“Balthazar,” she breathed as I reached for the brooches that held her apron dress together. My fingers found the cool metal and began to unfasten them, one by one.
I peeled the garment from her body, exposing the soft linen tunic that clung to her like a second skin. My fingertips dipped beneath the neckline, tracing the delicate ridges of her collarbone, then drifting lower to the warm hollow of her throat. It had been months since I’d touched her—months of aching, brutal want. But tonight, I didn’t want to take her like a savage. Tonight, I wanted to savor her—slowly, thoroughly, until every inch of her was trembling beneath me.
I pulled the tunic over her head, revealing golden skin that shimmered in the firelight like honeyed silk. My hands roamed her body, gliding over the swell of her breasts and the soft plane of her stomach. I felt the rise and fall of her breath, the quiver in her muscles as desire bloomed between us.
Zara’s hands moved to my belt with quiet urgency, fingers fumbling slightly before freeing the buckle. She slid my tunic from my shoulders, her touch lingering on my chest, then moved to the waistband of my trousers. Her hands slipped beneath, brushing against my hardening cock as she loosened the drawstring. I groaned softly and stepped out of the garment, her hands tracing down the length of my thighs as she stood close, eyes locked on mine, breath warm against my skin.
I lifted her face, pulling her into a searing kiss, our mouths hungry, our tongues tangled. My hands explored her body, firm yet reverent, mapping every curve, every sensitive spot I remembered and longed to rediscover. I cupped her breasts and teased her nipples until they pebbled against my palms, and she gasped, arching into me, her fingers clutching at my back.
I guided her back gently, laying her across the bed. Her dirty-blonde hair fanned out like tangled sunlight—wild, untamed, and perfect in its chaos. Then I dropped to my knees, kissing and licking a sinful trail down her stomach, over her hips, until I was between her thighs. I parted them with my hands, baring her slick heat, andlooked up just long enough to see the fire in her eyes before I lowered my mouth to her.
She moaned—soft and broken—as my tongue explored her folds, as I licked and sucked her until her body writhed and her hands tangled in my hair, holding me to her. I devoured her, building her pleasure until she was breathless and shaking, begging for more.
When I rose and slid inside her, she gasped—her legs wrapping around me, her nails digging into my back. I thrust deep at first, savoring the way she clenched around me, the way her breath caught with every movement. Then faster, harder, as our control unraveled and need took over.
We moved together in a rhythm as old as time—grinding, gasping, moaning each other’s names into the firelit dark. Her body melted into mine, and I drove us higher, past the edges of reason, into a climax that shattered thought and breath. At that moment, there was nothing but her and the desperate, aching need to hold on.
But even in the heat of our union, threads of darkness wove through my mind like smoke. Blood spattering across fresh snow. The stench of scorched flesh. Faces twisted in agony. I thrust into Zara with primal urgency, my hands gripping her hips, my body clinging to hers as though she were the last tether to sanity I had. Each thrust was raw, a plea, a scream—I couldn’t lose her. Iwouldn’t.
The intensity was unbearable. Beautiful. Terrifying.
With every breathless moan, every tremor of her body beneath mine, I inched closer to the edge of oblivion. To lose myself in her was to escape the madness that haunted me.
But the shadows pressed in.
I scolded myself silently. These thoughts—these creeping horrors—were lies. They had to be. Illusions clawing at the corners of my mind. I refused to surrender to them. Not here. Not with her.
When the peak overtook us, we cried out together—guttural, wild. The fire crackled beside us as we collapsed, breathless and slick with sweat, tangled in each other’s limbs. Her warmth grounded me. For a time, we lay there, basking in the afterglow, the silence broken only by the flicker and whisper of flames and the soft rustle of skin against fur.
After a while, I whispered, “I need to restore my energy.”
Zara’s lips curled into a knowing smile. “As do I. Where shall we hunt?”
I shrugged lazily, my hand trailing down her hip. “The nearby village. There are always hapless travelers lodging near the docks. The children will be safe enough. Håkon can watch over the longhouse.”
We rose, pulling on our garments piece by piece, reluctant to leave the cocoon we’d built around ourselves.
Zara smoothed her tunic over her curves, her expression shadowed by something more than weariness. “I wish I knew more,” she murmured. “About who we are… what we are. All we know is that we came into being like this—and that to survive, we must kill.”
“And now we kill to protect our family,” I said, yanking on my trousers. “Their necklaces… they’re still safe, right?”
Zara nodded. “Secure around their necks. Hidden beneath their tunics—no one can see them.”
I exhaled through my nose and gave a nod. I still didn’t understand why our children were born wearing those strange dagger-shaped pendants—cold steel at their throats the moment they entered this world. Zara and I had long stopped trying to make sense of it. The mystery lingered, heavy and silent.
“Let’s go.”
We stepped into the star-choked night, climbing onto my horse and riding toward the village. Not a single light burned in the windows. The homes were cloaked in darkness as though the entire place held its breath.
We moved like shadows, seeking out those no one would mourn—drifters and drunkards, the kind whispered to beat their wives or children, the ones whose cruelty had left a trail of broken lives behind them—the irredeemable. As we fed, that familiar power pulse surged through us—the dark ecstasy of survival. The souls slid down our throats like warm smoke, and for a fleeting moment, we felt invincible.
But as we rode home, the high began to fade. My horse picked its way down the winding road, hooves muffled against the dirt. I glanced over my shoulder and caught the sorrow across Zara’s face.
“What is it, my love?” I asked quietly.
She stared ahead, voice low and strained. “I wish we didn’t have to kill. Lately… I need to take a life every day to feel whole. To survive.”
There was nothing I could say that hadn’t already been said. I knew how she chose her victims—those too sick to heal, too broken to mend, those already slipping toward death. Mercy, she called it. Maybe it was. Maybe not.
