“We need help.”
There was a pause on the line, and then a man spoke. “Who is this?”
“You’ve got to help me. Astrid kidnapped me and brought me out to this house – I don’t even know where I am – and there’s a man here whose back has been shredded and…”
“Who is this?” he repeated.
She took a deep breath. “Nika Graves.”
“Why do you have Rolf’s phone?”
“He… Rolf is injured. You have to help him.”
“Stay where you are. I will get help to you.”
The phone went dead, and she turned to look at the unfortunate man. “Rolf?”
He opened his eyes with some difficulty.
She tried to find a way to cut him down, but there was no way that she could reach the beam from which he was hanging. She went to him and knelt beside him, trying to offer him whatever comfort she could.
“Help is coming. Hold on.”
***
Erik drove as quickly as he could to Nika’s apartment. He parked in the alley and raced up the stairs to her door, the Rune Sword in his hand. His heart sank when he saw it standing open, the chains for the locks dangling down the frame.
He went inside, feeling a slight tingle at the threshold but having no trouble crossing over, since she had invited him inside. The sword began to shiver in his hand, pointing toward the couch, and in the shadows, he could see the Soul Stone glowing.
He knelt and reached under the couch, and the stone leaped into his hand as if someone had thrown it. It was burning hot, and he hissed in pain as he pulled it out. He heard a voice whispering in the back of his head.
Without taking a single moment to consider his action, he pushed the stone into the hole in the sword’s cross piece. It melded into place with a burst of heat like an incendiary grenade that sent him tumbling across the floor. He rolled up unto his feet, his eyes wide.
The sword was hovering in mid-air, spinning slowly, point down. The Soul Stone was gleaming like the bulb in a flashlight, and the runes on the blade were shifting again. They moved and flowed like quicksilver. The whispering in his head grew louder, and he recognized the voice of Vidar, the deity who had melded with his soul so many years ago.
The runes on the blade coalesced so that on one side they said Ithunn, and Berit on the other side.
In his head, Vidar spoke. Nika.
Erik’s mind filled with a vision of Nika in a stable, kneeling in bloody straw, tears on her cheeks. He knew without a doubt that she was in danger, and that he needed to go to her.
He also knew exactly where she was.
***
Hrothgar was just ending his phone call when Gunnar came into the vault. “Nika Graves answered Rolf’s phone. She said he’s hurt. I don’t know where they are.”
“Nika Graves?” the new arrival echoed. “Why would she… Oh.” He got out his phone and dialed Erik.
There was no answer. The voice mail greeting played, and then he left a hurried message.
“Get to the house. Graves is out there with Rolf’s phone. I don’t know how we missed it.”
Magnus was standing near the open-topped wooden box holding Hakon’s remains. He was staring into the Draugr’s face. “Do you think he can hear us?”
They never had a chance to answer. The door to the room burst open, shattered by a grenade. The three men were showered with shrapnel and tossed into the air by the force of the blast. A trio of men in black fatigues rushed in, and while one kept an assault rifle trained on the fallen Huntsmen, the other two stole the body.
Hrothgar drew his weapon and fired into the rifleman’s chest, striking him squarely in the heart with a bullet made of silver and salt. The man dropped to the ground and disintegrated into a pile of ash. Gunnar appropriated the rifle and chased the retreating thieves into the hallway.
There were more Draugr outside, and as soon as he stepped foot out of the vault, he was riddled with silver bullets that tore through him. He managed to squeeze the trigger as he fell, but his shots hit the walls and ceiling.
Sigrunn stepped into view, standing over him while more Draugr rushed into the vault. He could hear gunfire as they raked his brothers in arms with bullets. He looked up at his enemy, and she smiled, raising her axe. The blade was the last thing he ever saw.
Chapter Twelve – Blood Eagle
Erik sped to the house on the hill, flouting every traffic law he encountered. The sword rested on the passenger seat, humming to itself like a distracted child. In his head, Vidar was still muttering, urging him onward. He thought he was going to go insane.
He drove right up to the house, abandoning stealth in favor of saving time. Without even turning off the engine, he grabbed the sword and climbed out of the car.
Night was coming. The sky was turning gray, and the wind was chillier than before. The Draugr were stronger in the dark. He had to hurry.
“Nika!” he shouted. “Nika!”
The sword tugged as if someone had grabbed it by the blade, and it pointed directly at the stable. He followed the sign, hoping that the Aesir would not lead him into any traps.
He burst into the stable. “Nika!”
She appeared in the door to the last stall on the right, her face streaked with tears, her legs coated with blood. He rushed to her and embraced her.
“Are you all right?”
She hugged him back, then stiffened. “Help him.”
Rolf was dangling from the ceiling like Odin from Yggrasil. Erik’s stomach turned when he saw his friend’s back. They had given him the blothern – the blood eagle.
“Rolf,” he said. “I’ve got you.”
He launched himself into the air, indulging in Draugr flight. It was something that he rarely did, mostly because he rarely had the strength. His vow to stop drinking blood had left him weakened. He was strong enough to free his friend, though, cutting the rope that held him to the beam and lowering him gently to the bloody ground.
Rolf gasped for air, suffering greatly. He looked up at Erik with pleading eyes. Erik understood.
“Nika,” he said softly. “Step outside.”
She did not obey. She took a step back, but she stayed in the doorway, watching in horrified fascination.
Erik gently rolled Rolf onto his side and put him back together as best he could. He wasn’t certain he could help his friend, and he blinked back tears. He held his hands over the horrible wounds in Rolf’s back, and he closed his eyes. In Old Norse, he began to pray.
“Oh lords of Asgard, help me...”
His teeth descended, and he slashed his wrists deeply. His blood poured onto Rolf’s injuries, but the power of his vampire blood could do nothing to help. He was too far gone for healing now.
Erik knew that he would not be able to save him, but he could not bring himself to abandon Rolf to his dark fate. He forced himself to continue bleeding, praying all the while, hoping against hope that his friend would begin to heal. His prayers went unanswered.
Nika saw the color draining from Erik’s face, and she rushed forward. She grabbed his wrists in her hands and tried to seal the open gashes with her fingers.
“Stop,” she said. “He’s gone.”
He leaned into her, his eyes closed, and he began to weep. “I failed him.”
She held him silently, stroking his back. “It wasn’t your fault. Come on…we need to get out of here.”
She coaxed Erik to stand, and in his weakened condition, he depended on her for support. At their feet, Rolf’s body shuddered once, then became a pile of soot and ashes amid the pool of red.
They went to the car and drove back to the city.
Chapter Thirteen - Choosing
They returned to his hotel room instead of to her apartment, since that was no longer safe. She helped him in, supporting him through the lobby and into the elevator. An older lady entered the elevator with them, smiling at them gently.
Nika supposed that she and Erik probably looked like yo
ung lovers coming back from an overly-indulgent night on the town. Luckily the Rune Sword was wrapped in Rolf’s jacket and hidden between them. She smiled back and stayed silent.
They went to Erik’s room, and he gave her the key. She swiped it through the lock, and then they were inside.
She put him on the bed and tucked the sword beneath the bedspread at his side. He looked up at her, but she could not meet his eyes. He sighed and turned away.
There were hundreds of things she wanted to say, but they all tried to come out at once, so she was unable to speak at all. Her emotions choked her, a bottle neck in the back of her throat that she could barely breathe around.
“Are you hurt?” he asked her, his voice barely above a whisper.
“No.”
He closed his eyes, and she watched him. He was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen, and she yearned for him as she had never yearned for any man before. Something inside of her ached for him, and her spirit wanted to reach out to his once more. She needed him.
She wondered if his wife needed him, too.
Finally, she asked, “Why didn’t you tell me you were married?”
Erik kept his eyes closed. “Because it doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t matter? You made me think we had something special.”
“We do. Astrid is nothing to me.”
“She is your wife.”
“She is my political obligation.” He finally opened his eyes and looked at her again. “Marriage among the Draugr is not like marriage among mortals. Ours is an arrangement for political solidarity, nothing more.”
“Solidarity?” she echoed, skeptical.
“The Veithimathr and the Valtaeigr must be united against the darkness. I am the chieftain of my kind, and she is one of the princesses of hers.”
“I thought you said you weren’t royalty.”
“I’m not.” He shook his head. “Huntsman rank is earned through battle, not by right of birth.”
“Still…” She knew that the timing of this was all wrong, that he was grieving and shouldn’t have to deal with this now. She couldn’t stop herself. “I won’t be anybody’s mistress.”
Erik ran a hand over his face in exasperation. “You aren’t. Astrid and I have been separated for years and years.”
“I think she still loves you.”
“Astrid loves nobody but Astrid.”
She stood and walked to the window, arms crossed. She stared out at the street, watching the traffic come and go like a mechanical tide.
“Nika,” he pleaded, “don’t turn away from me. Not now.”
Erik rose from the bed and went to her, putting his arms around her. She shook free of him and took a step away. “What do we do now, with the sword and Astrid and all of this?”
“You’re changing the subject, just like that?”
“There’s nothing left to say.”
“There is.” He sat down. “Please… there’s something I’ve been keeping from you, and you need to know.”
“Something worse than the fact that you’re married?”
“Something more powerful.”
“I can hardly wait,” she said, sarcastic. She sat on the other bed, facing him. “Fine. Talk.”
“In all of my life, I have had only one great love. She was a princess of the Valtaeigr, and I was a lowly Huntsman. We never should have been together… but we were.”
Nika’s face was unreadable. He continued.
“Her name was Berit.”
Something inside of her shook at the sound of the name, a strange combination of shock and elation. Her mouth opened in surprise.
It was the reaction that Erik had hoped to see. It confirmed all of his suspicions.
“Berit and I both were chosen to undergo a special ritual, one that would unite our souls with the gods of the Aesir. The gods were fading because the mortal people no longer believed in them, and they needed us so that they could continue to exist.
“I was chosen to house Vidar, the hunter. Berit was chosen to be the vessel of Ithunn, the goddess of youth and springtime, whose apples of immortality kept the Aesir alive. The ritual was painful and difficult, and while it was successful for me, Berit… she was not strong enough.”
Nika breathed. “She died.”
“Her body died. Her soul was fused with Ithunn, and souls are eternal. Do you understand?”
“I think so…”
“I knew that she would be reborn, so I swore that I would never stop looking for her. I swore that until I found her, I would no longer drink blood. It was a sacrifice, a way of begging the gods to bring her back to me.”
“Did they?” Her head was buzzing, and she felt off balance.
“They did. She was reborn. Each time I found her, I lost her. I wasted chances, or she was taken from me too soon. Until now.”
He leaned forward and took her hands in his.
“Nika, it’s you.”
She didn’t know what to say, or how to react. Everything that she had been feeling since she met Erik, the visions and dreams and half-memories, coalesced. She knew that it was true.
“I… I was Berit.”
“Yes.”
She closed her eyes. More half-memories rose to the surface, images of times and places long gone. She again saw the altar and the robed figures, saw Erik handing her the potion to drink. She squeezed his hands.
“We were meant to be together in this life,” he told her. “We are fated.”
She kissed him, saying with actions what her words could not express. He wrapped her in his arms and pulled her to him. They tumbled onto the bed together, their embrace filled with urgency and desire. They undressed one another, punctuating every discarded item with kisses and caresses.
Their loving was deeper than skin to skin. It was soul-deep, and when he touched her, she felt as if she had known him forever. Something deep within her heart reached out for him, extending through a thousand years and a hundred lifetimes. She yearned for him, felt her soul crying out for him to take her and pull her into him, closing the gap between them once and for all.
He breathed her name and it sounded almost like a prayer. “Nika…”
She could feel his spirit reaching back to her, connecting, filling in all of the empty spaces she hadn’t known were there. He rocked her in his arms, their bodies united as their souls entwined. She felt fire in her veins, and she looked up at him with wide eyes.
A power like nothing she had ever felt erupted between them, searing in its intensity but sweet to the touch. Tears sprang to her eyes as his spirit wrapped around hers, claiming her even as her own soul marked him as her own.
“I choose you,” he gasped. “Nika, I choose you.”
She didn’t understand what was happening, but something inside her surged with elation. At last! The thought rose inside her mind, almost as if it belonged to someone else. In her mind’s eye, she saw a cascade of memories from different places and different times, but all of them about him.
“I love you,” she breathed, her arms tightening around his back. “I’ve always loved you.”
“Lifetime after lifetime,” he told her between kisses. “I have found you so many times.”
“Don’t let me go, Erik,” she begged, her body aching for him even while they were still joined. She wanted all of him, as if she could open up her very soul and swallow him whole. “Please don’t let me go.”
He shivered, and then there was no more talking.
Chapter Fourteen - Transformation
They lay together in the silence after their loving, still entwined. She settled into the crook of his arm, her head once pillowed on his chest.
“You’re still weak.”
“Yes.”
“You need to feed, don’t you? I mean… since you’ve found me, you can feed again, right?”
He hesitated. “Yes.”
“Would you feed from me?”
“No.”
Surprised, she straighten
ed again. “Why not?”
“Because I’ve chosen you. I can never feed from you, now.”
“Why?”
He brushed a stray lock away from her eyes. “Because. I can’t.”
She shifted so that she was kneeling beside him. “What does it mean when you say you’ve chosen me?”
Erik looked taken aback. “Didn’t you feel it?”
“I felt… something.”
He took her hands, entwining his fingers with hers. “You felt my soul and your soul becoming one. We are now one spirit in two bodies. We can never be apart.”
“Like being married?”
“Oh, no. Being chosen is so much more than that.” He looked into her eyes. “Nika, I have looked for you across a hundred lifetimes. I have walked through a thousand years just to see your face. We are bound together, soul to soul.”
“But I’m still human,” she whispered.
“You are half Draugr.”
“But I’ll die someday…”
He stroked her hands with his thumbs. “As long as I am alive, you will live. Eternally young, eternally mine. And I will be eternally yours.”
“And if you die?”
He kissed her. “Then I hope you will remember me.”
She was strangely disappointed. “I won’t die?”
“No… unless you want to. Some Draugr have pined away after their chosen mates died.”
Nika understood. “Dying of a broken heart.”
“Something like that.”
She kissed him. “I don’t want to live without you.”
He pulled her back down to lie beside him again, his arms around her. “Let’s not talk about dying. There’s been too much of that today.”
“I’m so sorry about Rolf. Were you very close?”
Erik’s eyes grew moist, and he blinked the unshed tears away. “He was my brother.”
His cell phone rang at that moment, startling them both. He hunted down the offending object and answered the call.
“Thorvald,” he said.
“Your team is dead.” It was Sigrunn’s voice. She sounded smug. “I killed the three in the vault myself.”
He closed his eyes. “Are you calling to gloat, or is there something you wanted?”
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