No Rest for the Wicked

21

W ith the blessing gone, Kaderin had been helpless to move, to attack Bowen, to flee, only wanting to behold the stones and faceted lights. Even now, as she petted them, her heart ached to see them shining again.

The basilisks' hissing, wet roars made her shake herself. The beasts were miles down, far away from the bright entrance, but clambering toward it now. They'd be in no hurry, though, likely thinking that Kaderin was a sealed-in sacrifice.

With a shuddering exhalation, she forced herself to toss the necklace away, then rose and surveyed her predicament. The bastard had done a fine job of barricading the entrance.

Even with her strength, she couldn't budge the boulders. She ran into them, tackling them, shoving her shoulder against them. Nothing. She couldn't use her sword. It was not thick and weighty like Sebastian's. She'd have to dig.

She figured she'd lose her claws with every four inches she dug into the rock. She would grow them back within a few hours. The top boulder's diameter was at least sixty inches.

Ergo... let's do the math... I'm screwed.

Worse, the chamber's darkness had begun weighing heavily on her—the way one felt when saddled with a ponderous hex. She gave a bitter laugh. She was now officially a vicious Valkyrie assassin—who was scared of the dark.

The wraiths had never creeped her out, she found the basilisks kind of endearing, and she could be thrown into a cage with a thousand contagious ghouls and not blink an eye—as long as the cage wasn't gloomy and oppressive.

If she had action, she could ignore her fear, but simply sitting here with nothing to do but contemplate it...

She had two alternatives. She could wait for the vampire, hoping he ignored her last irate demand that he leave her alone. But even if he did come to the rescue, he wouldn't be able to trace her where she needed to go—which was mere feet beyond these boulders. She'd wager that Sebastian hadn't previously visited any Argentinean cave entrances.

Besides, how long could she wait for him to save her? Sooner or later, the basilisks would make their way to the surface.

Her second alternative was to begin digging. These rocks are the only thing standing between me and that prize. She dropped to her knees once more and stabbed her claws into the rock. Two inches down, she lost her first, then another. Damn it, this was futile. A wasted effort in a dark, foul place. She was about to lose those thirteen points.

The rock dust made her eyes water. Yes, the rock dust made her tear up—

"Well, well," a rumbling voice said from behind her. "I'll wager you are happy to see me right now."

Sebastian. Kaderin whirled around. Though the space was pitch black, she knew he could see perfectly, because he was studying her expression. Then his gaze fell to her claws before she eased them behind her back. There was no hiding that she was shaken.

"Clawing free, Kaderin?" He strode to her, and helped her to her feet. "How long have you been trapped in here?"

She brushed her knees off. "A couple of hours."

"How did this happen?"

"Bowen pulled down the rocks when I was inside."

"MacRieve?" Sebastian clenched his fists. "I will kill him for this."

She shrugged. "Promise? Because that would eliminate two competitors."

"Is he still near?" Sebastian narrowed his eyes, clearly hoping he could face him now.

She shook her head. "He'll have collected his egg and be long gone. He's done what he set out to do with me, and he's already removed several of the demons and all of the fey from the competition completely. Anyone who faced him is out."

"How?"

"All we know is that he's trapped them somewhere."

"What about the young witch?" Sebastian asked. "Surely MacRieve wouldn't have hurt the girl."

"He got Mariketa as well, but she managed to curse him first," Kaderin said. "He seems to be weakening and not regenerating from injuries." She jerked her chin in Sebastian's direction. "Bowen will come after you next. As of yesterday, I was tied for the lead with him—"

"As expected—"

"And also tied with you. He'll attempt to take us out one by one."

"I look forward to facing him. I'll relish killing him for trapping you here."

Her answer was another shrug. Sebastian fell silent, and she knew he was waiting for her to ask him to trace her out. She drew in the gravel with the toe of her boot.

"Damn it, ask me to take you from here," he grated.

"No."

"You'd rather rot in here?"

"I was making progress," she said.

"Obstinate female. Is it impossible to admit you're relieved I'm here? That I could save your hide right now?"

"No," she said simply. And she didn't elaborate, making him look like he wanted to throttle her.

She had to assume Bowen had collected his prize in the next ravine over, but Cindey could still be beaten. If Kaderin got out of here soon.

"Very well, I'll leave you to your progress." He turned to trace, and she hurried forward, touching his arm.

"Look, I don't want to be traced to your backyard. The prize must be in the next cavern system over, and it's just across a ravine." She crossed to the rocks, and pushed with frustration. "I need to be directly on the other side of these, and I know you can't trace there."

"Because you assume I haven't been there before?"

She piped her lip and blew a curl out of her eyes. "Do you often visit Las Quijadas, Sebastian?" At his blank look, she added, "Argentina."

"No, I can't trace there. But... " He studied the boulders, then pushed against one until it began to move.

When she gasped, he stopped. "Seems I could free you, after all."

She gave him a tentative touch on his chest. "What would it take to get you to finish moving those?"

"What are you offering?" he asked, his voice rougher.

"Money? Would you take money to push these free?"

"I've plenty of my own. More than enough for both of us."

She scowled at that. "What do you want, then?"

"I want"—he ran his hand over his face—"to... touch you. Not here, but tonight—"

"Not going to happen." She crossed her arms over her chest, and his gaze landed on her damp cleavage. As he had that night on the coast, he looked like he was considering throwing her over his shoulder and tracing her back to his bed. "I do so wish my breasts would stop staring at your eyes."

His head jerked up, and he had to clear his throat to rasp, "Kiss me. Kiss me, and I'll free you."

"The last time that happened you bit me, and you could do it again." Kissing Sebastian always seemed to lead to more. Last time, it had led to his taking her blood.

And possibly her memories.

"I never bit you. I grazed your skin. Accidentally."

"Then tell me you haven't contemplated doing it again."

"I"—he exhaled heavily—"cannot. The pleasure was too intense to ignore."

She was shocked by his honesty and didn't bother disguising that fact. "Then I'm betting in the same situation it would happen again."

"I would vow not to."

"Unless, of course, it happened"—she curled her fingers into air quotes—"accidentally. Since I can eventually dig my way free, that kiss doesn't seem worth the risk."

He nodded, resigned. "Very well. We can sit here till we fossilize. I can be as stubborn as you, Bride."

"So, you're to wait this out with me?" she asked. "Won't you have a problem with losing the prize?"

"I have no interest in winning this competition."

"I knew you entered just so I couldn't kill you."

"You couldn't kill me before I entered. Do you not wonder why you've destroyed so many of my kind before me and then were unable to swing your sword to my neck?"

"I don't know why that happened," she admitted. "But I've stopped questioning it."

"Why won't you let me win this competition for you? That was the only reason I entered."

"There's no one you would want to save from the past, no loved one?" she asked, noting that a shadow passed over his eyes. Who had he lost? "A deceased wife, perhaps?"

"You are well aware that I don't believe this key will work."

He hadn't answered her question. He's been married? "Why are you so certain?"

"Time travel is impossible," he answered in a tone that held zero doubt.

And the wife? "I bet you believed vampirism was impossible, too, till you woke with a marked hankering for blood."

"No, my culture was superstitious to the core. Even with my science background, belief came to me more easily than I would have thought. Besides, it isn't impossible according to the laws of nature."

And what about the wife?

"Anyway, I was never married."

She marveled that he hadn't been—and that she was somehow pleased by this fact. "At your age?" she asked, taking a seat. "You must have been thirty."

"Thirty-one. But I'd lived on a battlefront since I was nineteen. There was no way for me to have a woman for my own."

"But now you feel you're ready?"

As if giving her a vow, he met her eyes when he rumbled the word: "Yes." Her toes curled in her climbing shoes.

"And what about you, Kaderin? Will you finally tell me why you are bent on winning this?" He looked away when he asked, "Do you seek to retrieve a husband?"

When she didn't answer, he turned back.

After a moment, she grudgingly shook her head. "I was never wed." She would never tell him her real motivation—there was no reason to, even if she had the inclination—but she also wouldn't let him think she fought this hard for a lost husband or lover. "My covens and the Furies have done me a great honor in choosing me for this contest. I won't fail them." She shrugged and added honestly, "And I simply want to defeat everyone."

"So, all of this is about pride and ego?"

She made her tone bored when she asked, "Aren't those good enough reasons?"

"I don't believe so. There's more to life than winning this competition."

"I agree. There's also killing vampires. Those two things give my life purpose."

He said nothing in response to her comment, just gave her an inscrutable look. She knew he disapproved of her priorities and the way she lived her life, but at that look, she began to suspect he also felt sorry for her. She tilted her head. "Tell me, then, how would you envision our lives together?"

"We could see the world. Rebuild the castle, start a family."

A family? If she and Sebastian had children, they could be like her little half-vampire niece, Emmaline. Kaderin inwardly shook herself. "I live in New Orleans, I compete, and I kill vampires. You'd expect me to give up everything?" She drew her knees to her chest. "You want me to act like women you've known and it will never happen."

"No, I truly do not want you to act like women I've known," he said, so vehemently she was taken aback. "And I have no preference for where we would live. I'd go wherever you would be happy. Killing vampires? Fine. The Hie? Also acceptable—if I'm there with you."

"Acceptable." Is he joking? "The more I get to know you, the more I realize your being a vampire is only part of why I'm indifferent to you."

Acceptable? As soon as he'd said it, even before her eyes flashed, he'd known that perhaps that wasn't the best word to use with a daughter of gods. A fifth of any of his brothers' charm.

"Then lay out the other reasons you're indifferent," he said.

"Talking to you is like talking to a human."

He snapped, "I wish I were still a human—"

"But you're not. You're an enemy to my kind."

"I've told you, not by choice. Or by deed."

"It disgusts me that you drink blood. You live a parasitic existence."

It had always disgusted him as well. The only time it hadn't had been his one hot, rich taste of her. Now he found himself defending the vile act. "I get blood from a butcher. How is this different from humans getting meat from the same? Besides, what living thing isn't a parasite?"

"Me."

"Do you eat meat? Drink wine?"

"No, and no. I ingest nothing."

"How is that possible?" he asked, incredulous, though the kobold had said as much that night at the Pole.

"Just the way I was engineered," she answered in a tone that made it clear she'd say no more on the subject.

Damn it, he'd have to return to Blachmount and ask Nikolai about this. "Engineered? As in designed?"

She narrowed her eyes. "Don't I look as if I could have been designed? Do you look at me and think, obviously an accident of nature?"

"No," he said, realizing he'd insulted her once more. "Not at all. I just—"

"Our kinds are going to war. Did you know that? A war like you've never imagined—"

"Yes, the Accession," he said in a dismissive tone.

"It's hardly something to wave away."

"My brother told me you would bring this up as an obstacle between us. He's assured me the Forbearers will ally with the Valkyrie." When she began to argue, he cut her off. "Whether the Valkyrie want them or not."

She pressed her lips together. "You seem quite iron-willed," she finally said. "Why not use that will to rid yourself of this compulsion for your puny, undesigned Bride?"

"Why would I put time and effort into attempting to forget you when I could spend that same time and effort to win you?"

"Because winning me is impossible. The other option may not be."

"I have to try." There was no way to rethink this. "I want you. In my life."

She tapped her chin. "And by 'in my life,' you clearly mean 'in my bed.' "

"I won't deny that I want both." He'd had a taste of her passion, and he wouldn't rest until he'd claimed her. "I constantly think about what it would be like to take you."

Pink flushed across her cheeks, and she nibbled her bottom lip. That habit of hers never failed to charm him. "But you don't love me any more than I love you."

"No, I don't," he admitted. She fascinated him, frustrated him. And every hour since she'd blooded him, he needed her, but even he understood that it wasn't love.

She rolled her eyes. "A hint, Sebastian? If you're courting a woman, you could pause a nanosecond before declaring that you don't love her. Maybe act as though you'd considered the possibility. Or you could lie. Or you could gloss over it by predicting that you will in the future."

"I won't lie to you. And about love? Unions have been built on far less than we have between us. We'd have passion. Attraction. Respect."

"You flatter yourself," she said, examining her broken claws.

"And one thing I can promise you. The next thousand years of your life will be nothing like the last. Not while I live."

Her gaze shot up. "What does that mean?" she asked in a measured tone.

"I know about your... blessing. You didn't feel emotion for a millennium."

At his words, her face paled. "Do you know why it happened?"

Had her voice quavered? "No. Nor how it came about. Only that you woke one morning, and there was just... nothing."

She gave him a sharp glare. "Don't you dare say it like that! As if I were lacking."

"Kaderin, not to be able to feel is to lack."

"You assume it's necessary to feel to get by? Or that I would want to, anyway?"

"No, I—"

"You know from my blood, right?" When he nodded, she said, "Because you stole my blood, you have my memories. Lovely. How much have you seen?"

"I've seen old battles, and hunts, and random flashes of conversation—like Riora telling you about a blind mystic's blade." He had seen her attacked by dozens of kobolds, barely defeating them, then peering down to find her leg from midcalf down was gone. No wonder she'd taken out the kobold in Antarctica. And I'd traced it to her prize.

"Now do you understand why I was incensed? You can know my secret thoughts. And deeds. Have you seen me with other men?"

"No, and my brother has told me that I won't, because you are my Bride," he said.

"Have you seen why my emotions have returned?"

He ran his fingers through his hair. "I believe I had something to do with it. You said as much that first morning."

"I spoke rashly." At his look, she added. "It was coincidental."

"Perhaps I could believe the timing coincidental had you not been my Bride."

"So you figure I awakened you physically and you awakened me emotionally?" she asked in a scoffing tone. "Tea for two?"

"Yes. Precisely."

"Even if that were true, it doesn't mean we have a future together. I'm not what you need and will only make you miserable. This I can promise you. Besides, if I accepted you as mine, my family would ostracize me. I'd be shunned."

"Myst the Coveted doesn't seem to concern herself with that."

Kaderin tilted her head, then grew very still. "What are you talking about?"

"My brother's wife, Myst."

She shot to her feet. "Myst may have the morals of an alley cat, but even she wouldn't dare marry a leech."

"You do not know about this?" He frowned. "They've been wed for some time."

Kaderin was going to kick Regin's glowing ass so hard...

Myst had married... a vampire! Kaderin put her forehead in between her thumb and forefinger. "Your brother—he's the Forbearer general who freed her from the Horde prison. Wroth. Nikolai Wroth." I knew she wasn't over him!

"Yes. You've met him?" Sebastian asked.

"I've heard of him." And now that everything was becoming clearer, she realized she'd heard of Sebastian as well. The four Estonian brothers. Warlords so fierce and unyielding as humans they'd even drawn Lore attention.

They'd been fierce and unyielding—defending their people.

He studied her expression. "I wonder if this news helps my cause or hurts it?"

"I... I don't know... anything." Not anymore. So Forbearers were fair game? No, Dasha and Rika would never stand for her accepting a vampire.

"Then just tell me one thing, Kaderin. Do you ever think about me when I am away?"

Lie to him. Could she have an affair? Of the most illicit kind? Just to enjoy his responsive body for one night?

Myst had freaking married one! And Myst was a pagan like her! Kaderin doubted very seriously that General Nikolai Wroth had agreed to wed in accordance with orthodox paganism.

A bond like marriage was a huge deal for Valkyrie and for immortals in general. Until death do us part took on a whole new meaning when both parties could potentially live forever.

No, Kaderin couldn't have an affair. Not when she was Sebastian's Bride. Because he would never accept only that and she could never give him more. "Think about you? Sebastian, I'm a busy person. I don't spend a lot of time with introspection. How about I leave that up to you?"

"What does that mean?"

"Seems like all you did for three centuries was think."

He was furious, as she'd planned. "You know nothing—"

A roar sounded to their left, shaking the cave. And then, from their right, another one answered. Somewhere even farther in the distance, a third called.

They were nearing, gathering.

Here.