Page 18 of Veil of Blood and Bone

It's one troll. She’ll be fine.

This one isn’t particularly hideous, either. On the smaller side of brutish, rough, exaggerated features droop down to a pair of coarse tusks. It drags a knobby club across dirt, beady black eyes locked on her.

Beside me, Nicholas inhales once. Sharp. Starving. Like he’s caught the scent after centuries underground. His pupils blow open enough to swallow the iris whole.

“Careful,” I murmur, marking the way his eyes brand Helene. “You know how jealous I get.”

“Someone is going to see you.” His baritone scrapes rich and rough like earth shoveling over a coffin.

“Humans could watch the world burn and call it weather. Mortals don’t see shit unless it’s trending online.”

Nicholas jerks his head in her direction. “They notice her.”

Helene. Her name is Helene Blake. I’m sure in this life she’s had no formal combat training, but she is still a shieldmaiden.

Still a Valkyrie.

She doesn't need help, and if she does, bird brain is there beating his chest and oozing testosterone.

The rest of the sheep scatter in different directions through another roar gusting out in sulfur yellow waves. The troll takes down a wave of tents. Fabric flies and a wooden beam burrows into the dirt like a god’s toothpick.

Rather than running away from the danger like the flock, Helene steps into it. She braces, welcomes it with open arms, searches for her weapon, giving her sister time to wheel away.

My grin widens. Ah. There she is. I laugh under my breath because fuck, I missed this.

Nicholas locks himself in place so hard the earth cracks beneath his boots. Like he’s afraid to move, because if he does, he might lunge for her throat.

“She is still the same,” he grunts. “Incredible.”

Helene takes a broken table leg and hurls it at the troll. It spears the creature in the thigh.

Yes, look at her go.

“Why would she change?” I ask. “The body may be different, but Odin himself can’t touch her soul.”

Nicholas knows better. But we’re not friends. An easy truce persists no matter how many times we’ve fought against it.

About as many times as I’ve tried to kill Forest.

Nine hundred years of loving the same unattainable woman will do that. It’s been thirty reincarnations now.

Close-cropped hair black as ink curls slightly over his forehead. He keeps it short, beaten back. Sable brows arch over eyes dark as burned-out stars. They held warmth once. I remember it. Now, they watch.

Helene launches herself at the troll and knocks it in the side with the sharpened, broken point of one of the tents. The troll’s noxious scream ripples the leaves above our heads.

Helene doesn’t falter—of course she doesn’t—but the image of her falling plays behind my eyes with every strike she takes. If she bleeds, I will unravel. Nicolas will pretend otherwise although his face remains stone. He’s trained himself to exist within violent constraint and show none of the fractures to his composure.

Her pulse thunders through me despite the difference. Strong and unbroken. The sound hits him next. I watch it happen.

“I’d love to see her gut the thing and bathe in its blood.” A wistful indulgence rumbles my chest. “Remember when she took down the berserker and his arterial blood painted her in rust? Amazing.”

His jaw flexes. His throat works once. The beast inside him strains at the leash. “Stop talking about blood, Stonebreaker.”

“Or you’ll what, Silver?” I dare him.

Helene moves like fire, fierce and certain, and an iron tang coats my tongue from biting back the need to go to her. With a yell, she grabs another piece of detritus to use as a weapon.

Nicholas and I both tense, the clock ticking. Are we needed?