by Laura Kaye
The age at which the Proffered completed their training and attempted to be matched.
Was it a coincidence? Fate? A horrible trick raising his hopes only to dash them again?
“Get Marius on this immediately. I want a complete dossier. Everything he can find. And I want it five minutes ago.”
Jakob accepted the card and nodded. “Ja, my lord.”
“And have Kjell meet us in the infirmary.”
His brother made the calls. Henrik battened down all the emotional hatches threatening to burst open. Multiple variables, innumerable obstacles and insufficient information. Not a good basis on which to act or react.
At least, that’s what he told himself.
Kaira mumbled. Her eyelids flickered. When she finally managed to open them all the way, her eyes remained unfocused.
The truck came to a rest in the garage. The men in the front got out.
“What’s happening?” she said so softly he wouldn’t have heard it were it not for his preternatural abilities.
“You’re at my home, Kaira. Fear not. I won’t hurt you.” He slid with her across the seat.
Her gray eyes fought to focus, and her gaze landed on his. “Promise?”
Sitting on the edge of the back seat, legs halfway out the door, he paused. He didn’t know whether to be more amused that she thought extracting his word would protect her if he intended her harm, or that even as she lay semiconscious in his arms she found the strength to talk and the will to negotiate.
Either way, he found her more than a little endearing.
“I promise.”
She stared at him a long moment as if weighing his words against whatever expression he wore, and then she drifted off once more.
Henrik felt the weight of another gaze on him and looked down.
Jakob stood with his hand on the door, holding it open. “Sure that’s a promise you can keep?”
Henrik ignored his brother, hoping with everything he was that he could keep his promise to her, no matter what it took. Or what it cost.
Chapter 6
Kaira surfaced into consciousness like she was swimming in mud. Everything felt slow and heavy. She forced the ten-pound weights of her eyelids open. Dim lighting cast a low glow over what looked like a hospital room.
She pushed herself up, and a twinge in her left wrist drew her gaze. An IV. She traced the line to the pole standing bedside. Just fluids.
“How are you feeling?” came a deep voice.
Kaira’s head wrenched to the right as her heart vaulted into her throat. Henrik sat in a chair by her elbow. He’d been so quiet, she hadn’t even realized he was there. “How long did I sleep?” she said through the cotton in her mouth.
“About five hours.”
She studied him for a long moment. He’d cleaned up. A pair of jeans and a navy turtleneck stretched taut to accommodate the breadth of his shoulders replaced the ruined clothing he’d worn before. Her gaze traced up to his face. It was the first time she’d seen his hair out from under the black knit cap. Most of it was thick and long, but the hair behind his left temple was thin, revealing a patch of his scalp.
He tilted his head in a way that hid the baldness from her line of sight.
She met his observing gaze and gasped. “Your eyes.”
He sat forward and clasped his hands where they hung between his knees. The closeness gave her a wide-open look at his once again nearly colorless eyes. Still as penetrating and intense, though. “You never answered my question.”
Why did his eyes keep changing? Last night, when they’d appeared a bright, deep blue, he and his men had seemed awed, definitely happy. Now, the set of Henrik’s big shoulders made her think he carried a burden nearly too great to bear. She frowned. “What question?”
“How do you feel?”
“Oh.” Kaira conducted a mental rundown from her head to her toes. “Better than last night. Tired. Achy. I think the fever’s down.”
“We didn’t want to treat you beyond the fluids for dehydration until we had a better sense of what was going on. Our doc specializes in patching up wounds and setting bones, when need be, but since we don’t get sick, your situation is outside his area of expertise.”
“‘We,’ as in...vampires.”
He gave a single nod. “That’s right.”
She ducked her chin, drawing her attention to the fact she wore a johnny over the smooth fabric of the gown she could still feel against her skin. They’d covered her. Last night, they’d protected her. And both Henrik and Jakob had been more honest with her than they had to be. “May I have some water?”
Henrik was on his feet before she’d finished enunciating the last word. He crossed to the sink in the corner and was so tall he had to bend down to fill the cup at the faucet. How old was he? Looking at him right now, except for the white hair, she would never guess from his height and the athleticism of his movement and his upright, commanding bearing that he was older than his twenties. Thirties, maybe.
“Um, not to be rude, but how can vampires exist and nobody knows?”
He returned to her and handed off the drink.
His body was nearly mesmerizing to watch. Quick. Efficient in movement. Confident. There was something totally magnetic and appealingly masculine about him. But then you got to his face, and it seemed to belong to another person. Between the intensity of his eyes, the square jaw, and the strong, expressive brow, no doubt he’d been handsome once, in a rugged sort of way. But now, sunken circles darkened the skin below his eyes and his cheeks were thin and hollowed. Wrinkles pulled at the corners of his eyes and mouth. How could he and Jakob be brothers, yet look so different?
Realizing she’d been staring, she mumbled her thanks and drank three long gulps before she convinced herself to slow down. She was just so thirsty. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she found him watching her, gaze focused on her mouth with such longing.
Kaira’s heartbeat tripped and heat flooded her belly.
He turned on his heel and paced across the small room. He finally settled against the wall at the far end by the door, arms crossed over his chest. “People know. My kind has long been in alliance with a select number of yours, for the good of everyone.”
“People know?” She sipped at her water, attempting to settle the strange, visceral reactions he elicited within her. “Wow.” Out of nowhere, a wave of nausea washed over her. She eased back against the pillows and cupped her hand to her forehead.
“What’s the matter?” he said from immediately next to her. How the hell had he moved so fast, so silently, that she hadn’t noticed? Maybe a vampire thing? The thought did nothing for her stomach.
She blew out a breath. “Am I a prisoner?” When he didn’t answer right away, she opened her eyes and peered up at him.
He returned her stare for a long moment, and then his shoulders sagged. “Ja.”
Goose bumps erupted over her flesh, even though she’d already known the answer. “Are you going to kill me?”
“I told you no harm would come to you.”
“Forgive me if my current status is making me a little shy of trusting you.” She stretched to put down the cup. Kaira debated for a long moment, then released her next words on an exhale. “You asked me what’s the matter. Everything that happened last night aside, I’m sick. Without the meds I need, I’ll get sicker. So if your word really means something, you have to let me go.”
He grabbed the rails along the side of her bed, his knuckles going white. A large gold signet ring with some sort of engraved crest sat prominently on his right hand. “What kind of illness?”
She shook her head. No matter how much her instincts said she could trust him, part of her brain refused to forget that last night he’d bitten her, drank her blood and kidnapped her. Now his brother believed she’d seen too much to be let free. How could this situation end up in any way good for her? At the very least, she probably shouldn’t advertise that she had a disease likely to put her
in an early grave. If they thought she was going to die anyway, whatever compunction they had against killing her now might just evaporate.
“You will tell me.” He towered over the bed.
His nearness brought his tantalizing scent to her nose. It rippled along her nervous system and warmed her everywhere. What the hell was wrong with her? “I won’t.”
The angles of his face sharpened, just as they had in the gallery before everything got weird. “How can you hold me to a promise and then keep from me the means to uphold it?” His fangs flashed, and anger seethed just beneath the surface of the words.
She scoffed. “How can you hold me at all?”
“Because I need you!” The words ripped from his throat and echoed against the painted cinder block. He pressed his fingers to his lips, as if he hadn’t meant to make the admission.
She flinched at the volume of his voice, at the sudden eruption of his temper, at the appearance of his fangs. “Why? For what?”
Two men burst in the door. She recognized one as the vampire who had held Henrik down against the car’s hood—or tried to, but not the other.
“My lord?” the one she knew said.
Henrik paid them no attention. “Leave us.”
They hesitated only a moment, then nodded and left. No questions asked. Why did they obey him so automatically?
“Why do they call you that?” Kaira asked.
He heaved a deep breath. “If you want the truth from me, Miss Sorensen, you need to give me yours in return.”
“I don’t want to die. That’s the most important truth here.”
An emotion she didn’t understand flashed through his pale eyes. “I don’t want you to die, either,” he said, gentling his tone. It was almost tender. Longing.
His words set off a pang in her chest she didn’t understand. Was the sympathy she felt some sort of Stockholm syndrome? And did that even matter? No matter the reason behind it, she couldn’t deny that he stirred something within her. She massaged her right thumb into her suddenly aching left palm. “Because you need me,” she said, repeating his earlier declaration.
He gave a stiff nod and wouldn’t meet her gaze, clearly still uncomfortable with having shared that particular sentiment.
“And what about the others?” She waved her hand toward the door.
“They will cause you no harm.” He radiated such confidence, it clearly wasn’t a question in his mind.
But it was in hers. “How do I know that? How do you?”
He pressed his lips into a thin line, then lifted his chin and nailed her with an intense gaze. “Because I am their king.”
The space of the room sucked to a narrow pinpoint. “King? As in...”
“As in one of the seven remaining vampire kings in the world we both share.”
Her brain scrambled to keep up with the idea that he wasn’t just a vampire, but vampire royalty. Because being an immortal with supernatural powers wasn’t incredible enough. “There were more?”
“There have been seven for a long time. But, yes, once, there were more.” Solemnity flowed through the words.
Competing questions pulled her in multiple directions. “What happened to them?” she finally said.
“The creatures who attacked you last night are the ancient enemy that vampires and humans have in common. We call them Soul Eaters, because they drain the victims of their blood and steal their soul by drinking through the last beat of the heart. Many have been lost in the war with them. Now, your turn to share.”
Kaira’s heart thudded a hard, escalating rhythm against her breastbone. She could’ve lost her freaking soul? If Henrik hadn’t shown up when he did...
Out of nowhere, she recalled the look on his face the previous night when she’d accused him of attacking her, accused him of being no different than those others. Even then, she’d known the words weren’t true. Everything about his bite, his drinking, had felt different, pleasurable even, as strange as that made her feel to admit.
She hugged herself and rubbed her arms.
Did it really matter if she told him what was wrong with her? If they wanted her dead, they could’ve done it any moment before now. “Okay. I, uh, I have chronic myelogenous leukemia. CML. It’s why I have the fever, and at least some of the aches. It’s in the chronic stage right now, but if I don’t have the meds, the cancer will eventually accelerate.” She crossed her arms and met his gaze.
The pale blue of his eyes was absolutely blazing. He slowly sank into the chair at her bedside. For a moment, she would’ve sworn he was devastated by the news, but that made absolutely no sense. And then his expression went neutral, a careful, practiced blank. He nodded. “I see. And...your prognosis?”
She arched an eyebrow. “I won’t die today. You know, unless...” She pointed to him, and then to her own normal canine tooth.
Henrik barked out a laugh he covered with a big fist. He glanced up at her with the first amusement she’d seen light his eyes. The sound and the sight stirred a bit of affection in her chest. “You’re something else. And you don’t know how right you are.” He pushed out of the seat and crossed the room again. Hands on his hips, he stared at the door for a long moment.
Finally, he turned back to her.
“Did you know some believe the aurora to be a bridge to heaven? A portal between this world and the next?”
Kaira nodded. The mythology surrounding the northern lights had long fascinated her. It was ancient man’s way of explaining something that, for them, had no tangible explanation. “The Norse believed the lights to be the reflections of the Valkyries’ shields as they escorted dead warriors to their final resting place at Valhalla.”
His expression was serious. Somber, even. And sad. “Strange that I keep finding things in common with you, Kaira.”
She smoothed her hands over her lap and debated whether to give voice to her suspicions, the ones she’d developed when they’d first met in the gallery. And that were even stronger now. She took a deep breath and figured she didn’t have much to lose. If he wanted truthfulness, she’d give it to him. “You mean, like, the fact that you’re sick, too?”
He blanched. “Why do you say that?”
“Takes one to know one, maybe? I’ve been around sick people for a lot of years.” She picked at a thread on the thin blanket and shrugged.
He returned to the foot of her bed, his gaze penetrating into the very heart of her. When he finally spoke, his voice was tight with urgent grief. “Unlike you, I have no name for it. And there are no medicines to keep it from getting worse. It shouldn’t even be possible, but that doesn’t make it any less real.”
She nodded, butterflies whipping up a whirlwind in her belly. Suspicion of another sort bloomed. “And you need me because...”
“Because yours is the first blood in years that has actually provided me any sustenance, and I think you can save my life.”
Chapter 7
Kaira’s lovely face paled. She swallowed, hard. “Is my blood why your eyes turned bright blue last night?”
“I believe so,” he said quietly, watching her every movement, her every reaction.
“And they’re pale again today because...?”
Henrik tilted his head, hating that he’d put this on her while she lay recovering in a hospital bed. He hadn’t intended to just come out and tell her, but learning she was sick... He was as struck by the similarity of their situations as he was panicked by the idea that he’d found his salvation only to learn that she might be taken away.
He couldn’t let that happen. At least, not until he knew more about what her blood might be able to do for him.
“Because it wasn’t enough. I’ve been afflicted with whatever this is for a very long time.” He sighed and pressed the call button on the rail of her bed.
Jakob pushed through the door almost immediately and bowed his head in a gesture of respect. “My lord?”
Henrik turned his gaze to Kaira, intrigued by the expression on her fa
ce as she observed Jakob. The male was handsome, he supposed. At least, he’d never had a problem finding a woman to bed. No doubt she found him more attractive, and how could he blame her? Still, a sharp wave of jealousy sloshed through his gut. He shoved it away. “Kaira, do you have the medicines you need wherever you were staying in Tromsø?”
Her face fell, as if she were disappointed by this solution to her problem of getting the care she needed. She worried her tongue over a scab on her bottom lip. “Ja. I’m at the Nordic Hotel. Or, was, I guess.”
Henrik had to look away. Her sadness and resignation made it hard to breathe. And the wet sheen her pink tongue dragged over her lip made his jeans suddenly snug. “Jakob, go to Miss Sorensen’s hotel, pack her belongings and bring everything back here.”
Kaira sat up. “I have two cameras and lenses in the room safe. The code is 5-2-9-3. Please be careful with them.”
Jakob nodded. “Of course. Anything else?” His gaze was full of questions Henrik couldn’t yet answer.
“Nei, go while you still have the night. It’s going to be tight to get back in time.”
He smirked. “I’ll make it.”
The door hadn’t closed behind Jakob when Kaira spoke. “So, what? You want to drink my blood again?” She drew her knees up under the blanket.
At least her directness saved him the trouble of figuring out how to tell her what needed to happen here. “Ja.” He dragged a hand through his hair. Suddenly, an idea took shape in his mind. As much of a monster as this probably made him, he had to find out how feeding from her fully would impact his malady. But perhaps he could do something for her in return.
What if she fed from him, too?
His body snapped to attention, heartbeat pulsing in his fangs, cock hard and aching. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had elicited these reactions. Blood lust and physical lust usually went hand in hand for a vampire, so he hadn’t craved the tight heat of a woman’s body in a very long time. Too long.
“That’s it? That’s all you have to say? Because, you know, I’m kinda using this blood over here.”
The angered heat behind her words did nothing to rein in his physical reactions. He swallowed hard, forcing down his hunger for her blood. And her body. “I know how this sounds, Kaira, and I am sorry. If there was another way...well, there isn’t. I’ve tried everything. I wouldn’t take more than you could afford to lose at one time. I don’t know if your blood will definitively cure me, but I do know without it...I’ve no chance at all.” He shook his head, still grappling with his thought of offering her his vein in return.
