Page 30 of Heart of Chaos (Chaosborn #1)

Chapter thirty

Arik

The next week blurred into exhaustion, bruises, and the most glorious physical intimacy I’d ever known.

Each morning, I let Tormund push me and Baldur until we could barely crawl back to our room. And each night, Eisa and I made love like we wouldn’t have another chance. I revelled in learning her body, studying it like a scholar presented with the most holy of tomes. I memorized her curves, her shivers, the way she gasped my name.

The memory sustained me as I made my way back to our rooms from yet another pointless and painful patrol. I could feel my back dripping blood again, the wound unable to properly heal without real rest.

But it seemed unlikely that Einar would let me have any, especially when I’d use the time to thoroughly bed my mate.

Focus, Baldur grumbled. We’re in far too much pain for that.

No such thing, I replied optimistically. We’ll rally.

Eisa was sitting on the bed, one of the scrolls I’d retrieved from the archives spread open before her as she struggled over the flowery script.

“Anything?” I asked, wincing as I pulled off my tunic, feeling the bandages caked with blood.

She sighed, rolling the scroll back up as she stood and made for the towels. “Nothing important. I’m not even entirely sure what I’m looking for.”

“Anything about the last blue,” I suggested as she pressed a hot washcloth to my back to loosen the old bandages. I hissed, but the sting of heat on broken skin was almost a relief—at least it meant I could still feel something. “Or about closing the Rift.”

“You really think there are records of that in the archives?” she asked skeptically. “You told me no one knew about the healed portion of the Rift.”

“No one to my knowledge,” I corrected, sighing as she smeared the soothing salve over my wounds. I caught her around the waist as she finished and pressed a kiss to the spot on her neck that made her shiver. “I need my damn back to finish healing so we can explore some new positions with you.”

She blushed, batting me away playfully and rolling up the open scroll. “Your back didn’t stop you any other night this week.”

“True.” I grinned as I leaned over her and pressed another kiss to her neck before settling on the bed.

“Or you could stop being stubborn and let me heal it,” she added, shivering deliciously beneath my touch.

“Not a chance. Did you do your exercises today?”

She wrinkled her nose in distaste. “Yes. Although I’m not sure how holding my body still in various contortions will prepare me to fight the odemarksdyr.” The pile of scrolls collapsed across the floor, and she growled in annoyance. She was right—we really did need a table in here. Though, personally, I had more interesting uses in mind than just a place to store scrolls.

Focus, Baldur growled again.

I cleared my throat, trying not to think about taking Eisa over a table. “They’re isometric exercises. Idunn gives you strength, but you lack control.”

She rolled her eyes and put her arms around my neck, then lifted her knees to rest on the bed as she straddled me.

“Again, if I can breathe fire, why bother with the exercises?” Her voice was breathy, and I had to stifle a groan as she shifted against me.

“None of that. This is a serious conversation.”

“Very serious,” she agreed, her voice turning sultry as she shifted her hips once more.

“You literally just told me I wasn’t in fit condition,” I groaned, my voice growing deeper as blood rushed away from my brain.

I ran my hands over her ass and squeezed, earning a playful smack on the shoulder. “I thought this was a serious conversation?”

I laughed. This was my new favorite thing about her—the playful, teasing, easy intimacy that came with my reassurance that what I felt for her was real. She still had quiet moments—moments of uncertainty when her eyes shuttered and she looked at me with cold calculation—but more and more I was able to banish them with a reminder that I wouldn’t leave her. Tease a gentle, irreverent flirtatiousness from her.

I felt lighter than I had in years.

“You can’t grind all over me and expect me to behave myself,” I teased, gliding my hands under her tunic where her soft skin was warm and inviting. “I’m not—”

A boom sounded in the mountain above us, and the walls of the cave shook as dust fell from the stone.

What the hell was that? I asked, reaching for Baldur.

Odemarksdyr, he replied, his voice shifting in a way that I knew he was speaking to both me and Eisa. At the gate.

“This conversation is not over,” I growled, already on my feet as the walls shook again. I caught Eisa by the waist to steady her as I reached for my nearest weapon. I was in no state to shift, so it would have to be steel instead of fire against the odemarksdyr.

“How did they even get close?” Eisa asked, holding my arm tightly as the room shook again. “There are patrols!”

They are huleskygge, Baldur answered before I could stop him. They move in shadow.

“Stay here,” I commanded, giving Eisa’s waist a squeeze as I left her.

“I’m coming with you,” she argued, grabbing my hand as I made for the door.

I turned, catching her by the shoulders before she could cross the threshold. “Absolutely not.”

“Why—”

“Because firstly, Idunn is too big to fight inside the smokestack, and you’ve yet to learn to wield a sword.”

She opened her mouth to protest, so I plowed on. “And secondly, because Einar has forbidden you from leaving your room, and I want him to see how much of a bloody idiot he is for it. And finally—”

I kissed her hard, pouring my desperate need for her—my love and devotion—across our mental bridge, only pulling away when I felt her submit to the embrace. I brushed a second kiss over her lips, walking her back toward the bed as I murmured, “Because if something happens to you, I will tear this fucking mountain apart.”

Her knees hit the edge of the bed, and she sat as I bolted for the door. Another rumble sounded above as I locked it behind me, and then the rumble turned into a pounding from the other side of the door. “Don’t you dare lock me in this fucking room, Arik Ulvsanger!”

I love it when you swear, I shot over our bridge as I left her pounding on the door behind me.

Her reply was a snarl of fury and frustration. I will kill you for this! Let me out!

I slammed down my mental walls, cutting her and Idunn off.

Do you really think that was wise? Baldur drawled in a voice that meant he already knew the answer was no.

She can’t hate me if she’s dead, I reasoned, running up the slope toward the main hall of the smokestack. I’ll make it up to her. Find out where Jorgen and Revna are.

“Here!” Jorgen called, jogging up behind me. “Revna was on patrol. Called in the alarm.”

“Branka?” I asked, knowing Eisa would want to know her friend was safe.

“In our room,” he replied with a wince. “She’s not happy about it.”

I laughed humorlessly. “Neither is Eisa.” How many? I added to Baldur.

At least twenty, he replied. But more are coming over the top of the smokestack.

“Fuck.” Huleskygge were nasty in a completely different way from jotnar or myrkvolf. They crept through shadow, making them nearly impossible to see at night. They would latch onto any living creature, draining them of life in a matter of minutes, and only dragon fire could stop them.

My damn sword would be useless against them.

Kindra says that others follow, Baldur warned. So perhaps not totally useless.

What others?

Garmr. Jotnar. Baldur growled in fury. And a draugr.

“Shit,” Jorgen swore. Sigurd must have relayed the message to him as well. “How did a draugr get this far without being seen?”

“This is no random attack. This is an assault.”

“What are they after?” Jorgen asked, breathing heavily behind me as we ran.

“Not what. Who. Idunn.” A powerful dragon would draw them, and it made sense that they’d come for her when she was still newly bonded and untrained. She was a threat, more than any other living drage, and only that could unite so many odemarksdyr at once.

The sound of battle grew louder as we entered the smokestack, and I swore.

What looked to be hundreds of huleskygge were climbing down the walls of the cavern, kept at bay by a few bronzes and golds who were attempting to blast the horde to stop them from advancing.

The clang of steel and screams of the dying and wounded told me the battle was not going our way.

“Go help them!” I shouted, pointing at the bronzes and golds flying above us.

“What about you?” Jorgen shouted as I ran for the slope that led up the side of the cavern.

“I’m going to the doors!”

I heard Jorgen swear behind me, then saw Sigurd as he took off toward the huleskygge cresting over the smokestack.

Ask Kindra what it looks like out there, I commanded, wishing I had Eisa’s talent of speaking directly with the dragons.

There are two reirholds trying to stop the assault from the outside, he replied. But they are outnumbered, and draugr are hard to kill.

Oh, you don’t say.

Sarcasm is not useful at this time, Baldur growled as I ran for the armory.

It had been at least a decade since I’d seen a draugr, and I could have happily gone my whole life without seeing another. They were the size of jotnar, but formed entirely of bones, the rags and armor hanging off them from some ancient race that lived beyond the Rift. Their empty eye sockets held an eerie blue light, as if they carried the energy of the Rift with them, and unlike jotnar, dragon fire alone wasn’t enough to kill them. Even when decapitated, their remains would continue to claw and fight. The only sure way to end one was to destroy the beating heart of Chaos protected by their ribcage.

And that required pure iron.

I skidded to a stop inside the armory, which was eerily empty for an active attack.

I thought Revna called in the alarm.

She did, Baldur growled darkly. Einar told the reirholds to defend the walls. Either he didn’t know about the draugr, or he didn’t think it would make it past them.

And where the fuck is Einar now? I grabbed a heavy iron blade and shield, feeling the draining metal steal some of Baldur’s magic.

Drage were less sensitive to pure iron than the odemarksdyr, the dragons having far more chaos in their blood to offset it. But holding pure iron was never pleasant, and most preferred steel weapons to dull the icy drain of iron negating our magic.

I can’t tell. I felt Baldur frown, tension clouding our connection. Something is wrong. I can’t sense him.

Call everyone back! I commanded as I sprinted for the gates .

The reirleders? Baldur asked skeptically, grinding his jaw against the pull of the iron as his magic writhed.

Everyone, I growled. Pull fucking rank and tell every damn dragon to get back here.

Baldur went silent as he complied, and I ran for the gate. Two Chaosborn guards were holding the doors, neither armed with anything more useful than steel as the golds and bronzes around them tried to keep the Huleskygge from feasting on their souls.

“Get back,” I snarled, lifting the shield before me as the doors began to buckle. “And raise the alarm. Get iron weapons and as many Chaosborn as you can!”

The men fled, stumbling down the stone hallway behind me as I faced the doors alone.

A boom shook the fortress as the door on the left began to buckle. A tearing of wings behind me told me that more drage were taking to the skies, and from the corners of my vision, I saw the huleskygge creeping down the walls, dripping shadows held at bay by the occasional blast of dragon fire.

The draugr was mine, then.

Ready? I asked, letting Baldur’s strength flood me. He might not be fit to shift, but it didn’t mean I couldn’t use his power. I felt him staring out of my eyes as the iron doors shook again, the stone around them cracking as dust rained down above us.

Always, Baldur growled as the iron doors buckled.

The draugr was as tall as the doors, its body a mess of bones and rotting sinew and the bloody remains of what looked to be both men and odemarksdyr. It gave off a putrid stench as it stepped through the threshold, its frame shuddering as the iron in the stone tried and failed to contain it.

Glowing blue eyes met mine as it cocked its head eerily to the side.

“Well, you’re fucking ugly,” I said, meeting its otherworldly gaze. “Leave.”

The draugr hissed, its hollow eye sockets flaring blue as if in surprise.

“It isssssssss heeeeeeeere.”

They fucking talk?

Apparently , Baldur growled. He was itching to blast the creature, but he knew as well as I that fire would only slow it down. What is ‘it’?

I shook my head. I assume Idunn.

“Leave,” I repeated aloud to the draugr.

The draugr made a sound that was almost a laugh, the horror of the noise washing over me as I held my ground.

“Diiiiiiieeeeee . ”

I swung, the iron striking bone with an ear-splitting clank that seemed to reverberate down my spine.

I snarled, reaching to Baldur through the icy grip of the iron as I swung at the draugr’s head. The creature lurched back, and I had to dive and roll to avoid being crushed by its huge kneecap.

Baldur and I roared in unison as the draugr caught the edge of my calf with its huge, icy sword. The skin around the wound burned, and I felt Baldur reach out to our reirhold for help.

Sigurd and Kindra are coming, he snarled as I stabbed forward into the draugr’s chest. The blade glanced off a rib bone and went flying off to the side, and I ducked behind the iron shield as the draugr brought his sword down atop the metal.

The world seemed to slow and stretch, and I reached out a mental hand to Eisa. If this was to be my end, crouched under an iron shield as a draugr eviscerated me, my last thoughts would be for her.

But her side of the bridge was empty.

Where the fuck is she? I shouted, frantically reaching for Baldur. I latched onto his strength and forced the draugr back a step, throwing the shield with all my might as I ran for the fallen sword.

Alive. Baldur didn’t sound at all surprised at his mate’s absence. There is too much iron.

Did you tell her to—

Flame erupted from behind the iron doors, making the draugr howl and turn as a massive golden dragon roared down at it.

Sigurd landed beside me as Kindra shot another blast of fire at the creature, but my relief at seeing my friends was short lived as the draugr struck out at Sigurd, catching the corner of his wing and making him shriek in agony.

I hurled myself at the creature, launching the blade into its sternum with all the force Baldur could lend me. This time, the blade struck true, and the draugr shrieked as the chaos at its heart exploded in a shower of blue sparks.

Its body buckled, the head falling from its shoulders and rolling across the floor as Sigurd limped back from its body. Kindra screeched, burning the bones and flesh with golden flame until they began to turn black.

Sigurd says the huleskygge are falling back, Baldur informed me as I searched the bond furiously for Eisa. Without the iron sword and shield, I could feel her flickering again at the other end of our silver bridge, but she felt strangely distant, as if she were several miles away rather than mere floors below me. The reirholds converge on the Rift.

We didn’t order them to the Rift. Panic for my mate was either making me slow, or Baldur had sent them on without telling me for some reason.

We did not. Baldur agreed, as a blue flame seared the sky beyond the mouth of the cavern. She did.

Why the fuck—

Baldur growled, panic flaring to life in his chest as he pushed to take control and pain whipped through me.

Idunn!

I didn’t think—didn’t register the pain in my back or my leg as I let Baldur launch into the sky toward the Rift.

Toward our mate.