Excitement and pride welled up within her. “And that is one of the best compliments I’ve ever received. Thank you.” Awkwardness threatened, so Kaira plunged on. “Have you been to the festival before?”
“Many times,” he said, dragging an appreciative glance over her gown. “You?”
She fought back a blush. “This is my first time.”
“Well, I welcome you to my hometown, then,” he said with a small bow and a smile that charmed. The expression made him appear younger, less troubled. He turned toward her and Kaira was struck by his size. A good eight inches taller than her, despite her heels. If he’d been more muscular, he would’ve been downright imposing. Instead, hollows carved shadows into his face and the bones of his long-fingered hands protruded.
With all the time Kaira had spent around other cancer patients, she couldn’t help but wonder if he was sick. The speculation made her feel some small affinity with him and she smiled back. “Besides the gallery owner, I think you might be the first person I’ve met who’s actually from here.”
“Truly? My family has lived here for centuries.”
Her heart gave a little squeeze. To know that kind of history about your family, to have such deep roots. So foreign to her, and yet the thought was able to set off a deep longing within her. What she wouldn’t give to have a family of her own. Old emotions caught her off guard, and she turned to the photographs hanging on the wall so she had a modicum of privacy to blink away the blindsiding sadness. “The lights must feel like old friends to you, then,” she finally said. Tromsø’s position in the middle of the auroral zone made it one of the best places in the world to witness them.
When he didn’t respond, she looked back to him.
The man stood right behind her. She hadn’t heard him move or felt his nearness. He stared at her, hard and unapologetically, his gaze focused somewhere just below her face. His nostrils flared and his tongue dragged over his lip.
Kaira’s pulse raced, her heart tripping into a sprint. Gasping, she inhaled a spicy-sweet scent, warmed cinnamon with just a hint of cayenne. Heat flashed through her, as if her fever had suddenly spiked. Before her very eyes, the man’s face changed, the angles of his jaw and cheek sharpening, his pale eyes dilating, his mouth opening.
Panic skittered down her spine, the urge to fight or flee settling into every muscle in her body. Surely she was misreading the situation. Seventy people surrounded them in the middle of this well-lit public place. There was no danger here. Drawing moisture into her mouth, she said, “I’m Kaira Sorensen. And you are?” She couldn’t quite force herself to extend a hand.
Something flickered behind his gaze, and his eyes snapped to hers—and flashed with light. She would’ve sworn it. He sucked in a harsh breath. “Jakob,” he said, louder than necessary, the smooth tone gone. Now his voice sounded strained and ragged.
Instincts on even higher alert, she made herself observe basic pleasantries. Last thing she wanted to do was make a scene. “Nice to meet you, Jakob.”
Out of nowhere, another man appeared at their side. Kaira took a surprised step backward and gawked. Tall, broad, blond hair with an unusual braid hanging down one side. Ruggedly handsome and breathtakingly masculine. The resemblance between the pair was striking, except for the difference in their ages and the older man’s leanness. The newcomer grabbed Jakob’s arm and yanked him back from her. “Let’s go.”
Jakob stood there, as if mesmerized.
The younger man grabbed him by the shoulders and forced him to turn away, and then he hauled him across the room and out the door. Another man followed closely on their heels, nearly as tall and as broad.
The door closed behind them.
Shaking and heart pounding within her chest, Kaira cut her gaze to the right and left. The reception carried on around her, no one seeming to have paid any attention to her strange exchange with the man, or to his hasty departure.
What the heck had just happened? And why did she feel to her very marrow she’d just escaped a brush with death?
Chapter 3
Henrik’s back slammed against a brick wall, the darkness of the narrow alley sheltering their trio from the tourists thronging Tromsø’s streets.
Lars stood at the entrance, making sure no one developed an unhealthy curiosity.
Jakob got right up in Henrik’s face, forearm pressing into the king’s chest. “What happened?”
He shook his head, swallowing thickly, his hunger burning so intensely it was almost a living thing within him. “Wanted her,” he rasped. It hadn’t been a decision. There wasn’t anything rational or conscious about it. From the first moment she’d approached him, he was awash in her appealing scent, like the smoky berries of a vintage wine or the rich bite of an aged, dignified whiskey.
“Wanted her how?”
“I wanted her.” He knocked his head against the brick. Even now, he couldn’t shake the image of the vein’s rhythmic dance along her slender neck or of the luscious dip of her cleavage, both displayed so invitingly by her upswept hair. His fangs throbbed with a want and a need he couldn’t remember feeling in ages. Not to mention the aching hard-on between his legs.
“Straight out no-shit bloodlust?” Something like hope sounded in the warrior’s deep voice.
“Ja.” Henrik heaved a deep breath of cold January air as his imagination unhelpfully replayed how it would’ve gone down. Tearing the gown from her trim body. Holding her curves in his hands. Bearing her up against the wall. Sinking his fangs and his cock in deep until every dark, needy part of him was sated.
“I’ll get her.” Jakob turned away.
The king slammed his hand down on his brother’s shoulder and gripped hard. “Nei.”
“You want her. You need her.”
“I’ll kill her.”
Because he wouldn’t be able to stop.
Once he got a taste, something base and instinctual told him he wouldn’t be able to make himself stop. He’d been so close to the edge of his restraint in the gallery. Only the sound of her voice had pulled him back from the brink.
All he’d wanted was a night out of their mountain citadel, away from the looming promise of death. He thought the jovial atmosphere of the festival would distract him from all that was to come. Instead, it had thrown it right in his face. Christ, he was a catastrophe waiting to happen, already more beast than man. He shook his head again. “I’ll fucking kill her,” he rasped.
“You won’t.”
Acid washed through his gut. “You willing to risk an innocent woman’s life—or her soul—to see which of us is right? I’m not.” He shuddered, the danger of becoming like his evil enemies one of his greatest fears. “Leave her be. I’ll not have it any other way.”
Jakob lowered his chin and his shoulders lifted and lowered in a weary sigh. When he raised his gaze again, Henrik hated the grief and resignation he saw there, hated that he couldn’t go through this without dragging everyone around him down, too. “What do you want to do, then?”
“Get the hell out of here. And find some goddamned Soul Eaters to rip apart.” He pressed his arm to his side, feeling the satisfying weight of the holstered gun there. What he couldn’t take care of with his bare hands he’d happily dispatch with the clip of bullets poisoned with the blood of the dead.
His brother gave a tight nod. “Sounds like a plan.”
Side by side, they stalked the length of the alley. Henrik clapped Lars on the shoulder. “Up for a fight?”
The warrior grinned and flashed his fangs. “Always, my lord.”
“Then let’s go find one.” He led them out of the alley, but didn’t miss for a moment the way Jakob placed himself in the way of turning right, back toward the direction of the gallery, and the too-appealing-for-her-own-good woman. So be it.
Henrik turned left, toward the waterfront and one of the main concert stages for the festival. The crowds would be heavier there, giving the Soul Eaters more opportunity and more cover to make a grab.
r /> The three warriors pressed through the teeming streets, a path opening before them as the humans’ instincts made them shy away. Which was just fine by the king. He didn’t want to tangle with mortals anyway.
Notice you also don’t want to eat any of them?
His footing faltered as the observation struck home.
“My lord?”
He shook his head without meeting Lars’s questioning gaze. Concentrating on the humans they passed, Henrik sought to identify each person’s unique scent and the rhythm of their heartbeat. And...nothing. Not a single one tempted his bloodlust. Or his cock.
Then why had the woman? Kaira, she’d called herself.
Henrik cut the inquiry off at the knees. Curiosity was a dangerous animal where she was concerned. He couldn’t allow himself the luxury of exploring the unusual desires she’d raised in him. Going down that road led to two equally bad outcomes—her, dead and soulless, and him, a giant leap closer to becoming that which he most hated.
So he wasn’t going to ask the whys of it. No matter how much the mere memory of her scent wound him up inside.
They reached the plaza in front of one of the central festival venues. They made a sweep around the plaza and retreated to the shadows. Watching. Waiting.
Nothing.
Sonofabitch.
The night dragged on. The hour grew late. The crowds thinned.
The monster inside him grew restless. It stalked back and forth within his mind growling and rattling its chains until the noise grew unbearable. Rage filled his chest so fully it was hard to breathe.
Jakob tensed beside him.
A split second later, Henrik picked up on it, too—the fetid stench of evil. Soul Eaters walked among them.
He methodically surveyed the crowd.
There. Four of them entered the plaza where he and his warriors had earlier.
Henrik’s body was in motion before he’d made the conscious decision to do so.
They were halfway across the square before their enemies became aware of them. The quartet paused, then turned on a dime and backtracked the way they came. Didn’t mean they were giving up their quest for human victims, though. In their blind desperation for blood and souls, the Soul Eaters shared none of their vampire brethren’s reluctance to reveal their existence to humanity. While a select few influential humans known as The Electorate knew of the existence of the immortals and allied with the vampire kings to defeat them, the mass of mortals did not. It was better that way for everyone, and protecting that secret was one of the constant battles he and his warriors fought.
Outside of the plaza, their enemies broke into a preternatural run. Henrik followed in pursuit. The four of them represented his path to freedom from the jaws of the beast within. At least for tonight. He wouldn’t stop until they were dead. Or he was.
He paused at an intersection, anticipation thrumming through his veins. Jakob and Lars came up behind him. Henrik extended out his senses. For a long moment, he couldn’t pick up a trace of them. Then he smelled it. Blood. Warm. Spilled. Spilling. A growl rumbled up from his chest.
Instinct led him toward the scent most fundamental to the survival of his kind. Halfway down the block, he spun into a dark alley, just wide enough to hide a long row of industrial garbage cans.
Just beyond them, two figures stood pressed against the wall.
“Dum faen.” Dumb fuck. Henrik muttered under his breath as he stalked toward the Soul Eater, so blood-drunk he apparently didn’t hear the warriors’ approach. “This one’s mine.”
The faint, infrequent thump of the victim’s heartbeat told him the damage was done, but the fact that the man retained any cardiac rhythm meant his soul remained intact. Henrik wrenched the Soul Eater away before he could consume that final reward. The human crumpled in a lifeless pile to the ground.
The king let the beast loose.
And, damn, it was far too easy to do.
Like an exorcism, his own demons raged and fought. He lost all awareness, all sense of time and space. All sense of self as he battled the Soul Eater.
Hands grabbed at him, yanked him back. Henrik focused on the new targets, gnashing his teeth and swing his fists. Voices finally penetrated the choking fog of violence suffocating his mind, his humanity.
Jakob and Lars.
“He’s dead. Henrik, he’s dead,” Jakob said. “It’s done. The dawn will take care of the rest.”
His gaze sought proof of the Soul Eater’s demise and found it in the broken body on the pavement. Or what was left of it.
He stopped fighting their grip and let himself be dragged away.
His breathing was a freight train in the night, sawing in and out of burning lungs. His pulse throbbed in his now swollen, shredded knuckles. Warm liquid oozed over his face in too many places to count.
The king nodded, or tried. He wasn’t yet sure of the connection between his sentient self and his physical actions.
It wasn’t until the pain hit that he trusted himself again. Head hanging on his shoulders, he looked down at his torso. Coat destroyed. Shirts and skin beneath hanging in torn strips. Blood dripped from his face, but his hands were useless to wipe it away. More of the crimson covered the skin there, too, as if he’d bathed in blood. His own and his enemy’s.
Christ, he hadn’t felt a moment of the Soul Eater’s effort to defend itself. He’d been totally unaware.
White-hot fear lanced through him, and a sob ripped up his throat.
This is how it’s going to be. This is what lies before me.
A scream pierced the thick silence. And again.
The sound beckoned the darkness encroaching on Henrik’s psyche. A red cape before a raging bull.
Three Soul Eaters remained out there. Somewhere. And every instinct in his body told him at least one was the source of that human’s alarm.
Driven by the beast within, Henrik shoved Jakob away, flipped off the gritty pavement and took off in search of his next kill.
Chapter 4
Kaira said her goodbyes to the group of other contestants and crossed the street. The reception had ended and everyone was gathering down the street at a bar to continue the festivities, but she wasn’t up to it. Fever still heated her skin, her hip joints ached and tenderness had settled into her left side. Ever since her encounter with the older man—Jakob, he’d called himself—she’d felt shaky. Ridiculous, really. Nothing had happened. But her body didn’t seem to be convinced.
She dipped her chin further underneath the chunky scarf and held the collar of her wool dress coat closed at her throat. Should’ve brought a change of clothes, but when she’d left her little, out-of-the-way hotel this afternoon, it hadn’t seemed necessary. Now she was cold and tired and feeling the weight of her illness, and the two-block walk back to the bus stop seemed like two miles. Especially in heels. If it wasn’t so cold, she’d have slipped them off and walked in her bare feet.
Turning the corner, Kaira distracted herself from her aches by replaying the night’s highlights in her mind’s eye. Two of her photographs had already sold. She’d had great conversations with the rest of the judges—everyone seemed universally impressed with her vision for the series and especially with her violet aurora. She could’ve broken out into a dance in the middle of the gallery. And she’d had a promising conversation with a travel editor at a magazine based out of Copenhagen. All in all, one of the best nights of her life.
A flare of green light momentarily illuminated the street. Above her, the color rippled, like a holographic flag flapping in the wind. Her fingers itched for the feel of her camera.
She crossed the intersection and the small shelter for the bus stop came into view in the distance. At least she could sleep in tomorrow morning and let her body recuperate a bit from all the excitement of the day.
Her scalp prickled and her body broke out in goose bumps. She burrowed into her coat, but the sensations worsened. Kaira peered over her shoulder.
Two men crossed the inte
rsection behind her.
Just two guys out at the festival. Don’t freak out. She picked up the pace as much as her heels and her joints would allow.
And, still, her internal alarm system rang. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t convince herself it was all just a coincidence. Instinct roared that they were following her, pursuing her.
She stared over her shoulder another moment, her hand already fishing in her purse for her cell phone. She pulled it out and looked ahead—
A hooded man stood five feet in front of her.
Herregud. Oh, my God. She froze and screamed. It was one of the two men who had been following her. Without looking behind her, she knew it was true.
She bolted to the left. He was on her almost instantly, his touch like ice even through her coat. Kaira screamed, and he slapped a hand roughly over her mouth, busting her bottom lip against a tooth. She twisted and writhed and pulled at his arm around her neck. No use. His hold was like iron.
His smell was sickly sour. The stench burned her nose and had her fighting back her gag reflex.
The second man joined them and made a grab for her wrists.
Kaira thrashed and pummeled and kicked with every bit of the desperation she felt. If she stopped fighting... No, she couldn’t even let her mind entertain all the horrible things they were likely to do to her. Every bit of her adrenaline-pumped energy had to remain focused on fighting, on surviving.
In the shadow of a van parked at the curb, they forced her to the ground. Her head glanced off the pavement. One of them wrenched her coat open, sending buttons flying, as the other tore the scarf from around her neck. Hands pawed over her breasts. Knees pinned her arms down, and one of them continued to muffle her screams. A blast of cold seemed to concentrate on her throat a moment before something sharp sliced into it.
Oh, nei. Oh, nei. Herregud, nei.
A sickening pull centered around whatever pierced her throat. Had he...had he bitten her? The suction burned and grated, like crushed glass flowed through her veins.