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 awakened, 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
Rune King’s Daughter
Rune Series Book 4
By:
Amelia Wilson / J.A.Cummings
Table of Contents:
Invitation From The Author
Prologue
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
Epilogue
Copyright © 2017 by Amelia Wilson/J.A. Cummings
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.
Invitation From The Author
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p; Prologue
When the train slowed at the station, she barely waited for it to stop before she leaped on board. The passengers who were trying to exit the train gave her nasty looks as she pushed past them, but she cared little for their opinions. She only wanted to get the hell out of Sweden.
She sat in the middle of the car, more than arm’s length from any of the windows, just in case someone tried to punch through and grab her. Her father was powerful and had many, many soldiers who would be more than happy to drag her back to him for punishment. She had seen the things he was capable of doing, and she wanted no part of it.
The car exchanged riders with the platform, and several men and women, and even a few children, pressed in past the doors. She crossed her legs and clutched her duffel bag on her lap, her hand covering her face. She let her fingers stroke the tattoo of Hagalaz on her neck, a nervous habit she had developed since her father’s woman had become Rune Master. She nervously studied the people who climbed on board, but to her vast relief, there were no Draugr among them. She felt like she could almost breathe again.
Then he walked in.
He was no Draugr, but he was just as unwelcome to her as a Draugr would have been. He was tall and dark, with long hair and a black leather jacket that was more than a little worse for wear. It looked like someone had taken scissors to it, totally shredding the motorcycle club logo on his back and severing the attached belt. The dangling buckle bounced against his muscular thigh as he walked in and sat on a bench in the other half of the car. There was something strange about him, a shimmer around him that prevented her from seeing his true nature. He wasn’t human, but she wasn’t able to see what he was, which was so much more frightening.
She realized that he was staring at her, and the hand that she held to conceal her face began to tremble. He looked away, maybe to trick her, maybe to be polite. It was so difficult to tell. She gathered her bag and rose, determined to wait for the next train, but a trio of Draugr men appeared on the platform. One of them, dressed in an immaculate black suit and a matching woolen coat, both far too warm for the heat of the evening’s summer weather, lit a cigarette and shook out the match. His eyes locked onto hers, and he took a long drag, then breathed out smoke in a long stream that he sucked back in through his nostrils. He pointed at her.
The doors closed. The train began to pull away. The Draugr and his companions, who were in suits of a less-expensive variety, just watched her as she was carried away from them.
What are they doing? she asked herself, panicking. What are they waiting for?
She looked back and watched them as they receded, vanishing around the bend as the 9:15 from Stockholm to Paris sped away.
She clutched her bag, looking at the dark-haired man in the shredded jacket. A lock of blonde hair, recently bleached to conceal her native red, fell into her eyes, and she brushed it away. She shouldn’t have cut her hair. It got in the way too easily now, which she would not have expected. Maybe she should have cut it shorter. Maybe she…
She took a deep breath and realized that the man in the shredded jacket was staring at her again. Maybe she should have flown.
The DSB train line she had chosen was her cheapest option, but it would take 20 hours to get to France, including a three-hour transfer in Germany. There would be stops in Malmö, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Cologne and then Brussels before it finally reached Paris tomorrow night. She clutched her route map and tried to stop shaking. There would be five options to bail out on this train before she committed to the final destination, five opportunities to run if the man in the jacket didn’t stop staring.
Why is he just staring?
She whispered words of magic, and she tried to put up a protective enchantment. The man saw her spell and chuckled, unimpressed. She wanted to scream.
She jumped to her feet and headed back through the train toward the dining car. Hopefully she could find a private berth that she could sneak into before the man in the jacket caught up with her.
She looked over her shoulder. He stood up, too.
She walked faster, heading through the sliding doors at the end of the car, passing the connector and going into the next car. She cut through that car, and then the next, moving quickly. There were no private cars that she could break into, unless they were on the other end of the train, which meant that she would have to pass him to find out.
Taking a deep, steadying breath, she turned around and faced back the way she had come. A man and woman, speaking quietly to each other with their heads together like lovers came into the car. They were the only people moving around, other than her. The seats were nearly full, all the way from this car through to where she had been sitting. That knowledge gave her some comfort in knowing that the man in the jacket wouldn’t be fool enough to attack her with so many witnesses.
She hoped.
A cold breeze blew past her, and she looked for an open window. There were none that she could see. She gritted her teeth and slung her bag over her shoulder, shoving her ticket and train itinerary into her pocket as she did. She was getting so tired of being afraid.
A hand grasped her elbow, and she nearly screamed. She spun toward whoever had grabbed her, but there was nobody standing there. The man in the seat beside her looked at her with disapproval, clearly thinking she was drunk or high or something equally foolish. She looked at him and wanted to beg him for his help, but he was only human and would be worse than useless. She tried to turn away, but the hand on her elbow - the invisible hand - held her fast.
“Stop running and walk back to the car you came from,” a deep masculine voice said in her ear. “Nod if you’ll cooperate.”
She had no choice. The hand on her arm was like a vice, and she was not strong enough to break free without resorting to magic. Doing something like that would be suicide in a place as filled with humans as this car. She nodded.
“Good. Walk.”
She felt another hand take hold of the collar of her jacket, and the hand on her elbow let go. She could have pulled free, could have dropped the bag and struggled out of the jacket and tried to get away… but no, that would have accomplished nothing. She could not get away from this invisible captor without starting a riot.
She walked.
Step by step, he force-marched her back to the first car, depositing her back onto the seat. She felt his hand release her, and then he was sitting beside her, fully visible. His dark hair was hanging down over his golden-brown eyes and his shredded leather jacket was stained with old blood. She could smell it.
“What do you want?” she whispered, terrified.
“I think that we can help each other,” he said. “You are Valtaeigr.”
“And you are…”
“Ulfen.” The corner of his mouth turned up, somewhere between a smirk and a sneer, and he added, “Mostly.”
He didn’t feel Ulfen. She wanted to ask him why that was, but instead she stayed silent, sullenly holding her bag between them, trying to shelter behind it as if it were a shield. The Ulfen did not take offense. Indeed, it seemed as if he understood. He sat back in his seat and consulted his own ticket and itinerary.
“I figure we’ll be out of their immediate territory once we get to Cologne,” he said. “There’s currently no pack there. I don’t know about Draugr.”
When she spoke, her voice was a husky whisper, filled with dread. “The Draugr are everywhere.”
“Not everywhere. Most of them are still in Sweden, I believe, waiting to celebrate the royal wedding.” She could feel her expression sour, and she looked away. He chuckled. “Not a fan of the new king, I see. Or maybe it’s his intended you don’t care for.”
She didn’t respond to his implication. “Is there a pack in Paris?”
“Of course. And in Brussels, and in Copenhagen.” He tucked the itinerary into his jacket’s breast pocket. “I was planning to get off at Cologne. You could get off with me.”
“There are vampires in Cologne.”
“M
aybe. But there are more of them in Paris. I thought you’d know that.”
She cursed under her breath. Of course there were. She wasn’t thinking.
“You smell like a runner,” he told her. “Your fear is coming off of you in clouds. You might want to reel that shit in.”
“Well, you just jumped me from under camouflage, so pardon me for being a little nervous,” she snapped.
This time, against all odds, he actually did smile. He offered her his hand. “Dominic, formerly of the Pikkarala Pack.”
“Formerly?”
He smiled more broadly, revealing a set of white, even teeth. “When a person introduces himself, it’s customary to introduce yourself in return.”
She sighed, irritated with herself and with him. “Mia.”
They shook hands. His skin was warm and calloused. He had done a lot of manual labor in his day, she thought, or perhaps the roughness of a werewolf’s paw pads translated to the palms of their human hands.
“Pleased to meet you, Mia.”
“If you say so.” She crossed her arms. “I don’t want your help.”
Dominic nodded. “All right. Far be it from me to force you to accept my company.” He rose. “Have a good trip, Mia.”
He walked back to his seat and sat down, looking out the window. He was ignoring her now, which seemed strange after he had spent so much time staring at her so fixedly. Paradoxically, she almost missed his attention.
It didn’t matter. The last thing she needed was a werewolf hanging around when she was trying to get to America.
There was a thump on the top of the car, barely audible over the noise of the wheels on the track. Dominic looked up, immediately on his guard. The thump was followed by a series of slow, deliberate footfalls, moving across the roof until they stopped directly over Mia’s head.
Love Beyond the wall (A Rizer Pack Shifter Series Book 1) Page 19