6. Karmen

6

KARMEN

I jerked awake, disoriented and sick with sudden fear. My throat closed off. My heart pounded frantically. I sat upright so quickly that I smacked my head on something hard. The small pain helped push the dregs of sleep away.

"Hey," a man said softly, holding his hands up peacefully. "It's okay. You're safe."

It took me a moment to remember who he was. Eivind, the wolfman, who'd given me a ride from the hospital. For the first time, I could see more of his features. Shaggy reddish hair hung around his shoulders and covered his chin. Brown eyes with a hint of amber watched me carefully, as if I might bite or run away. He wasn't sure which.

To be honest, neither was I. But where would I run? I didn't know this place, world, or time, as if I'd been in another dimension entirely. Until I understood more about this world, he was my only source of information. He'd been helpful so far, though I didn't appreciate his doubts. I supposed that I couldn't blame him. Maybe nobody knew what sunfires were in this world. If so, they were extremely lucky.

Then it dawned on me. I could see him clearly. I turned my head, ignoring the stiffness in my neck from sleeping in the car. A fresh wave of terror flooded me, making me gasp softly. The sky was lightening with the rising sun. It was dawn. It might already be too late.

"We're here," he continued. "I called ahead to make sure we could get a room to your specifications. I don't know how nice it'll be, but they do have an interior room with no windows. The manager thought I was crazy asking for it. Evidently, it's their overflow room and they only have guests in it during racing season, when all the hotels closer to the city are booked."

Breathing hard, I fumbled at the door, trying to figure out how to open it. I thumped on the glass, but it wouldn't budge. In my panic, nothing made sense. I couldn't find the right lever or button.

He got out and came around to open the door for me. "Here." Holding up a dark-colored coat, he helped me slip it on over the top of my hospital gown. "Fewer questions. We need to go through the lobby to get to the room."

"We need to hurry." I clutched the coat around me and ran for the door. I didn't pay attention to the surroundings in my panic. Only the sky, casting fearful glances over my shoulder. I stumbled, and he gripped my elbow, just long enough to make sure I didn't fall. Then he released me, remembering how I'd reacted the night before.

"What are you looking for?"

"The sun."

"Sunrise will take another twenty minutes or so."

"But the sky is lightening now. It may already be too late. They'll come with the sun."

"I thought you saw one last night in the hospital."

"I did, or at least a hint. They're weaker in darkness, but when the sun rises, they'll be unstoppable."

He pulled the door open for me, and I hurried inside with one last glance back. I strained to hear the crackle and spark that might indicate they were close, but the drone of voices drowned out any early warning sounds I might be able to detect. A musty smell made me wrinkle my nose.

"Yeah," he said beneath his breath. "Nothing to be too excited about. It's small and off the main road, so it's harder to find. "

"Have you hidden here before?"

He grunted sourly, which I took to be an affirmative. Questions buzzed in my head, but I didn't voice them. Why had he needed to hide? How long ago? Had he been here with other people? I didn't know him well at all, but I knew the answer to that question was no. He was definitely a lone wolf, other than the sister he'd mentioned.

Pausing in front of a high desk, he passed something to the waiting man.

"Good evening, Mr. Smith." The man gave me a lecherous wink. "The room you requested is ready. Hospital kink? Now that's a new one."

I blinked in confusion but kept my face smooth. He'd given a false name, so he didn't trust this place or man either, even though it was supposed to be relatively safe.

The man jerked his head toward the left hallway. "All the way down at the very end. Not too many guests in that wing, so no noise complaints. If you know what I'm talking about."

I started walking in that direction, letting Eivind follow. I didn't like the stranger's eyes on me. It made my skin crawl. Or was that my nerves? My internal warning? We passed a black box where the voices were coming from. I clenched my jaws tighter and quickened my steps until I was almost running down the hall. Even indoors, I still felt exposed.

Heat grew inside me. The sun burned, rising slowly in the sky. My blood heated. My heart pumped energy through my body. I didn't feel insubstantial and weak any longer.

I felt alive. Burningly alive.

The roof of my mouth throbbed, startling me. I probed with my tongue and found a hint of something sharp. Two fangs, barely distended.

What am I?

EIVIND

My hackles rose. My stomach boiled with acid. My skin itched, nerves screaming with alarm.

The queen's hunger rose.

I could see all too easily how this would play out. She'd requested a dark, private room with no windows. Only one exit. Once inside with her, I'd be trapped. She might appear weak and powerless and close to death, but I was no fool. A queen didn't need formidable physical power to overwhelm man or wolf. All she needed was the power humming in her blood.

Maybe she didn't realize what she was doing. I didn't fucking care one way or the other. But the fuck if I was staying to find out. I gave her a hard shove into the room and grabbed the door. "I need to move the car."

She stared at me silently a moment, dark liquid eyes shining in the darkness of the room. She licked her lips, though whether from nervousness or anticipation of a feast I wasn't sure. "You're not coming back."

It wasn't a question. Finality hung her in her words. Acceptance.

Fuck it all, it pissed me off. Yeah, I wanted to be nowhere near a queen's thirst, no matter how desperate her need might be. I didn't care if she died. I'd left her dying in an alley. Though I'd called someone else to find her, he'd been human. No one who could truly help her. A queen wouldn't feed on human blood no matter how desperate she was. Oh no. She'd feed on me.

The thought made the wolf inside me froth at the mouth and tear at my intestines desperately.

Yet I didn't want to abandon her. I couldn't. No matter how much I wanted to.

"I'm moving the car," I retorted again, letting a snarl twist my lips. "Not taking the car. Then I'm going to check the area. Make sure it's safe. Look for these burning things you're so worried about."

"Sunfires."

"Whatever." I slammed the door and strode down the hallway like the bowels of hell had emptied all its demons to chase me. I wished to fuck they had. I wanted to kill. I needed the hot splash of blood, the grip of prey in my throat.

Bad choice, I snarled at myself. It was fucking idiotic to even think about blood when a hungry queen waited.

"Back already?" The nosy manager gave me a greasy smile. "That was fast."

I fisted my hands and kept on walking, fighting down the urge to rip his stupid face off. The last thing I needed was human police asking questions. Checking the security monitor. Speaking of which, I made a mental note to grab my kit out of the trunk. I needed to make sure the creep hadn't installed some kind of monitoring device into the room, hoping to make himself a little porno-tape for his private viewing.

Open spaces and fresh air cooled some of the wolf's rage. My nose worked, taking in all the scents of the area. The man at the desk. A pair of humans at the far end of the building. From the overpowering reek of chemicals, they were brewing meth right here in the shitty hotel. Hopefully, they didn't blow us to kingdom come.

I drove the car around to the back entrance that was a little closer to our door. Backed in, so we could make a quick getaway if needed. The rear lot was surrounded by trees. I breathed deeply, letting the scents of pine soothe me. A pair of rabbits hopped and fed in the bit of grass lining the lot. They'd be easy to catch. Easy to kill.

My wolf watched them silently but didn't want to hunt.

A sound escaped my throat. Shock. Fear. Yeah. Since when had my wolf not wanted to hunt? Even a pair of rabbits? I was seriously off my game.

Meeting a queen as an unattached Aima warrior did that to a person. Especially a king.

I could shift at will—for the most part—into my wolf, which was both a blessing and a curse. My father had the same ability. Evidently, we descended from the famous Fenrir line. If you believed the Norse legends, we might even be key to Ragnar?k. I carried the blood of the biggest, baddest wolf in my veins.

Yet I sat in my car like a fucking pussy. Afraid of one lone woman who'd been left for dead in an alley.

Closing my eyes, I let the memories wash over me. Images of my father, chained as a giant wolf. A collar with long, cruel spikes. Sometimes a spiked muzzle. Chains wrapped around his body, so heavy that he could barely walk. Bare patches on his hide. Bleeding sores. Skin and bones from starvation. All things he'd allowed. No, requested. Because he'd feared the wolf inside him.

My queen mother had been all too willing to accommodate his request to keep the wolf caged. I was over two hundred years old and I still didn't understand why he'd allowed it—or why she'd not simply killed him and put him out of his misery if they both feared the wolf he carried that much.

I'd hated them. I'd lived in fear as a fledgling, waiting to feel the spikes around my neck. The chains around my limbs. To this day, I still didn't understand why she hadn't locked me up too. Especially when I couldn't continue to hide exactly how strong my wolf had become.

Helayna had helped me control and suppress my beast as long as possible, and then I'd fled our nest. I'd roamed the forests of Minnesota to Maine, up through Canada and even Alaska, before slowly making my way back to where it'd all begun. Even then, I'd only come home to find out what had happened to my sister. I honestly hadn't even known our queen mother had been killed when Helayna was taken.

I'd come home to our family nest and found my father. Free at last. And just as weak and trapped as ever.

Helayna believed that it'd been Loki who kidnapped her to Hvergelmir , so at first, I'd thought that was why our father had been spared. Loki might have been reluctant to kill anyone of his blood, no matter how weak the Ironheart claim had become over thousands of years. I couldn't have been more wrong.

Loki didn't give a shit about him. Why would the trickster god give a fuck about a whimpering shell of a wolf who'd been caged for so long that he was scared of living? For all I knew, my pitiful sire was still huddled over our queen's ashes waiting to die so he could be caged by his abuser once more.

Rationally, I knew that wasn't fair to either of them. There had been extenuating circumstances and reasons, I was sure, that I had never been told. Giving them both the benefit of the doubt was beyond me, though. I'd grown up watching a wolf king be mistreated by his queen. Dreading her hand on the leash. Not because she was cruel or unjust. No.

Because my father had gone so eagerly to that surrender.

He wanted to be caged. He wanted to be controlled. I couldn't justify a wolf king with such a submissive urge. He'd been weak. He'd been afraid. He'd rather live on the other side of prison bars than risk making a mistake or losing control in a moment of fierce joy or rage.

I'd take the rage, thank you very much.

Even if it meant I would never know the power a queen's blood could give.