Immortal Enemies Read online

  Holy shit, I had too many rooms in my house.

  That only left one place I had not checked.

  The basement.

  But how in the hell would she have found her way down there?

  It was hidden with a secret door that looked like a normal gods damned wall!

  Not wasting anymore time, I used my super speed and zipped to the basement.

  Sure enough, there she was, in the one place in the house I didn’t want her to be the most.

  Kneeling on the floor, she stared at the long expanse of the back wall with her back to me. Gritting my teeth in anger, I growled, “What are you doing down here?”

  She didn’t jump in surprise. Probably because I had been slamming doors open all over the house trying to find her. However, I had expected her to at least feel guilty for snooping.

  What I got back was silence.

  A man didn’t like to feel vulnerable.

  It didn’t matter if he was a newly minted eighteen-year-old man or a thousand-year-old man.

  Having our deepest, darkest emotions exposed went against the fiber of our being.

  Liv was currently staring at my emotions.

  The ones I had hidden away in my basement because I didn’t want anyone in the world to see them.

  Especially her.

  Animosity washed over me as I yelled this time. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING DOWN HERE?”

  I had raged as loudly as a lion and still she hadn’t jumped. If anything, the room became even more silent between us.

  Seconds soundlessly ticked by, and with each one my patience thinned more. Just as I was about to lose my shit, Liv finally spoke in what I could only describe as a small, broken voice.

  “Life was so much better back then, wasn’t it?”

  It was not hard to glean the meaning of her question. She was currently staring at a masterpiece of a mural I’d had painted of what our view had been as we sat by the stream, looking out at the world beyond it.

  There was something in her brokenness that tugged at that wildly beating heart of mine.

  An obvious desperation to be back in a time where we had been all the other had needed.

  If she missed it so, did that mean she had missed me as well?

  Hope was a dangerous thing… and I knew I would not survive another broken heart from this woman. That didn’t stop me from slowly walking forward until I stopped by her small form on the floor and stared at the visual memory of a time long gone.

  My voice was rough with emotion when I answered her. “Yes, life was better back then.”

  Eventually, she tipped her head back and looked up at me. “I would give anything to go back there, Arne. To return you as you were to that life you loved so much.”

  There was honesty in her eyes, and I was shocked at both it, and her statement. A kernel of doubt crept into my mind unwantedly, and I could not stop myself from asking it aloud. “Because you feel guilty for what you did to me?”

  Dropping her head, she shook it and looked back to the mural. In the distance the woods that had separated the village from Helga’s home were depicted. A raven flew through the sky, and its majesty was only shadowed by the scenic backdrop of the Norway we had known. Beautiful mountains jutted into a sky colored in the hues of fire and blood, just as I remembered it at the time of day I would sneak from the village to go see her.

  Without looking at me, she spoke. “I would not return you out of guilt, although I have felt that for every second of the past thousand years. I would return you because you loved it there. You had your mother and father. That life. You wanted nothing more than to be a Viking, sail the seas and see the world in an adventure. To die in battle so you could go to Valhalla. And because I was a selfish child, I took all of that from you.”

  I watched as a tear fell from her eye, followed by another. The salty smell of them broke something inside of me, and without thought I found myself dropping to my knees at her side. Grabbing her shoulders, I shook her. Not enough to injure her, but so that she could physically feel my frustration and pain.

  “Tell me why you did it, Liv! If you knew what all of that had meant to me, why would you take it away?” I roared at her.

  What she said next would change my entire existence.

  “Because you promised to love me for eternity… and how could I live it without you?”

  Time stopped as realization sunk in.

  Liv had known all along that she would not live a normal life span.

  “When?” I croaked out. “When did you figure out that you would live longer than me?”

  Her voice was ragged. “Shortly before the other Völva and Draugr came to visit. Helga told me I was destined to live past your time and that I needed to let you go.” Her voice cracked, her breath hitched, and she had to take a deep breath before she could continue speaking. “That was why I refused to speak with you about our future anymore. You tried to speak of marriage and children, and inside I was dying because I knew I had to let you go so you could have all of those things. So you could have your life and Valhalla.

  “Every time you came to visit, I steeled myself to tell you to leave and never come back. And yet, I could never do it. I was never strong enough to tell you to go. My heart could not handle it. You were my everything, Arne Eriksson, and you still are.”

  I fell back, off my knees, onto my ass, letting go of her shoulders in the process.

  “Even though I did not want to lose you, Arne, I was going to do it anyway, for your sake. Helga and I had planned to burn down her home and leave after you had left to go a-Viking. I knew the only way you would let me go was if you thought I was dead. It had broken something inside of me to make those plans, but I had done it for you!”

  She was screaming at me as she sobbed out her story. “Although it would have broken me completely, I was ready to do that so that you could have that life.” She flung her arm to point at the mural. “To have those children, sail with your father, and eventually die in battle in the hopes you would go to Valhalla! I loved you so much, Arne Eriksson, I would have done anything for you.”

  For over a thousand years I had been walking around a wounded thing. Violent in my rage and fury at how the woman I had loved had taken Valhalla from me.

  Now here she sat telling me she had been willing to let me go to have all of that… and I didn’t know how to feel. Couldn’t figure out the words to say as she sat there sobbing hysterically across from me.

  I have no idea how long we sat there like that, her crying and me stunned, but eventually she spoke again. “It’s all my fault. I panicked after Ødger ran you through with his sword. I saw you dying in front of my eyes, and I just couldn’t let that happen. So, I talked Helga into summoning the Draugr to turn you so, in a way, you could still live. Because what was a world without you in it?”

  I finally knew the why.

  It healed some of the broken pieces inside of me because I understood.

  Liv had loved me so much she could not stand the thought of seeing me die when all she had ever wanted for me was to live.

  There were still unanswered questions and broken pieces remaining.

  Lunging, I grabbed her and pulled her into my lap until we were nose to nose, once again breathing each other’s air. “Why did you disappear then? Why have me turned and then leave me if you loved me?”

  Her bottom lip trembled, and more tears fell down her face. “Because after the Draugr turned you, I saw your rage. Felt your anger consume me in a vision so intense Helga had to burn me with a hot poker to pull me out of it.”

  She held up her arm next to our faces, and I saw a burn scar on the underside of her forearm. It was white from years of healing, and faint to the human eye, but my eyes could see the striations from the burn on her skin.

  Liv dropped her arm and whispered, “I was devastated and afraid at what I had seen, Arne… so I ran. I’m not proud of it, but that’s what I did, and I’m sorrier than you will ever, ever know.”
r />   The last jagged, broken pieces inside of me fused back together.

  Liv couldn’t see this magic that she was causing inside of me, but that didn’t matter. I had hundreds of ways I planned to show her in the years to come, now that the fragmented pieces of my heart had finally been put back together.

  I wished it had not taken a thousand years to do so, but at least it had finally happened.

  Now it was time to show Liv Nornsdottir just how her fate had changed.

  Crushing her lips to mine, I kissed her with a thousand years of pent up aggression, passion, anger, and love. Kissed her until she was breathless, and I had to remind myself that while I didn’t need to breath, she still did.

  Pulling back to give her much needed air, I took in her round, shocked eyes, flushed cheeks, and panting mouth. Committing it all to memory so that I would never forget.

  Because it wouldn’t do to forget the moment you realized someone loved you as much as you had always loved them.

  “I will never let you go again, Liv Nornsdottir. You are mine until the end of time.”

  Thirteen

  There was a lot of ways to burn off a thousand years of pent-up emotions.

  Fighting was one of them.

  Fucking was another.

  After waking as a vampire and being unable to find Liv, bitter outrage had fueled me like the Energizer Bunny for years. As in, hundreds of them.

  Had I stayed a twitterpated pathetic little shit holding on to his v-card for the girl I had loved?

  Hell no.

  To be honest, I had seen more pussy than any gynecologist could ever hope to see.

  There was no black book or anything like that of my conquests, though, because I didn’t want to cut down an entire rainforest to make the paper it would require.

  You know, save the planet and all that jazz.

  Right now, though, I wish I had pulled my shit together a little better and saved myself for Liv. I couldn’t go back and undo the things I had done. Neither could she—not that I would allow myself to think about the men she might have been with. I couldn’t, or I wouldn’t be able to fight the overwhelming need to track down every single one of those assholes and rip them limb from limb for touching what was mine.

  The past would have to be in the past.

  I was ready to move on to the future now.

  Laying Liv on the floor, I cradled the back of her head in my hand and situated myself between her thighs. The moment I settled against her, she squeezed my hips with her thighs.

  “Tell me you’re mine, Liv.” I whispered the words against her lips, ready to consume her in every way.

  Not a blink, a hesitation, nor a heartbeat passed before she breathed, “Yes.”

  Rolling my hips so that I could grind my growing erection against her core, I asked the next important question. The one I needed answered before this could go any further.

  “Do you still want to be mine for the rest of eternity?”

  She nodded, which dragged her lips slowly against mine.

  It was an answer, but I wanted more. “Give me the words.”

  Shyly, she nipped my bottom lip before pulling away to say, “I want to be yours for all of eternity, Arne Eriksson. It’s the only thing in my life I have ever wanted.”

  With all of my questions now answered, I did what I had wanted to do for longer than should have been possible. I made love to my woman for the first time.

  Kissing her, letting my hands roam over her womanly curves. Her clothes were in the way, though, so I pulled back and started taking them off of her.

  Not fast, but painfully slow.

  At least this time it was a good sort of pain between us.

  First, I peeled off her shirt. Letting myself enjoy the expanse of creamy skin as it was exposed inch by inch. Breathing in a shocked breath when her bare breasts came into view and I realized she wasn’t wearing a bra. I was half tempted to blind her with that shirt as I started to pull it over her head. Trapping her arms in the fabric and torturing her by feasting on her breasts while she wouldn’t be able to see.

  There was plenty of time for games like that later since we had found our way back to each other.

  Throwing the offending cloth away from us, I planted my hand on the floor by her head and leaned back to enjoy the unencumbered view of her naked upper body. I always knew she would be beautiful, but nothing had prepared me for just how glorious she truly was.

  Younger Arne had seriously needed a better imagination while he had been jacking off to thoughts of Liv back then. Those fantasies paled in comparison to the reality.

  My cock was so hard I thought it might strangle itself in the jeans I still wore from yesterday. I hadn’t bothered to get undressed last night in case Liv had needed something. She was about to find out, though, that I slept in the nude.

  She would damn well be sleeping that way, too, next to me, from now on.

  Her hands trembled as they came up between us and she slipped them under the hem of my shirt. The indication that she was as excited as I was for this to happen between us only made me want her more.

  Liv slid my shirt up as slowly as I had done hers, except when she got it up to my head, she whipped it off quickly, giving me a small cheeky grin as she threw it by her shirt on the floor. It was good to see that after all this time she still had that fire inside her. I was going to enjoy bringing it out over and over again.

  Kissing my way down her sternum, I made my way to one of her breasts, trailing my tongue across the plump flesh until it was caressing her pebbled nipple. Once I had reached my treasure, I sucked it into my mouth, loving the way her skin tasted against my tongue.

  Finer than any whiskey I had ever drank.

  Clutching my head in her hands, she moaned as I let her nipple pop out of my mouth and I made my way to the other one, then suckled it into my mouth as well. Swirling my tongue around the peak this time, I didn’t let myself play for long before I made my way down her body. Kissing a trail to her belly button while using my hands to undo the button and zipper on her pants.

  Once they were open, I hooked my fingers in the sides of both her pants and her panties, pulling them down her slim legs until they were free of her body completely. For the first time in my very long life, I was able to see my Liv naked from head to toe.

  And what a sight it was.

  One I would never get tired of seeing.

  Sliding my hands up the insides of her silky thighs, I pulled her limbs apart to make room for myself there. Once my hands reached where I wanted to be inside her, I ran both of my thumbs along her opening, letting my digits glide over the proof of her desire there.

  “I need you inside me, Arne.”

  Growling with need, I let my thumbs run up and down her lips to spread the slickness. “Soon.”

  She squirmed with want, but I didn’t let it sway me. Sliding one finger inside of her, I could not believe how tight she was. Tighter than anything I had ever felt before. “I’m a big man, love, and we need to get you ready before I can come inside you, so I don’t hurt you.”

  I pumped my finger with shallow thrusts until her desire allowed another finger. By the time I had three fingers inside of her, still pumping but not as deeply as I probably should have, she was panting with need. She was so tight I didn’t want to overwhelm her, but I would absolutely need her to climax before we could go any further. Using my other hand, I rolled my thumb over her engorged clit. The way she was starting to clamp down on my fingers, I knew it wouldn’t be long before she would come all over them for me.

  When you lived as long as I did, you got the chance to see a lot of beauty in the world. Heated moments later, I would learn there was absolutely nothing as beautiful as my woman, my mate, when she orgasmed. Her back arched, thrusting her breasts out to be admired, and her head tilted back as she screamed in passion, falling over that edge.

  Unable to hold back any longer, I pushed my jeans to my knees, then shoved them off my legs using
my feet until I was as bare as Liv. Then I maneuvered back between her thighs, hands gripping the swell of her hips as I balanced on my knees, positioning myself until my throbbing tip barely breached her opening.

  All I needed to do was push in and I would finally be inside my woman.

  My fangs descended in my excitement. I needed her to see me completely as I was now.

  I had to pull my eyes from where we were about to join to see her face first, though. I wanted to see the look in her eyes the second I entered her. The moment she would know irrevocably, without a doubt, she was truly mine.

  Our eyes locked. Hers were glazed and shiny from the pleasure I had just given her. I imagine mine showed nothing but the need I was desperate to get back from her. She didn’t even flinch at the sight of my incisors. She actually licked her lips as she moved her gaze from my eyes to my mouth, and then back to my eyes. Without another moment’s hesitation, I dug my fingers into her flesh, pulling her hips to mine, and slid inside her to the hilt.

  Breaking the proof of her innocence in the process.

  Shock flooded my body as I saw the slight flair of pain in her eyes. Holding still until her body adjusted and relaxed around me, I let that knowledge sink in.

  Liv had waited for me… in every way.

  How could I not love this woman?

  What more proof did I need that for her, it was always me, and me alone?

  Leaning forward, I put my hand back on the floor by her head so that I could kiss her nervousness away. The second I felt her start to untense, I started long, unhurried thrusts in and out of her. Slowly stroking my way in and out, enjoying every sensation there was to feel between us. Rocking myself gently so I wouldn’t lose control and hurt her.

  In a way, it was a first for me, too.

  The first time I had ever made love to a woman.

  I couldn’t imagine being intimate with anyone like this except for Liv.

  It didn’t take her long before she was rolling her hips against mine. Moaning my name and squirming for release again.

  She begged, “Please, please, please go faster.”