Page 6 of Vow of the Undead (The Bloodrune Saga #1)

My pulse fluttered. The king’s gaze had left me unsteady, his presence everything I didn’t expect.

Sten spoke, letting Astrid stew in silence.

“Hoping we won’t kill you before you see Mara’s Keep?

” He stepped so close his hot breath blew over my neck.

I recoiled as my own breath hitched. How could he throw that threat around so easily?

To his partner he said, “She only has to be alive, not conscious.”

“Sten,” Astrid growled. “Don’t tempt me.”

“She’d be easier to handle as a limp body.” Goosebumps prickled across my neck and arms.

“You won’t be able to control yourself,” she said.

“Her blood smells like wine…”

His voice crawled over me and ignited the mix of fury and fear building in my veins.

I could no longer hold back the flood of words on my tongue. “I don’t care what you think you can avoid as a royal. My father is a Vyl, a leader in Skaldir, and he will call for the fair use of executioner justice when he sees you’ve hurt me.”

My free hand found its way into my pocket, my fingers wrapping around the cold silver Y.

As if sensing my thoughts, Astrid ripped me toward her, forcing us face-to-face so that I’d give her my full attention. My hand twitched, ready to pull the makeshift weapon from my pocket.

“Hurt you?” She gripped my chin with her other hand, her strength unmatched, my head locked in place so tightly it seemed she could merely twist her wrist if she wanted to snap my neck.

“Not until we make use of you.” She spoke through her teeth.

The flex of her jaw revealed her anger. I’d hit a sore spot.

“Then, and only then, will I taste your blood until you’re nothing but a lifeless human husk. ”

“Astrid! Your hands!” Sten’s voice became background noise along with the brush of leaves overhead. We both ignored him, but something warm trickled down my arms. I glanced at Astrid’s hold where her fingernails dug in so deep they left crescent wounds in my flesh and drew hot blood to the surface.

Blood rushed through my ears, my heart pounding louder—a thumping applause to cheer for my next move. All thoughts of starvation, exile, the possible execution I’d face, washed away at the sound of the feral and sickening hunger that laced her every word.

Her fingernails had sliced into my skin, leaving the back of my arm stinging when she suddenly let go.

I seized the moment of freedom. Pulling the Y Tree from my pocket, I sunk the sharp end of the pendant into the soft spot just below her collarbone. When Astrid’s gaze fell, horror filled her eyes.

Bright red blood trickled from the wound in her chest, but it was her hands that transfixed her.

The tips of her fingers bubbled as if dipped into a boiling pot.

I had no idea how or why, but my blood, red and hot, had become fire to her flesh, slowly melting her skin and turning the shell of her fingers to ash.

Where I’d stabbed her, her flesh congealed and melted around the Y that still impaled her.

“What is happening?” she choked out, mirroring my own thoughts.

How had the Y Tree burned her? How had my blood burned her?

Perhaps Freya was watching over me. My mother always said witches were given the most divine opportunities. But she also said witches helped others, they never hurt, and yet my blood was melting this woman’s fingers.

My heart slammed into my gut.

It wasn’t just my blood hurting her. I’d stabbed her. I’d chosen to commit the very violence that I’d been trying to forget about, to resist .

Astrid’s body crumpled, and only then did I remember my other captor.

Expecting the worst, I stooped and ripped the Y Tree from her flesh before spinning around to protect myself from Sten. He stood stunned, frozen, horrified at the sight of blood—not Astrid’s, but my blood—trickling down my arm where her sharp fingernails had cut into me.

For a moment, I thought he wasn’t going to hurt me. That I’d be able to run. But I dared to blink, and in an instant, he lunged at me. When I turned to run, my heel caught on slick leaves and we went down together, wrestling until I thrust the end of the Y Tree into his neck.

It didn’t stop him.

In a mess of limbs and dead leaves, I couldn’t see what weapon he’d wielded when something sharp sliced across my face.

I cried out, the sound piercing through the forest.

When his skin bubbled around the pendant, his strength waned and he quickly grew limp. I rolled out from under him. His lifeless eyes were left peeled open, staring into the realm of the dead.

I turned to see that his partner looked the same. Astrid gazed at nothing while her spirit roamed the underworld, claimed by Hel, the God of dishonorable deaths. They were dead, which had to mean they weren’t the undead or strong monsters my frayed nerves had led me to believe.

And I’d killed them.

Scrambling to my feet, I only stayed long enough to rip the Y Tree from his throat before I ran, praying to the Gods I wasn’t supposed to believe in that nobody would ever find out what I’d done.

The Gods were my only hope. The vision they’d granted me of the king was just enough to guide my next step.

I knew where Odin wanted me to go—back to Skaldir, back to the king whose courtiers I’d just murdered.