by Laken Cane
“We will,” said Jack. “Come on, honey. I’ll drive you to the inn.”
But she shook her head. “My car out front?”
Raze tossed her the keys. “In your usual spot.”
“All of you get some rest after you see Denim and Fie. This is not even close to over.”
Ellis took her hand, his face pale. Dark blotches lay under his eyes like thumbprints, and the spark that made him Ellis was dim. “I’m coming with you.”
“No, baby. Go home. Sleep.” She squeezed his fingers and handed him off to Levi.
But Ellis wasn’t finished. He took her hand again, and with his other, caressed her battered face. “Don’t ever forget that I love you, Rune.”
He was always so afraid for her.
But then, he knew her. He knew he had reason to be afraid.
She left them there and stumbled to her car, ignoring calls from the media. She couldn’t talk to them. She had to eat, shower, and sleep.
And then she’d deal with Llodra.
As she started her car, Bill Rice, the police director, pulled in beside her. She groaned, but put down her window to talk to him.
“I’ve got to go for a while,” she told him. “We’ll talk later.”
To her surprise, he didn’t try to stop her. He looked long and hard at her regrowing hair and her wounds, peered into her eyes, and simply said, “Call me when you wake up. I want you to get that bastard.” Then he strode away and into the building of blood.
She plugged her phone into her car charger, gave it a few minutes, then called Owen as she drove. “How is she?” Her hands were shaking, and she clenched the wheel so hard she heard a creak.
“The same.” He paused. “It’s good to hear your voice.”
He didn’t blame her. Not yet. Or maybe he just wasn’t ready to show it.
“Strad is on his way back. He found Denim and the kid.” She shivered beneath the blast of hot air coming from the vents, pretty sure she’d never be warm enough again.
“Great news.”
“I’m going to get some sleep. In a few hours we’re going to find Llodra. I’ll explain everything to you then. You should stay with Elizabeth.”
“No. I need to work. I need to find that fuck.”
She understood. “Okay.”
She clicked off, grabbed a bag of greasy burgers and a large coffee, and finally, she was home.
The inn wasn’t really home, but it was a warm place to stay until she could get moved into the house she’d just bought. The way things were going, that was going to be a while.
She wolfed down the food and coffee and stumbled to the bathroom. She had to shower, as tired as she was, but first she needed to find a mirror.
She didn’t look as messed up as she’d thought she would. There was only one thing that caused her to stare in shock.
Her hair had grown a couple of inches, and it was no longer black. At least, not all of it was. It was white, with rapidly growing black roots.
But her eyes were different. Not in color or shape, but they’d developed a new flinch, as though shrinking back from all they’d witnessed.
From the new things they knew.
Father. Who was he?
She didn’t cry, or mourn the changes that had come, or curse. Not then.
She climbed quietly into the shower. The water, hot and clean and washing away every bad thing, was heaven. Heaven.
But the bad things, they came anyway.
Sometimes, she had to cave. She had to let life crush her so she could reach the bottom and either die or stand the fuck back up and walk through the dark with her spine stiff and her fists ready.
So there in the insulated waterfall of her steamy shower, she let herself cave.
When she lay on the bottom, where familiar despair and filthy guilt and shameful fear grabbed her by the throat and held her under black, putrid water, only then could she admit one thing to herself.
She missed Jeremy.
She missed what he’d done for her.
She needed him.
But he had gone and there was no one to help her. No one to make her feel better. No fucking one at all.
And masquerading as a sane person was exhausting.
So she had to let herself fall to the bottom. She licked the wicked floor with a greedy, wounded tongue, and cried for herself even as she gently embraced the darkness that lived inside her.
She was alone, and she was mad.
She held her hands under the stinging spray of water, a futile attempt at cleansing them of the blood she’d shed.
She did good things, but the good would never make up for the bad. Never.
Would they punish her for demanding Llodra’s release? Would they do anything other than refuse to meet her stare when she stood before them?
No.
“Then fuck you,” she muttered. “Fuck you.”
She didn’t react when she was plucked from her wet hell. The berserker cradled her in his arms and carried her to the bed, laying her upon it and then straightening to stare down at her.
She looked at the ceiling.
“Come back to me,” he said.
Unaware she was even going to, she sat up and shot out her claws. “Make it stop,” she screamed. “Make me stop!”
“Sweetheart,” he whispered. He drew his spear and tossed it aside, then ignored her claws and knelt down beside the bed.
She held up a hand, threatening, but he didn’t move.
“Cut me if you need to,” he said, “but I’m not going anywhere.”
“I don’t want to cut you,” she said, and that was partly a lie. Her voice was so thick she wasn’t sure he’d understand her words. “I want to cut me. It helps. It helps, Berserker.” But she retracted her claws.
He grasped her arm and pulled her hand toward his chest. He placed her palm above his heart. “I can’t be that kind of help, Rune.”
“Ah,” she cried. “Ah, God.”
He had no words to change what had happened or make her okay. Such words did not exist. So he did what he could do.
Pushing her back, not gently, he climbed to his feet. He never took his stare from her as he tore off his belts and holsters and sheaths, then rid himself of his clothes and boots.
She watched him with a ferocious desperation, and began to calm. “Hurry, Berserker.” She scraped her nails along her bare thigh, drawing blood, but he didn’t try to stop her.
The berserker was fierce. His energy attacked her, taking up all the space in her mind. It squeezed out the bad shit until there was little room for anything but him.
Because whether he understood it or not, he would hurt her. There was no evil attached to his gift, no deliberate attempts to crush a girl whose issues were overwhelming. He was simply that fierce.
She trembled with eagerness. “Do not hold back, Berserker. Not this time.”
His cock stiffened and grew to almost alarming proportions, but that was not frightening to her. It was what he held inside himself that frightened her.
And that was exactly what she needed.
She wrapped her fingers around his hardness, the heat of him enough to warm her cold palm.
He shuddered beneath her touch.
He shook his head, his long, black hair streaming over his bare, muscular chest, and smiled. His eyes shot sparks of internal rage and controlled passion about to be unleashed. “No,” he agreed. “Not this fucking time.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
He kept his word. He did not hold back.
And neither did she.
Afterward, she lay on the floor, her mind empty and her spirit numb. Her body, the shell that held her, was throbbing with pain in every spot, every orifice, every nerve.
It was good.
She didn’t even have to beg Ellie to bring blood, did not have to pull him into her warped world and cause him pain.
The berserker was full of blood.
Or he had been, before she’d gone a little crazy bene
ath his rage and his addiction and had nearly drained him.
He lay beside her, still and pale, one arm flung over her belly.
She didn’t care.
The berserker could take it.
She smiled, or meant to. “Thank you.”
His finger twitched against her skin and she knew he heard her. And as soon as she could force herself from the near coma of bliss and begin to worry again, she’d feed him.
Now, she could deal with Llodra, and with the possibility that her father was alive and well and knew who the fuck she was.
Could deal with the dead RISC workers.
Maybe she could even deal with Z and Levi.
She could deal with life.
Curled against the berserker, she slept.
And in her dreams, Nicolas Llodra told her how to find him.
Not deliberately, but she saw his secrets.
When she jerked awake and sat up, gasping, Strad didn’t move. She pushed the dream of Llodra away and opened a vein for the berserker, forcing blood back into his drained body.
“Strad,” she demanded. “Now you come back to me.”
She’d taken too much. She’d done the very thing she’d been terrified of doing, and had hurt him.
“You can’t hurt me, Rune. Not that way.”
But she could. She had.
Fuck.
“Strad,” she whispered, as she fed him. His mouth had begun to move, to suck at her wrist, to take the medicine he needed to live. “I think I know how to find Llodra.” She hesitated. It didn’t matter that he might not hear her. She’d just needed to say the words aloud. To admit that she…
She was of the dead.
“You do not fully realize your power, do you? There is a chance you would pull out the secrets inside you and give me what I so deserve.”
She shivered as she remembered Llodra’s words. Her blood brought Strad back from the brink, and at her shiver, he opened his swollen eyes.
Everything that had happened—feeding from the witch, her bites from the zombies, the forced exchange of blood from Llodra, bringing back her boys…
All of it had changed her. She’d known it would.
She hadn’t realized what bringing back Levi and Z had actually meant.
But she was terribly, terribly afraid she did now.
She was of the dead in ways she hadn’t comprehended.
That wasn’t what caused her the most distress. Because in her dreams, she’d discovered something else.
Something worse.
Her father. She knew her father.
He turned his face from her wrist. “You can find him?” His voice was rough and hoarse and barely there, but she heard him.
She squeezed her wrist to stop the bleeding, and shook her head. She wasn’t ready. Not yet. “I hurt you.”
“Yeah.” He tried for a wry smile. “I didn’t think you could. I was wrong.”
She stretched out on top of him and put her lips to his ear. “I’m so sorry.”
“No. It was the best thing I’ve ever gone through.” He ran a hand over her back. “I’m not afraid of hurting you anymore.”
“I told you.” The words rang with pride.
“Did it quit?” he asked quietly.
Quick tears sprang to her eyes and she pushed her lips against his throat, waiting for the spout of emotion to pass so she could speak. “You made it quit, Strad.”
And that was the fucking truth.
His voice was stronger. “Tell me about Llodra.”
She swallowed convulsively.
Maybe she was mistaken after all. Maybe it had just been a dream. “I dreamed…” But she couldn’t talk about what else she’d seen as she’d slept. Couldn’t. “It was just a dream. Are you able to get up?”
“Yeah. But Rune…”
“What?”
“Your claws. Were they silver or did I imagine it?”
She smiled. “I have silver fucking claws.”
Later, in the shower, as she leaned her forehead against the wet wall and let him cleanse her of lingering blood and cold semen, she thought maybe she understood what love was.
And she would be okay.
She’d learned to live with her pain. Lex was right. She did find the silence through sex and violence.
Forty-five minutes later she and Strad climbed into their respective rides, and she called the crew.
It was time to get to work.
It had snowed, and a couple inches of the frozen white stuff decorated naked tree branches and the sidewalks, and it seemed as though the world was asleep.
The sadness lingered—a depression she wasn’t sure she’d ever lose. Maybe because of everything, maybe because of nothing. It was just who she was, and when it became too harsh, she would do what she had to do to ease it. To beat it back so she could function.
And she knew one thing without a doubt.
If Strad hadn’t been in her life, she would have run screaming and naked into the dark, as insane as the mad master vampire, Nicolas Llodra.
She was, after all, her father’s daughter.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
They met at Wormwood, except for Ellis, who’d returned to the RISC building.
“I don’t think we’ll need to go back to Rock County,” Rune said.
“We won’t? How will we find Llodra, then?” Levi asked. He stood beside his brother, and Rune had a feeling he wasn’t going to let him out of his sight for a while.
Lex stood off to the side, not looking at either of them. They’d both hurt her, and she wasn’t ready to forgive them. At least not now that they were safe.
Rune smiled as Denim caught her staring. He grinned and sent her a wink. He’d apologized a hundred times for running away.
“I’m glad you did,” Rune had told him. “If you hadn’t, you wouldn’t have found little Fie.”
He’d found her wandering the woods, her body damaged but not broken.
She’d never said a word.
Rune believed she’d called on the zombies to shield her fall. That was the only explanation. She had controlled her zombie mother, after all.
Denim was so damn grateful to Rune for saving Levi’s life. He didn’t care if Levi was inclined to obey Rune’s every command—and that had surprised even Lex.
“He’s alive,” Denim had said, finally letting Rune out of his embrace. “I can never repay you for that.”
Marta had lied about finding him and sending him home. He’d never seen the vampires.
Big shock.
“Rune,” Levi prompted. “How can we find him?”
Rune shifted from foot to foot, uncomfortable with Levi’s question.
“He could be anywhere.” Jack leaned against the fence and watched her.
They hadn’t yet entered the gates of the vast graveyard, but Gunnar stood silently just beyond them, waiting.
She closed her eyes as she inhaled the heady scent of the hot coffee Jack had brought her, then took a sip before she spoke. “I think I can…”
“What?” Raze asked, frowning. He stood protectively behind Lex, and Rune knew it was to make the Other feel less abandoned. Raze was not happy with her pain.
“I think I can call him,” Rune said. She went on when no one said a word. “I fed from Damascus. It was fucking disgusting but I think that gave me some of the knowledge she has. And power. Or maybe because Llodra forced some of his blood into me.” She waved her hands impatiently. “Whatever the reason, I think I can—”
“Fuck me,” Z said, his eyes wide and horrified. “You can control him because he’s dead. Just like me and Levi. That’s why you control us.” He started toward her.
Jack put a hand out and stopped him. “Don’t, dude.”
Z ran his fingers through his dirty blond hair, then over his face. “We are dead, then. The two of us.” He nodded at Levi. “We’re fucking dead. She just won’t let us lie down.”
She flinched at his caustic laugh, wishing with everything i
nside her that she could make it right. But she couldn’t. “I can’t let you die, Z.”
“Then you’re a selfish bitch,” he said. “You’re a selfish fucking bitch.”
“I love you,” she said, her voice cracking.
He snorted, and the tears standing in his eyes spilled over. “If you loved me, you’d let me go.”
She realized right then that her Z, the Z she’d known, he was already gone. Already dead. He was right.
And she needed to let him lie down.
She sobbed then, and pushing away Levi’s consoling hand, ran for Z. She fell to the ground at his feet and wrapped her arms around his legs. “I’m so sorry,” she cried. “You have to forgive me, Z. You have to forgive me.”
He stood stiff and silent, as did the entire crew.
“I’m so sorry. Oh God, I’m so sorry.”
And at last, he rested his hand on her head. “Rune…”
She stared up at him, drowning in her tears, in her heartache. “Don’t leave me, Z. Don’t leave me. Don’t make me let you go.”
“Sweet thing,” he whispered, his fingers gentle in her white, white hair. “I have to.”
She broke then. Just broke.
But she understood the truth. She had to let him go. She had to let him lie down.
Because it was his life, his death, and his choice.
He was not hers to keep.
Heartbroken, she hugged his legs and cried, hoping he’d change his mind. Maybe, he’d change his mind.
In the end he knelt beside her on the cold ground and at last, she got her Z back. If only for a moment.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and murmured for only him to hear, “I did love you. I loved you the most.”
He nodded, wiping away her tears. “I know. I know, sweet thing.”
“The crew will be broken without you, Z. I will be broken without you.”
But she was already broken. And Z couldn’t live as he was now, not even for his crew. Not even for her.
His death was his, between him and his God.
He said his goodbyes then, embracing each of the crew, before taking Rune’s hand and leading her into Wormwood.
They left the crew there and walked alone.
