6. Callie

Istood in the small washroom and inspected my nose in the mirror. Magnar had insisted it wasn’t broken and I begrudgingly had to agree. It still hurt like a bitch though.

The sun shone in through the large window and gave me plenty of light to see by. Despite the fact my intention had been to look at my injuries, my gaze kept snagging on my reflection instead. We’d never had a decent mirror in the Realm, and I’d never seen such a clear image of my own face before.

The blue in my eyes was more intense than I’d realised. It sparkled like the colour of the sky on a perfect summer’s day. The kind of day that sent the vampires scurrying away to skulk in the shadows.

Aside from that, I felt like something had changed in the girl who looked back at me now. Like the gifts I’d been given were shining through my skin, adding a touch of warmth to my once washed-out complexion. My hair seemed more vibrant too, almost glittering as the sunlight caught on it.

I twisted my fingers through it, beginning to braid it like I always had when standing before our mirror at home. The familiar movements sent a surge of longing through me as if any moment now Montana would start pounding on the door, insisting I hurry up while Dad called us through for breakfast. I’d never miss the Realm, but I’d always miss that.

“Don’t,” Magnar said softly behind me, and I turned to find him standing in the doorway.

“Don’t what?” I frowned.

He reached out and stilled my busy fingers. I dropped my hands as he gently teased the braid back out of my hair. My scalp tingled while he worked my hair loose again, and his gaze slowly slid to meet mine.

Neither of us moved towards each other. We couldn’t have even if we’d wanted to. But the air that flowed through the inch of space separating us felt alive with energy. The bitter words and hateful anger that had built between us washed aside as he looked at me like that, nothing but the simplicity of our situation remaining. We were bound to one another now, our fates set on the same path.

My lips parted with the desire to say something that might make our situation better, that might explain my reasoning, might somehow apologise for the way I’d forced him into this bond, but I didn’t have the words.

Magnar let out a heavy breath and released my hair. “If you’re done admiring yourself, the morning is wearing thin.”

He turned and marched away from me, making me feel like he’d just dumped a bucket of cold water over my head, and I scowled at his back.

I glanced at myself in the mirror one last time, confirming I’d removed all the blood from my face before I hurried after him. I ran my fingers through my loose hair, wondering if he simply preferred it this way. Why else would he have cared how I wore it?

“I wasn’t admiring myself,” I clarified as he led the way out of the farmhouse. The horses were waiting for us, and Magnar had already placed our meagre belongings onto the mare’s back in preparation for our departure. “I was checking the damage you’d done to my face with your massive fist.”

“If you don’t care what your face looks like, then why would you bother?” He untied the rope securing the stallion to the fence without turning to look at me.

“Well, I definitely prefer my nose straight, so if you could avoid punching it again then I’d appreciate it,” I snipped.

“No promises. If you don’t want me to punch your perfect face, then you’ll have to stop me from doing so.”

My gut tightened. “You think my face is perfect?” I asked.

Magnar stilled halfway through checking the mare’s lead rope and shot me a scowl. “I didn’t say that.”

“You did actually.” I stepped closer to him, my mouth pulling into a taunting smile.

“Get on the horse.”

“Not until you admit it,” I pushed.

“Alright.” Magnar dropped the lead rope and closed the distance between us.

I looked up at him expectantly but instead of admitting what he’d said, he lunged at me, giving me no time to reach for my gifts. He caught me around the waist, and I squealed as he threw me over his shoulder. I tried to fight my way out of his grip, but he held an arm clamped heavily over my legs and wouldn’t release me.

“Put me down,” I demanded, thumping his back to try and force him to comply, but he ignored me.

He tossed me over the stallion’s back so that I laid across the horse face down. I scrambled to push myself upright as Magnar jumped up behind me, but he grabbed my arms and yanked them behind my back.

“Elder, what the fuck are you doing?” I bit my tongue in frustration as it forced me to speak that stupid word in place of his name again.

“Reminding you which one of us is in charge here,” he growled, using his elbow to pin me down while I fought to get up.

I cursed him colourfully as he used the reins to tie my wrists at the base of my spine, immobilising me in the uncomfortable position.

“Very funny, asshole,” I snapped.

Magnar’s hand clapped against my ass suddenly, and I gasped in outrage as heat flooded my veins.

“Let’s see how mouthy you are after spending your morning like this,” he commented.

“You’re not serious?” I snarled.

Magnar laughed as he kicked the stallion into motion, and we left the farmhouse behind. I started thrashing before him, cursing him out in every way I could think of, but between his forearms pressing into my spine and the bouncing gait of the horse, I mostly just smacked my face into its shoulder and achieved nothing.

“I think you need to learn a bit about respect, novice,” Magnar mocked.

I struggled in vain to free myself, but he’d tied the reins too tightly.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” I spat. “Let me go!”

“I will. In an hour. Once you’ve had time to consider the filthy words that keep pouring from those lips of yours, and what better way you might address the man you chose to bind yourself to.”

His laughter drowned out my shrieked insults as the stallion picked up speed and we thundered away into the trees.

***

When my hour was up, Magnar slowed the horses and drew them to a halt.

Fury was simmering with rage in its sheath at my hip and I was glad to have at least one person on my side. Even if that person was more of an object.

I hadn’t stopped swearing at him the entire ride, but that did little to fix the damage to my ego as horsehair and sweat clung to my face. Bruises bloomed on my body from where I’d been bounced against the beast’s shoulders more times than I could count too.

“I think we’ve made enough of a commotion to draw the vampires to us,” Magnar announced.

I struggled pointlessly against my bonds, no longer interested in his plan to capture a vampire and torture the train station’s location out of them. All I wanted was to be cut free and try to regain what little of my dignity remained before kicking him solidly in the balls.

“Are you going to let me go now?” I demanded through gritted teeth.

Any humour I might have been able to find in the situation had long faded, and I was about ready to kill him. My hands had gone numb, and my face was sore from rubbing against the stallion’s shoulder. I doubted I’d ever get the stench of horse from my skin either.

“Just as soon as you apologise,” Magnar replied, running his fingers across the skin on my wrists beside the point where they were tied, toying with the reins there. I tried to jerk away from his touch, but I couldn’t escape him.

“Never,” I growled.

“Perhaps you’d like another hour to think on it?” He caught my hand and tugged it, sending a spike of pain flaring through my shoulders.

I bit down on my tongue, refusing to make a sound in response.

“I hate you,” I hissed.

“Fair enough.” He nudged the stallion into motion, and I cried out for him to stop.

“Alright, alright!” Anger flared through me, and suddenly I realised I didn’t have to let him treat me this way. I had my gifts now. I was capable of fighting back. “I’m... sorry,” I muttered, the word causing me physical pain.

“That’s better.” Magnar tugged the reins free and took my arm to help pull me upright.

But instead of allowing him to help me, I opened myself up to the memories of my ancestors and jerked my elbow back, catching him in the chin. I threw my weight into him before he could recover and knocked him off balance.

Magnar fell sideways, slipping from the stallion’s back, and victory sailed through me for an all too brief moment, before my stomach lurched as he caught my ankle and yanked me down with him.

I cursed as I fell on top of him in the dirt and threw a punch into his side.

He grabbed my waist and tried to propel me beneath him, but I jammed my knee into the earth, halting his progress. Before he could try anything else, I snatched Fury from its sheath and pressed it to his neck.

“Now you apologise,” I snarled as I glared down at him.

He relaxed his grip on my waist but didn’t remove his hands.

“I don’t owe you an apology,” he replied calmly, but his eyes glittered with some emotion I couldn’t place.

“You just hog-tied me to the back of a horse for an hour,” I snapped as I pressed down on the blade. Fury hissed encouragement, bathing in the glory of us holding the upper hand. “So say you’re sorry.”

“I’m not sorry. Look what you just managed to do because of it.”

My brow furrowed as I tried to understand what he was saying.

“You shouldn’t be this good, Callie,” he said. “Your gifts are far stronger than any I’ve ever seen. You know how to do things you’ve never been taught. It’s more than enhanced instincts. Do you know how many warriors have ever gotten me on my back like this?”

My grip on Fury loosened and I moved it away from him a fraction.

“How many?”

“Since I completed my training? Just one. My brother was the only warrior who could match me in combat. No other mortal has ever gotten me in a position like this.”

My lips parted at his words, and I withdrew my blade, allowing him to push himself up onto his elbows.

“It wasn’t like this for you then?” I asked. “When you took your vow, you didn’t... I mean, I remember all of this. It’s like I’ve lived a thousand times before. All the lessons those slayers learned are there, just waiting for me to tap into them. When I give myself to them, it’s like I don’t even have to try. I just know what to do.”

Magnar studied me for several long seconds. “No. It wasn’t like that for me. I can feel some instinct from my blades which helps to guide my hand and enhance my skills. But I trained for years to be able to do what I can. I have no memory of other lives.”

“So, I’m not a slayer like you?” I asked, a sliver of doubt passing through me. If what was happening to me wasn’t normal, then what did that mean?

“No. You’re something else, Callie. You’re magnificent.”

I snorted in disbelief. “If I try to make you repeat that, will you hog-tie me to the horse again?”

“It’s entirely possible.” He gave me a wicked grin, and I was suddenly very aware that I was still straddling him in the dirt, his hips between my thighs.

He didn’t move to get up, his gaze raking over me, heat rising in my skin as I stared back at him. The warrior from a time beyond memory. He was impossible, infuriating and utterly breath-taking. I wanted…

I suddenly remembered not only the fact that I couldn’t have anything at all from his body like that anymore, but also the horsehair which was still stuck to my face and no doubt made me look like a fucking yeti while I salivated over the perfection of the man beneath me.

I shoved Fury back in its sheath and stood up, stalking over to the mare and snatching one of the water bottles from the bags on her back. I poured it over my face, scrubbing the sweat and hair from my skin before taking a much-needed drink.

Magnar moved to stand in my shadow, and I avoided his gaze as I offered him the water bottle. I wasn’t sure whether to be pissed at him or thrilled to have bested him, and the conflicting emotions were running circles in my skull.

He accepted it, his fingers brushing against mine, the heat in my skin flaring again. He didn’t pull back right away, and I was reminded yet again of the curse that accompanied my vow. I shouldn’t have wanted what I wanted from him, but it wasn’t so simple to remove the memory of his mouth on my flesh, his hands bringing me to ruin, the thought of his cock in his fist and how desperately I’d wanted it.

I cleared my throat, certain he would read those sinful thoughts all over my face if he so much as glanced at me. I couldn’t move any closer to him even if I’d wanted to act on the heat between us again, and I had no idea if he still wished he could move closer to me anyway.

I stepped away from him, aiming to clear my head as I looked out into the trees, but goosebumps travelled along my flesh and the strangest sense of unease filled me as I took in the view. I raised my eyes to look out into the forest to my left. Fury burned at my hip with a surge of heat, and I snatched it from its sheath.

They’re coming. It seemed excited at the prospect, but I still had trouble feeling that way about facing the bloodsuckers.

Magnar moved closer, placing himself between me and the oncoming danger without a word. He removed Tempest from his back and turned his attention to the forest.

I focused on everything around us and the skin on the back of my neck prickled as I felt them drawing closer. Something foul was coming our way.

“Are you ready?” Magnar breathed.

“I hope so.”

“Remember, we need to keep one alive if we want to find out where that trail station is.”

“Train station,” I corrected. “And how am I supposed to capture one of those things?”

“You’re not. Just make sure you don’t kill the last one standing and I’ll deal with catching it.”

“Okay,” I replied.

“Tell me how many are coming,” Magnar instructed.

I strained my ears, tightening my grasp on Fury to help me concentrate. My ancestors had hunted these monsters for generations. They knew all the signs. I closed my eyes as I allowed their expertise to flow through me.

“A small group...” My fingers tightened on the runes lining Fury’s hilt. It could sense the dark power which allowed the vampires to exist beyond death. “Six lesser vampires and-” I swallowed thickly. “Two Elite.”

“Good. Get ready.”

Would I ever feel ready for this? I pulled more memories into me, filling myself with the knowledge of my ancestors as the vampires drew closer. I straightened my spine as I stepped out from behind Magnar and took my place by his side.

I glanced at him, and the corner of his mouth lifted in approval.

The vampires arrived in a swarm of motion, pouring towards us through the thick trees. The horses snorted in fear, shifting back, and I sprinted to meet the vampires at Magnar’s side.

Magnar released a war cry as he fell into battle with those on my left, and I raised Fury, gritting my teeth as I raced on.

Two male vampires rushed towards me like the wind. I ducked aside as the blond swung his blade for my neck and brought Fury up in time to parry a blow from the other one.

My heart pounded with adrenaline as I spun back towards my first opponent, and Fury sliced deeply across his gut as I fell into the knowledge of my ancestors and ducked beneath his guard with more ease than should have been possible. The vampire howled in pain as I leapt away again and turned my attention to the other.

He bared his fangs at me as he swung his sword, and I barely managed to get Fury up in time to block the blow before it could cleave me in two.

“The Belvederes want her alive, you fool!” a female shouted from somewhere behind me.

I traded blows with the male vampire again and again until I finally spotted an opening and twisted beneath his blade. I drove Fury home in his heart, and the sound of falling rain filled the air as he fell to ash and was swept away on a cold breeze.

Victory flooded me, but I couldn’t spare it any attention as I swung my focus back to the vampire I’d wounded. He’d collapsed to the ground, clutching at the unhealing injury I’d given him, cursing violently and hissing like a feral cat as he saw me coming. He scrambled back, grasping the wound on his stomach which continued to spurt bright red blood despite his efforts to hold it back. A slayer blade was no simple sword, its bite felt as keenly as a strike of sunlight to the monsters it was created to kill.

He tried to raise his sword in defence, but his injury made him slow. I batted his sword aside with a swipe from Fury and delivered a kick to his face, knocking him back into the mud.

Magnar was there before I could finish what I’d started, driving Tempest through the vampire’s heart. I looked up at him in surprise as he swung Venom at something over my shoulder. The clash of steel rang out beside my ear, and I cringed away from it as Magnar took on the Elite who had snuck up behind me.

I frowned down at Fury, surprised the blade hadn’t warned me. It was like it could hardly sense the Elite at all. I focused on trying to feel for his presence, and only the faintest response came back to me.

I backed away from the ferocity of their battle and scanned the trees for the rest of the vampires. The female Elite stood on the far side of the clearing, watching the chaos through narrowed eyes while making no attempt to join the fray. She held something in her hand, but I couldn’t make out what it was from this distance.

Three sets of clothes marked the ground where Magnar had finished the lesser vampires, which meant one was still unaccounted for.

My heart pounded as I twisted back and forth, trying to locate my adversary while Fury burned in my palm. It seemed to be screaming a warning at me, but I couldn’t figure out what it meant.

Higher!

I turned my head skywards a fraction too late as the vampire leapt out of the tree. She collided with me, knocking me onto my back, her fingers locking around my elbow, immobilising the arm which held Fury. The shock of the impact severed my connection to my gifts, and I was suddenly left flailing beneath her with nothing to rely on but my own determination to survive.

Her free hand caught my chin, and she forced my head back, exposing my throat.

“We have the right to bite,” she snarled a moment before her teeth pierced my skin.

Indescribable pain flooded through me as her venom met with my blood. It burned like fire, clawing a path through my veins until it echoed within my skull, blinding me.

I kicked and thrashed at her, yanking on the arm which held Fury, trying to swing it at the monster who had immobilised me, but her grip was iron as she continued to feed on my blood.

Rage boiled beneath my skin. An inferno lit in my heart and my free hand swept across the forest floor until my fingers met with what I was looking for.

I grasped the heavy rock in my palm and threw every scrap of my slayer strength into my arm as I slammed it into the side of her head.

Bright blood flew, splattering across my face as the vampire was thrown off of me, but I wasn’t done yet. I rolled over, punching her in the gut and moving to straddle her in the dirt, pinning her beneath me and swinging the rock again. Something cracked as I smashed it down into her stunning face, and more blood spurted over my clothes.

“I. Am. Not. Food!” I screamed at her, enunciating each word with every strike of the rock.

She tried to get away from me, but then I remembered Fury in my other hand, the blade screaming for death, eager to see this done.

Teach her! it begged, and I slammed the blade down into her chest, finding her heart. I crashed forward as she turned to dust beneath me, pressing my hand into the dried leaves to right myself.

My chest heaved as I pushed myself to my feet and turned back to face the Elite across the clearing. She stared at me with wide eyes, and I realised she clutched a cell phone in her hand. She held the thing in front of her, pointing it at us as if it could see us too.

I swung my arm back with a battle cry and launched the rock at her with all my strength, but she leapt aside before it could hit her.

The other Elite screamed in pain, and I looked over to find him impaled upon Tempest. Magnar had driven the blade through his shoulder and pinned him to a huge tree. Smoke rose from the wound in a murky cloud as he tried to claw it from his flesh.

Magnar faced the female Elite too, leaving the male where he was.

“Help me, Marla!” the vampire cried, but she was already backing away.

“I’m sorry, Carlos,” she replied, her dark eyes widening with fear as Magnar advanced on her.

“Tell your master I want my sister back!” I yelled at her as she turned to flee. “And I’ll kill every vampire between me and her if that’s what it takes to get her. Including him.”

Marla glanced between me and Magnar, then sprinted away into the trees as fast as her enhanced body could carry her. I took a step towards her, intending to follow, but Magnar’s hand landed on my shoulder.

“We’ll struggle to catch her now,” he grunted before pointing across the clearing to the Elite he’d impaled against the tree. “We’ve got what we need anyway.”

Carlos screamed again, more smoke rising from his hands as he tried to rip Tempest from his shoulder, and the blade seared the flesh from his bones with the power imbued in it.

I huffed out a breath and nodded my agreement, turning my back on the fleeing Elite and facing the one we’d captured instead.

My neck continued to burn like an open flame was pressed to my skin where the vampire had bitten me, but I clenched my teeth against the pain as we moved towards the Elite.

“We want to know how to find the grain,” Magnar snarled, his voice a deadly warning.

“Train,” I interrupted, and Magnar grunted his agreement before continuing.

“You will tell us before I end you. It’s up to you how long that takes.”

The Elite sneered at us, his eyes darting between Magnar and I, hatred brimming in his gaze.

“My master will tear the flesh from your limbs and-”

Magnar lifted Venom and stabbed the vampire in the thigh. He screamed so loudly that birds flew from their roosts in the trees above us.

“The train,” Magnar said patiently, calmly, like he had all the time in the world and would gladly spend it here seeking this answer.

The vampire started swearing loudly, threatening to murder us in all kinds of impressively imaginable ways until Magnar stabbed Venom into his gut.

The violence was different to the furious heat of battle where the need for survival was a rushed, brutal thing. This was more savage, the coldness with which Magnar executed each strike something far more terrifying than the rage he displayed in battle. But I refused to turn away from it. I’d sworn to do whatever it took to rescue Montana from these monsters, and I wouldn’t back down from that vow. Besides, they were nothing more than demons wearing the faces of the mortals they’d once been. They had no mercy for the humans they corralled inside the Realms, and I had no mercy for them in my heart either.

I bit my tongue as Magnar repeated the process again and again, blood spilling, the vampire screaming in agony while refusing to answer his question.

“If this doesn’t motivate you enough, then I can start severing limbs and burning them before your eyes,” Magnar growled eventually. “You only need a heart and a tongue to tell me what I want to know, and I’m perfectly willing to remove everything else if that’s what it takes.”

The vampire glared at him, but I could see his resolve floundering. Blood poured from his wounds, and he panted heavily, his end an inevitability which only contained more or less of this torture depending on his choice to speak. He looked half dead; any mortal would have succumbed to such injuries already.

I clenched my hand into a fist, my nails biting into my skin as my gut prickled uneasily.

He’s already dead. He’s a monster. This is the only way to get to Montana.

I didn’t doubt Magnar’s threats about the steps he would take to retrieve the information we needed, and I was pretty sure the Elite could tell that too.

“What does it matter anyway?” Carlos spat. “The station is heavily guarded. The trains carry all the blood from the west coast back to the east. You won’t get within five miles of it without them killing you.”

“Your concern is touching but unwarranted. Just tell us where it is,” Magnar replied flatly.

The Elite hesitated and Magnar raised Venom again, considering his options before placing the blade against the vampire’s ankle, lining up a strike.

“Thirty miles northeast of here,” Carlos said hastily. “East of Realm G. Not that it’ll do you any good.”

“How many of your kind guard it?” I asked quickly, my heart leaping as we got what we needed.

“What difference does it make?” he muttered.

Magnar swung Venom back, readying the blow and Carlos’s eyes widened with fear. “It varies. When they’re gearing up for a delivery, like they are now, more are drafted in. Around eighty lessers working shifts with ten Elite in command.”

“And when you say delivery, you’re talking about all of the human blood you’ve stolen from the people of the Realms. Right?” I snarled.

“What else would hold such value?” the vampire hissed.

Magnar swept Venom through the air and ended him before we had to listen to any more about his love for our blood. Carlos’s body dissolved before my eyes, and my lip curled back with disgust as the dust blew across the clearing, some of it sticking to my clothes.

“We have a destination then,” Magnar said, sounding satisfied.

I nodded but the motion sent a jolt through my neck from the bite I’d received, and I cursed at the pain.

I pressed a hand to the wound as the burning continued to blaze wildly, my attention fast returning to it. I looked down at my fingers as they came away bloody with a hint of silver venom swirling through the red, my gut knotting with distaste.

Magnar noticed and a growl of anger ran through him. “Come.”

He rummaged through the vampire’s pockets where his jacket still hung from the tree, held up by Tempest’s blade. Magnar took a smooth, black stone from one of the pockets, then removed Tempest from the trunk, releasing the impaled clothes so they fell at its base.

He jerked his chin in a command for me to follow and led me back to the horses.

“What is that?” I asked, unable to contain my curiosity any longer, my eyes on the black stone which Magnar still held in his fist.

He glanced back at me and offered me the stone. “The vampires have a god helping them too. That rune helps them hide from our blades. Luckily, very few of them were ever made, so only the Elite will carry them, and not many of them at that.”

I accepted it and frowned down at the black stone which filled my palm. It was polished to a high shine, and the rune carved into it was similar to those which lined Fury and yet also entirely different. Nausea rolled through me as I held it, and I was gripped with the desire to throw the thing away.

“It’s horrible,” I said, shoving it back towards Magnar. “Why are you keeping it?”

“I need to destroy it. If I leave it here, then it’s just a weapon waiting to be used against us. Better that I bring it with us and break it as soon as I can.”

We reached the horses and Magnar placed the stone into one of the packs before removing a bottle of water from it.

He stepped towards me, and I lifted my chin so he could wash the wound. I wasn’t entirely sure how much water we had left, but the pain was sharp enough that I didn’t care.

Magnar leaned close as he poured the water over the bite, flushing it clean, his touch gentle, the heat of his breath on my flesh making goosebumps rise.

I swallowed thickly, setting my eyes on a tree across the clearing, ignoring the tightness in my gut as I let him work.

“Well, we know where we’re going at last,” I said, forcing my mind away from the similarities of this situation to when he’d first kissed me, when his mouth had taken me captive entirely and his hands had-

I bit down on my tongue, pushing those memories from my mind, reminding myself that we couldn’t repeat that again anyway and trying to focus on what mattered.

“We do,” he agreed, his voice rough with grit, and I wondered if he was thinking about that night too. “And we also know what they’ll be carrying on that train.”

“What are you thinking?” I asked, sensing there was more to his words, that cunning glint returning to his eyes.

“That it’s about time we asked for a little help from Idun.”

My eyes widened in surprise as he mentioned the goddess, but his jaw was set with determination, and I didn’t question him. If he thought she might help us, then I wasn’t going to stop him from asking.

I just had to hope that the price of her assistance wouldn’t be too high.

Magnar finished flushing my wound, then raised his gaze to meet mine. The tension in that small space dividing us had my heart thundering to a heady rhythm, and as he took my cheek in his large palm, I fell entirely still.

“You could have died today,” he said roughly, his thumb swiping over my cheekbone, brushing ash from my skin where the vampire’s blood had splashed my face.

“I lost my connection to my ancestors,” I admitted. “For a moment, I was just a helpless human at the mercy of a monster. But then I found that rock and-”

“Next time, do better. You’re a slayer, not a human. Don’t forget it again, novice,” he snapped, his eyes flashing with the darkness of the creature who had just tortured a vampire to death. I stumbled back a step in surprise as he released me suddenly and stalked away.

I bit down on the inside of my cheek as the desire to stalk right after him and remind him that I was brand spanking new to this bullshit rose in me, but I forced the impulse aside and turned away from him instead. There was only one thing I needed to be focusing on right now and it wasn’t the moody son of a bitch with a pair of flashy swords. Montana was out there waiting for me, and we’d just discovered the way to get to her.