by Laura Kaye
In her mind’s eye, she saw him being slammed against the hood of the car. Pinned down. Restrained. Just like here on the floor moments ago. And she didn’t want to see him treated that way again. Not if she could do anything to prevent it.
Before fear got the better of her, she pushed off the wall and stepped toward him. “Henrik?”
His gaze flashed to her and tracked her progress. A rumble rolled through his chest.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught movement. Keeping her voice light, she said, “If one of you makes a move for him, I will kill you.” Not that she could. She knew it. They knew it. But she was satisfied to see they’d listened.
Henrik spun at them and growled.
“Hey, now, Henrik. Look at me. It’s okay.”
As if in slow motion, he obeyed. She took another step. “Don’t,” he growled.
“It’s okay. Come back to me now, you hear?” She forced the knot of fear down her throat with a hard swallow. If she could just get to him, she believed she could get through to him, too. After all, twice now he’d stopped when she’d told him to. And he’d seemed so pleased at all they had in common. It was impossible, but true.
As she took another step, his muscles jerked and his hands fisted, all around offering a pretty good impression of a trapped, cornered animal.
“Kaira, don’t,” Jakob said in a low voice.
She waved him off just as Henrik growled.
Why was she doing this? Why was she taking this chance with her life?
In truth, she didn’t know the answer, she simply felt she had to, that it was what she was supposed to do…because she was the only one who could.
Suddenly, she knew that was the truth. He’d even said as much—without her, he had no chance at survival. More than that, though, it felt like something bigger was at work here, as if some cosmic force had put them in each other’s paths.
And it was right where they were supposed to be.
Determined, Kaira grappled for something to say that might connect to the real him, the him she’d talked to earlier. A thought came to mind. “Hey, did you know that many people believe you shouldn’t wave or sing or whistle at the northern lights?” Something flickered behind his eyes. “It’s supposed to attract spirits to come down from the sky and take you away.” She took another step. One more and she’d be able to reach out and touch him. “They say you can fend off the spirits by clapping your hands.”
A single tight nod. She would’ve sworn it.
Holding her breath, her final step closed the distance between them and she curled her free hand around his rocklike fist. The men behind him tensed, but she threw a glance to Jakob, begging him to stay back.
“Hey.” She smiled. “It’s Kaira.”
“Hurt you,” he said, glaring at the hand still pressed to her face.
That’s what he was so wound up about? Her getting hit?
Her heart swelled in her chest. “Just a bump. It was my fault. I guess you shouldn’t come up behind a group of fighting vampires. Lesson learned.” She stroked her thumb over his knuckles.
His hand flinched, then slowly relaxed. He slipped his fingers between hers and gripped almost painfully hard. Like he was scared to let her go. Surely her chest couldn’t contain a heart as big as hers felt just then.
“Come sit with me,” she said, tugging him toward the bed. “Let’s just relax for a minute.”
He sat heavily, all the fight just draining into the floor beneath him. Kaira took a step around him to sit, but he tugged her until she stood between his knees.
His forehead slumped against her breastbone and his shoulders sagged. He released a long, shuddering breath.
Tears pricked the backs of Kaira’s eyes. Defeat rolled off him. If this whole episode really was part of whatever ailed him, she could totally relate—how many times had she felt so sick that she gave into an outburst of anger or a moment of despair. Though she worked hard to remain positive, sometimes the unfairness of it was more than a person could bear.
Maybe it was like that for him, too.
She stroked her free hand over his hair. Oh, so soft! She wouldn’t have guessed it, but it was like dragging her fingers through thick strands of pure silk.
Minutes passed before his breathing returned to normal. Occasionally, his big body trembled against hers.
She glanced up…to find four huge vampires absolutely gawking at her.
Red-hot shame and a profound sadness rooted Henrik in place, head against Kaira’s breast. The beat of her heart in his ear was the sweetest music. He concentrated on the sound, because he wouldn’t be hearing it for much longer.
Without question, her blood attracted him, satisfied him, and was almost indisputably what he’d been needing all these long years. Even now, her sweet crimson coated the inside of his mouth and fueled his body with a small dose of vitality he hadn’t felt in so long.
But she wasn’t just a source of blood. She wasn’t for him to use. She was so much fucking more than that.
Kaira was everything. Beautiful, brave, compassionate, strong, smart, artistic. Somehow she’d been able to accept that there was so much more to her world than she’d previously known. And here she was protecting and defending him.
Proof that he was a complete and utter train wreck. And that he shouldn’t read into their kisses nor her achieving ecstasy because of him. None of that meant she wanted this, wanted more, wanted him.
And even if, by some miracle, Kaira did want him, how could he possibly saddle her with a male so despicably weak? He couldn’t. Not when he didn’t even know for sure that her blood would cure him, if the cure would be temporary or lasting, or if it would take days or decades to return him to the male he’d once been—a male deserving of a creature like her.
Christ, he thought again about what she’d done…
Fought for him against his warriors and put herself in harm’s way, single-handedly pulling him back from the brink…
After all the ways he’d wronged her, why had she done any of it? And just to sink the dagger a little further into the heart of him, she’d gotten hurt for her efforts.
And on top of it all, she was dying, too. Of course, mortality was a condition from which all humans suffered. But Kaira’s time was more limited than most. She was someone who saw beauty in the natural world and captured it so that others could see it, too. He couldn’t keep her locked up in his citadel, hidden away from the world, just for him.
Henrik’s fingers landed on the outsides of her thighs, clutching her just a little tighter. He breathed deeply, taking some of her incredible sweet scent into his lungs and, hopefully, his memory, too.
Before he lost the will, he gently pushed her back and rose from the bed. He cupped her uninjured cheek in his hand and kissed her forehead, his mouth filling with saliva at the luscious scent of her blood. He heaved a breath and made peace with his decision. And then he gave it voice.
“You are free to go,” he rasped. “Upon the nightfall, Jakob will return you to your hotel.” He made for the door.
“What? Henrik, I thought—”
The closing door cut off the rest of her words, but Henrik just kept hauling ass out of the infirmary. Moving forward, away from her. Even as a thousand pins and needles erupted against the palm of his right hand. He fisted it, refusing to linger on what that sensation might mean.
That, if he took her, they might blood match.
That, if they matched, she might become his mate.
That, if she were his mate, he might actually be able to live again.
But why in the name of all that was right and holy would she want him? And how could he possibly ask her to?
He wasn’t sure where he was going. He just needed motion, the distraction of putting one foot in front of the other. After a while, he ended up in his office on the opposite end of the compound from the infirmary.
Sitting heavily in the big leather chair behind his desk, his gaze fell on a folder lying d
ead center. Hadn’t been there before. Idly, he flipped it open.
SUBJECT: Kaira Sorensen
LAST KNOWN ADDRESS: Røsågade 7, 3. Floor, Copenhagen, Denmark
“Faen i helvete,” he muttered. Bloody hell. The dossier he’d asked for.
Even though he knew he shouldn’t—he really fucking shouldn’t—read another word, his eyes refused to heed his brain and continued to skim over the page.
He flew forward in his seat. “No. This can’t be.” He slammed his fist against the surface.
Jakob leaned in the open doorway and rapped twice against the jamb. “Problem?”
Henrik chuffed out a humorless laugh. “Yeah. I apparently pissed off the wrong person in a former life.” He tossed the file to the corner of the desk. Jakob could read it for himself.
Or not. He was beyond caring.
Eyeing him warily, his brother retrieved and opened the folder. “Son of a— Her father was a member of The Electorate Council? Jesus, Henrik, that probably means she would’ve—”
“I know.” He held up a hand. He didn’t need the male to finish the sentence, to tell him that, had her father lived, Kaira very likely would’ve been trained among the ranks of the Proffered, as so many of the daughters of The Electorate were.
The Council was comprised of influential human allies who assisted in the prosecution of their war against the Soul Eaters. In exchange for the humans’ silence on the vampires’ existence, their assistance in conducting the war when necessary, and their providing of the Proffered, the vampires gave them protection and blood, which cured many diseases and extended their lives.
Henrik’s debate about offering Kaira his blood roared back to life in his mind. Could his blood cure her leukemia?
“Does she know this?” Jakob asked.
Henrik blinked away his thoughts. “What? Oh. I think not. She was genuine in her surprise about our existence.” Only eight when her parents had died in a car accident, no doubt she hadn’t yet been made privy to that part of her father’s business. And apparently neither had the mother’s sister who raised her.
“Brother, this changes things.” Jakob tossed the folder to the desk.
Weary and heartsick, Henrik reclined into the chair and propped his feet on the corner of the desk. His boots thumped against the wood. He crossed his ankles and got comfortable. “It changes nothing. Pour the akevitt, will you?”
Jakob crossed the room to the small bar in the corner. Norwegians reputed the grain alcohol to be the “water of life.”
If only.
“Bring the bottle,” Henrik said.
His brother settled the bottle and two shot glasses in front of him. The warm scent of the spiced spirit reached his nose as the golden liquor filled the little glass. They clinked and tossed the alcohol back. Heat ripped down his throat and pooled in his gut.
But it still was not enough.
God, nothing would ever be enough, would it?
He placed the glass next to the bottle and didn’t have to tell Jakob what he wanted. He poured and they drank again.
“What happened in there?” Jakob asked, falling into the seat in front of his desk.
“Just lost control.” Henrik topped off another shot glass and wished he had a human’s ability to get shit-faced drunk.
“Bullshit. That was the most controlled I have ever seen you in the middle of one of your rages. Hands down.”
The king shrugged and downed the akevitt. Heat snaked outward from his belly. Better.
“You like her.”
Henrik threw the glare before he’d thought better of it. He’d all but agreed.
“She obviously likes you, too.”
“No, she pities me.” He spun the glass in his hand.
“That’s not what I saw. Not even a little. She stood up to four warriors for you.”
Henrik’s mind resurrected the image of Kaira approaching him as he fought with everything he had to maintain a shred of his rational self. Holding her bloodied cheek, the neck of the johnny askew over the ruins of her lovely gown, wayward strands of blond hanging down from the remains of the stylish twist she’d worn the night before.
Beautiful. Brave. Fierce.
He’d been bone-crushingly terrified for her. “She has leukemia, Jakob. She needs her medicines, her doctors, her whole life around her.” He gestured with his hands, spilling a drop of liquor on his shirt.
Jakob flew out of the chair and loomed over the desk, hands braced against the hardwood surface. “Jesus, if that’s the case, you could heal her and you could both get what you need.”
He poured another drink. “There are no guarantees, brother. You know that. None at all. Except that enough of this fine spirit will cure what ails you, even if only for a few hours.” He raised the glass in salute and threw it back.
“This solves nothing.” His brother grabbed the bottle and marched it back over to the bar.
The office phone rang before Henrik had time to protest. He stared at it a minute and decided whatever it was could wait. As it continued to ring, he clomped his boots to the floor and shoved out of the chair, throwing a glare at Jakob for good measure.
At the bar, he set out a row of shot glasses and filled each of them to the top, not worrying about the liquor spilling into the spaces between. The phone stopped ringing.
He braced his hands against the edge of the marble surface and heaved a breath. “When you are king, you can decide what does and doesn’t work. Until that time—” He tossed back the first of the shots. “—I will make that call.” He slammed it down and reached for the next.
The telephone unleashed its screech again—at least that’s what it sounded like in his head. “Dra til helvete,” he muttered. Go to hell.
Jakob rounded the corner of his desk.
“Don’t answer it,” Henrik mumbled.
His brother ignored him. “What?” Jakob answered. Henrik rolled his eyes. A fat lotta good being king did him. “What? Put him through.” His brother held out the hand piece. “Kael MacQuillan for you.”
Henrik crossed the room, a strange foreboding crawling into his belly. Or maybe that was just the akevitt. First light marked the end of a vampire’s day, which made it an odd time for his royal counterpart in Northern Ireland to call. Unless somewhere in their world the shit was hitting the fan.
He pressed the receiver to his ear. “Kael, it’s Henrik. How are you, brother?” he said in English.
“I’m well. Sorry to disturb you at this hour.”
“I am always available to you. Are you well? Shayla? Everything okay at Dunluce?” Kael had mated with one of the Proffered three years before. And he wasn’t the only lucky bastard, either. Russia’s Nikolai was not only mated, but had a newling son as well.
“Aye. Thank you. My family is well. It’s not my news I’ve called to share.” Anticipation hardened into a rock in Henrik’s gut. “Yingjie Fēi is dead, along with half his inner circle of warriors.”
Henrik sank into his chair. The Warrior King of the Eastern Vampires dead? “My God. How?”
“Soul Eaters,” Kael spat.
Henrik nodded. He read the intelligence reports religiously. The war had been escalating all over Eurasia for the past two years. “Jesus. He wasn’t prepared for succession, either.”
“No. China’s a mess. They’re in hard-core damage control and right now just getting word out to their warrior outposts is a challenge. Which is why I’m spreading the word on their behalf.”
“Is the Electorate Council meeting?” Henrik knew this would send shock waves through the human world as much as that of the vampires.
“Yes. An emergency meeting has already been called.”
Nodding, Henrik thought through the ramifications, and damn it all to hell if that didn’t give him a headache. “Watch your back, brother. This is likely to incite those evil bastards to attack elsewhere.”
“Already on it. Take care of you and yours, Henrik.”
“I will. I apprecia
te the call, Kael. I just wish it brought better news.”
“Me, too, old friend. Me, too.”
They said their goodbyes and Henrik returned the receiver to its cradle. He cut his gaze to Jakob, who’d no doubt heard enough. “Yingjie Fēi’s dead,” he said as he scrubbed his hands over his face. “Sonofabitch.”
His brother braced his hands on the edge of the desk, his head hanging. And among his grief for their fallen brethren, Henrik knew without question what else Jakob was thinking, what else weighed so heavily on his shoulders.
Now there were six. Just six vampire kings and warrior forces to fight a worldwide battle against a reckless enemy in an ancient and escalating war. Who knew how long it would take China to reestablish order and authority?
Six.
And, if Henrik died—which was a total certainty except for the when—there would be five, at least temporarily.
An absolutely impossible situation—for the vampires and the humans, too.
At least Henrik’s kingdom had a succession plan. And Jakob had been at his side all these decades, so he was well prepared to do his duty from the start.
Anger and regret flooded through him. Because he knew what he had to do, and he wouldn’t make Jakob be the one to say it. “Gather the warriors in the council room. They need to be briefed and we need to formulate some plans.”
He made for the door and battened down all his emotional hatches for the conversation he needed to have. He couldn’t die right now. He couldn’t be weak right now. He couldn’t be a liability right when he was needed the most. Not in the midst of this kind of crisis.
Henrik knew what he had to do. Now this was bigger than either of them. “I’ll meet you there in a few moments. First I need to inform Miss Sorensen that I can’t let her go.”
Chapter 9
Kaira sat in the chair, chin resting on her knees, and stared at the huge iron bed that dominated the center of the chamber to which Henrik had earlier moved her.
Right after he’d finished informing her she wasn’t free to go after all.
