A Shade of Vampire 90: A Ruler of Clones - Bella Forrest Page 0,43
extra kick in my step, filling me with the energy I needed to keep forging ahead until we prevailed.
“So, what, we just roll over and let them kill us?” Dafne muttered, crossing her arms.
“No. We outsmart them,” Regine replied. “The Berserkers can be defeated. They can be contained. They can be disabled. That’s the most you’re going to get. Besides, they’re just enforcers here. They don’t call the shots. They’re not HQ.”
“How do you know?” Astra asked.
Myst was just as curious. “I’d like to know, as well. We don’t yet know who HQ really is.”
“Have you ever seen a Berserker who didn’t take credit or brag about something? Especially a project as huge as this?” Regine replied with a cool grin. She shifted her focus back to me. “Truth be told, Berserkers aren’t natural leaders. Few have such a gift, and none are here. Our Valkyrie mother, for example, Edda… well, we call her mother, but we’re not actually family, obviously. Anyway, with Edda… boy, you can feel her from miles away. The spiritual power in her is titanic. The same can be said about Bodil, the Berserkers’ father. I feel nothing like that here. Only our dark brothers.”
“And Hrista,” Myst said, and her sister nodded slowly.
“And Hrista…”
The air thickened, icy tendrils making their way up my back. My skin pricked and stretched over tense muscles as the Valkyries’ gaze darkened, looking at something right behind me. I turned around to see Brandon entering the cave, both swords resting in the crossed scabbards on his broad back. He owed us a few answers, and Astra was the first to hold him to account. “We need to talk,” she said.
“You’re colluding with this two-faced snake?” Regine cut in, her lips twisted with disgust.
“Hey, I’m not a Valkyrie’s best friend, but cut me some slack here,” Brandon shot back as he raised his hands in a defensive gesture. There was tension between them. Myst had shown a degree of sympathy toward him, but Regine was still green in this place. She clearly didn’t know the details of his involvement. Unless she’d figured it out on her own and simply disliked him. “It’s been a long day, and I’m looking at an eternity as one of Haldor’s shadow hounds,” Brandon added. The reminder made me feel bad for him. Even sympathetic. I couldn’t hold certain decisions against him, and I could tell from the expressions around me that I wasn’t the only one thinking this.
“What?” Regine gasped, her eyes suddenly round and white with shock.
Myst exhaled sharply. “Yeah, things happened so fast, I didn’t have a chance to explain…”
“My brothers have Hammer,” Brandon said. “I never wanted to come here in the first place, so don’t treat me like an enemy.”
The darkness flared off him like tiny black tendrils of smoke. Astra couldn’t take her eyes off him, and she clearly had trouble finding her words in his presence. Weirdly enough, we both seemed drawn to creatures we understood little about, but at least in Astra’s case it was clear Brandon had a soft spot for her. Myst, on the other hand, was virtually unreadable. “You’ll be safe here for a while,” he said to us, ignoring the Valkyries.
“You don’t always make it easy for people to like you,” Astra replied. She didn’t seem angry, though. More… conflicted. We’d learned enough about Brandon to understand that he’d done many things against his will. HQ had been using Hammer, his Aesir, to force him into submission.
“And I don’t really care. Besides, I would do it all over again if I had to,” Brandon replied, his brow dark and furrowed. “You know damn well why I had to do every single thing they’ve asked of me.”
Regine scoffed, shaking her head slowly. “You’re weak.”
“Yeah? Well, I don’t see your Aesir—or your sister’s, for that matter—anywhere!” Brandon retorted. “You left yours behind because you weren’t sure where it would end for you, right?” Regine didn’t respond, choosing to glance to the side instead. “Yeah, I figured as much. And you know what? I’m tired of the attitude. I’ve saved these people more than once, despite the risk of losing Hammer. Yeah, I’ve done some bad things along the way, but can you really blame me?”
“No,” Astra whispered. “It’s just so… infuriating.”
“Tell me about it. And to have two Valkyries—not one, but two of them—flaunt their high morals at me when their own sister is responsible for this mess, well… pardon me for getting pissed off,” Brandon blurted,