Sovereign

by Anne Schlea

  She feels more alive than she has since before the raid.

  “I love the bike.” Runa breaks the kiss but doesn’t make any move to step away. Happily, Kristoff seems content to keep his arms around her, his forehead only inches from hers. “It’s perfect. Thank you.”

  “I’m glad you like it.” His smile grows, his hand tucking a stray hair behind her ear. “I felt you holding back. We’ll take it out west, visit Marcus’s territory where you can see how fast she goes one day. I bet she’ll fly out there on I-80 near the salt flats.”

  “I’d love that.” She doesn’t want to step away, but realizes they are in public and they’re crossing the line for socially acceptable hugging in front of a crowd. It feels good, to be touching Kristoff, knowing he’ll stop at nothing to keep her safe. There’s a calmness to her blood when he’s close. Despite being a valkyrie who thrives on life and excitement, calm feels good. She puts a little space between them and looks at the wooden building. “What are we doing here?”

  “Pretending to be human.” Kristoff pulls off his riding gloves and stuffs them in his back pocket. “And relaxing.”

  Kristoff takes her hand and guides her over a koi pond and into the building. He seems to know what he’s doing, so she watches him order at the long, antique-looking bar. He’s handed two wine glasses, which he passes off to Runa, and a bottle of red wine called “Shotgun: Fifth Reload.” She chuckles at the label and then follows Kristoff to a table off the back balcony of the winery.

  The late morning air is still a bit chilly, but the sun is shining, and a light breeze is blowing. They set their helmets down, take seats looking across the vineyard, and Kristoff pours the wine. They sit silently next to each other, close but not touching, until one of the servers brings them a plate of cheese and fruit.

  “It’s not an old-world Bordeaux,” Kristoff suddenly says softly, looking at the color with carefully trained eyes. “In a hundred years or so, this place will be producing champion wines. They’re close now, the fruit they grow here is very good in addition to the acres they own in California. Some of the vintages are truly spectacular for a small winery in Georgia.”

  Runa picks up her glass and takes a deep breath. He’s right, there’s potential here. She tastes the wine and is pleasantly surprised. “You’re right, this isn’t bad for American wine.”

  “This is fantastic for east coast wine.” He leans over, his eyes questioning. When she doesn’t move, he kisses her lightly on the temple. “I hoped you’d like it.”

  “You’ve been here before. Often.” She’s surprised. This place seems too simple for Kristoff’s money, rich taste, and European style sentiments.

  “I come here to think.” He spins his glass between two fingers. “The ride up here…I could get lost in the mountains for days if I let myself. It clears my head, reminds me why I’m still here. I stumbled on this place. There’s more of them up here, wineries, but this one has the best vintage. I hope they’re still making wine in a couple of decades.”

  “I never realized you had to clear your head.” She takes another sip and then eats a piece of fruit from the plate. “I thought you always knew what you were doing.”

  “Hardly.” He chuckles, then sobers. “Sometimes I wish I could do what Antonia did – disappear. Sometimes I’m tired of having so many vampires depend on me. Not just my clan, but the maji, too. Add Arthur and Stephanie to that list now, and in a few months, their baby. Sometimes, I’m just tired.”

  “Let’s disappear.” Runa realizes with a start that she isn’t kidding even though the words sound flippant. “Let’s get on the bikes and keep going. Don’t go back to Atlanta, let’s keep riding until we run out of road.”

  “With all due respect, I’m tired, not suicidal.” He touches the top of her hand again; Runa looks down and wonders if he’s touching her because he has to. Since she woke up, it seems that he needs physical contact to remind himself that she’s still alive. “If I disappeared with you now, your sisters would absolutely kill me. I might be able to take on one, but not all of them.”

  Runa doubts firmly that Kristoff could take even one of her sisters, but she doesn’t say it out loud.

  When they finish at the winery, Kristoff leads her down a different set of roads until they reach a small, tourist-filled town. A large courthouse sits in the middle of a roundabout, shops and restaurants lined up along the road around it. They walk through the square, stopping at shops that sell clothing, pottery, and trinket souvenirs until their steps take them to an old-fashioned ice cream parlor.

  Sitting on a bench, eating a waffle cone filled with chocolate chip ice cream, Runa smiles at the families walking past with children. She realizes she’s relaxed, a feeling completely unknown to her.

  A teenage boy with a guitar walks by, dropping a sheet of paper as he passes.

  Kristoff reaches for the paper. “Son, you dropped something.”

  The boy turns around. His royal blue shirt has white letters on it and the symbol of a crescent moon. Eclipse is spelled out beside it. Runa smiles at the irony; Kristoff’s clan is the clan of the Crescent Moon.

  “Thanks.” The boy reaches for it and then tucks the paper into his backpack.

  “That looked like a set list.” Kristoff leans back, casual. “Are you playing somewhere tonight?”

  “Yeah, down there.” He points to a two-story restaurant a few buildings away. “We go on at seven, you should come see us.”

  Seven is too close to dark. Runa will never get back to the safety of the hotel before sundown if they wait that long.

  “Unfortunately, we have plans later tonight, but maybe another time.” Kristoff smiles kindly at him and nods at his shirt. “Is that the name of your band?”

  “Yes, sir.” The boy seems a little deflated at the no but perks up when Kristoff pulls out his phone and plugs the band into his social media accounts.

  “I just followed you.” He tucks the phone back in his pocket. “The next time you’re playing, we’ll try to come check your band out. What’s your name?”

  “Jackson. Usually I play bass, but sometimes I play guitar when we do acoustic gigs.” A girl with bushy blond hair and glasses seems to grab Jackson’s attention from the entrance of the restaurant. Hands on her hips, she glares at Jackson. “Thank you, sir. I’ve got to get going now.”

  “It was nice to meet you Jackson.” Kristoff reaches out to shake Jackson’s hand before the boy hurries down the sidewalk toward the girl. When her reaches her, she seems to scold him for being late.

  Runa smiles, continuing to eat her ice cream. Most of Kristoff’s men would be shocked to see the interaction with the teen. She doubts any of them realize how much he likes kids.

  “It’s nice, isn’t it?” Kristoff smiles at her, holding his own milkshake between two hands. He nods at the town around them. “The quiet. It’s relaxing.”

  “Yes, it is.” She takes a deep breath and leans back, closing her eyes in the sunshine filtering down through the trees. “I’d forgotten what this kind of quiet is like.”

  Runa can hear his movements before she feels his hand brush lightly against her neck. Eyes open, it’s easy to decipher the look in his eyes. She’s seen it enough over the years.

  “If it is okay…” He hesitates, clears his throat, and tries again. “I would like to kiss you, if it is okay.”

  “I would like that, too.” Mindful not to spill the ice cream all over him, Runa relaxes and allows Kristoff to lean toward her. The kiss is barely a brush of his lips, soft and questioning. She wonders again if he’d seen what had happened to her in the nosferatu hospital. She shakes the memories from her mind. The nosferatu had stolen enough time from her life, she isn’t going to let them steal this day, too.

  Kristoff’s breath, falling softly against Runa’s neck, is slow and even. Pressed up tightly against her back, she wonders if he’s sleeping. He’d been exceptionally gentle with her, something she’d noticed in the weeks since she’d waken up. He ne
ver made quick movements around her and gives her warning if he’s moving close to her body. Sometimes it’s only a sound, walking loudly across the floor, or a cough. While he seemed to have a need to touch her constantly, the touches are innocent – a hand on her hand or elbow as she walked down the hallway, a touch on her cheek, the middle of her back.

  This afternoon, he moved his body in a way that seemed to ask her permission – hesitating in ways he never had before. Where their relationship had been an all-consuming fire before now, today Kristoff was soft, loving, and tender.

  Runa’s heart starts to beat faster. Had he been the one to carry her out of the experiment room? She’d never asked, she was too ashamed to know. The question keeps coming to her; she keeps avoiding it. She doesn’t want to know. She needs to know.

  “What are you thinking about?” His voice is low and gravelly in her ear. He must have been dozing, it’s how he sounds when he’s on the verge of sleep.

  “I thought you were asleep.” She deflects the question, trying instead to push back the welling panic inside that threatens to spill out of her.

  “Your heart is speeding up, you’re afraid.” He tightens his arms around her protectively, but at the same time he shifts his hips back from hers so that she can’t feel him against her anymore. “What are you thinking about?”

  Feeling cold at the loss of Kristoff’s body, Runa slides backward in the bed until she’s flush against him again. He stiffens, then moves himself around so that he’s not so obviously pressing against her, a confirmation of her fears. He’s the one who found her.

  “Were you the one who pulled me out of that room?” Her voice is barely a whisper and shaking. She hates the feeling of helplessness, it’s a feeling she’d sworn she’d never feel again when she became valkyrie.

  Kristoff is quiet for so long; Runa thinks he isn’t going to respond. Finally, he takes a deep breath. “Yes.”

  Even though it’s warm under the heavy covers, wrapped in Kristoff’s body heat, Runa starts to shiver. He kisses her gently on the shoulder, saying nothing, holding her tightly.

  She calms her breathing. There’s more she needs to know if she’s going to keep living. “Did anyone else see?”

  “Not until after you were gone.” His words are quiet and even. She knows it’s the truth. He’d never lie to her. “When they came to destroy the machine.”

  Runa doesn’t remember much from her time in captivity; the machine took so much energy from her that she was usually unconscious. But there were times they woke her up, those times she remembered. Hands on her body, the feeling of helplessness. They took joy in causing her fear, in making her feel weakness.

  She feels a tear slide down her cheek and onto Kristoff’s arm. He moves his other arm to cradle her cheek.

  “Do my sisters know?” It is the worst shame to fall a valkyrie. Helplessness in any form is unacceptable.

  “No.” His thumb rubs lightly against her cheek. “It isn’t mine to tell.”

  “Thank you.” Runa tries to brace herself, but the tears keep coming, wetting her cheeks and Kristoff’s arms. He doesn’t say anything, letting her purge as much of the fear and anger as she can. She doesn’t know how long it goes on, only that the pillow beneath her seems very wet.

  After she’s been quiet for a while, Kristoff turns her gently to face him. Never taking his hands from her cheeks, he kisses her gently. “You know that as long as it is in my power, I would never let anything happen to you again.”

  She laughs, another release of energy at words that would have been absurd a few months ago. Valkyrie are supposed to be indestructible.

  “I’m being serious.” His eyes calm her laughter, dark and focused. “There has been fun and fire between us, Runa, but that changed when you were taken. I know terrible things were done to you; I saw the bruises on your legs. I can’t imagine what nightmares you must carry. I have done my best to not push you, to not pursue you when you wished me not to, and to keep your secret from your sisters. But the rage I felt when I found you…I’ve never felt anything like that before. I cannot promise things will ever be the same. It goes against everything in me to leave you out of my sight, to know you are somewhere I cannot get to you if you need me.”

  “You think I am weak now.” She looks down, away from his eyes. “And dirty.”

  This time it’s Kristoff’s turn to laugh. “If I thought you were weak, I never would have given you that motorcycle. That last thing I need to worry about is more ways you can get yourself hurt and I know exactly how you’re going to ride that thing the moment you think you’re away from human eyes.”

  He reaches down to pull her more firmly against him. “I don’t think you’re dirty. I think you were harmed terribly, and I plan to rip the heart out of the man who did it as soon as I can find him. I cannot kill him slowly enough for my taste, and believe me, I lived through a time when there were experts in the field of slow and painful deaths.”

  “I hate feeling helpless.” Runa feels another tear slip down her cheek. She reaches out a hand to rest on Kristoff’s neck. The feel of his pulse grounds her.

  “Now you know how I feel every time you leave.” He wipes the tear away with his thumb. “Helpless.”

  Runa lets Kristoff tuck her against his chest, where he continues to hold her in the quiet of the late afternoon setting sun. She knows nothing will be the same. Their arrangement of meeting when they can, sharing a few days, then going their separate ways, is over. Even if Kristoff wants to keep things as they are, her sisters will never allow it.

  To break valkyrie law is death. If the War Council mandates she end her relationship with Kristoff, she will have no choice.

  He’s right, however, things have changed between them. Usually by now, she’s ready to move, to leave until the next stolen moment. Boredom comes quickly to her, making her life one of constant wandering. A short time here, then move on to something else. Once that adventure ends the same thing until years become a blur of constant motion.

  She’s not ready. She doesn’t want her sisters to return to the hotel. She wants to stay here, warm in Kristoff’s arms, until Ragnarök.

  Kristoff steps out of the shower and finds the bed empty. Sheets are rumpled and pulled back and the pillow still holds the indentation of Runa’s head. At least she’d slept the night without leaving him for the sofa. He’d offered to go; she’d insisted he stay. It seems they’ve reached a turning point between them.

  Toweling off, he understands her aversion to sharing his bed while they sleep. Sleep makes her vulnerable. If that vulnerability was a problem before, now it has become an insurmountable mountain in the middle of their relationship. He throws on a pair of jeans to find her.

  He finds her sitting on the balcony, wrapped up in a bathrobe, but shivering in the lounge chair. Her knees are pulled tight to her chest, her eyes distant.

  Cursing, Kristoff takes the throw blanket off the sofa and wraps it around her shoulders. He can’t begin to imagine what terrors are running through her mind, and doesn’t want to leave her alone, so he pulls the second chair as close to her as can. Sitting down, he’s prepared to wait.

  “I don’t remember much.” Her eyes stay focused elsewhere, on a distant point Kristoff can’t see. She shivers and pulls the blanket closer around her shoulders. “The machines kept me…asleep most of the time. Helpless. I’d forgotten what it feels like to be helpless. Most of the time I wasn’t aware of what was happening around me. I have no idea how many days or hours passed.”

  Kristoff thinks to reach over and take her hand, but something in the subtle way she holds her body warns him not to. She sinks farther into herself and takes a deep breath.

  “But there were times they wanted to taste my fear.” Runa shakes her head, a barely noticeable shiver of movement. “During those times, they’d turn the machine down. It would run enough to keep me still, to keep me from fighting against them, but I would be awake. That’s when they would rape me.”

&n
bsp; Her eyes suddenly focus and she looks over at Kristoff. The summer air is warm, but she still shivers. He realizes with a start that she’s going through shock.

  “Can you sit closer to me?” She tightens the blanket around her shoulders. “I’m very cold.”

  Moving very slowly, Kristoff slides onto the seat with Runa, gathering her in his arms. She relaxes against him as much as she can, and her body’s shivering slows. Breathing deeply in silence, he starts to wonder if she’s fallen asleep, drained from the emotional damage that had been done. Then, she shakes herself.

  “I can’t sleep.” Her voice is so soft he can barely hear her. “Especially at night. Every time I close my eyes, I hear them talking and can feel their hands on me. And knowing he’s still out there…”

  “We’ll find him.” Kristoff gently kisses her on the top of the head. He doesn’t know how or when. It could be decades, or it’s possible the man’s already dead and they’ll never know what happened to him. Somehow, he has to make this right for Runa. “I swear it to you.”

  Chapter 10

  Runa tilts her head while looking out the window of Kristoff’s SUV, deep in thought. The vehicle is making its way slowly up the side of the mountain, Kristoff careful not to run over either the hikers or wildlife that occasionally break across the path. It being a Thursday, the park is thankfully mostly empty.

  “This place is familiar.” She draws her brow together, frowning. The trees aren’t any more familiar than any other trees. It’s her own energy calling out to her; something she left here a long time ago is still waiting on the mountain. “I can’t quite place it, but I think we’ve been here before.”

  “We’ve been here?” Kristoff glances around. All he sees is trees, a narrow, paved road, and a lot of nothing. “Or you’ve been here?”