Of Gods & Valkyries: Book Three

A Long Story

"You cannot know how frightened gods are of pain. There is nothing more foreign to them, and so nothing they ache more deeply to see." 

― Madeline Miller, Circe

– T A Y A H –

As soon as I pushed the door it collapsed inward in a puff of dirt. I sighed through my nose as I heard commotion within our old home.

Just as we had left it minus a usable door and unwanted dwellers.

"You have two slithers to leave this house before I lose my patience!" I called to the empty kitchen and living space.

Silence. Then laughter.

"This should be entertaining." Kára muttered under her hood behind me.

The gang of men finally revealed themselves from the walls and showed their very threatening daggers off to us.

"Ere' I was thinkin' it were the city guard. Not some common whore strollin' too far from my bed." He spat with a snort. The others roared into cackles.

"Tayah..." Kára ventured, coming up beside me with a curious look. I glanced at her briefly and took in those beautiful eyes that were more than amused now. I raised a hand and shook my head.

"That is no way to speak to a lady..." I drawled, walking casually and dragging a gloved finger along the dirt on the walls. More crooked grins and laughter filled the space as they took me in more closely.

"–I'd take her over me knee free a' charge lads!"

I heard a low growl behind me and smirked despite it. She would lose patience soon and I wasn't sure whether or not I valued their lives enough to stop her. But I would be damned if I made our home more horrific than it already was with their blood.

"Get out." I smiled at them.

They glanced at each other a moment and their laughter finally died out. The leader of their sorry party turned back to me with a raised dagger.

"Think I'd rather stay and take you on that there bed–"

A bolt of light shot through the space and crumbled the dagger in his hand to ash. He stared at his hand a slither before stumbling back rapidly and staring at his companions. I didn't even need to turn to feel her unconcealed anger in their direction now.

"The hells kind of sorcery–"

"Hell is much worse, mortal." I noted, scanning a line of mud smeared into our floor. They froze before me and my words. I let my eyes glow brighter with power and heard their hearts pick up.

"We–we didn't–you were–" He tripped over the floor and hit the wall breathing heavily.

"Just on our way out!" The second called, grabbing a travel sack and bolting for the door.

Kaden and John stood aside with matching grins. The rest soon followed without another argument. I raised an eyebrow at Kára. She shrugged her furred shoulders and strode into the kitchen.

"This abode would be better off burned to the ground and rebuilt leagues away." She deadpanned.

Kaden made a wounded sound and John puffed out his chest.

"I'll have it in working order in less than three spans."

"Working order and acceptable living conditions are different, mortal." Kára murmured, taking her seat on the only working chair at the kitchen table. The memory of her doing the same all those spans ago hit me square in the chest. She was so different and so the same. A collision of that immortal and my immortal.