34. Erik

We moved through the dark passage at a furious pace, the only sound around us the clamour of our footfalls. I started running, sprinting, desperate to find Montana. To have her in my arms, see the life in her eyes and feel her heart beat against mine.

Everything I’d ever wanted hung in these final moments between now and reuniting with her. As soon as she was at my side, I’d take her far from here and never look back. We’d start our life together. A real life. One where we’d grow older, make a family, be happy.

But none of that was possible until I had her back.

My heart beat with panic for the first time in so many hundreds of years. I struggled to get used to all of the new sensations coursing through me. The cold licked my skin and rose the hairs across my arms. The blood of the battle had soaked my clothes and was drying against my flesh, the sticky film plastering my shirt to my chest.

My breathing grew ragged as we charged on and I heard everyone panting around me in a similar fashion, our mortal bodies racked by the limitations of humanity. But none of that mattered; if anything, I treasured the way my muscles laboured and my heart hammered. I was a true man and with this body I would find my wife and never let go of her.

A golden light grew up ahead and I spotted the source as a huge door came into view. The structure was shimmering and smooth, lit with the power of the gods. We slowed to a halt before it, searching for a handle. There had to be a way forward. Montana was on the other side of this door. She had to be.

I moved forward, taking hold of the edge of the metal and yanking with all my strength. Magnar moved to help me but our combined efforts were futile. My nails broke and I stumbled back at the bite of pain that seized my hands.

“Fuck,” I hissed, glaring at the door before throwing a sharp kick to it. My knee jolted uncomfortably and I gritted my teeth, gazing back at the others.

“What do we do?” Clarice asked anxiously, staring at the huge structure.

“Odin!” Magnar roared. “You swore we’d get through! Is this some joke to taunt us?”

A rumbling noise sounded as the cave trembled with the intensity of Odin’s power falling over us. The door clunked heavily and swung open, leading to another black tunnel beyond.

I sighed my relief, darting through the doorway with Magnar tearing along ahead of me. We quickened our pace until we were flat out sprinting. My lungs laboured and my skin grew slick with sweat. Heat invaded my veins and I relished every inch of it as it poured through me like liquid fire.

We tore into a cavern which stretched out ahead of us. I stalled as Magnar came to a halt and we stared across the incredible mound of treasure that lay at the heart of it.

My gaze raked down it to the base of the stairs. And there, at the very point my eyes landed, my world came apart.

Montana lay at Callie’s side, the two of them lifeless and so still it sent a wave of terror through me which I wasn’t nearly strong enough to face.

“No.” I refused the situation, willing it out of existence. But it wouldn’t leave, it stared back at me and dared me to face it.

I half tumbled down the stairs as I ran to her: my light, my universe, my everything.

I crashed to my knees and reached for Montana’s pulse. No beat fluttered beneath my fingertips. Her eyes were shut as if she slept and I started to hope, beg, plead that she was still in her vampire form. That this was not her mortal body in my arms in the clutches of true death.

I pulled her against my chest, her limbs limp like a doll’s. Her head lolled and her hair tumbled out beneath her like a waterfall of ink.

Magnar bellowed so loud the walls shook. But I wouldn’t believe it. I wouldn’t accept it.

“Wake up,” I demanded, shaking her then pressing my ear to her chest.

Beat, dammit, beat!

“Erik...” Clarice said tentatively but I refused to acknowledge her.

“This is not the end,” I snarled at Montana. “We made a promise to each other and I need you to fulfil it, rebel. Just open your eyes.” I shook her again and the pain found me, burrowing deep, trying to drill the acceptance of it into my newly beating heart.

“No!” I laid her on the ground and threw my fist into the stone beside her head. My knuckles flared with agony, but I didn’t care. Nothing mattered except her coming back to me. Her laughter, her kisses, her smile. They were all so out of reach. Losing her was akin to extinguishing every ounce of hope to grace the world.

“You don’t get to leave,” I insisted, cupping her cheek as tears seared my eyes and threatened to unravel me. “They can’t take you from me.”

I rested my forehead to hers as grief threatened to devour me. And once it bit down, it would never let go. I tried to reject it but it burrowed deeper with sharp teeth. Every inch of my body hurt and I despised it.

What good was a mortal body without her to share it with? She owned it anyway. How could she not be here to claim it?

“I lost you once, I won’t lose you again,” I growled, the emotion in my voice cracking and breaking every word.

“This is the debt,” Fabian breathed in realisation, and I winced at his words because if they were true, it meant she’d done this for us. She’d paid this price willingly and that was an even more horrifying thought than the gods simply taking it.

“Not for me,” I breathed as I clutched her tighter, her skin cold and unforgiving against my hands, not offering any of the electricity her touch had always charged in me. Because she wasn’t here. She wasn’t in this body anymore. I was left with a shell and an empty heart that would pine for her eternally. “Not for this man who owes you everything and you owe nothing,” I insisted as if I could somehow undo the decision she’d made.

This mortal body was worthless without her. I’d sought to break the curse without true cause until I’d met her. But I’d finally had something to live for and she had been it. The sole desire of my being, the reason for my existence. Now she was gone. And that made me into nothing but a broken being in a cursed body once more.

I shook my head as the pounding agony in my veins turned to rage, hatred. A magnetic desire for revenge pulled and tugged at my soul and told me to find the one responsible for this.

Andvari.

I’d hunt him down and rip him from every world, every dark shadow he tried to hide in. And when it was done, I’d cast this body to ruin and join my lover in the afterlife. I’d set my soul free and seek her out in the depths of the gods’ halls and stay with her for all eternity.

I pressed my mouth to Montana’s icy lips with the most desperate and earnest vow I could make.

Andvari’s death is written.

Mine is too.

I pledge the final hours of my humanity to avenge you, my love.