Page 128 of Vow of the Undead
She wanted me to be a monster? Easy.
But she couldn’t kill Kayn, not without a stake cut from the tree of Yggdrasil.
The echo of Astrid’s last words ignited a flame of understanding.When the tree burns, you’ll be nothing.
“No…” A puff of white breath swirled in front of me. A clear thought sliced through the noise in my mind. The tree was our connection to the Gods, the barrier between the Nine Realms, without it humans had no hope of winning a war against immortal creatures. Without the few witches having divine access to the Gods and my Calling, it would be an uphill battle—worse, we’d lose hope when we’d only just felt the effect of the Gods again.
The vampires never wanted Freya and Odin to reach us, if Silver led them there…I’d become this monster, only for my powers to strip away when they cut Yggdrasil down.
One of the crows swooped down and landed at my feet. His head tucked sideways and his beady black eye flicked up and down. The other’s wings beat above my head as he descended upon me and his clawed feet landed on my shoulder. His talons sank into the thick fur of my cloak as his beak nibbled at my bloody, smashed ear.
I stood with the doll still in one hand and the fingers of my other hand wrapped around the stake. I was no longer the God’s chosen witch tracking a single vampire, I was their huntress in pursuit of an entire army of undead, and I vowed to cut down every single vampire until they were ash at my feet.
Everyone deserved the truth.Ideserved the truth.
Even if that meant hiking the half day’s journey back to the place where I’d been imprisoned as King Drakkar’s betrothed. I’d set the course the moment I understood my sister’s plan to burn the tree of Yggdrasil, but I’d wanted to return even before that.
I’d wanted the other truths the king could give me.
I dragged my feet through the dirt. Blood from the villagers’ attempted attacks stained the earth nearly every step of the way to Mara’s Keep. The castle cast a yawning shadow across the kingdom now that the Polar Nocturne ended. Never had a sunrise seen so much blood. And the war hadn’t even begun.
While humans sharpened their weapons, vampires bared their fangs. If only it were as clear as that. Humans on one side, vampires on the other. This battle would be so much easier. But our enemies took both. Both vampire and human. Kayn, Stasia, and my mother.
Led by my sister, they intended to use and destroy both and I was the only person who could stop them.It didn’t matter how much I’d learned, or how much truth the last few weeks had shed upon the people of Mara’s Keep and Skaldir.
The slice of daylight was quickly clouded with a heavy gray. Rain slowly soaked the ground, dredging the stained blood from the dirt and washing it away in little red rivers like veins. I pulled my head up, ripping my eyes away from the blood, trying with everything within me to forget how I’d once wanted him to feed on me. How I’d dared even think of becoming his vessel.
I hated everything about him. I hated that he’d insisted on marrying me, swore to torture me. I hated that I was exactly like him.
Rainwater dripped down my face, soaking through my cloak and sticking my curls to my neck and face. I took the steps to the castle two at a time, but then paused on the landing in front of the towering double doors.
I skirted to the side, to find the side door that I knew led to Drak’s sanctuary, the dark room. There, I could bypass the servants and find him directly—if there were any servants left as battle preparations began. Would the people abandon their king? I had. I’d run from him. I spent weeks running from the monster I was bound to marry.
And yet here I was, throwing all that effort away, putting aside every ounce of vitriol I carried for this man.
Here I was, outside his door. Wet, defeated, alone. That was the thing about Drak, as cruel as he was, as many people as he’d drained and killed, as many threats as he spewed at me, he’d never once lied. He was the only person in my life who could claim that.
I raised my fist and pounded against the wood until it groaned from the pressure and then swung open.
Drak’s normally sleek hair was disheveled. He held a bronze goblet in one hand and leaned on the frame of the door with the heel of his free hand. A smirk curved his mouth as his icy eyes raked over me, taking in the sight of my return.
I was the huntress, the creature designed to destroy his kind, but I’d choked down every bit of pride and even more hatred to stand here and drag my eyes up to meet his gaze.
“Well, if it isn’t my wife.”
I chewed on my lip, trying to bite back the instinctual response I wanted to spit at him. “We never married.”
“Not yet.” He downed the rest of the blood in the goblet and dropped it at his feet. With his hand free now, he stepped closer and tipped my chin back. “But you’re here now, aren’t you?”
I didn’t recoil at his touch. “I had nowhere else to go.”
I didn’t just let his thumb brush my mouth, I parted my lips for him, inviting him closer to me. Was it the need for comfort? I couldn’t explain it. How could I let the man who swore to torture me touch me—spread my lips, snake his other arm around my waist and pull me into the dark room I’d fled from.
I huffed and straightened, shaking this need off of me. “They’ve taken Kayn and Stasia and my mother. I have to find the tree of Yggdrasil before they do. You know where it is.” Fuck. No matter how plainly I spoke, it didn’t convince my body not to lean into him. Every time we came close, it seemed the Norns tied us together, weaving our fate into one thread that I didn’t have the blade to cut. But he was a vampire. He had no connection to the gods or the Norns or anything else in the Nine Realms…
“Except for you,” he said, reading my mind. Another part of him I hated. “You’re the only part of this world I’m connected to, Lux.”
He pulled the door shut behind me and darkness shrouded us. The only light came from a weak flickering candle by the four-poster bed. The extravagant resting place he never used for rest.
