Valhalla Read online

  It was easy for me. If they got out of line I simply used my power and showed them who was in charge. I had had one get a little rougher than I’d have liked, but I had dealt with him promptly. I reached up and rubbed my shoulder. The new vampire had slammed me into the wall and I was still sore from it.

  "Are you hurt?" Corbin asked, coming closer to me.

  "I’ll be fine." I turned and looked up at him. "Tell me why you sire so many men."

  He smiled and tossed his gloves aside. "Have you ever sired anyone?"

  I thought about Lucha and Camille, and nodded. Lucha had been wise choice, but Camille had been all wrong. I should have known better than to bring her over. Lucha and I had been at a ball together and I caught wind of her and her accomplices’ plan to murder Lucha, and steal his money. They had no idea that he was already dead, and that played to our advantage. Lucha and I had made love surrounded by the dead evildoers, while Camille laid there dying—watching us, and begging for her life. I brought her over as a gift to Lucha, to keep him satisfied. His hunger for sex was even stronger than mine and I worried that I would not always be able to fill it. He had refused to accept her, claiming to want only me.

  Camille was a bad seed to start with, and she’d not changed. Kerr had been furious with me for siring her. She had tried to seduce him so many times that I’d lost count over the years. We had parted ways with her and I had not seen her since. Every now and then I thought that I could feel her near, but she was never brave enough to show herself.

  I wondered if Lucha would turn her away now that I was gone. He would need to feed his hunger for sex. Mine threatened to consume me. I would have to take a lover soon or risk going mad.

  Corbin sat down in the chair and pulled his knife out. He liked to sit and clean his fingernails with it. He was odd, but I got used to him. "I take it from your lack of response that you regret your decision to sire who you did."

  I nodded. "Yes, one of them at least, and what about you, do you have any regrets?"

  "Ah, as a matter of fact I do. There is but one. He was powerful, and I had been sent to find him. I not only found him, but I found a powerful woman who had been sent to protect him. She and I did not see eye to eye," he looked at me as he said this, "and many things had happened that I can never take back or do over again."

  I turned towards him, suddenly very interested in what he had to say. "Like what?"

  "I cannot be sure, but I believe she may have been with child when I tried to kill her."

  I sat in silence and listened to Corbin speak. It seemed important to him that he get to tell me this. He told me about siring the man as the woman was forced to watch. I wasn’t sure what to say to him, because I wasn’t sure what sort of response he looked for—it felt almost like he sought absolution. He wasn’t bragging about what he’d done, but he wasn’t mourning either.

  "Have you nothing to offer?" he asked.

  "I do, but you won’t like what I have to say."

  He laughed a little. "No, I suppose that I won’t, go ahead."

  "You feed from the innocent. I can smell them on you the minute you walk in the door, yet here you sit seeming upset by events that happened a century ago. I’m not sure what to make of you, Corbin. One minute you are a monster, and the next you are kind."

  He rose slowly and came towards me, his knife still in hand. I glanced down at it and looked into his eyes. Something clicked in me and I jumped to my feet and moved back from him. He looked down at the knife and then back at me. He dropped it on the floor and put his hands up.

  "Linnea, I mean you no harm." I saw his lips move and knew what he said, yet I heard his voice in my head screaming other words. I heard, hold his head still, I’ve never seen a human with this much strength, imagine how powerful he will be soon, and I saw Corbin standing before someone who was on his knees, I tried to see the man’s face, but I blocked it out. I ran my hands down my stomach and knew that I’d just lost the baby that I had been carrying in my womb and that the man on his knees before Corbin was my husband.

  Corbin took another step to me and I screamed out. "You murdered him, and my baby!"

  I pushed the table over and ran for the door. Corbin was on me in an instant. He grabbed my arms and held them behind my back. I waited for his fangs to sink into me, but they didn’t.

  "I cannot change the past, Linnea. I would take it all back if I could," he whispered in my ear. He let go of me and I ran out the door. I didn’t look back. I couldn’t.

  Chapter 31

  I stood outside the gates to Lucha’s home and watched from a distance. I had started to go in, but had stopped when I saw Lucha leaving. He should have sensed me, maybe he did, but he never looked in my direction as he rode away on his horse. I closed my eyes briefly and saw the horrors unfold before me again. I tried again to see my husband’s face or to hear his voice, but I couldn’t. The pain in my stomach felt real and I fell on my knees.

  "Linnea?"

  I opened my eyes and looked up to find Kerr standing near me. His white shirt blew slightly in the breeze, but his red hair held tight in its tie. "Lass, are ye hurt?"

  "No … yes … not physically."

  Kerr moved down next to me and touched my shoulder. "I looked for you, but I couldn’t find you anywhere. I came back here hopin’ that you’d come home."

  The very mention of home made me cry. "I had to go. Lucha told me to leave."

  "Lucha was upset about his father. He didn’t want you to go. He and I have searched the countryside for you. He’s gone off again to look for you. He’s not eaten or slept since you’ve gone. I had to force me own blood down him, for fear he’d die of missin’ you." He put his arms around me and pulled me to my feet. "Where have you been?"

  "I’ve been with another vampire, helping him with his newly sired ones."

  Kerr walked with me up to the house. He led me up the stairs and to the bathroom. I stood as he undressed me slowly. When I was naked I stood and ran my hands over my lower stomach. Kerr stood behind me and put his hand on mine.

  "Linnea, what’s the matter?"

  I turned my body and pressed it tight to him. His arms wrapped around me and I laughed through my tears. I needed sex and comforting, and here I was in the arms of Kerr, the last man on earth who would give me either. "Lucha asked me to have a child with him before I left."

  Kerr’s arms tightened around me. "I know. He told me what he said. He’s sorry that he said those hurtful things to you."

  "Lucha was right," I pushed my body closer to his. "I could have lifted the spell all these years, but I didn’t. I hid behind the magic-man’s gift, and…."

  "And, what?"

  I couldn’t look up at Kerr. I didn’t want to see the rejection on his face when I said what needed to be said. "I do love you, and I used to long for you to tell me that you felt the same way. I can’t help the way I feel, Kerr. I tried not to, I tried to just love Lucha, and I do love him, but still…."

  Kerr didn’t push me away like I thought he would. "You said used to want me to feel the same way, what’s changed yer mind?"

  "I had a family once, or almost did. I was robbed of it in the early stages. I lost the child I carried, and I lost my husband. I didn’t want to leave him, but something—someone was there pulling me away from him. He made me go, Kerr … why did the man who swore to love me always, make me go?"

  "Because he knew that he’d see you again," he said, so sure of himself that I had to turn and look at him. I was about to ask how he knew this when the face I’d been trying so hard to see became clear--Kerr.

  I hit him hard in the chest over and over again screaming at the top of my lungs. He grabbed my arms and pulled me to him. "Why didn’t you tell me about us? Why?"

  "I could have told you everything and you still would not have remembered me. What good would it have done you to walk a hundred years by my side with the guilt of not feeling the same for me as I do for you?"

  He drew me into his arms and I s
macked his face hard, but he didn’t let go of me. "Aye, I deserved that. It was my magic that stripped you of yer memories to begin with, and my lack of control that left you one of us."

  "I didn’t hit you because of that," I said, glaring at him.

  "Oh?"

  "I hit you for not understanding that I’ve loved you all these years, memories or no memories, Kerr … I have always wanted you, yet you forced me to take strangers to my bed."

  "Aye, I did, but you have Lucha now because of that, and you canna tell me that you don’t love ‘em."

  He was right, as much as I hated him for keeping this from me, he had a point. Lucha wouldn’t be in my life if it weren’t for Kerr’s secret. "I don’t know if I should hug you or beat you, Bhreac Kerr Laochailan of the MacLachlainn clan."

  Kerr pulled me closer to him and put his lips to mine. "Well, I think I’ve got somethin’ better in mind."

  I couldn’t keep the surprise off my face. I was so used to being turned down by Kerr that I wasn’t sure how to read him. "Are you telling me that you want to…?"

  "I told you when you awoke as a creature of the night that I would not take you to my bed until you could remember who and what I was to you."

  I wanted to let him take me then and there, but there was one thing that stopped me--Lucha. I put my forehead against Kerr’s and let out a long sigh. "I can’t hurt Lucha."

  "I understand." He put me down and I grabbed onto his neck and wrapped my arms around him.

  "No, Kerr, I want you, I always have, but I should tell Lucha first, before anything happens between us."

  He smiled and for the first time in a very long time, it went all the way to his blazing royal blue eyes. "When he gets back from meetin’ with Camille we can sit him down and I’ll explain it all to him."

  I felt my chest grow heavy. "I thought you said that he looked for me?"

  "Aye, Camille sent word that she’d seen you and requested that only Lucha come."

  "Did she now?"

  Kerr rolled his eyes slightly. "Come on now, Valkyrie, you canna control everything. Yer about to tell the man that you remember yer past, and…."

  I stopped him. "What did you just call me?" It sounded a little like Valerie to me, but I was sure that wasn’t what he said.

  Kerr let out a long breath. "So, you don’t remember all of it, huh? I called you a Valkyrie, but that’s not important now, what is important is that you at least remember us—what we had together."

  I closed my eyes and thought of him making love to me, and I thought of the way we said our ceremonious handfasting vows in a man’s kitchen. Kerr laughed softly and I knew that he scanned my thoughts. I was fine with that. I looked into his blue eyes and knew that I couldn’t wait for him any longer. We had spent countless decades walking side by side with this overwhelming amount of sexual tension between us, and now I knew why.

  "Bhreac Kerr Laochailan of the MacLachlainn clan, take me to bed now."

  "Aye," he said, laughing softly as he carried me into the house.

  Chapter 32

  Kerr touched my arm and smiled. "Yer shakin’."

  "I’m nervous."

  "Why are you nervous? We’ve done this before." His voice was so calm and his accent so much thicker than it normally was. I noticed that whenever he let himself go he reverted back to his old ways, and I loved that about him.

  "Kerr, we haven’t done this in so long."

  He let out a laugh. "Well, if that’s all yer worried about then consider the fact that I’ve not done it all since you."

  My eyes just about bulged out of my head. It had been over a hundred years since we’d been lovers and that meant that Kerr had abstained a very long time. "No, I don’t believe you."

  "Believe it, Valkyrie. I swore an oath to you to have you and no other, and I, unlike you, was able to remember it. I’m not blaming you."

  "But Kerr, we died, so technically you owed me nothing in the way of a commitment. Plus, we aren’t exactly human anymore, so we aren’t bound to their rules."

  "Aye, that is true, we are no longer married, we never even signed any documentation. It was just the two of us promisin’ to love one another. I do not think even by human laws it was binding, but I could not bring myself to touch another. Every time I tried, I thought of you and I could not go through with it. I came so very close, so many times, but my love for you was too great to…."

  I pulled away from him fast. "Oh God, Kerr … you must think I’m a horrible person for all the men I’ve taken over the years." I stood. I was ashamed of myself and wanted to be dressed and away from him.

  His arm wrapped around my waist and he pulled me to him. "No, you’ll not be getting away from me again. Yer right, once I died all bets were off, and I’m not sayin’ that I held you to them. You couldn’t remember a thing about yer past, and even if you could, you’d thought I was dead and gone. You were to marry another man right before you were brought over, and I understood that." He seemed to reflect for a moment. "I made my choice to stay behind, Linnea, and you canna be held responsible for that."

  He moved to kiss me and I turned my head. "Does this feel a little wrong to you?"

  He nodded. "Aye, as much as I hate to admit it, I like Lucha and don’t want to hurt him."

  "I can’t stop loving him, Kerr. I need you to understand that I can’t shut my feelings off for him now, even though I can remember bits and pieces of what we were."

  "I don’t expect you to stop lovin’ him. He’s been good to you—for you for many years now. He loves you with all his heart, and I can’t expect you to be able to walk away from him, but I ask that you try and open yer heart to me too." Kerr’s words hit home and I thought about the horrible situation I was now faced with. I hoped that Lucha wouldn’t make me choose between he and Kerr.

  I sensed Lucha coming and so did Kerr. He let me up and I smoothed my dress down. I was happy that we hadn’t actually gotten to doing anything other than talking. I wouldn’t have wanted Lucha to find out about us this way. Kerr held my hand as I climbed out of his bed.

  "Let’s see how his mood is before we spring this on him," he said.

  I nodded and followed him out and down the staircase. I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw him kissing Camille. Kerr ran into the back of me and had to grab hold of me to keep me from falling down the staircase. Lucha turned and looked up, his eyes met mine and he jerked away from Camille.

  I looked at the tiny blonde woman who stood before me and wanted to rip her throat out. She had lured him to her with the intent of seducing him and it had worked. Kerr touched my shoulder. I stiffened, and turned around. I pushed past him and went towards my room, the room I’d shared with Lucha for so many years and slammed the door shut behind me. I ran towards my wardrobe and pulled my clothing out. I couldn’t stay here with him, I wouldn’t. I had no reason to be jealous. I had Kerr now, right? Yet I was.

  The door opened and I expected to see Kerr there, instead I found Lucha. He looked at me and then at the clothes on the floor and tipped his head back. That was typical of him, he loved to try and stretch his stress away. "I’m sorry that I’m such a burden, Lucha. I’ll go."

  "Little one, do not do this," Lucha said.

  I rounded on him and he took a step back. "Don’t call me that. I’m not your little one, and I’m not you amore eternal. I never was. You could have picked anyone but her and I would have understood…." I turned and slammed my fist into the wall, leaving a large hole in the process. I looked back at Lucha and smiled. "Look, now you can paint a picture of her here and claim that it was meant to be."

  He tried to touch me, but I batted his hand away. "Go, Lucha! Go to her, now. What were your words … oh, yes, I do not wish to look upon you any further tonight."

  "Linnea, please you are not being reasonable."

  "Oh, then by all means enlighten me, Lucha. How should I react to the fact that you had sex with Camille? You did have sex with her, didn’t you?"

  He looked aw
ay and let his eyes close slightly, answering my question without words. "I am sorry, Linnea, I…."

  "No, don’t be sorry. Be happy that I didn’t take you up on the offer to start a family. That would have at least made you feel guilty about Camille, maybe."

  "You know how our hunger is. I held off all these weeks waiting for you, trying to find you … I…."

  "Save me your sob story, Lucha. You were the one who told me to go! You were the one who wasn’t man enough to help your own father so you turned on me when I did!"

  Lucha was on me in an instant. His hand wrapped around my throat, and he lifted me high off the ground. His brown eyes swirled to black and I knew that he’d let his demon loose on me, and probably had wanted to since the night I’d helped his father die. His fingernails dug deep into me and I felt them break my skin. I kicked out hard and caught him in the side. He dropped me to the floor and pushed my body to the ground. "How could you not come back? I needed you here by my side. I know what I said was wrong, but I did not mean any of it. I needed you here, Linnea, and you were gone."

  "Get off of me!" I pushed him hard and he fell backwards. I stood and watched as Lucha seemed to be pulled by strings up. I gasped at his show of brazen power, and knew that if it came down to it, he could kill me if he wanted to.

  He smiled and let out a small laugh. "Camille was right. She said that you try to keep my powers down, that you are afraid that I am stronger than you."

  I looked at him like he’d sprouted a second head. "Why in the hell would you believe one word she says, Lucha? She’s a liar."

  "Perhaps or…?" He jumped in front of me and let a blast of his power out. Icy waves of sharp glass-like magic hit me. I screamed and fell backwards. I brought my hands to my face and held it tight, feeling how damaged I really was. He had ripped my skin to bits with just a thought, and now stood over me. He put his hand in my hair and pulled my head back to face him.