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Smug.
That was the word.
The bastard was smug.
Scrapper 142 had noticed the fancy little prince, the god as he liked to call himself, prancing around Sakaar for weeks now. She’d avoided him for the most part, him and all the other sycophants who gathered around the Grandmaster hoping to curry favor, but the Grandmaster had the best money and the best booze, so she made appearances as necessary. Every time she found a possible new contender for the Contest of Champions she would stop by whatever raging party or orgy was being held in the palace that day, stay long enough to collect her credits, pocket whatever liquor she could get her hands on, and make a hasty exit.
And every time since his first appearance, he was always there.
Always getting closer to the Grandmaster, steadily working his way from the outskirts of the nobodies to the closest of the Grandmaster’s pretty things.
And he was pretty.
The last time she had been trying to sidle her way past the guards with three bottles of the palace’s finest brandy tucked away under her cape without being noticed, she’d nearly walked into a wall and dropped them all when he caught her eye.
Loki.
He had been draped over the Grandmaster’s lap at the time, kissing him passionately as he slowly worked at the fastenings of his robes, and Scrapper 142 was struck by his seductive beauty as he slithered his way down his body with a practiced grace.
That was a man who knew his way around a cock.
So of course she noticed him. She noticed his beauty and his charm. She noticed his parlor tricks of illusions. She noticed the way he filled out that tight leather. But most of all she noticed that he loved being noticed.
He wasn’t smiling if he didn’t have everyone’s attention in the room. And didn’t we all know he was a prince? A prince of TWO lands, actually, and nearly a king of a third. And what’s more, he was a GOD. A god who somehow couldn’t make his way off the planet by himself and had to fight for the Grandmaster’s attention, but apparently a god nonetheless. Didn’t we know that we should be honored to be in his presence?
So even though he stank of his desperation to be adored, it was his smugness that bothered her the most.
The wave of absolute, pure joy that washed over her when she finally punched that smug face was indescribable.
She had been trying to do her own thing. All she wanted in this god awful place was enough credits to stay drunk and numb, and as long as everyone else stayed the hell out of her way while she did it, she didn’t have a problem. However, the most promising contender she’d found in years, the first one to really give the Hulk a true challenge, just so happened to be the brother of the resident braggart.
Therefore when Thor made a run for it and took Hulk with him, the Grandmaster was so pissed that he dragged both Scrapper 142 AND his pretty boy toy in front of him to deliver answers. It didn’t matter that she had refused to help Thor escape; she hadn’t stopped him either and that was reason enough in the Grandmaster’s eyes to be considered treason.
So of course the smug prick began to spread his web of bullshit in an attempt to save his own ass.
She knew as soon as she opened her mouth that she shouldn’t have engaged, but something about the way he thought that claiming he could find the runaways in twelve hours just rankled her. As if twelve hours was some sort of flex. As if he knew anything about this place or where to look. As if he was any competition for her.
The next thing she knew, they were racing off to see who could find them first, the clueless shit immediately following her because he had absolutely no idea where to look, just as she suspected.
What she hadn’t suspected, however, was for him to be so clueless as to lay his hands on her.
True to form, he’d been insulted that she was ignoring him, so he’d grabbed her arm to make her stop and listen, which instantly triggered her fight response. What she couldn’t decide after that was which thing excited her more, the sting of her hand caused by the loud, resounding slap across his pretty face, or the look of utter shock that replaced his smug smile.
Both of them made her wet.
He had put up a decent fight after that, surprisingly; she could detect his Asgardian training, but he crossed the line when he dared to use his seidr on her to probe her memories. For some reason he had been thrown to see her Valkyrie markings and just when she thought she’d had him pinned down, he reached up and touched her forehead to search for more, causing a flood of images to wash over her and bringing a tidal wave of pain behind it that made her collapse.
Images she had spent centuries trying to forget.
Images of never-ending battle.
Images of her beautiful, fierce warrior love throwing herself in front of Hela’s blade, saving the life that Scrapper 142 was convinced had not been worth saving.
He had no right to her memories, the smug godly prince of shitheads. He had no right to her pain.
She felt violated and repulsed, her rage clouding her vision more than any amount of alcohol she had ever consumed. Before she knew what she was doing, she had flipped around on him and pummeled him swiftly, attaching an obedience disc to the exposed flesh of his neck when he was too distracted by trying to protect his pretty face from her fists. The maximum pulse she sent out immediately knocked him unconscious, allowing her time to decide what to do with him. Clearly she couldn’t just leave him be, he was a nuisance of the highest order and certain to get in her way. Better to keep an eye on him until she could come up with a better plan.
Also… she wasn’t quite done with the little shit yet.
Which is how she found herself dragging his limp body back to her residence in the tower. People were so used to her dragging unconscious bounties back and forth around the city at this point that nobody even batted an eye.
Knowing that she only had a limited amount of time before he woke up, she dumped his body unceremoniously in the middle of her cluttered floor and hurried to her storage chest in the corner. She made so much noise tossing various weapons and trinkets out of her way as she dug deeper that she nearly missed hearing the faint *plink* of metal behind her as the obedience disc clattered to the floor.
Shit.
Apparently he was powerful enough to disengage her disc if he wasn’t being actively zapped.
She had just enough time to clasp onto what she’d been searching for before she felt an immense tug around her torso, as if from within, so powerful that it tossed her across the room and into the wall.
“You vicious little quim!” he growled, slightly out of breath as he struggled to get to his feet again. The voltage from earlier combined with using his powers on her had taxed him more than he wanted to admit.
“That all you’ve got, Your Highness?” she taunted from the floor, spitting her hair out of her mouth. She took her time rising to her hands and knees, hoping he would take the bait. She knew she had the upper hand as soon as she heard him stomp towards her. Wanting to time it just right, she waited until she felt his fist wrap around her pony tail. The moment he yanked her head back to make her look at him, she flicked her wrist and clasped the cuffs that she’d been holding around his free arm, distracting him enough that she was able to tug him off balance as she got to her feet.
The shock on his face was only amplified when she quickly twisted and pinned his other hand behind his back, locking them in place. Loki grunted and struggled against her grip as she steered him across the room, bending him over the counter with a satisfying slam.
“Warded restraints?” he gritted through his teeth, tugging at the cuffs as he kicked back at her, knocking empty liquor bottles off the countertop onto the floor in the process.
“Plenty more where these came from, Sunshine, so you might as well save your strength because your magic won’t work.” She dug her elbow deep into his shoulder blade and kicked his feet further apart to keep him off balance. When he twisted his head to the side to try to look back at her she slid her elbow forward and pinned it against his neck forcefully.
“What the hell are you doing, you psychotic fool?” he spat at her. “Why are you holding me?”
“Don’t fucking look at me!” she yelled, grinding her elbow deeper into the base of his skull, loving the grunt that it caused him to make. Scrapper 142 slowly unbent her arm and leaned more fully against him as she pressed the heal of her hand into the side of his head. “I haven’t decided what I’m doing with you yet,” she whispered against the shell of his ear, fighting back the sudden random urge to flick her tongue against it.
He smelled really good this close up. It was a delicious mix of leather and spice and something more primal underneath that she suspected was just… him. Whatever it was, it was distracting.
Never one for backing down, Loki took this opportunity to throw his head back and smash it into her nose, causing her to briefly see stars. Brief or not, it was just long enough for him to catch her off guard and shove her back. He spun around and kicked at her again, this time landing a good one directly in her sternum and sending her tumbling on her ass.
Not having his bearings yet, he turned and ran for the first doorway he saw, thinking only of getting away from the wild eyed Valkyrie until he could find a way out of the damn cuffs. Unfortunately the fact that his hands were sealed behind his back was exactly why he had nothing to break his fall as he tripped over a large pile of trash and dirty laundry right inside the darkened room.
“Shit!” he barely had time to yelp before he landed face first onto an unmade bed.
Loki didn’t know if he was more horrified at his clumsiness or the filth he was surrounded by.
The woman was a psychotic slob.
“You’re a bigger bitch than I thought you were,” he heard her growl from behind him as the light turned on overhead, a distinct jingling sound getting louder as she got closer. He quickly started trying to get his knees underneath him so that he could either roll over or get back on his feet, but he knew that wasn’t going to happen as soon as she jumped on the bed and settled her weight on top of him, her legs pinning against each side of his hips. Before he could buck her off again, a cool length of chain wrapped around his neck and was pulled tight in an upward angle, just enough to make his head tip back.
“This is madness!” he grunted back at her, his efforts to wiggle free only earning him another sharp jab in the back with her elbow. She tugged harder on the chain until he looked back at her. “I don’t understand why you attacked me.”
“Why I attacked you?!” she squawked, grabbing a fistful of his hair at the base of his skull in her free hand and yanking his head back further until his back was arching off the bed. “First you had the nerve to put your hands on me,” she panted as she struggled to dig her legs into his ribs more firmly. “Then you had the gall to go crawling through my memories!” She twisted the chain more firmly in her grip to emphasize her rage, briefly cutting off his oxygen, which caused his thrashing beneath her to suddenly stop.
And he whimpered.
Something about that sound made her stomach clench and sent heat pooling straight between her legs. Her hips bucked involuntarily, and she realized that she was grinding herself against his bound hands when she felt his fingertips clench against her sex.
His wide gaze met hers in surprise, both of them waiting to see what the other one would do. Rather than loosen the chain, she tugged harder on his hair.
His eyes rolled back and he let out a loud groan.
“Oh no, we can’t have that now,” she purred against his ear, pinning more of her upper body weight against him long enough to let go of the chain around his neck so she could reach out to the closest piece of dirty laundry she could grab that was scattered on her bed. By the time she was done stuffing the wadded up panties far enough into his mouth that he couldn’t spit them out easily, she realized that he wasn’t really struggling all that hard to get free any more. She didn’t seem to even need the chain around his neck to keep him still, not when the firm tugging on his hair seemed to be so pleasing to them both.
His groaning continued of course, although now it was muffled beautifully, and the sight of her panties in his pretty mouth was making her pulse race. He didn’t seem to mind much either, if the amount of squirming and thrusting he was doing against the mattress was any indication. She wasn’t quite sure what she’d intended to do with the smug bastard when she started this other than to take him down a peg or two, but she certainly wasn’t going to stop now if there was a chance of still doing that and getting some pleasure for herself in the process.
She hadn’t had a really good hate fuck in decades.
Loki, on the other hand, never seemed to have anything but hate fucks these days. However it was rare when he found someone who could actually give him the things that he needed without being told to first or even worse, begged. Not that he was against begging for what he needed. He rather enjoyed begging.
But he absolutely loathed begging someone who wasn’t worthy, someone who hadn’t earned it.
While so much about her was completely abhorrent to him (he didn’t even want to think about how long these panties had been sitting on her bed), there was something about this feisty little Valkyrie that told him she could fuck the brat out of him without even breaking a sweat.
The thought disgusted him.
He was so hard it was painful.
At the delicious dig of her fingernails deeper into his scalp, he couldn’t resist the urge to grind himself into her filthy mattress once more in hopes of relieving some of the pressure in his groin. He also couldn’t resist flexing his fingertips behind his back again, seeking out the heat of her cunt through her leggings. He just knew she would be scorching hot and sopping wet and so, so tight if—
The exquisite pain suddenly stopped as she let go of his hair. Before he could glare back at her in disappointment she slapped him hard across the cheek. He grunted loudly into his gag, his look shifting rapidly from shocked to questioning.
“Did I fucking give you permission to touch me?” she growled at him. Loki whimpered again, shaking his head in response. “No, I didn’t think so. Daring to put your hands on me is exactly what got you into this mess, isn’t it?” When he took too long to answer, she yanked his head back even harder. “Isn’t it?”
He nearly came right there in his trousers like an untried schoolboy.
He nodded quickly, groaning and bucking his hips, trying desperately to reign in his excitement. Things were getting extremely out of his control on every level, and he both hated it and needed it so badly that he ached.
“No, you don’t get to come yet,” she snapped, climbing off of him. “You haven’t done nearly enough to earn it.” She grabbed his arm and shoved him over onto his back, taking away the temptation of his grinding friction. A quick look of relief flashed across his face before he steeled his gaze again, but she caught it nonetheless, and she knew.
He didn’t want this to end yet, either.
“I don’t think these cuffs are enough,” she mused, pulling him up into a sitting position. If she had any doubts left about his willingness, the enthusiastic moan he let out when she started wrapping the rune-etched chain around his broad shoulders put them to rest. Loki tossed his head back in what could only be described as ecstasy, his eyes closed to the world, his beautiful long lashes resting against his pale cheeks as he simply enjoyed the tightening pull around his torso as she locked it into place.
The fact that these chains prohibited the use of his powers was more freeing than he ever could have imagined. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been able to just let go and be in the moment.
And with a Valkyrie, no less!
Loki had fantasized about them endlessly when he was young, their strength and fearlessness, their raw power. It shouldn’t have surprised him so much to find out that she seemed to live up to that reputation in the bedroom as well.
“How did such a pretty little prince become such a filthy, dirty cockslut?” She watched his face as she spoke, and the heated look he shot her was anything but insulted. “You know, you’re much more tolerable with your mouth full.” She stood back and appreciated her handiwork, the combination of chains and tight leather highly arousing. Her eyes traveled slowly down his body, landing on the very prominent bulge in his lap.
That looked promising.
“So… is it the pain?” she asked, rising her leg up to plant her boot firmly in the center of his chest. “Or is it the restraint?” She shoved him backwards, loving the deep grunt he made when he landed on the bed. Hopping up onto the mattress, she straddled his chest this time and leaned down close so that she could look him in the eye. “I think it’s both,” she whispered.
Loki looked up at her with wide eyes before finally giving a quick nod, a slight tear leaking from the corner of his eye when he blinked. She couldn’t tell if it was from shame or relief, and he wouldn’t have known how to answer her if she’d asked, so instead she leaned further over and licked it away from where it streaked down his temple towards his hairline. She finished by finally licking that earlobe that had been tempting her all day, and giving it a sharp bite for good measure.
“I’m going to take my pleasure from you now.” She leaned back to look him in the eye and saw nothing but excitement staring back at her. “Perhaps if you’re a good boy for me, I might let you come when I’m finished with you.”
Rising up again, Scrapper 142 wasted no time shedding her leggings and her breastplate until she was standing in front of him completely nude. He barely had a moment to appreciate her tightly toned body before she was unfastening the closure on his trousers and yanking them down unceremoniously until they were wadded up around his knees, leaving his erection straining back towards his stomach, precum already weeping from the broad tip.
He was certainly godly in that department. No wonder he knows his way around a cock she thought to herself. It was long, smooth, and thick, and though it had been a while since she’d had sex, it had been even longer since she’d been with a man, and even longer still since she’d had one quite as lovely.
This was going to be fun.
She dropped to her knees in front of him, sliding her hands up his creamy thighs slowly, surprised that they were much more muscular than she’d imagined. She enjoyed watching them clench and release when she added the scrape of her fingernails along the way. By the time she encircled both of her hands around the base of his shaft and squeezed, he was breathing rapidly through his nose and trying desperately to sit up enough to see her.
Loki wiggled and squirmed, fighting against his restraints to rise his head up just in time to see her plump lips close over his swollen flesh. She hummed at how good he tasted and his eyes crossed at the pleasure that soared through his body with the swirl of her tongue. He knew the image of her stark white face markings standing out against her warm brown skin as they slid up and down his length would be burned into his mind for the rest of his life, but when she tugged lightly on his foreskin with her teeth he wasn’t certain how much longer that would be.
He was so distracted by her talented mouth that he was surprised to feel one of her slender fingertips circling and pressing around the sensitive puckered tissue at his rear entrance. Groaning loudly at her gentle probing, Loki bore down harder, trying to get her to penetrate him more deeply as he bucked his hips enthusiastically.
“Oh, okay,” she said, pulling away from him with a slurp. “I forgot this wasn’t amateur hour.” She moved away briefly to her nightstand, waving off his growl of protest, and returned with a velvet bag that she tossed down next to him as she resumed her position between his legs. Pulling something from the bag, she held it up in front of him with a challenging smirk. “Too much?”
Loki’s eyes shot open in excitement at the sight of the toy, shaking his head back and forth rapidly. She chuckled to herself as she opened the pot of ointment she used as lubrication, slathering the slender glass plug generously.
“I’m doing this more for my pleasure than I am for yours,” she said as she placed the slippery tip against his opening. When his questioning gaze met hers she explained further. “I have more things I want from you now, but I want you desperate to come.” With that she slowly began inserting the plug into his tight channel, loving how eagerly he took her invasion. Once it was fully seated in place, Loki was overwhelmed by the delicious fullness that he’d never had a chance to enjoy with a female partner before. He wanted to push back against it. He wanted to fuck. He wanted to come. He wanted to please.
He wanted to beg for all of it.
She slowly climbed back onto the bed, straddling his hips as he watched her with wild eyes. She settled herself against his now throbbing length and he realized that he was holding his breath, wanting nothing more than to feel her sink down on him. He could feel her scorching heat, she was right there, but she was just hovering. And waiting. And waiting.
Just when Loki thought he was about to lose his mind, she slid her slick folds along his length, rubbing herself back and forth against the underside of his cock, back and forth, never quite taking him inside. He tossed his head back against the mattress, his eyes going unfocused. She was absolutely soaking him with her juices and it was driving him crazy, so much so that he didn’t realize he had started to thrust up against her.
“No!” she scolded, lifting her hips away from him and grabbing his chin firmly. “Look at me,” she commanded, “Hey!” snapping her fingers in his face until he focused his hooded eyes back up at her. “That’s a warning.”
His nostrils were flaring as he tried to catch his breath, bringing himself back from the edge. He was flushed a gorgeous shade of pink that was spreading up from the collar of his shirt, slowly working into his cheeks. He started making a low pitched whine that turned into a growl, and eventually she realized he was trying to speak, saying the same muffled word over and over that she couldn’t make out.
“Don’t make me regret this,” she said, slowly removing the panties from his mouth.
“Please!” he gasped, breathing rapidly. “Please… more!”
“Please?! “ she scoffed. “That’s what I’d like right now.” She crawled further up his body, over his shoulders until her knees were planted on each side of his face. “For you to please me.”
“Gods, yes! Please let me taste you!” he moaned. “Use me!”
“Clearly removing your gag was a mistake,” she sighed. “I guess I need to keep your mouth occupied.” With that, she muffled the loud groan he let out as she rubbed herself all over his mouth. Loki was in ecstasy, lapping up her juices as fast as he could, flicking his tongue against her clit until she eventually started riding his whole face. Her fingers sank into his hair again, gripping tightly as she ground her dripping sex into his tongue, his chin, his nose, anything that would give her the friction she sought. He added to it by growling into her wet flesh like a man who was starving, finally latching onto her clit and sucking lightly until she threw her head back and howled, bucking her hips as she rode out the waves of her release, flooding his lips and chin with her honey.
Loki’s erection hadn’t flagged a bit, if anything it was even harder than before. The noises she’d made as she had come undone nearly did him in, and any movements he made only shifted the weight of the plug inside him, refusing to let his body relax. He hadn’t been wound this tight in longer than he could remember, and he had a feeling that if this vicious psychotic drunken slob of a warrior goddess didn’t fuck him soon he would surely go insane.
“Are you going to behave?” she asked, slowly crawling back down his body and dragging her nipples down his face as she went, shifting out of his reach when he tried to draw first one, then the other into his mouth.
“Please!” he begged again, and she was starting to enjoy the sound of it. “Get yourself off on my cock,” he panted, that wild look returning to his eyes the closer she got to his lap. The light in the room glistened off her release that was smeared all over his face when he looked her in the eye, and it somehow made him look even more beautiful to her. “I need to feel that tight pussy squeezing me when you come.”
This time she didn’t bother teasing, she was too eager to feel that gorgeous dick inside her before he lost total control. She straddled his hips again, lifting herself enough to reach between her legs and grab onto his shaft, rubbing the swollen tip against her slick folds quickly before lining him up at her entrance.
“Look at me,” she commanded, forcing him to drag his gaze from where their bodies were finally about to join. “Don’t. Fucking. Move.” With that, she sank herself down to the hilt, watching his face go through the shock and awe reactions that she loved to see on someone’s face whenever she allowed them inside her body. Her pussy was a gift and she expected to see the reverence in her partner’s eyes. Loki did not disappoint, his face a perfect image of scared disbelief that anything could actually feel so wet and grip him so tight.
She started slowly lifting herself up and down his length, bracing herself on his torso as she moved, gripping her fingers through the links in the chain and tugging occasionally as if they were a harness. She loved the thick, heavy drag of him inside her, stretching her wider as she moved, hitting places she’d forgotten were even there. It was easy to see that Loki was struggling to hold still, his teeth were clenched tight in concentration and something told her that if his arms weren’t bound he would have already grabbed her hips to hold her steady so he could pound her into next week.
She was tempted to let him try.
But then she ground her clit just right against his pubic bone and she could feel the tremors starting, her movements getting faster, the ripples moving inside her as her body started clamping down on him.
“I can feel you gripping me,” Loki gasped, a fresh burst of her honey drenching his cock. “Please… please let me move.” Every time she thrust her hips against him he could feel the most maddening dual sensation of her cunt trying to squeeze him to death as the plug pushed against his prostate. ”Please!”
Her hand shot out and gripped his throat, not quite cutting off circulation but pinning him firmly in place.
“Now,” she ordered, staring into his eyes. “Fuck me back,” she moaned, grinding into him even harder. “Fuck me hard until you come.”
Loki didn’t need to be told twice. As soon as she gave the go ahead he lifted his legs up onto the edge of the bed for more leverage, slamming his hips up into her so hard that she was bouncing up and down on his shaft, the wet slap of their bodies echoing throughout the room. His violent thrusts ripped another orgasm from her suddenly and he followed closely behind, flooding her with his hot release, her body milking him dry. He came so hard that his ears were ringing and he was worried that he might pass out for a moment, but the feeling of her hand sliding up from his throat to grab his chin again grounded him, pulling him back from oblivion.
He searched her features, looking desperately for any sign of pleasure or approval, but her emotions were guarded as she stared back at him blankly for a moment before she slowly climbed off of him. She left him lying there as she went to her lavatory, a tangled mess of leather, chains, and exhaustion. After cleaning herself quickly, she returned with a wet cloth and tended to him. First she carefully removed the plug and wiped it down, setting it aside for more cleaning later, then she cleaned the evidence of their combined releases from his body. Loki watched her as she worked in silence, feeling a strange sense of comfort from her aftercare. It was one of the few times in his life that he didn’t want to speak and destroy whatever this sense of calm that had settled over him was, but he couldn’t stop himself when she reached up to wipe off his face as an afterthought.
“Leave it,” he whispered, turning away from the cloth. He knew this would never happen again and he wanted to savor the scent and taste of her for as long as he could. She stared at him for a moment before giving a quick nod. As she gathered up her things and returned to the small lavatory, Loki couldn’t help feeling as if he had possibly passed some sort of test, but her continued silence confirmed nothing. It bothered him, and he hated that.
When she returned she dressed quickly, securing her breastplate in place before turning to him and helping him stand up. Rather than releasing his chains, she began to tug up his leggings and refasten them for him. When everything was tucked back where it was supposed to be, she grabbed onto the chain and turned, leading him back out to the main room. She gestured to a small stool in the middle of the room, indicating for him to squat down on it as she returned to her chest of restraints. When she returned with another length of chain he looked up in question, but she simply knelt next to him and proceeded to fasten his feet to his hands, essentially hog tying him so that he couldn’t move.
“Sorry, but I need to go find your brother and I can’t have you leaving.” Rather than being offended, Loki took it as a sign of mutual respect. It was her way of acknowledging that he shouldn’t be underestimated, and he liked that.
She stood to leave, her mind already focusing on where to look for Thor first so that they could try to form an alliance, when something made her look back at him before she opened the door. There was a look on his face that she’d never seen him make before, and it was enough to make her pause and turn around. It was the most open, pleading look anyone had ever given her.
She walked back to him and looked down into his eyes, and she suddenly knew what Loki the child looked like when he was desperate for acceptance and attention. Reaching out slowly, she stroked her fingers through his hair, bringing her hand down to cup his face.
“So beautiful,” she whispered, stroking her thumb across his cheek. “Such a good boy when you want to be.” He leaned into the touch, preening and glowing from the praise, allowing himself one brief moment before guarding himself from the world again.
“What’s your name?” he asked quietly, not wanting to break the calm. “I’m not calling you Scrapper. That’s a title, not a name.”
“I don’t really remember,” she said thoughtfully. “I’ve gone by a few.” She shrugged dismissively, as if the idea of losing her identity didn’t faze her a bit. “You don’t need to call me anything.” She leaned in and kissed his forehead gently before standing and steeling herself, her features blank once again before she turned and walked away without looking back this time.
Loki watched her disappear through the doorway, the loud click as it locked into place marking the ending of one of the best experiences he’d ever had.
“My Valkyrie,” he whispered.