Chapter 11
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
Rolf was having the best dream. In it, he was two hundred years young again, playing with his kin as they fought the Skilfingar clan from the north. Those bastards had been raiding lately, and Rolf’s patriarch insisted they teach the upstarts a lesson.
Considering that everyone was pretty much under the age of three hundred and considered mature yet young, Rolf had realized early on that this was meant as training.
A fun time for him and his kin. He laughed as Ansgar and Hedvig roughed up a Skilfingar dickhead while Dag and Steiner, two more of his kin, fought each other.
Bloode and magic coated the snow, turning the white stuff a lovely shade of pink. Runes lit up the night sky, the moon overly bright and showing off the magic of the Vanargard.
Attuned to magic the way he was to blood, Rolf wanted nothing more than to roll around in the snow while hurting as many of his kind as he could. Draugrs, unlike those in other vampire tribes, used magic as much as they used brute force to administer pain.
And Rolf was the most powerful magic user in his clan.
“Quit playing around, Rolf,” his elder yelled as the bastard tore out the throat of his distant cousin, who’d left their clan ages ago. Now an enemy since prior relation had no merit.
Yet Rolf, unlike his kin, didn’t have that dire urge to destroy everyone not Vanargard.
He should, he knew, but he’d always been different.
From his hair to his light-hearted attitude, he stood out in his contrasts.
And his clan loved him for it. Not ostracized, as he’d no doubt have been if born in another clan. The Vanargard prized diversity.
Thus, they focused on all manner of fighters. Archers, dagger-wielders, sword-bearers and bare-knuckle brawlers swam among mages and natural magic users. Even those with a hint of fae in their bloode were welcomed in the Vanargard.
A good thing, considering Rolf’s many mentors.
He sighed and did his best to kill the two vampires converging on him.
Since the Skilfingar trainers were healing their kind as fast as they went down, Rolf didn’t have much time to peel apart from the battle and head into the castle, where he’d been ordered to appear moments ago.
The burn of that rune into his hand fucking hurt, but the message had been clear. Come to the patriarch. Now.
Rune? He glanced at his hand but saw nothing there.
He hustled inside, aware of something he should know. Feeling eyes on him, he played it cool, not showing he knew someone spied on him, ready to return any attack.
None came.
He made it inside the keep and up to his patriarch’s chambers. There he found Loki, Egil, the Vanargard patriarch, and…
His eyes widened. He hadn’t sensed his tribe’s master—the most powerful draugr in existence. Yet Valdemar the Bloody stood with Egil and Loki, his eyes narrowed on Rolf.
Rolf didn’t respect much, but he respected Egil and Valdemar more than most.
He gave a slight nod in acknowledgement.
“As good as we’re apt to get, eh?” Valdemar said, a hint of dry humor noticeable.
Perhaps that was why Rolf liked Varu so much, because he reminded him of Valdemar.
Wait. Who is Varu?
He frowned.
“Boy, you’ve grown.” Egil appraised him like a side of beef.
“Thanks, Dad,” he said sarcastically and narrowly dodged Egil’s fist.
“What a smartass,” Valdemar said. “I like him. And I concur. He would make a decent sacrifice.”
“I—What?” Rolf blinked. What part of the conversation had he missed? He was all for dying in a glorious battle. But “sacrifice” usually meant playing nice while someone else had all the fun.
“We’d like you to mate with a goddess,” Egil explained. “It will strengthen the magic in our line.”
“A goddess?” Rolf made the worst face he could think of. “I’d rather you ripped my spine out and used my bones as croquet spikes for rich brats in Beverly Hills. Hell. Donate my blood to the angelics in the celestial realm. That would be preferrable to fucking a god.”
Loki snorted.
“Don’t even,” Rolf snarled.
“It’s been arranged.” Loki gave him an evil grin. “By your bestest buddy.”
“I’m not taking a mate,” Rolf said bluntly. “And He Who Is a Pain in My Ass can go straight to Hades, as far as I’m concerned.”
There it was, a presence he felt but couldn’t see or sense with his magic, which made little sense. His hand burned, and he rubbed it.
Then he swore he heard someone whisper, “Shh. Watch and listen.”
Rolf stared over his shoulder at the empty corner of the room. Nothing there.
Unfortunately, he’d been stupid to take his attention off his patriarch and master vampire. Really stupid. When he turned back, he could see the outline of runes dancing in the air in front of Valdemar meant to kill anything with bloode in it.
The master shrugged. “Use her for her magic then bring her here. We’ll take care of the rest.” Or die, went unsaid, the runes lighting up.
After a beat, and because he knew he faced a true-death if he tried an outright no, Rolf answered, “I’ll think about it.
” He sighed, pretending not to realize how close he was to ending his existence.
Though by the smug look on Valdemar’s face as he released the runes, Rolf wasn’t fooling anyone. “Now why am I really here?”
“Because I told you to come,” Loki said once again, slowly this time. “Is it really so hard to do what your father tells you to?”
Rolf straightened, stared at the asshole—who wasn’t his father—then launched himself at the dickhead. He took Loki by surprise, which gave him a bit of his power back. To make things even better, he tore into Loki’s throat and drank down as much as he could before the god hit back.
Egil and Valdemar were laughing hysterically while Loki swore and yanked Rolf away, tearing a good bit of his own flesh in the process. The wound healed instantly while Rolf processed the godly nectar swimming in his veins.
Unfortunately, it didn’t give him the buzz he should have felt. And they all knew why.
“You ungrateful fucker.” Loki didn’t look so pleased.
“Aw, he’s just a baby. Treat him with care,” Egil said. “And yes, I’m kidding. Do with him as you will. But Rolf, we need her power. And you will obey, or you will die.”
“Kill me. See if I care.” He shrugged. Because no, he didn’t fear death.
“Ah, but if you die, who will protect your precious little puppy?” Valdemar smiled, his menace impossible to miss.
Rolf didn’t react except to sigh. No one should have known about his one tiny, scruffy, obnoxious weakness. Fucking Razer would be the only leverage to ever make him do what he didn’t want to. How did they know?
Loki narrowed his eyes with interest. Not good. Egil and Valdemar looked smug.
Rolf wanted to rip their heads off. Razer belonged to him and no one else. Not even Fenrir, who’d created the little guy. The one thing in Rolf’s life he cared about was that baby wolf. Well, more like adolescent wolf.
He said loftily, “I have no idea what you mean. But I don’t intend to miss our battle with Hecate’s chaos that’s coming, so I’ll do what you want.”
That seemed to satisfy them. Yet he still didn’t understand why he needed to mate someone. And why the hell was his hand so itchy?
He scratched at it, noticed Loki grinning at him, and scowled. “What did you do?”
“Me? Nothing.” He winked over Rolf’s shoulder at someone.
Rolf spun but saw no one. Then he spun back around to find the room empty except for him and a large bed.
And the mouth-wateringly naked woman upon it.
“What the hell?” She snarled, her voice rich with temptation. “What am I… Where are my clothes?”
He pounced, unable to let such a temptation go.
“Get off, blood sucker.”
He grinned. She had long, blue-black hair, icy eyes so light they appeared almost white, and the nicest breasts he’d ever seen. Her long legs were muscular, and he wanted them wrapped around him ASAP.
“I—hey.” She tried to push him away. “Get off, Rolf.”
“Ah, she knows my name.” He kissed her before she could move, and when she bit him, he sighed into her mouth, losing his mind.
She licked the bite, and he went from already crazed to lust-drunk. “Take more,” he urged, licking into her mouth with his bloode, something he would never in his right mind do.
She did and immediately sagged beneath him, accepting his weight with ease. But that wasn’t enough. “In me,” she demanded, as if reading his mind.
In a blink, his clothes vanished. Rolf nudged her thighs apart and surged inside her warmth, not needing any urging to fuck her hard and fast. The woman clutched him to her, not allowing much space between them as he thrust in and out. Needing more.
Needing to come inside her, to seal them together as they were meant to be. Not as they could be, but as they should be. Her full breasts teased his chest, the nipples hard, scoring him with desire.
He didn’t normally drink from bedmates, but he wanted to ingest her. To drown in her body and blood until they were one, with no end or beginning.
An ouroboros of pleasure.
“Yes, fuck me. Harder,” she growled. He saw the wolf in her eyes and knew his end was coming.
She clamped down on him, and his hand burned. She must have felt it too, because she cried out in pain and in pleasure.
And then he was coming, and he melted into her while someone behind him clapped and called for an encore.
He woke up alone in a treehouse.
Only the fact that he didn’t have a mess in his pants uplifted his mood from horrible to semi-terrible.
And then the pain hit, harder than it had before, because he knew what to expect. Sylvara had moved too far away. And she kept going, because the pain grew excruciating.
“Oh, sorry.” Morpheus, that bastard, tossed her fully clothed onto the bed then vanished.
She screamed as she hit the mattress. But not in pain.
Rolf stared, fascinated, as the valkyrie climaxed.
Lightning flew from her eyes.
Right through him.