13. Eivind

13

EIVIND

W hen Harris' car didn't head due south, I knew the bastard had lied to me. Though I didn't suspect his destination until he headed up the freeway toward Minnesota, taking the same damned route I'd just followed to find him.

The same route I'd driven from Chicago to the Ironheart cabin with Karmen.

I didn't think he'd recognize me in a new car—my Mustang had been destroyed by the sunfire fireballs—but I hung back to be safe. When he exited in the middle of nowhere, I squeezed the steering wheel and wished it was his throat so I could throttle him.

The only business on this exit was the rundown cheap hotel where I'd spent a few hours with Karmen, letting her rest in the windowless room before the Soldiers of Light attacked. I'd brought Harris back here, so he knew about the place, but he had no fucking reason to come back to the hotel. It'd practically burned down. Even fresh after our stay, the only evidence that remained were a couple of piles of ashy bits and crumbled bones from the skeletons Karmen had destroyed. Their weapons had been carried off into the brush and hidden by someone.

Maybe he'd stashed the weaponry himself, caching them for when he needed a little extra cash. Surely there were collectors who'd give a pretty penny for the swords and shields. I didn't know jack shit about weaponry but the Soldiers of Light had carried the real deal, though it'd been magicked up to blinding brilliance. Some historian would probably sell both his kidneys to get his hands on an authentic legionnaire sword, and if Harris lost his job, he'd certainly need some cash.

Though I knew him well enough for that to not ring true. The human might be annoying as shit, but he was too self-righteous to dip a finger into the black market, no matter how desperate he might be for money.

He might have some new information about the evidence he'd gathered from the hotel. Or…

Maybe she was here. He'd been keen to see her again. As keen as me.

I clamped my jaws shut, swallowing down a furious growl of jealousy. Ridiculous, honestly. No Aima queen would be interested in a human when she had her Blood. He'd be of no use to her.

Though the thought niggled like maggots in my brain. Maybe she was interested in Harris. A human, too weak to pose a threat to her. Though one of her Blood had put an arrow in my shoulder just because I tried to follow her. What would they do to an annoying human? It might be worth hanging around just to see Harris brought down a peg or two. Though honestly that wouldn't take much. He wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell against an Aima warrior, let alone one of those fucking skeleton soldiers.

Who aren't fucking skeletons any longer.

Gritting my teeth, I hung back on the side road behind some bushes, waiting to see how he was welcomed. Two men dressed in black jeans waited at the front door. I didn't recognize them, but they had to be hers. A big man with a tall mohawk that hung down his beefy back. A slim, shorter man who moved with the elegance and grace of a dancer—or a master swordsman—with long black hair. I didn't know enough history to hazard a guess at which Soldiers of Light they were. No sign of their sunfires, though I wouldn't recognize them by their creatures either. One of them had dogs and something like an elephant. Her alpha had a horse creature, and the main sunfire?—

Searing heat prickled my left side so hot I flinched away automatically. Then something sharp jabbed into my throat. Ever so slowly, I turned my head to the left, noting the melted glass of the window. A short but heavy sword tipped my chin up higher as the man stared at me. With closely cropped dark hair, he wasn't the scruffy-looking Impaler, at least, but I still didn't like the amused glint in this man's golden eyes. His face and arms were criss-crossed with scars, mostly thin white lines but some were thick with pink tissue implying major injuries.

"I want to see Karmen."

The man's head tipped to the side, a smile twitching on his lips. His sword cut deeper, making me gurgle on my own blood.

Fury pulsed through me, and I shoved the car door open, trying to knock him aside. Though he side-stepped it easily. The sword caught the sunlight in a brilliant flash, blinding me.

"Fucking Soldier of Light," I growled. "Once a cheater, always a cheater."

The man grinned as if my words amused the hell out of him. "Once a coward, always a coward."

The vicious steel door I'd built inside myself as a boy to control the beast swung wide open, inviting the wolf out to play. I strained, head back, shoulders bunched, hands fisted, silently begging him to sweep out of me. I needed his wildness. Predator instincts and senses. Strength.

I couldn't fight another Aima without my wolf. I didn't have any weapons skills beyond basic knife fighting, though I wasn't wearing so much as a pocketknife let alone something solid enough to counter a sword.

For the first time in my life, I was basically helpless.

I had no weapon. No teeth and claws. Not even a gun.

Please , I whispered in my head. Goddess, forgive me. I need my wolf.

A mournful howl echoed through the empty corridors of my mind, but I couldn't feel him anywhere inside me.

My shoulders slumped. I wavered, my knees weak enough I almost fell to the ground. I'd been lying to myself. In a real fight, surely the wolf would come when I needed it.

He's gone.

I forced my gaze back up to the man's face. He held the sword poised over his shoulder, both hands wrapped around the hilt, fully ready to behead me with a single blow. Acceptance flowed through me. Fine. If I couldn't shift, what use was I in this world? She wouldn't have me back anyway.

The man's eyebrows lifted. He straightened and sheathed the sword across his back. "Let's go."

Hope surged and I barely bit back a response. Where? To Karmen? Please?

But what would I say to her now? In this shape, I was as much use to her as Harris. Misery burned like acid in my veins, making the tender arrow scar in my shoulder throb in time to my heartbeat. I rubbed the aching muscle, trying to feel a lingering shard of metal or wood in the wound that might still be causing pain, but all I felt was the fragile, puckered skin where the arrow had protruded. I'd never carried a scar before. In fact, I'd never seen an Aima have a scar at all. We healed just about anything if it didn't kill us quickly.

Which made me side eye the man striding beside me. So many scars. He wasn't Aima. He'd been human before he'd been resurrected to Heliopolis. Though no human would have survived so many injuries either. "Which one are you?"

He walked silently for so long I thought he wasn't going to answer. Fine. It didn't really fucking matter to me who Karmen's Blood were. It's none of my fucking business.

"Leonides," he finally replied.

I didn't know why I'd asked because human history meant nothing to me. He could have been a famous warrior king for all I knew. The other two Blood at the door fell in step behind us, making my nape crawl with nervous tension. Three more Blood stood like an impenetrable wall around a chair placed at a table in the center of what used to be the lobby.

Other than a flash of glorious red-gold hair, I couldn't even see Karmen. Though I could certainly smell her. Clean, fresh sheets hung in the golden sunshine, blowing in a gentle summer breeze. Flavored with warm honey and molasses, thick and slow and sweet.

All the fine hairs on my body prickled with awareness. My muscles tensed. Braced. Fight. Flee. I wasn't sure.

Harris stood to the side by a gray-haired woman I didn't recognize. He gave me a sardonic chin lift of acknowledgement without a trace of shame for lying to me.

Leonides effortlessly maneuvered his body between me and Karmen as he led me over to stand with the humans across from her. Two more silent Blood stepped out of the darkened hallway. Four at my back. One beside me. Three with Karmen. At least I could see her now, though her beauty wounded me more severely than even the flaming arrow fucking up my shoulder.

She wore a beautiful old-fashioned pink dress. Her hair gleamed like living fire and molten sunshine, loose about her shoulders. For the first time since I'd met her, she looked—and acted—like an Aima queen.

Her eyes sparkled with golden sunbursts, focused on the bleeding wound on my throat.

My entire body clenched with both dread and anticipation. Sweat broke out on my forehead. Hands fisted at my sides, I quivered with tension, fighting to remain still and controlled. I wanted to see her. I wanted…

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to block her out. The tempting curve of her throat. The swell of her breasts framed perfectly by the bodice of her dress. Though with my eyes closed, my nose worked even harder to drag in every bit of her scent. Drinking her in. Imprinting her deeper into my memory. My cells cried out for her blood. Her power.

Blood. I could fucking smell her blood.

My mouth watered, and I fought the urge to slobber like a rabid wolf. Why would she be bleeding? I hadn't seen a wound or bite, but one of her Blood must have fed recently.

"I'm Dagny, consiliarius for House Sunna." The woman I didn't know stood beside the table facing me. "Her Majesty wasn't expecting visitors today, so you're both lucky to be alive."

"I'm Joseph Harris, formerly a detective in Chicago. Kevin Isador gave me your information so I could share some results from items retrieved from this location a few weeks ago. I texted that I hoped to meet with you here."

Dagny gave him a nod and then shot an expectant glare in my direction. Despite being a human, she had the fire-breathing monster role down pat, the same as Clara, my sister's consiliarius.

"I'm Eivind Ironheart." Her cold silver eyes narrowed, demanding some kind of explanation. "I followed Harris on a hunch."

He shrugged. "I told him I was headed to Arkansas, but I guess he didn't believe me."

"Sounds to me like someone invited himself to a barbecue," Vlad drawled.

Bristling, I glared at the Impaler, silently daring him to make a move on his threat from last time. "Give me a reason to see you squirm on a spike, slowly impaling yourself while I roast you like a marshmallow over a nice, slow fire."

He'd slicked his dirty-blond hair back off his face and dressed in normal clothes, but I recognized his voice despite only catching a glimpse of his human form last time. Rage licked inside me, teeth and claws to rend him limb from limb. He stood on Karmen's left, pressed against her side. Though that didn't keep him from having a sword in his left hand.

The Blood with the two sundogs stood on her right, eyes narrowed and hard. A low rumble rolled from the two dogs. Any other time, their aggression would have made me sneer with amusement. But if I couldn't shift, I couldn't guarantee the fucking dogs wouldn't eat my face off. Let alone deal with the Blood himself. Was he as strong as me?

My upper lip curled with derision—at myself. I wasn't strong right now. I was a fucking lamb led to slaughter.

The Blood behind her—apparently her alpha—didn't say a word and his face didn't reveal a single emotion. He might as well have been a fucking statue, except for the gentle stroke of his thumb back and forth across her chin. His palm covered her throat. It wasn't a sexual touch but it bugged the hell out of me just the same. It was intimate. Especially for a vampire queen. It made me think about whether he'd bitten her on her throat and was keeping his mark covered. Protected. Safe. Or if he just wanted to touch her.

Which only made me wonder how much he'd—they'd—touched her.

They were fucking Blood. Men. With physical bodies. Supposedly after eons of serving as Ra's Soldiers of Light.

Of course they're fucking touching her.

Motherfuckers.