Sugar followed along Rune’s side without a sound, picking up her trot into a gallop. The other men who had lingered behind formed around me in a protective barrier. They looked wary, but not as much as they had in the last realm as we raced away like the devil was chasing us.
Rune’s words played over and over in my head. I noticed as he talked about my past that he never said Estrid, making us two different people. That was something I struggled with for so long, and he promised he was going to help me work through it. For me to accept who I used to be.
I was Estrid. Estrid was me.
I shivered and dipped my head as I gently smiled.
I liked how that sounded.
Estrid was me.
My stomach plummeted, and my heart missed a beat as a flash of her face, covered in runes and blood, morphed into mine with the same markings. In the vision, I barely caught the mirror I stood in front of while watching my reflection. Red streaked over my eyes, popping out like emerald jewels with the same back-lit glow I’d seen so many times with Rune.
Somehow, my past and current life were coming together—melding collectively like iron.
I was different in this life.
I wasn’t some warrior princess who went into battles without an ounce of fear. I didn’t hang out with Viking men and cut people into pieces to send back as a warning. In this life, I was soft and needed extra hugs when I couldn’t bring home the lost puppies and stray cats. I was a nervous fucking wreck around the opposite sex and choked on my spit when I tried to talk to them.
My eyes drifted to Rune when my chest tightened. The numbness I felt since I came back to life was back and worse now that Rune’s touch wasn’t keeping it at bay. I was worried sick about him since he’d come after the siren.
Unable to wait or ask him to connect, I forced the link open and mentally reached out to him. At the same time, our souls opened up, and I felt him there with me. Flooding me with his warmth and touch. He met me halfway, his invisible hand grabbing mine and yanking me into him while his arms automatically wrapped around me with his lips pressing kisses full of love over my face. My eyes drifted close with a shuddering breath leaving me and my heart in my throat.
He filled me with his comfort, love, and adoration. With him surrounding me, the numbness was gone and kept away. I didn’t want it to come back. I needed to be wrapped around him and know he was there with me all the time.
A small thought crept into the back of my mind to finish what I started in my past life. To bind him to me in this life, too.
Rune stroked my mind, his lips brushing mine as he gave me a silent command to finish it. To answer the call, and make him completely mine.
That couldn’t be... that couldn’t be right.
I shied away from it and bit the inside of my cheek.
When I looked further into him, it took me a second to notice the difference in him... in his soul. My piece of soul was melded so tightly to his, he had access to everything in my mind. He saw through my eyes all of my memories. Every dirty secret, every tear that was shed, and every pleasurable moment I had with him.
Then why didn’t he connect the link with me right away after the siren’s attack?
“Because I was overwhelmed, elskan mín. I have been seething over every person who’s ever made you shed a tear. Trust me when I say I’ve been planning all of their deaths. Even Corey from the third grade.”Rune’s fingers in our bond brushed my chin, forcing me to look at him again. I didn’t realize I had turned away. He gazed at me with love, but his eyes were still shadowed with something entirely different from exhaustion. There were embers of rage in the blue depths, and they held the same warning as his promised words.“Everyone who has been cruel to you just to be cruel doesn’t deserve to draw in another breath. And I’m so sorry, beauty, that I made you insecure about my intentions toward you this whole time. You’re my universe, my stars in the endless night, my every breath and heartbeat. I love you and will always love you, even after death and into the afterlife.”
I didn’t want to think about Rune’s death and him being in the afterlife. The thought of him being stuck in the In-Between made my stomach churn and a lump formed in my throat.
His fingers brushed over my lips while at the same time pinching my chin to keep my head turned toward him. It was so weird seeing his physical hands holding the reins but feeling them on me.
“You’ll always have me,”he whispered in my mind.
I swallowed hard around the lump in my throat.
With some work, I turned my gaze away from him and peered around the snowy night. The trees were just as big as the last time I was here, where I couldn’t see how far up they went. I wouldn’t be shocked if someone told me they touched the clouds. The branches held a thick layer of snow that gave the scenery a Christmas look.
With all the beauty around me, I couldn’t really enjoy it anymore. I couldn’t seem to bring myself to care because all I saw in my head was Rune dead and wandering in the In-Between, looking for me. Like I had looked for him and cried out his name, hoping he’d show up and save me.
And to add on top of it all, I couldn’t find my voice. I couldn’t say a word to him when he always said beautiful things to me. I was always stuck inside my mind, reeling with his words and soaking up his praise. His devotion.
Why was I this way?
Why didn’t I tell him I loved him and he would always have me, too? That was what I wanted, dammit!
“Isa,” Rune said out loud this time. It snapped me out of my depressing thoughts, and I turned my eyes to him. The way he rumbled my name held a warning, like he was done with me thinking horribly about myself.
