Page 75 of Vow of the Undead
I should have listened to my body.
When I peeled my eyes open, I was still in the king’s hold, except now he was slumped too and I was laying across his lap. He leaned against my mother’s bench, his head hanging. Something heavy draped over my mouth and I realized it was his arm. I jerked, throwing it off of me only to send blood splattering across my dress that was splayed out in front of me. It was then I tasted wine sweetening my tongue. I drew my hand to my mouth, my fingers coming away with the stain of the king’s blood.
With my heart skipping, my gaze slid to where his heavy arm lay. A jagged wound cut up the flesh of his forearm with blood trickling out…and it’d been in my mouth.
Why did he feed me his blood? Why hadn’t Kayn stopped him this time? Was this another way to turn a human into a monster? Or was this to poison me?
His words came back to me.I’ll marry you, or kill you.
I scrambled away from him, frantically wiping the blood from my lips. Red seeped into the ridges of my fingers and stained beneath my fingernails. The worst part was that I wanted to taste it again, to fill myself with it like sweet winewarming me from within. I forced my legs beneath me so I could stand and back away from King Drakkar’s reach.
Kayn stood over us, casting a long shadow from the flicker of torches on the temple walls. “You’ve done enough. Leave.”
King Drakkar dragged his head up with a lazy smirk at Kayn. “I did what you could not.” Weakly, he pulled himself into a straighter position, glaring at Kayn who stood over us.
When King Drakkar turned to me, his blue eyes heavy as they searched my face, he reached out and tipped my chin. I didn’t recoil this time, something in his eyes pinned me in place. His touch was a mere brush against my skin, sending goosebumps along my jawline and down my neck where they spread over my collarbone and chest. “I didn’t kill her.”
“Liar,” I said weakly.
He chuckled. “I’m not the liar here and you know that.”
“I said leave!” Kayn shouted.
Again, the king ignored him. What was stopping Kayn from attacking him again?
King Drakkar dropped his arm. “When you’re ready for the truth. Find me.”
“I’ve already heard your plan.”
I would never choose him.Find me,he’d said, as if I’d ever seek him out.
I could hardly believe this was my reality. Two unliving beings fighting over my mother’s body in a forbidden and abandoned temple, when only weeks ago I was a hopeful, simple woman traveling into Mara’s Keep in search of lost history.
“Here’s a piece of truth for you, my wife.” He pointed at my mother. “I pulled the poison from her. I took it, for now.” My heart flipped. I snapped my gaze to her limp body. “This won’t last, she’ll grow weaker again, and I won’t help her until you take my hand.”
My eyes sliced back to the king. “How can I believe youhelped her when she was speaking before and she’s helpless now?”
“I told you to wait. You’ll see when she wakes.”
King Drakkar thrust his hand out toward Kayn, silently demanding he keep his distance as he strode out of the temple, the cracking stone doorway looking as if it’d crumble around him. He stopped just outside and turned, his eyes first on Kayn then shifting to me, still soft but hardening to an in-between state like a melting icicle.
“I may be too weak to fight now, but I am still the king and you’re in my kingdom.” He held my gaze. “You will be my wife.” I opened my mouth to reject this, but he continued with a steady voice, no malice, no passion, just a pure, icy calm that I could only achieve with incantations. “And if you choose otherwise, both you and your mother will die.” He tilted his head, face devoid of emotion. “How tragic that will be.”
“You’re cruel,” I said, my voice weak from my aching throat.
“Then I’ll fit in perfectly with the other Gods,” he said. “Remember what I said, Silver. You have until first light.”
With that, he melted into the darkness beyond the glow of the temple’s torches. The moonlight couldn’t reach into the shadow cast by the towering structure, but it filtered in through the splinters in the stained glass windows.
The aura of his calm may have come from his weakened state, however that’d happened, but I couldn’t help longing for it to remain when he left. How could the chaos and bloodshed caused by him end this way?
With him gone, perhaps I should have sought out Stasia, wherever she’d disappeared to. Or I could have thanked Kayn for his help. I did neither.
I simply dropped to my knees and draped my arms over my mother’s body, my head resting on her chest. I twined my fingers into her hand and squeezed, but she remained limp.Grief gutted me, scooping deep between my ribs and hollowing out my heart.
If King Drakkar truly helped her, there’d be evidence of healing.
I straightened and tilted my head over her chest. With my ear pressed against her, I heard it—a faint but rhythmic thump deep within her, growing stronger and stronger with every beat.
