A Hunger Like No Other

Uncomfortable silence. She glanced around, struggling to remember the training Annika and Regin had forced on her. Beating up Cassandra was one thing, but this was a monster before her.

She frowned. If he's a monster, then I'm a monster, too.

Hey, I don't have to live. She'd known only one of them was leaving this room. Now she knew that was at the most.

Weapons on the walls. Crossed swords hanging upside down. The ones in the sheaths were actually more susceptible to rust. Rust meant weakness. Gotta get the one without the sheath.

'Sit.' When she reluctantly did so, he held up a pitcher of blood. 'Drink?'

She shook her head. 'Trying to watch my points.'

He gave her a disgusted look. 'You speak like a human.'

'If I had a dollar…' she sighed.

'Perhaps you just drank from the Lykae you'd been with?'

Even if she could, she saw no reason to deny it, and put her shoulders back. 'I did.'

He raised his eyebrows and regarded her with new interest. 'Even I refused to take from an immortal like him.'

'Why?' she asked, leaning forward, curiosity ruling her now. 'That was the one instruction my mother gave my aunts when she sent me to them—that I never drink straight from a source.'

He stared into his goblet of blood. 'When you drink someone to death, you take everything from them—down to the bottom of their soul. Do it enough, and soon the pit of a soul can be quite literal. You can taste it. Your heart turns black and your eyes redden with rage. It's a poison, and we crave it.'

'But drinking from a source and killing are two different things. Why wouldn't I be warned instead not to kill?' This was so surreal. They were sharing a conversation, asking and answering questions even with the grueling tension between them, like Dr. Lecter and Clarice in that jail scene. Courteous and responding to courtesy…'And why do I get these memories?'

'You have that dark talent?' He gave a short laugh that had no humor. 'I've suspected it's passed down through the bloodline. I think that's what made our line kings in the first chaos of the Lore. I have it. Kristoff has it. And has given it to every human he's turned,' he added with a sneer. 'But you inherited it from me?' He raised his eyebrows, as if still not quite believing her. 'Your mother must have feared you would. Drinking beings to death makes you mad. Drinking and seizing their memories makes you mad—and powerful.'

She shrugged, not feeling mad. Yes, she'd almost crumbled a castle in her sleep, but…'I don't feel that way. Will something more happen to me?'

He looked aghast. 'The memories aren't enough?' he said, then composed himself. 'To take their blood, their life, and all that they have experienced—that is what makes a true vampire. I used to seek out immortals for their knowledge and power, but I also suffered the shadows of their minds. For you to drink one with so many memories…you play with fire.'

'You have no idea how right you are about that.'

He frowned, thought for a moment, then said, 'Did I put the Lykae in the catacombs?'

'He escaped,' she said smugly.

'Ah, but now you remember his torment?'

She nodded slowly. One of them was about to die. Was she prolonging the conversation to learn answers to questions that had plagued her? Or to live a little longer? Why was he complying?

'Imagine ten thousand memories like that clotting your mind. Imagine experiencing your victim's death. The moments leading up to it when you stalk him, when he explains away a sound, saying the breeze was stirring. When he calls himself a fool because the hair on the back of his neck stands up.' He gazed past her. 'Some fight against believing to the end. Others look on my face and know what has them.'

She shivered. 'You suffer from that?'

'I do.' He drummed his fingers on the desk, and a ring caught her attention. The crest with two wolves.

'That's Lachlain's ring.' Stolen from his dead father's hand. My father killed his.

He studied it, red eyes vacant. 'I suppose it is.'

He was insane. And she knew he would talk to her like this for as long as she wanted, because she sensed that he was…lonely. And because he believed these were the last hours of her life. 'Given the history between the Valkyrie and the Horde, how did you and Helen get together?'

His gaunt face taking on a faraway expression, he began casually, 'I had her neck in my hands, about to twist her head from her body.'

'How…romantic.' One to tell the grandkids.

He ignored her. 'Yet something stayed me. I released her, but studied her in the following months trying to discover what had made me hesitate. In time, I realized that she was my Bride. When I seized her and took her from her home, she said she saw something good in me and agreed to stay. She was right for a while, but in the end she paid with her life.'

'How? How did she die?'

'I'd heard from sorrow. Over me. That's why I was surprised she succumbed so quickly.'

'I don't understand.'

'Your mother tried to get me to stop drinking blood not just from a living source but altogether. She even convinced me to eat like a human, joining me to make it easier although she had no need for sustenance. And then came news of you, just as I was about to lose my crown from Kristoff's first rebellion. In the battle, I reverted to my old ways. I kept my crown, but lost everything I'd gained with her. I'd succumbed again. After taking one look at my eyes, Helen fled me.'

'Did you ever wonder about me?' she asked, sounding too much like she cared.

'I heard tales that you were weak and unskilled, having received the worst traits of both species. I would never have returned for you even if I thought you would survive long enough to freeze into your immortality. No, this was solely Ivo.'

She gave a theatrical wince. 'Yeouch.' But it did actually sting a bit, a sting that was escalating toward spectacularly pissed off. 'Talk about a deadbeat dad—oh, now, that was just awful—' She fell silent as he rose, silhouetted by the stained glass, his hair as gold as the rich inlays. He awed her. Here was her father, and he was terrifying.

He sighed, looking her over, not as though seeing a ghost or a novelty, but like he leisurely mulled an easy kill. 'Little Emmaline, coming here is the last mistake you will ever make. You should have known that vampires can always cut away anything that stands between them and their prize—anything else becomes secondary. My prize is keeping my crown. You are a weakness that Ivo, or any of the others, could exploit. So you just became incidental.'

Hit the girl where it hurts. 'When a leech like you won't have me…I've really got nothing left to lose.' She stood and brushed her hands on her jeans. 'Works out for me, anyway. I've come here to kill you.'

'Have you, now?' He shouldn't look that amused.

His chilling smile was the last thing she saw before he disappeared, tracing. She leapt for the unsheathed sword on the wall, hearing him behind her in an instant. She dropped down, snaring the sword, but he was tracing all around her.

She attempted it herself…unable…wasting precious seconds. Then turned to what she did best—fleeing— using her agility to dodge him.

'You certainly are spry,' he said, appearing in front of her. Her sword shot out like a blur, but he easily dodged it. When she struck again, he plucked the raised sword from her, tossing it clattering to the ground.

Emma's gut clenched with the stark realization of what was happening.

He was toying with her.