Page 36 of Vow of the Undead (The Bloodrune Saga #1)

C reatures crawled along the forest floor and the flutter of bats occasionally startled me, but the time passed quietly. I sucked in a long breath that snagged at the sight of something large between the trees. I narrowed my eyes, my lungs frozen, as I scanned the treeline.

The shape of a man stood between two thick trunks, his entire body shadowed except the glint of his eyes, like an owl—like King Drakkar. My heart quickened as I recognized the shiny golden hue.

I shot to my feet, but didn’t run. The man stepped closer, carefully, methodically, his hand lifted out in front of him as if he was approaching a frightened deer.

Or perhaps he wanted to grab me, slap his hand over my mouth and drag me through the forest by my hair.

I couldn’t run and leave Stasia to fend for herself.

Blood rushed through my ears like a melted fjord crashing with deafening water. I’d run from my shadows as a young woman, and then I killed my shadows once they captured me.

But I’d faced the man who trapped me in betrothal. I’d compelled him. Loki, can I do it again?

I peeled my dry lips apart and my hot breath coiled into a humid mist. “You must leave.”

He stepped closer.

Fuck. That was the opposite action of my demand.

The shape of his thick hair identified him as the wheat-haired man who’d pulled me into the shadows.

His deep brown eyes drew my attention. In another realm, I would fall victim to those eyes, determined, sharp, handsome.

Here and now, I refused to be any kind of victim.

He would either kill me or drag me back to Mara’s Keep, and I could not let that happen. “Silver, you have a duty?—”

“To the king? To you?” I spat. No, I had to compose myself, to try again. But with the rush of blood vibrating in my veins, my heart thumping wildly, I couldn’t think of anything sensible to say.

Speech abandoned me altogether and nerves overwhelmed my senses. If my mother were here, she’d instruct me to slow my thoughts and then manifest a sense of calm by giving voice to those thoughts.

When he stepped forward and closed the distance between us, all mindful control dissipated and I descended into muscle memory.

I reacted as if he were Ragna approaching me for practice in the shield hall. Throwing up my elbow and stepping back, I spread my feet in a wide stance. If only I had a shield and weapon, this would be a lot easier, but the hard bones at the crook of my arm would have to do.

“I’m not yours and I’m not going back to the king.”

“No, but you are chosen.”

My stomach convulsed, rejecting this with a dry retch. “I don’t care what the king or his council wants, they’re monsters.”

Rustling leaves caught my attention and I glanced over my shoulder to where Stasia laid. The forest floor was empty, a soft dent in the shape of her body against the decaying leaves. She’d taken her chance and left me. I sucked in a breath and turned back to see my shadow was upon me.

“I’m not here for the king,” he said. “Listen to me, Silver. Your blood?—”

“Fuck no!” Nobody was going to threaten to taste my blood again. I wouldn’t give him the chance to flex that kind of power over me.

“Let me show you.”

He seized my wrist, and every ounce of blood rushing through me pulsed with energy. I flipped my arm to twist his hold on me, but his grip remained steady. I threw out the heel of my other palm against his jaw, shoving his face away from me.

When his other hand found my free wrist, panic struck me.

Instead of falling victim to it, I listened to the panic, feeling the erratic nerves and noticing the changes in my body. My mother said self awareness was its own kind of magic, separate from the gods and witches. It was innate in every person, plain or powerful, as long as we listened.

I let the energy course through me, building to shove back against him.

With all my might, I wrenched one hand free, but not for long.

He was faster, far stronger, almost as if he was toying with me by releasing my arm.

I kicked at his shin with the toe of my boot, which elicited a satisfying grunt from him.

Taking advantage of his reaction, I threw my shoulder against the center of his chest to knock him off balance so I could twist my other arm and be free of him. But he was as solid as a shield, unmoving.

If this were practice with Ragna, I’d locate her weak spot, below the block. I dropped low, my wrist still in his grasp and used my free hand to rip the tree pendant from my pocket. He yanked me to my feet again where he could snatch my other wrist, but I was prepared.

The soft spot of his palm found the sharp tip of the tree pendant. His entire body reacted, throwing not only his arm back when the silver tree cut into his flesh, but all of him—and me.

With his hold still on me, he twisted and threw me to the ground.

His body dropped on top of mine, his hip pressed into my side, his leg pinning me to the earth. Because his movements were so quick, I didn’t see his arm shoot up and pin my wrist into the slippery wet leaves.

He forced my arm above my head to keep the Y as far away from him as possible.

I wriggled and wanted to spit at him but my mouth was dry, my energy cut short. He’d overpowered me, his solid body pressing against mine.

His eyes flashed a blood red and my stomach dropped.

“You’re the one who dragged me into the shadows,” I said. It slipped out—an observation, something I’d already known.

His lip twitched and his mouth parted for desperate ragged breaths.

Something formed from beneath his top lip, creating two bumps at the corners of his mouth.

As if in a trance, I watched the solid shapes drop below his lip, gleaming with saliva but much shorter than King Drakkar’s fangs and with blunt tips.

It was then I noticed only one of us pulsed with the rhythmic thump of a heartbeat.

“You’re all Draugr,” I said. “Vampires.”

“Yes.”

Purified silver. It is the most potent weapon against those cut off from the Gods. I’d once believed my mother was calling me a weapon, but it was the Y Tree itself. If only I could move my arm and embed it into his.

The vampire stared down at me, his eyes returning to a normal deep brown but rimmed with gold, full of hunger and desire. To take me? Heat simmered between us, the thrill of the fight, the pressure of our bodies imprinting on one another.

To kill me?

His eyes shifted from desperate to focused, and no longer staring at me. He wrenched his attention from me and sucked in a tight breath.

Why the unliving even breathed, I didn’t know. I only knew what the poetic sagas said of them, spoken in flowering tongues and with the breath of a believer’s whisper.

Breathing slower now and without any flecks of red in his eyes, he looked back at me. His throat bobbed with a swallow as he took me in.

“I prefer Kayn,” he said. I searched his face, brow furrowed. He didn’t hurt me, other than the pinching of his heavy hip pressed into mine. “You called me Draugr,” he explained. “I prefer my name, Kayn.”

“And I prefer not to be pinned to the ground by a stranger.”

His eyes flashed and then trailed down my face and neck all the way to where our hips connected. “It wouldn’t be necessary if you’d let me speak with you.”

I opened my mouth but nothing came out because he was right. I couldn’t argue that I'd only run from him, and then fought when I no longer could escape. He was just another shadow, threatening to claim me for unknown reasons. History told me I couldn’t allow him to get within reach of me.

“I am not a threat,” he said as if I would take his word so easily.

I turned my head to break our gaze so he would know I didn’t buy into him.

He had to earn my trust after stalking me.

“It seems you’ve already discovered this for yourself, but you cannot marry King Drakkar. At all costs, you must not.”

Breath froze in my throat. I slid my gaze back to him. “On that, we agree.”

“He wants what you can give him.”

“And what is that?” I asked, irritation staining my voice because as much as I wanted to hear the answer, I hated that he knew what I didn’t.

“Your help.”

I almost laughed as air escaped me in a huff.

His brows lifted in tenuous impatience. “He wants to use you since you are Volva.” I snapped my attention back to him. “A witch.”

“I know what Volva are.” I considered trying to use the compulsion I wielded over the king, but he wasn’t hurting me and I couldn’t deny the curiosity welling within me. His interest in my betrothal was odd at best.

Besides that, I didn’t need to show him just how much of a witch I was, in case he intended to get me exiled.

Even if he spoke of witches, it didn’t mean he approved of magic.

I’d witnessed my mother communing with the Gods in an enchanted divination and then seen the aftermath at her doorstep.

Magic—or witchcraft—had always been like a distant cousin whose name we refused to say aloud beyond the safety of our own walls.

A living force that we were both proud to call a part of our family and yet a curse to be ashamed of since it was an old belief attributed to our simple-minded ancestors.

The same ancestors who scarred the earth with the wasteland after centuries of battles incited by purposeless wars passed down from the conflict between Gods Odin and Freya against Loki.

“Then perhaps you know that you’re the most potent of them all,” he said.

“You say that as if I am a poison.” My mind flickered to my mother’s face.

Perhaps she had intended to hint that I was a weapon.

His eyes dipped to my throat again, his blunt fangs were still exposed between his parted lips.

“Must I lay beneath you while you tell me what I already know?” Though he was the one with the fangs, I was the one with a bite in my voice.

He’d pinned me easily and I hated that after years of running and practicing defense with Ragna, I was still overpowered.