as well as I took the last," the man said in a foreboding voice that reverberated through my bones, and then they were just gone. In a blink of an eye, they simply disappeared. One moment they were there and the next they weren't. And the worst part was that Elijah had disappeared with them.