The Warlord Wants Forever

The Warlord Wants Forever

The Origin of the Valkyrie

By Kresley Cole

Into the blood-splattered snow, the lone warrior fel to one knee and shuddered with weakness. Stil, an arm shot out to raise a sword against the oncoming legion.

Her dented breastplate swalowed her smal form.

The winds howled, whipping her hair, but she heard the twang of the bowstring unleashed. She screamed in fury; the arrow punctured the center of her armor, the blow sending her flying back.

The arrow had pierced through metal, then barely through her breastbone, just enough that her heart met the point with each beat. The beating of her own brave heart was kiling her.

But her scream had woken two nearby gods sleeping together through a brutal, wintry decade. They stirred and looked down upon the maiden, seeing in her eyes courage burning bright. Bravery and wil had marked her entire life, but the light ebbed with death and they mourned it.

Freya, the female god, whispered that they should take her courage and preserve it for eternity because it was so precious.

Wóden agreed, and together they gave up lightning to cleave through the ether and strike the dying maiden.

The light was violent and slow to fade and made the army tremble.

When blackness cloyed once more, the healed maiden woke in a strange place. She was untouched, her human mortality unchanged. But soon an immortal daughter would be born from her—a daughter who possessed her courage, Wóden’s wily briliance, and Freya’s mirth and fey beauty. Though this daughter enjoyed the power of lightning for sustenance, she also inherited Wóden’s arrogance and Freya’s acquisitiveness, which merely endeared her to them more.

The gods were content and the maiden adoring of her new baby. Yet after an age had flickered past, the gods heard another female cal out for courage as she died from a battle against a dark enemy. She wasn’t a human, but a Furie, one among the Lore—that strata of clever beings who have convinced humans that they exist only in imagination.

Scarce moments had the creature—in the freezing night her breaths were no longer visible.

“Our hals are great, yet our family is smal,” Freya said, her eyes sparkling so brightly a mariner in the north was briefly blinded by the stars and almost lost his way.

Grim Wóden took her hand, unable to deny her. Those surrounding the dying Furie saw lightning rent the sky once more.

And it would strike again and again in the coming years, continuing on wel after female warriors—be they human, demoness, siren, changeling or any brave creature from the Lore—knew to pray for it as they died.

Thus the Valkyrie were born.

Mt. Oblak Castle, Russia

I f the overgrown vampire didn’t stop staring at her face, even his wicked talent with his sword wouldn’t keep his head upon his shoulders.

The thought made Myst, an immortal known as the Coveted One, grin as she curled up in the windowsil of her cel. Leaning against the reinforced bars, she watched the two vampire armies battle below as she might a rumble from the back of bleachers.

The poor warlord with his broad shoulders and jet-black hair was about to join a legion of other males whose last sight on earth was her smiling face—

She frowned when he ducked and ran through his enemy. He was a big male, at least six and a half feet tal, but he was surprisingly fast. Tilting her head, she studied him.

He was good. She knew fighting and liked his style. Dirty. He’d cut with his sword then strike out with his fist, or duck a parry then throw an elbow. It amused her to watch, but what she wouldn’t give to be down there fighting. In the middle. Against both sides. Against him.

She fought dirtier.

His gaze continued to stray to her, and once he’d even kiled while his eyes were stil on her. She’d blown him a kiss, sincerely, choosing to see it as a tribute.

He found time to glance back even as he thundered orders and gave commands to the army of vampires around him, showing briliance in strategy. She examined it al as though watching Decisive Battles on A&E and grudgingly noted the effectiveness of his army’s acid grenades and guns.

The creatures of the Lore scorned human weapons like these. The only ones such weapons could kil were humans, which was beyond nonsporting. Yet that was the thing about bulets—aside from ruining perfectly good couture, they hurt and could immobilize an immortal for precious seconds. Long enough for a dirty fighter to take your head.

Done enough times, they could help take an “untakable” castle like Ivo the Cruel’s.

Myst hardly cared that Ivo, her jailer and tormentor, was about to have his ass handed to him by this warlord with his forbidden modern weapons. Her situation would not change, for these rebels, turned humans known as the Forbearers, were stil vampires. A blood foe is a blood foe is a blood foe….

An explosion rocked the castle, and sparks and bits of debris wafted down from the roof of Myst’s cel. The low creatures in the dank holds down the corridor howled with impotent fury, increasing in urgency with each successive blast, until it was…over. Silence. An aftershock here and there, a muted whimper…

The defense of this castle was no more, its inhabitants having disappeared—by tracing, as the Lore caled teleporting—leaving no more than an airy draft and the burned records of their Horde.

She could hear the rebels searching the bowels of this place but could’ve told them they wouldn’t find any of their enemies. The denizens here had not been a fight-to-the-death sort, more of a he who fights and runs away, lives to run away another day type.

Shortly after, she heard heavy boots clicking on the stone floor of the dungeon and knew it was the warlord. He crossed directly to her cel and stood before it.

From her perch, curled in the window, she examined the vampire up close. He had thick, straight black hair that hung over his face in uneven sections, no doubt from where he’d sheared it off with his blade months ago, and never thought to cut it since. Some hanks were kept from his field of vision with those smal ravel plaits like the berserkers used to wear. He had scars on his hands, and his big body was powerful and cut with muscle. She wanted to purr—because apparently central casting had just sent down the consummate virile warlord.

“Come down from there and show yourself.” Deep voice. Russian accent, moneyed, aristocratic.

“Or what? You’l lock me away in a dungeon?”

“I might free you.”

She was at the bars before he’d had time to lower his gaze from the window. Had his squared jaw slackened just the smalest bit? She listened for a quickening of his heart, but found none because there was no heartbeat whatsoever. So the vampire was single? His eyes were clear of the red haze that marked bloodlust, which meant he had never drunk a being to death. But then a Forbearer eschewed taking living blood through the flesh altogether.

When he saw her face up close, the key wasn’t immediately in the lock as it usualy would have been, but his lips parted, exposing his fangs for her to see. Of course his would be sexy—not too prominent or even much longer than a human’s canines.

When she saw the short splendid scar that passed down both of his lips, lightning struck just outside, but he didn’t flinch at the bolt or even glance up—he was too busy staring back at her.

Scars, any external evidence of pain, attracted Myst. Pain forged strength. Strength begat electricity. This one could give it to her.

It was possible he was even missing an eye under a thick hank of hair.

She stifled a throaty growl as her hand shot out to brush his hair back. But he was quick, catching her wrist. She curled one finger in a beckoning gesture, and after a moment he released her, alowing her to reach forward. She brushed his hair back, revealing a hard-planed, masculine face covered with grit and ash from the battle.

He was stil in possession of both of his eyes and they were intense. Gun-metal gray.

When her hand dropped, his brows drew together, perhaps at her blatant interest, or perhaps at her fingers already stroking the bars in invitation as she stared at his mouth.

She was surprised by how carnal she found it, especialy since the vampire could use it to hurt her.

The smooth gold chain that she’d worn at her waist for milennia now felt heavy on her.

“What are you?” he asked in his pleasingly low voice. She realized then that his accent wasn’t Russian, but from that of neighboring Eesti. The general was Estonian, which made him a kind of Nordic Russian, though she was sure he wouldn’t appreciate that description.

She frowned at his question and puled back her hair to show him her pointed ear. “Nothing?” She parted her lips and tapped her tongue against her smaler dormant fangs.

No recognition.

Apparently, the rumors were true. Here was a leader in this army, a general most likely, and he hadn’t a clue that she was his mortal enemy. He would think she was fey or a nymph. She’d prefer fey because she’d cringe to be confused with one of those little hookers—

She shook her head. As long as he didn’t know she was Valkyrie it worked for her.

Kiling the unwitting Forbearers would be easy for her and her sisters. Too easy. Almost like being your own secret Santa.

Myst had just confirmed rumors in the Lore that whispered of asses and elbows and this Horde’s inability to differentiate between the two.

“What are you?” Nikolai Wroth demanded again, surprised his voice was steady.

When he’d seen her in the light, he’d felt like exhaling a stunned breath—if his kind respired—for she was strikingly lovely, with a beauty only hinted at from the distance of the battlefield. He’d been attracted to that face to his reckless peril.

Though she had expected him to recognize her kind, al he could determine was that she wasn’t human and that he hadn’t a clue what she might be. Her ears said fey, but she also had the smalest fangs.

“Free me,” the creature said. Flawless skin, coral pink lips, flame red hair. The eyes that flickered over him appraisingly were an impossible green.

The way she held the bars was suggestive—everything about her was…suggestive.

“Swear fealty to my king, and I wil free you.”

“I can’t do that, but you’ve no right to keep me here.”

His brother Murdoch passed by then, raised his eyebrows at Wroth’s discovery, and muttered in Estonian, “Sweet Christ.” Then he walked on. Why was Wroth unable to do the same?

“What’s your name?” He wasn’t used to his questions going unanswered.

Another stroke of the bars. “What do you want it to be?”

He scowled. “Are you a vampire?”

“Not the last time I checked.” Her voice was sensual. He couldn’t place her accent, but it was drawling, honeyed.

“Are you innocent of malice against us?”

She waved a dismissing hand. “Oh, good God, no! I love, love, love to kil leeches.”

“Then rot in here.” As if she could kil a vampire. She was scarcely over five feet tal and delicately built—aside from her generous breasts showcased in her tight shirt.

Just before he turned, he saw her eyes narrow. “I smel smoke,” she caled after him. “Ivo the Cruel burned his records before he fled, didn’t he?”

Wroth stiled, clenching his fists because he’d have to return.

“He did,” he grated at the cel once more.

“And this new king’s army is ful of Forbearers—turned humans? It matters little. I’m sure the king is very knowledgeable about the vampire Horde’s extensive list of enemies within the Lore. He wouldn’t need this castle’s milennia’s worth of records. In fact, I’m positive that that is not the reason you chose this stronghold over the four others, including the royal seat.”

How did she know their agenda so wel?

Wroth could plan battles and sieges—he’d earned his rank by this victory alone—but he knew nothing of this new world to advance the army. Unfortunately, he wasn’t the only one.

The blind leading the blind. When they’d found the records reduced to a smoldering heap of ash, that’s what Kristoff had muttered.

“You think to bargain for your freedom? If you do happen to have information, I can get it from you.”

“Torture?” she asked with a laugh. “My first piece of information I’l divulge to you? I wouldn’t recommend trying to torture me. I dislike it and grow sulky under pincers.

It’s a fault.”

The things in the cels, many of which he’d never even heard of, never could have envisioned, howled and grunted at that.

“Now let’s not quarrel, vampire. Free me, and we’l go to your room and talk.” She offered her fragile-looking hand out to him. A smudge of ash was stark against her alabaster skin.

“I don’t think so.”

“You’l cal for me. You’l be lonely in your new quarters and wil feel out of sorts. I could let you pet my hair until you fel asleep.”

He drew in closer and lowered his voice to ask in al seriousness, “You’re mad, aren’t you?”

“As—a—hatter,” she whispered back conspiratorialy.

He felt a hint of sympathy for the creature. “How long have you been in here?”

“For four long…interminable…days.”