Chapter Seven - Ketill
We reach the cabin that’s really more of a shack, soaking wet, with my boots caked in mud. Icicles hang from the tips of our windswept hair, and Thomas shivers on my back as violently as when I pulled him from the lake.
That shifter cunt deserved more than the bloody dent I left in his face. He collapsed just as I jumped, fear suffocating me as bitter winds sliced across my face as I reached for Thomas hurtling towards his death.
We would have more than twenty-eight minutes. And in that moment, I would’ve traded my immortality and every story I’ve ever collected if it meant saving him.
I hope that the tattooed shifter fuck, and all his ugly friends, are dead.
But I spent all my luck finding my soulmate in the most unlikely place, and I’ve created a debt of luck by saving him from an icy grave.
Fate might love me, but no man is that lucky.
So the tattooed fucker is probably still alive and wanting more than just the dragon egg.
Oh well, I can’t complain that I get to kill more shifters.
“A few more minutes, treasure, then you’ll be dry and warm,” I promise Thomas, pushing open the creaking door and stepping inside a musty cabin.
There are no windows or much furniture to speak of—a table with four folding chairs, a small kitchen on the opposite end. But what I care about most is the black log-burning stove, a brass pipe jutting from the top that leads into the ceiling, with logs and newspapers stacked beside it.
“Y-you must be t-tired of carrying me,” Thomas stutters.
“Not for a second.” I’m gentle, but quick, to help a shivering Thomas from my back and in front of the stove. “We need to get you out of these wet clothes.”
I rid him of the bag holding the egg that’s cooled significantly, placing it down before peeling off his sodden t-shirt and trousers, his socks thrown over my shoulder with a splat.
“It’s very annoying every time I’ve had you naked, it’s to stop you from freezing to death,” I tell him, trying to be light when I feel anything but. “I haven’t even had time to appreciate it. Let’s be wild next time and have you deliciously nude in a comfortable bed.”
“I thought this would be normal for you,” he replies, teeth chattering.
“You will always deserve better.”
I move away to search the small space, climbing up a rickety ladder leading to a windowless loft where I find a single bed tucked to the side, a pile of rolled-up sleeping bags, and a chest of drawers.
The ceiling is low, and I have to crawl over to open the chest, pulling out an armful of moth-bitten blankets and a couple of the well-insulated sleeping bags. Jumping from the loft, I startle Thomas when I land in front of him.
But before he can say anything, I’m wrapping him up tightly, unzipping the sleeping bag and lay it flat on the ground, then manoeuvring him to sit. Next, I work on starting a fire.
The logs smell wild, and the newspaper old, the ink running. But they’re both dry. Grabbing the flint and steel set aside in a tobacco tin, I try to start a fire as quickly as possible, but my damn fingers won’t cooperate, and I curse each time I fail.
Something warm, but not warm enough, wraps around me, something that smells like minerals and a rushing river. My hands drop into my lap, trembling as the thin walls shake, wind whistling through the valleys as the memory of Thomas falling replays over and over again.
I was so close to losing him.
My treasure. My love. My soulmate.
“Twenty-eight minutes,” I whisper, pushing the back of my head into Thomas’s cold cheek. “I’ve known you twenty-eight minutes, and you were nearly taken from me, Thomas. You aren’t allowed to do that again.”
“I’m very sorry,” he whispers, so earnest that my ancient heart could break.
My lips curve into a smile, and this time, when I nick the steel against the flint, a spark catches. As the flame takes, I turn and press my forehead against Thomas’s.
“The dragon egg produces heat, but it’ll need to be warmed, too,” I explain, stroking his wet hair before standing and heading towards the kitchen. I find a kettle, bottled water and an assortment of dusty tins.
“And it isn’t hurt, right?” Thomas asks with genuine concern.
“It’ll be fine,” I tell him, the water sloshing against the sides of the kettle as I fill it. I drop in a couple of teabags, then rush back over to set it on top of the stove. “Dragon eggs are sturdy things.”
I move around the kitchen, finding mugs and long-lasting milk and honey in a crusty jar. The scent of tea rises along with the warmth in the cabin.
“You told me you stole it back from the shifters, but what did they want with it in the first place?” His voice becomes more solid as he warms up.
“Dragons are powerful even after they’ve hatched, and become very territorial over their birthplace. The shifters basically wanted a fire-breathing guard dog.”
“And you didn’t like that?” he asks as I come back towards the stove with a mug containing a healthy dollop of honey and a splash of milk. I use an old oven mitt decorated with flowers to grab the hot kettle’s handle and fill a cup with steaming tea.
“I didn’t care, but the mother did. She paid me to get her egg back.”
“So you are a good guy.”
I wink, handing him the steaming cup of tea. Thomas is adorable, all bundled up in blankets. “Do not move from this spot, treasure. You will get nice and warm, or I’ll be very upset.”
“Is that even possible?” he teases, a deep sigh leaves him as he sips.
I exaggerate a pout. “Very.”
He laughs, a lovely little sound, but still frozen.
I’m quick to shrug off my own wet clothes, toss my reliable steel-capped boots aside—along with the dagger I hide in them—then grab the last blanket so I can tuck myself behind Thomas. Legs wide, I scoot close so he’s tucked into my chest and wrap my arms around Thomas’s middle.
“Oh…” he breathes, dropping his head on my shoulder. “So much better.”
“Good to hear,” I whisper into his ear, and when he shivers, I smell warmth enter his rushing river and mineral scent, like sun-baked waters.
“Tell me more about vampires,” he murmurs.
“We don’t care about sun, or garlic, and no cross ever held me back. Though I bet the monks and English we invaded wished it did when I was human.”
He tries to whip around. I chuckle and tighten my hold so he stays put.
“You were a Norseman?” he asks, excited. “Were you at the Raid on Lindisfarne? Oh! Or the Battle of Edington? Did you ever meet Rag—”
Laughter leaves me, and I press my nose into the crook of his neck. “I was from a little village made up of rock and strong-willed people. My father did go on some big raids, but he, my brothers and I were never the warriors people sang about.”
“Oh…”
I squeeze his middle. “Don’t sound so disappointed, treasure. I’m still a mighty Viking in my own right.”
“We both know your people weren’t called Vikings,” he grumbles, and I can hear his eyeroll.
I grin, pressing my nose deeper into his neck to fill my lungs with his scent. “You like history.”
“I study it. Well, I study Historical Methodology in Japan because it was the furthest I could get away from my family.”
“You don’t get along with them?”
“The opposite,” Thomas replies. “I needed to learn independence, and I couldn’t do that there.
I miss my brothers…Kai more than Teagan right now.
Kai’s a worrywart but makes me feel safe, kinda like you…
” Pride swells in my chest. I knew I’d be fantastic at this whole soulmate thing.
“Teagan would find this all very exciting. You’ll like him. ”
I hum. “Maybe, but I like you more.”
I feel the back of his neck warm. “You have brothers, too?”
“Three. I’m the second oldest.”
“I thought you’d be the youngest, like me,” he replies, taking a big gulp of tea.
I smile, breathing in his warmth. “But I’m so mature.”
Thomas snorts. “I still can’t believe you’re a thousand years old.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-one.”
“Young,” I sigh. “But I have no moral code to speak of.”
“I’m not surprised,” he replies, shaking his head—amused. “You are very old after all.”
A corner of the blanket slips, revealing a sliver of his shoulder. “Which you seem to like, my little history buff,” I say, voice low as I brush my lips across his smooth skin. So dark and beautiful. So very tempting.
“I can’t deny that…”
Thomas watches the fire, while I watch the slim column of his neck; his blood still lingering on my tongue, still hot in my stomach. The taste… indescribable. I’ll sooner forget every story I’ve ever collected than his deep flavour.
“How did you become a vampire?” he asks, his voice quiet as the storm rages on around us.
“A memory I haven’t thought about in a long time…”
“In…a bad way?”
“No, treasure,” I assure him, squeezing him tight.
“One day, my father crossed the sea. He never returned. It was…” I close my eyes as pictures of my father play.
“He’s a strong man. So big that when I was a child, I thought he could block out the sun.
He’d throw me up into the sky so high, I was sure I’d never come back down again.
” I chuckle. “He taught us how to be strong, how to farm and fight, told us stories by the fire, and I only realised he was mortal when he didn’t return. ”
The log pops, the fire heats the air around us, and Thomas presses his back into my chest to offer silent comfort.
“But years later, after my mother died and I’d become a man in my own right, he returned, and I learnt the truth. He became an immortal vampire and asked my brothers and me a question: would we like to join him?”
“I’m assuming you all agreed?” Thomas prods gently.
My smile digs into my cheeks. “I like stories, and what better story than one that never ends? But it was my father’s Maker who turned us.”
“Why?”
“To make another into a vampire, the vampire must have been turned longer than the human has been alive. The older the better, really.” I don’t tell Thomas it was agony turning into a vampire; it’d ruin the quiet mood we’ve created in this storm.
A subject for another time, when I ask him the same question I was offered all those years ago.
Thomas snuggles into my chest, his blanket slipping further down his wide shoulders. I press my face against his skin.
His breath hitches. “Tell me about your brothers…”
The fire crackles in the stove, there’s a soft slurp as Thomas sips at his tea, the steam curling from the metal mug.
“Sigurer is always on the move; we’re similar in that way. But unlike me, he’s been trying to find a purpose. A little lost that one. A bit crazy too.”
“So like you in that way, too?”
I chuckle, nipping at his shoulder. “úlfr is the oldest. If you placed my father, úlfr and a mountain together, it’d be impossible to pick which was more stubborn.”
“You’re going in a weird order.”
“I’m going in order of who’s my favourite.”
This makes him laugh again, and how I love the sound.
“The last is my youngest brother, Einarr. Broody fucker, always chasing tails.”
“He sleeps around?”
A chuckle rumbles in my chest, remembering when a drunk Einarr hunched over a table. His long blonde hair falling over his shoulders. On anyone else, his ridiculous hair would be feminine; yet on my brother, it made the tall fucker more frightening.
“One specific person,” I answer, Einarr’s voice in my memories complaining about someone who isn’t ready to be claimed.
But I’m not Einarr. Nothing could stop me from claiming what’s mine.
I pull Thomas closer, if that was even possible, the fire dancing over his lovely dark skin. “I’d rather talk about something else…” I say, hushed in the storm and the cabin that protects us.
“We don’t…” he sighs as I brush my lips across his shoulder, up his neck. “We don’t have…everything we need.”
“I have lube and condoms.”
He levels me with an unimpressed look from over his shoulder. “Why am I not surprised?”
“Because you know me,” I say, more serious than I meant, but I wouldn’t take it back. “I know you do, Thomas. Say it.”
He hesitates, our gazes locked, our noses brushing.
“I…I don’t know…”
“Please,” I beg, pressing my face into his cheek. Kissing the corner of his lips. “Please.”
The wind rattles, the fire flicks in the stove, his hooded eyes so dark I could fall into them.
Then he says the words every vampire’s mate speaks when meeting their soulmate, “I know you…” He whispers, eyes full and reaching out to me across a distance so vast it’s impossible we found each other. “Have we met before…?”
And in return, I say the only thing that could ever matter, “Soulmate.”