Chapter 20-Draugr
A month had passed since the infirmary.
An entire month of restraint.
A month of grinding my teeth against the iron bars of my own will.
And I was slowly losing my damned mind.
Damn that interfering Witch—Professor Kenna—had ordered me away from Serena for the time being, to allow her to acclimate to the Asgarheim Runevald Institute.
To focus on her studies.
To allow her to learn control, to not tangle with Monsters, as Professor Kenna had so delicately phrased it.
Control.
As if I did not already live shackled by it.
I tried.
Fuck knows, I tried.
I buried myself in Runic Theory. In Blood-Binding Doctrine. In the ancient codices of the Draugen curse stored in the restricted wing beneath the western tower.
I submitted to meditation rituals designed to quiet the Bloodlust.
I let the scholars siphon controlled offerings from me to measure volatility.
But my need for her was greater than my will to obey the rules by which I’d been allowed to attend Asgarheim Runevald Institute.
For a moment or two, I thought Bloodlust would overtake reason entirely.
But in a cruel twist of irony—my hunger was centered on only one.
Serena Notte.
Her name did not whisper in my mind.
It burned.
It blazed across my thoughts with the intensity of a supernova, a rune carved into the back of my skull.
Every corridor I walked seemed to hum her presence.
Every torch flame bent slightly when she passed floors below me.
The Institute’s ancient wards trembled when our proximity narrowed.
I sat through my classes like a carved idol of a forgotten god.
Silent. Immovable. Terrifying.
Students avoided my gaze.
Professors avoided provoking me.
I refused participation.
I did not care about my grades.
Fucking hell. I was only at Asgarheim Runevald Institute to learn how not to be a nightmare.
But I had always been that.
What the fuck was all this for if the one person who could change my fate refused to speak with me?
Curiosity and confusion fueled my rage until I felt near bursting.
The need to have her.
To possess.
To dominate.
To make her mine.
It filled me like floodwaters behind a cracking dam.
And when that dam shattered—the gods and the mighty All Father help whatever stood in my path.
Now she sat in front of me.
And it was all I could do to force myself to pay attention to her words.
She was stunning.
Not merely beautiful.
Not merely desirable.
She was constructed of temptation and defiance and softness and strength.
A complicated woman with intricacies of heart and mind as layered as the runes carved into my cursed flesh. Her body was ripe with hills and valleys, designed by the Norns themselves to unmake me.
And fuck yes—I wanted her.
Her scent alone unraveled me. Sweet and dark and laced with something delicious and metallic beneath—her Necromantic power.
Death clung to her like perfume.
Not decay. Not rot.
But the velvet hush of grave soil after rainfall.
Her words filled me with anger and rage—not directed at her, never at her—but at Professor Kenna.
The Witch had disclosed the conditions of my admissions contract. Had made it abundantly clear I was here to control my Bloodlust.
But she had not explained the history behind it.
Oh no.
The clever Witch had left that to me.
This was it.
The real test of the Fates.
Or the Norns, as my people called them.
Were they as wise as prophecy claimed?
Or had they erred in weaving my thread through hers?
Only one way to find out, Draugr.
Stop being such a pussy.
I truly was dreadful at pep talks.
Sitting across from Serena, I allowed myself one indulgent moment to study her.
She wore a short, flowy black dress that revealed her shapely legs, stopping mid-thigh.
Tiny purple flowers danced across the fabric like captured starlight.
The neckline dipped low, exposing the soft swell of her breasts.
She was so damned pretty it hurt.
Her dark hair spilled in loose waves over her shoulders.
Her tanned skin glowed faintly.
Embarrassment?
Or arousal?
Fuck, I prayed it was the latter.
I did not think I could survive the night without kissing her at least once.
“If you don’t trust yourself with me, if you don’t want to be with me, then what does this all mean?” she asked.
Impatience sharpened her words.
But her scent betrayed her.
Her arousal drifted toward me, warm and intoxicating.
My eyes closed.
And then—images.
Not mine.
Ours.
Her thighs wrapped around my waist.
Her fingers digging into my shoulders.
Her mouth parted beneath mine.
The matebond bleed struck like lightning through marrow.
Fuck me.
They were coming from her.
Along with questions.
The loudest pierced me.
Why her?
Why would she, of all creatures, deserve the attention of a Monster?
If only she knew how unworthy I was.
“I can answer that question, Unnasta, if you let me.”
“I have another one I’d like answered first. Are you going to break me, Raven?”
“I don’t want to.”
“Then why are you doing this to us?”
“You know the answer already, Serena.”
Acceptance flickered through her.
“But I don’t know, Raven. I don’t know what this is or what this means. I need answers.”
“Where to begin,” I murmured.
It was early in our courtship.
But I was in this for the long haul.
Whatever happened now was of little consequence.
I was possessed.
And I would give my last breath for Serena Notte.
“Why don’t you tell me who you are? I want the real story, not the things people here whisper about you,” she said.
“I know the whispers. And they are not wrong, Serena. I am a Monster. The Draugr—or rather, I was just the Draugr. Now, I am more.”
“But your name is Raven.”
“Yes. Raven Draugsson. Heir to my Clan in the North. A leader in waiting. And I bear the mantle. I am Draugr.”
“I hate that name,” she said softly. “You are not that to me. You are Raven.”
Gods! What she does to me without even knowing.
“And I cannot tell you what that means to me to hear you say that, Unnasta. But you are wrong,” I forced out. “I am the Draugr. As my father was before me.”
Next, I told her about the origins of my curse.
Of the avalanche.
Of a scared people being trapped beneath ice and snow.
Of starvation.
Of cannibalism.
Of the vow carved into our lineage.
Her horror was honest.
Her compassion sharper still.
When she heard the vow aloud, something shifted inside me.
The Norns.
The Fates.
The clause of sated lust.
Destiny.
“I think you might be the one to sate my Bloodlust,” I told her.
“How?”
I moved closer.
Her heartbeat accelerated.
She smelled like frost-kissed pine and grave soil and temptation.
“I believe you are my destiny, Unnasta.”
“You think so?”
“I know.”
She drew closer by design or intent. It mattered little.
She was here now, and that was everything.
And when her lips met mine—there was no restraint left.
The kiss was violent in its hunger.
Not cruel.
But desperate.
Her body pressed to mine.
She straddled me.
And I let her.
Craved it.
Her hands removed my vest.
Traced the runes carved into my flesh.
My cock hardened painfully beneath her.
I growled her name.
She removed her dress. Next, her bra.
And my hunger surged to immeasurable heights.
When I bit her neck—not piercing.
Not yet—I tasted her pulse against my teeth.
It nearly undid me.
I kissed down her body.
Her breasts.
Her stomach.
Her thighs.
When I tore away her panties—her gasp fed something feral inside me.
And when I flipped her onto the bed? Her pulse thundered like war drums. The sound of blood rushing through her veins was like a symphony to me.
And how I hungered for her.
“Unnasta,” I murmured.
“What does that mean?”
“It means you are mine. My love. My betrothed. My mate.”
Mine.
Mine.
MINE.
She whimpered and her scent grew thicker. Headier.
Fuck, I loved her scent.
The feeling of her slick heat beneath my fingers.
The taste of her—silver fire and rainstorms and death magic blooming beneath my tongue.
Right then, my hunger fractured into two.
Bloodlust—yes.
Plain lust—for her.
And for the first time in centuries—they felt the same.
I wanted her more than blood.
More than air.
More than survival.
And that realization terrified me more than any curse ever had.
Mine.
Her pulse thundered beneath my mouth.
Not metaphor.
Not poetic exaggeration.
I could hear it.
Feel it.
Taste it without ever breaking skin.
Serena arched beneath me, her breath catching, her hands gripping at my shoulders as if she needed something—more—and the bond between us flared in violent agreement.
More.
The word wasn’t spoken.
It didn’t need to be.
It slammed through me like a war cry.
My fangs pressed harder against her throat.
Just enough to feel the delicate give of her skin.
Not enough to break it.
Not yet.
Gods.
The scent of her—sweet.
Alive.
Laced with that velvet-dark undertone of Necromantic magic that clung to her like a second skin.
It drove me mad.
My hands tightened on her hips, anchoring myself to something physical, something real, as my mind fractured into competing instincts.
Take.
Claim.
Feed.
No.
Protect.
Hold.
Don’t hurt her.
The conflict split me open.
A snarl tore from my throat before I could stop it, low and ragged, vibrating against her skin.
She gasped—not in fear, not fully—but in something that made everything worse.
Because she didn’t pull away.
She leaned into it.
“Raven,” she whispered.
My name.
Not my title.
Not the curse.
Me.
That was what nearly broke me.
The runes carved into my flesh flared, heat flooding through my veins, the ancient magic reacting to the surge in my control—or lack of it.
I could feel it slipping.
Not all at once. Not dramatically.
But enough.
Enough that the edge was no longer distant.
It was right here.
Beneath my teeth.
My tongue dragged slowly along the line of her throat, tasting the salt of her skin, mapping the rhythm of her life beneath it.
My vision blurred at the edges, narrowing to that single point of warmth, of pulse, of need.
If I bit her—if I just sliced through her soft skin—the thought hit like lightning.
And the hunger roared.
Not quiet anymore.
Not focused.
Not controlled.
It surged up, violent and ancient, the full weight of the Draugr curse crashing against the fragile restraint I’d built over centuries.
My grip tightened without meaning to.
She gasped again, sharper this time.
And suddenly—I felt it.
Her.
Not her body.
Her mind.
Fear.
Not overwhelming.
Not paralyzing.
But real.
A flicker.
A question.
Is this safe?
That was all it took.
I jerked back like I’d been burned.
Air rushed into my lungs in a harsh, ragged inhale as I forced distance between us.
My fangs retracted slightly, but not fully.
My hands hovered over her, shaking now, not from weakness—but from restraint so tight it bordered on agony.
“Fuck—”