Immortal Enemies

by Jessie Lane

  I didn’t let her finish that sentence.

  Slamming my lips down on hers, I kissed her with every bit of love I held in my heart for her. Doing my best to show her how she was my everything too.

  Life without her?

  What would that be?

  When we were both breathless from our kiss, I pulled back only far enough so that she could see the sincerity on my face. “I do not want a life without you in it. Eternity would mean nothing if I did not have you.”

  A single tear slipped from her right eye and silently streaked down her face. “I hope you do not regret your decision.”

  Pulling her back to me until our foreheads touched, emotion clogged my throat so that it was in a rough voice when I spoke. “I could never regret anything when it comes to you. I will love you until the end of my days. My very last breath will be spoken with your name upon my lips.”

  We stayed that way, cuddled tight against each other, for I do not know how long. We could have stayed that way all night, and I would have been content.

  However, our moment was interrupted when the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, a chill of warning slicing through my body. It was the same sort of alarm I felt when I was deep in battle during the raiding season. The kind that told me I was in imminent danger.

  Turning my head sharply to look at Helga’s house, there in the light shining through the doorway, I saw the silhouettes of a woman in robes, staff in hand, a man cast in shadows at her side. Both of them stood there staring back at us with Helga also watching from inside her home.

  “Who are they?” I growled.

  I half expected Liv to tell me that she could not say. There had been more than one time over the years that something had taken place, or someone had visited, that she could not speak of. Which was why I was utterly shocked when she answered me.

  “She is a Völva like Helga, and he is a Draugr.”

  Astonished, I snapped my attention back to Liv. “Truly? An again-walker? I thought they were just a story.”

  Hesitantly, she said, “We have spoken of them before. Remember?”

  Thinking back, the memory finally came to me. The conversation we had years ago about Liv not believing in all the gods. We had spoken about the Draugr then.

  Nodding, I replied, “I remember now.” Glancing back to the house, I spied that the woman was gone, but the man stood in the shadows of the now closed doorway, staring at us. His eyes illuminated when the moonlight hit them just right, the way a predator’s would.

  I had a feeling he was the reason I had felt danger, more so than the witch. “He is truly dead?”

  “Yes,” Liv whispered.

  A shudder ran through my body. “He will never see Valhalla,” I grumbled.

  Again, she whispered, “No, he probably will not.”

  Turning my attention away from the Draugr, I peered back at Liv. “I cannot imagine such a life. There are only three things that matter to me. You, my family, and Valhalla. To live a life without those things would be the worst thing I could imagine.”

  Liv pulled away from me and turned her body so that she was once again facing the stream and the sky beyond it. Pulling her knees up, she wrapped her arms around them instead of leaning into me as she had before. Her detachment was confusing, and I wondered what was going through her mind. Unfortunately, she did not tell me.

  All I got from her was a long weary sigh and a softly spoken, “That is what I am most afraid of.”

  Eight

  “I offended you? Tell me, what’s it like to be so weak that mere words can harm you?”

  Ødger’s face was mottled red with fury, and the vein in his head was pulsing. I did not care. The Jarl’s son could throw his temper around all he liked, acting more like a small child than a grown man. I was no longer going to tolerate it.

  I had been putting up with his threats, beatings, and bullying for years. I was a man of twenty-one years now. I would put up with it no more.

  We stood in the open on the beach where all the men were practicing with their weapons. Winter was on its way out. The snow melting on the ground, spring would be upon us soon. It was time to get battle ready for the next raiding trip.

  Which was exactly what we had been doing when my father paired me with Ødger and told us to fight. It was a common understanding between us that we were not to draw blood or grievously injure our training partner. Had that stopped Ødger from slicing open my arm?

  No.

  The little shit of a goat.

  He had been smug about it, too, until I had called him out loud enough for everyone to hear. Now he wanted to act as if I had somehow tarnished his reputation or honor.

  He had neither.

  The village put up with him either because he was the Jarl’s son—or because they feared him.

  I had never feared him, and my patience for stomaching his presence at all because of his position had just come to an end.

  As the men on the beach started to surround us in curiosity, Ødger attempted to glare me down. Seeing that was not going to work, he finally gathered up the balls to say something. “Watch how you speak to me, Arne Eriksson, or the next cut I give you will run from your groin to your throat.”

  Snorting, I wiped the blood from my bleeding arm with my free hand and flicked it at him in challenge. “I would like to see you try. You act as if you are so tough, when in reality we all know if we lifted your tunic, we would find a woman’s hole instead of a man’s cock.”

  I could see the very moment his control snapped blazing in his eyes, and I knew he was going to attack me.

  Lifting his sword high, Ødger screamed in rage and ran toward me. He was like an angry bull charging. All strength and no finesse. He had yet to best me in training, and he never would.

  Raising my own sword, I prepared to defend myself.

  I was denied the chance.

  The Jarl’s voice rang out through the air as sharp and loud as Thor’s thunder. “Stop!”

  Ødger never slowed at his father’s request and instead kept barreling at me.

  Jarl Birger shouted again. His voice was almost as murderous as the look in his son’s eyes. “I said stop!”

  Dropping my sword so the Jarl could see I was complying with his order, I watched as Ødger closed the remaining fifteen feet between us. He was not stopping, and his sword was still ready to strike.

  I let him come.

  He was either going to follow his father’s command, or I was going to defend myself.

  As the space between us became even less, I still did not raise my sword. I did not need it to make an example of him.

  Fifteen feet became ten.

  Ten turned to five.

  The moment he was within range, he swung his sword at my head—screaming a war cry as he did so.

  Ducking under the steel as it sung through the air, I turned my body to stick my foot out in front of the charging man and tripped him as if he was a small child still learning to wield his first sword. Like a giant oak falling in the forest, Ødger’s heavy weight crashed to the ground with a giant thud, so fast and so hard he lost hold of his sword, and it flew out of his grasp.

  Incensed more than ever, he slapped the sandy beach with his hand, roaring in outrage, then flipped over onto his back. I braced my body for him to get up and attack me again, but a body stepped between us, cutting off his chance.

  For a moment, I thought it might be my father trying to break up the fight. When I focused on the man’s breadth of shoulders, however, along with his height and stature, I knew instantly it was not my father.

  It was Ødger’s.

  And he was far from happy with his son’s actions.

  The air was taut with tension as Ødger jerked his gaze from me to his father’s face. He started to open his mouth to say something, but the Jarl’s hand slicing through the air in front of him stopped whatever words were about to be spoken.

  Jarl Birger took a long icy look at his one and only chi
ld, then in a bitter voice said, “You are a disappointment. There are days I wish you had never been born.”

  If Odin had come down from Valhalla himself, I would not have been more surprised. All these years I had thought the Jarl did not care what his son said or did. Now the whole of the village knew that not to be true.

  The Jarl turned so that he stood sideways, facing the sea, and once again giving Ødger and I a clear view of each other. Without looking at me, the Jarl lifted the hand closest to me to point in my direction while still staring down his son. “He is a better man than you will ever be.”

  With that final verbal blow, Ødger’s mouth snapped shut, his face turned so red it became purple, and he glowered at his father with such hatred that it churned my stomach.

  Jarl Birger did not bother to say another word to his son. He turned around and stalked back up the beach to make his way to the hall. The other men around us started to disperse, the training done for the day. Ødger finally got back on his feet and stalked off down the beach to who knew where.

  I was sincerely worried for whoever, or whatever, stumbled upon him in that state. There was no telling what he would do to them.

  A hand clapped down on my shoulder, and I turned my head to see my father standing by my side. Nodding his head up to the hall, he mumbled, “Let’s take you to get stitched up by your mother.”

  We headed back to the Jarl’s hall, and I sat still long enough to let my mother stitch the cut on my upper arm under the stony observation of both my father and the Jarl. People were whispering around the building about what had happened, but I did not care. All I wanted to do was get my arm stitched and then go see Liv. I was spending every spare moment I had with her until I left to go a-Viking in a month or so.

  It did not take my mother long to put a neat row of stitches in my arm, and then I was dressed and off through the woods. Nothing could make my mood better except for the woman I loved.

  Once I hit the clearing before the stream, I put my fingers to my lips to make the piercing whistle that had become our signal. As the years had passed, I had become more paranoid with Liv’s safety. I did not want to take the chance that someone like Ødger would follow me one day to Helga’s home. Expressing my concerns to Helga, she had agreed, and the old woman and I had settled upon a whistle as my way of announcing my presence. That way she would know it was safe for Liv to come outside.

  My whistle had barely ended when the old woman’s front door was thrown open carelessly. Liv rushed out with a smile on her face, running toward me as fast as she could.

  If I was not so gods damned happy to see her, I would have lectured her on being more careful of dashing out of the house like that before making sure it was me who had whistled. Instead, I hopped across the stones to get to the other side of the stream, and then opened my arms wide to catch Liv as she collided with me.

  Hauling her up my body, I ducked my head and kissed her as I did every time I greeted her these days. With all the love in my heart and more than a little passion.

  Helga had stopped threatening to throw or attack me with various animals every time I tried to kiss my woman last year. I was more than grateful for it.

  A man could only take so much abuse from beasts before he went a little Berserker mad.

  Over the years, I had had multiple fish thrown at my head, been kicked in the ass by the milk cow, nipped on the ankle by a fox, attacked by a chittering swarm of squirrels, and chased away through the woods by an enormous elk.

  While Liv had worried over my safety each time Helga had sicced them on me, in case one of the animals accidentally went too far, she had also begged and pleaded with me not to hurt them.

  “It is not the creatures’ fault that Helga is an ornery old woman,” she would say drily.

  It had been hard not to give into my frustration and rage and slay one of those animals to make a point to Helga, however, I had abided by Liv’s wishes and let the creatures be.

  Thank Odin, the old woman finally stopped. Every time I had gone a-Viking I had been terrified she would rise one of the Kraken up from the depths of the sea just to drown me. The men in the Hird could never understand why I was always so eager to go raiding, yet always kept an accusing and wary eye on the seas as we travelled.

  Since Helga had stopped her attacks, I had taken every opportunity I could to show Liv how much I wanted her.

  She was a craving in my soul that I could not, nor would ever want to, get rid of.

  The taste of her mouth fed my addiction.

  Her body pressed against mine urged me to kiss her harder. Deeper.

  I was so consumed in my obsession with her that I did not hear or see the danger coming.

  One moment I was enveloped in the sweet flowery smell of Liv and the taste of honey on her lips, and the next, I was shoving her away forcefully, gasping in pain as metal sliced through my body.

  Agony so searing it felt like it was burning every inch of my body swept through me, and I looked down at the sword coming out of my body in shock.

  Despite all my training, I had failed.

  There, where the chest ended and my stomach began, protruded the shining metal covered in my blood.

  Distantly, I heard Liv scream in horror.

  It was a sound that would haunt me all the way to Valhalla.

  It was also all I needed for another emotion to flood me.

  Determination.

  I had to keep Liv safe from whoever had attacked us.

  Taking a giant step forward, I pulled my body off my enemy’s sword.

  Letting the pain of doing so fuel my perseverance to keep my woman protected.

  Once I was free of the offending metal, I spun around to see who my opponent was.

  Imagine my lack of surprise when I saw that it was none other than Ødger.

  The spoiled, quick tempered man-child who was as evil as he was dishonorable.

  His smile was spread wide from ear to ear as he cruelly gloated about what he had done. “Do you have any idea how long I have wanted to do that, Eriksson? Years. It feels better to cut you through than I ever dreamed it would. My only regret is that my father and your father are not here to have seen me do it.”

  Staggering to the side a bit, I forced myself to stay upright and between him and Liv. I would safeguard her if it was the last thing I did.

  Tasting the metallic of blood in my mouth, I spit it at Ødger’s feet. “You are not worthy of your father’s name. You are just a spineless bastard who should have been left in the freezing cold to die after you were born.”

  I could hear and feel Liv coming closer to me from behind, so I threw my hand backward to stop her. She could not be in proximity of me when the Jarl’s son attacked me again.

  Ødger’s face twisted into a nasty sneer. “You and your family are the reason why my father cannot see me for the great man that I am!” he bellowed. I watched as his face turned that angry shade of red it did so often, and then he continued. “It is why I have been trying to get rid of all of you for years.”

  His words froze me in my spot.

  “Explain,” I ground out between my clenched teeth.

  A condescending smirk settled on his face. “That time your mother was almost hit by the wooden beam in the smokehouse? I did that. Set it all up so that it would fall on her after I told my father that my mother needed her to go and get more meat for dinner. So close I was that day to wiping out part of your family.”

  My nostrils flared, and a haze of red started to coat my vision. Was this the sort of mania Berserkers felt when they lost control?

  Sure of his victory, Ødger continued to brag. “And that time your father was bitten by the snake while we were raiding? It was not a coincidence or ill fate… that was me. I placed that snake in your father’s blankets, trapping it there until it was mad and ready to bite. Imagine my disappointment when your father lived through the venom sickness.”

  He made a point to look around my body to Liv standing so
mewhere behind me. “Now that I have found your little secret here, I think I shall fuck her thoroughly while you are dying. That way her screams are the last thing you will ever hear.”

  There was now a buzzing sound in my ears. Slowly starting to deafen the words that Ødger was still speaking, but I could no longer hear. Berserker madness, the need for vengeance, hate… whatever it was that was causing this hysteria inside of me, it fueled me, taking over until I was moving forward without my even thinking it.

  Pulling the seax my father had given me for my birthday last year from the back of my breeches, I held the dagger high as I surged to attack him. Ødger was quick to reach, however, and blocked my strike with his sword, pushing me away in the process. This did not dissuade me. Rushing in, I sidestepped his thrust and stabbed him in the side, stepping back out of reach before he could hit me with his sword.

  Ødger shouted in pain, looked down at the blood seeping through his clothes, then attacked me this time. His swings were fast and furious, my dodges were just barely in time. My entire body was still on fire from pain, but I did not let that stop me. I pushed the hurt aside in my mind and stayed in the moment, as my father had taught me to do years ago.

  We were both moving closer to each other. Looking for the right moment of weakness to strike. I could feel the strength in my body slipping away and knew I had to do something now or I might not have the strength to protect Liv much longer. Feigning a move right, I let Ødger move his body to defend that area, then threw myself in the opposite direction so that I could strike from the left.

  Grabbing his arm with my free hand, I used his forward momentum to spin his body around until his back was at my chest, and then I touched my blade to his throat and sliced as deeply as I could.

  I could feel my seax cutting through his delicate skin, severing his throat and muscles, before coming out covered in blood on the other side. Ødger dropped his sword to grip at his throat. A gurgling sounded as he tried to speak or scream, and then he dropped to his knees.