Page 49 of Vow of the Undead (The Bloodrune Saga #1)

W aking Kayn wasn’t like raising the vampire who’d been buried for so long. Instead of being dizzy and afraid, I simply waited for him to rise up. Was it due to our connection or had this strange magic become easier?

He climbed out of the grave with plenty of strength and none of the bloodlust and snapping jaws of the woman who’d wanted to consume me.

A strange combination of relief and exhaustion had me rubbing my hands over my face.

He stood over me, hand out to help me to my feet.

Perhaps the moonlight illuminated the distress on my face because he wrapped his arms around me and held me in silence.

I let my head dip into his chest as he encompassed all of me and held my drained body upright.

The dwelling and overthinking always left me hollow, like my mind had cycled every thought possible and then they’d spilled out of my body where they crawled away to take effect into the world. The only part left was the erratic thump of my heart, striking pain across my chest with every beat.

After an indeterminate amount of time relishing his embrace, I gathered the strength to speak. “King Drakkar left me a message. He killed one of my handmaidens and dropped her outside The Hall of the Gods.”

Kayn released me just enough to look down at me. I turned my face up to him. The sight of his mouth and the smell of him, fresh soil and a crisp wine, struck me with sudden clarity.

Kayn lifted his hands, cupping my arms in his grip as he leveled with me. “King Drakkar is strong, but you’re ready.”

Am I? I wanted to believe him. Those were the same words my mother had said to me when she sent me outside of the tent to keep watch for patrolling executioners. They killed us for any act of violence, but they punished us for any hint of a belief in the old ways.

More than once, I’d run screaming inside the tent when fear rattled me—when my nerves frayed and the thoughts became too much.

I’d picture the executioners stripping the skin from my body, setting fire to my hair, whatever other horrors my father said they did to those who dared whisper the Gods’ names.

More than once, I’d failed.

Tears pricked my eyes, stinging hot and heavy where they gathered in a pool at my eyelids.

I squeezed my eyes shut and let them fall.

I cried not for what lay ahead, but for causing my mother’s exile.

Surely, if she’d been in Skaldir, she’d never have been struck with the sickness that poisoned her veins.

If only I’d not succumbed to dwelling. If only I hadn’t screamed at the images in my mind and shouted Freya’s name into the busy village, calling attention to my beliefs and the woman who’d taught them to me.

Kayn brushed a tear away with his thumb and then gave my arms a gentle squeeze.

“Freya will grant you a clear path. You know where King Drakkar is so tracking him will be easy. Killing him may reveal Odin’s trial.

” He glanced at my empty hands hanging limp at my sides.

“You need to take the stake with you. You are almost the huntress. ”

My tongue soured. “I hate that name.”

“It isn’t a name. It is a title, and who you are.”

It was who I’d become. I couldn’t yet claim to be the huntress who destroyed the creatures of the night.

I wasn’t half of Sunna, the God who shined light on Midgard with the sun.

I didn’t drive away the cursed Draugr with a burning shield.

Instead, I’d wield a single cut of wood that I’d have to use to kill one monster at a time.

I wasn’t a God. I was just a girl afraid of her own thoughts. Thoughts that forced me to look at a situation from every angle.

“I can do this,” I repeated. I could track King Drakkar right back to his bedchambers and strike him in the center of his chest as he fed on the blood of another innocent. I could stop him from tormenting humans and taunting me with our betrothal.

Though I’d rendered control of my mind, my body didn’t follow.

My chest heaved in gasping breaths as the chill of the Polar Nocturne sliced through the fabric of my dress.

Kayn slipped out of his coat and draped it over my shoulders.

Before I could thank him, he was gone, disappearing into the shadows.

I opened my mouth to call out for him but he’d returned just as quickly, a snapped branch in his hand. With his free hand, he gripped my arm and lifted it, pushing the branch into my palm. “You’re ready,” he repeated.

He tapped the center of his chest where my head had just taken rest. I wanted to lean into him again, and he must have sensed it, because he stepped closer.

I struggled to swallow through the thick emotion gathered in my throat. “If I start this, don’t I have to end it?” My eyes scanned every curve and scar across his face.

“Yes, you will have to destroy me too. I will not let you descend into madness. ”

A sob caught in my throat and I swallowed again. I opened my mouth but said nothing.

What could I say to that? We’d only just become close. He trusted me to wake him, and I trusted him to hold me.

He’s a monster, Silver. He’s a monster. He’s a monster.

Despite the words cycling through my mind, I tilted my head back, my fingers grasping the stake tighter at my side.

He raised his hand and cupped my chin, gently, nothing like the way King Drakkar had grabbed my throat and forced me closer to him.

I followed the slight tug of Kayn’s hand and angled my mouth toward his.

Our lips met in a language more intimate than words.

I couldn’t deny that the Call of the Gods demanded I kill him, too, but I could show him I didn’t want to. I never wanted this Call, and though I needed to wipe the plague of monsters from this realm, he wasn’t like the others.

Need I destroy him when he didn’t even feed on humans?

I’d receive that answer when I came to it. I’d commune with all of the Gods next time, cutting my hand over the altar where I could watch the blood fill multiple runes.

When we parted, breathless, he wrapped his hand over mine. Tightening his hold on my hand that held the stake, he showed his support of my fate—of who I was—even if it meant I had to kill him.

“You’re not like King Drakkar and Ylva and Darius... I can’t kill you.”

“But I am a monster, Silver, and you are my huntress.”