by Laura Kaye
Henrik Magnusson is supposed to be immortal, but a mysterious ailment leaves the vampire king near death, and not even the blood of the Proffered, human virgins trained to serve the elite, can sustain him. Then he rescues a beautiful young woman from his enemies, and is filled with blood lust and desire he hasn’t felt for centuries.
Photographer Kaira Sorenson’s life takes a nightmare turn when she’s attacked by blood-thirsty creatures—and saved by a vampire. She should be afraid of Henrik, but she can’t deny her intense attraction to this regal, enigmatic being—nor the fact that her blood may be his only salvation. Now she must decide if she’s willing to be his forever...
Taken by the Vampire King
Laura Kaye
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Booklist
Nocturne Cravings BPA
Copyright
Chapter 1
“I am dying,” Henrik Magnusson said. “We all know it.” Standing at the head of the council table, he looked over the grim faces of his warriors, most of them suddenly fascinated by the three-hundred-year-old expanse of spruce in front of them. He didn’t blame them for the avoidance. It was hard to stare mortality in the face, especially when your kind was supposed to be immortal. “It’s time to talk succession.”
Jakob’s gaze shot up, anger and resolution burning in his blue eyes. “It is not. My lord,” he added as an afterthought. “We will bring in more Proffered.”
Over the past decades, they’d brought in many virginal human women trained to serve the blood needs of the vampire warrior class to cure him. Not only had he not found a mate to sustain him, he’d never once blood-matched with any of the women. And their blood, at best, provided only a temporary alleviation of his inexplicably deteriorating condition. It had gotten to the point that he barely found blood palatable anymore. “We will. But it will not likely work. My death is an eventuality for which we must plan.”
Jakob shoved up from his chair. “I will not rest until we find the one who can...” Save you. The words hung in the cool air and bounced between the gray, stone walls as if the warrior, Henrik’s brother and the sole heir to the throne, had shouted them. He shook his head and met the hard gaze of each of his brothers-in-arms. “We will not give up.”
Murmurs of agreement rumbled through the room.
Henrik slammed his fist upon the table and flashed his fangs. “I. Am. Dying!”
The room and every vampire in it went preternaturally still. Jakob’s expression was frozen somewhere between grief and rage. Breathing hard, Henrik willed the tension from his shoulders. The blood of a Proffered was a stabilizing force that guaranteed a vampire’s immortality and humanity. But it had been a long time since Henrik’s body had processed blood that way, so he’d steadily been losing both—and the past year had been the worst of all. When the rages came, he struggled to control them, and he was walking a very fine line right now.
Henrik stared at his brother a long moment. The male appeared a much younger version of himself. He possessed the blond hair Henrik had before his mysterious ailment had turned it nearly white. And Jakob’s eyes remained a dark, turbulent blue, like the color of the seawater that flowed through the many fjords snaking through their native Norwegian lands, while Henrik’s had dulled to pale blue ice.
“Goddamnit.” The king stalked away from the table and crossed to the uncovered windows along the far wall. The polar night afforded them the luxury of leaving open this portal to the outside world. For three months each year, the sun never rose, turning the north lands into the perfect home for a vampire. But as with all things, the full darkness of Mørketid ended, bringing a month of Seinvinter, when daylight slowly returned in advance of the sun once again cresting the horizon. Tomorrow was Soldagen, the first day of sunlight’s return. The day marked the end of the last polar night Henrik would likely ever see.
He braced his hands against the ledge and stared up at the undulating lights in the night sky. Within the diffuse green of the aurora borealis was a sharp-edged curtain of rare—and ominous—red.
“Even the lights foretell my fate,” he said, forcing calm into his voice. He turned back to his warriors, every one of whom would’ve laid down his life for Henrik if they could. Jakob remained standing, stance ready, muscles braced. His dogged determination would make him a good king. And since only seven vampire warrior kings remained around the world, Henrik would do everything he could to ensure his brother ascended to the throne with the full support of these males. “I require a vow from each of you. Follow and honor Jakob upon my death as you have followed and honored me these past four centuries.”
For a long moment, no one reacted. And then Erik pushed up out of a chair.
Jakob’s face went red, his fangs punching out. “Erik—”
The warrior held up a hand. “What my king asks of me I am more than willing to give.” He crossed the room, met Henrik’s gaze and sank to one knee. Henrik held out the hand adorned with the ring that bore his family’s royal crest. Erik grasped his fingers. “I pledge my allegiance to Jakob Magnusson to ascend to the throne as Warrior King of the Northern Vampires upon the end of your reign. As a warrior, as a male of honor, I give my vow.” Erik kissed the ring.
Henrik nodded as the warrior rose. One by one, the others followed suit. Lars, Kjell, Jens, Marius. Each gave Jakob an apologetic look before crossing the room and vowing to support him when the time came for his brother to die. Their steadfast loyalty eased the turmoil that had become a constant presence in Henrik’s veins. He couldn’t control his mysterious malady, but this, this he could control. When he left this world for Valhalla, he wanted to know he’d done everything he could to leave his brethren strong and whole.
After all, the war with their ancient enemies, the Soul Eaters, would not cease just because he no longer lived to fight it.
When the last of them had given their vow, Henrik met each of their gazes. “Thank you, old friends. Now, head out on patrol. The town fills with tourists for the festival and we must do as we’ve always done and stand ready to defend the humans against evil should the need arise.”
The Soul Eaters—so named for stealing the souls of their human victims by draining them through the last stutter of their hearts—were equally attracted to night’s reign in the north. And the influx of thousands of visitors for Tromsø’s annual Nordlysfestivalen combined with the last days of darkness often made the Soul Eaters even more brazen than usual.
The warriors filed out of the room, quiet and solemn. All except Jakob, who remained in the exact same place since he’d stood to offer his protest. He braced his hands on his hips and shook his head, then slowly made his way around the table until he stood before his king. Tension rolled off the male in palpable waves. “You are giving up.”
Malice shooting through his veins, Henrik got right in his face. “Nei, I am being realistic.”
Jakob’s blue eyes flashed. “Fuck realistic. Warriors fight.” He jabbed his finger into Henrik’s chest. “You have given up.”
The king’s fist was in motion before he’d even thought to respond. His brother’s head snapped back as blood exploded from his lip. The sight further fueled the monster inside him, and Henrik struck again, unleashing a rib-snapping punch to Jakob’s side. The warrior staggered but just managed to regain his footing before he fell. And still he didn’t raise his hands in return.
“Fight back!” Henrik swung again, delivering an uppercut to the jaw t
hat slammed his brother against the stone wall.
“Nei,” Jakob growled.
The next swing split open the warrior’s cheek just below his eye.
“Fight back, damn you!”
Jakob held still against the wall. “Not until you do.”
The words sank into Henrik’s rational consciousness and gave him pause. He stumbled backward, one step, two, until he crashed into one of the chairs at the large table. And then the battle was all in his head between the two diverging sides of himself. Between the monster and the man. The former was getting stronger every day, no matter how hard the latter fought to rein it in.
He dropped his forehead into his hands and curled his fingers into fists in his hair. He was so thirsty. Emptiness ached into the depths of his very soul. Every tissue in his body screamed for sustenance, but what was the use? Feeding brought him so little relief that the torment was greater after each failed attempt.
A hand gripped Henrik’s shoulder.
“Fight, brother,” Jakob said, his tone strained. “Stay with me and fight.”
The king mulled over the words for a long moment, their wisdom sinking deep. No matter how desperate things looked, he had to hold it together. He had to fight. If for no other reason than to prevent Jakob and the others from being distracted out in the field by their worry for him. “All right.”
“Yeah?”
Henrik nodded. “And I’m sorry.” He jutted his chin toward the wall. “I’ll fight. I’ll fight this as long as I can. But you have to promise me something in return.”
“Name it.”
Henrik hated asking this of Jakob, of all people, but his brother was one of the few physically matched enough to heed the request. “I’d rather be dead than a menace. When the day comes that I have lost all humanity, when all that remains is a monster in man’s clothing, I want you to be the one to finish it.”
Chapter 2
Kaira Sorensen stood in the gallery and stared at her photographs hanging on the wall. Her photographs. The thought made her stomach flip-flop and her grin go all goofy. So many of her dreams had gone unfulfilled, but not this one. She’d frozen her butt off for two weeks and scrimped and saved for almost two years. And now she got to see her own shots hanging in a public gallery and entered in a juried competition that could help launch her photography from hobby to career. For however long she had left.
Pressing the back of her hand to her forehead, Kaira hoped the low-grade fever she was running didn’t get worse. The wear and tear of traveling almost seventeen hundred miles from her home in Denmark to Tromsø, Norway, had taken it out of her. And even though she’d arrived two days early and slept for almost eighteen hours straight, exhaustion had left her a little ragged around the edges.
No matter. For the next four days, she wasn’t an orphan who had no memory of her parents. She wasn’t a cancer patient. And she wasn’t sick. She was a photographer. Dammit.
One of the nice things about getting away from everyone you knew was the freedom to be someone else. Even if for just a short while.
Kaira smoothed a hand over the periwinkle-blue gown she’d splurged on. No way did she want to appear down on her luck at the show’s opening night reception. Not with some of the biggest names in aurora photography in attendance.
A man fell in beside her. “Is this your first show?” he asked in Norwegian, similar enough to her native Danish that she could understand him plainly.
She stopped fidgeting and smiled up at him. “No,” she said, in English. “My third.” Oh, my God! Anders Lang! Kaira swallowed the squeak that threatened to escape. Lang was an American and one of the five judges in the juried competition. And he was one of a handful of renowned aurora chasers. He’d made a name for himself by, among other things, capturing an entire series of vivid blue auroras. That hue was the rarest of the rare. A photographer could camp out an entire season of nights and never see blue lights, let alone capture them on film. “My first time at Nordlysfestivalen, though. I’m Kaira Sorensen.” She extended her hand.
“Anders Lang,” he said, returning the shake. “Tell me about your work.”
She turned to the grouping of six photographs—all each entrant was allowed to showcase for the competition. “My series is called Cathedrals. I was inspired by the almost architectural features of high-altitude auroras. And their height allowed me to capture multiple colors.” Green was most common at the lower altitudes of an aurora, usually about sixty miles overheard, while red often dominated the higher altitudes, the colors created by solar energy interacting with atmospheric gases at different altitudes. Kaira stepped closer to her most prized image. “I took this one the second night in the field. The lights were super intense. Much lower than the whole rest of the trip.”
“And you captured yourself some nitrogen emissions, I see.” He leaned in to study the single violet aurora she’d ever committed to film.
The purple ribbon of light thrilled her every time she looked at it. “I did,” she said. “The lights were spectacular the rest of my time out there, but never quite as intense as that night.”
He stepped back from the photograph and tilted his head. “How old are you, if you don’t mind my asking?”
Given that the typical aurora chaser was a middle-aged man with a mile-wide streak for adventure, Kaira was prepared for the question. “I don’t mind. Twenty.”
His eyebrows reached for his receding hairline. “And why Cathedrals?”
Kaira’s gaze drifted to the most architectural of all the images. “My parents died when I was eight. A few months later, I was still having trouble sleeping. One night, I was just staring out my window. Suddenly, the sky exploded. I was terrified at first. I’d seen the lights before, but something about their intensity and their color... But then, it was like the sky was dancing—or speaking—just for me. It made me feel so much less alone. At the time, I wasn’t old enough to think of it this way. But now, looking back on it, it was almost an epiphany, a religious experience. I can’t really look at discrete aurora anymore without seeing great cathedrals in the sky.” She dragged her gaze back to Lang, nerves tossing her stomach. She shifted her stance to alleviate the pressure on her aching hip.
“That’s a big insight for a young woman. And it’s exactly the kind of passion and calling that leads to some damn fine aurora photography.” He extended his hand. “Pleasure meeting you, Miss Sorensen.”
She couldn’t help but grin. “An honor, Mr. Lang. Thank you.”
He nodded and made his way to chat up another of her competitors. She scanned her gaze over the gallery. When had all these people arrived? She’d been so deep into her conversation that she hadn’t even realized that the gallery had opened to the general public. Now, a steady stream of festival-goers perused the long, rectangular exhibit space. Music was the featured art of the annual celebration of the return of sunlight, with dozens of musicians, singers and bands performing a week’s worth of concerts, but, as with the photography exhibit and competition, there were a number of other activities held in conjunction with the music festival, too. Between the show and her energy level, Kaira wasn’t sure how much else she’d be able to see and do, but she hoped to make the most of her visit to Tromsø. Who knew when she’d get to do something like this again? There was only so much time she could get off from working at the camera store. And, though her cancer was in the most manageable, chronic stage right now, without the required medical therapy, she’d likely move into the accelerated phase of the disease soon enough. And some months she found herself having to choose between three meals a day and the money she needed to set aside to pay for her incredibly expensive medicine.
She crossed the room to the bar. “There’s no cancer in Tromsø, Kai. Live a little, will ya?” She ordered some sparkling water with lime and silently repeated the pep talk.
Over the course of the evening, she met the rest of the judges and all the contestants, too. The photographs were universally breathtaking, and Kaira
knew she had her work cut out for her. But whether she placed in the competition or not, being here was a great networking opportunity she had no intention of wasting.
Not to mention, all the photographs were for sale. After the judging announcement three nights from now, purchasers were free to pick up whatever they’d bought. The thought that someone would pay money to buy one of her photographs, that it might hang in a place of prominence in their home or office, that people might ask who the photographer was... It was all such a thrill. No matter how long she got to do this work, she didn’t think she’d ever get used to it.
Kaira returned to her series of images and found a man admiring them intently. Tall and broad-shouldered, he wore a black knit cap over white hair that hung past his shoulders. His long leather coat appeared soft and worn with age. Gray-brown fur surrounded his collar. She approached him from the side and something about him sent a tingle down her spine when she got a good look at his face. His size, posture and bearing had made him seem younger, but the white hair and drawn appearance of his pale face, almost gaunt, gave the exact opposite impression. Not old, really, but older.
Eyes the color of icy blue topaz cut toward her and narrowed. His gaze was penetrating in its intensity. His head tilted and his brow furrowed as he studied her, as if puzzled by her appearance.
For a moment, her greeting stuck in her throat. She cleared it and offered a soft, “Hallo,” in Norwegian, in which she was fluent. The Scandinavian languages were largely mutually understandable.
His expression cleared and he nodded. He glanced to the contestant ribbon pinned above her breast. “Are these yours?” he asked, gesturing to the wall. His accent marked him as a native and his voice was like melted chocolate, unexpectedly warm and smooth, deliciously appealing.
“Ja,” she managed, stepping closer. Despite his age, something about him attracted and intrigued her.
“Truly remarkable shots. I’ve always been fascinated by the lights. These photographs capture the majesty and wonder of them as well as any I’ve seen.”
