Guardian by Blood

by Evie Byrne

  He prostrated himself at the roots of the Mother's tree until sunlight, hot and insistent on his neck, roused him, reminding him he needed go to earth. At the west side of the circle stood seven knee-high mounds fitted with identical round doors. No one had used any of them since the last snowfall. Wat cleared the snow away from one of the mounds and swung open the door. It exhaled a long, cool breath that smelled of damp soil. He crawled in on his belly, backward, so he could draw the door shut behind him. Dawn Hunter or not, it felt good to be in the safe, dark grip of the earth.

  These shafts were made for daytime prayer and contemplation—solitary prayer, because they were so narrow. The shaft he’d chosen did not go far down, and it did not open up much, even at the end. It was about two man-lengths long. When his feet hit a wall, he stopped and rolled onto his back. Above him was a plain niche crusted with candle stubs. A few votive statues stood in pools of cold wax. Tree roots poked through the soil above his head, some hair-fine, others thick as fingers. Using the matches left in the niche, he lit a big pillar candle and eased onto his back.

  After a few tight breaths, his shoulders eased down, and his spine flattened to the cool soil. His breathing deepened. He found his center.

  “Is there any other path?” he said aloud, his voice queer and flat in the close space. “I beg you to show me a way. For your people.” He didn’t much like his options these days.

  Once Eva told Los Angeles that the talks were off, the blade would fall. Eva’s people would gather more troops and firepower and roll into his home. At that point, Brunnrheim could either surrender or fight. If they surrendered, they’d be relocated into cities. There they’d be poor and outcast, without place or purpose. Even if Eva did as she’d said and found them work, he could just imagine what kind of work it would be: extortion, enforcement, procurement… And at the end of the night they would have the privilege of sleeping in some soulless box of an apartment. They’d never see real wilderness again.

  Worse, they’d be expected to feed on humans. They’d be watched, he didn’t doubt, to make sure they didn’t eke by on cats, rats, and pigeons. And that would be the end of a people once known as Dawn Hunters. But those who could adapt would live.

  The price for their lives would be their faith. Conversion was the heart of the deal, renouncement of all their ways. Eva wanted Gun to lead them into their new lives. She’d already made a good start on his personal conversion.

  His blood boiled at the memory of Gunnar in that booth, sucking on that girl. He’d known Eva was up to something, but he’d thought she’d probably offer Gunnar a sip of her own hunt sometime during the course of the night. That temptation he’d assumed Gunnar could resist. He’d thought that as long as he kept an eye on Eva, Gun would be fine.

  How had she found a vampire-obsessed masochist—a “feeder” as she called them— in Rust Jaw, when the nearest vampire center was hundreds of miles away? And she hadn’t found just any willing girl, she’d found Gunnar’s wet dream. Eva was frighteningly resourceful. And too sly by half.

  But she hadn’t been in control in that truck cab. On that narrow bed. Yes, he’d been serving her agenda, but at that moment, for that brief time, she’d been his. She’d clung to him. She’d screamed to her god.

  Proud of yourself, are you?

  He cleared his mind once more and waited for his heartbeat to slow. Then he threw his prayers heavenward with all his will.

  “Mother, guide my steps. Father, lend me strength. Trickster, give me some damned options.”

  If they fought, they’d all die. Simple as that. He might be able to pull some strategic surprises by pushing the fight into the dawn. They’d go down with a shout, but they’d go down pretty fast. There was no outgunning Adad and her allies.

  The choice was clear, yet so difficult. They could die with their principles intact, or they could rearrange their principles to suit the world.

  When he and Ivar had been boys, they’d sat by the fire at night and listened to their father’s stories. While many of his tales featured sword-swinging warriors, like Beowulf or Sigurd, just as many were about philosopher heroes, like Socrates and Cato—men who were willing to die for their principles.

  Lying alone in his snug burrow, Wat imagined what Eva would say if he told her about his father’s stories. He suspected that she’d say he and Ivar had been indoctrinated to be martyrs from a young age. He could counter that they’d be taught to be free.

  He exhaled long and hard, his breath making the candle’s flame dance. His people had already made their choice known to him. They didn’t want a new life.

  Was it a leader’s duty to consider the choices he did not want to make? To be the pragmatic bastard who kept his people alive despite themselves?

  Or was it his role to lead them in their last stand?

  His heart told him this last option was the best thing—the true thing—to do. His mind howled in frustration. Unlike the heart, the mind was not immortal. And it wanted to live. It wanted more. More moonrises. More hunts. More laughter. More, more, more.

  The candle burned down. Wat’s frenzied thoughts slowed.

  His mind drifted. The thaw would come soon; the dripping of icicles would be constant, welcome music. The crocuses would push their way through the snow to bloom in bright purples. The loons would return to the lake. Later would come the spring bonfires. The bonfires! His mouth curved into a smile. Bonfires meant warm nights. He’d lain with good women on those nights. He’d loved. Strange how he’d never gotten around to marrying, and now, he never would. He thought of Ásta, who'd moved to Nova Scotia along with her twelve-year-old daughter, Lora. A year ago, he and Ásta had come within a whisker's breadth of marrying, but she had recognized that he didn't love her as he should love a wife--with his whole heart. It was the truth, but a truth so painful for both of them that at the time he'd wished it false. Now he just thanked the gods that she and Lora were safe and happy.

  The candle wavered in front of his eyes.

  He’d had a fine life.

  More was not necessarily better.

  Eva walked toward him in the woods, her fine, naked body dappled with light and shadow. Torn between anger and desire, he stood, rooted to the earth, his heart pounding. He realized he was naked, too, and at that knowledge, his cock rose, pulsing and eager.

  She smiled. The knowing curve of her lips infuriated him.

  His head throbbed as if it would burst. He clapped his hands to his head, and he found two bony knobs emerging above his ears. They thrust up out of his skull, lengthening and branching as insistently as the new growth of spring. Crying out, he dropped to his knees. The antlers spread wide, gaining mass, so that his neck strained to balance their great weight.

  Eva came to stand before him and stroked the soft velvet at his crown. “Poor Wat is horny.”

  He glared up at her, hating her and her stupid puns.

  Again she laughed. “It’s just that you’re so stiff…necked. You need to learn to relax.” Her cool fingers smoothed the angry lines from his face. One finger lifted his chin, and she leaned so close that her lips brushed his as she spoke. “I thought you had faith.”

  Hooking one hand around her waist and the other around the back of her head, he jerked her into his lap and covered her mouth with his, silencing her. She tasted of the forest, of soft, green undergrowth and sharp northern winds. Ravenous, he dragged his mouth over her chin, tasted the soft skin beneath her jaw, the line of her neck. She panted in his ear and dug her claws into his shoulders.

  “Blood—blood is the answer you seek,” she whispered, urgent.

  This seemed odd. Important. Yet he didn’t care. His hands coursed down her smooth, supple back, his only focus on holding her, having her—until one his hands swept over her tail.

  His eyes snapped open. An auburn tail sprang up from the base of her spine, fat and fluffy and tipped with white, snaking from side to side

  Horrified, he drew back and looked into her face. Eva’s
dark eyes had turned a brilliant, lambent gold. They weren’t her eyes. This wasn’t Eva.

  “Don’t be such a dumb buck, Wat,” the creature said with a laugh. It paused to lick its lips with a long red tongue. “She’s one of mine.”

  Wat woke with a start and slammed his head against the ceiling.

  Chapter Eleven

  Eva woke just before sunset, her mind churning. Her body ached, too. Not from the sex the night before, but from worry and regret…she supposed. It was an unfamiliar sensation.

  She’d gone to bed in the doldrums: dull-witted and miserable, yet conscious enough to spin her anxieties in circles for most of the day. The result felt like whiplash. Her neck was so sore she could barely turn it, and that was nothing compared to the constricted knot between her shoulder blades. Crying had left her throat hot and scratchy. Sun exposure had dried out her eyes, and she had no eye drops in her bag. And to top it all off, a sharp headache pierced her right between her brows like a malevolent bindi. Frowning, she rubbed the spot with two fingers.

  Before she’d gone to bed, she’d texted Dominick rather than calling, reporting only that the feeder had performed well. She hadn’t wanted to lie to him, but there was no need to admit defeat prematurely. After all, I probably have a whole hour before Wat throws me out, she thought mordantly as she sucked on a blood bag and stared into the fire. If he’s alive, that is. If he’s dead, Ivar will kill me, and all my problems will be solved.

  Gunnar was her only hope.

  When she left her room, she went to Wat’s door and put her palm against it. Stretching all her senses, she searched for him, but didn’t find him inside. She tried not to panic.

  Stay on track. It’s all about the boy now. Casting a quick look down the hall, she scratched at Gunnar’s door and said, very low, “Are you awake? Can I come in?”

  She heard a grunt. Taking that as a yes, she opened the door a few inches and peeked in. The prince was up, dressed, and sitting cross-legged by his fire, writing furiously in a notebook balanced on one leg. When she stepped in, he slammed it shut and slid it beneath his knee. A journal? A record of his newfound passion? Excellent.

  He glared up at her. “What?”

  “When we came home yesterday morning, Wat didn’t stay here. He went back outside as the sun was rising—and I don’t think he’s come home. Do you know where he is?” Or if he’s still alive?

  Gunnar looked completely unconcerned. Not callous, just blank, as if he didn’t know why she was asking the question. She plowed on in the face of indifference.

  “Do you know where he might have gone?” she repeated. “Scratch that. I don’t need to know. I’m just wondering if he’s safe.”

  Gunnar shrugged, his expression turning a bit shifty. “Yeah, I reckon he’s okay.”

  “You’re positive?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good.” A little surge of relief passed through her. It felt strangely like joy. “That’s good. Tick that off the list. Now, before he comes back, you and I need to talk, and we don’t have much time.”

  He folded his arms across his chest. “You mean you need to talk, and you don’t have much time.”

  “Whatever. Look. We didn’t pay Emily to like you, just to feed you. If she liked you, that was your doing. And I’ll bet she really liked you—you tasted the truth of it in her blood, didn’t you? So I’m sorry for setting you up, but I’m not sorry you had good experience. One day I hope you’ll look back on this and forgive me.”

  All this speech earned her was a stony, teenaged stare. The kind of stare that eloquently transmitted: “You are a complete idiot who doesn’t understand anything, and anyway, I’m not really listening to what you’re saying.”

  Enough of the personal. On to matters of state. She sat down on the floor across from him. “Yesterday morning, Wat told me that negotiations were off. I have to leave soon. You know what happens next?”

  He nodded, grim.

  “I want to see you a prince.”

  “My princedom.” He laughed. “What a joke. It all ended when my dad died. We all may as well have died then.”

  As he said the last, his glance flicked toward the corner of the notebook poking out beneath his knee. He pretended to be resigned, but his world had become so much more complicated since yesterday. He’d kill to see Emily again. Hell, he’d probably kill for a working phone so he could text her.

  “That’s not true. You’re important. That’s why Alya didn’t kill you back in L.A. Yes, your dad pissed everyone off, and yes, the animal eating is a problem, but one wants to see the end of your bloodline. We know how far back it goes. There aren’t so many old families left that we can waste them.”

  Gunnar shrugged. “I’m not that special. All the Northwoods families are old. We don’t interbreed with unbelievers, and we don’t change humans.”

  She hadn’t thought of that. She filed that fact away to ponder later. “True. But the Halversons have held power for hundreds of years in an unbroken line of decent. That’s in your blood.”

  “No, Dad had the power, until Alya Adad ate him.” He glared at her from under his bangs. “Now she has it, I guess.”

  “That’s not how it works. It’s in you—you just have to learn how to use it.” She leaned forward, bracing her hands on her knees, her tone confidential. “You know what will happen to you if you walk out of here peacefully?”

  Jaw tight, he turned his face toward the fire.

  “You’d be fostered out to one of the other old families until you come of age. If you want.” She added the last quickly, to make it sound voluntary, but she wasn’t really sure if he’d have a choice. “A princely family, you understand? Maybe here in the U.S., maybe abroad. They’d treat you like one their own, and you’d learn your way around nocturnal society. They’d provide schooling, weapons training, the whole gig. It’s not weird at all. Children of the different houses often foster with other families to build alliances. The deal is when you grow up, you’d take in someone else’s fosterling.”

  She wanted to add that he could see Emily as much as he liked, or other girls, or host orgies with Emily and a pile of other girls. But he already thought she was a pimp, so she kept her mouth shut. Anyway, she’d trust his hormones to make that leap for him.

  “So while I’m living high on the hog,” he said, “what happens to everyone else? What happens to Wat?”

  She gave him a reassuring smile. “As regent, he’d oversee your people until you came of age. He’d live with your people, wherever they end up.”

  “So he’d be, like, the prince of a trailer park in St. Paul until I take over? Lucky Wat. And I’m sure Maren and Old Hannah and Jacob and everyone else will like living in the trailer park, too.” He tossed his head to clear his hair from his eyes—which narrowed in sudden suspicion. “Will there even be a trailer park, or will we be homeless?”

  “I’ve told Wat I’d help with the transition—find you all places to live. That’s on my own authority. My boss might not even like it, but it’s within my power to offer assistance to ensure a peaceful resolution, and I swear on my own mother’s head that I will help.”

  Time was slipping away so fast. She should have had this talk with him the first day here, instead of dealing with Wat—not that Wat would have allowed it. She should have worked on Gunnar during their drive cross country, but he’d been about as happy and cooperative as a cat in a carry-cage.

  “When I leave, you and Wat will have some decisions to make, and you won’t have much time. Wat’s got ideas of his own, but remember, you’re the prince. What you say counts.”

  “You want me to sell out.”

  “I want you to live.” She gripped her knees and pinned Gunnar with her gaze, trying to drill some sense into him. “I want all of you to walk out of here alive. I like you. I like this place.”

  As she said it, she knew it was true, but she’d not realized it until that moment. She loved their cozy hobbit houses and folklorico costumes, their goo
fy reindeer and deep, starry nights, and, most of all, their straightforward ways. And she was going to destroy all of it. One way or another.

  Focus. Focus on what you can save.

  “Christ knows I don’t want to come back here with guns—but that will be my job if you don’t treat with us. Gunnar, you’ve got to understand that Wat’s given up. You’re the only one who can keep them alive now. You. It’s all on you.”

  Gunnar unfolded his gangling limbs, swept up his journal, and crossed the room. Not to go anywhere in particular, she thought. Just to move. Just to get away from her.

  He spun around when he reached the furthest wall. “Did you have sex with Wat last night?”

  “What?” She’d heard him perfectly well, but because she hadn’t expected the question, she didn’t have time to form the appropriate response. Her ears went hot, so hot that the tips hurt. She felt the same heat crawl across her face.

  Blushing? Me? Seriously?

  Had she ever blushed before? It was a stupid, pointless, revealing tic. Especially blushing like a virgin because someone suspected she’d had S-E-X with W-A-T. Nonetheless, the heat spread over her cheeks and down her throat. Self-conscious, she fingered the bite mark under her chin.

  Gunnar rolled his eyes. “You like him?”

  “Yes.” Easy answer. Since she’d met him. Since he’d made her coffee and laid his heart on the table.

  “He likes you.”

  She snorted. “He hates me.”

  “Wat only has sex with women he loves.”

  “Well, I’m sure that’s ordinarily what he’d…uh…” Her brain and tongue parted ways, and she stood there for a second, stunned. Wat didn’t have feelings for her. That was impossible. Not last night, and certainly not now. Gunner was looking at her funny. She finished her thought. “I’m sure he’s very honorable, but these were…er…special circumstances.”