How long had he been alone, wanting nothing more than to die? With her present, she could be his hope again.
Eternal life was only a blessing if you could share it with others, not in secret or in the shadows, but in the light in which he could weakly walk.
They were both too old for games, but it could be fun to give it a whirl.
He smiled at his reflection, put toothpaste on his toothbrush. This was the chance of several lifetimes.
Now he needed to make sure he didn’t screw it up.
TINK
With my canvas bag over my shoulder, I made my way inside the hotel, slid Leif’s key into the slot, and took a deep breath.
“I can smell it on you, Abele, the bad news, the weight of Freyja’s directive. Let me guess—tonight I’m to die?” Leif sat in the corner chair, the lights off, with a glass of whiskey there on the table across from him.
“I don’t want to do this.”
“I’m surprised she let me live this long. Let me guess—she fears I will kill her dear granddaughter?”
I nodded and tried to see clearly. A deep part of me longed to taste the forbidden fruit of him. Leif was more than all muscle. His green silk shirt hung open. Did he have an endless supply of eighties-styled silk shirts? Was he brooding in the dark hotel room waiting for me to arrive? Hmm.
My gaze scanned his smooth and defined chest. It was more than how he looked for sure.
“What do you wish to do?” He stood up and stalked toward me, and my hands stayed to my side.
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep quiet. There were many things I wanted to do. Images of us intertwined played in my mind. He wasn’t attempting to put those thoughts there. No, they were all from me.
I couldn’t drink him in fast enough. He towered over me. When he raised his hand and moved to touch my face, I waited impatiently.
Of course, I’d waited so long to be this close, and for him to see me. My gut tightened, and I broke all eye contact, choosing to stare down at my chipped nails.
“I’m unsure if I scare you, or if I have something you indeed desire, my lady?”
I raised my hand and placed it on his face. He leaned into my palm, to then take my hand and kiss it like the gentleman he once was, as a gentleman of our time would do to any lady.
“I’m sorry … it has come to this,” I whispered. “I thought you’d come back for me, but you left me to my own devices where everything was taken from me, and left me to the will of the gods. What else can I do besides what they tell me to?” My eyes welled. In all of these lifetimes, I’d never forgotten him, the love that had escaped my prayers. The one-way emotional road had taken its toll.
“You could fight back.”
Leif pulled me closer and leaned forward. With his soft lips on my neck, I forgot he was supposed to be my enemy. He was a vampire, next to my thudding artery, and still I trusted him.
For a moment, I recalled the warmth of his lips and hot tongue previously on my skin. How could that be? A memory I’d suppressed?
“Seems like we both want something we can’t have.” Leif pulled away and stared at me. His green eyes smoldered. Would one kiss damn us both? Just one.
He moved from his seat and headed to the minibar and poured two drinks in the provided crystal glasses—perks from the penthouse for sure.
“I’m imprisoned, tied to their will. Still paying the penance, and I’m stuck.” There was a lot I could say, but it was better to stay behind this mask of truth. He saw me as this young woman he once knew, and I saw him as the sexy monster he’d become. Maybe that was part of the problem. He was no more a monster than me.
“Then give us this one night, and then you can end us, but let’s have this chance at happiness; this could be our moment in time, our happiness could be here.”
“I’m jealous of such a thought.” Before I could finish my sentence, his lips were on mine. First softly, to then increase in intensity like a flame beginning to roar to life.
The baggage of time.
His lips slid over mine. He tasted decadent: of expensive wine, sweet chocolate, and hope. A shiver coursed through me, and he pulled me tighter.
Insistent, his tongue prodded me to open to him, and his request I could not deny.
But he’d only started. Warmth flooded me, my core tightened, and I kissed him back.
My hands didn’t know where to go to be closer. It was fresh and new, and everyone before him paled in comparison. All that existed was this one woman of who I was, meeting him at this juncture. My body trembled under his touch.
“Tell me you don’t wish for me to touch you, to give you the best of me, all of me—for this moment of sweet love, we should have had all those years ago.”
I pulled away and touched my lips, already missing the taste of him.
I could hear him panting, which echoed my own. He left me breathless, wanting—no, needing more.
Being so close to him was like being on a cloud. I couldn’t make sense of it all—neither my desire for him nor my duty.
“Where was your heartbreak?” I tossed out. This could have happened eons ago, I reckoned, and not the night I was supposed to slay him. “Instead you disappeared into the night. No misery as I aged and crumbled?”
He knew, and that made things all the worse. He knew of the emotions I’d hidden all those years ago but left me in complete solitude to live a meager existence in hopes of finding a substitute for love.
“When I left, I could not come back, despite your hope. I couldn’t let my immortal love stand in the way of your mortality. But you could have changed me to be like you, instead of in eternal servitude like this.” My voice hitched, and I took a step toward him.
“What we had was simple infatuation,” Leif said. He ran his hands over his hair, took a step back and eased down on the sofa.
His answer was enough. I would be merely another notch on his bedpost and mean nothing to him. His words were like a cold shower.
“Then why am I here? If infatuation is what you seek, you can find sex anywhere.”
He leaned back on the sofa. “Because some truths I can’t admit even to myself.”
“There will be no absolution for me.”
“Not with them, but always with me.”
He pulled me down to him, until I straddled him, locking my knees on the side of each of his hips. His lips closed down on my own, and this kiss we’d long denied ourselves broke through the years of walls, hurt, and pain. Like fire, it licked my skin and rose through my limbs burning me. His lips trailed along my jawline, my neck, and I waited.
My body trembled as he held me in his strong arms, and I pulled him closer, pressing him to me. My hands in his hair, feeling his warmth on my body, and his growing excitement, while his hands caressed my backside.
None of this, and all of it made sense.
In the blink of an eye, my clothes disappeared, ripped off, searching for more of his hot touch.
While resting his left hand on my buttocks, his right hand roamed tracing the tattoos on my body. The symbols; he never asked what they meant, but he probably knew. He then slowly pressed his lips against each of them.
“Do they hurt?” he asked.
I shook my head. He followed the runes on my body, tracing them, kissing them.
The runes didn’t hide much.
His fingers lightly trailed from my hipbone and down toward the apex of my legs, moving between us. I ached with each passing second, until his butterfly touch found my heat, and circled my delicate button. He flexed his fingers, teasing me with his hypnotic touch. I panted, wanting more.
He leaned forward, his mouth taking in my nipple, squeezing, suckling, grazing me with his teeth. Waves of pleasure built, but I wanted more.
I fumbled with his leather pants, wanting my reward.
And he complied. He sprung to life, a sight to behold. Long, hard, and nothing like an eggplant, but more like a banana, I looked forward to snacking on.
I
stood on the sofa cushions to perch over him, but he had other intentions. It was like he sought only to please me.
Thank god everything there was neatly trimmed for he moved his head to the chasm between my thighs, and his hot tongue replaced his finger’s tip. With my knee over his shoulder, he probed, licked and worshipped, while I cooed at his sucking and circular motion.
The waves of pleasure lapped at me, pulling me ever higher until the pulsing build up could no longer be contained. Pulling his hair, I screamed his name, my orgasm pulling me backward, my toes curling as the waves of pleasure took me ever higher.
He flipped me on my back on the sofa but didn’t let up his torture. He trailed his teeth along my thigh.
“Mine,” he said, kissed the skin, and bit into me like an apple.
A quick sip and he was back to me, his tongue tasting of my blood.
His eyes glowed, his teeth elongated, and I wanted it all.
I quivered beneath his touch. Lifting my hips, and legs spread, he entered me. All of my nerve endings were alive. He dove into me, harder and harder like I liked it, and I panted. My breathing hitched. I cooed, scratched his back and met every deep, long thrust with as much enthusiasm as his first passionate thrust.
I was as close to heaven as I was going to get.
I don’t know how long we went at it like we were in heat. The more I had him, the more insatiable I became.
I pushed that unwanted thought away.
All I wanted from him was the magnificent orgasms he gave me where I forgot everything else.
Before the evening was over, we’d broken a table, damaged the sofa, and split the headboard in two.
Wow, it was memorable after all.
No matter how much I enjoyed the feel of him on me, I still knew the looming threat was coming ever closer. I felt like a cat playing with her mouse right before she killed it.
But I had to be cool about it. I didn’t want to be sprung out on the drug of Leif.
Man, this complicated everything so much more than before we’d played find my treasure.
I quickly redressed and snuggled in next to him, also half dressed, on the couch. We both needed a pause before we could go another round of the yummy sex-a-thon.
The night did not go as planned. He should have been off limits, but instead, he’d been an all-you-can-eat buffet.
Before I could breathe him in, and enjoy the warmth and cuddle, glow from my latest orgasm, and dawn’s rays, I heard the sound of wood cracking.
“Duck down,” Leif said, and the hotel room’s door exploded into tiny pieces around us.
Into the room darted Honey, a light elf, and one of the god’s assassins. Her platinum blonde hair was pulled back to the crown of her head. She moved with inhuman speed.
“Crappity. Crap!” I said and jumped before Leif. “Get behind me. The gods know!”
“Just when it was getting fun,” Leif said. “But I shall not have you, love, fighting my battles for me.”
His fangs descended, and the warrior I knew him to be took form.
“Mmm, I love the smell of magic in the morning,” he said.
He blurred before me, both in a fast-forward speed that made it hard for my eyes to distinguish where his attack countered Honey’s. I watched Honey fly across the room.
I didn’t know why she’d been named something as ridiculous as Honey, especially when she’d never been sweet. Talk about vile. She spoke with a forked tongue, and now she was going to hurt Leif. Over my dead body.
Removing my wand from my boot, I waved it and zapped. “Morabor.” And they slowed down so I could see their movements.
Honey rapidly kicked at Leif while he held her by her throat. She clawed at him, but I stood still. He slammed Honey against the periwinkle-colored wall, and knickknacks on the shelves crashed onto the floor.
“You are going to let him do this to me?” Honey screamed at me. “Kill him!”
Never. My heart answered, and I watched him throw his head back, his fangs elongated even more, and he ripped her throat out. He spat it across the floor as if he’d tasted spoiled milk.
“Sorry, you had to see that, love.”
“Well, it does put a damper on our time together, but we need to get you out of here. She is only the first wave of backup.”
He nodded and grabbed his guitar. “Might as well take it. I can compose a song for us about this.”
“Are you becoming a romantic?”
“Purely making up for lost time.” I grabbed a wet towel from the bathroom to wipe his face, and the weight of the music box hit me in my side. Taking a moment, I whipped it open. Inside was the note from Hel.
Take these, and use them wisely, as they will enrich the power you contain, but beware. All magic comes with a cost.
I recognized the runes for what they were. The box held shimmering empowering runes. Runes rumored to be made by Heimdall to ease travel throughout the realms and time, but only when combined with the potion of travel. They’d increase my intent, my magic force to open a portal that might just pass us through time. I shoved them in my pocket and placed the music box down on the sink. Emptied, the music box slowly disappeared.
No time to think about it. Instead, I turned on the cold water, flung the towel under the running water, and dashed back out to Leif and wiped his face.
“Don’t want us to get stopped on our way out, and blood seems to cause alarm.”
He stopped my hand with his own.
“I missed you, Abele.” His voice was raspy.
“Yeah, come on. We need a place to hide.” I snatched up my canvas bag off of the floor and slung it across my torso.
“Where?” I squinted and cast a glance at the destroyed room.
A vampire of his age of lineage wasn’t an easy target, but again, Honey had been careless. She’d assumed alliances were more important than keeping her eyes on the mark.
“Home.”
“Yeah, I wish I could redo this entire debacle, too. Talk about a difference in choices,” I huffed. “They are going to keep coming after us. The gods have decided I’m their target.”
“Well, we already got more company coming.”
“You can tell?”
“My sense of smell never fails me.” Before he stepped out into the hallway, I watched him sniff the air. “More of them have already arrived. Stay here, promise me. I’ll be back.” He trailed his index finger down my cheek and stalked out into the hallway, where from my vantage point, I caught a glimpse of the waiting armed elves. Their enchanted daggers glimmered with magic, and each was poised to strike.
Someone threw one, and the guitar he’d been carrying received a new hole or three.
He retreated. He, too, had underestimated them, and as he moved forward to strike, one of the elves rolled a blue fire grenade. It pinged against the floor.
“Skittles and bits!” I leapt out of the room behind him, covering him in a ball of magic.
He thought so little of me, and knowing what he’d planned tonight, to kill me, I should have let him die. For some reason, my reasoning went out the window.
I could only think of home and its safety. “You are a fool,” I quipped behind him.
“It takes one to know one.” He broadly smiled.
I snatched the second vial I’d received from Lady Hel out of my canvas bag and gulped down its contents. A grenade rolled our way.
I commanded, “Rumpe Sigillum.” The air shimmered and a portal formed. Right before the grenade exploded, the portal sucked us through.
We collapsed onto the morning grass and stared at the starry blue sky, and that’s when I heard the in-galloping horses.
Chapter Eleven
TINK
Thule, 1515
I glanced around, and thick, high gray stone walls rested in the distance, and behind me, my family fortress stood.
“Halt!” the soldier on horseback ordered. He was followed by three other men who I recognized, and they were all dressed in full r
egal garb. “Lady Abele? Thank god as his lordship has been searching for you, as well as your mother has requested your presence. It is not safe outside of the castle walls, as you know.”
I recognized him instantly.
I frowned. “My mother?” My stomach flipped and tightened. I gasped and my eyes welled. She’d been dead for a couple of years. The only one of my then-family who’d ever shown me kindness had been the one I called Mum. “Where, where is she?”
“Yes, my lady.” He cleared his throat. “She mentioned you have the ball tonight.”
I scrolled back through memories in my mind. The last thing I remembered, Leif and I were fighting the other elite soldiers. “Joffrey, can you tell me the day?”
“The day?”
“It is the holy Thor’s Day.” He puffed out his chest and grinned. I peered closer and noticed Mjolnir, the amulet of Thor’s hammer, that hung proudly around his neck, and knew this to be true. I’d arrived before the great invasion.
Maybe there was time to stop it, to stop all of it!
My mind raced. In the early 1500s, the king had begun his conversion therapy throughout the land, but here, this pocket had remained until 1515, until Olaf led an armed charge of forced conversion.
Before I could utter a word, I could feel their judgmental gaze on my leather clad body. To them, I was dressed like a man, a mercenary even, and not like a lady should be. I touched my pockets and found them empty of my wand. No wand, no transformation magic.
Joffrey cleared his throat. “My lady, do you have a chaperone? As I see the prince nearby appearing to wait on you.”
In all of my haste, I’d not figured out a way of how to take care of this particular mess. Leif was a vampire, and known in these parts as a rake even. Now, not only was my reputation to take a hit, but I’d end up with no one, even if I could do this dastardly game called life all over again.
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