Valkyrie

Chapter 24

I woke up from the hard reset on the small bed beside my mate but he didn't stir. I didn't leave his side. For three days I watched Trey sleep in Folkvangr. Every single twitch and sound he made had me shooting up out of the chair I'd pulled up next to the bed only to collapse back to it when he didn't wake up. I barely ate and slept even less. All I did was sit and stare at my mate and hold his hand while he healed.

When Sterling took him from my trailer, he'd shot Trey with another of those terrible liquid silver bullets. Top that off with getting hit with the silver axe then stabbed and his body was doing everything it could to heal. Had it not been for our bond and the energy he was able to pull from me because of it, he probably would have died from the silver poisoning his system before Sterling got him to Jutenheim. Now I knew how he felt when he'd had to helplessly sit by and watch me while I healed after I'd almost killed myself trying to run away from him. I was still covered in dried blood and gore and wearing a borrowed shirt and pants since I'd completely shredded my leathers when I'd shifted and I wasn't going to sit around in my armor. My mother and father would drift in and out, my father trying to coax me into eating while my mother would just stand there, silently staring at us before she'd leave.

On the third day, Freya had come in and made a disgusted noise while she rolled her eyes. "Sweet gods above," she'd said disgustedly. She froze me, picked me up, carried me down the hall, and dumped me in the tub, holding me under for a few moments before pulling my head out by my gross, crusty hair. The water coming off of me was brown and red and gray and absolutely vile.

"You reek," she had said with a sniff and a wrinkle of her button nose before she spun on her heel and trounced away, her stilettos clicking across the slate floor. She turned and threw a bar of soap at my head. I didn't even try to block it from hitting me. The pain was a welcome sting and less then I deserved. "Don't come out until you're clean. Then you're going to eat or I'll freeze you again and have someone feed you." She slammed and locked the door of the bathing room and left me to it.

I scrubbed as quickly as I could and when I got back to Trey, he was awake and sitting up in the bed. He had the worst case of bedhead and he was still too pale but he was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. Tears filled my eyes and I let them fall. I didn't care if anyone saw them. I was so happy that he was awake. I had been so afraid that he'd never come back to me. Our bond had been terribly quiet and still while he'd been asleep. I didn't like it.

"Hey, gorgeous," he'd said with his dimpled smile, mercury eyes soft and tired looking as they stared at me across the room.

"Hey, Doc," I'd managed to croak out before I threw myself on him. We stayed in Folkvangr that night, too tired to do anything more than sleep, and came home the next day.

Trey and I had fallen into a comfortable routine over the last three months or so and I was in no hurry to change that. I liked this life that I had now. It was simple and quiet and it was all that I needed. Trey was completely recovered with a new scar on his back where Sterling had shot him and one on his right side where the insane shifter had gotten him with the axe but other than that, he was back to normal. I'd tried but hadn't been able to shift again. I think my ability to do it before had something to do with the blood magic I'd used and my mate's life being in danger and I was in no hurry to repeat either of those things to see if I could bring on another shift. I was happy just being my usual, cranky, winged self and didn't need to have four legs and fur again.

While Alexi was with me in Jotunheim, Whistler and Spike had tracked down the naughty vamp and shifter that Sterling had hired to attack Mischa to draw me out. There wasn't enough of them left by the time Whistler had been done with them for Alexi to question but apparently, they'd been just as crazy as Sterling. They'd been from another state, people that Sterling met while he was drifting all over the country looking for me. Whistler had torn them apart in a bloodrage after the wolf had confessed to attacking his nephew and the vampire had confessed to messing with the minds of Misha's neighbors so they would all forget what they'd heard. Neither of them had fessed up to who Sterling had gotten the liquid silver bullets from, though. It's hard to do that when your body is scattered into tiny pieces. I tried not to be to upset about that but I did take Whistler down hard a time or two and may have stabbed him when we were sparring once.