Page 187 of A Vow of Blood and Tears

Stay away, I love you too much to see you destroyed. Stay away.

I would be hunted by them on my own, as was right. I’d vowed myself and Wargyr couldn’t break that.

I rubbed my eyes again, the pen just too heavy to pick up, and the lock rattled on the door.

I jumped upright, quivering, adrenaline crashing through my veins. My breath felt hot and raspy in my throat.

Would it be a plate? Or a woman?

Or worse?

But Hakkon came in empty-handed. Broad shoulders pushed back, a self-satisfied little smile tucked into the corners of his mouth. He’d changed into clean clothes, his dark auburn hair brushed.

He frowned at my last full plate, left to congeal. Several flies crawled over the greasy meat, buzzing and twitching their wings.

“I suppose you may starve yourself for now,” he said, brows pulled together. “You must understand that I will force it down your throat when your husband is dead. A starving mother makes for frail pups.”

I’ll be dead by that time, I said listlessly, still examining his empty hands, his tidy appearance. To what purpose? What could be worse than my turn at the hunt?

“Let me give you a reason to rejoice, redling.” He smiled at me, taking a seat on the other side of the small table. The chair looked tiny compared to him, a chair made for a child instead of an adult. “The scouts have spotted the Soulbreaker on Forian soil.”

I stared at him, trying to make sense of a title that sounded only vaguely familiar.What is a Soulbreaker?

Hakkon picked up my pen, twirling it around in the narrow shaft of sun coming through the window so the silver metal sent bright flashes into my eyes. “I believe you have met? Wroth is his name. Your husband is coming for you, with all of his brothers. Such a pleasant gift even I had not expected.” He laughed, dropping my pen carelessly on the table. “We will wash over them as one, an inexorable tide.”

I reached out and picked it up, clutching it tight. This and the journal, the long-wilted bloodrose in my hair… they were all I had, and they would come with me to the grave.

Hakkon examined me thoughtfully, his head tipped to the side. “Does it bring you hope, redling?”

I shook my head.No.

His brown eyes didn’t look away, peeling every thin layer away from my soul. “Ah, so it is true that you love each other. Who would have believed that one day, I would hold the heart of my perfect foe in my hands? That she would become the mother of my children, her lands the birthplace for a new pack? Wargyr has showered blessings upon me.”

I closed my journal, aligning it neatly on the table as Rose would have done.You’re trying to frighten me, but you’ve already gone too far. All my fear is gone.

“Is it, now?” That smug smile was back.

I examined him in turn, seeing the hundreds of tiny scars chiselling his face, illuminated by the sun.How are you able to become a man? I thought you shed your skins.

Hakkon went still, holding my gaze. His eyes were cold but considering. “With age and experience, and much blood. What brings you to ask this?”

Simple curiosity. I gestured to my journal.I want to know things.

“Good. I will be pleased if my children inherit that curiosity. Yes, the warg sheds his human skin in a single night, but with years of effort, you can wear it once more.” Hakkon looked down at his own hands, the squared-off fingers, the thick calluses. “It takes great strength of will to unshackle the mind from the remorse instilled in us by the sheep. Many of the wargs out there will never achieve such a thing, which is why they are there: to die. But I come from a family that has worshipped the Mad God through the ages. At the age of nine, a child of our line isinducted into the ranks. By the time he is twenty, he should have control of his human skin once more. If he does not… then he is rabid, useless, no more than an unthinking beast. He is culled from the pack. Your husband will cull my useless pack for me, and die in the doing.”

He turned his hand over, as though seeing it for the first time.

“It is like the fiends,” he said, and my heart leaped—it was the information I wanted. “When they go fiend, they become beasts. But with great effort, they are almost as men again, civilized in mind, if not in form. They could do as I do, if only they released the shackles of their guilt and made peace with their supremacy. To become a man, one needs only to let go. To feel nothing but righteous pride in the service of Wargyr. A wolf does not need to feel guilt when he eats a lamb. It is his right.”

How far back does your family go?I asked.

Hakkon turned that smile on me, a genuine one, with wrinkles fanning out at the corners of his eyes. “Oh, you’re truly curious, red one? You see it now—better to bear the young of the strong, and let your blood rule the land. We go back centuries, back to when the Fae tried their hand at creation. From father to son, our lineage has been passed through the ages.”

The Fae? I frowned, dragging my leadened thoughts through the mud to piece it together.

Then tell me this. Do your kinds share a root?I hesitated, forming my words carefully.Are fiends and wargs born of the same… ritual?

He tipped his head. “In a manner of speaking. Two races, born to Mother Blood and Father Wolf, doomed to hate each other as only squabbling brothers can.”

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