by Laken Cane
She unlocked the door and after a quick check of the yard, jogged back to the SUV. Strad stood on guard beside the car, waiting for her. She hadn’t really expected him to stay inside the vehicle.
The other men and Lex obeyed—usually—a direct order from her. The berserker did not. It was frustrating, but she couldn’t get too angry. She’d known what he was when she took him on.
“Someday,” she muttered when she reached him, “I’m going to fire you.”
He grinned.
Jack and Raze hadn’t remained inside their vehicle either, but patrolled the street, ready to cut down any zombie that wondered near.
“Come on, you guys. Let’s get into the house.”
Before they reached the porch, they spotted three zombies trying to get inside a house across the street.
“They’re so fucking fast,” Rune said. “Inside. Hurry.” For all she knew the fuckers could spit and infect a human.
Once inside, Strad put Levi down on the couch and went to find a hammer and some boards to cover the broken window.
Lex and Denim tended to Levi while Strad and Jack secured the house. Raze stood staring silently down at the twins and Lex, and Rune went into the kitchen to make them some dinner and a pot of coffee.
Z. Be okay. For me.
The thought of never hearing him say “sweet thing” again was nearly too much for her. He was one of the original Shiv Crew.
She couldn’t lose him.
Even Owen, though she hadn’t known him long, was special to her. The cowboy was so insanely calm and laid back she sometimes wondered how he could move as fast as he did.
And now Levi, former COS member and the love of Ellie’s life, lay on the couch, infected. Dying.
Before she even realized she was going to, Rune rammed her face into the refrigerator. Her nose shattered.
The pain was sharp and immediate, but even as her eyes watered, something inside her sighed with relief.
Because she was half monster, half freak, half who knew the fuck what, she would heal quickly from such a small injury as a broken nose.
“Rune.”
She turned quickly at the whispered voice, groaning inwardly at the horrified look in Jack’s eye. His other eye was covered with an eye patch. He’d lost that beautiful blue orb when they’d battled the Dark Others in Hawthorne.
There was nothing to say. She grabbed a dishtowel and held it to her face, mopping up blood she couldn’t afford to lose.
Yeah, she was fucked up, but since her stay with the shrinks she was doing a hell of a lot better. So what if she cut herself up once in a while or rammed her face into the refrigerator or sought out a little danger?
It wasn’t like it would kill her.
Jack didn’t know what to do or say, either. He started to touch her, then withdrew his tentatively outstretched hand. He opened his mouth, then closed it.
Finally, he just turned and walked away.
She made sandwiches and hot coffee. They had to eat.
And afterward, they would figure shit out.
Chapter Seven
The zombie bites lay in strips of hot, raw pain upon her body. Her nose had not quite mended by the time she stuck her head into the living room to ask for help carrying food and coffee, but she could feel it trying to right itself.
Strad had busted up a heavy bookshelf and was busy nailing the pieces over the broken window. He glanced at her, did a double take, then dropped his hammer.
He walked toward her, his tread heavy and deliberate, his face expressionless.
Jack and Raze stood at the other windows, watching for zombies. As Strad strode toward her, they left their posts with narrowed eyes, fingers on the hilts of their shivs.
The berserker had that effect on people. They knew he wouldn’t try to hurt her. Wouldn’t even threaten her.
Still, Shiv Crew was aware of what Strad Matheson was capable. They were familiar with the rage inside him, the infamous rage that made him the berserker.
His long, silver spear peeked at her over his broad shoulder, and his black hair streaked over his chest. He looked like the warrior he was. A badass fighter who’d killed more men than even she had.
She held her hands up as he approached, palms toward him, as if that might halt his long stride. “Berserker.”
He didn’t care that they all watched. Didn’t care that she flinched from him with memories of Jeremy still too fresh in her mind. Didn’t care that she had an unyielding distrust of people, of men, of touch.
He didn’t hesitate.
He pulled her off the floor and into his arms.
“Sweetheart,” he murmured.
She buried her face in his neck, her hands clenching and unclenching against his chest, her body stiff and tense.
He waited for her to relax, one big arm wrapped around her waist, his other hand at the back of her delicate skull. His fingers lay against the strips of naked scalp where her hair had fallen out in clumps. “The burden is not yours alone. Let your men bear some of it.”
“Her crew,” Lex said, vibrating furiously. Then her voice broke. “We can’t stand it when you hurt yourself, Rune.”
Sometimes she fucked up.
She was nearly too ashamed to lift her face from the berserker’s neck.
They’d never understand, but they weren’t required to.
And after all, she’d hidden what she was her entire life. She could do it again.
If she had to.
At last she pushed away from Strad and he let her down, not, she was relieved to notice, with extra gentleness or careful eyes. She didn’t want her crew treating her like she was delicate. Or insane.
But he watched her. The look in his eyes was too intense to be called tenderness, really, but for the berserker, it was tenderness.
“Let’s eat,” she said.
After the crew had settled in with their food and coffee, she left them there and locked herself in the bathroom.
She stared into the mirror over the sink for the longest time, unmoving and blank. Black crescents had formed under her eyes, and her nose had shifted a little to the side. What hair she had left clung to her skull in long, dull strands. Her lips were puffy and the stain of blood still colored her face.
She was hideous.
Suddenly angry, she began pulling out the clinging strands of hair until her scalp was bare.
It was an improvement.
What the fuck happened to me?
The zombie bites had infected her, an infection she’d healed from…sort of. The devastation had left her different. Inside and out.
She wouldn’t have looked out of place in a graveyard, eating flesh alongside Gunnar the Ghoul.
But her hair would grow back.
“Z.” She put her fingertips against the glass. “I need you.”
But he didn’t answer.
When she reentered the living room, she knelt beside Levi.
None of the crew mentioned her hairless state, and neither did she. “Levi?”
He opened his eyes for a moment.
They were empty. Levi wasn’t in there, not really. His eyes were black and feverish and his skin had taken on a grayish cast. His hair was also falling out, but at a slower rate than her’s had.
Denim’s face was pale, his stare almost as empty as his twin’s. His hand trembled when he lifted his coffee cup to his lips.
“He’s going to die.” Lex’s body was no longer vibrating, and her wild, dancing eyes had stopped moving. “He’s going to die.”
“No,” Denim said, his voice harsh. “Rune will save him.” He looked at her. “You need to do it soon.”
She saw the anguish in his face. And the lack of faith. He knew his brother was dying, but he wasn’t anywhere near accepting it.
She stood. “No one is dying. We’ve already lost too many. No one is dying.”
Denim nodded almost mechanically. “No one is dying.”
“Can your blood can save him?” Raze asked.
“You’re not strong enough to feed him.” Strad glared down at her. “You’ve just been—”
“Berserker, will you let me feed from you?” She stood in front of him, staring up into his eyes, resolute. She didn’t think she’d infect him. She wasn’t completely sure but the odds were she would not.
But there were no doubts at all that Levi would die without her blood. Maybe even with her blood, but she had to try.
Then she would find Z and do the same for him. If she had to force feed him, she would.
Something hit the door. Lex began vibrating the tiniest bit.
Rune ignored it.
“Strad?”
He stared down at her, silent, but finally he nodded. His nod was reluctant, and she understood. He wasn’t worried about her infecting him.
He was worried about her being strong enough to feed Levi. Feedings were, to put it mildly, agonizing for her.
But he also knew she’d happily die if it meant saving her men.
So he nodded.
And if there was the smallest gleam of eagerness in his eyes, she couldn’t blame him. He was about to feed his addiction.
“Then let’s do this,” she said, and because it suddenly seemed too personal to share, she led him into the bedroom.
Chapter Eight
With a self-consciousness she was not accustomed to, she ran her palm over her scalp and avoided the intenseness of his steady gaze.
Immediately, he pulled her hand away from her head. He caressed her palm with his thumb. “You hide from no one.”
Yes I do, Berserker. I hide from everyone.
She straightened her spine and made herself forget the foolishness of caring about how she looked. There was no room for pretty in her life.
He started to pull weapons from the belts crisscrossing his big body, but she stopped him. “There’s no time for foreplay.”
She jumped, and he caught her against his chest. With an almost audible click, she dropped her fangs.
But when he bared his neck, she hesitated. “Berserker—”
“Shhh,” he said. “Do it.” He caught her gaze and smiled. “You can’t hurt me, Rune. Not with your teeth.”
It lay unspoken between them, the question she had no answer for. Yes, she could hurt him. She could shatter his heart.
She had no reassurances for him, either, but he’d deal with it. It wasn’t like he didn’t know her. Everyone around her realized she was fucked up.
Relationship material? Not so much.
So she was bound to hurt him.
She sank her fangs into his neck almost angrily, but her anger was forgotten at his groan of relief and the taste of his blood.
Her need for blood was becoming more intense. Her monster would no longer be kept down, would no longer wait patiently, or let her command him. It.
Me.
His blood spurted down her throat in a strong, hard rush, as though it knew her urgency.
Maybe it did.
Her monster sighed.
The berserker muttered something. Maybe it was her name, maybe God’s, but she was so lost in the moment she didn’t care. She was getting what she needed.
So was Strad.
His skin was warm against her lips. She got a sudden image of him in her bed, on top of her, his hands hard on her body.
It was a vivid image, so real and colorful that she cried out even as she pulled more of his blood into her.
The blood bond between them was growing stronger.
That might not be a good thing. But she pushed the thought out of her uneasy mind. Right then there was only the blood, the power, and the ecstasy.
At last she forced herself to pull away from his neck. His blood wanted to keep her there—it seemed to stretch between them, urging her back, urging her to feed.
But she would kill him if she kept drinking. He, in his bliss, would fall happily into that bloody abyss.
So she forced herself away.
“Berserker,” she said, her voice soft and thick. “I feel better.”
He stared. “You look better, too.” He kissed her then, before she could leave him to go find a mirror.
She always looked better after a feeding. Healthier, anyway.
But she had a feeling that wasn’t what he meant.
The berserker’s kiss melted her, though, and she forgot about mirrors as she wrapped her arms around his neck and opened her mouth beneath his.
She gave herself, high and full of life and the berserker’s blood, a moment to feel his kiss. To lean into it, to allow herself the joy of it.
Then she pushed away from him. “I have men to feed, Berserker. We have to find Z.”
He stepped away from her, his hand slightly unsteady as he ran it through his hair. He swallowed, hard. “I’ll take Jack and search for Z.”
“And Owen.”
He glared. “Yeah.”
She didn’t push it. “While you’re gone I’ll take care of Levi. If my blood doesn’t heal him…”
He reached out to squeeze her shoulder. “Feed him, Rune. The rest is not up to you.”
She nodded. “Be careful.”
He followed her back to the living room. She ran a hand over her scalp. It was itching, and as she touched her head she realized new hair had begun to grow.
It sprouted up in an almost sharp growth, and suddenly she understood the berserker’s look. Her hair was growing back. Already.
That was what her monster did for her.
She heard Levi’s moans as she walked down the hall, and she broke into a run. The crew gathered around the couch on which he lay.
Raze leaned over the infected twin, holding him down.
“What’s going on?” Rune asked.
Raze glanced at her, his gaze going immediately to her hair. “He’s hallucinating.”
“He’s back in COS,” Lex said, her voice full of tears.
Denim knelt beside the couch, murmuring in his brother’s ear.
“Fuck,” Rune said. The twins and Lex had grown up in the church—the COS founder was Karin Love. Lex’s mother. To say Karin had abused Lex was an understatement. “Move over, Denim,” she said, gently. “Let me feed him.”
Something thumped against the door.
“The zombies know we’re in here,” Lex said, shuddering. “I hate the fucking zombies.”
“They smell us,” Rune said.
“We have to clear a path,” Strad told Jack. “Let’s go find Z.”
“And Owen,” Rune reminded.
Once again he glared at the mention of Owen’s name. It didn’t matter that he was a little jealous of the cowboy. Owen was Shiv Crew, and Strad would not abandon him. “Yeah.”
“You two be careful. I don’t want to lose you.” She met the berserker’s gaze. “Either of you.”
He grinned.
She was not accustomed to the berserker smiling so much. It was fucked up. He and Jack went into the kitchen to try sneaking out the back way. The fewer zombies they had to fight, the faster they could track Z and Owen.
Levi screamed and struggled beneath Raze’s hands. “God, no. God, no, no.”
His face was a mask of horror, his eyes wide, peering into a past no one could see but him.
And maybe Lex and Denim. She glanced at them.
Denim’s face was carefully blank but he couldn’t keep the terror and grief out of his blazing eyes. “Fuck, Rune,” he said, his voice so hoarse she could barely understand him. “Help him.”
“I’ll do my best, baby.” She pulled a shiv from its sheath and sliced a line across her wrist. She had a scar there where a COS leader had fed.
Sometimes her monster wiped out all traces of injury, but sometimes the scars remained. She was amassing quite the collection.
She could feel Denim holding his breath as she held her wrist above Levi’s lips. But the sick twin thrashed against Raze’s restraining hands, and the blood splashed onto his cheek.
“Lex—”
“I’ve got him.” Lex grabbed Levi’s head. She held him still with a grip that proved her strength. Lex was not as fragile as she looked.
Rune drew in a deep breath and pushed her bloody wrist against Levi’s mouth. “Drink, love,” she begged.
But he didn’t drink—and why would he? He was not aware that he needed to. He was lost somewhere in the terror of his past.
The blood ran inside his mouth anyway and down his throat. In the end, he didn’t need to suck. The blood went where he needed it to go.
Rune was beginning to think she would escape the pain when it hit her with brutal force. Agony roared, ferocious and hateful, and attacked her.
Ah, fuck.
Then she was lost in overwhelming pain. Some part of her was aware, briefly, of Denim catching her as she fell. Someone, probably Raze, held her wrist firmly to Levi’s mouth.
If not for that, she would have run screaming from the room.
The pain was not a sensation any person—no matter how strong or how familiar with pain—could handle. Or comprehend.
It kicked her ass.
In the darkness of agony, there was nothing else. Only pain.
Except suddenly there was something else.
She screamed, maybe. She meant to.
Screamed as something came out of the darkness to join her in her misery.
“Hello, Rune,” said the mad master vampire, Nicolas Llodra.
You’re not real. Get out of my head.
Oh God, the pain.
She was going to die. If her heart didn’t burst from the strain, if her mind didn’t break, Llodra would kill her.
You’re immortal, Rune.
Fuck me, fuck me—
They’re killing me here.
Fuck—
Don’t let them kill me. You need me. He pulled back a little, his smile hideous in his thin, tormented face. You just don’t know it yet.
And he was gone, just like that.
If he’d ever really been there.
But he had. He had.
And because he’d been inside her mind, she knew without a single doubt that she and Llodra were connected.
They were connected, and she would not escape the madness.
