Wrath of the Ruined (The Bloodrune Saga #2)

Chapter 1

Drak

It was rather convenient that one of the stupid fucking vampires hunting my wife came after her in the throne room, where I could settle into my seat as king and watch the show. All I needed was someone to bring me a goblet of wine—or preferably, blood.

I leaned forward with my elbows on my knees and my fingers clasped, absorbing every second of the fight. From the throne, I had a perfect view of each blow. I smirked as Lux slashed at the vampire with a silver pendant.

The show was getting good, though I didn’t love that it had interrupted our conversation.

After four weeks of curating a plan, Lux had agreed to come to the throne room and discuss it with me.

Four fucking weeks after she came back to Mara’s Keep, and she was finally ready to talk.

Then this creep stalked out of the shadows and attacked her, ruining my chance.

The vampire’s speed outmatched Lux’s movements every time, but she was smarter.

Ever the clever little killer, Lux drew his attention to the silver pendant by slashing at him with it.

He misinterpreted the pendant to be the primary threat and lunged for it.

What he didn’t know—what only I knew about Lux—was that she always kept the wooden stake strapped to her thigh beneath her skirts.

Even when she was nearly naked and sprawled across her bed in the room beside mine. My cock stiffened at the thought of it.

I scooted closer to the edge of the throne, my gaze following their every movement.

When the vampire bolted for the pendant, Lux let him knock it from her hand.

It fell between their feet, the chain a pile of glinting metal.

Then she allowed him to pin her to the cold stone with her thick autumn braid sprawled out on the floor beside her.

All of this was to make him believe he had the upper hand.

I chuckled and shook my head. One of these days, those who betrayed me would realize that their strongest vampires were powerless to take down the huntress.

Lux had already destroyed eighteen of them since she came back to me.

They’d have to bring the whole damn army to reach me or my wife, and Mara’s Keep was built to be impenetrable against such a siege.

“Good luck,” I muttered, as if Lux’s sister—the leader of the damn vampire army—was somewhere nearby and could hear me.

She wasn’t. I knew that much. They were trying to remove us the easy way first. Lux wasn’t a trained huntress yet, and she didn’t have experience, so I could see Silver’s logic in trying to attack her now.

But what she failed to realize was that Lux had already spent a lifetime defending herself, even if it wasn’t against vampires.

Lux grunted under the weight of the vampire pressing his knee on her chest. I shot to my feet. There was no way he would win, but I didn’t like the sound she’d made. My wife would never suffer. I’d see to that, although she didn’t want my help.

“Do you want me to tear him apart?” I asked.

Lux twisted her neck, straining to see me from her spot on the floor. The look she gave me was one of pure frustration. “Fuck you, Drak!” she said. “You’re distracting me.”

The enemy ignored our bickering as he moved in a blur.

Candlelight flashed along his fangs as he seethed and struggled to keep her in place.

Beneath him, she wriggled free; her face tinted red, the white scar from another vampire’s fang stark against her cheek.

His hands closed around her throat, and every muscle in my body twitched to go help her.

But if I did, she’d only chew me out afterward, and when you’re trying to convince someone to marry you, pissing them off would be a terrible setback.

I shouldn’t call her my wife, yet I couldn’t help myself.

Something within me drew me to her, and it had nothing to do with her fate as a vampire huntress.

Lux gasped, breathless, but she wasn’t done. She twisted and reached through the high slit in her skirt, ripping the stake from where it was strapped to her thigh and angling it toward the weak spot in his ribcage.

I sat, wishing again that I had a drink in hand while I watched this bastard get destroyed.

Since becoming the huntress, Lux never failed to win a fight, but the little tricks and allowances she used to throw off her prey’s focus worried me.

Sometimes, I forgot I could sit back and watch the idiot who defied me and my crown die a miserable death, and I didn’t have to lift a finger.

The moment he or any of the other vampires or humans followed Silver, they threw away their loyalties and became my enemies.

Lux stabbed the stake at the vampire’s chest, but he retaliated with lightning speed, smashing the heel of his palm against the stake and knocking it from her hand the way he had with the silver pendant. It clattered to the floor only a few inches away from them.

“Can I offer my lady a hand?” I said, amusement curving my voice.

Lux released a string of curses, my name mixed in. She bucked her hips, throwing the vampire’s weight off balance. My lips curled. She flipped to her side and reached for the stake, but as always, the vampire was faster.

It didn’t matter that he beat her to it because it was all a ruse.

She was free now. She smashed the silver pendant into the side of his face, drawing a pathetic cry as he dropped the weapon.

Tendrils of steam rose from his burning skin.

Lux swiped the stake from the ground and shoved it halfway up into his ribcage.

He gripped it to stop her from pushing deeper, but her abilities as a huntress gave her the strength to overpower him.

With one final huff, Lux plunged the stake deeper, and his heart exploded with his entire body turning to ash. She stood over her kill, panting. Damn if I didn’t want to make her pant like that.

Aware of my stare, she turned to me and marched away from the dust shuddering on the floor. The storm outside raged hard enough to blow a draft through the castle’s hall and make goosebumps pebble over Lux’s skin.

“Never do that again,” she snapped. She pointed the tip of the silver tree pendant at me as if it were a switch or a rod she’d use to punish me. “What if he’d gotten away and Silver heard the king is fighting alongside the huntress?”

“So what?” I smirked. “Can’t a king protect his lady in his own damn castle? All it’ll tell her is that you have me and all of my loyal subjects on your side.”

A low vibration of thunder rippled through the stone, as if the gods were reminding me that this fortress wasn’t as invincible as I believed. But Silver was no god, and one of these days she’d realize the scouts they sent to lure us out into the open were sacrifices.

“It only makes me look weak.” Lux huffed as she spread the slit in her skirt.

My gaze dropped to her bare leg. The only thing covering her thigh was the leather straps of the holster I’d made for her to carry the stake against her leg.

Only inches from my reach, I had to squeeze my hands into fists, resisting the urge to touch her exposed leg.

This pull between us wasn’t why she came to me four weeks ago. She’d wanted me, briefly, and more than that, she wanted the help I could give her. Apparently, she didn’t feel the same draw that I did.

I relaxed my hands as if I could release this inexplicable obsession I had with her.

After securing the stake and dropping her skirts to fall back over her leg, she pinned me with her gaze.

“Silver and her army need to know that I can stop them. Your loyal subjects won’t exactly be with us on the way to the tree of Yggdrasil.

” That much was true. Surviving the wasteland would be a feat only a vampire and a huntress with god powers would attempt.

The remaining vampires loyal to me would stay behind and guard Mara’s Keep.

She tucked a loose hair behind her ear as she continued.

“Even if we beat her there, she’ll be at our heels and we’ll have to fight to stop her from burning the tree. ”

“So let it burn.” I shrugged. Fury tinted her all-black witch eyes.

That was obviously the wrong thing to say.

I waved my hand and leaned my back against the throne.

“Yes, sure…” My voice dripped with sarcasm that was sure to piss her off, but I couldn’t help it.

Ridding the gods’ access to this world was a victory in my humble opinion.

“Let’s not free your mind from a bunch of asshole gods. Great idea.”

She bared her teeth and stepped closer. With her hands splayed on the arms of the throne, she caged me in, and I lapped up every second.

“That tree gives me access to my powers,” she said, “and you know this. Besides, without it, you can’t become a god.”

“The tree itself won’t make me a god.” Though I needed to do as Odin did, hanging from the tree for nine days to gain the wisdom of how to kill a god.

Once I killed a god, I’d become one, replacing Odin or Freya or Loki’s roles in the ether.

That was what my mother had learned when she was a seer.

That gods bled. They died. And their killer felt a surge of power and pain all at once as they absorbed powers from the dead divine.

She scoffed, a grim smile twisting her face as her gaze flicked to the tattoos peeking out of the collar of my tunic. “My point is, you have to stop them from burning it as much as I do.”

“And that’s where my plan comes in.” I straightened. “As I was saying before that idiot interrupted us, we make your sister and her army believe you’re weak.”

“What the Hel is wrong with you?” Her mouth dropped open. “That’s the exact opposite of what I want.”