Page 56 of Dance of the Phoenix
And just like that, the air in the SUV filled with spiky tension.
My words wiped Ragnor’s smile off his face, replaced by a somber look that made me wish I hadn’t spoken in the first place. For a few moments, I thought he might not speak at all, maybe dismiss it or try to delay the inevitable, but to my utter relief and dread, Ragnor said, “All right.”
Instead of continuing the drive, Ragnor parked on the side of the road and turned to me. “Keep in mind it’s a story of a time before I became a vampire,” he told me quietly, and I stilled. I didn’t think Ragnor had ever spoken to me of his time as a human, and a sense of excitement reverberated through me.
He let out a breath and said, “It’s been more than a millennium,” he said, “around the time of an era humans call the early Middle Ages, not long after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the year four seventy-six.”
The fact that Ragnor was old was never a question, but it suddenly occurred to me justhowold he was.
“I met Yulia in one of the tribes that settled north of the Black Sea, a region that we know today as southern Ukraine, though back then it was home to several tribes and trade routes rather than an established state,” Ragnor said, and while he looked at me, I could tell his gaze was faraway. “Yulia was an outcast in the tribe for being barren. She wasused solely for the pleasure of the tribesmen and nothing more, because of her immense beauty.”
My chest ached a little at his words, but I ignored it and asked, “How did you two meet?”
Ragnor gave me a wistful smile. “I was ... passing through the trade route near the tribe,” he said quietly, “and I saw her from afar, collecting herbs in the field, dressed in rags. She was very hard to miss.” His smile disappeared. “I was young then. Barely out of my juvenile years. And she was the first woman I’d ever seen. I thought no one could ever compare.”
I felt self-conscious then as I wondered just how beautiful Yulia was for him to practically wax poetic about her.
He looked away. “When I saw a tribesman grabbing her just as I was about to pass, tearing her clothes for all to see and attempting to rape her under the cold sun of winter, I couldn’t stand idly by. I saved her then, and when my eyes met her beautiful silver ones, I was done for.”
Returning his gaze to me, his face grew serious. “There were many reasons I won’t get into as to why a relationship with a ... woman I met on the road was not exactly good for me,” he said, voice lower than before. “But when I met Yulia, I lost all sense of reason and, for the first time in my life back then, defied my core rules.
“We ran away together and lived in hiding.”
I opened my mouth, with so many questions running through my mind, but he shook his head, telling me it wasn’t the time for questions just yet. Clamping my mouth shut, I anxiously waited to hear the rest.
“Yulia and I only spent one year together,” Ragnor said, leaning back against his chair. “But that year was the happiest in my life at the time. She was everything I wanted, everything I wished for, and she was in love with me just as fiercely too.”
Ugly feelings rose inside me, but I was determined to ignore them as I listened.
“But all good things come to an end, and ours was no different,” Ragnor said with a hint of sorrow that made me feel as if he’d sucker punched me. It took away my breath. “Her people found us, and so did mine. We were physically torn apart.”
He lowered his gaze. “Later, I learned that Yulia was executed, and when I went to search for her, unbelieving that this was the truth, I found her corpse hung from a tree, as if to warn the tribespeople of what their end would be if they rejected the tribe’s rules.”
When he turned to look back at me, the sorrow in his eyes was even more prevalent than before. “I’ve never loved anyone after Yulia,” he said quietly. “I was infatuated and attracted to other women, sure, but love was beyond me. The terror of losing the one thing that meant something to me, and in such a brutal, horrible way, left its scar, a scar I never tried to take care of, and I let it fester.”
He grabbed my hand then, threading his fingers with mine. “Until you came, Aileen.”
My very soul shuddered at his story, at his words. I’d never expected that something so terrible happened to Ragnor when it came to love. And while I had many questions, none of those mattered when I saw the truth in his eyes.
He meant everything he’d said.
I leaned forward, grabbed his face, and gently kissed him. “Thank you for telling me,” I said, meaning it. I knew that it must’ve taken a significant effort for him to show me this vulnerable side, and I appreciated that he did it in spite of himself, just to keep his word.
And especially, I was relieved that he trusted me enough to share his past with me, no matter how hard and tragic it was.
Chapter 28
Ragnor
That night, as Aileen lay naked in his arms after he’d had his wicked way with her, Ragnor felt a pang of guilt that didn’t allow him to sleep.
While the essence of what he’d told Aileen about Yulia was true, he’d altered the details and lied.
He knew he was being a hypocrite, after she’d bared her soul to him and asked for the same in return, which he adamantly refused to do. But part of it wasn’t simply for Ragnor’s self-preservation, but rather for her own good too.
If Aileen knew the full truth of his past, of who he used to be when he met Yulia and what Yulia had truly meant to him, there would be no going back.
He loved Aileen. He loved her so much that he wanted to protect her from his own dark past. Which he knew Aileen would argue couldn’t be much worse than hers. About which she would also be right.
