Page 31 of Vow of the Undead
How was I supposed to answer that?Yes, the sinister side of me is her own person.That simply wasn’t true, I’dwantedto stab Astrid. I hated that she threatened me and I’d wanted to shut her up, even if I didn’t plan to kill her.
Perhaps he was trying to bait the confession from me—get me to admit I was a witch who had visions of others, and heard voices from the Gods. Even if he already knew what I was.
“Do you ever have voices in your head?”
I didn’t respond.
“Fine, how about this?” King Drakkar leaned in closer. “Do you want someone inside of you? Not a voice, someone real. Your preference suggests you like to be filled.” His palm landed on my thigh and a small gasp escaped me.
The suggestion in his question became obvious as his fingers pressed against the soft flesh of my leg. I should have recoiled at his touch, but there was a fine line between hatred and heat, both inspired by flickering passion.
A fevered blush crawled up my neck, a welcome warmth in the persistent storm. He brushed his knuckles down the side of my throat, having pulled back my cloak’s hood enough to bare my skin. Rain trickled down from my forehead to my collarbone.
I shivered, but was no longer cold.
“Answer me, Silver.”
I’d lied about a lot in my life. My life itself was a lie, really. I wasn’t the witch I was supposed to be. As a seerborn, I should have been able to see how to protect my fellow witches. I didn’t feel like lying about this too, and I knew exactly what he implied.
It’d been far too long since I felt the ripples of pleasure that came with being filled. Bjorn was a kind man, loyal to my father, and loyal to our arrangement to delight in one anotheron a physical level, but that was where it ended. We were a means to an end, nothing more.
“Yes.”
The king sucked in a sharp breath and I felt his body tense behind me. “Silver, have you ever lied?”
The heat of his last question quickly vanished with a sudden and painful chill that washed over me. It was as if he’d heard my thoughts. Or did he know the secret I’d kept buried since I was just a girl?
Lies had poisoned my lips ever since.
I couldn’t respond. There was no right answer, so when he spoke again, I welcomed the sound of his voice. “You value life, but I’m willing to guess you value truth more. Perhaps as much as I do.”
I opened my mouth, but it was a guard’s voice that cut into our conversation.
“It’s time to make camp,” the guard said. “The winds are changing, and the chill has dropped. We need cover before frostbite sets in.”
King Drakkar sighed but nodded. “Set the canopies.” He directed our horse to the left where the dense trees protected us from the wind. He slid down from the mount and offered me his hand as if he wasn’t a witch-hunting king, but a kind and gentle man.
After hesitating, I slipped my fingers into his hand where his fist covered my blue skin. His hands weren’t especially warm, but they blocked the wind, and with the way his thumb brushed over the numb tips of my fingers, heat unfurled through me.
He led me to the base of a towering tree where he pointed for the guards to set up ‘our’ canopy. Each order barked from his mouth like a demand, but I didn’t flinch at the sound. As rough as King Drakkar was, he’d stopped my execution. For now, I had nothing to fear.
Travelers slowly drifted off the path beaten by hooves and mirrored the guards’ work setting up camp.
Once our canopy of animal fur and leather skin stretched between the trees, King Drakkar left me with a demand.
“Stay here where the wind can’t reach you,” he said. His gaze dropped to the hands folded in my lap. I sat at the center of the tight shelter. “They’re blue again.”
I followed his line of sight to my achingly numb fingers. I’d hardly noticed. “I’m used to it.”
“Yes, so you’ve said. But I’m not. I will not have you suffer needlessly. I’ll be back to…” his lips twitched. “To help keep you warm.”
“Where are you going?” I asked, but it didn’t matter, he’d already disappeared into the shadows. The darkest part of the night came before dawn, and the king was slinking through it for reasons unknown.
I didn’t know how much I cared. Exhausted, I lay back on the furs. Despite the well-built canopy, wind still howled through the openings.
I drifted in and out of a fitful sleep, seeing Ragna’s face, the witch’s head fall to the ground, and then the ink on King Drakkar’s chest. Was it Yggdrasil? Why would a king who hunted witches paint himself with the tree that connected us to the Gods? And what had given it the glow of the moon? It made as little sense as my congealed nightmares.
Shivering, I woke to the wind bellowing like the wolves battle-weary men shifted into from the ancient sagas. I curled within myself, tucking my aching hands between my legs when a figure appeared at the opening of my canopy.
