Oathbreaker (28 page)

“
Vervain,” I whispered.

“
You
are
Sabine,” he stroked the side of my face. “You have these memories because you are her. This is not reincarnation. You're not an old soul reborn into a new body, reborn to live and learn new lessons. You're Sabine in a new body, brought back through my magic.”

“
No,” my stomach clenched and cringed away from his hand. “Are you saying I'm a fucking zombie or like the Bride of Frankenstein?”

“
No,” he smiled a little. “You were born again, your body shaped inside a new mother and brought into a new life, but this is the same.” He lightly touched my chest over my heart. “Your structure is slightly different, altered by the woman who carried you, but the cells that make you are the same, and the soul that lived inside you before is the same. You had to mature before you were able to handle the memories, although you probably experienced them as dreams when you were younger.”

I nodded, as I began to remember snippets from childhood. Situations that had seemed familiar to me, knowledge of spellcraft before I was taught. I was performing basic spells before I was five and when my mom asked me how I knew to do what I did, I'd tell her it just seemed right. I had a baby doll named Vidar that I would carry everywhere. How had I forgotten that?

“What have you done?” I looked at him in horror.

“
I dove into the well of souls after you and pulled you out,” He said as he stood and looked down at me defiantly. His massive body seemed even more huge from where I sat. “I pulled you out and bound you with hair from your head. I melded you with your physical connection and then I laid you in the womb of a human woman.”

“
Why not come to me sooner?” I wondered what my life would have been like if I'd met Odin first. “Why wait till now?”

“
As soon as I released you, the magic took its payment,” he sat heavily on the couch and I got up to sit beside him. “I lost her, your mother. I knew you were out there, knew you would be born, but had no way of knowing where you were or if you'd even live to adulthood. I admit I gave up. I thought I'd never see your face again. I sank into a depression even deeper than the one I experienced when you first died. Then you walked into Valhalla on the arm of my own son. I wasn't sure it was you at first, there are things different about your face, but then I spoke with you and you called me
Sweet Raven
like you always had. I knew you were back then but still out of my reach.”

“
Magic always has a price,” I huffed a small laugh, then sighed deep. “I've always felt strange, like I didn't belong, until I met my lions. They gave me a purpose, they gave me a family to care for. Now I know it was so much more than that. I was missing your wild magic, Vali's somber loyalty, and Vidar's unconditional love. Things I couldn't find with humans, I found with the Intare, but now here you all are and I don't know where to put you. I've filled the spaces that once were yours and if I make more room, I may lose the heart of another man with wild magic. Another man I love completely.”

“
I know,” he hung his head. “I understand even. The years I waited for you taught me to be careful of what I wished for. I went over the spell in my head, time and time again, wondering what I could have done differently and then finally wondering if I should have done it at all.”

“
And what answer did you come up with?”

“
Nothing,” he smiled sadly. “I could have done nothing differently and I would change nothing at all. Even now, feeling the pain of you professing your love for another, I can't regret bringing you back. I can't regret giving Mimir my eye. I would do it all again, just for this. To sit here and talk with you. To breathe the air you're breathing and know that you live again. It may be unnatural, it may be selfish, but I don't care. I regret nothing.”

“
Love makes selfish bastards of us all,” I reached out and pulled his face to mine.

The kiss was fierce, full of anger as well as passion, but it was also sweet and desperate. His arms brought me in tighter, his lips pulling at me, his tongue warring with mine. It was toxic and a cool relief, all at once. My drug of pleasure and healing, a fix I needed as bad as any junkie. I drew the taste of him into me, into my very cells, calling up the memories that wanted to come forth and letting them roll over me.

I found myself lying beneath him, pulling him tighter against me, gripping his hair with my hands. I was crying but I didn't know whether it was with happiness or misery. I couldn't tell the difference anymore. Not there, in that moment of revelation and reunion. Of redemption and damnation.

I bit at him and drank him down like he was communion, my own personal god. He blocked out all thoughts of anything else until the memories eased and the fire burned down enough for me to think again.

“I love you,” I whispered against his lips. “I have felt the loss of you my entire life. So cruel of you to deny me oblivion but I can't hate you for it. I seem to love you even more, you vicious, selfish thing.”

“
Sabine,” he moaned and buried his face in my hair. “I love you so much.”

“
The feel of you here, pressed against me, seems right,” I stroked his hair. “But I know it's wrong, my sweet raven. You've plucked me out of death and given me a new life but the cost of this rebirth is that it must be new. I can't live the same life twice.”

“
No,” he lifted his head up and took my face in his hands. “Don't say it.”

“
If you had let things run its course, let me return to you on my own as I swore I would, we would have had a new life together. But you forced things instead and in doing so, you've also forced me to let you go again,” I reached up and brushed at his tears. “I'm so sorry. I wish I could stay here with you. I wish there were a way to have all of you but there isn't. I have to decide. To do otherwise would be unfair to you both.”

“
So you choose him?” Odin pulled us both into a sitting position. “All of our years together, and you choose him?”

“
It's because of our years together that I have to choose him,” I gently took his hands from my arms. “I made a promise to him, to love him in this life. I won't break that promise.”

“
What of your promise to me?”

“
That promise died with Sabine's body,” I stood up before I lost my strength to fight the pull he exerted on me. “This body is Vervain. My mother, the woman you chose to carry me, influenced more than my appearance. She showed me what it meant to be strong. Do you even realize you put me into a sixteen year old girl?”

“
Yes,” he shook his head in confusion. “That's the perfect age for a woman to bear a child.”

“
Maybe but it's not the acceptable one anymore,” I shook my head at his selfishness. “Especially not outside of marriage. You forced a hard choice on a young girl. My Mom's family is very religious, she was judged harshly for your decision. Yet despite all that, she bore me and she raised me with so much love that I never knew of her hardships until I was much older. She was not just a vessel for your dead wife to be reborn from, she was and is the ruler I measure myself by and I will not disrespect all of her sacrifices for me by coming up short this time.”

“
I...” Odin swallowed convulsively. “I had no idea.”

“
No, of course not,” I shook my head, disappointed in him and in myself for loving him despite it all. “All that mattered was
your
need, you never considered how it would affect everyone else. Well today I'm going to show you that everyone else matters just as much as you do. My mother matters and Trevor matters.” I took a shaky breath and let it out slowly. “Odin, this is over. If my life changes and I'm able to have you again, I will welcome you back with open arms, but until then, I have to be true to Trevor. I have to be true to the woman I have become and the woman who raised me. Life and death are a circle, I told you that once and you should have listened to me. I would have made my way back to you on my own and that would have been right and natural. This, what you've done, we will both have to pay for in tears.”

“
Vervain!”

“
Goodbye, Odin.”

Chapter Thirty-One

When I returned home, the bed was empty. No Trevor. A shiver of dread shot through me as I remembered the last time he went missing. I looked around the empty room, peering into the shadows like they might be hiding a werewolf. They weren't.

“
Kirill,” I called without leaving the room.

“
Tima?” He was behind me in an instant.

“
Do you know where Trevor went?”

“
No,” he frowned. “He ask me same zing about you. Zen he leave. He tell me nozing.”

“
Fuck!”

I flipped open my cell and dialed his number as I did the litany of
pick up, pick up, pick up
inside my head. He didn't listen. I
didn't even bother calling Moonshine, I just headed quickly for the door. By the time I had it open, Kirill was behind me wearing a dark expression and his leather jacket. We were both going through déjà vu, it appeared.

I took a deep breath and headed for the car, no words exchanged between the two of us. At least I wasn't feeling Trevor's pain this time. Maybe he was out getting ice cream. Maybe he was having an affair. Oh please, let it just be another woman.

I sped down the deserted streets, as I tried to keep panic at bay. I didn't want to trace over, in case he'd got into an accident and was lying on the side of the road. Images flashed through my head. Trevor in Demeter's embrace. Demeter's cold stare as she dropped my wolf to the ground. If it weren't for Kirill's calm thinking and my bond to Trevor, the Prince would be dead. As it was, Fenrir and the entire Froekn clan had it out for the goddess for her attempt on his life. Maybe she figured she might as well finish what she began.

Why did he go looking for me? He should have just stayed at home and waited. Yeah right, like I would have waited. He got up in the middle of the night to an empty bed and decided to go find his mate. It's not unreasonable but it
was
my fault. I should have left a note. I should have woke him or something. I shouldn't have just left without letting him know where I was going.

But that was the rub wasn't it? I couldn't tell him where I was going because he would have wanted to come. I wasn't even thinking straight at the time. I just knew I needed to talk to Odin. And what had I said to Odin? If my situation changed, I'd welcome him back with open arms. Could Odin have done something to Trevor? No, that was impossible. I'd gone straight to the tracing room and then home. Odin couldn't have beat me back.

So what then? Where was Trevor and why was I heading to Moonshine? It's not like it would have been the first place he'd look. I almost turned the car around but something told me to keep going. I knew I was headed in the right direction. Trevor had gone to the club. I just didn't know why.

We pulled into the back lot of Moonshine, where Trevor's Harley sat forlornly in a sea of asphalt. I screeched into a spot beside it and jumped out.

“Fuck,” I ran over to the bike and looked down at a piece of paper flapping in the breeze.

It was tied to the handlebars with hair. Trevor’s hair. I started to shake as I yanked it off, pieces of beautiful black hair drifting away. The note was made of real parchment, written in exquisite calligraphy and read simply:

I have your mate, I’d rather have you, come to Breidablik if you want to trade.

Balder.

I crushed it as I screamed.

Chapter Thirty-Two

In less than two hours, I was standing on the hillside beyond Breidablik with an army. Fenrir was on my right with the Froekn, Odin on my left with the God Squad and his non-evil sons, and the Intare was at my back. I was going to kick some serious shiny ass.

“How long do you think it’s going to take before he does something?” I looked at Odin but he just nodded his head toward the gate of the massive estate.

A large force was walking out to meet us, Balder at the head. There were the traitors that had left Odin, and even Demeter(not a huge surprise really), but there were also some new faces in the group. Balder and a few men separated from the whole and started for us. I frowned as I strode forward to meet them, Fenrir, and Odin walking with me as my guards.