Page 125 of Vow of the Undead
“Do you really want to kill me, Lux?”
I couldn’t speak because I didn’t want to lie. No, I didn’t want to, and I suspected he knew that. But this was my destiny. This was exactly what Odin had asked of me, so why the fuck was I hesitating?
“Eyes up, Lux.” Drak’s voice was softer than I’d ever heard it.
I dragged my attention from the weapon to my betrothed—my first kill, if I could bring myself to do it.
He licked his lips and gave me a slight nod as if to praise me for listening to him. “Good girl, now push. I know you have it within you.” My mouth parted. He wanted me to stake him? “You should determine your own future and if this is what you really want, I’m here for it. ”
None of it made sense. I sucked in a breath. “Why would you want me to kill you?”
“Because this is what you want. Isn’t it? I’m fucking sick of watching the Blood Council get their way. I’m fucking sick of watching the Gods control us all, especially you. But if this is what you want, not the Gods,you, then at least I can give somebody a decision. Nobody else gets to make their own choices Lux. Life is all a game but the pieces are moved by the Gods or the Blood Council or men like your father. Now the only person I care for wants the same things I do, revenge and freedom. I get to give you this decision, so take it.”
“Why me? You swore to kill me if I didn’t marry you.”
“It was either marry you or we would both die. Lux, once upon a time, I just wanted to take you from Odin, but now I want to take you. All of you.” His eyes dipped to my mouth. Feral hunger flickered in his gaze. He drew a sharp breath and tore his focus away from my lips. “And since you won’t have me, I refuse to watch you become his puppet. I’d rather bedust than lose you to the Gods.” He tipped his chin back and leaned in, the stake now digging into his flesh. “So kill me.”
Accept the call.Kayn’s voice echoed in my head. Or maybe he’d said it aloud, I was aware of nothing outside the bubble enclosing me and King Drakkar. It could have even been Odin screaming at me from Valhalla.
I had the strength. The Calling was within reach, all that would allow me to unearth the truths and stop the injustice thrust upon all of Vylheim from the Blood Council. I met the king’s icy gaze and a shiver rippled through me.Why can’t I do it?He was the only one who’d ever told me the truth and for some reason, despite every life he’d taken, that was enough to keep me from thrusting the stake into the hollow of his chest.
Footsteps echoed in the hall, drifting in from where the door was left open.
“You will let us leave.” I released the pressure on the stake and helped Kayn to his feet.
“For now,” King Drakkar said. I shot him a glare before we stepped into the tunnel. “A war is coming, Lux, and I want the huntress on my side.”
“No way in hell.”
“You already know I’m not very good at asking.”
7 weeks after the end of the Polar Nocturne
Though the Polar Nocturne came to its end and we had the reprieve of daylight against the vampires, we did not stay at the Hall of the Gods. Staying in any one place for too long would only make us a target. I wouldn’t risk my mother and Stasia too. Now that Kayn and I had escaped and reunited with them, we moved as one, slipping through the villages under the cover of the chaos that had erupted in Vylheim since the wedding.
Not only did the Blood Council want to strip me of my powers and stop me from accepting the Calling, my own sister was out for my blood. I was no longer just running from the king’s demand that I marry him, I was also tracking Astrid.
A small village, west of Mara, named Ravensund, was where we heard the news.
Astrid had escaped the wedding unscathed and a woman named Silver had been seen in an encampment on the border of Mara and the wasteland. The vampire and the human woman fled to the edge of the wasteland with hundreds of men and women with red eyes. The Dawn of Exploration wasstalled when the king demanded the exiled witches return to the castle. Then he released them, not all, but several, and Ragna among them.
He’d been so adamant that Ragna was his witch, as if she belonged to him like an item of clothing, but he’d chosen to give her her freedom. I didn’t dwell on it for too long because if I did, creeping interest for Drak, longing even, would seep into my heart, and that wasn’t an attraction I should have ever acknowledged. I’d been so helpless to the temptation before, and I knew I would again be if I saw him.
We only dared travel to Skaldir for a single night, for me to catch a glimpse of Ragna in the field at her farm with Alva by her side. I had to see it with my own eyes to believe that he’d actually let her go.
This only comforted me for a few hours. Thoughts of the dozens of witches still under King Drakkar’s whims sent me spiraling.
Loki had won the chaos he wanted.
Vylheim wasn’t the same. The people were emboldened to fight the control we’d been buried beneath for so long. Instances of attacks on members of the Grimward spread throughout the villages. Some commoners even tried following the executioners back to the king’s castle where they tried fighting courtiers and council members.
I couldn’t fathom the bloodshed staining the streets of Mara. A war was brewing.
The unrest stirred as more gathered the courage to speak of what they’d witnessed in Mara’s Keep with the stake and a pendant in the shape of a tree at the center of the stories. Even if I hadn’t exposed the full truth of the Blood Council, the weapons I’d brought to my wedding were enough to spark questions, and for once, the rumors and whispers cycling through the villages were all true, and they inspired witches to come out of hiding and dare to speak of the Gods. Because if the royals fought againstthemselves, who would command the executioners to cut down the believers?
Villagers knew the truth told through pieces of events from that night. Monsters with fangs fought one another at the king’s wedding. His betrothed left with one of them and hadn’t been seen since. Perhaps the people assumed I was dead, but the vampires would know I wasn’t.
And so the shadows returned.
