Chapter 12
Lux
Hours after we had enjoyed one another, I woke to soft covers draped around me. It was a stark contrast to the hard muscles of Drak’s chest and the rigid length pressing against my ass. His face rested in my loose hair, fanning out around me like a coiled crown.
The force with which he’d made me come left my legs weak, even now, hours later, as I stretched them out from my curled position.
We’d both collapsed after the ecstasy. My eyelids felt especially heavy after the pressure of the wedding day—the performance we’d put on for a crowd of commoners and the royal court. For Silver’s sake.
But in Drak’s arms, I’d nearly forgotten about her, and that this wasn’t real. Despite the ring on my finger, we weren’t actually married. It was just a symbol, a prop in the act with which we entertained our audience.
I carefully rolled onto my back and twisted my head to face Drak.
His eyes were sealed shut, and his hair was wild, but a tender peace softened his hard features, and he breathed steadily.
Even in sleep, he maintained this human habit despite being a vampire king who’d killed humans and vampires alike.
Though that wasn’t unlike the warriors I’d dreamed of my whole life.
Perhaps it was the sagas that made me want to call him Rune, after reading so many runes among their pages.
It felt as though I had spent a hundred years waiting for him.
Nothing else explained this feeling. Those warriors existed centuries ago, even if I’d only been fantasizing about them for twenty-seven years.
I’ve waited a hundred years for you. The memory of his words prickled along my skin like breath. The words that’d sparked tears. Even now, the backs of my eyes burned. Why had he said that?
I’d been so lost in the pleasure of his body conforming to my desperate needs I failed to consider it.
Unlike sex with Bjorn and Kayn, Drak hit every aching spot.
He’d kissed me right when I needed it, and he’d met my gaze the second I wanted connection.
It must have been because he was listening to my thoughts.
But couldn’t Kayn have done the same? Or had I never truly wanted him?
None of that explained why I felt like I’d had sex with Drak before—many times. It had to be the dreams.
I brushed the back of my finger along his cheekbone, and for some reason, it felt as much a habit as Drak’s breathing.
My hand fell to his bare chest so I could trace the rune carved beneath his flesh in the shape of Yggdrasil.
For him, this mark was a cruel reminder of the gods he hated, but as I traced its inky lines, I admired every curve.
The other tattoos around the mark formed overlapping runes, something I knew he’d had inked into his skin on purpose.
Runes that spelled his vengeance.
He’d used the ancient language inspired by the Gods to write his revenge so that he’d never forget that it was Odin and Freya and Loki who destroyed his mother and ripped away the only family he’d ever known.
But it wasn’t the Gods’ fault that vampires tainted this realm. That was on the first witch.
His chest twitched from the feathery touch of my index finger. I drew back, observing his restless state as he sleepily reached for me. Even in his barely conscious state, he held me close.
“Drak,” I whispered. His only response was a slow sigh as sleep swallowed him again. I chewed my lip, tracing the outline of his face. “It didn’t feel fake to me either.”
Even now, with his body molded to mine and his arms wrapped around me, we lay as if we had slept side by side for years.
But we hadn’t been like this since our first journey to Mara’s Keep, and back then, I barely knew him.
There simply wasn’t enough time between us to explain this all-encompassing familiarity.
And why had he seen me crying blood?
Odin himself had shed tears of blood in some of the poetic sagas. I didn’t understand the connection, but Drak’s vision of me resembled poems written by the ancients. Symbolic and strange and convoluted.
The only way to understand them—even if it was only slightly—was to read them over and over.
I ran my thumb along the arm Drak had draped over my stomach. Carefully, I lifted his wrist and slipped out from beneath him. His mouth flickered into a frown, but he did not continue to stir.
The cold stone floor sent shivers racing through me.
I dressed quickly, then reached for something warmer to layer over my outfit: a wolf-skin cloak, left here by Drak.
Wrapping myself in its soft warmth, I padded to the door and crept into the hallway.
This new bedchamber, chosen by Drak for us to inhabit together, was only a few paces from the library.
Perhaps because I spent so much time among the books and scrolls and runestones, he wanted it close.
I pushed through the library’s heavy door. A low, rolling groan greeted me as I slipped into the room I loved. Everything was exactly where I had left it—except for the journal recounting the story of the first witch. It lay page-down; the papers spread, and the spine stretched wide.
I knelt on the feathery rug and slid my fingers beneath the brittle pages. Flipping it over, I slowly smoothed the creases in the paper as I scanned the runes.
The words were nothing new. I’d read this already, so I turned the pages until I did not immediately recognize the runes.
“Last battle,” I read aloud. The soft echo of my voice surrounded me, and I suddenly felt hollow, alone, as if Drak should be here listening.
I ran my finger over the runes and followed the story I’d been tracing over his bare skin only minutes before.
“The Battle of Sundered Sky. Three hundred and sixty-six men and women die at Freya’s feet.
Blood bleeds from the stone they wanted to claim as their own.
” I frowned. I respected the gods, worshiped them, and even admired the battles our ancestors had fought to claim land and protect their families.
Those struggles had always been about survival.
This one was different. Why kill one another over the ownership of a mere statue?
I sucked in a breath as I pored over Brynhild’s words.
“Freya, Goddess of Fertility, will bring no children to the wombs of either side.” I grimaced.
“Fuck.” Maybe I’d judged too soon. The survival of their people was also at stake, but like Myrah, nobody else received what they asked the Gods for.
“Weeping blood—” Ice filled my veins. Weeping blood, just as Drak had seen on my face in his strange visions.
I couldn’t read the rest of it fast enough.
Weeping blood, Freya spills her tears over the fallen whom she marks for after life in Folkvangr.
Winged women descend, drawing souls from the dead to feast with Odin.
Bloodied, Myrah crawls over bodies to her lover.
But she cannot beat the speed of the Valkyries; their wings carrying them with a force unmatched.
They touch him and choose him for Valhalla.
Freya’s blood marks her.
They split apart like the sky. Myrah’s broken state causes her to curse herself and future generations with her next choice.
Drak must have read this. His strange daydream had mixed with the memory of this saga and confused him. He didn’t see me crying blood. It was Freya.
I ran my finger along my lip as my eyes flew across the page.
I knew the next part, even if I hadn’t read this interpretation of the history.
Myrah claimed another dying warrior, Kayn, and using the power stolen from a Valkyrie, she transformed him from near death into an undead.
His soul shattered, leaving a creature of eternal existence she could drain from—her path to Valhalla, to her lover.
“But she never made it,” I said to nobody. My heart skipped. “All that for nothing. All of this pain and terror was thrust upon us because she wanted to be with her lover.”
If anybody was selfish, it was Myrah. How could Drak not see that Silver was the same?
I continued reading, hoping to understand whatever had made him so confident that Silver was nothing like Myrah.
Her love is transcendent. Her love reaches beyond realms. It stirs in Folkvangr, Midgard, Valhalla, and beyond because he first loved her. He reaches for her, soul to soul, and he relinquishes the reward of his afterlife.
“No,” I breathed. “No way he chose to leave Valhalla.” All my life, I had seen Valhalla as the ultimate reward. To feast with Odin was the greatest honor of all, one no faithful warrior would willingly surrender.
Except Myrah’s lover did.
As she cannot come to him, he seeks to return to her.
“Rebirth,” I said, before continuing to read aloud. “But the Valkyries have chosen him. Only a sacrifice can bring him forth—”
“And fill his veins with life again,” another voice said.
My pulse caught in my throat, and the book slipped from my fingers.
It fell onto the rug with a thud as I spun around.
Blinking, my brain tried to catch up with the sight before me.
I almost didn’t recognize the vampire who slunk toward me.
One foot in front of the other, the cloaked figure stepped closer.
He pulled back the hood, revealing green eyes and a clean-shaven jaw.
“His heart with the rune of her name,” he continued.
“The chamber from which her blood flows.”
“Kayn,” I said, breathless. I stood frozen to the spot, my feet stuck to the rug, and my limbs too heavy to move.
Even if I’d wanted to, I couldn’t run to him.
When Silver took him, I’d thought that once we were reunited, I’d run to him and throw my arms around his neck, but shock—or maybe it was guilt—froze me.
Kayn was so good, so pure. But it was Drak who made me feel like I was coming home.