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Torture. He thrived on the hunt, on the kill. Pulling his T-shirt over his head, Galen dumped it on the ground as he entered his bedroom.
    With blood still sticky on his stomach, he had a shower and wandered back into his room. Slipping his arms into a fresh shirt, he looked at his reflection in the mirror as he buttoned up the black silk. He double-checked he didn’t have any other blood left on him; nothing said serial murderer like blood spots on your neck, after all.
    Flashing himself a confident smile in the mirror, Galen returned to the kitchen, where he found Rhys in a fresh set of clothes.
    “You ready?” he asked. Rhys’s pale blue eyes glittered with excitement. Nothing got him hornier than killing. Galen almost felt sorry for the female that Rhys would decide he wanted that night. “Ice?”
    Without a word, Rhys faded from the kitchen. Galen took a moment to take stock of the apartment they shared. They were currently unaffiliated with the Chicago guild master, and that was the way they wanted it to stay. Of course, being owned by another Mare did have its advantages—safety, mostly—but that reason didn’t really seem to have much credence anymore.
    Before the Fall, if any Mare wasn’t connected to a guild, whether as a Walker or in any other position, they had more chance of being killed by Odin; the old adage of strength in numbers was definitely true. But since the Fall, since Odin had lost his power and his Valkyries, Shadow Walkers had been on their own, unless their term with their master happened to be a damn long one.
    Closing his eyes, Galen faded from the apartment in Chicago, rematerializing in the alleyway beside the bar, Ice. Running a hand through his hair, he stepped from the shadows and joined Rhys, who was waiting patiently—as always—against the brick wall. Indicating the way with his head, Galen led them inside the bar, stepping through the door and into the near-arctic environment the owner and proprietor, Skadi, liked to maintain.
    Towering over the high bar, the female Jotunn was serving mead made from the traditional recipes from the old country. Her ice-blonde hair was hanging in her silver-frosted eyes, her well-proportioned body moving with lithe grace. As the muscles in her upper arms and forearms moved, the ripple of the albino snakeskin tattoos that ran all over her body moved with them. She looked up when the door slammed behind Galen and Rhys, her bored expression unchanging.
    Galen’s eyes shifted around the bar, taking note of who was in the room. Rhys did the same, but when his body language changed—became tenser—Galen followed his gaze. It was stuck on Tyr sitting at the back of the room. The god’s whole body was slumped forward over the table, the stump where his right hand used to be resting beside his drink.
    This could be problematic. Rhys was generally all right—he still looked like a light elf—but Galen’s black hair gave away his dark elf heritage. The standing order to kill all dark elves hung perpetually over his head, and there were still some among the Aesir who had become bounty hunters just for the fun of it.
    But the more he studied the god, the more he realized that Tyr—the former god of war—would not give them any trouble. Rumor had it that after the Fall, Tyr got lost in human vices like alcohol and drugs. Although they didn’t really have the same negative effect on gods as they did humans, Galen could see how worn Tyr had become.
    Rhys grabbed them a table while Galen moved towards Skadi at the bar, acutely aware of how her eyes followed him.
    “Two tankards of ale,” Galen told the ice giant, leaning his forearms on the bar. He was only there for a second before cursing and stepping back, as a thirty-foot albino serpent slithered around his legs. If there was one thing Galen couldn’t stand, it was large snakes, and when it came to Skadi, everything she owned was big.
    It took a few minutes for the snake to inch past his feet,