Chapter 5
Chapter five
Vidar
It might be early evening, but already the moon hangs low. Winter winds blast the few humans who dare brave the cold, scurrying like they can hide from it, wrapped in heavy coats, unlike me.
I wear a simple pair of black jeans tucked into boots. They’re matched with a white top, the long sleeves rolled up to reveal tattoos that spread from my neck down to my knuckles. Like all vampires, the cold doesn’t affect me, and as I stand before Kai’s block of flats, I hardly notice it.
The modern world has its wonders. Planes. TV. Communication. The bastardisation of my ancient culture.
Marshmallows.
Yet they pride themselves on building these unimaginative boxes to live in. I shrug the thought off, musing over architecture isn’t why I’m here and the past can stay where it is. So why hesitate?
I’m not one to shy away from something uncomfortable, even if admitting it just to myself makes me feel weak. But I’m…nervous.
In all my years, I can count on one hand how many times I’ve felt this way. Which is exactly once.
I joined my first raid as a shield-bearer at thirteen. Took my first life at fourteen. Owned land at eighteen and married at twenty. Even dying at thirty-eight, I wasn’t nervous. Not afraid. Always sure.
But as I make my way towards the metal door to buzz up to Kai’s flat—number 58, unless Golden’s playing a trick on me—nerves hold me in a tight grip.
I catch the scent of lavender on the wind, and like a beckoning finger, I follow without thought to find myself beneath the flats, in a wide garage with cars packed neatly and…
Kai.
I’m taken aback by the sheer need that tugs me towards him. I underestimated how intense a soulmate bond was, and I might need to speak with him to clear up my mistake, but I keep my feet firmly planted to prove I can fight against these new urges.
He’s a lone figure, and I nearly laugh at the absurdity that anyone could find him ugly. The things I would do to him if he were a woman…
I crack my neck from side to side to rid myself of that line of impossible thinking.
I’m relieved to find him bundled up in a leather jacket, but his soft cotton sweats aren’t enough. He’s too lean, and should have more layers to keep warm, his oval jade eyes framed by black lashes and soft lips and slender nose are too….
I swallow.
It’s clear he needs protecting. From this angle he doesn’t spot me, and all over again I’m struck with the feeling of knowing him. Kai turns, not toward me, his brow furrowed in confusion. But it’s the tension in his shoulders that has me using my vampiric speed to get to his side within a second.
“What’s wrong?” I demand.
“Holy shit!” Kai shouts. The hollow walls catch the sound and bounce it from one wall to another, as he swings his bag at me.
I grunt when my stomach is hit, but remain in place. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Well, obviously you did, you fucking dickhead!” Kai shouts, his breath clouding in the cold air. “Are you insane? Who sneaks up on someone in a dark, empty garage?”
“Something was scaring you.” My focus finds every dark corner. “Tell me what happened.” So I can rip whoever dares scare Kai limb from limb.
After a pause, he grunts and swings the strap of his messenger bag over his shoulder, a pretty glare aimed at me. “Not that it’s literally any of your business, but I wasn’t scared. There was just…I dunno, felt like someone was watching me.” If it were possible, his stare sharpens. “Was it you?”
“No.” Breathing deeply, I scent the air. Exhaust fumes, the frozen city and him. “I can’t scent anyone else close by.”
“Must’ve been my imagination…”
I stare at him while he scowls at the dirty ground. His sandy braids hiding his face from my view. I want to pull each of those twisted locks away and tilt his jaw up, demanding he look at me. Always and only at me.
Inwardly, I curse at myself for giving in so quickly to this damn bond. Then curse harder at Fate for creating it.
“I wanted to speak with you about what I said last night,” I tell Kai gently, or as gently as I’m capable of, but Kai flinches as if I’ve struck him, and mentally I’m kicking myself.
Still, I expect Kai to shyly nod and accept what I want without question. Bigger and stronger men have. Instead, he raises a defiant chin, and while he doesn’t hide his hurt, he doesn't allow it to drag him down either.
“How about neither of us wastes our time. I get it, you don’t want me.
I’m over it.” He shrugs, trying for nonchalance, all the while nervously patting the braids covering the left side of his face.
I don’t believe him. Or maybe I don’t want to believe him.
He smiled at me yesterday. How can I get that smile back? Why do I want his smile back?
This is infuriating.
“Even so, we should still speak.”
He continues to glare and continues to mess with his hair.
I hate it.
Hate that he’s trying to hide from me.
Without thinking, I reach out to stop him—but he recoils so sharply I’m surprised he doesn’t trip.
Clenching my fist, I pull back. Frustration cutting deeper than any blade.
When Kai shivers, I’m almost grateful for it. Finally, a problem I can solve. “You’re cold and probably hungry, let’s go inside.”
“Why bother?”
“When it concerns you, I’ll always bother.” I might not want to be with him, but we’re connected now, so I can at the very least ensure he is safe.
He waits, then lets out a long exhale. “It’s pretty rude to invite yourself over.” And strides towards the exit.
“I didn’t become a chieftain, then the head of a vampire family, because I was polite,” I say, following.
Inside the stairwell stinks of bleach, yet the sour scent of piss still manages to seep through.
“How long were you waiting around in the shadows for me?” Kai asks as he begins to climb up the stairs.
“As I said, I only got here. Golden—” I choke on my next word. And here I thought his face was pretty.
The curve of his ass, hugged by soft sweats, is something else entirely.
Two globes of rounded plump perfection stirs a need I’ve only ever felt for women. Even that pales compared to this burning desire that could drag me to my knees and have me crawl to him, hungry for a taste.
But no, these feelings are not me and will never be me.
I’m well over a thousand years old, I know who and what I’m attracted to, and I’ve already hurt Kai enough.
These urges will soon fade, and I will not wound him further by treating him like some curiosity just because he happens to have a nice ass.
Realising I’ve been silent a beat too long, I clear my throat.
“Golden told me not to bother you at work, but gave me your address for us to speak.”
Kai doesn’t reply, but I wish he would. Anything to distract me from the view before me. Yet as he climbs, there isn’t a second where my eyes leave his backside, and I have to dig my nails into my fisted palms, or I’d do something that is…tempting—so damn tempting—but I’d regret.
However, when we reach his floor and I can finally look away, all I feel is disappointment as we head towards number 58. And Kai’s soft panting after climbing the three flights of stairs isn’t helping. Those little sounds do…odd things to me.
“It ain’t a mansion, so don’t get excited…” he mumbles, digging in his pocket for his keys. Pulling on the fabric of his sweats slightly, enough to make out more definition of his ass.
It’s when I notice he’s still fussing with his braids that I push these confusing feelings aside.
“Kai.” Unable to stop myself, I stand close to him, “Stop doing that.”
“Doing what?” he snaps, forgetting about his keys to burn me with a glower.
“Hiding from me.”
I was never a gentle man, and even less so as a vampire.
But for him I can learn to be, and fighting against the pull of our bond is exhausting, so surely giving into this one touch is fine.
Carefully, I clasp his fidgeting palm, pulling it away, and in this simple touch, I realise I was a fool to think I could have this indulgence once and never crave it again.
I curse Fate for what she has done to both of us.
“Stop it,” Kai bites out, pulling away from me.
“I need to clear something up with you, Kai,” I say, and have to physically hold myself back from touching him again.
“Listen, you really don’t have to do this. We never really spoken, so you don’t owe me anything, and it’s not like you’re so amazing I can’t get over you—”
“When I first saw you, I thought you were a dream. But even in my wildest dreams, I could’ve never conjured you.”
Selfishly, I give up the fight and collect his palm, cradling each of his twitching fingers, and with my other hand, sweep his braids away. He flinches but allows it as I reveal his scars that begin at his temple, arch around his eye and end at his chin.
“If this were a thousand years ago, I would’ve worshipped you as a God, thinking you a child of Freyja. Surely only the Goddess of beauty could’ve given birth to you.”
Kai shakes his head, but the corners of his lips tug upwards. Encouraged, I step closer so barely an inch keeps me from him. I might not be soft, but I’m no longer cruel.
“I see your scars, Kai. Not past them. Not in spite of them. My anger came from…” I breathe out. “I’ve only ever wanted women, and that hasn’t changed.”
Kai sucks in sharply, then drops his gaze. But I’m a conqueror at heart, so when emotions flicker across his half-hidden face, I tenderly cup his cheek and angle him back. The soulmate bond—because it can’t be anything else—demands I claim everything as my own.
“You should’ve just said that, idiot…” he grumbles.
“I am…” I say, staring deeply into the purest jade to have ever been created, “very stupid. I haven’t spoken to many people for a while, and it seems I need to relearn that skill.”
“Yeah, Golden told me you’d been…depressed.”
“A discussion for another time,” I say. Kai doesn’t need to know the gory details of my apathy—how it hollowed me out until I collapsed inward, and for eight long years I was nothing but a bottomless pit howling into an uncaring void.
He doesn’t need to know that I’m only just beginning to fill myself back up, or that a soulmate was the last thing I wanted when I’m still trying to repair my relationship with the offspring I abandoned.
“Alright, well…that’s that then. We can’t be anything else to each other. You’ve said your piece. So…bye. I guess?”
“Not goodbye,” I rush out, not yet ready to part ways. “I was taken by surprise last night and took that out on you, which was unfair. I still want to get to know you. Become your friend.” None of this I meant to say, however, it seems I cannot control myself around Kai.
“You wanna be my friend?” This makes him laugh, his head dropping back against his door with a soft thud.
My gaze travels the lean length of his neck. “Yes,” I say with too much force, then clear my throat. “A very good friend.”
“And you're straight?”
I nod. There’s no denying the pull—raw and unexpected. A kind of hunger I’ve never experienced, whispering that the only way to sate it is Kai. But to give up women forever? “I am.”
His emotions draw back, but I can’t stand it. So I close the last breath of distance between us, caging Kai to the door with my bigger body. He lets free a surprised exhale, the sudden scent of oranges bursts in the air, sweet and sharp arousal, and I fill my lungs before I can think differently.
“Whoa, okay. Time out. Big time out, buddy.” Kai puts his hands on my chest and pushes to create space.
“Annoying,” I grunt.
“Yeah, well, get used to it. If you wanna be my ‘friend’ no sniffing, and stop being so bloody clingy.”
“Me?” My eyebrow cocks up.
Confusion wrinkles his brow until Kai realises his hands are gripping my chest and snaps them away.
I chuckle, but truthfully, I find my actions just as confusing. However, all that stops when his stomach grumbles.
“You're hungry,” I say. “Get us inside and I’ll cook you something.”
“You can cook?”
“I like marshmallows.”
Another laugh. “Mate, that doesn’t answer the question.”
“Maybe not, but I like to cook. Let me make you something to apologise.”
Shrugging one shoulder, I lean back to give Kai space to fish out his keys, a victorious smirk tugging at my mouth. I made him laugh—again. Already, I’m planning on hunting that sound down with more determination than I ever gave to tracking meat for my people, or Saxon gold to fill my coffers.
I am going to be an amazing friend.
“But I guess I can’t turn down someone else cooking.” Kai opens the door for us.
The inside is tiny, more of a single large room with a bed to one side and a tiny kitchenette on the other, with a door to the left which must be the bathroom.
Before I can comment on anything, the stink of rotting flesh hits me. “What is that smell?”
“What smell?” he asks, closing the door.
“If you’ve murdered someone, you should properly dispose of their body.”
“So your issue wouldn’t be that I’m a killer?”
I shrug, looking around to find where the stink of rancid meat is coming from.
“Seriously, I have no idea what you're talking about.”
Nostrils flaring, I find the stink closest to his bed and march over.
“Hey, stop!”
Grabbing hold of the frame and lifting the whole thing easily with one hand, I find the source easily enough when my gaze lands on a grey leather-bound book.
“Kai.” I turn to find him chewing on his lower lip. “Why do you have a blood mage spellbook under your bed?”