Page 21 of Battle of Witches
Ravyn just sighed and blew her hair out of her eyes.
“I’m sorry. Normally I’d adore hearing stories about Valentine getting his ass beat all over the world. Still, it’s kind of harshing the whole tingly feeling I have after watching Valentine get arrested and take a dragon boot to the stomach. I—”
“If it makes you feel any better, I crapped all over him,” I blurted out. I couldn’t keep it in anymore.
“Thanks, Killian. It’s just that my witch’s intuition and asshole radar are usually spot on. I can’t believe it failed methisbadly.”
“Girl, not even the gods are immune to relationship regrets. I have them. History paints Hera as this madwoman, but she was essentially forced to marry her brother, who was a serial rapist. She’s actually quite lovely now that she’s far away from Zeus.”
“Thanks.”
Just then, Kaine stuck his head in.
“We’re ready. Bjorn, you’ll be in a room with me. The rest of you will be on the other side of the glass. Whatever you see, don’t let him know. Don’t say a single thing until you are out of the room. And if he says something stupid, don’t rise to it. Everything will be on camera. If he’s beaten during interrogation, he’s going to walk.”
“I have amazing resting bitch face. Did I get that bit of slang right?” Bjorn said.
I adored that we were corrupting an ancient Viking seer with modern slang. Ravyn smacked him on the arse.
“You are utter perfection. That was right and even if it’s not, just own it like it is. Go get him.”
“I mean it,” Kaine said. “Whatever he’s on, it’s pretty nasty. We’ve arrested plenty of people on something or coming off it, and we’ve never seen anything like this before. It’s like a combination of several drugs we know about.
“Even with the power-dampening handcuffs, he’s still full of shifter rage and quite strong. We can’t shoot him up with wolfsbane because we don’t know what he took and if it’s not going to mix well. The only people he’ll let near him without trying to attack them are other shifters. They’ve got him chained up and handcuffed to the table, but he’s probably dumb enough to try to kick my ass and yours.”
Bjorn just tossed his hair over his shoulder.
“He can certainly try. Let’s get this over with.”
Chapter17
Ravyn
If there was ever a time I wished Lilith had gifted me the ability to creep on someone’s personal thoughts, this was definitely it. I couldtotallyhandle that power responsibly. Lilith didn’t think so, and neither did any of the other gods because there wasn’t a single creation running around with that ability. The Aether clearly didn’t want the gods doing it whenever they wanted either because it killed the person they were listening to.
They flipped the lights on the other side of the mirror, and Valentine was chained to the table. He looked terrible. Valentine had always been a peacock. He waxed his chest and carefully styled his hair and mutton chops to look like he had just gotten out of bed. He hadn’t kept up with any of that, and I could practically smell him from here.
The door opened, and Kaine and Bjorn walked in and sat across from Valentine.
“You’re a special kind of stupid,” Kaine growled. “Every time I think you can’t get dumber, you prove me wrong.”
Valentine just sat back in his chair and smirked.
“I was doing that young witch a favor. There’s not a single person alive that can say they’ve been trained by a first-generation hybrid capable of that kind of magic.”
“My kid isn’t going anywhere near your psycho girlfriend. You were following her shitty grimoire when you murdered two college students who couldn’t fight back. And I don’t know how to break it to you, but whatever she has you on isn’t worth it.”
“I don’t expect a small-minded detective to understand the kind of greatness Asfrid is offering. People like you won’t be included, anyway.”
“Most sane people don’twantto be included in that shit. She murdered a shit-ton of people last time and then got every last one of her followers killed. Yeah, weallwant to do that again.”
“That’s because you just don’tknowher. She thought you were dead, Bjorn. Asfrid was so happy to see you alive.”
I already knew what game Kaine was playing. This wasn’t some good cop, bad cop routine. Kaine was shooting the shit and letting Valentine say anything that would incriminate him while Bjorn did his seer witchy woo with his brain.
I’d honestly never seen someone roll their eyes that hard, and I was the identical twin to Ripley Bell. Bjorn just sat there with this serene look on his face after the epic eye roll and ignored him. Damn. I didn’t even grow up in the violent era he did, and I would have jumped across that table and punched his stupid face in.
Valentine looked like he was enjoying every minute of this. Hewanteda reaction from Bjorn. It would pucker Valentine’s butthole to be ignored way more than if he hit him. Kaine was furious, but he wouldn’t rise to the bait either.
