Immortals After Dark 03 - No Rest for the Wicked

aggression.
    He’d probably intimidated the hell out of women in his time. Men didn’t often come six and a half feet tall and so generously built back then. He needn’t have bothered trying to appear non-threatening to her. The pleasure she garnered from ogling his massive body was probably the reason he was still here—and not bleeding.
    “What does it matter if I find anything attractive about you?” she finally asked. “You think me too small.”
    “No,” he said quickly, then exhaled. “I had just heard tales that the Valkyrie were large warriors, akin to Amazons.”
    “Naturally, those would be the tales. If you’re the sole survivor of an army attacked by us, are you going to say we had our asses handed to us by petite, nubile females, or by she-monsters who can bench Buicks?”
    She knew her speech was fast and peppered with slang, but after a moment, he followed the gist of what she’d said and grinned.
    Gods, she didn’t need to be reminded of that grin, the one he’d sported while still gently thrusting atop her, after he’d just made her have an orgasm for the first time in ten centuries.
    “That makes sense.” He grew serious, and quietly said, “You must know I find you perfectly made.” He looked away. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever beheld. That is what I wanted to tell you at Riora’s temple.”
    Her heart sped up so rapidly, she was sure he would notice.
    He turned back to her. “But you haven’t answered my question.”
    “It’s hard to see past the vampirism,” she said honestly.
    “I wish to God I wasn’t one.”
    She tapped her cheek. “Hmmm. If you didn’t want to be a vampire, perhaps you shouldn’t have drunk a vampire’s blood when you were on the verge of dying.”
    In an inscrutable tone, he said, “The turning was done against my will. I was injured and too weak to fight hard enough.”
    He’d fought it? “Who did it?”
    “My... brothers.”
    This is interesting. “Are they still alive?”
    “I know two are. One is missing.” He clenched his jaw, seeming to rein in his temper. “I... I do not want to speak of this.”
    She shrugged as if she couldn’t care less, though she was curious, then crossed over to his sword, unsheathing it. A battle sword. The rosewood handle had scales carved into it and was long, so he could wield it with both hands. The one-edged blade was wide and unyielding. It would have cut through chain mail—or a man’s middle—in a single blow.
    “You brought this here?” She faced him. “Did you think to subdue me?”
    “I thought to protect you, if the need arose.”
    She was impressed with its weight, with the obvious care he’d taken with it. “It’s nice, I suppose. For a beginner.”
    “Beginner? I painted that sword red for years—until the night I died.”
    He was an Estonian living in Russia, he had “nobleman” written all over him, and he’d said he’d been in that castle for centuries. Which meant he had to have fought in the Great Northern War between Russia and the neighboring Nordic countries. That had been a gruesome one. Starvation and plague had decimated populations, though she suspected the male in front of her had died in battle.
    He said, “You know enough about swords to see that it is a fine one.”
    She sheathed it and laid it back down. “I prefer light and quick, but with your hulking build, your fighting style would have to rely on brute strength.”
    “Hulking? It’s not a bad thing to have power behind a sword,” he said in a defensive tone.
    “No, but power can never beat speed.”
    “I disagree.”
    “I’ve lived for many years,” she said. “My existence is a testament to speed.”
    “Then you have not faced a worthy hulking brute.”
    She stifled a grin and said, “Silly vampire, I would spank you if we fought. And no offense, but didn’t you die by the sword?”
    “I did. Yet you profess to fight by the sword. No offense, but you couldn’t swing a death blow against one of your oldest enemies.”
    “I might have chosen not to kill you, but right now, the thought of maiming you for a few days sounds very appetizing. Maybe pluck an organ from you, make you regrow it. That one never gets old.” It did, actually. She’d done it to a leech before—repeatedly, even after she’d tired of it.
    “How am I expected to believe that, Katja? I think you don’t wish to injure me at all. I don’t think you can.”
    She sauntered up to him.