A groan and another growl came from the slender form holding my feet just above the floor. Whoever this ass-hat was, he was fucking strong for his size.
I kicked, aiming for what I hoped was his knee. Instead, I completely misjudged, and my boot glanced off my attacker’s shoe.
“I’m sorry, but I’m dying. I have to feed.”
I went limp at the sound of the familiar female voice. It can’t be her. My heart raced and time slowed as I remembered the last time I’d heard the sweet timber of her voice. Memories of the battle where I lost her flooded my mind and the pain I felt that day and every day after came pouring back. I dreamed every night that she would come back to me. But it was always a dream.
This wasn’t a dream.
Her mouth descended to my neck. The bite was painful for a moment. But I could only feel the steady pull as she drank deeply. Her venom coursed through my body, transforming the pain from her bite to pleasure, making me not only a willing victim, but an eager one.
A vampire?
How and when had she been turned? She’d been so close to death when I’d lost sight of her on the battlefield. When had she been dosed with blood?
Dizziness gripped, and my balance wavered. Had she not been holding me pressed against the wall I would’ve dropped into a heap on the floor. I pushed against her chest; the realization that death was courting gave my mind control through the fog of the bite.
“Stop. Eira, please.”
Chapter Eleven
EIRA
The familiar deep voice tugged at my soul. Killían? It couldn’t be. His blood was rich and warm and very… not human! The magick flowing in his blood healed me faster than any human’s would’ve.
“Eira, please.”
He asked me to stop. I could hear his voice in the recesses of my mind over the hammer-like pounding of his heart in his chest and the overwhelmingly decadent scent of his magick-filled blood. I ignored the familiar voice, the scent. My Killían was dead. This was just some stranger that reminded me of him. A hallucination.
But what if? What if, like me, he had lived? If some twist of fate had saved him that day, I might be killing the only man I’d ever loved.
I released his throat, sliced my tongue on one of my fangs, and quickly sealed the two deep puncture wounds. He struggled to breathe normally as I slowly lowered him to the ground, peering at his face in the dark. When his eyes opened and met my gaze, a pain-filled cry ripped from my throat.
My chest tightened as I struggled to draw a breath, as if I needed the oxygen. It was him. It was Killían. All these years and I nearly drained the love of my life without a second glance. Mother of the gods!
Tears poured down my cheeks as a tidal wave of emotions battered my conscious. What now? What did he think of me? I wasn’t the woman he’d fallen in love with a thousand years ago. I was a killer. A demon, hated by most humans and considered a parasite by the rest.
But he wasn’t human.
His eyes searched for me in the dim light of the barn, but he couldn’t see like I could. I stepped away from him slowly and moved closer to the single ray of sunlight sliding between the barn wall and slightly ajar door he’d come through. I couldn’t step into the light, but at least he’d be able to see the outline of my face.
“I’m so sorry,” I gasped. “I didn’t know it was you. I didn’t know…” What was he? I’d never tasted anyone like him before. Not that I’d tasted a lot of supernaturals, but he was certainly something different.
He squared his shoulders and walked toward me.
“Gods, I’m just so… I—”
He didn’t speak. His hands slid along my jawline until they cradled my head. Our gazes met, and the same love shined in his blue eyes that had been there that day I’d lost him. He pulled me forward and kissed me, soothing away my worries. It was as if we’d never been apart. My heart soared in my chest, and the darkness faded. He was my light. Always had been.
“Killían, how are you here?” I moaned against his neck as he feathered kisses down the side of mine.
His lips were so soft and tender as they nipped delicately at my earlobe before traipsing down the curve of my neck and shoulder. I never thought I’d feel his mouth again. Never thought his scent would fill my lungs like it was right now. I’d found my heaven on earth.
My body warmed beneath his touch, my wounds forgotten.
If only this moment would never end. To feel his hands on my body like they were now. To feel his mouth on mine. To smell him next to me and hold him in my arms. But life was never that kind. No matter how hard I wanted time to pause, there were questions I needed answered. Questions I deserved to have answered.
“What are you?” I asked while his hands slid along my hips and around to my ass. I knew the answer already. Diana and Calliope had seemed so sure. But I needed to hear it from his lips.
“I’m Elvin.”
The truth hurt. I thought it wouldn’t but it stung.
I yanked away from him, placed a palm on his chest, and shoved. Anger surged. I knew who the Elvin were. Unlike vampirism, it was a living breathing species. Not something a person was turned into. He’d always been a supernatural. He’d been born that way. He would’ve left me all those years ago. Eventually, to keep his secret, he would’ve abandoned me.
Killían stumbled backward into the darker corner of the barn. I heard his feet scrape the floor as he caught his balance and started toward me again. I blurred to the other side of the barn, completely hidden by shadows.
“Eira, please.” His voice implored my broken heart. It tugged and pulled at the part that wanted to forgive him and forget.
I wanted to pretend he hadn’t lied to me all those years ago. But he had. I’d been human, and he… wasn’t. I wanted to pound my fists against his chest and exact revenge for the long centuries of pain, loneliness, and anger. For not knowing why I couldn’t move on. If I’d only known he was an immortal, I would’ve looked for him harder.
But, as much as I wanted him to feel my pain, I also wanted to kiss him until all the nights I spent crying myself to sleep were washed away. My heart belonged to him the same as it always had. I loved him as much in this moment as I had that day on the beach when my eyes had closed in death and he’d disappeared from sight.
“I thought you died and left me. I searched for you for years. But no one knew what became of Killían and Jón North. After twenty years of combing Europe, I finally accepted that you’d died.”
“I’m so sorry, Eira. When I returned to the battlefield to bury your body and it was missing, I tried to take my own life. My brother stopped me.” His voice broke as more emotions welled up inside him.
His admission soothed the ache in my soul. He had felt pain akin to mine if death had been an appealing solution.
I wanted to tell him it didn’t matter. That I forgave him wholeheartedly, but I didn’t. I had to know what he’d done to me all those years ago. I rubbed the stone in the amulet he gave me. It always hung around my neck, safely tucked between my breasts. Without it, I hurt for him as if he’d stabbed me all over again.
“I lost you in the worst possible way. You died by my hand, and then I was cheated of giving you, my beloved, a proper warrior’s burial. Someone desecrated your body. Took you from me. Jón and I left Europe later that week and sailed for the New World. I’ve lived in America ever since. I couldn’t stay in a land that reminded me of you at every glance.”
I sensed more and stayed silent in the shadows.
“But it didn’t help. Going halfway around the globe didn’t help me forget you and move on. I still dreamed of losing you every night and woke smelling the evergreen scent of your hair, but then you weren’t with me. I relive your loss every day as if it happened only days ago instead of centuries. I love you so desperately I can’t even see another woman through your memory. It’s as if we’re still linked by the diamond I gave you the first night we made love. The night you agreed to be my wife. But you were dead
…” He fell to his knees, and tears ran down his cheeks. “I’m so sorry, Eira. I failed you. I should’ve looked longer.”
My soul recognized his pain as my own. I, too, was haunted by memories of him. Never able to grieve and move past loving him. Only recently, Diana had told me what the diamond on the amulet meant. Why I could never take it off. Why it was as much a part of me as my own skin.
“You lied to me when you gave me that necklace.”
“I was selfish. I wanted to love you and have a family with you. But I didn’t want you to know that one day I would have to leave you. I didn’t want you to carry that pain and fear around.”
“If I’d known what you were, I would’ve kept searching for you.” I walked forward, yanking the string by the door to turn on the light in the center of the barn. Its soft glow bathed us both in a yellow luminescence. I yanked the amulet from beneath my shirt. The purple diamond glowed as if it were alive, sensing his close proximity. “Instead I’ve lived with this around my neck for ten centuries without you.”
An expression of understanding passed over his face before he glanced up to meet my gaze again. Gods, his eyes were as hungry as my body felt. I wanted him so badly it hurt to stay away from him. I craved his touch like an addict needed their next hit. Now that we had already kissed, touched, the hunger inside me was worse. The magick in that diamond was stronger than ever, and it wouldn’t be satisfied with only one brief encounter.
“You’re not the only one that felt the effects. Our souls are linked.” He stood and took several steps toward me. “A Goddess Sea diamond marries souls.”
“I’m a vampire.”
“You still have a soul. You’re still the person you were before the curse took hold and changed your body. Magick cannot change a soul.”
“You left me. You didn’t tell me what this stone would do, Killían. I only just recently found out.”
“You were human, Eira. I never dreamed I’d have the chance to love you for more than a few decades.”
He stepped forward again, but I moved away, wrapping my arms around my torso. The flesh wounds were gone. His blood flowing through my veins had healed me quickly. Soon there would be no trace of a wound left on my body, only remnants of blood and dirt to remind me where I’d come from. To remind me of the ambush that had stolen my friends. To remind me I’d been betrayed by a friend.
At the same time, he was just standing there. The man I loved so completely, but who’d betrayed me worse than any friend ever could. The wounds left by his lies ran deeper than any bullet or gash.
He took a step toward me, but I raised my palm to stop him. Everything in my body wanted to touch him. To hold him. To taste him. But my heart needed time to forgive him…while my brain moved past the desire to punish him.
I knew the amulet only strengthened what was already there. It hadn’t created something from nothing. It was my love for him that fed the magick within the stone. I understood that now. The amulet was just the link between us. It was why we felt each other’s pain and longing. We’d shared the burden of our separation all this time and never understood why, both of us thinking the other had died long ago.
I stared at man I loved, taking him in one inch at a time, re-memorizing every angle. Every feature. A strong aquiline nose. Squared off jaw. His sandy blond hair was much shorter than it’d been a millennia ago, but I like it tousled and messy. It suited him, as did the scruffy five-o-clock shadow.
My fingers itched to touch him again. To feel the connection between us surge with life. But a thousand years of being alone had taught me to be cautious. Logic explained his reasons for lying, but following my gut had kept me alive longer than most of my kind.
His bright blue eyes were cloudy with fear. The muscles in his neck flexed, and his cheek twitched. He was fighting the urge to come closer with every breath.
“I want to tell you that I love you and that nothing has changed,” I whispered. “But it has.”
“I will wait for you another millennia if that’s what you need, Eira. I can’t begin to imagine what you’ve been through. Just know that I will never leave you again, and I do love you more than words can convey.” His pulse raced, and his hands fisted at his sides, but he remained stationary.
Hearing him tell me that he loved me warmed a place in my heart that had been cold for too long. Even so, I needed more time than the space of a few minutes to tell him how deeply I still loved him, too.
Chapter Twelve
EIRA
He took a step forward and every muscle in my body tensed. If he embraced me, I’d turn into a mushy puddle of emotional mess. I couldn’t deal with that right now. I needed answers, explanations, and I really needed a shower. My skin was grimy and covered in my dried blood. Even though my clothes had self-cleaned, thanks to Calliope’s enchantment, they were ragged.
“Killían.” I stepped closer to him, ignoring the warning alarms in my brain telling me to keep my distance. The scent of death clung to the air in the barn, distracting me from my overwhelming desire to touch him. I’d noticed the essence of it when I first arrived. And once the sun had risen to its full height, I’d also been made aware of the freshly buried bodies behind the barn, too.
“Yes?” He glanced up, meeting my gaze with a burning hunger in his eyes that melted my insides.
I shook my head, communicating for him to keep his distance. He turned away and walked toward the sword I’d relieved him of earlier. After sliding it into the empty sheath on his back, he slowly turned around to face me again. His expression was grim but calmer. The tension had left his face, and his hands hung relaxed at his sides. I appreciated that he was willing to give me the space I needed without making me feel guilty for needing it.
“You kill here.” It was a statement, but he answered it like a question.
“Yes. Then I bury them outside and plant a tree on their graves. Something good should come from their death. It used to make me feel like I was avenging my brother, but now…”
Jón was dead. Sympathy for his loss made a few more tears cascade down my cheeks. They had been so close.
His words had trailed off, but I had a feeling I knew where they were leading. Somewhere he didn’t want to acknowledge, the riots had changed the way we lived on earth. Everything was done more carefully. Even the Others that didn’t give a shit about hiding what they were still remained guarded and careful. Just because they didn’t mind killing humans to survive didn’t mean they wanted to be fighting a war every day.
But this barn with its years of dried blood, chains on the wall, and graves in the field outside spoke volumes to the life he’d chosen to lead. I wanted and hoped the man I’d fallen in love with was not completely lost.
“Now you just kill because it’s the only thing left to do.” I understood killing and death. I’d killed just to survive for hundreds of years. But I killed to eat, not because I was taking vengeance for a family member. My hatred had been turned inward for so long. It’d taken centuries for me to regain my humanity. To reach past the self-loathing of being a vampire, past losing the life I’d wanted to live.
The sword he’d picked up from the floor was the very sword he’d fought with a thousand years ago. It was the sword I’d been stabbed with. I’d never seen more beautiful blades on earth than the ones Jón and Killían North owned. Now Killían carried them both. He’d called his Dragonfire, and Jón had called his blade Dragonbreath.
“They took him from me,” Killían finally continued. “It should’ve been me that died. Not Jón.” He took another deep breath. “After he died, I enlisted with the TR Army. They were glad to have me. They encourage Others to enlist. I taught an entire regiment the art of sword fighting. But after forty years of more blood, I retired and moved here. I stay off the grid, and it was quiet for a while. But then SECR teams started sneaking around. When one team came into my house, I killed them all. Then it just turned into more and more. Until that was what I did again. Kill.”
&nb
sp; “Most of them do deserve it.” I moved closer, pushing away the alarms in my head that warned me if I touched him all my anger would melt away. Touching him was all that mattered right now.
My hands lifted to cup his face, and I stared deep into the blue pools of regret and pain his eyes broadcasted. His hands remained at his sides, and in that moment, I only wished for his embrace.
I moved my hands down the sides of his neck and leaned against his chest, pulling him into the embrace I so desperately needed. When he finally raised his arms and wrapped them around my back, pulling me tighter to his chest, I breathed in the sweet smell of his scent and buried my face in his shirt.
“I’m sorry about Jón.”
“Thank you, Eira.” His lips pressed down on the top of my head in a gentle kiss. It was intimate without being out of control.
I breathed in his earthy scent and sighed. I’d missed him so much. Nothing mattered more than building a future together from this point forward. We’d both suffered through the last thousand years. He needed me as much as I needed him.
I just hoped when I told him I had to leave for Savannah to save Charlie, he’d come with me. Charlie was my “Jón,” the sister I never had. I couldn’t leave her in SECR clutches to be slaughtered by Xerxes. I could only hope I wasn’t already too late.
The sooner I could reach Hannah in Sanctuary, obtain another ring, and find those two Lycans Charlie was in love with, the better. They would help me find her and the rest of the missing Mason pack. I knew they would.
For now, I had a few hours to kill. Until the sun set, I was trapped in this barn.
“Let me make love to you, my beloved,” he murmured into my hair. “I want to feel your skin against mine again before circumstances steal you away from me once more.”
My Eternal Soldier Page 6