Sovereign

by Anne Schlea

  “Torhild, it’s been a long time.” She smiles warmly at the valkyrie woman, stepping around Kristoff to offer her hand. “I’m sure you’re worried about your sister.”

  Kristoff watches in amazement as Torhild’s entire body language changes. She grasps Dinah’s hand for moment and then relaxes back from Kristoff with a smile. “Dinah, I didn’t realize you were here.”

  “Kristoff didn’t want to disrespect your sister.” Dinah shoos them away from the bedroom door, and by some amazing feat, they retreat to the living room. “He called me after your sister was found and asked me to come care for her. He understood it would be insolent for him to lay his hands on her while she sleeps.”

  Dinah carefully meets Kristoff’s eyes with a clear message: keep your mouth closed. Her smile and warm, welcoming demeanor never change.

  “How thoughtful.” Torhild doesn’t sound convinced, but she seems willing to take Dinah’s word for it; at least for now. “You will stay here?”

  “I am in the city and I will make sure Runa is comfortable.” She expertly skirts the question of staying here in the hotel. Kristoff’s amazed, he’d always thought of Dinah as little more than a mother figure to the clans of Raven and Silver Blade. Clearly, she’s savvier than he thought. “Runa was terribly drained by her experience. I expect it will take many weeks for her to recover.”

  “Weeks?” Torhild scoffs and waves her hand through the air. “You are too gentle. It cannot possibly be that bad. As soon as she wakes, she’ll need to come with us. I expect it will happen any time now.”

  “You should see her yourself.” Dinah’s eyes move to Britta. She nods her head toward the bedroom door. “Why don’t you go check on her, my dear?”

  Kristoff almost chokes on the word. Dear? Who in their right mind calls a valkyrie “dear?”

  Britta’s eyes flicker quickly to Kristoff. Then she bobs her head and slips past Dinah, through the door.

  Dinah keeps her attention on Torhild. “Would you like a drink? I’m sure Kristoff has some fabulous vodka stashed around here somewhere.”

  Torhild shakes herself and then stands taller. “No. If you are truly here to care for Runa, I will leave you to it. There are other things I must attend to. I will wait for Britta’s report; if she really is as sick as you say then Britta will check daily on Runa until our sister is ready to travel.”

  Bowing her head in agreement, Dinah smiles softly and waits. In only a minute, Britta emerges from Runa’s bedroom. She looks at her sisters. “She sleeps like the dead, like a human in a coma. Dinah speaks the truth; she may not wake for many weeks. She will only slow us down, let her sleep here under Dinah’s care.”

  “Very well, we will go.” Torhild glares at Kristoff. “We return to check on her each day. Now that we know who you are, vampire, you will not be able to hide from us. Do nothing foolish.”

  She turns on her heel, Reagan following her from the room. Britta hesitates a moment, then passes her hand over Kristoff’s cell phone; her phone number is electronically recorded inside. She mouths the words, “Call me.”

  Kristoff nods once, then watches all three women disappear into the hallway, the door closing behind them.

  He releases a breath he didn’t realize he was holding and sags back against the bedroom door. “How did you do that?”

  “Torhild and I go way back.” She smiles at him, her eyes distant in memories; then she shakes it off and shrugs. “I haven’t always been so even natured; I had a few wild years when I rebelled against the rules and ran with the valkyrie. She respects me.”

  Dinah’s eyes change, focusing on the door behind Kristoff. She takes a few steps toward it, her hand resting on the panel next to his head. “She’s badly hurt. I have no idea how long she’ll need to recuperate, but I imagine Britta will help you with that. Britta and Runa are different from their sisters; you can trust Britta to keep Runa from Torhild as long as she can. I’m going to call Zartan now. We don’t have to tell him exactly what was done to her, but he needs to know about Torhild. She’s vicious and will use this situation for her own advantage. I don’t want him to be caught unaware.”

  He nods again, his whole body suddenly weak now that the danger of Runa’s sisters has passed. “Can I sit with her?”

  “Yes.” Dinah looks past him at the door like she can see the woman on the other side. “I’ve washed her as best as I can and clothed her so no one will be able to see. I don’t think she’ll wake soon, and I don’t know how she’ll react to see you there. Be gentle with her. The damage done inside is bound to be far worse than that done to her body.”

  The room seems dark despite the lamps lighted on each side of the bed. Dinah had tucked Runa under the covers and done her best to clean her hair. It still looks limp, but at least it has been brushed and cared for. Her face had been washed, her arms now resting on top of the covers and mostly covered in a soft shirt. Kristoff can hear her breathing softly; other than that, she gives no sign of life.

  He pulls a chair from the corner of the room next to the bed. As much as he wants to hold her hand, he isn’t sure how she’ll respond to his touch; he folds his in his lap, and instead watches her sleep. When the tears come, they’re quiet and cold in the bedroom, a silent reminder that even at his age there are travesties he isn’t prepared to face.

  Chapter 3

  Kristoff wakes with a start, his hand already reaching for the gun kept next to his bed. The room is dark, it’s still nighttime. Runa’s asleep, unmoving in the bed. He can hear voices in the next room and assumes that’s the noise that woke him. He takes a moment to gently touch Runa’s hair and then joins the others in the dining room.

  Someone must have ordered dinner from the hotel kitchen and had it brought up to the suite. Zartan, Antonia, Dinah, and Ivan are seated around the table, talking in hushed voices, eating a variety of food. Kristoff’s stomach turns at the smell.

  Ignoring the food, he walks to the sideboard and pours a glass of vodka from the dispenser sitting on top.

  “How is she?” Antonia stands and approaches him tentatively. Her hand reaches gently toward his shoulder, gives it a soft squeeze, then she pulls away. She must not have gone on the raid, her hair is a picture perfect mass of blond curls and she’s dressed elegantly in black pants and a red sweater. Red heels. Diamond earrings. Runa would approve of the outfit.

  “Asleep.” He throws back the drink and then refills his glass. The burn slides down the back of his throat to settle in his stomach, not nearly enough. Feeling the press of his gun against his back, he realizes he hadn’t unarmed. He pulls the Glock from his back, releases the clip, and then sets both down next to the decanter before he takes another drink. “It’s bad.”

  “She’s a valkyrie, I’m sure she’ll be…” Antonia’s comfort is cut off by Kristoff.

  “No. She’s not going to be fine.” The second shot of vodka seems to calm his stomach; once the churning slows, he realizes how hungry he is. He wonders how long he’s been asleep. His stomach growls, he throws back a third shot, and then turns to look for unclaimed food on the table. “It’s really that bad.”

  “Wash up. We ordered you dinner, but it might be a little cold now.” Dinah steps between them to give him a gentle push toward the bathroom. Her eyes and her hands are firm. “You still have blood on you.”

  Startled, he does as she asks. Hadn’t he washed before he took up his vigil next to Runa?

  Maybe not. He can’t remember.

  Kristoff looks at himself in the mirror; blood is dried and caked against his face and cheeks. Looking down, there’s blood on his hands, too. How did he miss that when he poured the vodka? The pungent smell of darkness clings to his clothes and his hair. This isn’t Runa’s blood on his body. It’s the blood of his enemies.

  He peels off his jacket and drops it on the floor to be dealt with later. The he uses the expensive, flowery smelling soap to scrub the blood from his hands and face. When he pulls the towel away from his face, it’s red and
stained. The contents of his stomach lurch but he manages to hold down the vodka.

  He can’t remember the last time the sight of blood made him sick. Centuries ago, maybe when he was a human child. Certainly not since his decent into the vampire world. In this world, and as a Russian War Lord, he deals in blood like currency. Death is a way of life.

  I’m going to need more vodka, he thinks to himself. A lot more.

  Kristoff studies himself in the mirror again. He looks shaken, something else he hasn’t felt in a very long time. Thinking about it, he can’t remember the last time any kind of battle had upset him like this. He defends what is his. Go in, kill the bad guys, decimate them so others won’t pick up their banner, go home. Burn everything to the ground and leave no survivors. This has been his way of life for centuries.

  What is it about this one valkyrie female that has brought him to this place? Emotionally stripped, he doesn’t even have the energy to be angry.

  Rubbing a clean hand over his face, he breathes in deeply through his nose – once, twice. His stomach settles. He should put on a mask before he leaves the bathroom, pretend for the others that nothing has changed. That he hasn’t changed.

  He opens the door to the bathroom and finds his dinner waiting, magically warm at Dinah’s insistence. Before he sits down, he takes another glass of vodka and brings the bottle with him to the table. If he has his way, he plans on many more glasses before the night is over. As he takes his seat, he notices Antonia missing from the table.

  “She’s sitting with Runa.” Dinah notices his eyes surveying the room. “I didn’t want her to be alone in case she wakes up.”

  “She won’t.” Kristoff takes his seat and pushes the food around the plate. It doesn’t even register what he’s eating before he takes a bite. He wonders how long it’s likely before Runa will wake up and then feels for his cell phone. It isn’t in his pocket, so the call to Britta will have to wait. “Not for a while. Maybe a few days.”

  “Are you okay?” Zartan’s voice is low, intense.

  Food hits Kristoff’s stomach and it heaves again. Sheer determination keeps it down, along with the next swallowed bite. A light sheen of sweat breaks across his face but he refuses to let his stomach rule him. Two deep breaths and another swallow of food before he looks up at Zartan, meeting his eyes, but he’s unable to form any kind of sentence in response.

  Zartan looks at Ivan and moves his head slightly in the direction of the door. Ivan was once a lieutenant under Antonia’s brother Richard on the wrong side of a familial civil war; he now commands Antonia’s forces in the position her brother Arthur had held for two centuries. Kristoff watches him move and assumes he must be damn good if Zartan is willing to let a former enemy stand at his back or the back of his mate.

  In Kristoff’s world, Ivan wouldn’t have survived long enough to convince anyone of his loyalty. His head would have rolled moments after Richard’s.

  Ivan moves his empty dinner dishes to the room service cart, and then leaves to take up a position in the hallway. Dinah busies herself cleaning up the dirty dishes while Zartan talks. “It’s hurts, I get it.”

  Kristoff clamps his jaw shut thinking; you don’t get it. You can’t get this. No matter what happened in your perfect, charmed, mated life, nothing you’ve experienced can compare to this.

  “Toni was Blood Raped by her brother, before he issued the challenge to lead the clan.” Zartan watches Kristoff’s eyes move to Dinah. “I don’t know what happened in that lab, but I can guess. To have a valkyrie helpless before you…there are a lot of creatures that would like to take her down a notch or two. No, I didn’t see anything nor has Dinah told me anything, but I am a man who’s seen his fair share of wars and knows what happens to prisoners. Especially female prisoners who are powerful.”

  Kristoff pushes back from the table to lean forward on his knees, rubbing his eyes. The nausea is gone but so is his appetite. “I should have kept her closer during that raid. Maybe if we’d been fighting together, she wouldn’t have been taken.”

  “You can’t think like that.” Zartan’s voice is closer, he’s moved into the chair next to him. How did Kristoff miss the sound of his movement? He needs to pull himself together or he’s a dead man at the hands of the first enemy who wants to take a crack at him. “We don’t know what kind of weapon they used to take her in the first place. That monstrous thing you found in the lab was designed well; no one would have seen it coming. And besides all of that, Runa is a valkyrie, I have never known one to do anything you asked of them.”

  Kristoff nods in mute agreement, a breath escaping his lungs. The last part, at least, is true. The best way to convince Runa to do anything is to order her to do the opposite. Hell, maybe if he’d insisted she fight with someone else that night she would have stuck by his side.

  “You look destroyed.” Zartan keeps talking, leaning close so his brown hair falls into his face, momentarily blocking his eyes from Kristoff’s view. “I’ve been there. You can’t stay in this place. Drink tonight. Numb yourself if you must. Get through the night and wake up tomorrow and remember how to be strong. She’s going to need you, valkyrie or not. Now eat. You’ll need all the strength you’ve got. We’re guarding the hallways; she’s safe for tonight.”

  Zartan squeezes his shoulder with a strong hand, a signal of male solidarity in despair.

  Kristoff knows he’s right. Not only does he know Runa’s sisters are coming back sooner or later, but he knows she’s going to need someone to be there when she wakes up. She’s going to need him to be solid and strong, to be able to look at her like nothing is different even though everything is different.

  He lifts his head off his hands and pulls himself back up to the table, picking up his fork. Zartan has taken the bottle to return it to the sideboard. “Bring that bottle back. More vodka.”

  The decanter is picked up from the sideboard, his glass is filled, and Zartan’s along with it, and then is sat down on the table in front of them. Zartan sips from his, seeming to enjoy the flavor of Kristoff’s homeland while Kristoff struggles to think or feel anything.

  “Are you planning on sitting there all night?” Kristoff swallows his down and then moves back to the food. Keeping it down is getting easier the more glasses of vodka he finishes.

  “Got nowhere else to be, Russian.” Zartan kicks his feet out under the table and relaxes in his chair.

  After Kristoff had eaten and his head had a nice lightness thanks to the vodka, he sits down with Zartan in the living room. It takes a lot to make him drunk. He wonders how deep in his bottle he is and how much farther he has to go before he reaches the oblivion he’s looking for.

  The decanter is set on the coffee table in front of him, and it’s almost full. Absently, he wonders who found the fresh bottles and refilled the decanter.

  “How did the rest of the raid go?” He drains another glass and leans his head back on the sofa. The room isn’t spinning nearly enough yet. The door behind him, the one leading to the bedroom, closes quietly as Dinah takes over the night watch so Antonia can join her mate on the sofa. She waves off a glass of the alcohol in favor of a cup of coffee.

  Always too prim and proper, that vampire is, thinks Kristoff.

  When he’s greeted by silence, Kristoff raises his head back up to look at Zartan. The look on his face makes him sits up straight and immediately clears his mind of his sought-after oblivion. “Damn. Tell me.”

  “We cleaned out the lab and took that cursed machine back to the mansion.” Zartan casually pours himself a cup of coffee, setting aside his vodka glass. He sips it carefully, his body relaxing with his arm around Antonia. “Runa’s sisters are going over it with our scientists; we want to understand it before we tear it apart. We managed to capture or kill most of the personnel there.”

  “But?” He glares at Zartan across the room; his blood pressure is starting to rise despite the amount of alcohol in his system. “I can hear the ‘but.’”

  “The main
scientist, the man holding Runa, wasn’t there.” Zartan doesn’t wince when Kristoff lets out a ripe curse. He watches him impassively as Kristoff pushes up from his chair and paces across the room, one hand running through his already messy hair. How could this have happened? “We’ll find him; he can’t hide forever.”

  Kristoff looks down at the glass in his hands. He refrains from throwing it across the room, that will only break a reasonable glass and it would spill the remnants of alcohol on the inside. Good, common sense is still somewhere in the back recesses of his mind. “What the hell am I supposed to tell Runa? Good news, we rescued you! Bad news, the bad guy got away and we can’t find them?”

  “She understands how war works, Kristoff.” Antonia’s voice is soft, gentler than Kristoff had ever heard. She watches him with calm, compassionate eyes, soothing him.

  “Don’t talk to me like I’m a child.” He snaps and immediately regrets it. She’s only trying to help.

  A growl bubbles up from Zartan’s chest, warning Kristoff how close to the line he’s put himself. Gathering all the self-control he can muster; Kristoff swallows his rage. He closes his eyes to take several deep breaths. These vampires are his friends; they’re only trying to help. Rage should be directed at the man who did this, the man who got away. His bows in Antonia’s direction. “Apologies. That was out of line.”

  “Forgiven.” She perches forward on her seat, her cup of coffee held demurely in her lap. One hand rests gently on Zartan’s knee like a reminder to keep him quelled and calm. “I have an aggressive mate; I know what it sounds like to be snapped at.”

  “My people are going through the paperwork we found.” Zartan’s hand reaches out to gently rest on Antonia’s back. Kristoff feels a pain deep in his chest, a resentment that he can’t have the same comfortable domestic moments with Runa. If he tried anything like that, she’d probably try to gut him right before she went on the run. “It looks like this was one of several labs. It’s going to take some time for them to dismantle and evacuate the labs. He can’t run forever, we’ll find him.”