The Tomb of Blood

by Britney Jackson

Kara shrugged. “The same reason she does everything. To manipulate you. To control your mind. How is it so easy for you to forget what she is like?”

  “I remember,” Erik sighed. “I just… I thought she was dead.”

  “She’s not,” Kara said bitterly. “I can assure you of that.”

  “Look, we don’t particularly want to see World War III, Supernatural Edition,” Rose interjected. “So, if you are trying to stop Alana, we’d like to help.”

  Kara glanced at Rose. “Really?” she said, surprised by the offer.

  Kallias whirled on Rose, giving her his most deadly glare yet. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he snarled. “We are not working with Aaron.”

  “We can’t stop Alana and her army by ourselves,” Rose insisted.

  “I don’t trust Aaron,” Kallias hissed, “or Alana’s lover, for that matter.”

  “Which lover?” Kara asked. “She has plenty.”

  “Erik was Alana’s lover, too,” Rose reminded him. “You trust him.”

  “He’s not a liar like she is,” Kallias said, jerking his head toward Kara.

  “Aw, thank you for noticing,” Kara taunted. “I’m quite good at it, too.”

  “I get that you have issues with dishonesty,” Rose said to Kallias.

  Kallias scowled at her. “I don’t have…issues,” he muttered indignantly.

  She continued, “But you just met her. You don’t know that she’s bad.”

  “Oh, I am very bad,” Kara interrupted. “Very, very bad.”

  Rose sighed at her. “You’re not helping.”

  Kara shrugged, her lips tilting again into that flirty, sideways smile.

  “We’re not working with Aaron,” Kallias insisted.

  “Your sexy girlfriend has a point, telepath,” Kara interrupted. “If you actually want to take down Alana, you will need Aaron. You’ll need the Tomb of Blood. Alana has a hell of an army, and you don’t stand a chance by yourself.”

  Rose blinked in shock. “Did she just call me sexy?”

  Erik snorted, “Yes, Rose. She called you sexy.”

  Kallias stared at the blue-and-black-haired vampire for a moment, as if he were considering her point. “Even if I were willing to put aside my differences with Aaron, I can’t allow Rose to get anywhere near him. So, the answer is no.”

  “You can’t allow me?” Rose repeated, her brows raised.

  “You’re afraid he’ll kill her?” Kara guessed. “Because of her power?”

  Kallias’s jaw clenched. “Speaking of…” He took a step toward her.

  Kara had the blade of her dagger against his chest before he could take another step. “Don’t even think about tampering with my mind, telepath.”

  “You saw what she can do,” Kallias said. “I can’t let you tell Aaron.”

  “Who says I would?” Kara asked, raising an eyebrow in challenge.

  “Both of you, separate. Now,” Rose said, stepping in between them.

  Kara lowered her dagger, one corner of her lips twitching upward. “If I’m disobedient, will you discipline me?” she asked with a mischievous smile.

  Rose blinked. “Why do I feel like that was a dirty joke of some kind?”

  “Because even you are bound to catch of couple of them,” Erik said.

  “I have to erase her memory,” Kallias tried to explain to Rose.

  “Like hell you do,” Kara snarled. “I get enough of that from Alana.”

  “She will tell Aaron, and Aaron will kill you,” Kallias told Rose.

  Kara rolled her eyes. “She saved me from taking a bullet to the head and winding up in Alana’s hands again. You really think I’m going to get her killed?”

  They all stared at Kara, surprised that she’d said something so serious.

  “Her secret is safe with me,” Kara added. “I swear.”

  “That might be easier to believe if you weren’t a liar,” Kallias said.

  “Issues,” Rose repeated, waving her hand at him.

  Kallias narrowed his eyes at her.

  “Fine,” Kara sighed, spreading out her arms. “Read my mind. You will see that there is one type of oath that I’ve never broken. Do you see that?”

  Kallias stared at her, that scrutinizing intensity burning in his narrowed, brown eyes. Rose recognized that look. It was the intensity that she always saw in his eyes when he used his telepathic abilities. “Yes,” he confirmed. “I see it.”

  “What if I swear that oath to Rose? Will you trust me, then?” Kara asked.

  “You would do that?” Kallias asked, shocked by the offer.

  Kara lifted her chin. “Does anyone have a sword?”

  “A sword?” Rose repeated, frowning. “Why would we have a sword?”

  Kallias suddenly handed Kara a heavy, iron longsword.

  Rose scowled at him. “Where did you even get that?”

  “From my bag,” Kallias said, tilting his head toward the trunk of the car.

  Rose frowned at the open trunk. She was positive that it had been closed a moment ago, and yet, she had never even noticed Kallias leave her side.

  “You’re such a terrible vampire,” Erik teased.

  Rose glared at him. “Says the guy who didn’t notice his psychotic ex-girlfriend following him around for over a thousand years,” she sassed.

  Erik’s smirk lost a little bit of its smug tilt.

  Kara laughed, “She’s good.”

  Erik gave her a peeved look. “Shut up.”

  “Why do you need a sword, exactly?” Rose asked Kara.

  Kara weighed the blade in her hand, twisting it until she had a comfortable grip on the hilt. “I don’t,” she corrected. She held it out. “You do.”

  “What?” Rose sputtered, staring down at the freshly sharpened sword.

  Kara tossed it easily, as if it weren’t a very sharp object that could kill people, and caught it by the blade, holding it so that the hilt faced Rose. “Here.”

  Rose reluctantly took the sword, her eyebrows lifting in disbelief.

  “Now, hold it. Tip of the blade on the ground,” Kara directed.

  Rose stared blankly at her. “What?”

  Erik rolled his eyes and stepped forward. He took the sword out of Rose’s hand and flipped it so that the blade hit the pavement, the metal dinging loudly in the night. He grabbed Rose’s hand and placed it on the hilt of the sword again so that Rose held the sword in front of her, the hilt up and the blade down.

  Kara nodded in approval and then fell to her knees in front of Rose.

  Rose’s eyes widened. “What the heck is she doing?” she hissed at Erik.

  “She’s swearing fealty to you,” Erik laughed, as if it were obvious.

  “She’s…what?” Rose sputtered in shock.

  “She wants Kallias to take her seriously,” Erik explained slowly, as if he were explaining something to a child. “Well, this is as serious as it gets.”

  “This is insane and completely unnecessary,” Rose insisted, her eyes still wide with shock. She looked at Kallias. “Right? Tell her it’s unnecessary.”

  Kallias shrugged. “She stands by her oaths. I can see that in her mind.”

  Rose glared at him. “You are seriously going to let someone do all of this just because you have trust issues?” she asked incredulously.

  Kallias narrowed his eyes at her. “I don’t have issues.”

  Rose glanced again at Kara, unable to believe that this strange vampire was actually kneeling before her, ready to do this. “You swear fealty to royalty, not to some random stranger that you met five minutes ago. This is crazy.”

  Kara’s lips lifted into a teasing smirk. “Crazy is kind of my thing.”

  Rose frowned. “Bad word choice, then. Ridiculous. This is ridiculous.”

  “Are you rejecting my oath?” Kara asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “Of course I am! What sane person wouldn’t?” Rose laughed.

  Kara tilted her head back to meet Rose’s gaze, but she
made no move to get off of her knees. That cocky half-smile remained on her face, and a spark of challenge flashed in her icy blue eyes. “To reject an oath of fealty is an insult.”

  “It is?” Rose sputtered.

  Erik crossed his arms and leaned toward Rose. “It’s true. If you reject her oath, you’re basically telling her that you don’t think she is a worthy warrior.”

  “No. No. That’s not what I think at all,” Rose said worriedly.

  Erik smiled and shrugged one shoulder. “Then, you have to accept.”

  Rose scowled at him. “This is basically blackmail.”

  Erik grinned. “Do you accept?”

  “Well, I don’t want to insult anyone,” Rose grumbled.

  Erik nodded at Kara, as if he were some kind of officiator or something. Rose continued to scowl at him, intent on making her frustration known. He raised an eyebrow when he noticed the look. “You have to look at her, not me.”

  Rose made a frustrated noise in her throat and looked down at Kara.

  Kara lowered her head, as if she’d done this hundreds of times before. A black and blue curtain of hair fell around her face. Her hands rested on her leather-clad thighs. She looked graceful and strong, even on her knees. “I, Kara, daughter of Unnar, offer my loyalty and protection. I have defeated countless warriors and brought down entire villages on my own. I am unsurpassed in skill and cunning, and I have repeatedly proved myself invaluable as a warrior.”

  “Dang. This sounds really official,” Rose muttered worriedly.

  “It is,” Erik assured her. “It’s basically the same oath that I swore to my father when I came of age, except…it sounded a bit more poetic in Old Norse.”

  “This is not even remotely necessary,” Rose muttered.

  “By the way, you’re not supposed to talk yet,” Erik added.

  Kara continued, “I pledge my loyalty and skill to Rose…?”

  “Foster,” Erik whispered, as if this were some kind of official ceremony.

  “Rose Foster,” Kara murmured, her voice dropping and becoming more breathless as she spoke Rose’s name, so much so that Rose shivered slightly at the sound. She continued, “I swear to protect her with my life…”

  “That’s a little extreme,” Rose interrupted.

  “Shhhhh!” Erik hissed.

  Rose narrowed her eyes at him.

  “And fight on her behalf whenever I am needed,” Kara finished.

  “Now, it’s your turn to talk,” Erik told Rose.

  “Oh? Am I allowed now?” Rose sassed.

  “You have to say, ‘I accept you as my warrior,’” Erik provided.

  “Are you kidding me?” Rose complained.

  “No. Not at all,” Erik said. “Unless you want to insult her, of course.”

  “Fine,” Rose sighed irritably. “I… I accept you as my warrior.”

  Kara leaned forward and pressed her lips against the back of Rose’s hand, the hand that held the hilt of the sword. Her lips lingered there against Rose’s skin, warm and soft, raising chill bumps on Rose’s hand, and her icy-blue eyes shifted up, piercing through, beneath a curtain of sleek, black-and-blue hair.

  Rose stared down at her in shock. “Uh…why is she doing that?”

  “It’s part of the oath,” Erik answered.

  “Kissing is part of the oath?” Rose asked skeptically.

  “Kissing the hand on the hilt of the sword is,” Erik assured her. He grinned at Kara and added, “Although…she is drawing the kiss out a little bit.”

  Kara pulled her lips away from Rose’s hand, finally, and winked.

  Rose just scowled at her. “Are we done now?”

  “Yes, we are,” Kara said as she gracefully rose to her feet. That flirty half-smile remained on her lips, as if it had been permanently carved there.

  “I hope you know that I’m not holding you to any of that,” Rose said.

  “I hope you know that I never break an oath,” Kara countered.

  “As opposed to your word, which you do break,” Rose added.

  Kara smiled. “You might find that my deceptive skills are quite useful.”

  Rose turned toward Kallias. “Please tell her that you’re satisfied with all of that and that you don’t actually expect her to keep that ridiculous oath.”

  “I suppose…I could try to trust you,” Kallias told Kara, “for now.”

  Kara shrugged. “I’m not really concerned with whether or not you trust me. I made the oath for her sake, not yours. I still intend to keep it.”

  “Oh my word! This is insane!” Rose complained.

  “Stop whining,” Erik said. “You’ll need protection in the Tomb of Blood, and now, you have it. If I remember correctly, no one messes with Kara.”

  Kara smiled. “You remember correctly.”

  Kallias gave Kara a look that clearly meant he still didn’t trust her. “Lead us to Aaron,” he sighed. “Apparently, we need to make a deal with the devil.”

  The Tomb of Blood

  Kara fell into step beside Rose, her boots thudding heavily against the pavement. Rose tried to keep her eyes trained straight ahead, instead of on the strange, gorgeous vampire, but that task was nearly impossible when that same vampire happened to be walking so close to Rose that her arm brushed Rose’s hoodie with every step she took. Rose glanced down at the arm that brushed her hoodie, noticing the soft paleness of Kara’s skin. Kara had a light, fair complexion, like Erik and Alana, a complexion that contrasted starkly with her black clothing and her black-and-blue hair. Rose lifted her gaze to meet Kara’s.

  “Hello,” Kara said, her lips tilting into that flirty smile she wore so often.

  “Um…hi,” Rose mumbled. “You’re standing really close to me again.”

  “You smell wonderful,” Kara purred, staring hungrily at Rose’s neck.

  “Most people who tell me that want to kill me,” Rose commented.

  Kara chuckled, “I don’t want to kill you. There are a few other things I would like to do to you, but all of those require you being very much alive.”

  Rose’s eyes widened. “Uh…”

  Erik snorted, “Kara, I don’t think Rose is ready for your…directness.”

  “Is that what you call it?” Rose muttered under her breath.

  Kara shrugged at Erik. “You know me. I like to go straight for the kill.”

  “That analogy makes me feel so much safer,” Rose said sarcastically.

  “You definitely don’t waste any time,” Erik agreed, laughing. He leaned toward Rose and said, “Kara can get a woman into bed within fifteen minutes.”

  “Ten,” Kara corrected with a cocky grin.

  “My best time is twenty-five minutes,” Erik added.

  Rose scowled at him. “You have to be kidding me. Please, tell me that you haven’t actually competed on how fast you can get women to have sex with you.”

  Erik shrugged. “We’re Vikings. Competitiveness is in our blood.”

  Rose glanced curiously at Kara. “You’re a Viking, too?”

  Kara smirked. “The best.”

  “I could kick your ass, if I wanted to,” Erik grumbled.

  “Ha! You tried once, remember?” Kara scoffed. “I had you begging for mercy within three minutes. Two minutes and thirty-six seconds, to be exact.”

  Erik rubbed the back of his neck, wincing a little at the memory. “I thought we weren’t going to bring that incident up again,” he complained.

  Rose glanced back at Kallias who continued to walk a few paces behind them, just to the left of Kara. He seemed distracted, his brown eyes darting from one road to the next, as if he were expecting to find vampires in every shadow.

  “It seems awfully quiet out here tonight,” Kallias noted.

  Kara glanced back at him, a slight smile pulling at her lips. “We’re in Aaron’s territory now. No one messes with Aaron, not if they want to stay alive.”

  “Hmm,” Kallias snorted.

  Kara raised an eyebrow. “You scoff, a
nd yet, after all of these years, even you haven’t dared go up against him. And you are a telepath.”

  Kallias narrowed his eyes at her. “Your lover challenges him.”

  “My lover,” Kara scoffed. “Your friend was with her, too. Did you forget that little detail, or is it just more convenient to remember my connection to her?”

  “Erik left her,” Kallias stated.

  Kara shrugged. “Oh, and how difficult that must have been for him,” she said bitterly, “especially with his very own telepath at his disposal.”

  “And you expect me to believe that you would have left her if you could?” Kallias asked harshly. “I bet you’re still with her. You are, aren’t you?”

  She shrugged again. “Depends on who you ask.”

  “And if I asked Alana?” Kallias challenged.

  “She’d say yes,” Kara said, “but she’d also tell you that Erik is still with her. Because in Alana’s mind, we are hers, and we will never be free from her.”

  Erik shuddered, as if she’d just voiced one of his greatest fears.

  “When was the last time you were with her? Physically?” Kallias asked.

  Kara let out a short laugh, a soft, breathy laugh that rang pleasantly through the icy air. “You want to know when I fucked her last?” she asked bluntly. “Would you like to know the position, too? How many times she orgasmed? Hey, why stop there? Why not ask for a demonstration as well?”

  Erik raised his hand. “I’d be all right with a demonstration.”

  Kara rolled her eyes at him. “Down, boy.”

  Kallias’s jaw tightened. “It was a reasonable question,” he muttered under his breath, clearly frustrated with the direction the conversation had gone.

  Rose watched him with a scowl. “Not really,” she argued.

  Kallias glanced at her, his brows furrowing.

  Rose shrugged. “It’s none of our business if and when she has engaged in…sexual intercourse…with Alana,” she said uncomfortably. “She is helping us get inside the Tomb of Blood. That’s all we need to know.”

  “Sexual intercourse?” Erik repeated with a grimace. “Shit, Rose, you just made lesbian sex sound unsexy, and I didn’t even think that was possible.”

  Rose rolled her eyes at him. “Stop being such a disgusting pig.”

  “I don’t know how,” Erik admitted.