CHAPTER 7 RAGNOR
CHAPTER 7
RAGNOR
Two grown men sat in front of him, looking like shameful three-year-olds. And that made Ragnor feel like he was getting far too old for this job.
“When I gave you the Imprint,” he said now, pacing around the two crestfallen newbies, “I did so knowing that, at twenty-five years of age, you should be mature enough to acclimate to this new life.”
The two did not raise their heads. Good. “The waiting list is long and full of potentially special individuals. Not everyone gets to be on it, and not everyone gets to be given the Imprint.”
He paused before one of the two. “Both of you have been on the list for five years, during which my team and I conducted a thorough background check and extensive interviews to make sure you two are fit to become vampires.” He couldn’t help the disgust dripping from his voice. “You two have an impeccable record. Both of you went to Ivy League schools and graduated summa cum laude. Both of you come from good families. Your records are clean, your peers and family had nothing bad to say about either of you, and your personalities showed good-naturedness that is rare with young men in this day and age.” He paused. “Allegedly.”
The man he stood before, Jerome Foster, started trembling. His friend and accomplice, Denny Kurtz, was perspiring so much Ragnor’s nose itched at the stench. He never liked the smell of fear; it was acerbic and foul. And yet, in cases such as this, when fear was not just required but necessary, it could smell absolutely euphoric.
Jerome and Denny needed to be scared. They needed to feel like they had no way out of this. Because they didn’t. He refused to let criminals stay in his League.
“There are certain options for trash like you two,” he said now. “None of them are good. Disciplinary actions won’t cut it for the likes of you. Even the League System Agreement can’t protect you in this case. Thus, your options are limited.”
He crouched before Jerome, whose trembling increased until the chair he was sitting on started to crack. “This is the first and last opportunity for you to speak, Foster. So tell me, in your own words, what you think happened last night.”
Jerome dared raise his eyes, but when he saw the glow in Ragnor’s, he immediately looked away. “It–it was c-c-c-consensual,” he stuttered. “I–I s-s-swear.”
Ragnor grabbed his hair and pulled his head back harshly. Jerome squeaked. “Lying won’t do you any good, Foster.”
This time, the one who responded was Denny. “She was flirting with us!” he yelled. “She kept on making moves on both of us, and then she invited us to her room and ... and—”
“And she told you loud and clear to stop.” Ragnor cut him off, his disgust for the two making him release Jerome’s hair so hard his neck made a satisfying popping sound. “She could’ve begged you for sex for all I care, but the moment she told you to stop, you should have fucking stopped.”
Neither of them replied. Which was what Ragnor wanted. Because there was no good answer they could give him now. “I can be pretty lenient when it comes to newbies,” he said, “but rape, among other things, is where I draw the line.”
He straightened and walked to his desk phone. Pressing the intercom, he told his secretary, “Bring him in.”
“At once, my Lord,” his secretary replied, and a moment later, his office door opened, and Magnus, his senior Lieutenant, entered. His face was contorted in rage, his eyes full of wrath he couldn’t wait to unleash.
“Take them to the cellars,” Ragnor told his Lieutenant.
With a vicious glint in his eyes, Magnus grabbed the two men and dragged them out of the office.
Now that this was dealt with, Ragnor left his office and took the escalator to the infirmary. Usually, the infirmary didn’t see a lot of action—vampires healed much quicker than humans, after all. But some wounds ran deeper than skin, and for that reason, the infirmary was still in place.
There was only one occupied bed in the infirmary when he entered, and it was closed with a veil for privacy. The nurse in charge, Eva, approached him before he could go there. “She needs more time, my Lord,” Eva now said, her eyes full of pain. “She’s not in her right mind—”
“I would’ve given her all the time in the world if I could,” Ragnor replied, meaning every word, “but given the nature of things, I’m afraid I have to speak to her before this gets out.”
Eva grimaced. “Then I’m sitting in,” she said, folding her arms. “I’ll sign an NDA if that’s what it takes. She can’t be alone with a man right now, my Lord.”
He understood Eva’s worry—and accepted it too. “No need for an NDA,” he said as he started walking toward the veiled bed. “Just give me your word you’ll keep everything you hear to yourself.”
She gave him a sharp nod. Ragnor, of course, didn’t trust Eva—he hardly trusted anyone nowadays. So it was a good test to see if Eva could earn some of his trust, after almost five years in his League.
Eva now pulled the veil, revealing the bed with the tiny woman lying in it. The woman, one of the youngest he’d ever given the Imprint to, looked so pale and fragile, as if one blow of the wind could snap her bones in half. She was thinner than when he last saw her, and with her absurdly long strawberry blonde hair and large baseball-size blue eyes, she looked closer to a corpse than a living being.
“Hello, Tansy,” Ragnor said quietly, taking a seat near her bed. Her eyes were open, staring at the ceiling almost unseeingly. “How are you feeling?”
For a few long moments, Tansy didn’t respond. He was willing to wait, though, and minutes later, as if only then the words computed, Tansy finally spoke. “Déjà vu.”
Ragnor tensed and glanced at Eva. She seemed just as perplexed as he was. Curling his hands into fists, he returned his gaze to Tansy. “I truly hope that is not the case,” he said as gently as he could, but it was hard, what with his emotions riding him at the moment.
She rolled her head toward him slowly and stared at him unblinkingly, her face sealed. “Lord Rayne,” she suddenly said, in a voice so airy and dreamlike he started to think that perhaps she thought she was asleep. “It’s not the first time, and certainly not the last, when people see me as a tribute.”
“My Lord,” Eva whispered, “I think it’s enough—”
“What do you mean by tribute ?” he asked, ignoring Eva for now. He recognized the same thing Eva did, but he couldn’t just let it be. Because a dark feeling crawled into the pit of his stomach, trying to tell him something he still wasn’t sure of.
Tansy smiled eerily. “Doesn’t matter now,” she murmured, “because I was chosen. They were with me.”
Ragnor stilled. “Who was with you?”
Her lids dropped over her eyes as she whispered in a barely audible voice, “The Morrow Gods.”
Ragnor had gone over the family tree in the Tefat repeatedly. There were all kinds of names in there but none that could help him.
The only way to solve the mystery was for Aileen Henderson to talk to Tansy Contos herself.
And for the first time since who knew how long, Ragnor admitted that he’d made a mistake.
He should never have let her go. And it wasn’t simply about his incessant need to know about her origin, past, and everything in between.
It was because he couldn’t rest even for a second not knowing what she was doing at any given moment.
“She’s a threat,” he now told Eliza as they had their weekly meeting at his League-owned pub.
Eliza stared at him, evidently impatient. “That’s what I’ve been trying to get into this thick skull of yours,” she bit out. “So. Are you going to eliminate her?”
His eyes glowed as his entire body tensed with rejection. “No,” he gritted out. “She can be an asset, if I have her. But as long as she belongs to another League—to Atalon, of all people—she’ll never cease to be a threat.”
“So it all comes down to the fact you want her,” Eliza said, looking at him with something akin to disgust. “Fucking men and their dangling dicks.”
He glared at her. “My personal feelings have nothing to do with it.”
“Liar.” She shook her head. “Your personal feelings have everything to do with it, but sure, keep telling yourself otherwise, you fool.”
“Eliza,” he growled warningly.
She threw up her hands in frustration. “Don’t use that tone with me!” she snapped. “You know I’m right, so why are you trying so hard to deny it?”
Ragnor’s fury rose so quickly and hot, a red haze fell over his eyes. “I’m not denying shit,” he grated out. “You’re just romanticizing something you shouldn’t—”
“You’re so fucking full of it.” She cut him off angrily, her eye flaring. “You can use all the words in the entire world, but the truth is, you like her. Hell, you more than like her. You have serious feelings toward this woman. Maybe you even love—”
“Shut. Your. Mouth.” His growl this time was so loud, the humming buzz of chatter in the entire pub came to an abrupt stop.
The silence was so heavy, a few customers hurried to escape the aftermath of his outburst. But when the chatter resumed, Ragnor’s anger transformed to a self-directed rage at losing his cool. Eliza, too, looked at him as if she had never seen him before. And this Ragnor, the one who would dare lose his cool in front of anyone, was indeed someone she had never before seen.
She was the first to break the silence, and when she did, her voice was awfully gentle. “Does it always have to be Yulia?”
An old pain bloomed in his chest at the sound of that name, and he didn’t respond. But Eliza, who’d never cowered from him, pushed on. “It’s been almost six centuries, Ragnor. Don’t you think it’s ... well, that it’s time you move on?”
It was never a question of moving on, but Eliza knew too much as it was. She didn’t need to know that too.
A plain full of beautiful grass spread around him. Flowers of all types and colors bloomed within the grass strands, glinting in the soft light of the setting sun. A cool breeze swept his hair away, blowing at his sweatpants and his naked chest.
Distantly, he wondered where he was, but before he could dwell on that, he saw a figure coming from the other direction. That figure grew closer and closer, until he could finally see her face.
Her beautiful hazel eyes looked at him with so much affection, he was caught off guard. A smile he’d never seen on her face before stretched her pretty lips. Her gray summer dress clung to her curvy, gorgeous figure, contrasting against her smooth olive skin.
But most curious was her hair. It was in its usual high ponytail, sliding in soft waves to the middle of her back, but it wasn’t brown, as he knew it to be. Instead, it was the color of pure gold.
“Ragnor!” She called his name and started running toward him. Instinctively, he held out his arms, and she laughed in delight, a sound he’d never heard her utter, and fell into his arms, wrapping her own around his neck. He sucked in a breath, and her sweet cider smell hit him in full, making him bury his head in her neck, needing to take a deep breath, to brand this smell into his skin.
When he wrapped his arms around her, he could feel all his worries melt away. It was as though he’d been parched in the desert for so long, and she was the oasis he didn’t know he was looking for. It felt like he’d been roaming around endlessly, and she was his home.
“God, Aileen,” he whispered, unable to help himself as his arms tightened around her, needing to meld her body to his. “I need you. I need you so much.”
That beautiful laughter left her again, a sound he wished he could hear forever. “I need you too,” she whispered before leaning back and facing him. Then her smile slowly disappeared. “But you left me, Ragnor.”
He felt as if his chest was split open. “I didn’t mean to,” he said, cupping her head in his hands. She leaned against them, her eyes closing. “I wanted to take you back. But I was a fool.” He leaned his forehead against hers. “I waited too long, and I let you get snatched away before I could do what I really wanted to do. Please,” he said, almost shocked that he uttered that word. “Please believe me.”
She let out a sad sigh he could feel breaking his heart. “I want to believe you,” she whispered, opening those beautiful eyes of hers and staring at him, “but how can I, when you’re not here?”
Her words cut him deep. “I ...,” he started but then stopped. What could he say, when she was absolutely right? He didn’t come to her. He kept on stewing on everything by himself, stubbornly indecisive.
She retreated her arms from him and stepped back, but he didn’t want to let her go. “Wait,” he said, reaching out to her, but she was somehow out of reach now, so far away from him. “Please, Aileen—”
She gave him a smile so sad, Ragnor fell to his knees. “I can’t wait, Ragnor,” she whispered. “You’ve made your choice, and I will now make mine.”
“No,” he growled now, climbing to his feet. “I won’t let you—”
But she was gone now, out of his reach, leaving him alone in the beautiful field of grass.
Ragnor woke up with a gasp.
His breaths came out shallow and short. His heart was beating hysterically in his chest. Perspiration covered his face, mixed with something salty that came out of his eyes.
He was crying.
“No,” he whispered, pushing away the blanket. He strode to the bathroom and stared at the mirror. He saw the fresh tears sliding over his cheeks, a sight he did not know what to do about.
Because it hadn’t happened in more years than he could remember.
And that’s when he knew.
He couldn’t keep doing this to himself. Pride? Ego? Since when had these things prevented him from going after what he wanted?
Eliza had been right all along. That dream proved it like nothing else ever could.
Because he recognized that field from the dream. He recognized its meaning, which was far deeper than simple dreamscapes could ever be.
And unlike in his dream, he refused to leave Aileen again.
No matter what.