Destiny Realised: Destiny Series: Book Three Page 3

  Meanwhile, I’d gained a few feet height from the ground, and I dropped down intending to deliver a brutal blow with my sword to the second fighter, who had tried an opportune blow to my side.

  She had no option but to dive to the ground to avoid the blow. I kicked her sword out of her hand and raised my own. As I towered over her, with my sword raised for a killing blow, I saw the look of terror in her eyes. It made me pause, and it made me really look at her. What was I doing? She had raised one arm in front of her as if she was trying to shield herself.

  I felt my wings cooling as I looked around me for the first time. I took in my surroundings and saw the devastation I’d caused. The injured had mostly been pulled off to the side of the ring. There were only a few on the ground around me. The sand was stained red with the blood of these people. My people. The people who had knelt to me when they first saw me. And how did I repay them? I cut them down, in the most brutal way possible. Shame flooded me, and I felt my magic finally drawback inside me. My wings must have extinguished because I heard Geta call out from the sidelines.

  “I think we can call an end to the demonstration here. Take the injured to the infirmary. We will resume training tomorrow. Then tomorrow night we feast!”

  A roar of cheers went up around me as the Valkyrie helped their friends up and made their way to where I assumed the infirmary was. They were excitedly chatting amongst themselves, and I could even see some of them recreating some of the moves from the fight.

  I looked down at my feet and saw the fallen Valkyrie was still sat down in the sand. She grinned up at me, and I reached down with my hand to help her up.

  “You were magnificent,” she told me, grinning and bouncing on the spot like a happy child.

  I cocked my head to the side in confusion, but before I could say anything, Geta came striding over to rescue me.

  “Brygin, can you check the kitchens have everything they need for tomorrow?” Geta said, dismissing her. She nodded eagerly and ran off in a different direction from everyone else.

  I was at a loss for words, still shocked at what I’d just done. Geta just slapped me on the back and guided me off the sand fighting ring. “Let’s go and check in with your mates, and then we can find somewhere quiet to talk.”

  We walked in silence to a big one storey building which ran the length of the training area. It was constructed from logs and looked like a cabin on steroids. You could have fit the entire pack inside. The door was an ornately carved piece of wood, crossed swords had been carved in the middle and surrounded with vines and flowers. It should have looked aggressive but it had the complete opposite effect.

  When we entered, the awkwardness of the situation slammed into me. We walked into a large room which held about twenty beds down each side. Even though it still looked like a cabin on the inside it still had that clinical vibe to it, right down to a herbal scent in the air.

  One side was completely filled, and almost half of the others were occupied as well. Kyle was sitting on a bed in the far corner. Thankfully the beds next to him weren’t occupied, but I still had to walk down the centre of the room to get to him. I just cringed the whole way down. The Valkyrie, however, were in high spirits. There was a strange party type atmosphere going on, and I didn’t know what to make of it.

  When I was about four beds away, Kyle looked up and met my eyes with the biggest grin on his face. He’d stripped off his shirt, and Liam was busy wrapping a bandage around his chest. I couldn’t help but grin back at him. He looked a lot better than when I’d last seen him. He wasn’t pale and listless. He seemed like himself again. I jogged the last few steps and threw my arms around him. He grunted in pain, and I quickly straightened up, my hands floating around him. I didn’t know where I could touch him without hurting him, and he just laughed and grabbed hold of me, pulling me back against him.

  “It’s not as bad as it looks, my wolf will have it all healed up in a day or two,” he told me, pulling me into his lap.

  “What in the world has been going on outside?” Sykes laughed, looking around him at the nearly full infirmary.

  I didn’t know what to say. What would they think of me when they knew I’d done this? That I’d finally lost control. Geta stood back slightly, giving us an illusion of privacy, but I knew she would be listening in.

  “How about we get Kyle wrapped up, then Geta is going to take us somewhere a bit more private to talk. I’ll fill you in there, okay?” I told Sykes.

  Liam tilted his head to the side and whispered into my mind. “Is everything okay, kitten?” he was maybe a bit too observant for his own good, or rather my good, as I was the one that always seemed to be on the receiving end of it.

  I couldn’t hold it back any longer. I needed to see how he was going to take it. I loved them, and I knew they loved me too. Doubting them like this was hurting me just as much as the shame of having done it in the first place.

  “I did it, Liam. I hurt them,” I whispered back to him.

  Liam cast a look around him at the laughing Valkyrie. “They seem quite happy you did,” he told me.

  “I lost control,” I admitted. “Geta called it blood lust.”

  Liam slung an arm around me and pulled me into his side while Sykes finished Kyle’s bandage. I could see Virion watching us carefully. It was hard having him outside of the loop with the mind speak. I hoped when we did take the time to solidify our mating bond, he would be joined into it too. But he wasn’t a shifter, so I suppose there was no guarantee he would be.

  “Will Virion be able to mind speak with us, once the bond is finalised?” I whispered into Liam’s mind.

  “I don’t know,” he said, squinting his eyes at Virion in thought which just made the man shift uneasily. “I hope so,” he finally added.

  “What are you two talking about?” Virion asked suspiciously.

  I just grinned at him wickedly. “Nothing,” I told him. In essence, we weren’t talking about anything that would upset him, but I was starting to feel like I needed to come out of my funk and what better way than to play with him for a bit.

  It didn’t take Sykes long to finish up with Kyle, and I was relieved to see Kyle just jump off the bed like he hadn’t been slumped on the ground losing blood not so long ago. He slung an arm around my shoulders, and we followed Geta out of the infirmary. She led us to a cottage not too far away. The camp seemed to be made up of various low lying, long buildings, similar to the clinic we had just been to. There were however also some cottages scattered around the edges of camp. The outside walls were whitewashed and the thatched roofs made them look cuter than you would expect to find at some badass Valkyrie training camp.

  “Most of the Valkyrie and our warriors reside in the dormitories,” she said, waving her hand to the low lying buildings in the distance. “We have a few other camps set up like this one, but the bulk of our force resides here. Once the gates to Valhalla were closed, we didn’t have the usual incoming souls to house.”

  Geta strolled inside the cottage without knocking, and I had to wonder if this was her home.

  “Why were the gates closed?” I asked her. She led us into a sitting room, and we all dropped into the various seats scattered around. Geta dropped into an armchair by an open fire with a sigh. It seemed someone had beat us here because the fire had been lit and drinks were laid out on the table for us.

  “As Valkyrie, we have always lived with purpose. It’s hard to endure eternity without having a cause to dedicate yourself to. Our task was simple. Train, fight and protect the realms. The gates to Valhalla closed centuries ago. It was felt the gods interfered too much with the other realms. The other magic users thought the gods were overstepping. They just saw them as more adept magic-users, and the gods were insulted. They pulled out of the realms as punishment and closed the gates to Asgard. Valhalla is a part of Asgard and as such our gate was closed with it. We have tried to maintain our way of life, but we’ve grown soft. We no longer have a cause—a reason for being. Most
of the Valkyrie train, but their hearts are no longer in it. It wasn’t until the first soul in a long time was sent to us, that I saw the fire start to ignite in them again.” Geta looked at me carefully.

  I felt sorry for these women. To have been shut away from the world and lost so much, without even really having a say in it, but then it dawned on me what she was actually saying, and I sat forward with a gasp. All of my mates were immediately on guard.

  “Britt! Britt is here,” I gasped, looking around me as if expecting her to just jump out of the shadows any minute.

  “Of course,” Geta said with a confused look on her face. “You reaped her soul after she fell in battle, where did you think she was?”

  I sat back at that. Where did I think Britt had gone?

  “I suppose I didn’t think about it,” I told her. “I only recently learnt I was a Valkyrie and I’m very new to this world. I grew up thinking I was human with just a bit of magic added to the mix.”

  Geta nodded in understanding. “There has not been a new Valkyrie born for centuries. Not since the gods sealed our gate. In fact, it has been forbidden for us to bear any children. It is understandable you would not know your heritage. But to have so much magic, so young. It’s unheard of.” She looked at me with what I thought was pride. She had so many answers for me, and I didn’t even really know where to start.

  “Why did they call me the Phoenix General?” I asked her. Deciding to start with what I hoped to be the most straightforward question first.

  “There is a legend amongst the Valkyrie, which was passed to us from the Norns themselves. It is said a Phoenix would rise to Valhalla, she would free us from our chains and lead us in a battle to a great victory. When you stepped through the portal, cutting down the demons that followed you, only to have your wings ignite in flames.” She shook her head with a smile. “You are the Phoenix we have been waiting for.”

  “I … I don’t know what to say to that,” I told her. And I didn’t. “Okay, let’s just lay it all out there, I don’t know if I’m the person you’ve been waiting for. It was legit the first time that ever happened, and I don’t know if I can or want to do it again.”

  Geta just raised a brow at me. “I understand your reluctance. Is it the blood lust making you question yourself?” she asked me. Straight to the point, I liked that.

  Kyle jumped into the conversation. “What blood lust?” he asked, turning to me in question.

  I looked over at him, reclining back on the sofa. Whilst he looked better than he had, he still seemed weakened by his injuries. I was worried to tell him what had happened when they left though. What if they thought less of me? Liam caught my gaze, and he gave me an encouraging smile and a nod. I didn’t know if I would have been able to say it out loud if he hadn’t.

  “When you all left for the infirmary …” I started. But then I didn’t know how to finish it. “My wings ignited because I lost control of my magic,” I told them.

  “That isn’t entirely correct.” Geta jumped in, and I looked at her hopefully. “Yes, you did lose control of your magic, but I think it was because it reached a level you’d not experienced before. If you train and develop your skills, you should be able to ignite your magic, without it overwhelming you and dragging you into a blood lust again,” she told me.

  I could feel the tears threatening my eyes at the relief of not having to go through that again. Kyle was still looking at me expectantly, waiting for an explanation.

  “I lost control,” I told him again. “I couldn’t pull back the magic, and the rage … I lost it. Geta covered for me, saying it was a training exercise, a demonstration of their skills. I fought the Valkyrie who were waiting for us at the gate,” I finished quietly.

  “Wait,” Sykes said, furrowing his brow in concentration. “All those Valkyrie that came into the infirmary?”

  I nodded grimly at them. “I put them there,” I admitted.

  I waited for them to judge me, to look down on me, to say something, anything. It almost felt excruciating, but then Sykes threw back his head and laughed.

  “Hot damn, woman!”

  I looked around them, noting the impressions on their faces. Surprisingly they looked more amused than anything else.

  “The Valkyrie have not had a reason for training, they are perhaps a little out of practice,” Geta said defensively. That only made Sykes burst out laughing. I needed to get this back on track before we insulted her.

  “Do you think you could help me with my training, Geta? So I can avoid the blood lust next time.” I shuddered at the thought of losing control again. And then my blood ran cold as I realised, what if my mates had got caught up in the blood lust?

  Geta shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “That is not going to be your biggest problem. The gates to Valhalla are still closed. We cannot leave here.”

  “No, they’re not. We opened them,” I told her, cocking my head in confusion.

  “I have no idea how you bypassed the lock, but I can assure you the gates are still closed,” she explained to us.

  “Well, how do we open them?” Kyle asked her, grunting slightly as he leant forward.

  “The gods would need to open them,” Geta said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

  I dropped my head into my hands and pressed my fingers into my eyes out of frustration. I could feel a stress headache starting already. “Okay, so let me get this straight, we made it all of the way here, but we can’t get you out of here to come and help us until we go to Asgard and persuade a god to open the gates for us.” Fuck. My. Life!

  “No, not exactly,” Geta said, and I suddenly felt a small glimmer of hope shine through. Until she completely crushed it, that was. “You’d need Odin to open the gates,” she explained to me.

  “Cool,” I sighed, sitting back in the sofa with my arms flopping down beside me. I mean what else was there to say. Just need to rock up to Odin and ask for a bit of a favour.

  Geta gave me a small smile of sympathy. At least she wasn’t trying to sugar coat it. “You’ve come a long way and fought many battles to get here. I’ll leave you to sleep and return in the morning. We can discuss training and this great battle you need us for then. Rest now, Phoenix General. All will look better in the new light of morning.”

  Geta said her goodbyes and bustled out of the cottage, leaving us still sat on the seats around the sitting room. When I looked around at the others' faces, it was uplifting, in a sick kind of way, to see they all looked just as grim as I felt.

  Kyle was the first to shake himself out of it. “I guess this cottage is for us then,” he said, looking around him. He started to struggle to get out of his seat before Liam pushed him back down and rolled his eyes at him.

  “Let me check it out, and I’ll direct you to where you need to go,” he laughed, easily climbing to his feet.

  Kyle started to grumble something about not being an invalid and I tried very hard to hold in the laughter which desperately wanted to bubble out of me. He was the worst kind of patient, and he had the nerve to criticise me when I’d wanted to peel my dressings off.

  Shaking my head, I climbed to my feet and stretched high up on my tiptoes. I felt my spine crack, and my chest popped. Looking down at myself, I realised, once again, I was covered in demon blood. At least this always happened shortly before finding a shower. If I’d got covered like this in the middle of the forest, I would’ve been mortified. It was bad enough I’d already been a bit crusty when we had to hitch a ride up the tree.

  Liam came back into the sitting room a few minutes later, “We’ve got three bedrooms and two bathrooms. There’s also a little kitchen someone has left food in for us.” At the mere mention of food, my stomach screamed in distress. “And, apparently, Aria would like to eat right away,” he grinned.

  “Actually, I think I’m going to shower first if that’s okay with you guys. I need to be clean.” I tried to surreptitiously smell myself to check if it was as bad as I thought it was. I caug
ht Liam’s smile as he noticed my subtle movement, so I quickly shuffled out of the room before anyone could mention it.

  The bathrooms were like all of the ones I’d experienced since I came to this realm, and I was starting to wonder if there was some kind of plumbing fetish scene over here. The shower was amazing, though, so I was definitely on board with whatever it was that had caused it. The dual shower head was definitely something to explore later, it even looked like there might be a steam function. It was strangely at odds with the rest of the rustic feel the camp had.

  When I came out of the bathroom, I wandered into the kitchen and found Virion plating up some food. It looked like some roasted meats, bread and salads. As I stepped into the room, he glanced over his shoulder and with a grin passed me a big plate of food. I was so grateful I couldn’t form words. Virion picked up his own plate and sat down at the little table in the kitchen which was already set up with a pitcher of water and two glasses. I looked around the room and saw the others were missing. Virion must have realised I was looking for them.

  “They went to bed,” he told me.

  “We’re fine, kitten,” Liam whispered into my mind. “Kyle needs to sleep to heal quicker, and we figured you could use some time alone with Virion.”

  “And you don’t mind if I do that?” I asked suspiciously.

  “Don’t worry. I can wait for another night to spend some time with him one on one,” he laughed.

  “You know what I mean,” I told him.

  “Honestly kitten. It’s not a problem. Have fun and get some sleep. We’ll talk in the morning,” he whispered to me.