Chapter 37 #2
As a god, I’d have more sway to try to force her to stay with me. I could glimpse the future and understand her reasons for leaving and know where she went, so I could always follow her and keep watch over her.
But none of that was having her. None of that reflected the life I’d died defending on our farm in Vylheim. A life where I sat bent over smoky fires, listening to her weave the sagas with a rhythm like music.
With another branch in hand, I snapped off the twigs and lunged at Odin, taking advantage of the distraction Lux had caused with the stake buried in his back.
He ripped it out and tossed it on the ground.
Now that his focus was narrowed on her future movements, I had the opportunity to slip up behind him.
He didn’t turn around when I angled the branch at his heart.
But before the stake even brushed against him, I froze. I almost let go of the branch, then flexed my fingers around it in a tighter grip again. What the fuck was wrong with me? I was right here, ready to destroy him with a mere second to end his life and this fight and save both of our lives.
Then I knew.
I couldn’t shake the thought of Lux becoming a god.
As much as it terrified me to lose her, she’d be eternal.
Though gods could die, and this fight was proof of it, it was only by the hand of another, not by age, not by sickness, nothing.
She would finally be free. Selfish as it might be, if she lived, and I remained a vampire, we wouldn’t have to wait for future lifetimes to be with each other.
We wouldn’t risk being ripped away from each other, one taken to Valhalla and the other chosen for Folkvangr. If we weren’t together, it would be by her choice only.
And the gods would no longer have a say.
Death would no longer have a say.
Lux could ascend to the power of the Allfather, and if she chose this, we could reign as an endless king and queen. Or maybe not. Maybe we’d grow weary of rule and find a quiet farm.
“Endless,” I breathed.
But none of it was guaranteed. I couldn’t make her stay with me, and all I’d wanted since turning into a vampire was this vengeance—Hel, before that—since my mother had lost her mind to madness.
Vengeance for everything Odin had done to my mother, and Lux pulsed at my fingertips. The power to foresee the next moments and shape their outcome. The power of a fucking god.
And yet, I did not push the tip of the stake into him.
Shutting my eyes tight, I felt the discomfort in my joints and the burning in my chest. Just kill him. Do it.
No.
I refused to take this opportunity from Lux. This freedom. As a god, she’d no longer have Freya and Loki echoing through her skull. When I peeled my eyes open again, my breath was swept away.
In the time lost to my hesitation, fire engulfed the base of the tree. Licking and crawling up the trunk faster than I could make sense of it. Wood snapped and crackled in the flames, each pop mirroring the fire in my chest.
Suddenly, it hit me. Silver had arrived.
Hidden in the shadows, she had slipped up to Yggdrasil during our fight with Odin and set it ablaze, just as she had promised.
With my eyes sharper now, I caught silhouettes approaching in the shadows, only brightened when the fire cast a glow against them. Her army was right behind her.
This was it. With each flicker of fire, Lux’s huntress powers were being stripped from her. Everything we’d fought to come here for was stolen from us.
Except for the opportunity for godhood.
Odin shoved Lux forward once. Then twice, then again and again as he drove her further and further to Yggdrasil.
I bolted for them, the branch still in my grip, but this time, I did not angle it toward Odin’s heart.
“Lux,” I said, knowing this would draw Odin’s attention. He predicted her movements, but when his focus switched to me, she had a second to break free.
“Drak! He still has the branch—” her ragged voice cut off when I tilted my chin in a quick nod.
“I know,” I said. “Hit hard, Skald.”
Understanding sparkled in Lux’s midnight eyes. They widened, huge and round and suddenly full of fear. I hated seeing fear in them, but it was that fear that would trigger her to know what to do next. The same fear that we fought through together at the Battle of Sundered Sky.
For once, I could predict what Odin was going to do next. He would take this opportunity to slam it into me again, harder this time, in an attempt to pierce my ashen heart. Struck by the blunt stake of an ash tree, how ironic. I smirked. At least it wouldn’t hit deep enough.
The second blow from the branch sent me doubling forward, pain flooding my midsection and rattling my bones. Just as it hit, I let go, sure Lux would catch it when it fell.
And she did.
Of course she did. It wasn’t so different from what our love had survived before, even if we hadn’t. We knew this fight. Maybe I couldn’t see the future, but I knew the past. Lux snatched the makeshift stake just before Odin knocked me to the ground with another blow.
“Drak!” The echo of her scream pierced through me.
I slammed the front of my skull against his nose, but Kayn’s nose—Odin’s now—only dribbled black blood.
The impact didn’t so much as distract him.
Shoving harder and harder, the blunt branch broke through skin, then crushed my bones.
Pain overwhelmed me, and I could not hold back the grunt that came out of me.
He bore down on me with more effort, pinning me with his knees to a gnarled root.
Odin’s eye reflected the flames, burning with so much hatred that I couldn’t look at him.
My gaze flicked away. He was going to kill me.
It didn’t seem possible with the small piece of a branch, but his determination scared the fuck out of me and I felt death drawing closer.
He was insane, a god possessed with the thought of murder and nothing else.
Lux smashed against him with all her strength, but he did not budge. “Get off him,” she cried.
“Lux,” I garbled. “Kill him.”
“No,” she breathed.
Odin pushed against me, the blunt end pressing down on my heart and the weight of all nine realms pounding against my chest. The Allfather had made up his mind.
I would die first. He didn’t spare any attention for her, likely assuming she didn’t have the guts to kill the one she’d worshiped for so long.
“Lift the stake,” I said.
“No—” A sob seemed to cut her off. “The impact will push him down harder on you.”
Fuck. She couldn’t kill him, and he definitely knew it. She wasn’t going to let me die by the force of her own impact against him, so he was going to keep pushing, hoping to destroy me, knowing he was safe from her while doing it.
“Lux,” I said. “You have to do it.”
“No.”
“Yggdrasil is burning.” My voice was weaker. The edge of the stupid, blunt branch angling against the dead center of my heart. “It is now or never.”
“You’ll die.”
“Lux, Skald, my wife—” this time a sob cut me off. Fuck, it hurt so bad, but that wasn’t the source of the emotion welling in my throat. “I love you.”
“But you don’t have a soul, Drak, you’ll be lost.”
“I. Love. You. And that’s enough for me. Become a god.”
Odin still didn’t believe she would do it because he did not stop bearing down on me; his eye flickered orange with the mirror of the flames. Ravens screeched from somewhere above us, circling in the recesses of my vision like flies buzzing around the dead. They knew what was coming.
So did I.
But Odin knew Lux wouldn’t let me die. Being inside her head, he knew better than anyone what she was thinking. It couldn’t mean that she…was she really going to sacrifice a perfect chance of relief, and power, freedom, for me?
My throat went dry and my mouth chilled.
Tears rolled down Lux’s cheeks as she stood over Kayn’s body, Odin’s vessel. She shook her head slowly, letting the tears slip off her chin and splash against Odin’s back where she should be forcing the stake. She kept it angled perfectly, but never pressed down.
“I can’t,” she said.
A smirk ghosted across Odin’s mouth, and if I had any strength left to care about him, I would have raged, but Lux was the only one who held my attention. She was the only one who mattered.
“I wish we had never left Old Skaldir,” I said, “but we did and we’re here now. This is your freedom. Your life.”
“Not without you,” she said. “I can’t, Drak. I–” she licked her lips. “I love you.”
I could have sworn my black heart started to beat, but it was just Odin’s stake pressing down on me, breaking through the surface.
“What?” I tried to speak, but I could not give voice to the word.
Somehow she still seemed to understand, maybe from reading my lips. “I love you,” she repeated.
But just as Kayn had said, it was too damn late.
Odin gave it one more heavy shove, and the edge of the blunt branch pierced my heart. All at once, every trace of strength left my body. Black blood burst from my undead heart and spilled out of my chest, staining the pale ash branch.
Once the blood forced out and reached my skin, it spilled with a vampire’s speed, withering every bit of flesh it touched. My body was turning to ash before my eyes.
Instead of watching my own death, I dragged my eyelids up and stared in awe of the woman I loved, or rather the woman who loved me. Hel, she was perfect, even riddled with tears and sorrow. She fucking loved me.
My vision filled with a creeping blackness that spread like blood, but I refused to look away from her.
Yes, this had been reckless, but it’d always been exactly what I wanted, even if I didn’t know it when I came to Yggdrasil.
As clearly as I saw the past now, I didn’t know the future—that I would die for her freedom.
I only knew that I would die for her again and again.
Blackness enveloped me, and in the last moments of my life, I saw my wife kill a god.