Danii had gotten into Val Hall undetected. Now I just have to get my things and get out.

Although a couple dozen Valkyrie lived here at any time, the manor was quiet this morning. Most were nocturnal, as was Danii usually - it was cooler that way.

Nix, the one half sister she wanted to see, was nowhere to be found.

Upstairs, Danii passed the most shaded chamber in Val Hall, belonging to Emmaline, her beloved niece. But she knew Emma would be asleep as well. It was day, and Emma was vampire. Or half one. No one knew who her vampire father was, and that information wasn't likely forthcoming, since her Valkyrie mother had died of sorrow decades ago.

Gentle Emma was the single vampire the Valkyrie accepted. Though a blood drinker, she was so timid that she made it easy to overlook the vampirism.

Emma was the exception; Murdoch was the rule. Just accept it. He almost bit you...

Danii reached her room, which was basically a giant freezer, and pushed open the heavy insulated door. A blast of arctic air and the comforting drone of refrigeration met her.

She lived at Val Hall year-round. But in the summer, even the meat locker - as her sisters called her room - was barely adequate for her needs.

There simply was no call for hundred-degree days.

Closing the door behind her, she gazed around the spacious area. She'd decorated it with frost, glazing the walls with it. Icicles dripped from the blades of the ceiling fan. Valances of ice capped her windows.

She couldn't say she loved it here, but she'd adapted to life with her coven. Others could tolerate hours in the snow, but would seek a hearth at the end of the day. Danii was the same way with heat, except she sought the comfort of her meat locker.

Her slushy waterbed was filled with saltwater, which lowered the freezing point to below thirty-two degrees. Above her bathtub was an ice maker, and beside it hung an Epsom salt dispenser. On occasion, she had to add salt to the water so that she didn't freeze it.

Her ice-proofed computer was a military-spec laptop with a magnesium chassis and a sealed keyboard.

Yes, she'd adapted. And she'd felt some security living in such a warm climate. I thought I was safe from Sigmund here. It should've been the last place the Icere would look.

The attack was another reason Danii was avoiding her sisters. If she told them about last night, they would insist on her staying - and them fighting. But the Icere were an enemy the Valkyrie didn't need.

And one they could never find to defeat.

When Danii had been a girl of seven, her mother Svana had journeyed to Icergard, the Icere castle, to reclaim her crown from the vicious Sigmund. Danii's memories of this time were indistinct after the passage of so many years, but she remembered her mother saying, "If I don't return to you here, you must promise me, love, never to follow me. Never, never go to Icergard." She'd made Danii vow it.


Svana had never returned. Before she'd even made it to the castle, Sigmund had assassinated her - the mother who'd refused to linger endlessly in peace with her young daughter in the godplane of Valhalla.

Once Danii had grown old enough to leave Valhalla herself, he'd dispatched killers after her to prevent her from ever challenging his reign. As if she ever would.

Over the centuries, she'd considered breaking her vow to her mother, but only to gather her sisters and strike back at Sigmund, freeing herself from his threat. Yet even if the Valkyrie could find Icergard - rumored to be hidden within the Arctic Circle beneath a dome of ice - they could never attack the castle without getting slaughtered.

Sigmund was perfectly protected from the Valkyrie, inadvertently utilizing their greatest weakness as his defense.

Diamonds. Svana had told her they dotted the walls and perimeter fences. Though Danii was immune, most Valkyrie could be mesmerized by them.

With a sigh, she rose. She needed to pack, and then she needed to find Nix to ask the half mad soothsayer about three things:

Myst.

Exactly what was supposed to have been fixed the night before.

And where Danii should flee before the next wave of Icere arrived.

There were eleven other Valkyrie covens around the world that Danii could choose from.

The latitude of the Seattle coven had always intrigued her. And then there was the one in New Zealand. Fall approached down there.

Yet as ever, Danii hated to leave her own coven. Valkyrie visited others, but they always returned to their primary coven, like preferring an immediate family over an extended one.

Plus, the New Orleans Valkyrie had plagued the others with practical jokes, which might make it awkward for Danii to pop in.

She could just see herself telling the Seattle Valkyrie, "I had nothing to do with signing you up for the emu farming franchise. And I am sorry twenty of them were released in your pool house, startling your harem of cabana demons. See Nix."

Tonight, the wily soothsayer would likely be downtown in the Vieux Carre. So Danii would be trolling Bourbon Street yet again. Her only consolation was that she wouldn't run into Murdoch.

He and his brother had only been in New Orleans to find Myst. Good riddance.

Damn it, why did never seeing him again matter to her?

Because he saved your life and surprised you repeatedly. And she'd enjoyed him, had liked what they'd done together. It was the first time she'd had an orgasm with someone else in the room. She grew aroused just recalling how he'd worked the seed free from his shaft. He'd been naked in bed with her, his mighty chest heaving, yelling out as he came.

And now he was free to use those sensual lips to kiss another woman, could use that magnificent body to pleasure others. She glanced at her claws. They'd straightened with aggression.

Stop thinking about him, she told herself firmly as she crossed to one of the windows, brushing away a layer of frost. As her gaze flickered over the lightning-scorched trees in the yard, a sense of melancholy fell over her. I don't want to leave.

In the window glass, Danii spied her reflection. She was exhausted, which meant there was a reddish tinge to her lips and under her eyes, instead of the blue that should be there. Her face was pinched.

She looked miserable. Tally yet another reason why the vampire hadn't wanted to have anything to do with her. Well, other than biting and possibly killing her.

She glared down at her pale, icy skin. Never to be touched. Never without pain. Danii was stuck in this body, stuck in this rut.

Most of her half sisters were fiercely independent - many were legendary warriors or love-'em-and-leave-'em jet-setters. Danii was just... Danii. And she could admit she'd longed for a male of her own, maybe to make a home with. A male who would always clasp her in his arms when she ran for him.

I'm the Valkyrie who most wants to be held - and I never can be. At the thought, she felt her bottom lip trembling. I'd rather not have had a glimpse of what I've been missing.

She dropped her head into her hands and wept, her freezing tears making her want to scream.