"Skulduggery?! A little help here!"
A woman with long, dark brown hair, dark brown eyes and dressed in black clothes was in the process of defending herself against three men that tried to murder her. Her name was Valkyrie Cain, a 35 year old sorcerer that had gotten a mission from her Elder, China Sorrows, to arrest a group of men that was suspected of planning an attack against the Sanctuary. China had been clear with that she wanted the men alive and that she under no circumstances couldn't kill them.
Valkyrie ducked under a fist and pushed out her leg which made the man that had attacked her fall face down onto the floor. He screamed from the pain but Valkyrie hardly registered his screams because she was very busy with fending off the other two men's attacks. She had time to think where the hell is Skulduggery at?! before a kick to her ribs got her to gasp and fall down to the ground. She quickly rolled away before she got kicked again and slowly backed away from the men in front of her. She held her damaged rib that fortunately wasn't broken but just had suffered a real blow.
"Why don't you just surrender, Valkyrie? If you let us go right now we don't have to kill you. We will take our hurt buddy with us and leave, I promise."
"I can't do that, unfortunately. I can not let you go through with your plan. I can not allow that you murder a majority of innocence sorcerers just to get to the person you are really after."
The man that had kicked her shook his head and clicked his tongue. "What a shame. Well, it didn't hurt to ask."
With a quickness Valkyrie hadn't been prepared for the men came towards her and she cursed before she took a sidestep to try to avoid them. Unfortunately she wasn't fast enough and the man that still hadn't said anything took a hold of her hair and pushed her backwards while he gave her a fisticuff in the face. Valkyrie moaned and was just about to parry the next blow when the first man grabbed her arms and laid them behind her back.
"Now we got you and this time we will not let go until you are dead, Valkyrie. Can you imagine that we are the ones that will get the great honour of defeating the great Valkyrie Cain!" The man laughed and took a harder grip around Valkyrie's arms so that she wouldn't be able to tear herself away.
At the same moment that the other man held up his hand to punch Valkyrie a gloved hand showed up and grabbed the man's fist. "I'd leave it at that if I were you. You two have already made me angry and believe me when I say that you do not want to make me even more angry."
That voice! Valkyrie never got tired of that velvety voice. She looked up and saw Skulduggery Pleasant stand behind the man that had planned to beat her to death. She looked into his black eye sockets and even though he didn't have any eyes she could still see that he was pissed off. He gave her a nod and she nodded back, their code to signal that they were not badly hurt.
"Let's end this", Skulduggery said to Valkyrie and gave the man in front of him such a hard punch in the face that his head bounced.
Valkyrie felt how the grip around her arms became more loose and she twisted her arms so suddenly that the man that held her didn't have time to react. She gave him a smile before she kicked him in the stomach to then give him an elbow in the chin. He fell down in a whimpering pile on the floor and Valkyrie bent down so she could look him in the eyes. "Revenge is a bitch", she said before she kicked him which finally got the man to lose consciousness.
She took out the handcuffs that she had put in her pant pockets and laid them around the mans wrists. When she was done she stood up but was forced to hold out a hand and steady herself against the wall since a dizziness and a nausea washed over her. She laid a hand over her mouth and took some deep breaths to make the dizziness and the nausea disappear. She felt how a gloved hand lay down on her shoulder and pushed it. When she opened her eyes she looked straight into her partners eye cavities and she could see on the way he stood and how he leaned his head that he was worried for her.
"Valkyrie darling, what is it? Are you hurt?"
Valkyrie shook her head. "No, I just felt a little nauseous. It will soon pass. It is nothing I can't handle."
"You have been sick back and forth for a couple of weeks now. I am starting to becoming worried that something is wrong. You are sleeping restlessly, have lost your appetite to some extent and are more easily annoyed than usual."
"I am feeling fine, Skulduggery!" Valkyrie cried but regretted it as soon as she saw how Skulduggery winced. "I am sorry, I didn't mean to... I'm just tired, okay? If I won't be better for the next couple of days I will contact Synecdoche and ask her to take a look. I promise."
Skulduggery looked at her for a while before he stroked her cheek and bent forward. He pushed his teeth against her lips before he gave her a hard hug. "Promise me that you will check on this if it doesn't get better, Valkyrie. This, whatever it might be, is starting to affect your work. Normally you wouldn't have any kind of trouble defeating these men but now they managed to overpower you without any issue."
"It is the tiredness. I can not think normally and my reflexes therefore suffers. I agree with you that this is starting to become a problem and I really will check it out if I haven't become better in the next two days." Valkyrie gave Skulduggery a smile and gave him a kiss on the cheek before she pushed herself away from the wall and walked out from the warehouse where the men had frequented.
When she got out into the fresh air she took a deep breath and the summer air made her nausea to give way. She felt how the dizziness also started to give way and she walked over to the Bentley that stood parked a small distance away. She leaned against the hood of the car and took up her mobile phone from her pocket and called China. "Mission accomplished."
"I knew that I could count on that you and Skulduggery would get this fixed this fast. I hope that you did not need to kill anyone of them?"
"No, I don't think so. I don't know what happened to the men that Skulduggery took care of when we got here since we split up, but I think that you can trust that he did his best to keep them alive. I can however not guarantee that they are unharmed."
"I don't care about that, as long as none of them are dead I am happy."
Skulduggery walked out to Valkyrie and stood next to her. "China?" he asked and pointed towards the mobile phone in Valkyrie's hand.
"Yes. She wants to know if you were forced to kill anyone."
"No, even if I would have liked to. The only one that is dead is their guard dog. They had put out a vampire that guarded the entrance on the front where I walked inside and I had no other choice but to kill it to not risk being killed myself."
"The only one that is dead is a vampire that they had put on guarding the entrance", Valkyrie reported to China.
"Good. Stay until the cleavers arrive. I don't want to risk that any of them manage to escape before they arrive. As soon as they arrive you are free to do whatever you want to do for the rest of the day. You have earned it."
"Thank you, China." Valkyrie hung up and couldn't help but smile. "She is in a good mood today. She has given us the rest of the day off, as long as we remain and guard the prisoners until the cleavers arrive."
Skulduggery leaned forward towards Valkyrie and laid his hands on the hood of the car next to her. He looked into her eyes and leaned his head in a way that told Valkyrie that he was wondering about something. "What do you think we should do while we wait for the cleavers? It can be very boring just sitting and waiting."
Valkyrie smiled teasingly and leaned forward until her lips just were a few centimetres from Skulduggery's teeth. "Well, I think I might have an idea."
"Please tell me what you had in mind, darling."
Valkyrie didn't answer but laid her arms around Skulduggery's neck and pushed him towards herself. She let her lips explore Skulduggery's teeth and she felt how he shivered from her touch. She smiled and caressed his neck with her fingers while she continued to kiss him. Skulduggery in turn laid one of his hands against her back and pushed her closer to him before he let his other hand caress her thigh.
"Skulduggery..." Valkyrie whispered and parted her legs to invite him in.
They had now been a couple for three years and these three years had been the happiest in Valkyrie's life. The day she had decided to leave Militsa and tell Skulduggery that she loved him, really loved him, had been the anniversary of when they had met each other for the first time at Gordon's house after his funeral. They had then known each other for 20 years and Valkyrie could never have believed that she would experience so much excitement, happiness, danger, losses and love under the years that had passed. She and Skulduggery had been through so much together and they had only gotten closer to each other for every day that had passed.
Valkyrie had called Skulduggery and asked him to come over to her house since it was something she had to tell him and that this 'something' was very important. He had heard the seriousness in her voice and said that he would be there as soon as he could. While she had waited for his arrival she had walked back and forth in the living room and bit her nails in nervousness. What would he say when he heard about her true feelings towards him? Did he feel the same towards her or did he just want to be friends? If that was the case, would they then be able to continue as normal or would things change between them?
Skulduggery had found her this way when he had arrived and had asked her what was so important and what she wanted to talk to him about, whereupon Valkyrie had walked up to him and looked deep into his eye sockets. She had taken a deep breath and leaned against him and had simply just kissed him, afraid of that if she was going to try to tell him she would start to stammer and talk in circles that she used to do when she was really nervous.
Skulduggery had frozen and laid his hands against her shoulders, but strangely enough he had not pushed her away. Valkyrie had let her lips lay pressed against Skulduggery's teeth a few seconds before she had pulled away. "I love you, Skulduggery."
"Valkyrie... I am a living skeleton. I can not give you what you want."
"Of course you can! You can give me you, which is all I need. We have known each other for 20 years now Skulduggery and you are the only one I can really be myself around. I do not have to pretend being someone I am not when I am with you. I do not have to lie or pretend that everything is okay when I feel bad as to not worry my family but can turn to you and tell what weights me down without worrying that you will judge me. I feel safe when I am around you, Skulduggery." Valkyrie had taken a hold of Skulduggery's hands that still had lay on her shoulders and had laid them around her back so that he had embraced her. "We have promised each other that we will be there for each other until the end, right? And that is exactly what I am begging you now, Skulduggery: become a part of me until the end. I love you."
Skulduggery had not answered her right away but had just continued to look into her eyes. Then he had pressed her against himself and whispered: "Are you really sure about this, Valkyrie? I am more than 400 years older than you."
"Which I couldn't care less about. Age is just a number, right?"
Skulduggery had laughed and said "You are right about that" before he had pushed his teeth against her lips and kissed her.
All of these memories flowed through Valkyrie where she sat on the Bentley's hood three years later with Skulduggery's body against her own. She moaned in Skulduggery's ear when his gloved hand caressed the inside of her thigh, just out of reach for her desire. Skulduggery knew all too well where her most sensitive spots were and how he could use them to his advantage to make her squirm and beg him to be satisfied.
"Someone is a little dirty today..." Skulduggery whispered in Valkyrie's ear and bit her earlobe while he let his fingers stroke the crotch of Valkyrie's pants.
"Ah! You're the one... to talk!" Valkyrie moaned and gave Skulduggery's cervical vertebrae a kiss.
Just as Skulduggery was about to answer her they could hear the sound of car engines approaching. They both turned their heads towards the sound and could see two black vans come towards them. Valkyrie moaned in disappointment and slipped out from Skulduggery's arms. She looked up at him and gave him a kiss on his teeth before she whispered "We will continue this when we get home."
Skulduggery stroked her cheek and kissed her back. "I can't wait."
Valkyrie smiled and walked to meet up the approaching cleavers. The black vans stopped a few meters from her and out of the first car a sorcerer and two cleavers stepped out. The sorcerer said something to the cleavers that nodded and walked into the warehouse to pick up the prisoners. Valkyrie walked over to the sorcerer that was a man and he nodded when he saw her. "We will take over now."
"Good. I was thinking that it might be good if you knew that you will find three unconscious, handcuffed men at the back of the warehouse, and that it will lay a dead vampire and two more men just inside the door at the front."
"Thank you for the information. I will make sure that all five will be transported safely back to the Sanctuary." The sorcerer called the other three cleavers that had stepped out of the other van to him and gave them order of picking up the rest of the men and the vampire.
"Come Valkyrie. It is best that we let the cleavers work in piece. You and I have a whole afternoon to ourselves to look forward to, after all." Skulduggery took her hand in his and led her back to the Bentley.
When they both were strapped in the car and Skulduggery started to drive away Valkyrie felt how the nausea that had washed over her earlier were on its way back. She tried to concentrate on Skulduggery's voice that talked to her, but it didn't help much. She opened the glove compartment, hoping that Skulduggery would have some motion sickness tablets in there, but she couldn't find any. She sighed frustrated and leaned back in the seat instead in an attempt to endure.
"Nausea?" Skulduggery asked and looked at her.
"Keep your eyes on the road please and try as far as you can to avoid bumps in the road. It just makes it worse..."
"Valkyrie I really think that we should drive to Synecdoche and let her take a look at you."
"I just need to get something to eat. If we stay at the nearest gas station I will buy some food and then I will feel a lot better."
Skulduggery sounded a little hesitant when he said "As you wish" before he once again concentrated on driving.
Valkyrie closed her eyes and concentrated on her breathing. It usually would help and so it did this time as well. The nausea didn't disappear entirely, but it at least was bearable. She would buy a fruit and some chocolate, since she suspected that her sugar levels were low. She could get slightly nauseous then and it also were some of the few things that she could eat nowadays. She did not know why she had lost her appetite and why so many things that she normally liked now tasted horribly.
It is probably just stress and grief. I have read and heard that stress can do a lot of weird shit with your body. I will ask China that she gives me a few days off where I just can be at home and take it easy. Watch movies, read a few books, spend time with my family. I maybe even could look for a new dog. It is after all four months since Xena died and she would want me to move on, Valkyrie thought to herself and felt a pang of sadness when she thought of her late dog.
She opened her eyes and looked out through the window when she felt how the Bentley slowed down and she heard how Skulduggery turned on the indicator light. In front of her she could see a gas station and the thought of soon getting something to eat made her stomach rumble. Maybe it was as simple as that she just was hungry.
"Be back soon." Valkyrie gave Skulduggery a kiss before she got out of the car and walked into the gas station. She picked up a banana and a chocolate bar and was just on her way to the pay desk when she saw the shelf for hygiene items. Among menstrual pads, tampons and condoms she could also see that they sold pregnancy tests and without she thinking about it she grabbed one.
Why? she asked herself but had no good answer.
She took all her items and paid. Before she walked out to Skulduggery she put the pregnancy test in her pocket. She didn't want him to see it. She did not want to give him any hopes or scare him, in case it was a false alarm. She sincerely hoped that it was. If not...
It is not possible! she told herself. It can not be the reason why I am feeling weird. I can not be pregnant. Skulduggery can not have made me pregnant. He is not alive in that kind of way anymore! It is impossible!
She sat down in the car with the thoughts spinning in her head. Skulduggery looked at her but did not say anything. Instead she peeled her banana and started to eat. She could feel how the nausea started to give way as soon as she had managed to eat a few bites and she sighed of relief. It was after all only hunger that had made her feel sick, nothing else. If she just ate the banana and some of the chocolate she would be herself again.
"Better?" Skulduggery asked while he continued to drive.
"A lot", Valkyrie smiled and leaned back in the seat. "I suspect that I had low blood sugar and was hungry. It already feels a lot better and I will be completely back to normal as soon as I am done eating. You don't have to worry, Skulduggery."
Skulduggery lay his hand over hers and pushed it. "Good to hear, Valkyrie. So... What do you think we should do with all the spare time that has been given to us?"
Valkyrie smiled and stroked Skulduggery's knuckles. "I think that we should continue what we were doing before we got so brutally interrupted by the cleavers."
Skulduggery took a more firm grip on Valkyrie's hand. "I think that sounds like a wonderful idea."
The rest of the car ride pasted in an expectant silence. Valkyrie could feel how her body started to tingle from longing and she had a hard time keeping her fingers away from Skulduggery body, but she managed to keep them at bay. She concentrated instead on eating her chocolate and keep her eyes on the road.
As soon as Skulduggery turned into her driveway and turned of the engine Valkyrie gave him a kiss and pushed against him. Skulduggery laughed and lifted her out of the car. He kissed her back and let his hands find their way down to the back of her thighs to make sure that she did not fall out of his embrace. Valkyrie managed in some way fish out the keys from her pant pocket and unlock the door without making a fool of herself.
"Skulduggery..." she whispered at the same time that he closed the door behind them. "I love you."
"I love you too, Valkyrie."
Valkyrie smiled and let her tongue sweep along Skulduggery's teeth when she felt to her great dismay that she needed to visit the toilet. She pulled away from him and pointed to the floor. Skulduggery put her down and she smiled apologetic before she said "Be right back. I need to visit the ladies room."
"Don't be too long", Skulduggery answered and playfully slapped her ass.
Valkyrie laughed and walked over to the toilet. She locked the door behind her and was just about to pull down the zipper when she felt the pregnancy test that she had put in her pocket. The smile that she had had on her lips disappeared when she took it up from her pocket and stared at it. Since she needed to pee she could as well get this over with, right?
She took out the test from the package and read how she should do. She opened the toilet lid, pulled down her pants and pointed the test stick downwards between her legs when she sat down on the toilet. She peed and when she was done she laid the stick on the basin. The minutes that passed before she would know for sure the answer to what she had suspected all along in the weeks since the nausea, dizziness, and fatigue had appeared, were the longest of her life. When the tree minutes that she had to wait had went by, she stood up and looked down at the test.
And there it was, black on white. Those two lines that she had feared.
As in a dream she walked over to the toilet door, unlocked it and opened the door before she called her partners name. "Skulduggery!"
"Yes, Valkyrie?" Skulduggery came walking towards her but stopped in the middle of a step when he saw Valkyrie's terrifying face. "What have happened?"
Valkyrie didn't answer but just pointed into the bathroom. Skulduggery walked slowly over to her and when he stood in front of her he looked up so he could see what she was pointing at. When he saw the test on the basin he stiffened. He could not tear his gaze from the pink plus that was clearly visible on the little stick. It was first when he heard his partners desperate voice that he could tear his gaze away from it and instead concentrate on Valkyrie.
"Skulduggery, I am pregnant."