Bad Blood - Vampire Cohorts Book 4 #Wattys2015

Chapter One: It May Befall

"Sweetheart, take this," a soldier said,

"And bid me brave good-by;

It may befall we ne'er shall wed,

But love can never die.

Be steadfast in thy troth to me,

And then, whate'er my lot,

'My soul to God, my heart to thee,'--

Sweetheart, forget me not!".

- Eugene Field,

Soldier, Maiden, and Flower,

1887

Right from the dawn of civilisation, war had wrought ruin on those fools who put their faith in love. It stole soldiers from sweethearts, warriors from wives, and it ensured that grief burgeoned; a putrid, swelling pustule that ate away everything good about love, like some necrotising bacteria on wounded flesh. It turned joy to despair, and corrupted hope until only thoughts of vengeance remained. It twisted comfort into torment; a sickness that choked the breath from the lungs of whoever was left behind.

I knew that.

I'd felt it before; the suffocating weight on my chest which came from knowing the sun had winked out and plunged me into a world of darkness, ice, and hopelessness. Fenrir's maw had devoured all the sunlight from my world, and that understanding stole my breath, just as it had in the past, until my lungs burned against the bands of horror and grief that constricted around them. The lump in my throat stole my ability to speak, but what could I say anyway? What words could I utter as Gunner returned from our vehicles with body bags, preparing to collect our dead - our sentries and our Sire?

Conn had died.

My mind rebelled against the notion and fire erupted around my hands again, magic skittering over my skin and crackling in the air around me, but there was no one left to fight. We'd let them go. We'd let Leof's murderer flee with his ragtag bunch of mangy mutts, and a choked growl escaped me at the thought. It didn't matter that I'd slaughtered many of them, or that soot and ash still stained my skin from the rain of fire I'd brought down on our enemies as my anguish washed away everything but the need for revenge. It wasn't enough. Not considering what they'd stolen from my cohort... What Fenrir had stolen from me.

How could I survive this? How could I do this again?

I'd been steadfast for so long, honouring my troth by fighting Ragnar even though I had no hope of victory, even though I'd believed Leof dead. For centuries, I'd lived with that suffocating grief, and I couldn't face it again. I had nothing left to give.

I longed to pray to someone, to beg some deity to fix it, but it was too late for that. Only one goddess possessed the power to change Leof's fate, and I'd failed him. Ishbel told me that I could change the cloth of fate and weave it to my own pattern, but I'd let Leof fight even when I knew he shouldn't, then failed to stick to his side even though I knew what Beorn intended. It was my fault, at least in part.

Tears streaked over my soot-smeared cheeks, and I pressed a fist to my chest, wishing I could pull my heart from my body because it couldn't bear the pain. It was all I could manage to stand there, to hold myself still as Gunner zipped up that blasted body bag even though I wanted to grab him, to stop him, to declare that Conn hadn't died or that I could somehow breathe life back into him.

"Salix? Hun? Let me get you back to the car..." Lex whispered, breathing gentle encouragements as she tried to urge me away from the scorched clearing, the battlefield where we'd made our stand. We'd sacrificed so much for...