'I'll destroy myself,' he'd vowed to Nikolai the last night he'd seen him.
How could Sebastian persuade her to live with him, when for three centuries he hadn't been able to persuade himself that he deserved to live at all?
Yet even briefly, Sebastian had gotten her to kiss him and accept his unpracticed advances. With time, surely he could overcome her aversion.
Perhaps other vampires were evil—he'd never seen any besides his brothers. But he could prove to her that he was not. He could protect her and provide anything she desired.
Returning to Blachmount was no longer avoidable—all his wealth was there, buried on the grounds. Before Sebastian and Conrad had left the battlefield, Sebastian had amassed a fortune in war spoils from the Russian officers, including the castle he currently occupied.
He had half a dozen chests filled with gold coins, stamped with the imprint of some ancient god in flight. Several more chests contained jewels the officers had plundered from the east before their greedy gazes turned to neighboring Estonia.
He would force himself to drink and to buy new clothes. He'd purchase a new home for them—he'd be relieved if he never returned to that wretched castle.
When he found her again, he would appear as a man worthy of consideration as a husband. But to acquire the things necessary to do this, Sebastian would be forced to navigate the new world around him. He'd seen cars but had never driven one. He'd seen advertisements for movies but had never viewed one. Planes flew overhead, and he knew the composition of their engines from books, but he'd never traveled in one.
And he would have to walk among humans, though he'd always felt that they could look at him and suspect what he was—an abomination, trying to pass as one of them.
Or worse, he feared that he might crave drinking them. Yet, never had that happened before Kaderin's golden skin had been just before him. Could he control himself with her? Was it selfish to seek her? No, he was disciplined. He could forbear, as his brothers' order called it.
He wanted his Bride back, and would have her again if it killed him.
Turning away from the window, he stared out into the rain, realizing he'd been wanting her all his life. Sebastian shook his head ruefully. Even before she'd become all he had.
London, England
Everything is under control.
Kaderin's blessing was back in place, even though, to any who saw her, she appeared disoriented.
Since the time when London had been a marshy encampment beside a forgettable river, vampires had hunted in the fog here. And whenever she'd visited, she'd hunted them.
After her debacle in Russia, she'd chosen to come to this Lore-rich city because she had a private flat here that none of the Valkyrie knew about, and because it was a good base for the Hie—not because she couldn't face her coven.
Tonight was her first in the city, and she'd set out for King's Cross with one objective: to kill leeches. Beneath her trench coat, her sword and whip rested hidden. She meandered down a cobblestone back way she remembered well—just over a century ago, two vampire brothers had nearly beheaded her on these very bricks.
Kaderin didn't despise vampires only for her sisters' sake.
Along the alley, she'd gradually begun to act as though she were lost in the dingy veil of the city, even subtly limping—signaling a predator that dinner was here for the taking.
She tried to convince herself that her excursion wasn't meant to prove anything. This wasn't an exercise to see if she still had the stones to hunt vampires. That would be too cliché, too movie-montage-worthy, as she busted heads and cleaned out the streets of London.
To kill tonight was, simply, her life as usual.
A gang of five of them materialized from thin air. 'Seems my birthday came early, boys,' Kaderin drawled. They were dressed like street thugs, and their glowing red eyes were spattered with floating black flecks. Dirty eyes. When they drank beings to death, they drank from the pit of the soul, taking all the bad, absorbing all the madness and sin into themselves.
The five surrounded her; she yanked her sword free and struck hard without delay.
A flip of her wrist claimed her first head. Lookit, Kaderin thought. A vampire's head rolling across a London back alley. Business as usual. Control.
They began tracing all around her, striking out with fists or blades. She yanked her coiled metal whip free from her belt. Titanium. With a whip, she could contain a tracing vampire. One recognized her with the first crack and escaped, fleeing the fight.
Ah, but the other three are going to roll the dice.
Her whip caught one's neck, coiling round again and again, snapping at the end.
The house always wins.
She yanked, sending him listing toward her, right into her sword's reach. As she severed his head, she kicked behind her to ward off the other two. She ducked under the bigger one's blade, and it sank into his comrade's temple.
Blood sprayed. She was in her element now. Cool dispassion. Cold killing. Her sword flew, her whip cracked —she was back to normal.
How irrational she'd been, fleeing hysterically from Russia, with all the weeping and uncontrollable shaking. How many times had she moaned, 'Oh, dear Freya, what have I done?' or recalled the look on that vampire's face when he'd realized he was going to have to let her go into the sun?
She'd had an indiscretion. As Valkyrie sometimes did.
Like Myst the Coveted? Kaderin thought, delivering a killing blow to the vampire with the knife jutting from his head like a horn. When Myst had been in a Horde prison, the Forbearer rebels took the castle, and one of their generals had freed her to make love to her. Before the Valkyrie could rescue her, things had gotten out of hand in a dank cell.
Myst's status among the Lore—which she'd built over lifetimes—was ruined. She was shunned, an outcast. Even the nymphs ridiculed her. There was no ignominy worse than that—
The last one threw a hit to Kaderin's jaw that had her seeing double for a moment, but she blindly punched out and connected. Then she was back on her toes, sword gliding, thoughts whirring. As the two of them circled each other, Kaderin recalled the ultimate fall from grace. Just decades ago, a Valkyrie named Helen had had sex with a vampire, and then bore his child, Emmaline. Helen had died of sorrow—because the vampire had turned on her.
Another strike of her sword. The last one barely dodged it and cursed her.
'Goodness. I have never been called a bitch before.' She wiped her sleeve over her face, and their eyes met.
Vampires turned. That was what they did. She hadn't missed that Sebastian had hesitated with his mouth over her neck, even giving it a slow lick. He'd contemplated it.
Yes, eventually, even Sebastian would drink a victim to death, accidentally or not. His steady, clear gray eyes would grow dirty red with bloodlust, and the Horde would claim yet another soldier. Just like the one in front of her.
The thought had her charging forward with a shriek. She dipped and rolled, planting her sword up through his chest. Shooting to her feet, she snatched it back to swing for the head with a clean slice.
Her sword didn't whistle, because air rarely perceived it in time.
Too easy, not worthy, she thought as she dropped down for his fangs. Four. Whoop-de-fucking-do. If they'd been fish, she'd have caught and released.
But she was back, and now her mind was clear regarding Sebastian Wroth. No longer did that vampire's loneliness cling to her like the fog crawling on this city. With this clarity, she would be back to normal for the Hie in just two days. She would not be freaking out, as she'd predicted on her way to London. Nor would she be so sc-sc- screwed, as she'd figured.
No, here she was. Cold as ice.
From King's Cross, she jogged back toward her place in Knightsbridge, her blood-soaked clothing cloaked in the night mist. Her courtyard townhouse was in the perfect location. Close enough to shopping—if Kaderin was ever moved to that—but it also backed into narrow and murky mews, which allowed her to enter the residence unseen.
