18. Callie

The sun shone through the clouds in lazy shafts, punching holes in the blanket of grey overhead. I turned my head towards the sky and smiled as sunlight spilled over me, filling me with its warmth.

I was standing on the top of a hill, looking out over a reddish-brown desert interspersed with cactuses and enormous rock formations which were too incredible for words. A shadow circled overhead, and I spotted a bald eagle soaring across the cloud-filled sky. It watched me, wheeling through the air in lazy circles before turning and flying away.

I tracked the path of its flight, andin the distance, I noticed a line of greenery which marked the start of a forest. But right here, nothing substantial grew. It was a playground for the wind and the creatures who thrived in its mischief.

I looked down and found myself wearing the strangest clothes. A thin cotton shirt lay beneath fighting leathers similar to Magnar’s. The outfit was sculpted to my curves, cinching in at my waist while revealing much more of my chest than I was used to revealing.

Fury was in my hand, its presence warm and reassuring, but somehow it wasn’t the same as usual. Like its personality was missing, a dullness where its wit and bloodlust usually lay.

A warm breeze picked up and my long hair was tossed around me, the sun glinting off of it as if it were actually made of spun gold.

The sound of clashing steel reached me, and I turned to look down the hill at my back, blinking in surprise at what I found there.

A fearsome battle was taking place between four figures who were bathed in the sunlight spilling through a hole in the clouds overhead, and a tide of vampires clung to the shadows surrounding them.

I stepped closer, recognising Magnar even from this distance as he swung Tempest in a mighty arc, destroying more vampires than I could count, ash billowing away on the wind.

More monsters swarmed forward to take their place and he lunged at them too, his powerful body moving to the rhythm of the battle like he’d been born for it.

The man to his right roared a challenge as he cut through foe after foe of his own. His skin was paler than the others, but his hair was as long as Magnar’s and braided with golden beads, as was the long beard which coated his jaw. He raised his sword above his head, and I recognised Venom just before it carved a vampire from nose to navel, finding his heart along the way and scattering him to dust.

My mouth fell open as I realised who the man was. I was looking at Magnar’s father. The man Erik Belvedere had murdered and turned into a vampire.

This wasn’t my dream. Magnar must have fallen asleep beside me on the train, and I’d found my way into his.

Holy shit.

I glanced around, wondering if I should try to get out of here, to step out of this place and leave him to the privacy of his own mind. I felt like I was spying on something personal by intruding in his dreams and yet at the same time I ached to know more, and with no way of knowing how to remove myself, I simply kept watching as the battle played out.

My gaze drifted to the other man who was fighting alongside Magnar and his father, and I gave in to my curiosity as I watched them. He was around Magnar’s age, his dark hair cropped short but his muscular build so like the others that I knew it must have been his brother, Julius.

Magnar laughed as he decapitated a vampire and Julius moved with him, plunging a blade through its heart to finish it off. They fought seamlessly side by side, like two parts of the same body. Their laughter echoed up to me again and again as they killed without end, brutally and mercilessly. Destroying the undead like they were born to do.

The final warrior was a woman with rich brown skin and dark hair pinned into braids along one side of her scalp. She was beautiful in all the ways the vampires weren’t, her face flushed with the radiance of her warm blood, her body a weapon carved with nothing but effort and dedication. Everything about her screamed life and joy.

A vampire lunged towards Magnar’s back, and she threw herself between them, swinging an axe as she screamed in defiance. A mother bear protecting her cub – even if that cub was twice her size.

The battle raged on, and Magnar fought beside his family with a smile on his face, the likes of which I’d never seen in the real world. He was happy here, surrounded by those he loved, and that only made the pain in him more apparent than ever.

I couldn’t help but stare, captured by this legendary family. Everything he’d lost in his crusade against the vampires. It made my heart ache to see it. And yet I couldn’t turn away.

The final vampire finally fell to dust at their feet and the four of them embraced each other amidst the heap of ash and clothes left behind.

Magnar released his family and suddenly turned towards me, the hillside I’d been standing on somehow sinking, flattening out and placing me much closer to them now.

“There she is!” he called, and his smile made my heart stumble. It was so wild and carefree, the feral beast still there but somehow tempered by the love around him.

“You missed all the fun, Callie,” Julius teased as he spotted me too. His tone was filled with warmth, his grin this familiar thing that made me feel like we were friends despite the fact that I’d never met him. My gaze roamed over his powerful frame and the features which were at once similar to his brother’s and yet unfamiliar too. His eyes were lighter, and he had a dimple in his left cheek as he gave me that roguish grin, everything about him spelling trouble.

I opened my mouth to reply but I wasn’t sure what to say. When I’d found myself in my father’s dream, he’d known I wasn’t supposed to be there. He’d recognised the fact that I was real while everything else wasn’t. Montana and my mother hadn’t directly interacted with me like this, as if we were the same, both figments of the dreamscape we found ourselves in.

I could see the difference between Magnar and his family in this place. He was solid; a more defined object in the centre of everything else. The others only existed in his memory and imagination. But he didn’t seem to have realised that I was different yet.

“You didn’t look like you needed my help,” I said as I walked down what remained of the hill to join them.

Fury fizzled out of existence now that the vampires were gone and my hand was left empty.

Magnar’s mother smiled at me, reaching out to tuck my hair behind my ear in a gesture that felt maternal and utterly bewildering. I couldn’t remember my own mother doing such things, so accepting that kind of attention from a stranger was more than odd.

I looked up at Magnar and found his eyes shining with joy. This was everything he’d lost. Everything he wished to have back and would never be able to claim. His father had been stolen from him during his lifetime and his mother and brother were lost to the reality of the time that had passed while he slept at the mercy of the gods.

He took a step towards me, and a chill raised goosebumps across my flesh as the wind caressed my skin. I glanced down and found the cotton shift missing from beneath my fighting leathers, the fabric gripping every curve of my body. I was pretty sure my tits were about to bust out of the damn thing at any moment.

What the fuck? I frowned in confusion, wondering if he’d done that intentionally or not. Either way I was going to kick his ass for it.

As I looked up at Magnar again, I found him closer to me, my heart leaping in surprise at the sudden change.

His family were sitting behind him, gathered around a fire which hadn’t been there before and the light was shifting, the sun dipping towards the horizon beyond the clouds.

“Look at you, drakaina hjarta,” he said roughly, his eyes tracing every inch of my face, his fingertips brushing against my arm.

“Magnar-” I began, meaning to tell him that I was real before demanding answers about this bullshit outfit.

I was more than ready to call him out on his shit, but I didn’t think he should say anything else to me without knowing that I was truly in his dream. He might not want me to be here. I was intruding on his thoughts, seeing things which belonged to him, and he shouldn’t have to share unwillingly. Even if he was an ass.

“Say that again,” he said, his voice low.

“I haven’t said anything yet.”

“The part where you said my name.” His eyes flashed with a wicked realisation and my lips parted as I understood what I’d done.

He was standing so close to me that I could feel the heat from his body, but Idun’s rules still had to be keeping him from closing the distance. Except that they hadn’t stopped me from speaking his name...

“Magnar,” I repeated, and a thrill raced down my spine as his eyes burned like liquid gold.

He lifted a hand and ran his fingers along my jaw before sliding it into my hair and cupping the back of my neck firmly.

My heart pounded as I stood, captured in his gaze while he drank me in, a thousand sins growing in the depths of his eyes, luring me in.

“Why am I dressed like a porno Viking?” I growled, remembering my anger with him over that as he stepped into me, his body pressing flush to mine.

“What’s a porno?” he asked, the corner of his mouth twitching with amusement as he looked down at my outfit, taking in the way my tits were close to bursting free of it.

“They’re magazines people used to jerk off over before the world fell apart – one of the most valuable trade items I ever found out in the ruins, and they have lots of photographs of women dressed up as ridiculously as this in them.”

“What’s a photograph?”

I opened my mouth to try and explain that particular technological advancement, but apparently Magnar didn’t really care to hear it.

His fingers knotted in my hair, tugging my head back sharply as he leaned in, his stare locked on my mouth. Despite all the reasons I had to kick him in the balls instead of giving in to this, I tilted my chin up as he closed the distance between us. The moment before his lips met mine felt like an eternity which stretched away without end. My whole body ached for him, the heat between us only burning hotter now that we’d been forced apart.

He was a bad idea, the worst fucking idea, and yet I couldn’t stop circling the thoughts of his mouth on my body, aching for the press of his skin against mine. A longing grew in the depths of my core, begging him to take me captive despite my better judgement, and he seemed in no way inclined to refuse.

His mouth claimed mine and every inch of my skin came alive beneath his touch as his tongue pressed between my lips and he kissed me like he wanted to devour me. I gripped his forearms, pulling him closer as our kiss deepened, losing myself in the feeling of him even if he was a beast and an asshole and had dreamed me up a ridiculous outfit.

His free hand fell to my ass, and he lifted me into his arms with no effort at all. I wrapped my legs around him, my fingers fisting in his hair as I sank my teeth into his bottom lip, moaning at the feeling of his solid cock driving against my core.

Magnar released my lips, his mouth grazing down my neck, the grip he still held in my hair forcing me to arch my back, exposing my neck as he took command of my body. Clearly Idun’s rules didn’t extend to our dreams, and he had no problem at all with breaking them here.

“I think I’ll play with your body until you’re begging for release, then deny it to you in payment for this bond you forced upon me,” he growled, yanking my leathers down and forcing my breast free of it. His teeth clamped down on my nipple as I opened my mouth to call him out on that shit, and I cursed his name instead.

Magnar leaned forward suddenly, laying me down on a thick bed of furs which appeared beneath me, his body rearing over mine, his thick length grinding over my clit through the barrier of our clothes.

A tent rose up around us, sealing us away from the world, and I blinked up at it in surprise, taking in the thick fabric, the scent of smoke in the air, the wholly alien world which appeared so simply around him. This was the world he’d known. The life he’d lived. I wanted to marvel at the magic of the dream, but his presence stole my attention from everything that surrounded us.

His mouth continued to move across my skin, trailing lower as I moaned in pleasure.

I caught his shirt in my hand and pulled him back, kissing him again as he pressed me down into the furs. Why did it seem so much simpler to do so inside the confines of this dreamscape? Not only because Idun’s magic prevented this in reality but also because I felt no inhibitions here, no fear for what might become of us, no anger over what we’d already become. I wanted him and he wanted me. In this place, that was all that seemed to matter.

My grip tightened on his shirt and I wished it wasn’t there so I could feel the warmth of his skin against mine. As soon as the thought crossed my mind, it disappeared.

Magnar reared back, glancing down at himself in surprise, and a deep laugh fell from his throat, making my toes curl as his body rocked against mine. I smirked up at him as my fingers slid over his chest, following the curves of his muscles, the savage cuts of his scars and the twisted lines of Norse tattoos.

As I traced a line beneath his heart, I realised the tattoo which should have been there was missing. I frowned at the spot and Magnar followed my gaze. He took my hand in his, lifting it from his chest and raising it to his mouth.

“I never wanted her,” he said as if that explained it, his teeth grazing the pads of my fingers. “I wanted the freedom to do this.”

“This?” I asked, cocking my head as I watched his expression, noting the darkness which had slipped into his gaze at this topic. “You don’t strike me as the chaste type, Magnar. I get the feeling you did this as often as you pleased with as many partners as you desired.”

“I’m not talking about fucking, drakaina hjarta,” he replied roughly, a tempest building in his golden eyes as he pressed a kiss to my forearm where my slayer’s mark stood out against my skin before raising my hand above my head and pinning it in place. My heart thundered with anticipation as he lowered himself over me.

When he kissed me again, it was filled with more urgency, and his other hand trailed the length of my body before landing on my belt.

He tugged on it, releasing the buckle, and tossing it aside. His hand moved beneath my battle leathers, pushing them up, finding my flesh beneath as he gripped my waist and drew me against him.

I wanted to stay precisely there, to indulge in every one of the promises that each touch of his skin against mine offered, but a nagging voice in the back of my head kept reminding me this wasn’t real. And it wasn’t honest either. He didn’t know that this was truly me.

I gave myself another moment with his weight pressing me into the furs, his mouth on mine, then pulled away from him with a curse.

“Stop,” I breathed.

Magnar pulled back and looked down at me, savage amusement dancing across his features. “Are you sure?”

“Not really. You’re a lot of things, Magnar, but a bad lay doesn’t seem like one of them.” I bit my bottom lip as I looked at him, my gaze trailing down his body again before I forced myself to admit what I was. “But I’m not like everything else here.”

I wasn’t really sure how to tell him that I’d invaded his dream, but it seemed like a pretty important fact given the way we were tangled together.

He tilted his head as if he didn’t understand what I was saying, and I released a breath as embarrassment clawed at me.

I waved a hand, demonstrating what I meant by making the tent dissolve around us. We were still laying on the furs, but a clear sky filled with twinkling stars hung above us, a coyote calling to the moon somewhere in the distance.

“Oh, that.”

“Yeah, that. Isn’t this freaking you out at all? I’m inside your head right now.”

“I know,” he replied, shrugging one huge shoulder. “My mother was the first of your kind to dream walk. Did you really think I couldn’t tell what you were as soon as I saw you?”

My mouth fell open in surprise as I tried to understand why he’d gone along with it for so long if that was the case. Wasn’t he pissed at me beyond all reason over the whole vow thing?

“But I thought... don’t you care about Idun’s rules?” I asked.

“If Idun gave a fuck about us, she wouldn’t continually bind us to promises we didn’t want to make. She knew what you were to me when you took your vow. Forcing us apart amused her. There was no reason why she couldn’t have removed that restriction on us,” he growled, and his eyes flashed dangerously.

“But why would she do that?” I didn’t understand what the goddess would gain from toying with those who were trying to fulfil her wishes.

“Because she can. She’s a jealous, fickle thing and no doubt despised the idea of me lusting after anyone but her. Not that she desires me for herself. My life is simply a game to her.” Magnar rolled off of me and cupped the back of his head in his hand as he lay beside me, staring up at the stars, causing them to roll and riot in the sky above while we watched. “She enjoys testing my loyalty.” He scratched at the skin above his heart where his tattoo should have been.

“Why don’t you have that tattoo here?” I asked.

I could tell he didn’t like talking about it, but it was obviously something that mattered to him, and I was sick of secrets and half-truths. My life had been filled with them growing up in the Realm and I just wanted honesty from the world I found myself in now. Even when that truth tended to hold a whole heap of shit within it.

Magnar sighed and I knew he didn’t want to answer, but to my surprise, he did. “Before I slept, I was betrothed to a woman I didn’t choose for myself.”

The sky lightened abruptly, and I sat up as I found myself beside a huge fire and surrounded by more canvas tents than I could count, an entire Viking campsite unfurling around us at nothing more than a thought from Magnar. A wooden log formed beneath my ass, and we sat on it as Magnar’s people moved about us, laughing and eating, an entire world coming to life before my eyes. One which had died a thousand years ago for me but couldn’t have seemed like more than a few months ago to him.

A woman stepped between a pair of tents on the far side of the fire and walked towards us. Her dark hair was delicately coiled into braids along one side of her head and her blue dress hugged her figure, everything about her seeming so carefully constructed, at a contrast to the brutal war camp she passed through. She had deep eyes and full lips which pulled up into a smile as she approached Magnar, but he gave her no such look in reply.

“There you are, husband. I came looking for you in your tent last night, but I must have missed you. Were you walking in the rain again?” Her tone was playful, and she dropped down into the space between us, forcing me to shift along or risk her ass landing on my knee. I frowned between them, that title making my gut knot, suspicion writhing through me.

She placed her hand on Magnar’s thigh, leaning close to him suggestively, and my posture tightened uncomfortably as the memory played out. She was beautiful in a very precise way, every movement she made seeming practiced, flawless, designed to attract attention. Her pale skin was unblemished, not even a freckle to be seen, and her voice was low and seductive.

“I told you not to call me that. I’m not your husband yet,” Magnar replied, and though he appeared relaxed, I was sure I could detect irritation lacing his tone.

“Well, if you keep me waiting much longer, I may just have to set the date myself. It’s been three years, Magnar. You can’t keep hiding behind the desire for revenge.” Her hand shifted further up his thigh, and I wondered how she managed to press on with her point while his face turned stony, the warrior in him rising to the surface of his skin. I half expected him to stab her at any moment, and I had to admit she was tenacious as she refused to back down despite the warning signs he was giving off. “Your father would want you to be happy, he wouldn’t have expected you to wait so long to live your own life-”

“Don’t presume to know what my father would have wanted,” Magnar snapped, pushing her hand off his leg. “And you forget that I am the Earl now. I decide when marriages should take place, and there have been no signs to suggest I should prioritise ours. The gods demand justice for our people, they have no interest in our union.”

“You swore an oath to me,” she hissed and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up at the sudden shift in her tone. I got the distinct feeling that she wasn’t the type to back down to anyone and that this argument wasn’t the first they’d had on this subject.

“And I have the scar to prove it,” he spat. “I have not broken my word. We are betrothed just as the prophet said we would be. But until I rid the world of the Revenants, I have no intention of taking the arrangement any further.”

Magnar stood and strode away. The woman stared after him with her chin held high. Instead of the tears I expected, an icy steel formed in her gaze as though she was figuring out her next move, plotting instead of retreating. I got the impression she wasn’t going to accept that answer without a fight.

She fizzled out of existence, and I flinched as I found Magnar sitting on my other side. He was no longer lost to the memory but sat looking at me expectantly, like he wondered what I made of the woman he had been betrothed to.

“Why didn’t you want to marry her?” I asked.

“Many reasons. But the main one was that I didn’t love her. Marriage seems like one hell of a cage to lock yourself into with the wrong person. The gods demanded my betrothal, that was enough chains.” He shrugged and looked away from me, frowning into the fire, his jaw ticking with irritation.

“So when you tried to warn me that taking my vow might mean I had to accept a husband I hadn’t chosen, it was because you knew how that felt?”

“Your heart should be your own to give or refuse. No matter what path you choose to follow in this life.”

The wind picked up and he caught my hair as it blew across my face. He swept it aside, cupping my cheek in his calloused palm. The fire disappeared and the tent sprang up around us once more, leaving us alone again.

“If I was allowed to choose, I’d pick my own path. One that forced nothing on me and demanded only the blood of my enemies.”

I looked into his golden eyes, my body aching with the desire to taste his mouth again. I bit down on my lip to try and hold back the urge to follow that impulse.

“Why is it so easy to forget all of the shit between us here? I know that I’m pissed at you for that control bullshit, I know that I should want to punch you at least as much as I want to bite your lip instead of my own, and yet, right now, option B is far outweighing the others.”

“That’s because dreams tend to be either good or bad. Perhaps if you’d come calling on me in a nightmare, this might have played out differently, but unless you twist it to become such a thing, I think you’ll be begging me to taste your sweet cunt again in a matter of seconds-”

I punched him squarely in the chest just for being a cocky asshole, then climbed into his lap and bit his lip hard enough to draw blood.

Magnar laughed into my mouth, his hands gripping my ass as he tugged me down against him, rolling his hips beneath me so that I could feel every rock solid inch of him grinding against my clit.

Every fibre of my body came alive beneath the touch of his lips against mine, the taste of his blood staining my tongue. And I ached for more of him, consumed by the desire to give myself to this feeling. I was standing on the edge of a precipice, and it took everything I had not to fling myself off.

I ran my fingertips across his jaw, smiling as his stubble grazed my skin. He was the perfect sin, just waiting for me to fall to ruin at his feet.

His hands pushed beneath my leathers, skimming the skin at the base of my spine, and I arched my back, moulding my body to his.

I pulled away and cursed as I looked into his eyes.

“None of this is real though, is it? I can’t really say your name or do this...” I trailed my hand down his chest, holding his gaze as I skimmed his waistband and his grip on me tightened.

“It feels pretty real,” he countered.

I rested my fingertips on his belt buckle. “But it’s not.”

His gaze slid over me and he grunted in acceptance. “No. It’s not. But you’re unlike any slayer ever born, drakaina hjarta. If you can master your connection to your gifts, you won’t need me to teach you for long. And once you aren’t my novice, you can come climb into my lap and beg me to do whatever it is that’s dancing through that dirty mind of yours.”

“I keep telling you, you’ll be the one begging, asshole.” I rolled my eyes, but my mind reeled with the implications of what he was saying. If it was true, then maybe I would be able to break free of his control over me sooner than I’d hoped.

His thumbs brushed across the curve of my hips and his gaze travelled over me in a way that made me feel like he was about to test my resolve in halting this. A knot of longing tightened my muscles and the temptation to change my mind pulled at me, but I shook my head.

I forced myself to reject the temptation and a thick coat formed over my body. Magnar’s battle leathers returned too, and he released a breath of disappointment.

“This dream is turning into a nightmare,” he growled.

“I’m worth the wait,” I countered.

He leaned closer and kissed me one last time, his hands pushing through my hair and igniting a flame in the pit of my stomach.

“You will be,” he promised, and my body trembled with the insinuation as the dream slipped away and I was drawn back to our confined hiding place on the train where the laws of the vow flared into place and ensured we couldn’t cross that line in reality. Not until Idun decided to have mercy, but I had the feeling she was not a merciful being and I was far from done witnessing the depths of her scorn.