“It’s working!” Sigrunn exulted. “Now, quickly – the blood!”
Astrid’s fingers tore into Nika’s neck, and her blood sprayed onto Erik and the revivifying form of Hakon, the Lord of the Draugr. She screamed in agony and terror. The room began to shake.
Erik began to shout, “Odin! All-father! I call you – NOW!”
The statue of Odin, the most powerful Norse god, shuddered and exploded. A man’s body made entirely of green light appeared where the statue had been, and he grasped Hakon in both hands.
The mighty form of Odin’s avatar pulled Hakon off Erik’s body, rending the Draugr king in two. Astrid and Sigrunn screamed and threw themselves onto the ground, prostrate before their deity. Nika fell to the dirt beside them. Her throat was wounded, but she was very much alive.
The light that Hakon had swallowed came rushing back out, and this time it filled Erik until he shone so brightly that none of them could look upon him. Odin’s avatar shredded Hakon into pieces.
Nika pressed a hand to her throat and scrabbled up onto her feet. Astrid let her go. Beneath her fingers, she felt heat spreading through her injury.
Let me help you, child, a gentle female voice said in her head.
She could hardly have resisted. From a space deep within her, the same one that had exulted at becoming Erik’s chosen mate, a power deeper than any she had ever felt radiated outward. She closed her eyes, unable to keep them open any longer, and then her body was no longer her own.
She felt her arms extending to the sides, palms up. That suffusing heat in her throat extended down into her solar plexus then through her entire body, filling her to overflowing.
She thought she could hear rain. Warm, salty droplets fell upon her upturned face, and she knew that what she was hearing was not rain at all, but blood. She could not open her eyes, could not even move. Her mouth opened.
The blood filled her mouth, and the newborn vampire within her swallowed eagerly. She felt power in the blood, felt it coursing through her veins. She felt her hands turning, slowly, until the palms were facing out flat.
The power pushed out of her then, and she could feel it connecting with a similar wall of might coming from Erik. Their soul passengers, Ithunn and Vidar, had broken free, and the two gods now entwined in that cellar room, disembodied lovers entwining. Everywhere they touched, they gained strength, and it pulsed back into Nika and into Erik.
She heard women screaming and knew that it was Astrid and Sigrunn. She could feel them bursting into flame on either side of her, blazing like giant torches, flailing as their deaths overtook them. Their fires rose and conjoined, becoming a giant pillar of flame, setting fire to the room and to the house above them.
The papier-maché oak trees burned. The statues of the gods lit, too, and the heat was stunning. She could not move, could not step away from the burning fire. The flames wrapped around her, but she found herself enclosed in an embrace that protected her from harm.
The house burned around them, and the as Draugr burned, too. The fire spread from the house, immolating everything around. The ground sizzled and the trees snapped and popped as they went up in smoke. Everything was burning, and she was in the center of the conflagration – though she was not harmed. The inferno raged, but she clung tightly to the arms that held her, recognizing Erik. They stood united against the firestorm, untouched, united.
Abruptly, it was gone, and Nika was standing beside the altar, wrapped in Erik’s arms. The stones of the hörgr had cracked in the immense heat, but on the splintered slab, the Rune Sword rested, the Soul Stone back in place.
The house was gone, and they stood in the bottom of the hole that had once been the cellar. The ground was scorched around them in a perfect circle, the damage stopping just short of the stable on one side and the road on the other. Their car was a pile of melted scrap, and in the stable, the horses were frightened but unhurt.
Erik took her face into his hands. “Beloved, open your eyes.”
She was almost too afraid to do it, but she obeyed. He was standing there, nearly glowing in the power that emanated from his soul, his body perfect and unmarred. His chest was adorned with a new tattoo, a giant, stylized owl with wings that spread from one shoulder to the other, talons clutching two runes.
She clung to him. Although their clothing had burned away, their skin was untouched, and they were complete.
“How… what…”
He did not answer. He bent down and claimed her mouth in a kiss. She leaned into him, accepting him, and in her mind, she could hear him say, I choose you, now and forever. I choose you for all time. My love, my love… do you choose me?
She said it aloud. “Yes. Oh, yes.”
He took her into his arms and held her tight. She embraced him and, overwhelmed by everything she had experienced, she collapsed.
Chapter Sixteen – The Chosen
Nika woke up suddenly in her own bed, lying in Erik’s arms. She sat up in confused disorientation and pressed a hand to her feverish brow.
Was it all a dream?
She looked at her sleeping lover, and the owl tattoo across his chest told her that it had all been real. She touched the two stones inked into his skin, reading the Elder Futhark runes that were written there. One was Uruz, the other Thurisaz.
She identified the meanings of the runes. Masculine energy. Sexual potency. Regeneration.
As she looked at him, she realized that she, too, had been marked by the sacred fire. Runes were tattooed into both of her inner arms, and she identified Perthro and Sowilo.
Female mystical power. The sacred sword of fire. Protection from evil.
Beside her, Erik opened his eyes. He looked up at her with such love on his face that she wanted to weep.
He touched her cheek and smiled, and she went into his arms for a tight embrace. Everywhere her skin touched his, she felt a tingling of power, as if she was filled with mystical fire that burned brighter when he was near.
“What happened? How did we get here? The last thing I remember, we were at the house, and everything had just burned up.”
“We prevented the Draugr from raising Hakon,” he said simply, as if that explained it all.
“But...” She touched the tattoos on his chest and on her arms. “I don’t understand. What is this?”
He sat up and took her hands. “You remember me telling you about the old gods, how they could only continue for as long as they were melded with the souls of the Draugr. Right?”
She nodded.
“The gods with whom we were merged all those centuries ago rose up to help us, along with the All-Father.”
“Odin.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t understand.”
He smiled. “You’re still trying too hard to think with a modern mind. Not everything makes rational sense. In the world, remember, there is as much of the spirit as of the physical. Mortal minds cannot measure both.”
Beside the bed, leaning on the wall with its point in the carpet, the Rune Sword sat placidly. The Soul Stone was quiet and dull, no light shining in its depths. She looked at it in confusion, then back at him.
“You, my darling, have taken a big step into a world you ever knew existed, but which has been waiting for you since you were reborn into this life.” He smiled. “Do you believe me when I say that I love you?”
She smiled back, slowly. “Of course.”
“Then believe me now when I say this: because you are Chosen, and because you have drunk the dreyri, you will never be the same.”
Nika touched his arm, running her hands along the skin and the well-formed muscles beneath. He was distracting just by being there.
“Am I truly a Draugr?”
“Yes. You truly are.”
She put her fingers to her teeth, but they felt no different than they had before. He chuckled.
“Some changes haven’t taken hold yet, but they will do so as time goes on. The important thing is that your soul has been aw
akened, and the power that you have always had has been set free.” He pressed his hand to her chest, resting his palm above her heart. “You and I, Nika… we are meant to be. We are soulmates.”
“This is all so hard to understand,” she said, shaking her head. Her scarlet hair fell over her shoulder, a curtain over her face that he brushed away, tucking it behind her ear.
“You need understand only this: we are immortal, and you are my love, and the gods have blessed us.”
She pulled him into her arms, kissing him. He bore her gently down to the mattress, rolling her onto her back and leaning over her, his hand still cupping her head.
“I love you,” she told him. “You are my Chosen.”
“You are my life,” he told her.
Her moved closer, and they were soon entangled in one another again, their physical loving echoed by the pulsing power in their breasts. Their souls united even while their bodies connected, making love on two levels.
As he moved within her, he breather, “You are my soul.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him as close as she could, giving herself to him, body, heart and spirit.
Against the wall, the Rune Sword glowed.
Epilogue
The museum workers finished putting glass panel into place, once more sealing the pressurized chamber that held the Rune Sword in place. The ancient Viking weapon gleamed in the light of the pinpoint spotlights that illuminated the runes on its blade.
“There,” the curator said, satisfied. “Safe and sound, back where it belongs.”
The representative of the Royal Stockholm Museum nodded. “I’m very grateful that the sword was found in one piece.”
“Your agent, Mr. Thorvald, had a great deal to do with that.”
“Ah, yes,” the representative mused. “Mr. Thorvald. I shall have to find him to thank him personally.”
“Oh, is he no longer in town, Mr.…?”
“Sigurd,” the man replied.
The curator admired the sword. “What do those runes say, anyway? My assistant used to read runes, but I’m afraid Latin is far more my style.”
The Swede smiled, his narrow face an unlikely home for so friendly an expression. “It says ‘united forever.’ Strange, don’t you think, for an ornamental weapon intended for a burial?”
“Well,” the curator said, “perhaps it has a spiritual significance.”
They walked away together, the Swede folding his hands behind his back. A runic tattoo peeked out beneath his shirt cuff.
“Most things do, my friend,” he said. “Most things do.”
*****
THE END
BOOK 2: LOVE BEYOND THE WALL
Love Beyond the Wall
A Rizer Wolfpack Series Book 1
By:
Amelia Wilson
Table of Contents:
INVITATION FROM THE AUTHOR
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
ABOUT NEXT BOOK
Copyright © 2017 by Amelia Wilson
All rights reserved.
In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited, and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved.
Respective authors own all copyrights not held by the publisher.
CHAPTER ONE
Cara couldn’t sleep.
How could she? In the morning, she would be forced into a marriage with Aldrich. It didn’t matter that she didn’t want to marry him. Cara had no other alternative. Not anymore.
She could still remember what it was like before the town had walls built over ten feet high surrounding it. There were mountains in the distance, beautiful sunsets. Back then Cara thought she’d climb those mountains. She thought she would escape her father and leave all the ugliness behind.
People would talk about the big cities beyond the mountains. Cities that welcomed all walks of people, even the new race of people who changed their shape. These big cities still had the kind of things that Cara’s mother used to talk about. Taxi cabs, television, and phones that made communication possible across great distances.
The cities who did not fight against the shifters were allowed to carry on as they were. People like Cara’s family, who rejected the new race were pushed out of the established communities and forced to build new towns, and ways of surviving without any contact with the Shifter accepting cities.
Eventually war broke out among the shifter cities. At least that was what Cara heard. People left the cities, and so did the shifters. The order of the world forever changed.
Cara thought that perhaps the shifters were misunderstood by the people of her town. She wanted to believe that the world would eventually return to the kind of order it once held. She wanted to believe that the shifters were good.
Then they came.
The creatures who walked like men but were not men at all. They were monsters, wild beasts. Every man attacked by them died. Their bodies were brought back in pieces.
It wasn’t long after the hunting party was slaughtered that the wall was built. At first it was only five feet high. When more hunters were killed outside the wall, the townspeople added to the wall. It grew higher every year, cutting out more and more light from the people inside.
For seven years Cara, and most of the people of Aldrich Town, were trapped behind the walls. It was a cage, and it was only going to get smaller for Cara when she married Aldrich.
The man was in his forties, while Cara was not even twenty years old yet. Cara knew him to be a cruel man, just like her father.
If it wasn’t for Cara’s uncle, Mortimer, she might not know that there were men who were kind.
The men of the town angered easily. Many of them took out their frustration on anyone weaker than they were. When this happened, it was up to Aldrich if the person causing trouble got to stay, or was pushed outside the wall to be killed by the shifters.
All matters were taken to Aldrich. When Cara once asked her uncle why Aldrich was in charge he said, “He owns the food. Aldrich owns the weapons. He owns the wall. Aldrich owns the people of his town because without him they starve, are defenseless, and die.”
When Cara’s father took to beating her, the neighbors called in Aldrich. Cara was thirteen years old when he came to her house that night to answer the complaint. He arrived with a rope, ready to tie up her father because he was not interested in justice so much as he was interested in not being bothered.
When he saw Cara, he entered the home and sat down at the dinner table with Cara’s father. He promised to spare him if he kept her untouched by other men.
A virgin.
Aldrich said he would return for her when she was ripe.
Cara didn’t understand most of what he’d said, but she knew she didn’t like how he looked at her. She didn’t like the way Aldrich would follow her home from the schoolhouse after that.
She was relieved when Aldrich married Paulina. Cara thought that since he’d married, Aldrich had forgotten her. Cara believed she was free of him.
Up until two days prior, Cara believed that she would be like every other young woman in town and choose who to date and who to marry. When Aldrich came knocking, Cara knew she’d been mistaken. Aldrich hadn’t forgotten her. Not at all.
Her father opened the door for Aldrich. Wh
en Cara saw him her body froze with fear. There was a rumor that Paulina died. Cara chose to believe it wasn’t true. After all, Paulina was only twenty-three. How could she die so young?
Aldrich married Paulina when she was nineteen. Cara heard people say that Aldrich never let Paulina leave his house. Since Cara’s father rarely allowed Cara to leave without an escort, she thought it must be the same kind of restrictions for Paulina.
Once though, when she passed by Aldrich’s house on her way to work, Cara saw her. Paulina was standing in the window glaring out at the light as though she’d been in darkness for so long she couldn’t adjust. She was bruised, too skinny, and she was crying.
Since Aldrich was the only kind of law in Aldrich Town, Cara felt helpless to do anything for Paulina. Cara remembered that look of desperation on Paulina’s face, it wasn’t a sight she would ever forget.
Aldrich entered Cara’s home. Cara could only think of the terror on Paulina’s face. She stood, backing away from the table. Aldrich’s brown eyes were so dark they were nearly black as they followed every move Cara made.
Cara’s hands were shaking. She fisted them. Cara didn’t like the pleased look on Aldrich’s face when he saw the clear sign of fear. Narrowing her eyes, she dared to meet his gaze.
Aldrich’s cutting eyes widened, the bloodshot vessels in his eyes darkened. His pale face and pointed chin lowered as his heated gaze ran over her. His gray teeth looked sharp as his thin lips curled back.
He pushed up the sleeves of his red shirt. “Take off your dress,” Aldrich commanded. His eyes opened wider as he spoke. His hands opening and closing like he wanted to grab her.
Cara looked to her father. He was the only one who could protect her from Aldrich. Sure, her father was hard hearted, and short tempered but he did love her. Cara was certain he would do something.
He nodded to Cara, telling her without words to obey Aldrich.
Cara’s face burned with anger at his stab of betrayal.
The Alien Surrogate (The Klaskians Series Book 1) Page 15