Henrik Magnusson is supposed to be immortal, but a mysterious ailment leaves the vampire king near death, and not even the blood of the Proffered, human virgins trained to serve the elite, can sustain him. Then he rescues a beautiful young woman from his enemies, and is filled with blood lust and desire he hasn’t felt for centuries.

Photographer Kaira Sorenson’s life takes a nightmare turn when she’s attacked by blood-thirsty creatures—and saved by a vampire. She should be afraid of Henrik, but she can’t deny her intense attraction to this regal, enigmatic being—nor the fact that her blood may be his only salvation. Now she must decide if she’s willing to be his forever...

Taken by the Vampire King

Laura Kaye

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Copyright

Chapter 1

“I am dying,” Henrik Magnusson said. “We all know it.” Standing at the head of the council table, he looked over the grim faces of his warriors, most of them suddenly fascinated by the three-hundred-year-old expanse of spruce in front of them. He didn’t blame them for the avoidance. It was hard to stare mortality in the face, especially when your kind was supposed to be immortal. “It’s time to talk succession.”

Jakob’s gaze shot up, anger and resolution burning in his blue eyes. “It is not. My lord,” he added as an afterthought. “We will bring in more Proffered.”

Over the past decades, they’d brought in many virginal human women trained to serve the blood needs of the vampire warrior class to cure him. Not only had he not found a mate to sustain him, he’d never once blood-matched with any of the women. And their blood, at best, provided only a temporary alleviation of his inexplicably deteriorating condition. It had gotten to the point that he barely found blood palatable anymore. “We will. But it will not likely work. My death is an eventuality for which we must plan.”

Jakob shoved up from his chair. “I will not rest until we find the one who can...” Save you. The words hung in the cool air and bounced between the gray, stone walls as if the warrior, Henrik’s brother and the sole heir to the throne, had shouted them. He shook his head and met the hard gaze of each of his brothers-in-arms. “We will not give up.”

Murmurs of agreement rumbled through the room.

Henrik slammed his fist upon the table and flashed his fangs. “I. Am. Dying!”

The room and every vampire in it went preternaturally still. Jakob’s expression was frozen somewhere between grief and rage. Breathing hard, Henrik willed the tension from his shoulders. The blood of a Proffered was a stabilizing force that guaranteed a vampire’s immortality and humanity. But it had been a long time since Henrik’s body had processed blood that way, so he’d steadily been losing both—and the past year had been the worst of all. When the rages came, he struggled to control them, and he was walking a very fine line right now.

Henrik stared at his brother a long moment. The male appeared a much younger version of himself. He possessed the blond hair Henrik had before his mysterious ailment had turned it nearly white. And Jakob’s eyes remained a dark, turbulent blue, like the color of the seawater that flowed through the many fjords snaking through their native Norwegian lands, while Henrik’s had dulled to pale blue ice.

“Goddamnit.” The king stalked away from the table and crossed to the uncovered windows along the far wall. The polar night afforded them the luxury of leaving open this portal to the outside world. For three months each year, the sun never rose, turning the north lands into the perfect home for a vampire. But as with all things, the full darkness of Mørketid ended, bringing a month of Seinvinter, when daylight slowly returned in advance of the sun once again cresting the horizon. Tomorrow was Soldagen, the first day of sunlight’s return. The day marked the end of the last polar night Henrik would likely ever see.

He braced his hands against the ledge and stared up at the undulating lights in the night sky. Within the diffuse green of the aurora borealis was a sharp-edged curtain of rare—and ominous—red.

“Even the lights foretell my fate,” he said, forcing calm into his voice. He turned back to his warriors, every one of whom would’ve laid down his life for Henrik if they could. Jakob remained standing, stance ready, muscles braced. His dogged determination would make him a good king. And since only seven vampire warrior kings remained around the world, Henrik would do everything he could to ensure his brother ascended to the throne with the full support of these males. “I require a vow from each of you. Follow and honor Jakob upon my death as you have followed and honored me these past four centuries.”

For a long moment, no one reacted. And then Erik pushed up out of a chair.

Jakob’s face went red, his fangs punching out. “Erik—”

The warrior held up a hand. “What my king asks of me I am more than willing to give.” He crossed the room, met Henrik’s gaze and sank to one knee. Henrik held out the hand adorned with the ring that bore his family’s royal crest. Erik grasped his fingers. “I pledge my allegiance to Jakob Magnusson to ascend to the throne as Warrior King of the Northern Vampires upon the end of your reign. As a warrior, as a male of honor, I give my vow.” Erik kissed the ring.

Henrik nodded as the warrior rose. One by one, the others followed suit. Lars, Kjell, Jens, Marius. Each gave Jakob an apologetic look before crossing the room and vowing to support him when the time came for his brother to die. Their steadfast loyalty eased the turmoil that had become a constant presence in Henrik’s veins. He couldn’t control his mysterious malady, but this, this he could control. When he left this world for Valhalla, he wanted to know he’d done everything he could to leave his brethren strong and whole.

After all, the war with their ancient enemies, the Soul Eaters, would not cease just because he no longer lived to fight it.

When the last of them had given their vow, Henrik met each of their gazes. “Thank you, old friends. Now, head out on patrol. The town fills with tourists for the festival and we must do as we’ve always done and stand ready to defend the humans against evil should the need arise.”

The Soul Eaters—so named for stealing the souls of their human victims by draining them through the last stutter of their hearts—were equally attracted to night’s reign in the north. And the influx of thousands of visitors for Tromsø’s annual Nordlysfestivalen combined with the last days of darkness often made the Soul Eaters even more brazen than usual.

The warriors filed out of the room, quiet and solemn. All except Jakob, who remained in the exact same place since he’d stood to offer his protest. He braced his hands on his hips and shook his head, then slowly made his way around the table until he stood before his king. Tension rolled off the male in palpable waves. “You are giving up.”

Malice shooting through his veins, Henrik got right in his face. “Nei, I am being realistic.”

Jakob’s blue eyes flashed. “Fuck realistic. Warriors fight.” He jabbed his finger into Henrik’s chest. “You have given up.”

The king’s fist was in motion before he’d even thought to respond. His brother’s head snapped back as blood exploded from his lip. The sight further fueled the monster inside him, and Henrik struck again, unleashing a rib-snapping punch to Jakob’s side. The warrior staggered but just managed to regain his footing before he fell. And still he didn’t raise his hands in return.

“Fight back!” Henrik swung again, delivering an uppercut to the jaw that slammed his brother against the stone wall.

“Nei,” Jakob growled.

The next swing split open the warrior’s cheek just below his eye.

“Fight back, damn you!”

Jakob held still against the wall. “Not until you do.”

The words sank into Henrik’s rational consciousness and gave him pause. He stumbled backward, one step, two, until he crashed into one of the chairs at the large table. And then the battle was all in his head between the two diverging sides of himself. Between the monster and the man. The former was getting stronger every day, no matter how hard the latter fought to rein it in.

He dropped his forehead into his hands and curled his fingers into fists in his hair. He was so thirsty. Emptiness ached into the depths of his very soul. Every tissue in his body screamed for sustenance, but what was the use? Feeding brought him so little relief that the torment was greater after each failed attempt.

A hand gripped Henrik’s shoulder.

“Fight, brother,” Jakob said, his tone strained. “Stay with me and fight.”

The king mulled over the words for a long moment, their wisdom sinking deep. No matter how desperate things looked, he had to hold it together. He had to fight. If for no other reason than to prevent Jakob and the others from being distracted out in the field by their worry for him. “All right.”

“Yeah?”

Henrik nodded. “And I’m sorry.” He jutted his chin toward the wall. “I’ll fight. I’ll fight this as long as I can. But you have to promise me something in return.”

“Name it.”

Henrik hated asking this of Jakob, of all people, but his brother was one of the few physically matched enough to heed the request. “I’d rather be dead than a menace. When the day comes that I have lost all humanity, when all that remains is a monster in man’s clothing, I want you to be the one to finish it.”

Chapter 2

Kaira Sorensen stood in the gallery and stared at her photographs hanging on the wall. Her photographs. The thought made her stomach flip-flop and her grin go all goofy. So many of her dreams had gone unfulfilled, but not this one. She’d frozen her butt off for two weeks and scrimped and saved for almost two years. And now she got to see her own shots hanging in a public gallery and entered in a juried competition that could help launch her photography from hobby to career. For however long she had left.

Pressing the back of her hand to her forehead, Kaira hoped the low-grade fever she was running didn’t get worse. The wear and tear of traveling almost seventeen hundred miles from her home in Denmark to Tromsø, Norway, had taken it out of her. And even though she’d arrived two days early and slept for almost eighteen hours straight, exhaustion had left her a little ragged around the edges.

No matter. For the next four days, she wasn’t an orphan who had no memory of her parents. She wasn’t a cancer patient. And she wasn’t sick. She was a photographer. Dammit.

One of the nice things about getting away from everyone you knew was the freedom to be someone else. Even if for just a short while.

Kaira smoothed a hand over the periwinkle-blue gown she’d splurged on. No way did she want to appear down on her luck at the show’s opening night reception. Not with some of the biggest names in aurora photography in attendance.

A man fell in beside her. “Is this your first show?” he asked in Norwegian, similar enough to her native Danish that she could understand him plainly.

She stopped fidgeting and smiled up at him. “No,” she said, in English. “My third.” Oh, my God! Anders Lang! Kaira swallowed the squeak that threatened to escape. Lang was an American and one of the five judges in the juried competition. And he was one of a handful of renowned aurora chasers. He’d made a name for himself by, among other things, capturing an entire series of vivid blue auroras. That hue was the rarest of the rare. A photographer could camp out an entire season of nights and never see blue lights, let alone capture them on film. “My first time at Nordlysfestivalen, though. I’m Kaira Sorensen.” She extended her hand.

“Anders Lang,” he said, returning the shake. “Tell me about your work.”

She turned to the grouping of six photographs—all each entrant was allowed to showcase for the competition. “My series is called Cathedrals. I was inspired by the almost architectural features of high-altitude auroras. And their height allowed me to capture multiple colors.” Green was most common at the lower altitudes of an aurora, usually about sixty miles overheard, while red often dominated the higher altitudes, the colors created by solar energy interacting with atmospheric gases at different altitudes. Kaira stepped closer to her most prized image. “I took this one the second night in the field. The lights were super intense. Much lower than the whole rest of the trip.”

“And you captured yourself some nitrogen emissions, I see.” He leaned in to study the single violet aurora she’d ever committed to film.

The purple ribbon of light thrilled her every time she looked at it. “I did,” she said. “The lights were spectacular the rest of my time out there, but never quite as intense as that night.”

He stepped back from the photograph and tilted his head. “How old are you, if you don’t mind my asking?”

Given that the typical aurora chaser was a middle-aged man with a mile-wide streak for adventure, Kaira was prepared for the question. “I don’t mind. Twenty.”

His eyebrows reached for his receding hairline. “And why Cathedrals?”

Kaira’s gaze drifted to the most architectural of all the images. “My parents died when I was eight. A few months later, I was still having trouble sleeping. One night, I was just staring out my window. Suddenly, the sky exploded. I was terrified at first. I’d seen the lights before, but something about their intensity and their color... But then, it was like the sky was dancing—or speaking—just for me. It made me feel so much less alone. At the time, I wasn’t old enough to think of it this way. But now, looking back on it, it was almost an epiphany, a religious experience. I can’t really look at discrete aurora anymore without seeing great cathedrals in the sky.” She dragged her gaze back to Lang, nerves tossing her stomach. She shifted her stance to alleviate the pressure on her aching hip.

“That’s a big insight for a young woman. And it’s exactly the kind of passion and calling that leads to some damn fine aurora photography.” He extended his hand. “Pleasure meeting you, Miss Sorensen.”

She couldn’t help but grin. “An honor, Mr. Lang. Thank you.”

He nodded and made his way to chat up another of her competitors. She scanned her gaze over the gallery. When had all these people arrived? She’d been so deep into her conversation that she hadn’t even realized that the gallery had opened to the general public. Now, a steady stream of festival-goers perused the long, rectangular exhibit space. Music was the featured art of the annual celebration of the return of sunlight, with dozens of musicians, singers and bands performing a week’s worth of concerts, but, as with the photography exhibit and competition, there were a number of other activities held in conjunction with the music festival, too. Between the show and her energy level, Kaira wasn’t sure how much else she’d be able to see and do, but she hoped to make the most of her visit to Tromsø. Who knew when she’d get to do something like this again? There was only so much time she could get off from working at the camera store. And, though her cancer was in the most manageable, chronic stage right now, without the required medical therapy, she’d likely move into the accelerated phase of the disease soon enough. And some months she found herself having to choose between three meals a day and the money she needed to set aside to pay for her incredibly expensive medicine.

She crossed the room to the bar. “There’s no cancer in Tromsø, Kai. Live a little, will ya?” She ordered some sparkling water with lime and silently repeated the pep talk.

Over the course of the evening, she met the rest of the judges and all the contestants, too. The photographs were universally breathtaking, and Kaira knew she had her work cut out for her. But whether she placed in the competition or not, being here was a great networking opportunity she had no intention of wasting.

Not to mention, all the photographs were for sale. After the judging announcement three nights from now, purchasers were free to pick up whatever they’d bought. The thought that someone would pay money to buy one of her photographs, that it might hang in a place of prominence in their home or office, that people might ask who the photographer was... It was all such a thrill. No matter how long she got to do this work, she didn’t think she’d ever get used to it.

Kaira returned to her series of images and found a man admiring them intently. Tall and broad-shouldered, he wore a black knit cap over white hair that hung past his shoulders. His long leather coat appeared soft and worn with age. Gray-brown fur surrounded his collar. She approached him from the side and something about him sent a tingle down her spine when she got a good look at his face. His size, posture and bearing had made him seem younger, but the white hair and drawn appearance of his pale face, almost gaunt, gave the exact opposite impression. Not old, really, but older.

Eyes the color of icy blue topaz cut toward her and narrowed. His gaze was penetrating in its intensity. His head tilted and his brow furrowed as he studied her, as if puzzled by her appearance.

For a moment, her greeting stuck in her throat. She cleared it and offered a soft, “Hallo,” in Norwegian, in which she was fluent. The Scandinavian languages were largely mutually understandable.

His expression cleared and he nodded. He glanced to the contestant ribbon pinned above her breast. “Are these yours?” he asked, gesturing to the wall. His accent marked him as a native and his voice was like melted chocolate, unexpectedly warm and smooth, deliciously appealing.

“Ja,” she managed, stepping closer. Despite his age, something about him attracted and intrigued her.

“Truly remarkable shots. I’ve always been fascinated by the lights. These photographs capture the majesty and wonder of them as well as any I’ve seen.”

Excitement and pride welled up within her. “And that is one of the best compliments I’ve ever received. Thank you.” Awkwardness threatened, so Kaira plunged on. “Have you been to the festival before?”

“Many times,” he said, dragging an appreciative glance over her gown. “You?”

She fought back a blush. “This is my first time.”

“Well, I welcome you to my hometown, then,” he said with a small bow and a smile that charmed. The expression made him appear younger, less troubled. He turned toward her and Kaira was struck by his size. A good eight inches taller than her, despite her heels. If he’d been more muscular, he would’ve been downright imposing. Instead, hollows carved shadows into his face and the bones of his long-fingered hands protruded.

With all the time Kaira had spent around other cancer patients, she couldn’t help but wonder if he was sick. The speculation made her feel some small affinity with him and she smiled back. “Besides the gallery owner, I think you might be the first person I’ve met who’s actually from here.”

“Truly? My family has lived here for centuries.”

Her heart gave a little squeeze. To know that kind of history about your family, to have such deep roots. So foreign to her, and yet the thought was able to set off a deep longing within her. What she wouldn’t give to have a family of her own. Old emotions caught her off guard, and she turned to the photographs hanging on the wall so she had a modicum of privacy to blink away the blindsiding sadness. “The lights must feel like old friends to you, then,” she finally said. Tromsø’s position in the middle of the auroral zone made it one of the best places in the world to witness them.

When he didn’t respond, she looked back to him.

The man stood right behind her. She hadn’t heard him move or felt his nearness. He stared at her, hard and unapologetically, his gaze focused somewhere just below her face. His nostrils flared and his tongue dragged over his lip.

Kaira’s pulse raced, her heart tripping into a sprint. Gasping, she inhaled a spicy-sweet scent, warmed cinnamon with just a hint of cayenne. Heat flashed through her, as if her fever had suddenly spiked. Before her very eyes, the man’s face changed, the angles of his jaw and cheek sharpening, his pale eyes dilating, his mouth opening.

Panic skittered down her spine, the urge to fight or flee settling into every muscle in her body. Surely she was misreading the situation. Seventy people surrounded them in the middle of this well-lit public place. There was no danger here. Drawing moisture into her mouth, she said, “I’m Kaira Sorensen. And you are?” She couldn’t quite force herself to extend a hand.

Something flickered behind his gaze, and his eyes snapped to hers—and flashed with light. She would’ve sworn it. He sucked in a harsh breath. “Jakob,” he said, louder than necessary, the smooth tone gone. Now his voice sounded strained and ragged.

Instincts on even higher alert, she made herself observe basic pleasantries. Last thing she wanted to do was make a scene. “Nice to meet you, Jakob.”

Out of nowhere, another man appeared at their side. Kaira took a surprised step backward and gawked. Tall, broad, blond hair with an unusual braid hanging down one side. Ruggedly handsome and breathtakingly masculine. The resemblance between the pair was striking, except for the difference in their ages and the older man’s leanness. The newcomer grabbed Jakob’s arm and yanked him back from her. “Let’s go.”

Jakob stood there, as if mesmerized.

The younger man grabbed him by the shoulders and forced him to turn away, and then he hauled him across the room and out the door. Another man followed closely on their heels, nearly as tall and as broad.

The door closed behind them.

Shaking and heart pounding within her chest, Kaira cut her gaze to the right and left. The reception carried on around her, no one seeming to have paid any attention to her strange exchange with the man, or to his hasty departure.

What the heck had just happened? And why did she feel to her very marrow she’d just escaped a brush with death?

Chapter 3

Henrik’s back slammed against a brick wall, the darkness of the narrow alley sheltering their trio from the tourists thronging Tromsø’s streets.

Lars stood at the entrance, making sure no one developed an unhealthy curiosity.

Jakob got right up in Henrik’s face, forearm pressing into the king’s chest. “What happened?”

He shook his head, swallowing thickly, his hunger burning so intensely it was almost a living thing within him. “Wanted her,” he rasped. It hadn’t been a decision. There wasn’t anything rational or conscious about it. From the first moment she’d approached him, he was awash in her appealing scent, like the smoky berries of a vintage wine or the rich bite of an aged, dignified whiskey.

“Wanted her how?”

“I wanted her.” He knocked his head against the brick. Even now, he couldn’t shake the image of the vein’s rhythmic dance along her slender neck or of the luscious dip of her cleavage, both displayed so invitingly by her upswept hair. His fangs throbbed with a want and a need he couldn’t remember feeling in ages. Not to mention the aching hard-on between his legs.

“Straight out no-shit bloodlust?” Something like hope sounded in the warrior’s deep voice.

“Ja.” Henrik heaved a deep breath of cold January air as his imagination unhelpfully replayed how it would’ve gone down. Tearing the gown from her trim body. Holding her curves in his hands. Bearing her up against the wall. Sinking his fangs and his cock in deep until every dark, needy part of him was sated.

“I’ll get her.” Jakob turned away.

The king slammed his hand down on his brother’s shoulder and gripped hard. “Nei.”

“You want her. You need her.”

“I’ll kill her.”

Because he wouldn’t be able to stop.

Once he got a taste, something base and instinctual told him he wouldn’t be able to make himself stop. He’d been so close to the edge of his restraint in the gallery. Only the sound of her voice had pulled him back from the brink.

All he’d wanted was a night out of their mountain citadel, away from the looming promise of death. He thought the jovial atmosphere of the festival would distract him from all that was to come. Instead, it had thrown it right in his face. Christ, he was a catastrophe waiting to happen, already more beast than man. He shook his head again. “I’ll fucking kill her,” he rasped.

“You won’t.”

Acid washed through his gut. “You willing to risk an innocent woman’s life—or her soul—to see which of us is right? I’m not.” He shuddered, the danger of becoming like his evil enemies one of his greatest fears. “Leave her be. I’ll not have it any other way.”

Jakob lowered his chin and his shoulders lifted and lowered in a weary sigh. When he raised his gaze again, Henrik hated the grief and resignation he saw there, hated that he couldn’t go through this without dragging everyone around him down, too. “What do you want to do, then?”

“Get the hell out of here. And find some goddamned Soul Eaters to rip apart.” He pressed his arm to his side, feeling the satisfying weight of the holstered gun there. What he couldn’t take care of with his bare hands he’d happily dispatch with the clip of bullets poisoned with the blood of the dead.

His brother gave a tight nod. “Sounds like a plan.”

Side by side, they stalked the length of the alley. Henrik clapped Lars on the shoulder. “Up for a fight?”

The warrior grinned and flashed his fangs. “Always, my lord.”

“Then let’s go find one.” He led them out of the alley, but didn’t miss for a moment the way Jakob placed himself in the way of turning right, back toward the direction of the gallery, and the too-appealing-for-her-own-good woman. So be it.

Henrik turned left, toward the waterfront and one of the main concert stages for the festival. The crowds would be heavier there, giving the Soul Eaters more opportunity and more cover to make a grab.

The three warriors pressed through the teeming streets, a path opening before them as the humans’ instincts made them shy away. Which was just fine by the king. He didn’t want to tangle with mortals anyway.

Notice you also don’t want to eat any of them?

His footing faltered as the observation struck home.

“My lord?”

He shook his head without meeting Lars’s questioning gaze. Concentrating on the humans they passed, Henrik sought to identify each person’s unique scent and the rhythm of their heartbeat. And...nothing. Not a single one tempted his bloodlust. Or his cock.

Then why had the woman? Kaira, she’d called herself.

Henrik cut the inquiry off at the knees. Curiosity was a dangerous animal where she was concerned. He couldn’t allow himself the luxury of exploring the unusual desires she’d raised in him. Going down that road led to two equally bad outcomes—her, dead and soulless, and him, a giant leap closer to becoming that which he most hated.

So he wasn’t going to ask the whys of it. No matter how much the mere memory of her scent wound him up inside.

They reached the plaza in front of one of the central festival venues. They made a sweep around the plaza and retreated to the shadows. Watching. Waiting.

Nothing.

Sonofabitch.

The night dragged on. The hour grew late. The crowds thinned.

The monster inside him grew restless. It stalked back and forth within his mind growling and rattling its chains until the noise grew unbearable. Rage filled his chest so fully it was hard to breathe.

Jakob tensed beside him.

A split second later, Henrik picked up on it, too—the fetid stench of evil. Soul Eaters walked among them.

He methodically surveyed the crowd.

There. Four of them entered the plaza where he and his warriors had earlier.

Henrik’s body was in motion before he’d made the conscious decision to do so.

They were halfway across the square before their enemies became aware of them. The quartet paused, then turned on a dime and backtracked the way they came. Didn’t mean they were giving up their quest for human victims, though. In their blind desperation for blood and souls, the Soul Eaters shared none of their vampire brethren’s reluctance to reveal their existence to humanity. While a select few influential humans known as The Electorate knew of the existence of the immortals and allied with the vampire kings to defeat them, the mass of mortals did not. It was better that way for everyone, and protecting that secret was one of the constant battles he and his warriors fought.

Outside of the plaza, their enemies broke into a preternatural run. Henrik followed in pursuit. The four of them represented his path to freedom from the jaws of the beast within. At least for tonight. He wouldn’t stop until they were dead. Or he was.

He paused at an intersection, anticipation thrumming through his veins. Jakob and Lars came up behind him. Henrik extended out his senses. For a long moment, he couldn’t pick up a trace of them. Then he smelled it. Blood. Warm. Spilled. Spilling. A growl rumbled up from his chest.

Instinct led him toward the scent most fundamental to the survival of his kind. Halfway down the block, he spun into a dark alley, just wide enough to hide a long row of industrial garbage cans.

Just beyond them, two figures stood pressed against the wall.

“Dum faen.” Dumb fuck. Henrik muttered under his breath as he stalked toward the Soul Eater, so blood-drunk he apparently didn’t hear the warriors’ approach. “This one’s mine.”

The faint, infrequent thump of the victim’s heartbeat told him the damage was done, but the fact that the man retained any cardiac rhythm meant his soul remained intact. Henrik wrenched the Soul Eater away before he could consume that final reward. The human crumpled in a lifeless pile to the ground.

The king let the beast loose.

And, damn, it was far too easy to do.

Like an exorcism, his own demons raged and fought. He lost all awareness, all sense of time and space. All sense of self as he battled the Soul Eater.

Hands grabbed at him, yanked him back. Henrik focused on the new targets, gnashing his teeth and swing his fists. Voices finally penetrated the choking fog of violence suffocating his mind, his humanity.

Jakob and Lars.

“He’s dead. Henrik, he’s dead,” Jakob said. “It’s done. The dawn will take care of the rest.”

His gaze sought proof of the Soul Eater’s demise and found it in the broken body on the pavement. Or what was left of it.

He stopped fighting their grip and let himself be dragged away.

His breathing was a freight train in the night, sawing in and out of burning lungs. His pulse throbbed in his now swollen, shredded knuckles. Warm liquid oozed over his face in too many places to count.

The king nodded, or tried. He wasn’t yet sure of the connection between his sentient self and his physical actions.

It wasn’t until the pain hit that he trusted himself again. Head hanging on his shoulders, he looked down at his torso. Coat destroyed. Shirts and skin beneath hanging in torn strips. Blood dripped from his face, but his hands were useless to wipe it away. More of the crimson covered the skin there, too, as if he’d bathed in blood. His own and his enemy’s.

Christ, he hadn’t felt a moment of the Soul Eater’s effort to defend itself. He’d been totally unaware.

White-hot fear lanced through him, and a sob ripped up his throat.

This is how it’s going to be. This is what lies before me.

A scream pierced the thick silence. And again.

The sound beckoned the darkness encroaching on Henrik’s psyche. A red cape before a raging bull.

Three Soul Eaters remained out there. Somewhere. And every instinct in his body told him at least one was the source of that human’s alarm.

Driven by the beast within, Henrik shoved Jakob away, flipped off the gritty pavement and took off in search of his next kill.

Chapter 4

Kaira said her goodbyes to the group of other contestants and crossed the street. The reception had ended and everyone was gathering down the street at a bar to continue the festivities, but she wasn’t up to it. Fever still heated her skin, her hip joints ached and tenderness had settled into her left side. Ever since her encounter with the older man—Jakob, he’d called himself—she’d felt shaky. Ridiculous, really. Nothing had happened. But her body didn’t seem to be convinced.

She dipped her chin further underneath the chunky scarf and held the collar of her wool dress coat closed at her throat. Should’ve brought a change of clothes, but when she’d left her little, out-of-the-way hotel this afternoon, it hadn’t seemed necessary. Now she was cold and tired and feeling the weight of her illness, and the two-block walk back to the bus stop seemed like two miles. Especially in heels. If it wasn’t so cold, she’d have slipped them off and walked in her bare feet.

Turning the corner, Kaira distracted herself from her aches by replaying the night’s highlights in her mind’s eye. Two of her photographs had already sold. She’d had great conversations with the rest of the judges—everyone seemed universally impressed with her vision for the series and especially with her violet aurora. She could’ve broken out into a dance in the middle of the gallery. And she’d had a promising conversation with a travel editor at a magazine based out of Copenhagen. All in all, one of the best nights of her life.

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